Conroe Police Department Public Information Officer Dorcy Riddle stands amongst 10 to 20,000 marijuana plants waiting to be cut down by authorities Wednesday, Aug. 21, 2013, in Conroe, Texas. (AP Photo/ Houston Chronicle, Cody Duty)

AUSTIN–The House preliminarily approved a narrowly-focused medicinal marijuana bill Monday that would allow patients with one type of epilepsy to use low-THC cannabis to treat their symptoms.

Under the bill, physicians could prescribe orally-administered cannabis that is low in THC, the psychoactive chemical in marijuana, for patients with intractable epilepsy who haven’t found success with other drugs. The House approved the measure 96-34.

Denver • Students at the prestigious and private University of Denver are already studying marijuana law. (For reals, they are.)

In a few months they'll have the opportunity to study cannabis journalism.

"They approved the class, which tickles me a little bit," said Andrew Matranga, who will teach the interterm class "Cannabis Journalism: Covering and Reporting on America's New Normal" starting in mid-August. "That's cool to have that latitude."

Adolescents who sleep less or stay up later are significantly more likely to have used alcohol and marijuana over the past month when compared to their peers who report better sleep patterns, according to a new RAND Corporation study.

Studying adolescents in Southern California, researchers found that the association between sleep and alcohol/marijuana use was consistent even after controlling for other known risk factors, such as depression.

The findings, published online by the journal Sleep Health, were generally consistent across racial and ethnic groups.

On Friday, May, 15, 2015, television and lifestyle icon Oprah Winfrey appeared on David Letterman’s “The Late Show” to say goodbye to the legendary comedian as he prepares to retire next week and discuss, amongst other things, smoking marijuana.

Oprah, who had just been discussing the Oprah Winfrey Leadership Academy for Girls in South Africa, seemed slightly taken aback when Letterman suddenly asked her, “What do you think about smoking weed? Are you smoking?”

Oprah seemed incredulous at the question at first, but after taking a moment to scan laughing studio audience members, she giggled and responded, “Actually, no. I haven’t smoked in 30 years. Really.”

In an attempt to prevent the legalization of marijuana in Arizona, a multi-agency drug war task force has donated tens of thousands of dollars collected from the civil asset forfeiture program to ensure a statewide cannabis industry never sees the light of day.

Not long ago, a man who had covertly dealt pot in the nation’s capital for three decades approached a young political operative at a birthday party in a downtown Washington steakhouse.

He was about to test a fresh marketing strategy to take advantage of the District’s peculiar new marijuana law, which allows people to possess and privately consume the drug but provides them no way to legally buy it for recreational use. Those contradictions have created a surge in demand and new opportunities for illicit pot purveyors.

“Do you like cannabis?” asked the dealer.

“Yes,” answered the man, who had recently left his job as a Republican Senate staffer.

Sweetwater County Sheriff Mike Lowell knows people in his community buy marijuana from Colorado.

“When we ask where it came from, without exception, it’s Colorado,” Lowell said. “I assume they’re going across the border, purchasing and coming back.”

But those purchases in Colorado, where marijuana was legalized last year, haven’t translated into an increase in prosecutions for possessing the drug. In fact, marijuana charges in Sweetwater County dropped 18 percent from 2013 to 2014.

Overall, the county has maintained an average of 36 marijuana charges each year for the past three years.

“The change in drug arrests has been nonexistent,” Lowell said.

During Prohibition, it was booze. Then gambling, racketeering and cocaine. But today, the New York mob makes big money from an unlikely product — marijuana. And the godfather of ganja is from one of the storied names in Mafia lore: Eboli.

Silvio Eboli, 44, is the grandson of Tommy Eboli, who ruled the Genovese crime family from 1969-72, and grandnephew of Patsy Eboli, a Genovese capo and head of the what the family called the Greenwich Village Crew.

Tommy Eboli was killed, his family believes by Vincent “The Chin” Gigante, a k a the “Oddfather,” who replaced him as boss of the Genovese. Patsy, the family tells me, figured he was next, so he fled to Lagos, Nigeria, then made his way over land and by boat to Sicily, where he lived in exile.

ATLANTA — The state Department of Public Health it is working hard on getting a registration process ready for potential users of medical cannabis oil in Georgia.

#The registry is created by House Bill 1, which allows some Georgians with medical conditions to have access to medical cannabis. The measure establishes a process whereby patients with one of eight diagnoses, and a recommendation from a doctor, would register for cannabis oil use with Public Health.