Adult-use cannabis could become legal next year if green lit by Maryland voters.

A Maryland middle school has become the latest educational facility to discover cannabis edibles among its student body over recent months.

This week, the Charles County Sheriff’s Office (CCSO) reported a school administrator at Benjamin Stoddert Middle School notified a school resource officer (SRO) that a student had been found with suspected marijuana edibles. The SRO then notified a parent.

“Parents are asked to talk with their children about the dangers of ingesting foods or liquids that contain dangerous substances, as there is a risk the substance could be life-threatening and contain poisons such as fentanyl or other toxic materials,” notes the CCSO statement.

Maryland's medical marijuana commission can continue to issue licenses for companies to grow the drug.

Maryland's highest court denied a motion Friday to continue a temporary restraining order that blocked the commission from issuing licenses for about a week, due to a lawsuit against the commission. The court also agreed to hear arguments from finalists to be licensed who contend they should have been allowed to intervene in the lawsuit. The Court of Appeals set a July 27 hearing date.

In West Virginia, a new law includes a provision that requires regulators to encourage minority-owned business owners to apply for growing licenses. (Photo by Heath Korvola/ Digital Vision/Getty Images)

In some states that have legalized marijuana, officials are trying to entice nonwhite citizens to join the cannabis industry with breaks aimed at making up for the toll unequal drug enforcement has taken on Black and brown communities.

So far, the booming industry has overwhelmingly line the pockets of white cannabis sellers.

Andre Shavers was sentenced to five years on felony probation after authorities burst into the house where he was living in one of Oakland's most heavily policed neighborhoods and found a quarter ounce of marijuana.

After the 2007 raid, Shavers couldn't leave the state without permission. He was subject to police searches at any time. He walked to the corner store one night for maple syrup and came back in a police car. Officers wanted to search his home again.

All the while, cannabis storefronts flourished elsewhere in a state where medical marijuana was authorized in 1996.

Maryland signed off on its medical marijuana program four years ago, and it has yet to deliver its first dose, but there is evidence that public acceptance of the drug has already had an impact on the state.

In July of 2012, police discovered dozens of marijuana plants in Nick Dominick's backyard, and he admitted he'd grown them so he could self-medicate.

"Back pain issues... I had surgery on my neck for cervical fusion and I can't take medications and pain pills and stuff like that," said Dominick at the time.

But Anne Arundel County police saw it differently---a virtual field of marijuana, concealed by a six foot high fence with lattice and black plastic sheeting all located within a thousand feet of Arundel High School.

The commission that oversees Maryland’s fledgling medical cannabis program voted Wednesday to award the state’s first full license to grow marijuana for medicinal purposes.

The Stage 2 license, awarded to ForwardGro LLC, is a final sign-off from regulators for putting plants in the ground. The company will still have to wait for dispensaries to be fully inspected and licensed before it can sell cannabis products to approved patients, which it hopes to do by late summer or early fall.

Gail Rand, chief financial officer and patient advocate for ForwardGro, said “the patients of Maryland will finally have an opportunity to try this medicine that could help tens of thousands of people.”

The movement for racial equity in the medical cannabis trade appears to be going bipartisan—last week, Maryland’s Republican governor, Larry Hogan, ordered the state to conduct a study on whether racial disparities exist in the process for obtaining a state license for growing or selling medical marijuana.

Florida

There’s a lot going on in Tallahassee as Sunshine State legislators forge the regulatory framework for Florida’s medical marijuana program.

Senators appear poised to advance legislation (SB 406) to welcome five new cannabis dispensaries to Florida by October. At least one would be minority-owned. Friday’s measure also requires four additional dispensaries within “six months after each instance of the registration of 75,000 qualifying patients with the compassionate use registry.”

That 75,000 figure is dramatically less than the previous threshold of 250,000.

HempStaff, a medical marijuana staffing and training agency, is hosting two Medical Marijuana Dispensary Agent Training Classes in Maryland. There are two sessions to choose from at each location: 8:00am-12:00pm or 1:30pm-5:30pm.

The Baltimore event will be held on Saturday, March 25th at the Doubletree Baltimore Airport 890 Elkridge Landing Road,? Linthicum Heights, MD 21090.

The state is also considering new laws to increase racial diversity in its medical marijuana program.

The Maryland legislature is currently discussing a proposal to allow recreational marijuana use in the state. However, no one expects recreational use to actually be legalized this year, not even the sponsors of the legislation. But legalization advocates are hopeful that this year's debate will set them up for next year's legislative session, when a full-on effort is planned to either put marijuana legalization on the next voters' ballot, or to get the state General Assembly to legalize pot outright.