Final judgement On 6 April 2016, the Third Division of the Federal Administrative Court reached a landmark decision which is of crucial importance to cannabis patients: it issued a permit to a 52-year-old MS patient to grow cannabis at home. More on the legally binding decision and the background to the approval of cannabis cultivation here.

I have just watched the closing plenary session of the 2016 UN General Assembly Special Session on the world drug problem here in New York. Presidents and Prime Ministers will now move on to the climate change summit that opens tomorrow, and the thousands of government and NGO delegates who have filled the UN building in Manhattan over the last 3 days will catch their flights back to all corners of the globe. So was it worth it – three years of preparation, tens of millions of dollars of travel and meeting costs, and countless hours of debate and negotiation. Is the international community any better placed to reduce the health, social and economic problems associated with illicit drug markets?

On the final day on UNGASS 2016, the UK’s Transform Drug Policy Foundation brought their Anyone’s Child campaign to a packed conference room at the UN.

In stark contrast to an event they were due to be involved in earlier in the day – ‘Drug Policy, Dirty Money, and Development: Why the UNGASS should care about the Panama Papers’ – which had to be called off after only a handful of people (myself included) managed to get through the police barriers to attend, this deeply emotional event was so popular that many attendees ended up sat on the floor, or stood around the edges of the room.

As UNGASS draws to a close over in New York City, The Guardian have published a bold editorial on cannabis use and psychosis.

Drugs policy in the UK is not actually made in smoke-filled rooms but it might as well be. The mixture of befuddled optimism with a lack of urgency that characterises official thinking about cannabis has had dangerous results.

Canada won’t decriminalize marijuana before legalizing in 2017.

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau says his Liberal government will not decriminalize marijuana possession before moving to fully legalize the drug in 2017, as reported by The Huffington Post Canada.

It’s an odd coincidence that I’m writing this article around 4:20 p.m. on 4/20 from Vancouver — 4/20 being common urban slang for marijuana consumption that has now morphed into a cultural trademark for those who wish to decriminalize it and draw political attention on April 20 each year.

For years, people from all over Vancouver have been gathering on Robson Street in front of the art gallery steps (and across from the courthouse) at 4:20 p.m. on April 20 to brazenly light up (or in some cases, eat) their marijuana in full sight of the police and close enough to the Provincial Court, the Supreme Court of British Columbia, and the Court of Appeal that the annual celebration/protest/public relations exercise can’t go unnoticed by the judiciary — or the TV cameras.

The participants in a procession held in the centre of the Bulgarian capital on Sunday demanded the legalisation of cannabis.

Among the main demands of the protesters are: allowing the medical use of cannabis, decriminalising the possession and cultivation of cannabis for personal use, allowing and regulating the growth and procession of all products from industrial cannabis.

Organisers remind that this is one of the fastest developing industries in the world, in which Bulgaria used to be a regional leader some hundred years ago.

Protesters are in favour of allowing patients to undergo treatment with medical cannabis.

Protestors, including members of the Rastafarian community, are stepping up calls for the decriminalization of weed.

Cannabis activists in Saint Lucia want the government to decriminalize the drug.

There is a growing movement for cannabis legalization in the Caribbean, and over the weekend proponents of the drug took to the streets and demanded their government modernize its approach to drug policy by recognizing the medicinal and religious value of marijuana.

Organizers of the Cannabis March in the southern town of Soufriere say there has been far too much talk and no action on the issue.

Cannabis researchers in the United States are forced to conduct their studies using weed grown by the federal government. And many of them have said that Uncle Sam isn’t giving them what they need. If a scientist in the U.S. wants to do an official study of cannabis the only way to legally get the weed they need is to get it from the federal government’s supply.

Since 1968 the U.S. government has contracted with the University of Mississippi to grow for cannabis researchers.

With the sounds of reggae and rap blaring from the concert stage and groups of people lounging in the grass, Saturday's scene at RFK's Lot 6 could have been any outdoor music festival, with one glaring exception—the line for beer was practically nonexistent.

The lack of swarming crowds around the alcohol offerings was the biggest hint that attendees were at the first-ever National Cannabis Festival, which promised a celebration of the progress on marijuana legalization amidst the musical stylings of headliner De La Soul, as well as the Backyard Band, Congo Sanchez, and more.