By Vicki Almond, Baltimore City Council

Applications for licenses to operate 15 medical cannabis growing facilities, 15 processing plants and 109 dispensaries in the state of Maryland will begin in the next few weeks. The citizens of Baltimore County, and residents throughout Maryland, are relying on their county council members and county commissioners to serve them well when it comes to the location of these medical cannabis facilities.

HONOLULU — Twenty minutes from the turquoise waves of White Plains Beach, Teri Heede’s garden stretches out from her Kapolei home where three marijuana plants are firmly potted in the backyard and a steep drop gives way to a view of deep blue water and mountains touching clouds. One of Hawaii’s many medical marijuana patients, Heede’s plants didn’t always produce enough for her medicinal needs, so she bought pot illegally from a dealer behind the local McDonald’s.

Ministers will define whether it is crime carry narcotics for personal consumption

Brasília - The Brazilian Supreme Court (STF) begins judgment today to determine whether it is a crime or not to carry drugs for personal consumption. The trial is based on an appeal that reached the Supreme in 2011, due to a marijuana arrest  two years earlier, in the center of custody is Diadema (SP).

From that episode, the Supreme Court will consider whether or not the Anti-Drug Law criminalizing the possession of narcotics is a constitutional article. The tendency of the court is to decriminalize drug possession for personal use. Three of the 11 ministers of the Supreme Court have indicated to be in favor of decriminalization.

The European Convention on Human Rights over-rides laws which make drugs such as cannabis illegal, an all party parliamentary group report suggests

Drug users have a human right to feed their habit, MPs and peers have said, as they claimed international conventions banning drugs need to be reformed.

The All-Party Parliamentary Group for Drug Policy Reform said in a new report that Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights – the rights to “private and family life” – could be deployed by drug users who face prosecution.

Regulation of banned substances “needs to reflect the supremacy of human rights conventions”, the report said.

A legal cannabis market should be tested and drug use decriminalised in order to try a radical new approach to drug use that focusses more on human rights laws, a group of MPs and peers has said.

The All Party Parliamentary Group for Drug Policy Reform called for an overhaul in global narcotics policy, saying the "war on drugs" and "blanket prohibition" approach had failed.

It said experiments into possible models of regulated markets for marijuana should be "encouraged" among United Nations countries including the UK. In a report, the group said:

Last month, emergency services were called to an explosion at New MexiCann Natural, a licensed medical marijuana dispensary in Santa Fe, New Mexico. Two employees were injured while making edible cannabis products: Aaron Smith, 28, and Nick Montoya, 29. They were airlifted to University of New Mexico Hospital’s Level 1 Trauma Center with third-degree burns from a presumed butane reaction.

COLUMBUS – In this corner, we have pro-pot group ResponsibleOhio with about $20 million to spend on advertising, a new bus headed to 88 counties and polls that say most Ohioans are fine with legalizing at least medicinal pot.

In the other corner, we have Ohioans Against Marijuana Monopolies, a group of pediatricians, manufacturers, farmers and police officers who say legalizing marijuana would put children at risk and create an oligopoly that’s bad for Ohio business.

Let Battle of the Blunt 2015 begin.

An important report by the West Africa Commission on Drugs (WACD) in June 2014, "Not Just for Transit: Drugs, the State and Society in West Africa", emphasized decriminalizing some degree of narcotic drug use and possession for personal use, while calling for drug traffickers and their accomplices to face the full force of the law. This sensible recommendation is particularly appropriate for marijuana or cannabis, which is widely cultivated and used in West Africa. Its users, partly because they are mostly young and poor, continue to be disproportionately penalized by the criminal justice systems in the region - a serious human rights and governance problem. This violation must be urgently stopped.

ResponsibleOhio (RO) launched Monday a “Green Rush Bus Tour” to visit Ohio’s 88 counties to advocate for the group’s Marijuana Legalization Amendment, which would legalize marijuana use by adults and establish an Ohio Marijuana Control Commission to regulate retail and medical marijuana sales, distribution and cultivation.

Why was medical cannabis banned in the UK? Katharine Quarmby uncovers the history.

It was 1971 when the UK Misuse of Drugs Act received Royal Assent, although it didn’t come wholly into force until 1973. The Act made it illegal for doctors to prescribe their patients cannabis tincture – the only form of cannabis permissible at that time. But, in a somewhat surreal move, despite the many thundering speeches about cannabis, the Act actually softened sanctions for the possession of cannabis for recreational purposes.