This year has been an exciting one for proponents of both recreational and medicinal marijuana legalization efforts. Two states began to allow medicinal use, while two more states and Washington, D.C. have started to permit recreational use. Let’s take a look at the latest in these territories and how laws, regulations and rules have been developed around these measures.

Recreational Use

Oregon

Columbia Care, one of the five companies the state has licensed to grow and distribute medical marijuana, has found a new site for its Long Island dispensary.

The company will now have a dispensary at 1333 E. Main St. in Riverhead, about two miles east of Peconic Bay Medical Center, CEO Nicholas Vita said Friday.

The company had originally proposed a dispensary a couple miles down the road, also in Riverhead. 

But that site, an old Blockbuster video store, sparked local concern because of its proximity to the high school, and the town board considered a moratorium on medical marijuana dispensaries.

Synthetic Marijuana Or K2 Use On The Rise In New York City

Speaking in East Harlem, a community that has been an epicenter of hospitalizations the city blames on the drug, Mayor Bill de Blasio signed the legislation that targets store owners who sell the drug with threats of fines and jail.

New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio says his administration will continue "to build upon" the environmental record of his predecessor.

With less than three months to go until the launch of New York’s medical marijuana program, the State Department of Health on Tuesday announced it has launched an online education course for health practitioners.

The four-hour course is designed for physicians in good standing who wish to issue “certifications” to allow patients to receive medical marijuana products.

Dr. Howard Zucker, state health commissioner, said the course materials will give practitioners information to consider when determining which patients may benefit from medical marijuana.

NEW YORK, Oct. 20, 2015 /PRNewswire/ -- Purple Haze Properties CEO Andrew Pitsicalis has been added as a speaker at the Southwest Cannabis Conference and Expo that is scheduled to take place on October 27th and 28th in Phoenix, AZ. Pitsicalis will be speaking about Jimi Hendrix licensing opportunities in the cannabis industry.

"It is quite a privilege for me to be added as a speaker at the upcoming Southwest Cannabis Conference at the end of the month. I look forward to discussing the things I've experienced while working in the Jimi Hendrix cannabis space and listening and learning from everyone else who will be there," states Purple Haze Properties CEO Andrew Pitsicalis.

The city is getting higher by the day — and we’re not talking about Manhattan skyscrapers.

In the span of a few hours in broad daylight last week, The Post encountered six people smoking reefer on busy downtown sidewalks.

Mayor Bill de Blasio decriminalized low-level marijuana possession last November — but many New Yorkers evidently mistook that for de-facto legalization.

You can still get cuffed for smoking a joint in public — as a female stoner ­was warned recently when Police Commissioner Bill Bratton saw her toking on Wall Street.

ISLANDIA, N.Y. (CBSNewYork) — The village of Islandia is not one of the locations being mentioned as a site for any of the state’s 20 approved medical marijuana dispensaries, but that didn’t stop its Board of Trustees from passing a law anyway making the sale of pot there illegal.

Some residents praised the pre-emptive rejection.

“It could destroy your life,” one man told WCBS 880 Long Island Bureau Chief Mike Xirinachs. “Just say no.”

“Kids are going to abuse that stuff,” another man said. “Especially I have three stepkids, so I don’t want them anywhere near that stuff.”

As 2016 nears, inaction on an emergency medical-marijuana bill the State Legislature approved in June is close to rendering the measure irrelevant.

The bill calls for “expedited access to medical marijuana in certain cases where a patient’s condition is progressive and degenerative.” Supporters said it was necessary because some patients couldn’t wait until January — when the five state-sanctioned medical-marijuana facilities are supposed to be up and running.

Four months later, the bill still hasn’t been sent to Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo for signature or veto. Sen. Diane Savino (D-Staten Island), a medical-marijuana champion, opposed the “emergency access” bill saying, in part, it was favored by some who wanted to legalize recreational cannabis.
 

The Citizens’ Voice asked legislators in Luzerne and Lackawanna counties for their positions on medical marijuana, industrial hemp, decriminalization and legal marijuana. Here is what they said:

REPRESENTATIVES

Karen Boback R-Harveys Lake

Medical marijuana: “I believe cannabis deserves the opportunity to be properly vetted by the medical community. Scientific research accompanied by valid trials should be conducted to determine its value as a medical option. Doing so would provide the legislature with the opportunity to determine the level of legality for medical cannabis. Our goal should be to develop a medically responsible solution.”

Over the next few weeks, an old horse barn will be transformed into one of the first medical marijuana cultivation facilities in New York.

The 8,000-square-foot barn in Chestertown is still being renovated but once complete it will serve as the extraction, curing, processing, separating and lab site for Etain, LLC’s production facility. Alongside the barn, nestled in the foothills of the Adirondack Mountains, is the footprint for what will soon be a 13,000-square-foot greenhouse.