Thirty-four states, the District of Columbia, and Puerto Rico have legalized medical cannabis. While no two state medical cannabis programs are alike, public health concerns related to advertising, packaging and labeling, pesticide use, scientific research, and the role of medical cannabis in the opioid crisis are emerging across the country. This article examines these issues, the policy approaches states are adopting to protect patients and the public, and an assessment of the underlying federal legal landscape.

Since its inception in 2010, the Network for Public Health Law (Network) has aligned with federal, state, tribal, and local public health practitioners to assess how law can promote and protect the public’s health. In 2013, Network authors illustrated major trends in public health laws and policies emanating from an internal assessment of thousands of requests for technical assistance nationally. More recently, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF) has invited the Network and other partners to consider new ideas and strategies toward building a “culture of health.” Per Figure 1, RWJF’s conception of a culture of health emphasizes key action areas essential to the promotion of health across all sectors and diverse populations.

All four major southern pines can be killed by the southern pine beetle, but loblolly and shortleaf are much more susceptible than longleaf and slash. Oleoresin from more than 50 trees of each species was tested for composition and amount of monoterpenes and resin acids, viscosity, flow (rate, duration, and amount), and rate of crystallization. Discriminant function analyses were used to classify the loblolly and shortleaf trees as to probable resistance. The best classification used physical properties (total flow, flow rate, viscosity, time to crystallization). Supposedly resistant and susceptible trees were subjected to controlled attack, and the chemical and physical properties of four loblolly pines that survived natural attack were measured. Resistance is strongly related to the physical properties of the oleoresin, and can be predicted by these properties. Loblolly and shortleaf trees with “average” properties usually succumb to 100 or more attacks per sq. m of bark surface. Several trees classified as resistant survived a much higher rate of attack.

We present a new method for finding associations of young stars in M31 using broadband WFPC2 data from the HST data archive. Applying our identification method to 13 WFPC2 fields, covering an area of ∼60 arcmin2, has revealed 80 new candidate young star clusters in these portions of the M31 disk. Most of these clusters are small (≳5 pc) young (∼10–200 Myr) star groups located within large OB associations. We have estimated the reddening values and the ages of each candidate individually by fitting isochrones to the stellar photometry. We provide a catalogue of the candidates including rough approximations of their reddenings and ages.

We present a photometric study of the stars in ionizing star clusters embedded in several giant H II regions of M33 (CC93, IC 142, NGC 595, MA2, NGC 604 and NGC 588). Our photometry is based on the HST-WFPC2 images of these clusters. Color-magnitude diagrams and color-color diagrams of these clusters are obtained and are used for estimating the reddenings and ages of the clusters. The luminosity functions (LFs) and initial mass functions (IMFs) of the massive stars in these clusters are also derived. The slopes of the IMFs range from Γ = −0.5 to −2.1. Interestingly, it is found that the IMFs get steeper with increasing galactocentric distance and with decreasing [O/H] abundance.

Extragalactic HII regions and their ionizing star clusters are the most prominent signposts of recent starbirth activity in galaxies. In this paper, we present optical measurements of nearby extragalactic HII regions with the aim of investigating possible relationships between the newborn ionizing clusters and their dynamical environment. Evidence for variations in the measured HII region properties (size, Hα luminosity, and Hα equivalent width) are presented as a function of galaxy type and of position within individual galaxies. These variations, in turn, are compared with the corresponding kinematic and dynamical variations. The apparent sensitivity of the ionizing activity to the dynamical environment suggests that the total masses and upper stellar mass limits of the ionizing clusters are somehow constrained by the ambient tidal stresses and shear flows within the galaxies. We speculate that regions of high tidal stress and kinematic shearing tend to suppress the formation and maintenance of giant molecular clouds, thereby hindering the creation of giant clusters and massive stars therein.