Experts in Several Fields Are Getting Ready Years Ahead of Medical-Marijuana Sales.

Medical marijuana won't be available in Pennsylvania for at least two years, yet politicians, academics, and entrepreneurs are already scrambling to brand themselves as industry leaders and experts.

The state's medical-marijuana law eventually will make pharmaceutical cannabis products available to residents who suffer from serious medical conditions. Eligible ailments include autism, cancer, epilepsy, and chronic pain.

The details of the law still need to be hammered out. The stakes are high. The specifics, which remain unwritten, may determine how Pennsylvania's medical marijuana is grown, processed, and distributed and who will win the coveted licenses to do so.

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Can the legalization of one drug help decrease abuse of another drug? It's possible that medical marijuana could be used to fight the epidemic of opioid addiction that has resulted in numerous deaths from overdoses in Pennsylvania and throughout the United States.

According to statistics from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) from 2014, 46 people die every day in the United States from an overdose of prescription opioid or narcotic painkillers, such as Vicodin (hydrocodone-acetaminophen), OxyContin (oxycodone), Opana (oxymorphone), and methadone. The CDC found that in 2012, health care providers wrote 259 million prescriptions for painkillers, which is enough for every American adult to have a bottle of pills.

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Role As Medicine Remains Controversial

Medical marijuana has been legalized in Pennsylvania, as well as 23 other states and the District of Columbia, but there are still many questions about how exactly the drug can be used as medicine.

Pennsylvania's Medical Marijuana Act (MMA), or Senate Bill 3, lists 17 "serious medical conditions" that qualify for treatment with medical marijuana. These conditions include cancer, HIV/AIDS, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), Parkinson's disease, multiple sclerosis (MS), epilepsy, inflammatory bowel disease, neuropathies, Huntington's disease, Crohn's disease, post-traumatic stress disorder, intractable seizures, glaucoma, sickle cell anemia and autism.

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ANITA GUPTA first suspected that the Philadelphia heroin trade could be taking a deadlier turn months ago, when she saw overdose patients at Hahnemann University Hospital who didn't respond as they should have to the antidote drug emergency workers gave them.

"The symptoms were worse than we were used to seeing," said Gupta, an anesthesiologist, pharmacist and pain specialist at Drexel University College of Medicine. "We were getting patients with symptoms of near-death, and often required multiple doses of the antidote naloxone."

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Medical marijuana has been legalized in Pennsylvania, as well as 23 other states and the District of Columbia, but there are still many questions about how exactly the drug can be used as medicine.

Pennsylvania's Medical Marijuana Act (MMA), or Senate Bill 3, lists 17 "serious medical conditions" that qualify for treatment with medical marijuana. These conditions include cancer, HIV/AIDS, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), Parkinson's disease, multiple sclerosis (MS), epilepsy, inflammatory bowel disease, neuropathies, Huntington's disease, Crohn's disease, posttraumatic stress disorder, intractable seizures, glaucoma, sickle cell anemia and autism.

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Can the legalization of one drug help decrease abuse of another drug? It's possible that medical marijuana could be used to fight the epidemic of opioid addiction that has resulted in numerous deaths from overdoses in Pennsylvania and throughout the United States.

According to statistics from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) from 2014, 46 people die every day in the United States from an overdose of prescription opioid or narcotic painkillers, such as Vicodin (hydrocodone-acetaminophen), OxyContin (oxycodone), Opana (oxymorphone), and methadone. The CDC found that in 2012, health care providers wrote 259 million prescriptions for painkillers, which is enough for every American adult to have a bottle of pills.

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Legalization Has Patients and Businesses Seeing Green

Pennsylvania joined the growing list of states to legalize medical marijuana when Gov. Tom Wolf signed Senate Bill 3, the Medical Marijuana Act, into law on April 17. To date, 23 other states and Washington D.C. have legalized either medical marijuana, recreational marijuana or both.

It's been about a month since the passage of the MMA, as the law is known, but it will be a while before marijuana growers and dispensaries are up and running.

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To the Times: "Today is a beautiful day in Darby."

I read these words from Mayor Helen Thomas and it brought back memories of all my favorite Darby traditions; the Memorial Day parade rich with culture, music, and a collective sense of Darby pride, the BVM carnival where I overstuffed myself on funnel cake and "wooder" ice, and the annual Community Day at the old Darby Police station in which I received my first license to ride a bike!

That is truly what a beautiful day in Darby means to me, but these memories came flooding back amongst a statement that was made on a very tragic day. A statement that brutally confirms that Darby has seen its best days. I write this in frustration and through tears because I am a young woman who was born and raised in Darby to two wonderful parents who were also born and raised here as well. The faces in those mug shots staring back at me are my family, my friends, my first crush, and my last connection to a small town I left many years ago in search of better opportunities.

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UPPER DARBY - The life of Bernadette Scarduzio wasn't always a struggle. As a young girl she was active, played sports, enjoyed freedoms that most neglect as liberating experiences - the ability to walk without support, the dexterity to open a can of soda, the strength to climb a set of stairs.

At only 36 years old, due to a rare neurological disorder, she relies on a motorized chair for mobility and requires caretakers day and night to assist with otherwise uncomplicated tasks. Strenuous physical therapy multiple times a week is simply to stave off the rapid effects of muscle degeneration.

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When the 1849 Gold Rush hit, it wasn't the miners who got rich. The businessmen who sold blue jeans and pickaxes amassed the real fortunes.

When Gov. Wolf signed a medical marijuana bill into law on April 17, Pennsylvania became the 24th state to legalize medical cannabis.

