Attorney General Jeff Sessions painted a grim vision of violence in America on Tuesday, telling state law enforcement officials that a recent uptick in killings threatens to undo decades of progress and suggesting police would be more effective if they were subjected to less federal scrutiny.

In his first major policy speech as attorney general, Sessions said his Justice Department would continue to prosecute officers for wrongdoing, but suggested federal civil rights investigations could hinder their effectiveness.

The Cannabis Cup is scheduled on Moapa tribal land this weekend.

The cup, which has been hosted in other states before, is a competition for the best of the marijuana industry.

The event, which runs this Saturday and Sunday, was being hosted on Moapa tribal lands because organizers thought that meant marijuana could be consumed at the event.

But organizers were forced to change their plans after the tribe received a letter from the U.S. District Attorney for Nevada stating that despite the state legalizing marijuana, it was still illegal federally. The letter comes as the Trump administration has shown a more strict attitude than the Obama administration towards marijuana policy.

Last week White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer predicted "greater enforcement" of the federal ban on marijuana in the eight states that have legalized the drug for recreational use. This week Attorney General Jeff Sessions, an old-fashioned drug warrior who thinks "good people don't smoke marijuana," seemed to confirm Spicer's warning, telling reporters, "We're going to look at it...and try to adopt responsible policies."

The South African parliament has listened to a motion to legalize the cultivation and usage of cannabis sativa or marijuana.

South Africa is set to legalize the cultivation and use of marijuana, known locally as “dagga,” as early as April 2017, making it the first African nation to permit its usage for medical purposes, reports Afkinsider.

History of the Bill

In 2014, Mario Oriani-Ambrosini, a South African MP elected on the platform of the Inkatha Freedom Party (IFP), moved a motion in parliament calling for the legalization of marijuana for medical usage.

Legal weed is expected to create more than a quarter million new American jobs by 2020, according to a new study. That is, unless a potential federal crackdown snuffs out the growing industry in states where marijuana is now legal.

A report released recently by New Frontier Data, a Washington, D.C., startup linked to a group of marijuana industry investors, projects that legal marijuana sales will surpass $24 billion nationwide by 2025 and create at least 280,000 jobs within the next three years.

Labour is calling for the raw product for medicinal cannabis to be grown in New Zealand.

Labour MP Damien O'Connor says New Zealand lost out to Australia on a similar economic opportunity years ago and he doesn't want to see it happen again.

Tasmanian poppy farmers supply nearly half of the world's legal opiates that are used to make powerful painkillers like morphine and codeine.

The industry's one of the state's biggest employers and is estimated to be worth $100 million dollars a year.

"In the '70s NZ had the opportunity to grow poppies for medicinal purposes. We turned our back on that; Tasmania has been the beneficiary of that," Mr O'Connor says.

A broad expansion to Georgia’s medical marijuana law passed a key House panel Monday, moving a step closer to a floor vote ahead of Friday’s deadline for passage.

Spurred by our collection of stories from readers who used marijuana as a substitute for prescription opioids, another reader writes:

I am a totally and permanently service-connected, disabled Marine veteran with Gulf War Illnesses. I was an infantryman in the first war in Iraq and spent a good deal of time in and around the burning oil fields. I was also dosed with long-term, low-dose nerve agents from the “Superplume” of oil smoke and chemical weapons inadvertently made airborne by coalition forces during demolition while I was aboard ship in the Persian Gulf after the ground combat had ended.

Attorney General Jeff Sessions, whose opposition to legalizing recreational marijuana has long been on the record, said Monday he hasn't yet decided whether to crack down on possession of pot.

Current Justice Department policy, spelled out during the administration of former President Barack Obama in 2013, calls for federal prosecutions in only a narrow subset of possession cases — those involving distribution to minors, the involvement of gangs or organized crime, sales across state borders and cultivation of marijuana plants on federal land.

While several states have legalized possession of small amounts of marijuana for recreational use, Sessions stressed to reporters Monday in Washington, D.C., that "it remains a violation of federal law."

The idea that the feds may go after state pot laws is “totally counter” to what the president told us, says Oregon Gov. Kate Brown.

White House press secretary Sean Spicer rattled marijuana advocates last week when he warned that the federal government may start cracking down on states that have legalized recreational marijuana.

But that’s not the message President Donald Trump delivered to governors during a private breakfast at the White House on Monday.