Rihanna was once a lucrative pop artist who released music pretty consistently. And while her long-awaited eighth studio album Anti is supposed to drop at some point this millennium, no release date has been announced or (as far as we know) even secured.

As more states move towards legalizing marijuana for adult use, people tend to forget that, for many people suffering from debilitating diseases, even basic access to medical cannabis remains a major challenge. Nowhere is this injustice more clear than in the case of military veterans.

Cannabis has been used for its medicinal purposes for thousands of years, and modern studies have confirmed its healing properties. It has been shown to be effective for treating AIDS, multiple sclerosis, pain, glaucoma, Crohn’s disease, epilepsy, cancer and more. Furthermore, our bodies are hard-wired for cannabis, and one of the leading researchers on the endocannabinoid system even has a laboratory here at UCI.

The use of pesticides in cannabis cultivation is a web of unregulated, high-risk confusion. What’s next?

State health inspectors entered New Jersey’s largest marijuana dispensary in August. Tucked away inside a cabinet, they found a sealed container of pesticide.

Unused as it was, the container landed the dispensary in trouble, and highlighted an issue that is creating legal and regulatory waves across the industry, including a first-of-its-kind class action lawsuit in Colorado over the use of chemical substances to improve the quality and yield of the cannabis plant.

MONTPELIER – Law enforcement officials and others who oppose marijuana legalization want to ensure they’re not forgotten as legislators get back to work on a regulation bill this week.

Opponents held a news conference Tuesday morning on the steps of the Statehouse in Montpelier.

“I really want to have a thoughtful conversation based on science,” said Debby Haskins, executive director of the group Smart Approaches to Marijuana Vermont.

Haskins’ group believes that legal marijuana would lead to greater rates of youth marijuana use and challenges to public safety, particularly through impaired driving.

Introducing the CannaCloud, not to be confused with your coffee thermos.

A year-old startup called CannaKorp announced last week it's developing the world's first single-serve, pod-based marijuana vaporizer system. Dubbed the CannaCloud, it's essentially the Keurig of cannabis.

The CannaCloud could bring a level of precision and ease to marijuana consumption that could help elevate pot above its crunchy, hippie stigma, if the device finds mainstream success. 

Beginning in 2012, four states and the District of Columbia have voted to legalize marijuana. By this time next year, that number could well double, and then some. National polls consistently show majorities in favor of legalization, with a recent Gallup poll showing 58% support—tied for the highest level in the poll’s history.

That doesn’t mean legalization is inevitable in any given state, as the case of Ohio demonstrated earlier this month. There an initiative led by non-movement investors who sought monopolistic control of commercial pot cultivation got trounced despite spending millions of dollars.

As marijuana legalization sweeps the nation, Rhode Island could very well be one of the next states to go green. Experts say the state is among several that may end marijuana prohibition in 2016. A bill to legalize marijuana in Rhode Island, introduced in the state Legislature in January, will likely be debated next year. 

MONTREAL — The new federal government should proceed slowly with changing the country's drug laws, says the Canadian Centre on Substance Abuse, which has released a report on the U.S.'s experience legalizing cannabis.

Representatives with the centre, which is funded by Health Canada, met with officials from the two U.S. states to legalize pot for personal use — Colorado and Washington — to learn about what mistakes to avoid.

Rebecca Jesseman, senior adviser for the centre, said in an interview the Canadian addiction experts were given one key message during their visit south of the border: Take your time.

Changes might be coming for Colorado cannabis physicians and the patients they serve – but at least those docs and their clients will have had a say. 

Recreational marijuana policy is great for studying how effective policy adoption and implementation works, mainly due to its unique nature. Colorado cities, municipalities, and counties can currently choose how to adopt marijuana legalization policies, and whether or not they want to at all. By using this state as a case study, one researcher has found that public opinion, tax revenues, and existing medical marijuana policies have the biggest impact on local governments’ decisions to allow the sale of recreational marijuana. The study was published in State and Local Government Review, a SAGE journal.