A few years ago, when Modern Corp.’s Chief Operating Officer Gary E. Smith was recovering from open-heart surgery, he used the company’s 12-acre H2Gro facility to walk and rebuild his strength. Even then, Modern was contemplating a risky investment of converting the structure to a sophisticated, medical marijuana production center.

Now, with the New York State Compassionate Care Act signed into law, formal rules and regulations in place and an application process under way, Smith and Modern are vying to become one of five, licensed growing operations in the state.

Two years from now, the leafy corridors of the greenhouse may no longer house the towering tomato plants, instead nurturing the strong-stalked cannabis and their oil rich, medicinal trichomes.

When Madison McDaniel was 11, he was diagnosed with a rare form of cancer called adrenocortical carcinoma. Various surgeries cost him his left adrenal gland, left kidney, appendix and a piece of his diaphragm. He also endured eight months of chemotherapy.

The young Madison seemed to be recovering, and he went back to playing Little League baseball. But the cancer metastasized to his brain when he was 13. He received several different types of radiation and had three brain surgeries. Though the cancer was beaten, the brain tumors and treatment left McDaniel with numbness and weakness on the right side of his body — as though he had suffered a stroke — and he lost vision in the right halves of both eyes.

Michigan voters legalized healthcare marijuana in 2010 but legislators nevertheless struggle to agree on terms for licensing and regulating healthcare marijuana dispensaries.

Watching police and policymakers contend with shifting public attitudes toward marijuana would be downright comical if the lives and liberty of so lots of persons weren't hanging in the balance.

The velocity of that shift has been breathtaking. As not too long ago as Bill Clinton's tenure as president, every single state in the union prohibited the sale of marijuana for any purpose. Currently, 32 states (and the District of Columbia) permit medical doctors to prescribe it for a wide assortment of health-related troubles.

Nearly 80 years since the United States effectively declared marijuana an illegal drug, support for legalization is spreading like a weed.

In the past three years, voters in Colorado, Washington, Oregon, Alaska, and the District of Columbia have voted to allow the recreational use of pot.

This year, Ohio voters will likely be asked to join the cannabis cavalcade.

That proposal, generated by a group calling itself ResponsibleOhio, is well into the signature-gathering process. Given its resources, estimated at more than $40 million, gathering signatures will likely not be its hardest task.

The ResponsibleOhio plan would allow adults 21 and older to possess an ounce of pot and grow up to four plants.

Medical marijuana is working so well for celebrity chef Kerry Simon that weed “rewound time about four to six months back to where he was,” according to an upcoming magazine article.

The revelation will be detailed in the inaugural issue of the medical marijuana magazine, Elevate Nevada.

Simon isn’t cured of multiple system atrophy, a nerve degeneration that put Simon in a wheelchair and worse.

But a concentrated form of cannabis called Phoenix Tears is doing what other medicines aren’t, which is “shocking” the MSA community. Here are the money quotes in the story, as written by Beth Schwartz, formerly of the Review-Journal’s sister publication Luxury Las Vegas magazine.

A red herring is “something that misleads or distracts from a relevant or important issue.” Sad to say the marijuana industry has more than its fair share of red herrings, including the ten that are most prevalent these days:

The House and Senate budget proposals would divert marijuana taxes to the general fund instead of to non-profit community health centers that serve the uninsured.

A key part of Washington state's recreational marijuana initiative I-502 is a tax on legal marijuana. Five percent of that tax was meant to fund the state's cash-strapped community health centers.

But neither the Senate Republicans nor House Democrats have called for that in their budgets, which were revealed at the end of March.

AUGUSTA — In a first for Maine’s medical marijuana industry, the state has hired an outside group to inspect growing operations, a move criticized by advocates who say the process hasn’t been well-outlined.

In March, the Maine Department of Human Services signed a one-year, $167,000 contract with the Maine Sheriffs’ Association to inspect growing operations across the state. David Sorensen, a DHHS spokesman, said it’s primarily for “caregivers,” allowed under state law to grow marijuana for up to five patients who have gotten recommendations from doctors to use the drug.

A concerning trend: More calls are coming into the Washington Poison Center about marijuana. But are more people being exposed or are people just more willing to call?

The Washington Poison Center reports more marijuana exposures during the first three months of 2015 than it did in the same period last year.

Through March this year, 72 exposures were reported to the Poison Center compared with 54 during the same period in 2014. Last year, a total of 245 exposures were recorded. Exposures reported include calls from the public as well as healthcare professionals.

Since marijuana was legalized, the number of exposures has grown, according to the center’s data.

DENVER, COLORADO -- Andrew Freedman, Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper's point person on marijuana policy, recently sat down with The Oregonian/OregonLive to talk about the lessons Colorado offers Oregon and other states grappling with how to regulate marijuana.

Freedman, a Harvard educated lawyer, talked about how the state has confronted challenges posed by the fast-growing marijuana-infused edibles industry, which last year accounted for about 45 percent of sales in the recreational market.

Here are five takeaways from the interview: