The takeaway from April’s United Nations meetings on international drug policy, at least in Italy: We’re ready to culturally embrace cannabis and other recreational drugs, but we’re bureaucratically hamstrung when it comes to making it happen.

Marco Perduca, Italy’s permanent representative to the U.N. from the Radical Party, said that while many countries are calling for sensible policy and seeking to regulate and legalize cannabis, other countries continue to violate human rights in the suppression of the cannabis trade — and thus stymie progressive efforts worldwide.

Cannabis is enjoying a major public-image improvement. After all, we've learned that the THC in marijuana has medicinal uses, while the plant fibers in hemp have countless uses in manufacturing. The legitimacy of marijuana is growing as states legalize it and corporations invest substantial resources in cannabinoid research and development.

No matter your stance on cannabis, you should get to know the world's most high-profile plant. So here are some facts and figures on marijuana that may surprise or impress you:

Lawmakers will take another shot this week at allowing doctors at the Department of Veterans Affairs to prescribe medical marijuana, reigniting a smoldering debate over veteran access to the drug.

Rep. Earl Blumenauer, D-Ore., said he will propose the change as part of the department’s annual budget bill during a vote on the House floor expected as early as Wednesday.

The Senate was also set to vote on its version of the department’s annual budget bill, which includes the same proposal by Sens. Steve Daines, R-Mont., and Jeff Merkley, D-Ore.

The proposals to give veterans access to medical marijuana through the VA in states where it is legal put Congress on the verge of making a major policy shift for the second year in a row.

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.

It was with a sense of fulfilment and great pride that I heard that the regulations to govern the cannabis industries had been sent to the Office of the Parliamentary Counsel by the Cannabis Licensing Authority (CLA) a few weeks ago.

As the former chairman of the CLA who guided the preparation of these regulations and the development of the supporting framework under which they are intended to operate, one wants to see one's work come to fruition in the manner intended and to the benefit of the nation as a whole.

Louisiana is poised to officially become the 25th state to legalize medical marijuana. On May 16, the state senators approved the House's revisions to a bill that would officially allow patients to access marijuana for medicinal uses. The bill is now headed to the desk of Governor John Bel Edwards (D), who has said he would sign it and thereby make medical marijuana officially legal in Louisiana.

For nearly a century, Canadian pot enthusiasts haven't let the law stop them from smoking, vaping and eating their favourite drug.

But with an end to prohibition in sight, researchers say we still have plenty to learn about the drug's potential health effects — and that's especially true for Canada's many toking teenagers.

UNICEF reports Canadian teens are among the heaviest pot users in the world. More than 22% reported lighting up within the previous year. 

The federal government's plan to legalize marijuana contravenes Canada's pledge to adhere to existing drug-control conventions set forth by the UN, according to a commentary published Monday in the CMAJ medical journal.

Canada is legally obligated to follow three international treaties that control or prohibit the access to drugs like marijuana, says the commentary's authors — Steven Hoffman and Roojin Habibi of the Global Strategy Lab at the University of Ottawa's Centre for Health Law, Policy and Ethics.

Those treaties are the 1961 Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs, the 1971 Convention on Psychotropic Substances and the 1988 Convention Against Illicit Traffic in Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances.

Thanks to marijuana, some Colorado students will have an easier time paying for college.

The Pueblo Hispanic Education Foundation, in Colorado’s Pueblo County, is distributing scholarships to 25 students this year, USA Today reports. The grants, which amount to $1,000 each, are being funded by cannabis taxes.

The federal government and most states are throwing away $28 billion in yearly tax revenue by not legalizing marijuana, according to a new analysis from the Tax Foundation, an independent think tank.

The bulk of that revenue -- $20.5 billion of it -- would accrue to states through the collection of excise taxes on marijuana sales, general sales taxes, and income and payroll taxes levied on workers and businesses in a mature legal marijuana industry.

The federal government would take in another $7.5 billion, primarily from income and payroll taxes, and $500 million in excise taxes if marijuana were to be taxed the same way tobacco is.