Robert Ticer is no fan of legalized recreational marijuana.

And the Avon, Colo., police chief said Thursday that more pot in Connecticut’s future would increase challenges for cops on this state’s roads.

“It’s mind-boggling,” he said of marijuana’s spread through Colorado, speaking at Webster Arena as part of a traffic-safety summit. “It’s crazy.”

Full legalization was voted as a Colorado constitutional amendment in 2013, and there are now 505 medical dispensaries and 322 retail stores selling recreational cannabis — outnumbering the 405 Starbucks stores and 227 McDonald’s — Ticer said.

Each morning, Kim Hearn attaches a feeding tube to her son before outfitting him in specialized clothes that lend support to his torso, ankles and legs. A seizure often disrupts the process. It's a rigorous routine for this Stratford mom but it's nothing, she says, compared to what the 10-year-old, who can't speak or sit on his own, endures: "Sean just accepts it."

As a baby, Sean was diagnosed with Lennox-Gastaut Syndrome, a form of epilepsy. A dozen medications have failed to reduce the 30-plus seizures Sean experiences every day. Each episode is damaging to the boy, already frail. Hearn believes there could be an answer: an oil made from marijuana plants called Charlotte's Web.

Alaska

Qualifying conditions to become a medical marijuana patient in Alaska include:

• Cancer
• Glaucoma
• HIV/AIDS
• Cachexia (wasting syndrome)
• Nausea
• Muscle spasms
• Multiple sclerosis
• Pain
• Seizures

For a complete list of qualifying conditions and guidelines, please refer to Alaska’s application for medical marijuana registry

Arizona

Qualifying conditions to become a medical marijuana patient in Arizona include:

HARTFORD — Sixteen applicants have submitted the 19 proposals for new medical marijuana dispensaries in Connecticut, as the state seeks to increase the number from six to as many as nine, according to a list released by the state.

Three applicants have submitted proposals for multiple locations, and one — Angelo DeFazio, who now operates one of the six existing dispensaries, in Hartford — is seeking to open a second location.

The state is compiling the applications, which needed to be submitted by Friday, and did not release the proposed locations of the dispensaries. The state is focusing on New Haven and Fairfield counties where there are the most registered patients and the fewest dispensary options.

The state wants to add as many as three medical marijuana dispensaries — especially in New Haven and Fairfield counties — and now there are 19 proposals for rolling out the expansion.

Details of the proposals — the names of the applicants or the dispensary locations — weren't available late Friday from the state Department of Consumer Protection. The applications had to be submitted by a 3 p.m. deadline and the details had yet to be compiled, officials said.

"We think we had a great response," Jonathan Harris, the department's commissioner, said. "We have a healthy pool from which to do our analysis and make an appropriate selection of up to three."

Selections will be made by early next year, and the new outlets could be open by June, Harris said.

Almost one-fifth of high schoolers who use e-cigarette devices have operated it with marijuana, based on a new study. Electronic cigarettes function by vaporizing or "vaping" tobacco's nicotine or pot's tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), eliminating the creation of carcinogens caused by the burning tobacco or cannabis plant. However, the health effects of smoking e-cigs are still unclear.

The study involving Connecticut high school students was published in the journal Pediatrics.

Using e-cigarettes to smoke tobacco or marijuana has not been proven to be clearly safer than using traditional cigarette sticks or marijuana joints. In fact, the researchers wrote that vaping cannabis oils might cause higher amounts of THC to be released than puffing on dried hemp leaves.   

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Nearly one in five high school students who said they used electronic cigarettes to vaporize nicotine also used them to vaporize pot, according to a survey of nearly 4,000 Connecticut teens.

The study, published on Monday in the journal Pediatrics, is the first evidence that teens are using electronic cigarettes to vaporize cannabis, the researchers said.

The issue: Careful consideration has to go into the types of physical ailment that qualify state residents to participate in Connecticut’s relatively new medical marijuana program.

As it stands now, 11 conditions are approved by statute for patients to get prescribed doses of the drug to ease symptoms.

After waiting in line for hours at a booth during a medical marijuana convention in San Francisco, Jeff Harrington needed only a two-minute consultation and a written recommendation to become a medical marijuana patient in California. He now can legally purchase and possess marijuana from any one of thousands of marijuana businesses in the state.

Across the country in Connecticut, an established physician-patient relationship is required before patients are deemed qualified for medical marijuana, and only licensed pharmacists can own and operate dispensaries.

HARTFORD — The chief of Connecticut's medical marijuana program said Wednesday he will draft regulations to allow the drug to be used by those who suffer from complex regional pain syndrome, immediately following a unanimous recommendation by a physician review board.

Consumer Protection Commissioner Jonathan A. Harris, who oversees the state's medical marijuana program, added the medical condition — marked by severe pain, swelling and hypersensitivity to touch following an injury or surgery — to the list of medical conditions approved for medical marijuana.