JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. (AP) - Missouri would regulate and license the growing of industrial hemp as a raw material for manufacturing under a measure supporters say is an economic development measure.

The Missouri House gave initial approval Tuesday to a bill that would legalize the cultivation of hemp, which contains very low levels of the psychoactive chemical tetrahydrocannabinol in marijuana.

Republican Rep. Paul Curtman, of Pacific, says many products are made with hemp that must be imported from foreign countries.

He says there's no danger that the measure would allow easier access to marijuana.

The inception of the recreational marijuana market has caused medical sales to decrease significantly in the state of Colorado, according to a new report published by GreenWave Advisors.

Police chiefs across the state are preparing for the launch of Minnesota's medical marijuana program this summer.

Minnesota passed one of the country's most restrictive medical marijuana laws last year. It prohibits personally growing marijuana or smoking marijuana and can be prescribed for less than a dozen conditions.

Kevin Sabet, a former senior adviser at the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy and head of the Drug Policy Institute at the University of Florida, is speaking at a gathering of police chiefs in St. Cloud this week. Sabet said he's so far been impressed with the narrowness of Minnesota's medical marijuana program.

Understand that Las Vegas is not the town it claims to be.

If you’re an adult in Las Vegas, you can do almost anything. On the strip, you can smoke, drink, and gamble. Drive an hour in one direction, and you can fire heavy weapons, legally. Drive an hour in another direction, and you can pay for sex, legally. But if what helps you relax is a prescribed dose of medicinal marijuana, you’re out of luck.

Kevin Sabet speaks Tuesday during a keynote address on marijuana legalization at the annual Police Chiefs’ Conference in St. Cloud.(Photo: Dave Schwarz, dschwarz@stcloudtimes.com)Buy Photo

Police chiefs from around Minnesota heard a case against the legalization of marijuana Tuesday from a former White House drug policy adviser.

As the summer opening of the state's medical marijuana program approaches, Kevin Sabet, a former senior adviser at the Office of National Drug Control Policy, spoke at the annual Police Chiefs' Conference in St. Cloud about the dangers of making the drug's use legal.

In a federal research, commissioned by the government to prove that cannabis cannot be used as a medicine, accidentally result information leaked out , revealing that cannabis can kill cancer cells.

Another research, conducted at St. George`s  University of London, showed that tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) and cannabidiol (CBD), the two most common cannabinoids, can weaken the cancer cells and thus, make them more susceptible to radiation treatment, stated Mike Adams of Herbal Dispatch.

According to the study published last year in the medical journal Molecular Cancer Therapies, the previously mentioned cannabinoids, have dramatic killing effect on brain cancer cells when combined with radiation therapy.

Legislation extending Illinois' medical marijuana program beyond 2017 has passed the Illinois House despite some recent opposition from Gov. Bruce Rauner.

The bill is sponsored by Skokie Democratic Rep. Lou Lang. He sponsored the original legislation establishing the pilot program which is scheduled for automatic repeal on Jan. 1, 2018.

"Two or three long puffs usually suffice after a while to produce a light jag," TIME explained in 1943. "The smoker is then said to be 'high'"

As Americans celebrate 4/20, pot culture's answer to Octoberfest, I'm getting pelted with questions about the growing legalization movement. What's the new pot like? What are you telling your kids? Right. I get those questions. But mainly I hear this one: Why is legalization happening now? 

Until recently, I cited two factors. First, the emergence of the Internet offered widespread access to scientific studies and counter-narratives that debunked the government's Reefer Madness line. Second, medical marijuana served as a 20-year pilot project that calmed the fears of a worried nation. Dispensaries opened, weed was openly sold, and the pillars of civilization did not crumble. 

The Last Frontier took its place as one of the first on the cannabis-legalization frontier, becoming one of just four states and the District of Columbia that have legalized use and possession of the plant, when the state’s voters passed Ballot Measure 2 during the November 2014 elections.