SALEM — A special committee of lawmakers will hold a key vote tonight on a bill placing new limits on the state’s medical marijuana program.

The limits in Senate Bill 844 are designed to stanch a substantial flow of marijuana, ostensibly grown in Oregon for the medical program, to the black market. Lawmakers say preventing that black market “leakage” is essential to setting up the recreational marijuana market that voters approved in November. But some growers and patients in the program have adamantly opposed the bill.

Legal marijuana is already big business in America. Colorado alone sold more than $700 million worth of legal weed in 2014, its first full-year of legal recreational and medical sales. Three other states and the District of Columbia have legalized recreational marijuana. Twenty-three states and Puerto Rico have legalized medical marijuana, and revenue for the industry as a whole has been growing nearly 34% a year for the past five years. And it’s only expected to keep growing.

These five numbers show just how big legal American marijuana could be in five years.

$13.4 billion

Parents took children with epilepsy and other diseases to demand the release of cannabidiol for medical treatments in Brazil

The March of Rio de Janeiro Marijuana had two themes this year: the struggle for freedom of all herb growers who are arrested and solidarity to the victims of the drug war. The lawyer André Barros, author of representation in the Supreme Court (STF) that misread the march as an apology for marijuana, said that currently there are 20 people arrested due to the production plant in the state capital alone.

NUSAJAYA: The Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission (MCMC) has been urged to block a Facebook page which is actively promoting marijuana or cannabis as a medicinal herb.

Datuk Tengku Putra Haron Aminurrashid Tengku Hamid Jumat (BN-Kempas) said the Facebook administrator used the name MalaysianMedicalMarijuana to inform the public that marijuana was not a dangerous drug but that it possessed high medicinal properties.

"This contradicts the national drug policy where marijuana is cited under the Dangerous Drugs Act 1952.

Supporters of a broad bill that would ease marijuana laws wending its way through the Kansas Legislature claim it's a narrow enough set of reforms that conservative Republicans can vote for and demonstrates a shift in the long-running discussion.

Kansas' GOP-dominated House passed the bill by a wide margin Thursday, making it the most serious push to liberalize Kansas' marijuana policies in decades. The bill would decrease penalties for marijuana possession, order a state study of industrial hemp and allow limited production and sale of hemp oil to treat seizures.

Democratic Rep. Gail Finney from Wichita, who for many years has supported comprehensive marijuana legislation, said efforts to "educate" the Legislature have "paid off."

THORNHILL, Ont. - Gwenevere Repetski turns three next month and she is finally able to crawl, a milestone her parents thought they would never see.

She was just an infant when she was diagnosed with epilepsy, a debilitating neurological disorder that has left her developmentally delayed.

"She was kind of like a bag of Jell-O," says her mother, Reagan Repetski.

When she was two years old, she could hardly roll over when she was placed on her back, adds her father, Alex.

Sitting in the living room of their Thornhill, Ont., home, the Repetskis recall their stressful and emotional journey in search of a treatment for Gwen.

A new federal bill called the “Respect State Marijuana Laws Act of 2015” was introduced to Congress earlier this week by Representative Dana Rohrabacher, a Democrat from California. It would provide immunity against prosecution at the federal level for individuals and businesses abiding by state marijuana laws. It’s a short document, but its implications are huge.

State Sen. Fred Mills, R-Parks, sponsored the medical marijuana bill.(Photo: Leslie Westbrook, The Advertiser)

Vigorous debate in the Senate Health and Welfare Committee and before the full upper chamber has sharpened the focus of a bill that would enable medical marijuana to be prescribed in Louisiana.

That’s how sponsor Sen. Fred Mills, R-Parks, sees things. Mills next will take Senate Bill 143 to the House Health and Welfare Committee, perhaps in a week. It’s a committee on which he served while a House member, and Mills expects to get a full and fair hearing for his legislation there.

 Saturday, hundreds of supporters of marijuana reform marched in support of bills in the Texas legislature that could change marijuana laws.

"They want to see change and they want to see it now," said Deputy Director of Texas National Organization for Reforming Marijuana Laws Jax Finkle.  

State lawmakers are facing 11 bills that could change marijuana laws in the Lone Star State this legislative session.
    
"We're out here to support them and let our representatives and senators know to make sure they take action on these bills," said Finkle.  

Seated at a desk inside his downtown Seattle hotel room, Dr. Gil Mobley pulled out a sterile field surgery kit, snapped on latex gloves and pulled a mask over his face.

He carefully arranged his medical instruments, grabbed tweezers and went to work.

Mobley, 60, wasn’t performing hotel-room surgery. He and fellow medical-marijuana activist Brian Stone were carefully preparing two ounces of Blazin’s Grapefruit purchased that morning from Uncle Ike’s Pot Shop in Seattle’s Central District. The pot cost more than $700.

The room reeked when a hotel maid cracked the door and said, “housekeeping.” Mobley shooed her away.