With summer just around the corner, many legislative sessions are nearing an end, but that doesn't mean the end for cannabis progress! This week brings surprising and heartwarming news from down on the bayou in Louisiana, while California’s discussing legalization, New York is gearing up to select growers for their medical program, and India just held their first ever medical cannabis conference.

U.S. Updates

CALIFORNIA

MINNEAPOLIS (WCCO) — Minnesota officials can now start signing up qualified patients for medical marijuana. This comes one month before medical marijuana becomes available, by law, from state-run dispensaries.

Minnesota Medical Solutions CEO Dr. Kyle Kingsley said their growing facility at a high-security location in Otsego is on schedule, harvesting plants and extracting elements that go into pills and liquids.

“We are ready, we are producing at capacity,” Kingsley said. “We are looking at probably final medicines that could be given to patients here in the next few weeks.”

Enrollment opened Monday for Minnesota’s medical marijuana program, and Shelly Rapp was ready and waiting to sign up her son.

The Rapp family recently moved here from California, where 18-year-old Scott had been taking cannabis oil — a few drops, a few times a day — to treat the intractable seizures that have racked him since birth. His mother, skeptical at first about the drug’s usefulness, watched as Scott’s seizures dropped from hundreds a day to just a handful.

He started smiling. His eyesight improved. They weaned him off his other epilepsy medications and treatments.

“Scott has so many seizures, I never really had any hope of anything working,” Rapp said. “But we had amazing success.”

When medical marijuana becomes available in Minnesota on July 1, two state-approved companies will begin selling cannabis in pill and oil form to patients who suffer from cancer, HIV, AIDS, ALS and other conditions.

But although state lawmakers made dispensing the drug to those patients legal, federal law still bans marijuana. That's led to some big financial challenges for Minnesota's fledgling cannabis industry.

One of the biggest tests for the two manufacturers picked by the state to produce medical cannabis is setting up banking services.

BELLE PLAINE, Minn. – Monday was the day that Angie Traxler hopes will make a difference. It was the first day that qualified patients were able to register for medical marijuana. Actual sales of the drug will not begin until July 1.

Angie Traxler's daughter, Madelaine, 11, spends up to 90 percent of her time in a wheelchair. The fifth-grader suffers from Rett syndrome, a neurodevelopmental disorder that mainly strikes girls.

"She lost her ability to speak, or use her hands," said Traxler. "She has scoliosis, so she wears a back brace."

ST. PAUL, Minn. (AP) — Sarah Wellington thought she had everything squared away to register for Minnesota's medical marijuana program.

Her multiple sclerosis fit the narrow list of conditions that qualify. Her neurologist was on board with trying medical marijuana. Just check back in a month and we'll get your paperwork started with the state, she was told.

But the follow-up was a shock: Her clinic decided it doesn't want a part in the state's new program yet. Her primary care clinic doesn't, either.

St. Paul, MN (WDAY/WDAZ TV) - Minnesota hospitals and health care facilities will be allowed to control, dispense and manage the use of medical cannabis under a newly-expanded availability.

Medical cannabis will become legal in pill and liquid form in July. The original law didn't include hospitals on the list of those allowed to distribute medical marijuana, but the Minnesota Legislature expanded the law during the final days of the 2015 session.

Health care facilities are also allowed to reasonably restrict the use of medical cannabis by patients when it comes to storage and location.

St. Cloud

Registration opens for medical marijuana

Medical marijuana will be legal in Minnesota — for patients with certain conditions — on July 1 and those patients can begin registering for the program Monday.

To begin the registration process, patients need a doctor, nurse practitioner or physician assistant to certify that they have one of the conditions that qualify them to participate in the program. Those conditions include certain cancers, terminal illnesses, glaucoma and seizure disorders. The Minnesota Medical Cannabis site at mn.gov/medicalcannabis has more details.

ST. PAUL, MN  (KDAL) - During the final days of the 2015 regular legislative session, state lawmakers amended Minnesota’s medical cannabis statute to address patients’ use of medical cannabis in hospitals and other health care facilities.

The Legislature has taken steps to expand the availability of medical marijuana to Minnesota hospitals when it becomes legal in July.

When state lawmakers approved the original law authorizing health care providers to dispense the drug, they didn't include hospitals where terminally ill patients could end up.

That left hospitals wondering what they would do for patients who use medical marijuana, and whether they could allow it.

The Legislature has added hospitals to the list of facilities that can control, dispense and manage the use of cannabis inside their systems, said Manny Munson-Regala, an assistant state health commissioner. Gov. Mark Dayton signed off on the change, he said.