The state is holding a public hearing Wednesday on a request to add autism to the list of conditions that qualify for medical marijuana. 

Lisa Smith of Van Buren Township filed the request to add the disorder to the list.

Smith said her autistic son's severe behavior stopped after taking medical marijuana orally to treat a different condition.

Colleen Allen, president of the Autism Alliance of Michigan, said alternative treatments for the disorder require more study.

“We’re not saying they don’t work for some kids," Allen said. "[But] just because it works for one child doesn’t mean it should be recommended for groups of children.”

Allen said her organization relies on treatments that have been vetted on larger groups of children.

HARTFORD -- In a bipartisan move that's the last hurdle before debates in the Senate and House, the General Law Committee voted Tuesday morning to allow children to join the state's medical marijuana program.

Acting on an amendment from the state Senate, the committee approved a new section that would prohibit those under 18 from smoking or inhaling the drug's vapors. In liquid form, however, marijuana has been found to reduce childhood seizures.

It is often thought that the economic future for recreational marijuana is relatively limited. The people who use it for fun will eventually move from the black market to the legal market and perhaps into other forms of consumption, but the absolute number will not necessarily increase.

Marijuana’s pharmaceutical future, on the other hand, is a largely unexplored world. Research has been stymied in the United States, but tantalizing clues hint at great potential for both medicine and investors.

Chemistry 101

The chemistry of cannabis was largely unexplored until 1964 when Israeli scientistsRaphael Mechoulam, Yechiel Gaoni and Habib Edery first isolated THC.

TRENTON — As a New Jersey family wages a court battle to get permission for their daughter to consume edible medical marijuana in school, Colorado this week became the first state in the nation to legalize on-campus cannabis use.

Inspired by the plight of Jack Splitt, a Lakewood, Colo. teenager who relies on a ventilator and wheelchair, Colorado legislators approved a bill that allows students who are registered medical marijuana patients to use edible cannabis products in school, so long as they are administered by a parent or an approved caregiver. Gov. John Hickenlooper signed the bill into law Monday, calling it "a pretty good reflection of what the community wants."

When banks close the accounts of legal marijuana businesses, they frequently cite the prohibitive cost of following Department of Justice and Financial Crimes Enforcement Network guidance about complying with the Bank Secrecy Act. As a consequence, cannabis businesses have great difficulty getting and keeping bank accounts.

BankingTHC hopes to solve this problem by adapting existing software, initially designed to fight fraud in the franchising industry, to help banks understand their cannabis customers, providing them with more than just a place to keep money.

As many have been fighting for the legalization of marijuana in all states of the U.S., they may get a boost in their fight, as the DEA has stated now that they are going to be backing off of a focus on marijuana. So far few states have completely legalized the drug, including Alaska, Colorado, Washington, and D.C., with Texas recently passing to decriminalize marijuana. As many states continue to avoid legalization, it seems that events just keep pushing for it. As marijuana is considered to not specifically harm users, and most believe that the drug should be treated just like alcohol, many are still wondering why states have not just thrown in the towel on their fight against it.

About 1,000 social media executives from around the world attended the Engage 2015 conference in Prague last week, hosted by Socialbakers, the big Czech startup that handles a huge chunk of Facebook's international marketing clients.

Outside the main conference sessions much of the chatter among attendees was about whether Facebook or Google was more powerful in terms of reaching the audiences they need. Both have audiences in the billions, but Facebook seems to be innovating faster than Google right now.

There was less talk about Twitter.

It's not surprising that many African Americans are leery about cashing in on the legal cannabis industry. Numerous reports show that the black community continues to pay a high price for it in the criminal justice system even where marijuana is legal.

As part of the exploratory dialogue for one of my recent executive coaching assignments, a C-level executive of a decades-old business frankly admitted, “I don’t think I have the skills to lead the business to the next level.”

In his late thirties, the CEO in question had successfully led his organization to profitability from the brink of disaster in less than five years (after an experiment with professional management did not yield the desired result). By all accounts, he was a dynamic, motivated and purpose-driven leader with aspirations to build a great institution. He was skilled at empowering people and willing to give them space to operate. And yet, he was mired by self-limiting beliefs.

I probed him with the following two questions:

ANCHORAGE -

There’s a proposal on the table that would treat marijuana smoke like tobacco smoke in Anchorage.

On Tuesday, Anchorage Assembly Chair Dick Traini plans to introduce an ordinance that would add pot to Anchorage’s secondhand smoking law.

“Where ever you can’t smoke tobacco, you can’t smoke marijuana if this passes,” said Traini.

“I’ve been getting calls from bar owners worried about people coming in and lighting up inside their bars,” Traini said. “They just want at least five feet away from the bar, anywhere you can’t smoke tobacco you should not smoke marijuana because smoke is smoke.”

“The two of them considered the same in my opinion is just crazy,” said Ben Adams, Alaska Pot Attorney.