The oversize check presented to the state on Wednesday by backers of a plan to legalize marijuana in Arizona.

Ray Stern

Backers of a marijuana-legalization plan in Arizona are outraged over an unsigned editorial in the Arizona Republic published August 21 that used an inaccurate tax-revenue figure to bolster its claim that campaign officials were lying.

New Times also noticed the error on Friday morning and left the Republic's editorial page editor, Phil Boas, a message about it. The Republic later issued a correction.  

After waiting in line for hours at a booth during a medical marijuana convention in San Francisco, Jeff Harrington needed only a two-minute consultation and a written recommendation to become a medical marijuana patient in California. He now can legally purchase and possess marijuana from any one of thousands of marijuana businesses in the state.

Across the country in Connecticut, an established physician-patient relationship is required before patients are deemed qualified for medical marijuana, and only licensed pharmacists can own and operate dispensaries.

Between these two extremes, a News21 investigation has found there are as many ways to deal with medical marijuana as there are states that have legalized it.

Back in July, medical marijuana advocates United for Care shipped over 100,000 petitions to Florida Supervisors of Elections offices for Supreme Court review. Once the Supervisor of Elections verifies that petitions are valid, the Supreme Court can then schedule a review so that the initiative can start to make its way to the ballot.

And the push is on.

As of Thursday, United for Care says that over 43,259 have been validated, according to their website counter. The group needs an additional 639,890 validated to get on the ballot, and roughly 28,154 to trigger the Supreme Court Review. 

SEATTLE — It’s an alarming trend — more people involved in deadly crashes are testing positive for marijuana.

“We have seen marijuana involvement in fatal crashes remain steady over the years, and then it just spiked in 2014,” said Dr. Staci Hoff, director of the Washington Transportation Safety Commission’s Data and Research department.

“It’s unfortunate that marijuana is playing a bigger role in deadly crashes in Washington,” said Wilma Comenat of MADD, or Mothers Against Drunk Driving.

That’s why the organization, well known for their fight against drinking and driving, is now turning its attention to what they call drugging and driving.

“Your reflexes are slower … your reflexes are not 100%,” Comenat said.

ONLY one third of arrests for suspicion of possession of cannabis in St Helens led to criminal convictions last year, police figures have revealed.

A debate surrounding whether forces should take legal action for use of the drug surfaced in the national media earlier this summer following the announcement by Durham Constabulary that they were relaxing their drugs policy by no longer targeting people who have cannabis plants at home.

Some drug experts have claimed police have effectively turned a blind eye to cannabis use to focus their attentions elsewhere, with users more likely to receive a warning than face prosecution.

Dubbed the Minister for Hugs and Drugs, Aodhán Ó Ríordáin’s radical ideas regarding heroin and cocaine will not get a warm embrace from everyone.

The fact the Coalition did not appoint a minister with special responsibility for drugs policy for four years tells you all you need to know about how seriously they take the issue.

But Mr Ó Ríordáin, who also covers equality issues — the huggy part of his job — has certainly attempted to move fast to make up the lost time since being appointed to the role in May.

Far from trotting out the tired old cliches about a so-called war on drugs, Mr Ó Ríordáin has called for a new approach whereby Ireland would follow Portugal’s largely successful move to decriminalise all drugs from crack to weed.

Russia banned Wikipedia on Monday, following through on threats to block the world's biggest encyclopedia due to a page about cannabis that Russia censors deemed illegal.

Roskomnadzor, the Russian censors responsible for surveilling and policing the Internet, pulled the trigger on the ban after demanding Wikipedia remove the page for charas, a form of hashish cannabis. The authorities complained that the Wikipedia page gave explicit instructions on how to make the product.

July 22^nd 2015 marked the anniversary of the great Cologne cannabis judgement, but not a single cannabis plant has yet been grown. That’s a reason to look into matters.

The normalisation and legalisation of cannabis has certainly seen a lot of changes worldwide over the past 12 months, but what is happening in Germany? In Germany, grow shop offensives, driving bans as an alternative penalty for cannabis users and zero tolerance directives are hitting the headlines. It is anything but easy, even for cannabis patients in Germany. Medicinal hemp from pharmacies is expensive, and supply problems are a constant source of complaint.

On July 27, 2015, the Federal Court conditionally certified a class action with respect to an alleged privacy breach arising from the federal government’s administration of the Marihuana Medical Access Program (the Program). In Doe v Her Majesty the Queen, 2015 FC 916, the plaintiffs alleged that Health Canada publicly identified them as members of the Program by mailing oversized envelopes which had the return address of the “Marihuana Medical Access Program” visible on the outside. The certified class could include the approximately 40,000 people who received these envelopes between November 12 and 15, 2013.

The prohibitionist said it was a myth—now it’s a fact. The US government recently added a Cannabis and Cannabinoid page in the Alternative treatment section of their cancer website.

Cannabinoids have anti-inflammatory and antiviral properties. They are known to block cancer cell growth, prevent the growth of blood vessels that supply tumors, and relieve muscle spasms caused by multiple sclerosis.