They are ubiquitous, still. Marijuana dispensaries, ranging in style from pristine to slightly scary to plain sad, continue to offer illicit products in Vancouver, despite an expensive effort by city officials to limit their number with rules and enforcement provisions unique in Canada.

The pot shop bylaws, which came into effect this year, are supposed to stop cannabis impresarios from operating with typical impunity, dealing products near schools and community centres, and at all hours.

Dispensaries began to proliferate in Vancouver about four years ago, when police quit trying to enforce federal prohibitions on retail marijuana sales. By 2015, no fewer than 100 illegal dispensaries were in business.

Authorities in the Arkansas Ozarks region were joined by congressman Steve Womack in a marijuana eradication effort this week.

The Republican lawmaker posted on Facebook that the Arkansas National Guard and Boone County Sheriff’s Office eliminated 90 marijuana plants after flying the area by helicopter Tuesday. Womack, who served more than 30 years with the Arkansas National Guard, posted photos of himself in the helicopter and standing in the patch of marijuana.

Sheriff Mike Moore tells the Harrison Daily Times that Womack had planned to tour the Boone County jail, but decided to join in on the previously scheduled marijuana eradication run Tuesday morning. The sheriff says the helicopter then dropped Womack off at the jail for the tour.

The new chair of the state board tasked with regulating Alaska's fledgling marijuana industry took an active role in a campaign asking voters whether to ban commercial cannabis on the Kenai Peninsula, which he says — and state attorneys agree — is within his rights as a citizen.

Peter Mlynarik gathered signatures this summer for the petition to put the question of a ban on the ballot. The signatures were submitted Tuesday afternoon to the Kenai borough clerk's office.

He was one of 30 petition-booklet holders who collected signatures, according to Katie Ring, borough clerk secretary. Borough Assembly member Stan Welles was also listed as a petition-book holder.

The ministry of health on Monday announced the formation of a working group consisting of  academics, psychiatrists, and scientific and legal advisers of the prime minister, health ministry and the justice ministry and members of patient associations, to initiate a discussion on the medical use of the cannabis.
The group’s mission is to assess the contemporary use of the cannabis and the legislative framework, and to propose feasible regulations that would make the medicinal use of cannabis possible.
It's findings will be advisory and the working group is to submit its propositions to the minister of health by October 30, 2016.

Let lounges sell pot like bars sell alcohol, forum told Group has already designed training course for ‘bud tenders’

Some marijuana advocates want cannabis bars legalized in Toronto. Currently, seven lounges exist for medical marijuana users, but it’s strictly BYOB – “bring your own bud.” (Waubgeshig Rice/CBC)

Marijuana bars that sell pot rather than alcohol should be licensed to operate in Toronto, a city councillor’s forum on marijuana distribution heard Monday.

Colorado and Washington were the first U.S. states to vote for recreational marijuana, but the Centennial State was the first out of the gate.

“Day 1, Colorado definitely was in a great spot because of your regulated medical market,” says Cy Scott, a founder of dispensary review and news site Leafly and founder of startup Headset. “You guys were able to flip a switch, essentially, and start the recreational sales, where Washington took a long time after I-502 passed. And I think it was a bit of a struggle in the beginning.”

Scott, who hails from Washington, joins The Cannabist Show to talk about the differences between the marijuana industries in Colorado and his home state.

“Washington’s catching up,” he says.

Since the Compassionate Use Act was passed by the Florida Legislature in 2014, patients and their advocates have eagerly awaited the opportunity to see if medical marijuana could provide relief for a handful of symptoms covered by the legislation.

Media coverage has reported on the progress made at the Department of Health, Office of Compassionate Use, and the nurseries licensed to grow and dispense medical marijuana.

Now that we know the medicine is here, it matters little where the dispensaries are located, or how scientific the process of growing medical marijuana is, or who is still challenging the DOH, OCU for not being awarded a dispensary license.

They’re having a high ol’ time at the DNC thanks to Philadelphia’s decriminalization of pot and a DNC platform moving in that direction.

“Cannabis is having a very good convention,” said Chris Goldstein, from Philly NORML, the marijuana advocacy group.

“I’ve seen plenty of open marijuana smoking in sight of law enforcement. Safety is their priority. We appreciate that.”

The convention kicked off with a cannabis welcome party Monday night at a dive bar where delegates — and even one congressman — attended.

Goldstein wouldn’t identify the lawmaker.

Protesters got in on the action by carrying a 51-foot inflatable joint through the streets.

The State of California’s Sixth Appellate District Court ruled Friday that the medical marijuana dispensary Medimarts in San Jose, must pay the city $767,058 in taxes and late fees. Medimarts has not paid the Marijuana Business Tax (MBT) to the City of San Jose since May of 2012, according to the court filing. Dave Armstrong, president and founding member of Medimarts, says that paying the tax would acknowledge they are violating federal law by selling marijuana. “My next step is do whatever it takes to maintain my caregiver status for the 10,000 plus, active medical marijuana patients that we serve,” Armstrong says.

President Duterte is waging a hard-line just-kill-them-all war on drugs at a time when the rest of the world already knows the truth about such a strategy: It doesn’t work.

This was underscored just a few weeks before Duterte was elected.

As the Philippine election campaign was wrapping up in April, world leaders met at the United Nations to rethink the decades-old global war against drugs and drug abuse.

“A war that has been fought for more than 40 years has not been won, Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos told the New York Times. “When you do something for 40 years and it doesn’t work, you need to change it.”