I opened up my news feed from the weekend last night and found a flurry of stories from around the world discussing how an illegal marijuana grow destroyed a New York City home and killed a firefighter. Illegal grow-ops may resort to tactics that can be fatal in an effort to hide their activities, and without legal status they do not have access to education and equipment that meets safety standards. Of course, that is not how the international media portrays it:

Marijuana grow-ops spawn lethal explosions across the US
- Global News, Canada 

Home-grown dopes: how marijuana labs are causing lethal explosions across the United States
- South China Morning Post, China 

Come Nov. 8, Florida could be the 26th state to legalize full-strength medical marijuana for patients with cancer, epilepsy and a host of other conditions.

That gives supporters and opponents of Amendment 2 just five weeks to persuade voters. And they've started in earnest, pumping millions of dollars from wealthy donors into TV ads, mailings and recruiting big-name endorsers.

Pro-medical marijuana group United for Care has logged $5.2 million since 2015, most of it from large donors, including a $1 million contribution last week from pot activist group New Approach.

Campaigns to legalize recreational marijuana use in Massachusetts and Maine launched their first television ads on Monday, hoping to boost public awareness and support ahead of November votes on the issue.

The ads began just over a month before Election Day, when voters in five U.S. states will determine whether to legalize the recreational use of the drug, following the lead of Colorado, Washington, Oregon and Alaska, as well as the District of Columbia.

The Massachusetts ads feature Tom Nolan, a former Boston Police Department officer and current professor of criminal justice at Merrimack College, advocating for legalization as a way to better regulate marijuana use.

Criminal history checks on doctors and patients should not be used to assess applications to access medical marijuana in Queensland, a parliamentary committee has argued. 

The Health, Communities, Disability Services and Domestic and Family Violence Committee has delivered its report on a bill which would create a formal process for Queensland doctors to prescribe medicinal cannabis.

The Public Health (Medicinal Cannabis) Bill 2016 proposed allowing the chief executive of Queensland Health to request a criminal history report on medical practitioners – and their patients – as part of the decision on whether they were a suitable person to prescribe or receive the drug.

Ava, six, suffered from 20 seizures on Saturday and her mum Vera fears she won't survive that again.

A mother fears her daughter will die from multiple seizures if the Government does not make cannabis oil legal for medicinal use.

Mum-of-four Vera Twomey yesterday warned Health Minister Simon Harris he will have her “daughter’s death on his conscience” unless their is a change in legislation.

Her eldest child Ava, six, suffered 20 seizures on Saturday night and Vera claimed she has tried 11 different medicines on her but they have all failed.

She insisted cannabis oil – which is legal in parts of America but not here – would greatly help to calm her daughter’s chronic fits.

Former Hawthorne California mayor Chris Brown plays matchmaker between small cities looking for new tax revenue and cannabis companies that want to do business there. With recreational marijuana legalization looming on California’s November ballot, those opportunities are about to increase significantly.

The burgeoning cannabis industry continues to face challenges accessing banks, experts said last month during the 23rd annual Hemp Industries Association (HIA) conference in Colorado—the U.S. birthplace of legal recreational marijuana.

Hezekiah Allen is a third-generation marijuana farmer in this Northern California county, where the cool coastal fog pours off the Pacific Ocean, coaxing pot plants to heights of 20 feet.

The executive director of the California Growers Association trade group, Allen has long sought an end to what he calls "prohibition" and has looked forward to a day when he and the thousands of pot farmers here would no longer be outlaws.

But he said he can't bring himself to vote for Proposition 64, a referendum on California's November ballot that would legalize cultivation, sale and recreational use of marijuana.

While pot purveyors might seem to be likely Prop. 64 supporters, Allen's ambivalence is widespread within the industry.

For the first time in Germany, a court has allowed a patient to cultivate their own cannabis for medicinal purposes. The 53-year-old man suffers from multiple sclerosis (MS).

Germany's Federal Institute for Drugs and Medical Devices (BfArM) confirmed on Sunday that the patient from Mannheim, southwestern Germany, will be allowed to grow a maximum of 130 cannabis plants a year in his bathroom. The cannabis is strictly for personal use, a spokesperson said.

With Gov. Christie's surprising reversal on expanding the medical marijuana program comes a new batch of very different bills that would allow recreational cannabis in New Jersey.

Christie is not likely to change his strong opposition to legalization, even though he signed a bill last month allowing patients with post-traumatic stress syndrome to obtain cannabis. It was the first time a mental-health condition was added to the list of qualifying ailments.

But lawmakers say three legalization bills introduced this year would get discussions started, in anticipation of Christie's term ending in 2018.