I think I am the only member of parliament in Australia to acknowledge my recreational use of cannabis. In fact, I have enjoyed the many blessings that cannabis can bestow for a lot of my adult life and have not lost my mind or become a serial killer.

Indeed, I became a politician and some have even said I would not have been elected without it!

Jokes aside, I'm declaring my usage or non-usage of cannabis, just so everyone knows where I'm coming from. This debate would be far more informative if every journalist, every politician and every commentator on the subject of cannabis law reform did the same, instead of hiding their drug use, drug abuse or their non-use in the closet.

More than a week after Toronto police raided dozens of local pot dispensaries, the ones still open are feeling the stress.

“Most [staff] are just trying to make a living, not making big bucks like the owners,” said a manager at the Green Room dispensary in Davisville who identified himself as Green Eyez.

“We shouldn’t have to worry about being charged with a serious crime.”

As part of the Project Claudia raids May 26, police laid criminal charges against 90 dispensary owners and employees, while confiscating 270 kilograms of pot and $160,000 in cash.

Marijuana legalization has been growing like a weed for the past two decades, but 2016 could prove to be its most monumental year yet. Although marijuana has gained 24 state approvals for medicinal use, and four states have legalized its recreational use, we could see up to 12 separate approvals for the currently illicit drug in November.

This expansion is especially important because current President Barack Obama has suggested that the best way to get the attention of Congress is to continue legalizing the drug at the state level. Doing so would eventually force lawmakers to reconsider the federal government's current Schedule 1 stance on the drug.

It may be 2018 before a patient, armed with a state registration card, can walk into a licensed marijuana dispensary in Ohio, make a purchase, and walk out into the direct path of a police officer without breaking a sweat.

But those who want to get in on the ground floor of growing pot as Ohio literally sows the seeds for a new medical marijuana industry should know by next May what will be expected of them. 

Those wanting to get into the processing, testing, and retail side of the business, however, may have to wait a year until state regulators write the rules under which they will have to play.

The Principal of the University of the West Indies Cave Hill Campus, Professor Eudine Barriteau has called on the Freundel Stuart administration to introduce the necessary legislation to allow the institution to conduct research into marijuana.

Professor Barriteau was responding to recent comments from Government Senator Jepter Ince, who suggested that the UWI needed to capitalize on the financial gains to be derived from research on marijuana usage for medical purposes. He was speaking last week during debate on the Caribbean Accreditation Authority Education in Medicine and other Health Professions (Incorporation) Bill 2016.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is taking interest in how to effectively regulate marijuana.

The agency is cohosting a conference later this month that will include a panel examining Canada’s system of legal medical cannabis, according to a notice published in the Federal Register on Thursday.

City and state officials, entrepreneurs, attorneys and others will come together June 14 for a daylong conference at the University of Washington on the future of marijuana policy in the state.

The Liberal government has tapped former cabinet minister Anne McLellan to head a long-awaited task force that will examine the best way to legalize marijuana, the Ottawa Citizen has learned.

It will consult experts and others on a framework for the proposed legislation, including how to regulate and tax the drug. The panel will be asked to report back by the first week of November, sources say, as the government hopes to table its legislation in the spring.The task force will be unveiled before Parliament breaks for the summer, sources have confirmed, and report to Bill Blair, the former Toronto police chief and current parliamentary secretary who is the Trudeau government’s point person on marijuana.

Assembly Bill 2516, which would create a new medical cannabis cultivator license for “micro farmers,” passed the Assembly on Wednesday.

“We are trying to ensure small medical cannabis growers on the North Coast can continue to do business as this industry moves forward,” state Assemblyman Jim Wood (D-Healdsburg) said in a release. “It is not fair to require the small farmers to adhere to the same standards as larger operations. We are going to ensure the California Department of Food and Agriculture can develop regulations specific to small farmer practices.”