In Old City on Saturday, about 450 entrepreneurs and venture capitalists gathered at the Chemical Heritage Foundation for what was billed as the "Innovation in the Cannabis Industry" conference.

There were heady predictions - euphoric estimates of how large the marijuana industry could grow and the many opportunities for profits it might bring. "This eclipses the birth of the internet," said panelist Leslie Bocskor, an investment banker. "This is the greatest entrepreneurial opportunity we've seen in generations."

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Editor: Medical marijuana has now been legalized in 24 states, with about 51 percent of the U.S. population. Its use it well-known for treating patients suffering from a range of serious conditions, including cancer, multiple sclerosis, epilepsy and other disorders.

In light of the effectiveness of medical marijuana, I urge our representatives in Washington, including U.S. Rep. Matt Cartwright and Sens. Pat Toomey and Bob Casey, to take the initiative and sponsor a bill that would remove marijuana from its present classification as a Schedule I substance that has no medical use. That classification is outdated and clearly false.

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Well. finally. State lawmakers have passed and Gov. Tom Wolf said he will sign legislation allowing usage of medical marijuana in Pennsylvania.

That only took . what, 20 years?

California became the first state to allow medical marijuana way back in 1996.

Sen Daylin Leach, D-Delaware County, has introduced medical marijuana legislation every session since 2009.

Sen. Mike Folmer, R-parts of northeastern York County, has pushed for this compassionate treatment - on behalf of his "Momma Bears," parents of kids suffering from epilepsy and other ailments - for many years.

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UPPER MERION - Gov. Tom Wolf, state Sen. Daylin Leach, D-17th Dist., and state Rep. Tim Briggs, D149th Dist., joined about a dozen advocates of the medical marijuana bill recently signed into law during a news conference in King of Prussia Tuesday to tout the new legislation and promise its swift implementation.

The law, which passed with bipartisan support, will allow marijuana to be used for medicinal purposes in pill form and in oils that can be vaporized. The bill's signing makes Pennsylvania the 24th state to sanction a medical marijuana program.

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"This is what government is supposed to look like."

Just let that notion sink in for awhile.

We've gotten accustomed to the opposite when it comes to politics.

It doesn't matter if it's Washington, D.C., or Harrisburg. Somewhere along the line, we lost sight of the purpose of government serving the public. Instead what we all too often have amounts to little more than political bloodsport. It's as if Vince Lombardi had hijacked the nation's political agenda. "Winning is not everything, it's the only thing."

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While medical marijuana has been passed in Pennsylvania after lengthy deliberation it may be too early for celebration based on the opinions of some of the advocates close to the passage of the bill.

"This is a great step forward, but there's still a ways to go," said Karen Diller, of Chambersburg, who became an advocate for medical marijuana after her daughter Karly found significant relief in a medical marijuana study.

Senate Bill No. 3, the medical marijuana bill that was signed into law Sunday by Democratic Gov. Tom Wolf, will allow people to seek medical marijuana for diseases that range from severe gastrointestinal problems to some of the diseases more traditionally treated with medical marijuana such as cancer or HIV/AIDS.

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(AP) - Pennsylvania has become the 24th state to legalize a comprehensive medical marijuana program.

Gov. Tom Wolf (D) signed the bill into law Sunday afternoon surrounded by a jubilant crowd of supporters at the Capitol building in Harrisburg.

"Marijuana is medicine, and it's coming to Pennsylvania," said state Sen. Daylin Leach (D), the bill's co-sponsor.

The bill's drafters said it could take two years to write regulations and open retail outlets, but a provision allows parents to legally administer medical marijuana to their children before the legislation takes effect in a month.

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Local Cannabis Activists Say They Have More Work to Do.

A state law signed by the governor Sunday allowing the plant to be used to treat 17 medical conditions is a great start, those at the NEPA Cannabis Rally said, adding that they hope to see all its uses legalized.

It was coincidence that Gov. Tom Wolf signed the law, which opens up cannabis plants for research and treatment of symptoms of multiple sclerosis, epilepsy and post-traumatic stress disorder, on the same day Jeff Zick and his team held an annual rally in Scranton's Nay Aug Park.

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Official: 2 Years to Implement Law

HARRISBURG - Pennsylvania now needs to create a new state-regulated industry over the next two years with the governor's signing Sunday of a law legalizing use of medical marijuana for patients and academic research.

This landmark law envisions a role for hospitals, universities and academic medical centers researching the best use of medical marijuana to treat diseases. The state Department of Health under the helm of Secretary Karen Murphy, R.N., Ph.D., a Scranton native, takes the lead role in regulating medical marijuana.

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HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) - Pennsylvania has become the 24th state to legalize a comprehensive medical marijuana program.

Governor Tom Wolf, a Democrat, signed the bill into law Sunday, surrounded by a jubilant crowd of supporters at the Capitol in Harrisburg.

"Marijuana is medicine and it's coming to Pennsylvania," said the bill's cosponsor, Senator Daylin Leach, a Democrat.

The bill's drafters say it could take two years to write regulations and get retailers opened, but a provision allows parents to legally administer medical marijuana to their children before the bill takes effect in a month.

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Medical marijuana might seem like a cottage industry, but with Pennsylvania the nation's sixth-largest potential market, it's more likely to be big business.

Think guys in suits, or maybe lab coats, not dreadlocks and striped baja hoodies.

"I've heard estimates that the investment has to be $5 million to $10 million to be a grower-processor," said Dan Clearfield, a Harrisburg attorney who specializes in regulated substances. "This is not a small-business operation."

It won't happen overnight, either. It could be anywhere from 18 months to two years before Pennsylvania residents seeking to treat their medical conditions with cannabis will be able to walk into a dispensary and slap a prescription on the counter.

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