Mexico's Lower House of Congress passed a bill on Friday to legalize the use of marijuana and cannabis for medical and scientific needs, a step closer to outright legalization in a country long scarred by warring drug cartels.

The bill sailed through the Senate in December and will now be sent to President Enrique Pena Nieto, who is expected to sign it.

"The ruling eliminates the prohibition and criminalization of acts related to the medicinal use of marijuana and its scientific research, and those relating to the production and distribution of the plant for these purposes," the Lower House said in a statement on its website.

People who make money from the marijuana industry can't use the federal bankruptcy courts when they get into financial trouble, says a Justice Department bankruptcy watchdog.

U.S. Trustee Program director Cliff White wrote a letter to trustees who handle consumer bankruptcy cases earlier this week reminding them that the drug is illegal under federal law and warning them not to handle any money from the sale of marijuana-related property.

The one-page letter, sent on Wednesday, said the Justice Department division has seen an increase in the number of bankruptcies where "marijuana assets" are disclosed.

The NFL has come under a sizable amount of scrutiny of late over its overreliance on prescription painkillers, with many calling for drastic changes in the way teams treat player injuries. Among the ideas being bandied about is the use of medicinal marijuana, which the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine says can be “an effective treatment for chronic pain in adults.”

There’s just one problem with that: Marijuana is banned in the NFL, with players facing fines and suspensions for multiple drug-test violations. And based on what Roger Goodell told ESPN’s “Mike & Mike” on Friday, that isn’t going to change anytime soon, at least if he has anything to say about it.

Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper, after meeting with Attorney General Jeff Sessions this week in Washington, says that he doesn’t believe a federal crackdown on legal marijuana is on the way, adding that Sessions called the Obama administration’s guidance on marijuana “not too far from good policy.”

“The meeting was very productive, and overall it was very good,” Jacque Montgomery, press secretary for the Democratic governor, told HuffPost. Montgomery said that Sessions spent about an hour with Hickenlooper, and they discussed the state’s successful marijuana regulation, its collection of data on usage, what the state has learned since the first legal pot shops opened in 2014, how the state has updated the law, and how it deals with the gray and black markets that continue.

Colorado is continuing to set record marijuana sales—$235 million for the first two months of 2017, up 30 percent from the same period in 2016—and one shocking theory is emerging as to why retail figures are so robust: Donald J. Trump. 

According to Marijuana Business Daily, which tracks industry trends, suggests that the Trump administration’s negative comments regarding legalization and regulation may be one factor behind the soaring growth. Reporter Eli McVey writes: 

When the Pennsylvania legislature last year passed a bill legalizing medical marijuana, it did so largely under the impression that dispensaries wouldn’t sell the drug in its plant form, but only in infused oils, pills and ointments.

By next year though, when dispensaries begin opening across the state, that may not be the case. A little-known loophole in the law could allow for dispensaries to distribute plant-form marijuana meant for vaporization.

Colorado State Patrol is in the process of adding to its arsenal the tools available to troopers that would confirm the presence of drugs in a driver’s system.

Officers rely on behavioral cues – probable cause – to pull over a driver: speeding up, slowing down, drifting into another lane.  From there, a roadside sobriety test “peels back” the next layer of impairment, much like a drunk driving test.  It’s those visual cues that law enforcement use to prosecute a person’s impairment.

 “You have four legalized states, you’re gonna have four more legalized states in just a few months, and you even have the country of Canada going to legalization,” said CDOT Highway Safety Manager, Glenn Davis.  “We realized that we're probably gonna have a whole lot more customers."

Tunisia's parliament voted on Tuesday to ease the country's harsh law on drugs, in a move that could see offenders like youths caught smoking marijuana escape jail terms.

The North African country has faced mounting calls from rights groups and civil society to reform the law.

Tuesday's vote comes after the National Security Council headed by President Beji Caid Essebsi announced measures in March to limit the number of drug-users sent to prison.

There are certainly several disputes and controversies within the Oregon cannabis industry and community, but none greater than marijuana testing standards. Last October, stringent testing guidelines went into place, making Oregon regulated cannabis “safer than food.” The standards for Oregon cannabis were so high, that reports surfaced that a vast majority of California cannabis on the shelves at local dispensaries would fail Oregon’s pesticide testing standards.  However, those strict standards created shortages and price increases throughout the Oregon market, especially for edibles and extracts.

Nine years after a Swiss referendum failed to gain public approval for cannabis legalisation, a campaign group has reignited the movement for reform.