Days after being evicted from his apartment—and then invited to return—for his legal possession and consumption of medical cannabis oil, John Flickner says his healthcare provider has suddenly dropped him from his Medicaid/Medicare program. Without access to doctors and transportation to healthcare facilities, the 78-year-old man who was just last week without a home is wondering what could possibly befall him next.

"We're spending a lot of money right now on the black market and none of it is going back into the community," says Mary Kruger, president of Rochester NORML, a group that has been working to get recreational marijuana approved. "It's been behind a curtain or not really talked about for so long."

But now, recreational marijuana is front and center.  

Governor Andrew Cuomo backs it and leaders in both the state Assembly and Senate are on board so at this point, it seems like all that's left to do is take a formal vote in the state Legislature.  

The lawmakers working on writing the legislation that will be used as a framework for the program tell News10NBC they'd like to just "copy and paste" what the state of Nevada has done.

Many people have criticized the federal government for its archaic policies towards marijuana, and now those critics include an official from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development(HUD), writes Joseph Misulonas. 

A 78-year-old man who relies on medical marijuana for back pain finds himself homeless after being evicted from federally subsidized housing in a case complicated by conflicting state and federal marijuana rules.

John Flickner was staying at a Niagara Falls shelter Thursday, after an hourslong eviction ordeal Tuesday that ended with him steering his electric wheelchair in freezing temperatures to a center about a half mile away.

“Cold, wet, windy,” Flickner recalled of the trip, which was photographed by The Buffalo News.

To fund costly repairs to the rapidly crumbling subway system, some New York state and city leaders are talking about legalizing recreational marijuana to collect sales tax that would be dedicated to the transit agency, The New York Times reported Wednesday.

The leaders are looking at the issue following the legalization efforts just across the river in New Jersey and more north in Massachusetts.

A hearing to discuss the legalization of marijuana in New York will be held on Monday morning at 10:30 a.m. at Babylon Town Hall in Long Island.

Members of the New York State Assembly plan to attend to discuss legalizing recreational use of the drug and gather input on how other states went about the process that is expected to be a challenge in regards to regulations and tax rules.

New York’s county governments are insisting on having a say on any legislation that would end the state prohibition on the use and sale of marijuana and regulate retail sales of a substance now banned by federal statute.

“We’re going to be involved in this policy but by no means are we supporting it,” said Stephen Acquario, executive director of the state Association of Counties, told CNHI. “We would strongly support local governments having a say in their communities, but it would have to be a regional level, a county level.”

Syracuse building contractor Dino Dixie and ex-police chief Dennis DuVal paid no money to own shares in a startup medical marijuana business that eventually sold for millions of dollars, a former partner said.

The two men each received a slice of the business "chiefly due to their political connections,'' the partner said in a 2016 lawsuit.

The other founders of the company - a plumber, a shoe store owner and a security contractor, each of whom ponied up at least $100,000 - wagered that political connections could help them win a lucrative state license to sell medical weed, according to court records.

Taxpayers could soon be on the hook to help low-income New Yorkers score medical marijuana, thanks to a bill that would force public health-insurance plans to cover it.

Patients in the state currently have to pay out of pocket for their prescription pot.

But state Sen. Diane Savino (D-SI/Brooklyn) and Assemblyman Richard Gottfried (D-Manhattan) and pushing a doobie-ous scheme that would require government health-insurance programs such as Medicaid, Child Health Plus, the Essential Plan, Elderly Pharmaceutical Coverage and workers’ compensation to cover weed as they would any other prescription.

“It’s unfair not to cover marijuana when opioids, OxyContin and Ambien are covered,” Savino told The Post. “We have to push the envelope.”