The Alabama legislature on Wednesday voted to decriminalize medicinal marijuana oil possession.

In a 95-4 vote in the House of Representatives and a 29-3 vote in the Senate, legislators supported a bill supporters say is a bid to help families struggling with debilitating medical conditions.

Though derived from cannabis, cannabidiol doesn't cause a high like marijuana due to reduced amounts of the psychoactive property tetrahydrocannabinol, or THC. Proponents say it can help alleviate severe seizures, among other conditions.

"This is an opportunity to give some sunlight to families," said Sen. Paul Sanford, who sponsored the bill in the Senate. "They don't want to feel like criminals, but they know they need to try something like this."

Should medical cannabis be allowed to be grown in New Zealand? We look at both sides of the fence.

With its profile rising and as more people look to alternative treatments for health problems, the horticulture industry sees medical cannabis cultivation as a sustainable business opportunity in New Zealand.  

Currently, the cultivation of cannabis for any reason is illegal in New Zealand. Cannabis is classified as a class C drug under the Misuse of Drugs Act 1975 and cultivation is a criminal offence carrying with it a liability for imprisonment for up to eight years.  

Police trying to promote more soft drug busts.

Twenty people a day are arrested in Israel for using soft drugs. In most cases they are ordinary citizens, young people starting their lives with a criminal record. Over 20,000 drug-related files are opened annually, more than half of them for personal use.

Following criticism by the public and media of police enforcement policies regarding consumption of soft drugs, former Police Commissioner Yohanan Danino declared in May 2015 that “it’s high time that the police and the state examine the traditional approach to cannabis.”

Marijuana is about the healing, not the high.

That was the take-away Tuesday from a news conference hosted by Ohioans for Medical Marijuana, a political action group that wants to put an initiative on the November ballot for a comprehensive medical marijuana program.

A new chart from the Marijuana Business Daily show that America's four states with legal, recreational marijuana markets are going to have some company this fall - especially if the poll numbers in three key states hold up.

As Congress and the Drug Enforcement Administration weigh whether marijuana should be rescheduled, public faith in the drug classification system continues to erode. Debate rages between those who emphasize the strangeness of marijuana being on the highly restrictive Schedule I alongside far more harmful drugs like heroin, and those who emphasize how strange it would be to put crude plant matter on a less restrictive schedule alongside well-specified FDA-approved medications.

Vancouver medical marijuana businesses that are operating without a licence must close by Friday.

The city says inspectors will start enforcing regulations on compassion clubs and retail stores that have not complied with the rules but were allowed to remain open past a six-month grace period.

Regulation began last year when the shops started popping up across Vancouver, but the city refused to grant permits to 140 dispensaries because they didn’t comply with rules such as being too close to schools or community centres.

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The Dutch supreme court has ordered a retrial of the owner of what was the country’s biggest cannabis cafe, saying a lower court ruling clearing him of criminal charges was not properly motivated.

Meddie W was found not guilty of most of the charges against him by Amsterdam’s appeal court in 2014, when judges said he was not a member of a criminal organisation, and did not have to pay a fine.

The café in Terneuzen was closed by the town’s mayor in 2007 because it broke government rules on soft drug sales. At its height, the Checkpoint cafe was said to be serving up to 3,000 clients and processing 10 kg of marijuana a day.

The New Zealand Psychoactive Substances Act 2013 (PSA 2013) was never world leading drug reform, as frequently claimed by drug reformers at the time and re-asserted in an article by one of the Act’s key flag bearers.

It was however, ground breaking drug legislation, that succeeded in gaining unanimous support across New Zealand Parliament (apart from one independent MP), because this new drug law expanded prohibition to include every new psychoactive substance (NPS) not currently incorporated within the Misuse of Drugs Act.

The clock could be running out this year for activists urging the Iowa Legislature to approve expanded access to medical marijuana.

Iowa Senate Majority Leader Michael Gronstal, D-Council Bluffs, told reporters Tuesday he is keeping the door open for medical cannabis legislation, but his goal is to have the Senate adjourn its 2016 session this week. He spoke one day after the Iowa House defeated a Republican-backed bill aimed at helping Iowans with debilitating diseases access cannabis oil in Minnesota and other states and bring it back to Iowa.