For former Council of Trade unions president Helen Kelly, having access to medicinal cannabis is a personal issue.

Kelly joined John Campbell's Checkpoint from her home in Wellington and shared the reason behind her opting for cannabis. 

"It's a mild, cheap and low-key medicine being denied," Kelly said during the interview with Campbell.

For more than 40 years, the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) has fueled mass incarceration, wasted taxpayer money, and blocked scientific research. 

IT’S TIME FOR CHANGE. Urge the Obama administration to reform or eliminate the DEA.

The DEA was created in 1973 to enforce federal drug laws. The results have been devastating: wasted resources, mass incarceration, racial disparities, civil rights violations and scandal after scandal. Treating drug use as a criminal justice issue instead of a health issue has led to disaster. Yet Congress has rarely scrutinized the agency, its actions or its budget.

 THE FACTS

THE DEA IS A PIVOTAL PLAYER IN THE WAR ON DRUGS, BUT THIS WAR IS A FAILURE!

Free Cannabis says he’s been growing in public displays for nearly 20 years.

A man who changed his name to Free Cannabis has revealed that he has been growing weed in public flower displays for the last 20 years.

Mr Cannabis, who was born Rob, planted the drug in public flower displays in Glastonbury outside his hemp shop. In 1998 it won the prestigious Glastonbury in Bloom Award.

But now the council, which had been tending to them so carefully for the last two decades, has ripped them up and had them destroyed.

Mr Cannabis said: ‘I and others come along and drop the seeds into the tubs, they get watered by nature – and the council.

Protesters blew up noise grenades and smoke bombs, as well as painted police cars.

In the Georgian town of Samtredia near police building takes place the rally of the youth organization "White movement" (the second name is "White Noise"), advocating for the decriminalization of soft drugs. It is reported by "Radio Liberty".

The reason for the rally was the recent suicide of 22 year old Demur Sturua, who spoke in a suicide note that one of the policemen demanded from him to become an informant for law enforcement, threatening otherwise to initiate a criminal case and arrest on charges of possession and consumption of drugs.

When New Times sat down with medical-marijuana advocate and political consultant Ben Pollara earlier this month, Pollara said he wasn't concerned that Carol Jenkins Barnett, daughter of Publix founder George Jenkins, had donated $800,000 to a group trying to keep medicinal weed illegal. 

"I still think 'shopping is a pleasure,'" Pollara said, referencing the grocery store chain's famous slogan.

A brief look on some of the world’s most unlikely advocates of cannabis legalization and their motives.

The issues of cannabis and the laws surrounding is a very debated issue all around the world. As medical uses for cannabis are being found and tested constantly the previously accepted positions on cannabis having a severely negative influence on the individual and the society are slowly being abandoned. It seems that with each day cannabis legalizations gains more supporters, as it is becoming more socially acceptable to enjoy cannabis even recreationally. Nevertheless, it is still a very polarizing issue and just how the situation is changing is best observed in the case of the United States of America.

In less than three months' time, tens of millions of American voters will head to the polls to decide who will become the 45th president of the United States of America. Who their selection will be remains a mystery.

Marijuana is breaking barriers this election cycle

However, the candidates aren't the only thing voters are interested in this election cycle; they want to hear about the topics, too. For the first time ever, marijuana is taking center stage as a major issue. According to Gallup's 2015 national poll, 58% of respondents support the nationwide legalization of marijuana, up from around 33% just a decade ago. A similar poll conducted by CBS News last year showed that 84% of American favored the legalization of cannabis for medical purposes.

They may call it weed, but what grows in Laurie MacEachern’s plot is more like the lush fields of corn near her rural home, southeast of Ottawa, than the goldenrod and wild parsnip in the ditch. 

“Welcome to my garden,” she tells a rare recent visitor, surveying rows of luxuriant green plants that will be ready to harvest next month.

In an area the size of a suburban backyard, the 57-year-old grandmother grows enough medical cannabis to last her a year.

Golden Bay woman Rebecca Reider has made history bringing the first legal raw cannabis flower into New Zealand, medical marijuana campaigners say.

A woman is claiming victory after bringing a bag of cannabis through customs at Auckland Airport - without so much as a raised eyebrow.

Rather than concealing the drug supply, Rebecca Reider said she happily showed off her haul of one ounce of medicinal marijuana, which has now been hailed by cannabis campaigners as an historic precedent. 

Reider, a Californian-born Nelson resident, said she was excited to be the first person to legally bring raw cannabis flower into New Zealand.

As of Aug. 24, the Access to Cannabis for Medical Purposes Regulations (ACMPR) replace the 2013 Marihuana for Medical Purposes Regulations (MMPR), which replaced the 2001 Marihuana Medical Access Regulations.

The new rules set out a framework for commercial production by licensed producers, like the MMPR, but like the former MMAR, allows patients to produce a “limited amount” for their own use or designate someone to grow it for them.

The 34 licensed producers will be the only legal source of “starting materials” — seeds and plants.

People who want to use medical cannabis still have to get a document from an authorized health-care practitioner specifying a period of use of up to one year and a daily quantity of marijuana in grams.