If you thought Amazon, Google and Facebook are the only organisations getting in on the burgeoning drone industry, this latest news might come as something of a surprise.

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Ripping a page right from law enforcement's playbook, high-flying criminals in Britain are using small-fry drones fitted with infrared homing technology to sniff out heat emitted from indoor cannabis grows, to then make off with the good shit. 

Want to support legal hemp production, but not sure how? It can be as simple as choosing hemp fiberboard over plywood for your next building project. Take a few tips from the experts into consideration.

Ryan Loflin, 41, is Colorado’s hemp farming pioneer. He saw the potential in hemp last year when he used his dad’s farm in southern Colorado to grow hemp after

Colorado legalized the practice. “Right now we are really focusing on seed production.” he said.

Other entrepreneurs have been researching the uses of processed hemp for everything from salad dressings to building materials for decades. They are looking forward to seeing more hemp farms in this country.

The Cannabis Commercial and Medicinal Research Task Force (CCMRT) is hoping that the Government will move swiftly to make amendments to the ganja laws, as it launched the Ganja Future Growers and Producers Association at the Jamaica Conference Centre in downtown Kingston on the weekend.

Delano Seiveright, member of the CCMRT, explained to The Gleaner that the association aimed to represent the interests of various stakeholders and to lobby the Government for a properly regulated cannabis industry.

"We will be focused on the production process and the developments surrounding ganja. We are hopeful there will be changes in the law this year that will essentially allow persons to begin that process," he said.

MONTEVIDEO, Uruguay — Uruguay's drug czar says every legal marijuana plant in Uruguay will be registered and tracked using radio frequency tags, and that state-grown marijuana will be cloned to include genetic markers, making sure that what's grown here, stays here.

That's a much tougher tracking system than those imposed in Colorado and Washington, which recently legalized marijuana use. Unlike those U.S. states, Uruguay wants authorities to be able to test the pot in any drug user's possession to determine if it came from a registered, legal source.

HEMPORIUM

With close to 40 countries growing low-THC industrial hemp, South Africa is falling behind, says Tony Budden.

Cape Town -

Cannabis… it certainly seems to be popping up in all sorts of strange places lately.

The mainstream media seem finally to be giving the plant some positive space, not just focusing on the “dangers” and reporting on the different initiatives around the world to get it liberated, a far cry from the old days of the “groen-gevaar”, the devil’s weed.

LOS ANGELES — Chris Folkerts started selling electronic cigarette-like devices from the trunk of his car two years ago. Now he and two partners own one of the biggest brands in the business, with products in 4,000 stores nationally, an art deco office on the city's fashionable Miracle Mile and an endorsement deal with rapper Snoop Dogg.

The rapid success of Grenco Science, the privately held company Folkerts founded, mirrors the fast growth of the business it is in — marketing devices that allow marijuana users to vaporize their psychoactive weed rather than smoke it.

"This is a big industry — it is the future,'' Folkerts, 31, says. "We're really on the cusp of exploding.''

An innovation in safe sex, the Cannadom is the world's first marijuana flavoured condom...

Instagram, the photo and video sharing network owned by Facebook, is usually associated with light-hearted 'selfie' photos, or amusing memes.

But it also has a darker side, and has become a marketplace for a wide range of illicit goods. So long as you know the right hashtags to search.

Thousands of pictures showing drugs on offer can be found on Instagram by searching keywords.

In response to this investigation by #BBCTrending, Instagram has blocked searches for certain terms associated with the suspected illegal sale of drugs via its service.

"Instagram has a clear set of rules about what is and isn't allowed on the site," a spokeswoman told the BBC.

Israel sets a new standard for legal medical marijuana research, production and sales

Just over six years ago, in the lush Upper Galilee of northern Israel, the nation’s first large-scale harvest of legal medical marijuana was flowering on the roof deck of Tzahi Cohen’s parents’ house, perched on a cliff overlooking the bright-green farming village of Birya. Until then, fewer than 100 Israeli patients suffering from a short list of ailments had been allowed to grow the plants for themselves, but this marked the first harvest by a licensed grower.