Last week's court ruling allowing home use of marijuana has sent South Africa buzzing about the possibility that cannabis will now be widely legal in the Rainbow Nation.

To which pro-marijuana activist Julian Stobbs says: Chill.

Friday’s ruling from the Western Cape province High Court does apply across the nation, but the decision is really more about privacy than it is about pot.

The ruling struck down part of an old law that prohibits private and personal use of marijuana. The ruling still has to be solidified by parliament and pass through the constitutional court, which could take up to two years.

”I don’t want to break the law, but I don’t want to bury my eight-year-old child.”

They are the words of a Lake Heights mum that have struck a chord with tens of thousands of people across the country and beyond.

Yvonne Cooper’s eight-year-old daughter, Sienna, suffers from severe seizures and she fears her little girl could die without legal access to medicinal cannabis.

Last week, in a last-ditch plea for help, Ms Cooper launched an online petition that called on state and federal health ministers to fast-track Sienna’s “life-saving access” to the drug. 

Ms Cooper’s change.org petition, titled “Our baby girl is dying in front of us - please help”, has since captured the attention of supporters across the world. 

Four of the top five candidates at the Elysée want an evolution of the law. Until now, only the "small parties" proposed the contravention or the legalization. The actors on the ground are divided.

Governors in four states that have legalized marijuana in some form have written a letter to two Trump administration officials requesting they consult with states before making any changes to regulatory and enforcement systems for the drug.

The independent governor of Alaska joined the Democratic governors of Colorado, Oregon and Washington to write a letter to US Attorney General Jeff Sessions and Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin on Monday, asking them to continue the Obama administration’s hands-off policy towards enforcing federal marijuana laws in states that have okayed medicinal or recreational use.

Amy Turncliff, a mother of three, is concerned.

Her children are 10, 8 and 4 years old. In November, voters approved legislation that made recreational marijuana legal in Massachusetts. However, a lot of legislation is still coming down the pipeline.

Turncliff, a neuroscientist who lives in Ashland, thinks a lot is at stake. She and her husband are worried their children will grow up in a culture where “marijuana use is treated like alcohol use and is believed to be a rite of passage.”

“I’m not even sure 21 is the right cut-off age,” she said, referring to the current legal age for owning, using and home-growing marijuana. She thinks it should be higher.

Everyone can agree that driving while stoned is dangerous, but how do states remedy the flawed science behind marijuana drug tests?

Gagan Singh rolled a “fat blunt” before he hit the slopes at Lake Tahoe on a sunny Wednesday morning.

By the end of the day, he needed a refill, so he drove to Reno and stopped at one of the local medical marijuana dispensaries. With his Patagonia jacket and bleached-blond man-bun, Singh was eager to head to his hotel and smoke.

The only reason he wouldn't be smoking while driving to the hotel was because he believes Nevada cops are stricter than the ones in the Bay Area.

The passage of California's Adult Use of Marijuana Act in November left a 14-month gap before businesses could begin selling marijuana to recreational users.

For residents eager to purchase and use cannabis, that may have seemed like a long time. But that period is almost half over — and for the state, which has been tasked with regulating the sprawling cannabis industry, there's a lot more to do.

"In order to start issuing licenses on Jan. 1 or Jan. 2, we need people in place and we need them to be up to speed," said Alex Traverso, chief of communications at California's Bureau of Medical Cannabis Regulation, or BMCR. "From everything we've seen and heard, there's an amazing amount of interest. We expect to be busy on that Jan. 2 date."

Marijuana advocates in West Virginia are celebrating after the state senate voted to pass a bill that would legalize and regulate the use of medical marijuana in the Mountain State. After surviving two committee assignments, and being amended to allow home cultivation by registered patients, Senate Bill 386, sponsored by Senator Richard Ojeda, passed out of the full Senate by a considerable margin of 28-6.

Dana Larsen has shipped millions of cannabis seeds across Canada in an effort to 'normalize the cultivation' of the plant ahead of marijuana legalization.

The man who’s helped ship millions of cannabis seeds across the country for the last couple years is visiting Winnipeg Monday to drop off tens of thousands more.

B.C.-based cannabis advocate Dana Larsen, 45, is touring cross-country with his group Overgrow Canada, which aims to hand out five million cannabis seeds this year.

In 2016, they spread 2.5 million seeds, encouraging Canadians to plant cannabis in public places like parks to "normalize the cultivation" of the plant, Larsen said in an interview Monday.

Roger Stone, one of President Donald Trump's most ardent surrogates, has publicly implored the president to back marijuana legalization—even as he blasted his U.S. attorney general for "outmoded thinking" on pot while quoting Thomas Jefferson and The Bible to justify his position.