Momma bears, it’s taking the momma bears to end the reefer madness.

Paige Figley, Holley Moseley and Dawn Wein are among a group of women who worked the Florida Capitol the past year persuading, pressuring and pleading with lawmakers to lift a prohibition on medical marijuana and authorize the use of cannabis products they believe will ease their children’s suffering and, in some cases, potentially save lives.

When they showed up at the Capitol it was to put an exclamation point on the generation-long shift in how Americans view marijuana – since the 1990s twenty-three states have authorized its use as medicine.

 THE LOBBYIST

TALLAHASSEE — A bill attempting to get the implementation of the state's Charlotte's Web marijuana law back on track has created a new dilemma for its sponsor: how to make it equitable for black farmers.

Under the existing law, only farms that have been in continuous existence for 30 years and grow 400,000 or more plants are eligible to bid for one of five licenses to cultivate and distribute the noneuphoric strain of cannabis for patients with epilepsy, cancer and chronic muscle spasms.

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. -- A bill to fast track some medical marijuana use in Florida is moving forward in the state legislature.

The Senate Health Policy Committee approved the legislation Tuesday in an 8-0 vote.

It would make changes to the law already passed by Florida lawmakers last spring. That measure has yet to help anyone because of legal challenges and bureaucratic delays.

"There are just some flaws that need to be corrected in the bill that we passed," sponsor Sen. Rob Bradley said to the committee as they considered the measure Tuesday.

The new bill expands the list of illnesses for which medical marijuana can be used. The new list includes HIV, epilepsy, ALS, multiple sclerosis, and Parkinson's disease.

Growers and patient advocates used court challenges to force the Legislature to revisit a medicinal marijuana law approved last session. Tuesday they get another chance at convincing lawmakers to increase the allowable level of THC in medicinal oil authorized for use in Florida  by the Compassionate Medicinal Cannabis Act of 2014.

TARPON SPRINGS — Bob Clayton’s first encounter with hemp was at a health food store where the fibrous plant was sold in bottles as an ideal source of protein and omega acids.

At the time, he had no idea of the many uses for the tall cannabis plant, which Florida farmers are banned from growing due to its association with its psychoactive relative, marijuana.

The two happen to come from the same plant, but industrial hemp’s chemical makeup doesn’t produce a high.

What its fibrous stalks can produce is durable clothing, paper and even car dashboards.

Clayton, a retired engineer, also saw its potential as an Earth-friendly fiber for construction.

Just about every day for more than 30 years, Jesse Teplicki consumed marijuana in one form or another to ease the relentless symptoms of chronic anorexia nervosa. And for the last decade, he quietly grew and harvested his own supply, even processing the plants into pats of butter.

So by the time police officers, acting on an anonymous tip, came to his Hollywood home two years ago, Teplicki was ready — and open about his pot use. He allowed the two Broward County Sheriff’s deputies into his home, escorting them to the locked garage where he had 16 potted marijuana plants growing. Then he showed them the other 30 plants taking root in his backyard also for personal use.

Fort Lauderdale, Florida (PRWEB) March 30, 2015

Legal cannabis business owners and entrepreneurs constantly face uncertainties and critical situations due to the current nature of the emerging industry. Quite often, they need quick answers to legal, accounting, human resources, insurance, banking, compliance or other cannabis industry specific business questions. However, most business owners often hesitate to contact a lawyer or other business professional out of fear of the very expensive “Ticking Clock Syndrome", or simply because they don't have a trusted business advisor or reliable “go to source” readily available to them.

Just as 13-year-old Branden Petro flops into the passenger seat of his mom's car, his eyes roll back. His face twitches uncontrollably. He curls into a fetal position.

It is his third seizure on a particularly bad day. His mother, Renee Petro, 36, jumps from her seat and runs around the car. She pulls the backpack off her son and grabs his hand.

"Squeeze my hand if you can hear me," she pleads. "Squeeze my hand, Branden. Come on baby, squeeze my hand."

Every seizure terrifies her. Any seizure could cause more brain damage. Any one could be the first sign his condition is getting worse. Other children with his condition have taken a turn for the worse and been dead within a year.

In this article, Mike Zappy transcribes the contents of a talk on cannabis and how it's going to change 'life as we know it' that he had intended to deliver at a Tedx event in Boca Raton. The text was approved by the organizers and Zappy was scheduled into the event but a few days later he received an email from the same organizers cancelling his talk. They said that 'Boca Raton was not ready for a talk about cannabis'. 

Zappy wants to take a stand against what he believes is the hypocrisy of Tedx, an event that is supposed to break barriers, and is publishing his talk in full here.

Vague legal jargon and apparently contradictory laws are fueling confusion over the legality of medical marijuana in Florida.(Photo: Courtesy: St. Johns County Sheriff's Office)

ST. JOHNS, Fla. -- Vague legal jargon and apparently contradictory laws are fueling confusion over the legality of medical marijuana in Florida.

Two separate Florida laws are being talked about in the case with Scott and Marcia Yandell, the St. Johns couple arrested for allegedly running a marijuana operation out of their home, and neither law clarifies whether it's legal.