CHEYENNE (WTE) - The Wyoming Medical Society has come out against a proposed ballot initiative that would legalize medical marijuana in Wyoming.

The statewide group, which counts more than 700 physicians and physician assistants as members, announced its opposition in a position paper posted to its website.

The statements says the group "opposes medical marijuana outside of the regulatory process of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration."

A spokesman with the group said its members consulted with several Wyoming medical professionals and the Colorado Medical Society.

The group's opposition comes as Wyoming voters could be asked to decide whether to legalize medical marijuana as early as November of next year.

New York’s medical cannabis program made a major announcement, Minnesota patients are pinching pennies to get their medicine, the governor of Wyoming is looking at legalization, and if you’re a Canadian patient, your wallet might be getting a break soon. Here’s what’s happening in the cannabis world – are you informed?

U.S. Cannabis Updates

COLORADO

CHEYENNE (WTE) - The Governor's Marijuana Impact Council met for the first time Wednesday.

The group, appointed by Gov. Matt Mead, said they want "valid and scientifically reliable data" on the pros and cons of potentially legalizing marijuana in Wyoming.

The group was created to study the health, economic and social impacts of potentially legalizing the drug in the state.

The group is also charged with determining how Wyoming has been affected by Colorado's decision to allow recreational sales at the start of 2014.

Their work comes as a signature-collecting effort is about to get underway to ask Wyoming voters in 2016 if medical marijuana should be legalized.

SHERIDAN — As Sheridan and Wyoming residents have the opportunity to apply for hemp extract registration cards, questions over similarities between hemp and marijuana arise. Cards will provide qualifying individuals with intractable epilepsy to treat their symptoms with hemp.

Coming from Cannabis Sativa — a plant typically used for industrial purposes — it carries only trace amount of Tetrahydro-cannabinol, the principal psychoactive ingredient in marijuana. Products being made from hemp must contain less than 0.3 percent THC in order to be legally sold in Wyoming.

Hemp products — such as ropes and fabrics — are manufactured from the male plant while medical and recreational uses of marijuana come from the female plant.

CHEYENNE, Wyo. (AP) — Wyoming Gov. Matt Mead is creating a council to gauge the effects of marijuana usage in the state ahead of a legalization initiative that could go before voters next year.

Mead announced Tuesday he's putting together a marijuana impact assessment council. He wants it to report to the public on effects of marijuana before the Legislature convenes early next year.

Activists this spring filed initial paperwork to start a petition process in Wyoming that could put a medical marijuana legalization measure before voters in the 2016 general election.

CASPER, Wyo. — After more than a year of writing and rewriting, organizers behind a medical marijuana ballot measure believe they’re close to finalizing the proposal.

The initative needs only a few minor changes before the Wyoming Secretary of State staff gives it preliminary approval, said Chris Christian, of the Wyoming chapter of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws. Approval would allow supporters across across the state to begin gathering more than 25,000 signatures required before Feb. 8, the deadline for it to appear on the November 2016 ballot.

The Wyoming Secretary of State’s staff could not say whether NORML will obtain the preliminary approval, since it has yet to review the latest version.

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.

CHEYENNE - Voters could decide next year whether medical marijuana will be legal in Wyoming.

Activists have filed paperwork with the state which, if approved, would let them begin a signature-gathering campaign to get an initiative on the 2016 general election ballot to legalize medical marijuana.

The Wyoming chapter of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws is sponsoring the citizen-led effort.

The group submitted its initiative application to the secretary of state's office on Monday, which was also 4/20 - the unofficial national holiday for marijuana enthusiasts and supporters.

The 13-page application is essentially the group's proposal in the form of a legislative bill.

We know the end is coming, but pot prohibition is going to have to be undone state by state. Here are the ones least likely to jump on the bandwagon.

Marijuana prohibition in the US is dying, but it isn't going to vanish in one fell swoop. Even if Congress were to repeal federal pot prohibition, state laws criminalizing the plant and its users would still be in effect—at least in some states.

And it's probably a pretty safe bet that Congress isn’t going to act until a good number of states, maybe more than half, have already legalized it. That process is already underway and is likely to gather real momentum by the time election day 2016 is over.

Last year, The Weed Eater column debuted on 4/20 with a promise to take readers on “a cannabis-fueled culinary journey.” Since then, we’ve made a gourmet marijuana meal at Hunter S. Thompson’s house, sampled Melissa Etheridge’s weed-infused wine, brewed up some pot-fueled bulletproof coffee, explored the Joy of Cooking (while really stoned), concocted strain-specific cannabis cocktails, examined the Grateful Dead’s lasting influence on how we eat, and even shared a meal with Nonna Marijuana, the 92-year-old queen of cannabis cuisine. But perhaps, amid all the munchies and merriment, we’ve failed to make clear something vitally important: Marijuana edibles aren’t safe.