Many states are facing numerous deadlines for legislation, but the marijuana movement keeps progressing through it all. A major cannabis banking bill is making waves, Alaska’s recreational lawmakers just released regulations, and Chile is on the verge of decriminalization. To top it off, Crimean authorities just discovered an island covered for miles with cannabis, as far as the eye can see. We’ve got the latest in cannabis legalization updates – are you in the know?

U.S. Cannabis Updates

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Pfizer officially opened the new Center of Excellence in Precision Medicine (CEPM) on July 8 in Santiago, Chile. 

Precision medicine is a form of healthcare where disease treatments are customized for individual patients based on their genetic profile. 

CEPM’s goal is to create and validate new technology platforms that can precisely diagnose cancer through genomic sequencing without resorting to invasive procedures.

Chilean lawmakers approved Tuesday a bill decriminalizing personal cultivation and use of marijuana for both therapeutic and recreational purposes. After the vote, which ended with 65 votes in favor, 39 against and 5 abstentions, the legal text will be sent to the Senate, where it must be passed into law. 

The rule would legalize possession of up to 10 grams of any kind of marijuana, for over 18 years. It also authorizes the personal cultivation of up to six plants and possess up to 500 grams of marijuana at home. Patients should consume marijuana for medical reasons should have the prescription. 

Chile looks set to decriminalise cannabis after the country approved a bill yesterday to allow its people to grow small amounts of marijuana for medical purposes.

The public gallery in the lower house of congress erupted into cheers and applause as 68 members – compared with 39 – voted for the bill.

The announcement has been praised as being a ‘big step forward’ in the usually socially conservative country’s stance on drugs.

Until now, planting, selling or transporting marijuana in Chile has been a punishable offence which could have resulted in up to 15 years imprisonment.

Now, Chileans will be able to able to grow six plants at home, allowing the possession of up to 10 grams (0.35 ounce).

SANTIAGO, Chile (AP) — A bill to allow Chileans to grow small amounts of marijuana for medical, recreational or spiritual use won approval Tuesday in the country's lower house of Congress.

The measure, which would allow each Chilean home to grow up to six marijuana plants, passed a vote of 68 to 39, with five abstentions. It still must go before a health commission and be approved by the Senate.

"We're celebrating the overwhelming approval of this project," said Ana Maria Gazmurri, president of the Daya Foundation, a nonprofit group that sponsors pain-relieving therapies, including the recent planting and harvesting of Chile's first government-approved medical marijuana.

During the 1980s and 1990s, as the United States battled the scourge of cocaine throughout the hemisphere, Washington did most of the talking. Latin American governments were forced to listen and fall in line. The American government had the most money to throw at the problem, the toughest justice system and the biggest bully pulpit.

Latin America's first medical marijuana farm has taken root in a dusty yard at a secret location in Chile's capital, with the blessing of a prominent right-wing official and high hopes the idea could sprout elsewhere in the socially conservative nation.

A debut crop of around 100 kilos (221 lbs) of prime cannabis bud - with a value of $2 million on the street - was harvested this month from the farm in La Florida, a middle-class Santiago neighborhood, and sent to a laboratory for processing.

The project is the brainchild of a curious alliance between Rodolfo Carter, a right-wing municipal mayor with progressive tendencies, and a privately-funded foundation ran by Ana Maria Gazmuri, a 1980s TV soap star who is now an advocate for alternative "holistic" medicine.

LIMA, Peru — Medical marijuana is winning so much global support that even the United States’ surgeon general approves. Yet it seems somebody had forgotten to tell Latin America, until now.

Chile has begun harvesting what’s thought to be Latin America’s first ever crop of legal medical marijuana.

Plucking and trimming buds from all 425 plants, grown on municipal land in the upmarket Santiago suburb of La Florida, is expected to take about another week. When that’s done, the growers hope to have enough cannabis to treat 200 cancer patients.

Chile has started harvesting its first medical marijuana crop Tuesday, while the drug remains prohibited for its recreational consumption.

The 400 plants were sown in October in a heavily guarded field of about 100 square meters in the residential district of La Florida, in the capital Santiago. The non-profit organization Daya Foundation was then granted a permit to extract cannabis oil in a pilot program aimed at treating 200 cancer patients for free.

"This is about the dignity of patients who are dying every day in pain and with very expensive medical bills," said Rodolfo Carter, the mayor of La Florida, at a ceremony marking the harvest.

The cannabis leaves will now be processed in a laboratory, as the final product is expected to be ready by January 2016.

Chile has harvested its first crop of medicinal marijuana as part of a pilot programme that is aimed to ease the pain of cancer sufferers.

Cameras were allowed in to see the first harvested marijuana plants being picked at the heavily guarded growing facility in the La Florida district of Chile’s capital Santiago.

The 850 cannabis seeds from the Netherlands, were first planted in October following a decision by Chilean health authorities to allow marijuana to be grown for medicinal purposes.