With less than a month to go in the 2014 session, the New York State Assembly yesterday approved a medical cannabis bill. The bill would legalize the possession of up to two and a half ounce of herb for qualified patients as well as allow state-regulated dispensaries. The bill will now head to the state Senate.

On Tuesday, the New York State Senate’s Health Committee voted to approve the Compassionate Care Act. If the bill goes on to pass the full senate, it would create a comprehensive statewide system for New Yorkers to access medical marijuana.
I know what you’re thinking–didn’t Governor Andrew Cuomo say back in January that he was going to legalize medical weed? Yeah, he said that, but his declaration came with a truckload of caveats: the program would be limited only to patients with specific ailments, and the marijuana, which the state planned to buy from the federal government, would be dispensed at just 20 hospitals. That plan, which was allocated $0 of funding in this year’s state budget, has enough built-in logistical obstacles that, realistically, it will years before it sees the light of day, if it does at all. Read more over at the Village Voice.

North Carolina state Rep. Kelly Alexander is sick of lawmakers in his state refusing to even debate the issue of medical marijuana. He’s attempted several pieces of legislation over the last few years – all shot down in committee – and says the time is right for voters to speak their minds on medical marijuana in the polls.
But other lawmakers hoping to pass a very strict CBD-only medical marijuana bill for children say Alexander’s proposal might sink their ship.

Illinois already has medical marijuana laws on the books, but the program has been slow to roll out and it does not cover one of the fastest growing patient populations: epileptic children.
So it is with great relief that a bill adding epilepsy and severe seizure disorders to the list of state-approved qualifying conditions for medical cannabis patients has made it through both the House and Senate with few changes and seems likely to be passed into law.