CUMBERLAND, Md. (AP) -- A company planning to grow medical marijuana has purchased land in Allegany County to cultivate the plant.

The Cumberland Times-News  reports that Vast Organic Farms has bought 26 acres in Oldtown and is hoping to obtain one of 15 licenses the state of Maryland is planning to issue by early 2016 for medical marijuana growers.

The company's CEO Casey Callister says the farm would combine indoor growing in greenhouses with possible traditional open-air growing, depending on state regulations. Proposed regulations require strong security, including video surveillance and security guards.

The "enormous demand" for medical marijuana, which only figures to grow as the population ages, sets the stage for a new multimillion-dollar industry in Maryland that will create hundreds of jobs, according to a leading regional economist.

"This will create a mix of private and public positions, and also make people feel better," said Anirban Basu, chairman and chief executive officer of Sage Policy Group, a Baltimore economic and policy consulting firm. "From an economist perspective, none of this sounds troubling."

The law has been on the books now for about a year, but still patients can’t get medical marijuana. 

That’s because the state’s Medical Cannabis Commission is setting up the program. 

They are making progress.

There are proposed regulations for the growers of medical marijuana and the 94 dispensaries across the state that will get the drug to patients. 

Public comment on those regulations is taking place this month. 

Baltimore County Delegate Dan Morhaim, of Baltimore County’s 11th District co-sponsored the law. 

He’s an emergency room physician and we talked to him this week about the regulations.

Morhaim told Maryland's News This Week that the regulations are a positive step.

Authorities in southern Maryland say a woman gave marijuana to children at a birthday party and tried to teach a 6-year-old how to smoke.

The St. Mary's County Sheriff's Office says deputies were called to a home on Treetop Road in Lexington Park early Friday to check on the welfare of several children. Officials say deputies spoke to Tabitha Cassidy, who indicated that she gave marijuana to three 13- and 14-year-olds at a party at her home.

Officials say Cassidy also tried to teach a 6-year-old child how to inhale marijuana. The sheriff's office says deputies found suspected marijuana at Cassidy's home.

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Marijuana restrictions have been relaxed in the District, but an incident Wednesday at one of the region’s airports showed that Washington-area marijuana enforcement, even involving small amounts, has not ended.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection said a search of the luggage of an arriving passenger at ­Baltimore-Washington International Marshall Airport yielded a discovery and a seizure. The search came after a customs detector dog “alerted,” the agency said.

The item seized, the agency said, was a single cigarette that contained less than 1 gram of marijuana.

The cigarette was in a bag carried by a U.S. citizen, who was arriving from Jamaica, the agency said.

Rand Paul, the Kentucky Republican running for president, went to the Baltimore area on Tuesday night for the first time since riots provoked by the death of Freddie Gray in police custody.

The 2016 hopeful appeared at a dinner of suburban Republicans in a banquet hall that arguably looked more like a setting for a mafia wedding than a speech on urban policy.

A year after a state law was updated to allow commercial entities to grow and dispense medical marijuana, a group specializing in cultivating the product has unveiled plans to set up a medical marijuana growing facility in Easton.

On Monday, CBD Wellness Group made a presentation to the Easton town council during a special workshop session, The Star Democrat of Easton reports.

John Pica Jr., a lawyer who represents CBD Wellness Group and a former Maryland lawmaker, said the state will grant up to 15 medical marijuana growing licenses, and CBD plans to apply for one.

He also emphasized the distinction between growing marijuana and dispensing it.

A majority of doctors would approve the use of medical marijuana, according to a new survey.

"We were surprised by the outcome of polling and comments, with 76 percent of all votes in favor of the use of marijuana for medicinal purposes -- even though marijuana use is illegal in most countries," the survey's authors wrote.

The results appeared in the New England Journal of Medicine on May 30. It included responses from 1,446 doctors from 72 different countries and 56 different states and provinces in North America. In addition, 118 doctors posted comments about their decision on the survey.