OLEAN — New York state’s Medical Marijuana Program started quietly on Jan. 7.

It’s not clear whether any Cattaraugus County physicians have yet registered with the program, or whether any county residents have been certified elsewhere to participate in the medical marijuana program.

“It’s a hot topic,” said Dr. Kevin Watkins, Cattaraugus County public health director.

Regulated by the state Department of Health, “medical marijuana is another weapon in the arsenal for pain relief,” Watkins said. “We are just going to continue to monitor it.”

New York, he said, “is the 23rd state in the country to allow medical marijuana for patients seeking some sort of pain relief. It is being done in a very conservative way.”

The Colorado experiment in legal marijuana is being watched around the country. That’s hardly surprising. The state, being the first in the country to legalize marijuana, is setting the standard for the management and control of this social experiment.

It’s not an easy task, and it will take time and many false starts and failures to create a smooth, reliable system with which to administer and manage the legal sale and use of marijuana.

One can argue that it was a bad decision, but the fact is voters of Colorado said marijuana use will be legal in this state.

When aging Grateful Dead members and their fans broke into song at Verizon Center late last year, a cloud of marijuana smoke rose from the audience. Under D.C. law, the collective exhale constituted more than enough for Mayor Muriel E. Bowser to swoop in and shut down the city’s marquee sports arena — not just for the night, but permanently.

OK, that's one order of cannabis. Would you like fries with that?

Oregon's adventure into the world of legal retail marijuana is apparently about to get a quintessentially American convenience – a pot store with a drive-thru.

The Curry Coastal Pilot reported Saturday that Green Life Oregon in the coastal town of Gold Beach will soon open a dispensary with a drive-up window across the street from the hospital.

Cannabis, rather than Arby's, would pass hands at a marijuana drive-thru planned for Gold Beach. (The Oregonian)Joseph Rose | The Oregonian/OregonLive 

COLLINSVILLE - Friday afternoon marked a new beginning for Mike Guess of Belleville.

Guess, 32, an Air Force veteran, had guided his red Honda Civic into the parking lot of HCI Alternatives, the metro-east’s only medical cannabis dispensary that has opened so far. The married father of two checked his wallet to make sure he had the $200 in cash he had saved up, then walked as steadily as he could on pain-wracked legs to the dispensary’s front door.

HCI had opened for business on Monday, and four days later Guess had shown up to see if some of the strains of medical cannabis that HCI sells could help him. For nearly a decade, persistent migraine headaches and nerve pain from fibromyalgia and damaged spinal discs had plagued him day and night.

For the second time in five months, Republican Gov. Bruce Rauner signaled his distaste for broadening the state’s new medical marijuana program, declining to add chronic pain and seven other health conditions to the list of diseases that can be treated with the drug.

The Department of Public Health announced the decision, spurning recommendations of an expert advisory board largely appointed by the governor’s predecessor, Democrat Pat Quinn.

The expert panel reviewed medical evidence and listened to patient testimony before recommending the eight conditions, including post-traumatic stress disorder, which affects many military veterans. Other conditions recommended but rejected Friday were autism, irritable bowel syndrome, osteoarthritis and four pain syndromes.

In a few months, the state Department of Health will select the state’s first licensees for medical marijuana dispensaries. The application process closed just Friday.

On Saturday, hundreds of people stopped by the Blaisdell Exhibition Hall for this year’s Hawaii Cannabis Expo being held over the weekend.

Some attendees told KHON2 they wanted to learn how they can get medical marijuana cards, and be more educated on cannabis overall.

“I was actually looking for a doctor to get a card,” said Jeanette Mahi of Kapolei. “I’m just kind of looking around. I get migraines and marijuana helps me.”

Puerto Rico is now among the many states in the Latin America which have adopted the use of marijuana in medicine.

According to Puerto Rico's Public Affairs Secretary Jesus Manuel Ortiz, as per Fox News Latino, the whole system is slated to be implemented by the end of this year. The country's health department announced Thursday that it will be implementing a "seed-to-sale inventory tracking system."

This Spring, the Department of Pharmacology at the University of Vermont’s College of Medicine will be launching what is believed to be a first: A college-level course dedicated entirely to medical cannabis.

Despite the drug being illegal to possess and/or distribute, and being notoriously difficult to research due to strict Federal scheduling, two of the University’s professors are determined to make medical cannabis a part of the curriculum. Karen Lounsbury, PhD, and Wolfgang Dustmann, PhD, hope to strip away the stigma surrounding cannabis in order to teach students the facts, without the fear.

WEST PALM BEACH (CBS12) —

Will Florida join the list of states that have legalized medical marijuana?

It's very possible considering this week's announcement that medical marijuana will be on the November ballot in Florida.

For some medical marijuana would be a blessing.

Others see it as a disaster.

Ava Pence of Palm Beach Gardens got the birthday wish she wanted this week--medical marijuana on the November ballot. She learned on her birthday that enough signatures were obtained to place it on the ballot and voters will get to decide.