The war on marijuana continues even at mid-point of 2016 – the year that California voters will end the marijuana prohibition in the state. While California voters get set to vote to legalize the recreational use of pot, there are good signs and bad signs around the state as the Pot Wars continue.

Right now, a majority of Californians favor legalization.

The Drug Enforcement Administration had previously banned research on medical marijuana, even calling it "a joke." But for a parent of a patient who needs to use marijuana for medical purposes, for them to have a normal life, there is nothing ridiculous about it.

As featured in a video from ATTN, Yvonne Cahalane, a mother of a cannabis patient, shares her story. Her son would have as many as 10 seizures a day; but after introducing marijuana, he gets to enjoy three months with no seizures at all.

Lack of Research

On April 17, Pennsylvania became the latest state to pass medical marijuana legislation, which will take effect this month. And recently Ohio’s House of Representatives has passed a plan to permit medical marijuana in the state.

When Colorado voted to legalize recreational marijuana four years ago, one of the move's chief critics was Gov. John Hickenlooper.

The moderate Democrat said that if he could "wave a magic wand" to reverse the decision, he would. Then he called voters "reckless" for approving it in the first place, a remark he later downgraded to "risky."

“Colorado is known for many great things,” Hickenlooper said. “Marijuana should not be one of them.”

But the governor’s views have softened. During a recent panel discussion at the Milken Institute Global Conference in Los Angeles, he said that despite opposing the legalization of pot, his job was to “deliver on the will of the people of Colorado.”

Why the change?

On Tuesday night, the Cannabis Friendly Business Association held an emergency session at Toronto’s Hotbox Cafe. Entrepreneurs, consultants and lobbyists gathered to take on Mayor John Tory, who has vowed to fine unlicensed marijuana dispensaries up to $50,000 a day. It was standing-room only, and no one was taking this threat laying down.

All the tropes and trappings of the high life one might expect in this Kensington Market setting were in effect: berets, goatees, dreads, bongs and vapes, the air inexorably filled with suspicious wafts. But the fog wasn’t so thick that one couldn’t see that this energized group of entrepreneurs, consultants and lobbyists meant business.

In a sign of the times, the country's licensed medical marijuana producers have renamed their trade group Cannabis Canada.

The association says the scope of its work is evolving along with a changing environment — which includes the Trudeau Liberal government's promise to legalize and regulate the sale of non-medical marijuana.

The Harper Conservatives had already relaxed rules governing the production, sale and distribution of marijuana for medical purposes — providing a legal framework for a new industry producing pot and derived products.

Cannabis Canada will include licensed producers that have been represented by the Canadian Medical Cannabis Industry Association but will also accept applications from other types of stakeholder.

Labour will legislate for medicinal cannabis "pretty quickly" after taking office, leader Andrew Little has confirmed.

Little said cannabis products should be available to anyone suffering chronic pain or a terminal condition if their GP signed off on it.

Labour MP Damien O'Connor has drafted a bill for Parliament that would shift the onus of decision making on medicinal cannabis away from the minister to GPs and medical professionals.

Currently individual applications must first get ministerial approval for medicinal cannabis. The first Kiwi to do so was teenager Alex Renton who died shortly after approval was given.

Los Angeles City Council President Herb Wesson is planning on introducing a motion that will direct city staffers to explore a ballot measure that would ask voters to amend marijuana dispensary rules and possibly legalize back-end cannabis businesses in town.

Wesson's motion asks city attorneys and other staffers to weigh ballot language that would "extend Proposition D's gross receipts tax to all marijuana-related businesses."

Proposition D, approved by voters in 2013, outlaws weed retailers but gives limited legal immunity 135 or fewer dispensaries that had been registered with the city since 2007. The motion is expected to be introduced at tomorrow's City Council meeting, Wesson's office says.

With the cannabis industry expected to thrive in some states California is the next up to offer cannabis courses to help those looking to get into the industry. UC Berkeley will be offering a course on cannabis journalism this summer that will take writers through the rigors of writing and reporting professionally for a fairly new industry. 

The course is taught by Katya Cengel that will give emphasis on cannabis journalism by David Downs, a leading journalist currently working with the likes of Culture Magazine, Wired, SFGate and contributing author of Beyond Buds.

While there is increasing evidence that medical marijuana could be a viable alternative to opioids in terms of pain management, a new report indicates that Congress is still not prepared to give the scientific community the green light to dig any deeper into this progressive concept.

Earlier last week, the U.S. House Rules Committee voted against two proposed amendments that would have required a special pain management task force to consider how weed might be used as an alternative or in conjunction with prescription painkillers.