Over the last few months, a handful of states has legalized marijuana.

Texas is not included, but Saturday, a number of organizations working to reform laws related to marijuana, said they're hoping it will be in the near future.

They hosted a "Texans For Responsible Marijuana Policy" advocacy training for the public at the Texas state capitol to try and get people on board.

The organizations at Saturday's training hoped to educate people on how to push for reform in marijuana policy. They talked to attendees about the bills they want to see passed and how to talk to lawmakers.

The bills are listed below:

A roundtable to examine the potential to establish industrial hemp and medicinal cannabis industries in South Australia will be held at the end of the month.

It comes only months after the Federal Government changed the law to allow the controlled cultivation of cannabis for medicinal and scientific purposes, and just weeks after an Adelaide woman who was supplying cannabis oil products to terminally ill people had her property raided.

Unlike in some other states, it is illegal to grow hemp plants in South Australia and nationally medicinal cannabis can only be grown with a licence.

With the exception of 1996, when California first legalized medical cannabis, or 2012, when Colorado and Washington became the first states to legalize recreational pot, 2016 was probably marijuana's best year ever.

Marijuana. Maybe you love it. Maybe you hate it. Perhaps, you do not care much about it.

The reality is that more states are accepting marijuana as a safe substance. Eight states now have full legalization, while nineteen states only have legalized medicinal marijuana.

In this episode, I interviewed three experts in different areas to talk about the state of the industry, specific strains for certain health disorders, and the opportunities for entrepreneurs.

Counties across Pennsylvania are arresting people for marijuana possession at record levels even as police departments in the Commonwealth’s largest cities are adopting decriminalization procedures.

So why are arrests increasing? To find out, I crunched data, made nice charts, and asked local law enforcement for comment. What I discovered is that police often hope minor pot arrests lead to other, bigger, better crimes or criminals. Police also claim to let a lot of people go for weed, which is also rather difficult to prove.

Meanwhile, prosecutors are trying to keep the bulk of these cases out of criminal courts, but are still throwing the book at some marijuana defendants.

Legislators in more than a dozen states have introduced measures to loosen laws restricting access to or criminalizing marijuana, a rush of legislative activity that supporters hope reflects a newfound willingness by public officials to embrace a trend toward legalization.

The gamut covered by measures introduced in the early days of legislative sessions underscores the patchwork approach to marijuana by states across the country — and the possibility that the different ways states treat marijuana could come to a head at the federal Justice Department, where President-elect Donald Trump’s nominee to become attorney general is a staunch opponent of legal pot.

Across New England, two issues appear to be driving legislatures this year — and they both have to do with drugs.

States are grappling with the emergence of marijuana legalization. But the region is also the epicenter of the opioid crisis, with overdose rates in New Hampshire among the highest in the country.

These two debates — separate, but not unrelated — transcend party. Marijuana legalization efforts have been supported by Democrats and Republicans, but none of the region’s six governors fully support recreational use of the drug. On the opioid crisis as well, there is bipartisan consensus about the importance of the issue — as well as the fact there’s no silver bullet to solve the problem.

Since Proposition 64 passed, many Californians have assumed that all sales and use of marijuana have become legal.

But in fact, recreational sales don't become legal until next year.

There is additional confusion over what's legal and what isn't.

"When Prop. 64 passed, all the personal rights kicked in the next day," said Brooke E. Staggs, a reporter with The Cannifornian, a California-based marijuana information site. "That means anyone 21 and over can have up to an ounce of marijuana. You can grow up to 6 plants per home. But what did not become legal overnight was selling marijuana."

New York should eliminate penalties currently handed down to individuals caught possessing small amounts of marijuana, Gov. Andrew Cuomo said Wednesday, citing a “dramatic shift in public opinion” evidenced by pot prohibitions being reined in from coast to coast.

The governor’s recommendation to remove criminal penalties appeared buried in a 383-page book containing his 2017 plans distributed Wednesday evening among the state legislature, New York Daily News reported.

“The illegal sale of marijuana cannot and will not be tolerated in New York State, but data consistently show that recreational users of marijuana pose little to no threat to public safety,” the Democrat wrote on page 191 of the report.

Florida patients who qualify for medical marijuana under a voter-approved constitutional amendment can start purchasing cannabis treatments in as little as 90 days, according to the state's top pot cop.

Whether patients would be able to start buying medical marijuana before the Department of Health approves rules to carry out the amendment --- a process that could take at least six months --- has been a source of confusion for many doctors, patients and businesses.