By Randall Chase, The Associated Press

DOVER, Del. — The state Senate has approved a revised bill expanding the permissible uses for medical marijuana in Delaware, two days after the original measure failed to win passage amid unaddressed concerns of the medical industry.

Senators on Thursday approved a motion to rescind Tuesday’s roll call, then passed the revised bill unanimously.

The revised bill strikes a provision that added debilitating anxiety to the list of conditions and illnesses for which medical marijuana can be prescribed. The anxiety definition includes generalized anxiety disorder, panic disorder, obsessive-compulsive disorder and social anxiety.

Instead, the amended legislation only removes a requirement that a psychiatrist sign an application for someone seeking to use medical marijuana to treat post-traumatic stress disorder. Instead, any physician would be allowed to verify the application.

By Rob Gillies, The Associated Press

TORONTO — The most controversial thing about Canada’s move to legalize marijuana nationwide may be setting the minimum age for use at 18 — three years lower than in U.S. states that have embraced legalization — a move that is being closely watched across the continent.

Advocates for the measure, expected to pass Parliament next year, say putting the limit at 21 would encourage a black market and drive youths into the hands of criminals.

“Taking this business away from them I think is an obligation,” said former Toronto Police Chief Bill Blair, parliamentary secretary to Canada’s justice minister and the man in charge of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s plan to legalize.

The task force that drafted the measure reported that experts said “that setting the minimum age too high risked preserving the illicit market, particularly since the highest rates of use are in the 18 to 24 age range.”

But health experts are worried that the provision will encourage use of a substance that can have long-term consequences on still-maturing brains.

“Our recommendation is still to postpone as old as possible, ideally after 25,” said Dr. Granger Avery, president of Canadian Medical Association, which proposed setting the age at 21 only after it became clear that the government wanted it at 18.

Legalization will inevitably lead more young people to smoke marijuana in the mistaken belief that it isn’t harmful, said Christina Grant, a professor of pediatrics at McMaster University in Ontario. “One in seven youths who have used cannabis will develop an addiction to cannabis and that impacts your life, schooling, job prospects, social and emotional relationships,” she said.

The legislation introduced last month would make Canada the second country to have nationwide legalization, after Uruguay, which also set the minimum age at 18. While eight U.S. states and Washington D.C. have legalized marijuana, users there must be at least 21.

Colorado State Rep. Jonathan Singer, whose state became the first to legalize recreational marijuana in 2012, said it too should lower the age to 18 in order to stamp out the lingering black market.

“If you are old enough to go to war then you should be old enough to be trusted to use a recreational substance,” Singer said.

U.S. teens have long crossed the border into the province of Quebec, where the drinking age is 18, and some say a lower recreational marijuana age allowance in Canada could mean an influx of pot tourism among young Americans.

Canadian youth already have higher rates of cannabis use than their peers worldwide, with 21 percent of those aged 15-19 reporting they consumed cannabis and 30 percent of those aged 20-24, according to government figures.

The Canadian legislation would give each of the 10 provinces power to set the minimum age, with at least Quebec, Alberta and Manitoba likely to choose the younger option of 18 to match the drinking age. The drinking age is 19 in the other provinces. Anyone caught selling or providing pot to someone under the age of 18 could face up to 14 years in prison.

Federal Health Minister Jane Philpott has said “no product is without risk” and noted tobacco and alcohol are legal although both pose serious health risks.

“Just because a product is legal it does not mean it is advisable or recommended to use that product,” Philpott said.

David Hammond, a professor in the School of Public Health and Health Systems at University of Waterloo, said the government will have to do more to educate young people on the health risks. Anyone arguing for pot age restrictions until 25 should be doing the same for alcohol and tobacco, he said.

“It will be hard to argue that legalizing won’t normalize it to some extent,” he said. “You are loosening the restrictions.”

Associated Press writer Wilson Ring contributed to this report.

By Sari Horwitz, The Washington Post

WASHINGTON – Attorney General Jeff Sessions’ former colleagues in the Senate are pushing back on his order to federal prosecutors to pursue the most severe penalties possible for defendants, including mandatory minimum sentences, and introducing legislation to give federal judges more discretion to impose lower sentences.

Republican Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., who co-sponsored the legislation, said that Sessions’ new policy will “accentuate” the existing “injustice” in the criminal justice system.

“Mandatory minimum sentences disproportionately affect minorities and low-income communities, while doing little to keep us safe and turning mistakes into tragedies,” said Paul. “As this legislation demonstrates, Congress can come together in a bipartisan fashion to change these laws.”

Last week, in a two-page memo to federal prosecutors across the country, Sessions overturned former attorney general Eric Holder’s sweeping criminal charging policy that instructed his prosecutors to avoid charging certain defendants with offenses that would trigger long mandatory minimum sentences. In its place, Sessions told his more than 5,000 assistant U.S. attorneys to charge defendants with the most serious crimes, carrying the toughest penalties.

After Sessions released his new policy, it drew bipartisan criticism that the policy would mark a return to mass incarceration, especially of minorities. It was embraced, however, by the National Association of Assistant United States Attorneys, whose president said it would restore more tools to do their jobs.

“An outgrowth of the failed War on Drugs, mandatory sentencing strips critical public safety resources away from law enforcement strategies that actually make our communities safer,” said Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt.

Leahy and Paul introduced the Justice Safety Valve Act with Sen. Jeff Merkley, D-Ore. Rep. Thomas Massie, R-Ky., and Rep. Bobby Scott, D-Va., are introducing a companion bill in the House. The legislation would allow federal judges to tailor sentences on a case-by-case basis. It would also reduce correctional spending, which currently accounts for nearly a third of Justice Department’s budget.

“Attorney General Sessions’ directive to all federal prosecutors to charge the most serious offenses, including [those that trigger] mandatory minimums, ignores the fact that mandatory minimum sentences have been studied extensively and have been found to distort rational sentencing systems, discriminate against minorities, waste money and often require a judge to impose sentences that violate common sense,” Scott said.

During President Barack Obama’s second term, similar sentencing reform legislation was introduced by a bipartisan group of lawmakers.

The legislation, which had 37 sponsors in the Senate, including Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, and Mike Lee, R-Utah, and 79 members of the House, would have reduced some of the long mandatory minimum sentences for gun and drug crimes. It also would have given judges more flexibility in drug sentencing and made retroactive the law that reduced the large disparity between sentencing for crack cocaine and powder cocaine.

The bill, introduced in 2015, had support from outside groups as diverse as the conservative Koch brothers, the NAACP and House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis. But Sessions, then the longtime Republican senator from Alabama, became a leading opponent of the bill and successfully worked with other senators to derail it.

As he has done as attorney general, Sessions said then it was the wrong time to cut prison sentences for drug traffickers and other criminals and cited the spike in crime in several cities and his belief that an era of near historically low crime rates might be coming to an end.

In a conference call with reporters, Paul acknowledged that lawmakers will have an “uphill battle” getting support from the White House for the sentencing reform bill.