Missouri deems marijuana possession a crime that carries hundreds of dollars in fines and a potential jail term. But residents of Kansas City voted overwhelmingly to reduce the penalties there, becoming the latest city in the state to relax punishments for people caught with small amounts of pot.

Nearly 75 percent of voters approved the ballot initiative, Question 5, in Tuesday's special election. The pot measure was considered alongside infrastructure issues and candidates for school district posts.

From member station KCUR reporter Lisa Rodriguez:

Florida

There’s a lot going on in Tallahassee as Sunshine State legislators forge the regulatory framework for Florida’s medical marijuana program.

Senators appear poised to advance legislation (SB 406) to welcome five new cannabis dispensaries to Florida by October. At least one would be minority-owned. Friday’s measure also requires four additional dispensaries within “six months after each instance of the registration of 75,000 qualifying patients with the compassionate use registry.”

That 75,000 figure is dramatically less than the previous threshold of 250,000.

Food and drug giant's coverage for 45,000 employees has some limitations.

At first glance, the news was "actually pretty stunning."

Joan Weir, director of health and disability policy with the Canadian Life and Health Insurance Association, was surprised to see that Canadian retail giant Loblaw Companies had started covering medical marijuana for employees through their health benefit plans back on March 28.​

Last October, Volteface reported on how Vietnamese children are being trafficked to the UK in large numbers and forced to work in inhumane conditions. Whilst Vietnamese girls are usually trafficked for the purpose of prostitution or to work in nail bars, boys are generally forced into cannabis cultivation. Despite this being a known phenomenon for years, police have not managed to adequately tackle the issue of child slaves hidden in plain sight all over the country.

Comedian Wil Anderson knows a thing or two about chronic pain.

The funnyman and television personality has battled osteoarthritis for years and is open about his daily use of medical marijuana to ease the condition’s crippling impact on his body.

And if that use was legalised in Australia, Anderson believes it would save lives.

Argentina’s Senate has given final legislative approval to a bill legalizing the use of cannabis oil and other marijuana derivatives for medicinal purposes, and setting up a regulatory framework for the state to prescribe and distribute them to patients.

The legislation approved by senators Wednesday also creates a medical marijuana research program at the Health Ministry, which must “guarantee free access” to cannabis oil and other derivatives to patients who join the program. The legislation was passed by the Chamber of Deputies earlier.

'High costs currently push many patients to seek alternative options through illegal avenues'.

Conventional pills did little to ease Jill Grindle's PTSD and sleep disorder, but within months of turning to medical marijuana the Calgary mother says she was sleeping through the night.

Now she has another worry.

"It's costing a pretty penny," she said. "So what I do is I under-medicate greatly. I scrimp and I save and I only use it very sparingly."

Like most Canadians, Grindle's standard insurance plan doesn't cover legally prescribed cannabis. For Grindle that adds up to $1,200 a month if she were to use her full four-gram daily allowance, so she gets by on one gram a day.

In a win for supporters of commercial medical marijuana in Calaveras County, a judge has ordered county officials to yank a May ballot measure that, if passed, would have banned the industry altogether.

Judge Richard D. Meyer, a visiting judge from Alpine County, found that the language of the initiative was illegal.

Rather than stating clearly that it was a citizen’s initiative, Measure B invoked the county’s Board of Supervisors, implying that voters were being asked to approve an action that already had been taken by local elected officials.

This “undermines the integrity of the initiative process,” the judge found.

South Dakota voters could boost funding to teachers and reduce the state's sales tax burden by supporting a ballot measure aimed at legalizing marijuana for recreational use.

And the measure's sponsors are hoping to emphasize that point as they ask voters to sign petitions that could put the question on the 2018 ballot.

Under the proposal, South Dakota residents 21 and older would be able to legally possess and use one ounce of cannabis or grow five marijuana plants. Non-residents would be limited to a quarter ounce.

Neighborly disputes are nothing new. There’s the dog next door that poops on your lawn. The house that throws loud backyard parties. The guy down the block who always plows through the stop sign.

But in Colorado, the introduction of legal, home-grown marijuana has elevated tension among neighbors to a whole new level.

Because of gaps in the state constitutional amendments that legalized cultivation of the drug for recreational and medical purposes -- and in the ensuing rules that sought to regulate it further -- some rural pockets in Colorado are seeing large-scale cooperative marijuana grow operations sprout up with little oversight.