SALEM - A legislative deal laying out the future of the legal marijuana market in Oregon was in danger of falling apart Wednesday as the result of yet another dispute about local curbs on retail sales of the drug.

Senate Minority Leader Ted Ferrioli, R-John Day, sent a late-night email to leaders of the legislative marijuana committee saying he couldn't agree with the deal they reached with city and county association lobbyists on the issue of local control.

Ferrioli, whose eastern Oregon district voted strongly against the marijuana legalization initiative last November, said he wanted to make sure that local governments have the ability to ban medical and recreational marijuana sales in their communities.

My work takes me to wellness expos around the state,many of them focused on older Mainers. In the last several months, I have been fortunate to meet hundreds of Maine seniors and to answer thousands of questions about medical marijuana. Distilling all that into a reader-friendly blog post isn’t easy, but here are five important facts about medical marijuana that every “silver citizen” should know:

1. You don’t have to smoke it.

A major new study on accidental exposure to cannabis is fanning a media firestorm, and the ensuing hysteria is wildly disproportionate to the actual harms to children.

Simply put, kids who accidentally eat a pot brownie will be utterly fine. Meanwhile, thousands of kids are going to die this year from being poisoned by personal care and household products, with no proportionate outcry.

As a society, we must be clear-headed about this stuff. Lock up your edibles, of course, but prioritize outrage based on actual harm.

A couple of years ago I was watching my boss get interviewed on television about the cost of marijuana prohibition, growing public opinion in favor of legalization, and legislative efforts for marijuana policy reform. It was a fairly wonky conversation peppered with serious facts about the billions of dollars wasted on fighting the war on marijuana and the hundreds of thousands of people arrested each year.

But there was an irritating distraction. Whenever the program cut to video footage, it was all a bunch of young guys at maybe a 420 festival wearing stereotypical stoner uniforms (pot leaves, tie-dye, etc.) smoking comically enormous joints.

If the legal marijuana industry is looking for accidental boosters, it may have just found two: U.S. Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack and former President Bill Clinton. In remarks to the Clinton Global Initiative in Denver -- just blocks away from the country’s first legal marijuana stores -- Vilsack noted that cannabis has become one of the most valuable commodities in American agriculture.

A leading Australian substance abuse expert is pleading for moderation in policies on e-cigarettes.

The University of Queensland’s Professor Wayne Hall said current law on electronic nicotine delivery systems placed researchers – and people who wanted to use e-cigarettes to quit smoking – in a difficult situation.

E-cigarettes containing nicotine cannot legally be sold in Australia.

”We should not have to choose between banning e-cigarettes completely and selling them alongside children’s candy,” Professor Hall said.

Professor Hall is an advisor to the World Health Organization and the director of UQ’s Centre for Youth Substance Abuse Research.

The Compassionate Use of Medical Cannabis Bill is still pending with the House committee on health, more than a year after it was filed in 2014

MANILA, Philippines – Is it time to legalize the medical use of marijuana in the Philippines?

Debaters from the Ateneo de Manila University Law School and the University of Sto Tomas (UST) Law School discussed the issue at "The Law and Policy Debate: An Inter-university Dialogue" held at the House of Representatives on Tuesday, June 9.

Drinking lots coffee while smoking marijuana can cause people to become more addicted to the drug, according to a new study.

This may be because caffeine enhances the euphoria associated with smoking cannabis.

But scientists say it all depends on how much coffee you drink. 

The same research found that small amounts could actually help combat cannabis addiction, by putting you off the drug altogether.

‘The discovery does provide some fascinating insights into the workings of the brain, and why humans find coffee and marijuana so enjoyable,’ Dr Gary Wenk, who was not involved in the research, explains on the Oxford University Press' blog.

Hoosiers who try marijuana while visiting states where it's legal may risk breaking the law, or possibly losing their jobs, experts say, if they face a blood or urine draw when they return home.

If you're traveling this summer to a state where marijuana is legal and feel tempted to partake, employment and legal experts say you still may want to think twice before lighting up.

That's because the pot you smoke legally there could wind up causing you big problems back here at home — even days or weeks after the buzz has faded.

The most extreme consequences could be a trip to jail or getting booted from a job: