Hilary Bricken

An Ohio political action group has gone ahead with plans to put a constitutional amendment on the ballot to legalize marijuana amid investigation for fraud. The group was forced to scramble for more signatures after Ohio Secretary of State Jon Husted named a special investigator Wednesday to review what he said were discrepancies in ResponsibleOhio's petitions.

The news media will certainly focus a lot on marijuana in the 2016 election. Unless you have been living under a rock, you know that marijuana is covered a lot in the media these days. Many mainstream media outlets, once strong opponents of legalization, have now embraced marijuana with spin-off publications that focus solely on cannabis or they have reporters covering the marijuana beat.

Maclean’s is your destination for the 2015 election. Start with our in-depth primers on the 12 big issues, including marijuana

If there is one file on which Justin Trudeau has definitively put his stamp as Liberal leader, it’s marijuana policy. Back in 2013, Trudeau surprised many by speaking out in favour of legalization and regulation, then admitted he “took a puff” on a joint being passed around at a dinner party at his Montreal home—after he was elected an MP in 2008. Ever since, Tories have taken aim at him over the stance. Pro-legalization advocates say criminalizing pot clogs prisons and feeds organized crime. Defenders of the status quo argue that legalization would only give young people, in particular, easier access to dangerous drugs.

DENVER, CO (KDVR/CNN) - Grow4Vets has been handing out cannabis to military veterans for a year in Colorado.

But the state's medical board has just ruled not to recognize marijuana as a treatment for PTSD.

High There! a cannabis-sharing social network teamed up with Grow4Vets to host an impromptu rally on their Save a Million Vets Tour.

“Now we've created a tour around the country called the Save a Million Vets Tour," Co-founder and CEO of High There! Todd Mitchem said.

Veterans lined up early in Rino's Taxi district, most wearing their colors, letting folks know where they served.

Mitchem came up with the first social sharing network for cannabis users. Now he is partnering with Grow4Vets, helping vets get medication.

Marijuana reform is a very popular political topic these days. I remember as recently as the beginning of this decade when supporting marijuana reform was considered to be political suicide. But more and more elected officials are getting on the right side of history every day it seems. Many local elected officials are particularly supportive of marijuana reform. A recent survey of mayors in the United States by Politico magazine found the following results;

The founder of a Saskatoon-based compassion club hopes to bend the ear of city council to get them to look at medical marijuana dispensary regulations.

Mark Hauk submitted a letter to Saskatoon city council requesting to speak at their Aug. 20 meeting to try and get officials to see marijuana as medicine rather than a street drug.

What I'd like to ask of city council is that they consider implementing medical marijuana dispensary regulations similar to what Vancouver and Victoria have recently done,€ Hauk told News Talk Radio.

Hauk said it'€™s important local governments tackle the issue of regulating dispensaries before they start popping up haphazardly all over the city.

Study finds that officers are targeting low-level possession of cannabis rather than concentrating on more serious crime.

Drug possession should be removed from police performance measures, research claims.

This would allow officers to concentrate on crimes that "cause most harm" rather than targeting low-level possession of cannabis, according to the study.

Controversy over police approaches to cannabis possession erupted recently after some crime commissioners suggested that personal users will no longer be actively pursued by their forces.

Dr Michael Shiner, of the London School of Economics (LSE), analysed official crime statistics in relation to the reclassification of cannabis.

The UK announced last week it is working with Vietnam to stamp out the large number of trafficked people from the country coming to Britain.

Anti-human trafficking laws were tightened up on Friday 31 July, with the introduction of life sentences for the crime. But although prime minister David Cameron promised to help Vietnamese victims of forced labour, services are lacking for one crucial group: men, especially those enslaved to grow marijuana by criminal gangs.