The provincial government has forced municipalities to regulate, but not prohibit, medical marijuana growing on farmland.

Corn, hay, cranberries, sure, but prime farmland in the Agricultural Land Reserve (ALR) in the Fraser Valley is no place to grow marijuana.

That was the position of Chilliwack city council two years ago with regard to medical marijuana grow operations (MMGOs), but now the provincial government has ordered the city to allow exactly that.

"It's unfortunate and disheartening that the province is forcing us into compliance," Coun. Chris Kloot said at Tuesday's council meeting.

Another name was added to the list of Republican presidential candidates against legal marijuana after Ohio Governor John Kasich called it a terrible idea. Governor Kasich joined a group of unlikely candidates who are desperately trying to stay in the running.

These remarks come only a few weeks after Republican voters in Iowa and New Hampshire overwhelmingly supported the belief that states should be able to carry out their own marijuana laws without federal interference. More than 60% of GOP voters in Iowa and New Hampshire said that states should be able to set their own marijuana laws.

The survey was conducted by Public Policy Polling after GOP candidates, Chris Christie and Marco Rubio stepped up their anti-marijuana rhetoric in recent weeks.

Vermont Speaker of the House Shap Smith has announced that he’s in favor of moving forward legislation to legalize recreational cannabis.

“It’s clear to me in my discussions with Vermonters that in general, the people in this state probably favor legalization,” Smith said on VPR’s Vermont Edition. “And I certainly believe that we can legalize marijuana if we do it right … we’ve seen what has happened in Colorado and Washington, and we can learn from their experiences.”

It was 20 years ago that Trevor Holness was arrested for marijuana possession in Vancouver. He had just turned 18 and was out with friends at the annual fireworks celebration on English Bay, Holness recounted in a telephone interview.

Today he lives in Burnaby as a family man with a career and a mortgage. But Holness conceded that back then, he was “a bit of a delinquent”.

“I was pulled aside during an altercation between my friends and some other friends,” he said of that night. “And I was arrested.”

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. -- A new constitutional amendment guaranteeing the right to farm doesn't protect a woman who reportedly grew marijuana in her home, a Missouri judge ruled this week.

Cole County Circuit Judge Dan Green ruled against a woman Tuesday whose public defender tried to argue that cultivating marijuana falls under the farming-rights amendment, the Jefferson City News Tribune reported.

Public defender Justin Carver argued that Green should set aside a grand jury indictment against Lisa A. Loesch. She was charged in 2012 after Jefferson City police arrested her for allegedly growing pot in her basement.

Thumbs too green

On Aug. 25 county commissioners passed a resolution temporarily limiting households to 12 marijuana plants to prevent larger grow operations in unincorporated El Paso County. It's a bigger problem than folks just possessing too much weed.

"[Illegal growers] are coming and destroying [rental] houses," says Commissioner Peggy Littleton. "[They're] putting in ventilation, lighting, stripping things, adding extra outlets everywhere — basically destroying a rental home to set it up as an illegal grow operation. ... I think it's an abuse of what the law was supposed to be."

I’m excited that Rhode Island, my recently adopted home state, might become the first on the East Coast to legalize a commercial marijuana market. And not just for the obvious reasons, such as changing a war on drugs that disproportionately targets people of color or the option of purchasing and smoking marijuana without fear of jail time.

Far from sight, floating like some foul human excrement in the midst of our virgin blue ocean, a nightmarish conglomeration of plastic crap is growing at an exponential rate; water bottles, fast food toys, ice chests, used prophylactics, grocery store bags, disposable diapers and the occasional random appliance, offer a testament to human ignorance.

Eco-friendly Industrial Hemp and The Great Garbage Patch

Reefer Madness is alive and well among the anti-marijuana movement.

A slew of anti-marijuana arguments just went up in smoke, according to one group of researchers.

Researchers from the International Centre for Science in Drug Policy (ICSDP) studied some of the more common anti-marijuana arguments and discovered that most of them are scientifically unfounded. The researchers worked to shed some light on the subject to stop the misguided information from negatively influencing public opinion, and in turn national policy.

The Health Committee is evaluating a bill to regulate medicinal marijuana in the African country. The bill was devised by a representative who passed away, but his party has carried on with efforts to pass the regulation.

South Africa could be the next country to regulate medical cannabis. The nation’s Parliament is debating a bill on medical innovation that seeks to legalise marijuana with medical, commercial and industrial aims.