Alexis Bortell is a Texas girl whose daily epileptic seizures were quelled by medical marijuana, and now she is turning into one of the state’s biggest advocates for legalized cannabis.

One year ago, Bortell was living with a condition that prevented her from living a normal life, and treatments were not making the seizures get any better.

A specialist told the Bortell family that Alexis might benefit by leaving Texas and moving to a state where she could be treated with medical marijuana.

Draft rules and regulations for the island’s medicinal marijuana program are expected to be approved and open to public comment by late April, said James Gillan, director of Guam’s public health department.

In November, voters approved legalizing the use of marijuana for the treatment of certain medical conditions, making Guam the first U.S. territory to legalize medical marijuana. The drug remains a Schedule I controlled substance under local and federal law.

The Department of Public Health and Social Services, the lead agency tasked with developing guidelines and regulations under the law, has less than five months to submit rules and regulations to the Guam Legislature.

WAIMANALO, OAHU (HawaiiNewsNow) -A land dispute in Waimanalo could disrupt the University of Hawaii's plans for a new industrial hemp study.

After the blessing for the research project, a Waimanalo family contacted Hawaii News Now saying that land is theirs.

"They're planning on growing hemp on our land and we don't have any problems with it. We would just like some cooperation and some coordination with us, as the owners of course," says the family spokesman Austin Lorenzo.

On Friday, state leaders attended the seed planting ceremony.

Many marijuana advocates are saying 2016 will be the year for marijuana legalization, thanks in part to a new poll which finds that a majority of voters in several swing stats support legalizing marijuana.

According to the Quinnipiac survey,  55 percent of voters in Florida, 52 percent in Ohio, and 51 percent in Pennsylvania, are in favor of allowing adults “to legally possess small amounts of marijuana for personal use.”

As for Medical Marijuana the numbers are even more staggering, with 84 percent of the voters in Florida and Ohio and 88 percent in Pennsylvania stating that they believe medical marijuana should be legal.

The debate of whether or not to legalize marijuana in the U.S. is not just a national one, Latin American leaders are weighing in on it too.

That’s because U.S. marijuana consumption drives drug violence in their countries.  Armed Honduran military police escort us to the most dangerous neighborhood in San Pedro Sula, a city dubbed the “murder capital of the world.”

The gang comes in and charges every resident a war tax they call it, it’s simply extortion.  Painful choices for residents: Pay the phony tax, leave or face the wrath of the gangs.

Similar fears haunt communities in other Latin American countries also plagued by violent criminal gangs, whose power is connected to the drug trade.

This March, our video advocacy team attended the 58th session of the Commission on Narcotic Drugs, the largest drug policy gathering in the world, to find out how governments and NGOs feel about the prospects of drug policy reform. We produced a series of short thematic videos, to give you an overview of the current state of political debate on the burning issues of international drug control.

Internationally, drug policy is at a crossroads: the debate is shifting from a paradigm based on criminalising drug users, to a more public-health-oriented approach. But is this only a change in rhetoric, or a sign of real political reform? We asked activists who have been attending the CND for several years. 

If it goes to the will of the people, cannabis will be freely available in Stuttgart soon. So wants the application in the current participatory budget, which reached the 15th place on debut.

Stuttgart. Cannabis is the most commonly used illegal substance in Germany. Around two million people regularly refer to the joint. The main active ingredient of cannabis is tetrahydrocannabinol, THC for short. Inhaled, the plant substance triggers a rush feeling. Cannabis acts in three ways: muscle relaxing, soothing and effective against nausea and vomiting.

Ross Aikins considers the evolution of substance use and how universities shape the debate.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper may find himself at odds with some other western hemisphere leaders who want to relax drug laws for offences such as marijuana use and provide “alternatives” to jail time.

Harper flies to Panama Friday for the two-day Summit of the Americas, where more than 30 leaders from the Organization of American States (OAS) will gather.

In recent years, there has been a growing movement among some of those nations — particularly those in South America devastated by violence from drug cartels — to find new ways to tackle the drug problem.

At the last summit, in Colombia in 2012, Harper resisted calls to consider decriminalization of some drugs.

Licenses to grow and dispense medicinal cannabis under last year’s “Charlotte’s Web” law may be coming soon.

The Department of Health would award licenses for medicinal marijuana 75 days after a Charlotte’s Web glitch bill becomes law, according to SPB 7066, a proposal approved Thursday by the Senate Rules Committee.

Rules had been SPB 7066’s last scheduled committee stop.