Cynthia Franklin, the director of Alaska's Alcohol and Marijuana Control Office who has overseen the rollout of legal pot in the state, is resigning.

Franklin announced her resignation to members of the Alcohol and Marijuana control boards on Wednesday afternoon, in an email forwarded to Alaska Dispatch News.

"I have so enjoyed working with each of you over the past two plus years. I have tremendous faith in you and your missions, and believe that we have the right members on the right boards to serve and protect the people of Alaska, as well as encourage commerce and trade," Franklin wrote in the email.

Franklin's last day will be Jan. 6, she wrote.

One of the biggest arguments that we offer up as marijuana activists is that Marijuana reform will harm organized crime. Marijuana is not going away, so does America want to see the marijuana industry taxed regulated, or does it want the marijuana industry controlled by cartels and gangs? Marijuana opponents will act like prohibition is working, and that if it’s just enforced more, it will work even better.

Billy Caldwell has spent a large chunk of his life being, in effect, a refugee. Forced to leave home because of a lack of services to effectively treat his condition. At just 11 years old this fighter from Castlederg, Co Tyrone has a severe life threatening form of epilepsy called intractable epilepsy. He is also a status epileptic.

There’s a movement underway in America. It involves changing the way Americans view a federally designated controlled substance it classifies as a Schedule I narcotic. Over the last few years, twenty-nine U.S. states have now acted against the federal government’s ban on marijuana, and have voted to legalize cannabis for either medicinal or recreational purposes.

Philippine Death Squads Have Killed Thousands of People Suspected of Using or Selling Drugs Since June.

On Saturday, U.S. President-elect Donald Trump held a telephone call with the President of the Philippines, Rodrigo Duterte. According to Duterte, Trump praised Duterte’s deadly war on drugs and invited him to visit the White House. Upon assuming the presidency in June, Duterte made a public call for police and citizens alike to execute people who use or sell drugs, which has resulted in the murder of over 5,000 people suspected of being involved with drugs.

Selling pot at the liquor store isn't sparking up overwhelming public support, according to stats released in a new poll.

The Forum Research survey provided exclusively to the Toronto Sun found that more than a third of Ontarians (36%) think pharmacies are the best place to sell recreational pot, not the Liqour Control Board of Ontario (LCBO) as Premier Kathleen Wynne has suggested. The survey says that specialized marijuana dispensaries rank second with 26% support while selling pot at the LCBO ranked lower with 16% support.

Steve Kerr has a bad back. The condition caused him so much physical pain that Kerr, the current head coach of the Golden State Warriors and a member of five NBA championship teams during his playing career, underwent surgery to resolve it. Complications and recovery from the procedure led to him missing the first half of the 2015-2016 regular season. He was in enough pain that he took marijuana to relieve the pain. And that has him a bit crosswise with some people in the NBA, which frowns on any use of marijuana.

For hundreds of years, the tiny village of Malana was just a speck lost amid the grandiose mountains of the Indian Himalayas.

Nestled high in the higher reaches of the lush Kullu Valley, Malana used to be a four-day hike from the nearest road. Its laws, tradition says, were laid down by the village god Jamlu. People elected their own parliament and disputes were settled in their own court. Villagers would run in terror if an outsider showed up. 

But Malana is hidden no more. For centuries, the villagers have been growing the plant that has made Malana one of the world's top stoner destinations, and a battleground —at least symbolically — for India's haphazard fight against "charas," the black and sticky hashish that has made the village famous. 

On the 30th of November, politicians from the European Parliament gathered with a range of patients, activists, campaigners, entrepreneurs and scientists from the European cannabis community to discuss the future of the industry at the inaugural International Conference on Medical Cannabis.

The event was organised by the European United Left/Nordic Green Left European Parliamentary Group, led by German MEP Stefan Eck and Greek MEP Stelios Kouloglou. 

The aim of the Conference was to share knowledge about the state of legislation around the world today, and to educate regulators present about the importance of building legal, regulated cannabis markets in Europe.

Every driver knows that alcohol-impaired, or "drunk", driving is dangerous and has steep consequences. Drunk driving killed 1,155 people on California roadways in 2014 alone. What individuals may not know, is that they can get a DUI, with all the same consequences, for driving under the influence of drugs, also known as a DUI-D. A new educational campaign from the California Office of Traffic Safety (OTS), "DUI Doesn't Just Mean Booze," is aiming to bring greater awareness of this growing problem.