Ghana is gradually moving towards decriminalizing the use of marijuana.

A process has begun towards crafting legislation to decriminalize the use of marijuana and other narcotics.

This will ensure that attitudes to drug addicts move away from shaming them to helping them.

A new report by the International Narcotics Control Board lists the drug as the most abused substance in West Africa.

According to the report, only one out of 18 addicts gets help as a result of the criminalization.

Former UN Secretary General Kofi Annan recently called for the decriminalization of cannabis to help tackle abuse of the substance.

 A House committee will hear debate next week on a pair of medical marijuana bills, but one faces a tough battle.

Sen. Mark Madsen, R-Saratoga Springs, told FOX 13 that he has been meeting with members of the House Health & Human Services Committee to persuade them to vote for his bill, SB73. It would allow for cannabis oils, edibles and extracts to be used to treat a long list of conditions, from chronic pain and cancer to AIDS and epilepsy.

The committee will hear SB73 and a competing bill, SB89 (which allows for an extract to be used).

"If we can get it to the floor, I'm very optimistic. Right now, I'm mostly concerned about the committee," Madsen said Thursday. "That committee is daunting and we have our work cut out for us."

The mayor of Tampa is in favor of it and so is the chief of police: The decriminalization of pot within city limits. As it stands right now, if you’re caught with pot in Tampa, you could face jail time, a big fine and the loss of your license.

Council members passed the ordinance to change that by a 6-to-1 vote with councilman Charlie Miranda the sole opponent.

The council listened to about 20 people during public comment. Most were in favor of the change, but a few people voiced their opposition to the ordinance.

Legal marijuana may be doing at least one thing that a decades-long drug war couldn't: taking a bite out of Mexican drug cartels' profits.

The latest data from the U.S. Border Patrol shows that last year, marijuana seizures along the southwest border tumbled to their lowest level in at least a decade. Agents snagged roughly 1.5 million pounds of marijuana at the border, down from a peak of nearly 4 million pounds in 2009.

More than 90 academics, politicians and lawyers in Norway have signed a public statement in support of the country's organizations that fight for the rights of people who use drugs and their right to be heard and included in political decisions. The petition was published on February 12 in Norway's largest daily newspaper, Verdens Gang. Signatories include two former Supreme Court judges and the leader of the Liberal Democrat party.

MERSEYSIDE has become the cannabis capital of the UK with the region exporting more than it imports, a judge has declared.

Despairing Judge Stephen Everett made the claim after telling how much of his time is taken up by cases concerning the drug.

Speaking at the sentencing of a man twice found with cannabis farms at his Liverpool home, he said: “Almost none is imported into Liverpool, it is all exported because so many people are growing it. I see five to ten cases a week.

“Cannabis is an evil drug which brings people into the drugs scene. People start by smoking cannabis and move onto Class A drugs and commit further offences.”

Supporters of a voter initiative to legalize marijuana in Maine have failed to collect enough valid signatures to qualify for the state ballot.

Petition gatherers for the marijuana initiative delivered 51,543 valid signatures — about 9,500 signatures below the threshold, the Maine Secretary of State office reported Wednesday. The office found 47,686 invalid signatures.

Wednesday was the deadline for the Secretary of State office to validate signatures. The failure of the marijuana initiative was the biggest surprise of the day, as a casino proposal was denied and a school funding measure was approved. The marijuana campaign on Feb. 1 had delivered more than 99,000 signatures.

A magistrate has launched a blistering attack on the New South Wales Government's roadside drug testing regime, challenging the accuracy of its claims that cannabis can only be detected in a person's saliva for up to 12 hours.

Key points:

• Drivers are being charged days after using cannabis, magistrate says
• Magistrate points to hundreds of cases of this happening
• He said no evidence had been presented in court showing drugs can only be detected for up to 12 hours

In a judgement on Monday, Lismore magistrate David Heilpern said he had heard hundreds of cases over the past few months in which drivers said they had waited days, sometimes weeks, after smoking cannabis before driving.

Although the Obama Administration advised the U.S. Supreme Court in 2015 not to waste any time entertaining a lawsuit brought forth by Oklahoma and Nebraska that suggests Colorado’s legal marijuana market is causing “irreparable injury” due to an influx of drug trafficking into their communities, the nation’s highest court will discuss on Friday whether to pick up the case—creating the potential for the legal cannabis industry to be shutdown. 

Medical marijuana has been a bipartisan issue in Florida for the past several years. In 2014, 58 percent of Floridians voted in favor it—just shy of the 60 percent needed to pass. The same year, Republican Governor Rick Scott signed into law theCompassionate Medical Cannabis Act, allowing very limited uses to alleviate pain for cancer patients, Lou Gehrig’s disease, or epilepsy.