A Georgia lawmaker is moving ahead with legislation that would allow state-licensed manufacturers of medical marijuana products to operate in the state.

State Rep. Allen Peake has officially filed a bill allowing between two and six medical-cannabis manufacturers to be licensed by the state and serve people with certain medical conditions and registered with the state.

COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) - Ohio House leaders announced plans Thursday for a comprehensive review of medical marijuana, while disclosing that backers of an effort to purge old pot-related convictions are withdrawing their proposal from legislative consideration.

State lawmakers have been weighing how to address medical marijuana after Ohio voters overwhelmingly rejected a ballot initiative in November that sought to legalize pot for medical and recreational use. The measure, Issue 3, would have established 10 sites with exclusive authority to grow marijuana, and with profits going to the issue’s deep-pocketed investors.

While the ballot initiative faced resounding defeat, polls suggested Ohioans support medical marijuana.

COLUMBUS, Ohio -- The co-founder of the group behind Ohio's failed marijuana initiative said Thursday that ResponsibleOhio is dead and the state legislature is the best route to legalize marijuana for medical use.

ResponsibleOhio founder Jimmy Gould told reporters Thursday that ResponsibleOhio will not be back with another constitutional amendment this year as he promised after voters overwhelmingly rejected Issue 3 in November.

Speaker of the Ohio House Clifford A. Rosenberger (R-Clarksville) and State Representative Kirk Schuring (R-Canton) will be holding a press conference Thursday to announce details regarding the creation of a bipartisan task force charged with addressing the issue of medical marijuana.

Following the defeat of Issue 3 in November that would have made pot legal in Ohio by allowing a monopoly for growers, lawmakers say they learned there was growing support among voters for medicinal marijuana use.

The town hall meetings are designed to bring both sides of the issue together but include the public in the discussion as well.

Even though pot is illegal, those who are in pain say they use they continue to smoke because it offers better results than pain pills.

According to estimates, Italians consume about 3 million pounds of cannabis each year. The debate "legalization, or not" has been going on for years without ever leading to concrete results. In 2015 something moved when a bill for cannabis freedom came to the House, ready to fill a legal vacuum that has lasted two years. So 2016 might truly be the year of the legalization of cannabis for recreational purposes? The Minister of Justice Orlando brakes, but there are those who bet on the legalization creating the first Italian brand for the sale of cannabis and open selections for the franchise.

SALT LAKE CITY — When Malinda Heiner was 16 months old, a 53-minute seizure changed the course of her life forever.

Malinda's brain suffered so much damage that she hasn't stopped seizing since.

Now 14 years old, Malinda has 30 to 40 seizures a day. She's confined to a wheelchair, not speaking, not communicating, but seizing all the time.

Medicine has only caused more issues, says her mother, Melanie Heiner. Instead of stopping Malinda's seizures, they've only disrupted her appetite and sleep.

On Wednesday morning, Heiner, her daughter and about 30 other people stood in the Capitol rotunda and called on lawmakers to take a second look at a bill to legalize medical marijuana.

Colorado parents Raymond and Amelia Schwab lost custody of their kids but say they've done nothing wrong

Veteran Raymond Schwab and his wife Amelia are pictured on January 13, 2016 in Denver, Colorado. Raymond, who suffers PTSD, came to Colorado to use medical marijuana to help treat his PTSD. Because of this the state of Kansas, where he lived, took away his kids. He is fighting to get them back. (Helen H. Richardson, The Denver Post)

Raymond Schwab, an honorably discharged veteran, moved to Colorado last year to get treated for post-traumatic stress and chronic pain with medical marijuana.

He didn't expect Kansas would take his children in return.

The prospects of legal cannabis in 2016 have come a long way in the last two years. In 2014 the cannabis industry exploded when legal sales of cannabis for personal use began in Colorado and Washington State, the Rohrabacher amendment finally passed in the House of Representatives, and the sky did not come crashing down. It seemed like the floodgates opened as business interests began to take notice and the gains of that year (74% market growth in 2014 according to the ArcView Group) bled over into 2015. Last year Oregon, Alaska, and the District of Columbia legalized personal use as well, and medical sales began in Minnesota and Illinois.

Northumberland-Peterborough South MP Kim Rudd wasn’t in her Cobourg office when a post-New Year’s present arrived last week: a plastic bag containing marijuana.

Rudd is just the latest in a series of MPs across the country whom author Dana Larsen has written, including in his package a copy of his book, Cannabis in Canada: the Illustrated History, plus some of the actual topic of his book, in dried form.

Rudd’s communications director Jamie Simmons told Northumberland Today in an interview they had heard “someone was sending marijuana to MPs.”

Then the local MP’s office received a call from a person who asked itf it had arrived yet.

“Within a couple of days it showed up,” he said.

A marijuana legalization campaign is nearing its goal of gathering 150,000 valid signatures to get on the November ballot.

The  initiative would ask Arizona voters to legalize marijuana for recreational use and establish a network of licensed cannabis shops where sales of the drug would be taxed.

The Campaign to Regulate Marijuana Like Alcohol is a few thousand signatures short of gathering the 150,642 signatures needed to qualify for the ballot, spokesman Barrett Marson said Wednesday. However, some of those signatures are likely invalid -- gathered from people who cannot vote -- and the group aims to collect 225,000 signatures, he said.

"Arizonans are clearly excited about this initiative," Marson added.