Vireo Health is on track to reach its January deadline to provide severely sick patients with medical marijuana.

On Thursday, Vireo Health harvested its first medical marijuana plants. The organization only had four and half months to get to this stage and start making medicine.

Inside a tropical 80 degree room with high pressure sodium lights acting as the sun helping to speed up the process, Vireo CEO Dr. Kyle Kingsley showed off the state’s first medical marijuana plants.

In a surprising move, Gov. Andrew M.

The bills approved today will speed up access to medical marijuana if a patient’s health condition is progressive and degenerative, or if delaying the use of the drug would pose a serious risk to a patient’s life or health.

The agency will waive the strict regulations that apply to the state’s existing medical marijuana program, which is scheduled to begin distributing the drug in January.

People with AIDS, terminal cancers and the parents of children with severe epilepsy have long pushed for early access, arguing that critically ill individuals shouldn’t have to wait any longer for the drug.

People are advocating for medical marijuana for ‘less than pure reasons,’ says Edward Bednarczyk

BUFFALO, N.Y. – When medical marijuana dispensaries in Oregon opened their doors to sell to anyone who is 21 years or older last month, the lines between recreation and medicine were officially blurred, said Edward Bednarczyk, PharmD, pharmacy practice chair in the University at Buffalo School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences.

You wouldn't know it from the outside, but a Queens warehouse has been turned into a marijuana farm.

Contractors are still building the facility, but behind these walls, thousands of plants are already growing across two floors for use as medical marijuana beginning in January.

Owner Bloomfield Industries gave us a first look at renderings. When completed, the plant will have 230,000 square feet of space, the equivalent of four football fields.

"It will be five floors," said Colette Bellefleur, chief operating officer of Bloomfield Industries. "Four will be grow, and one floor will be manufacturing and production."

New York is the 23rd state to legalize medical marijuana. The first crop in Queens was planted this fall and will be harvested in a few weeks.

You know what our most impoverished, crime-ridden, ill-educated communities in the country need? More drugs.

On Tuesday, the Seneca Nation in Western New York voted to consider growing and selling medical marijuana on its territory. Other Indians tribes are going to follow suit. Thanks to a new ruling by the Justice Department, tribes can now distribute marijuana, irrespective of the policy of the state in which they’re located.

Perhaps this sounds familiar. It’s how we got Indian casinos. The 1998 Indian Gaming Regulation Act (IGRA) cemented the notion that Indian lands were sovereign and answerable only to the federal government, not the state governments, with regard to gambling.

The marijuana e-commerce firm raised $750,000 in its first funding round.

There may be only five licensed medical-marijuana companies in New York state, but that doesn't mean local entrepreneurs are going to let them have all the fun. Selling products such as luxury weed accessories and industrial grow lights, New York startups are hoping to profit from marijuana's legalization in a number of states.

The latest New York cannabis company to get in the game is LeafLink, a business-to-business e-commerce platform that has closed its first funding round, raising $750,000.

The Seneca Indian Nation's next business venture could be medical marijuana.

Members of the western New York tribe approved a referendum Tuesday giving leaders the go-ahead to draft laws and regulations governing the manufacturing, use and distribution of the drug.

"A decision on our nation's path of action on medical cannabis is far from made," Seneca President Maurice John Sr. said following the 448-364 vote, "but now, having heard from the Seneca people, our discussions and due diligence can begin in earnest."

On a frigid March morning in downtown Albany, where church spires loom tall and traffic lights dangle from wires that stretch across intersections, a flurry of white-haired men in suits strolled down State Street. They were heading for Sixty State Street, the tony event space and banquet hall in the city's Downtown Historic District, where a team of busboys were hurrying to arrange pastries on silver trays in anticipation of the guests' arrival. Once they arrived, they mingled in groups, chatting over coffee and orange juice, shaking hands and exchanging business cards.

New York based LeafLink, a wholesale B2B marketplace for cannabis professionals, are aiming to launch their site by the end of the year after raising $750k in funding. You can learn more about LeafLink in their Q&A with CEO and Co-founder Ryan Smith below.