Israel is considered a leader in cannabis research for medical uses, but many Israelis still face heavy bureaucracy to obtain the treatment.

A Knesset lobby for the use of medical cannabis has been established with Likud MK Sharren Haskel at its head, it was announced on Thursday.

“It has become accepted that medical cannabis has significant health benefits and an important place in the development of the world of medicine,” Haskel said, “but there are many impediments to its use. The trend is to limit this development, even though there are many seriously ill patients who need it.”

Israel is a leader in cannabis research for medical uses.

When cannabis was added to the schedule of prohibited substances in 1923, Canadians were inaugurated into a fraud from which we are just now emerging. It was not a fraud in the familiar business sense – Volkswagen, Bre-X Gold, Enron or subprime mortgages – rather in the sense that it was foisted on the Canadian public by people who could have known better but were inspired by a righteous impulse to punish and stigmatize and criminalize and punish some more.

But as we know – and as the examples above demonstrate – all frauds end. They are all exposed as frauds eventually.

The Māori Party say it's highly unlikely they would support the legalisation of cannabis given the dire effects the drug has had on Māori communities.

Ex-president of the Council Trade Union, Helen Kelly, who uses cannabis oil for medicinal purposes, is calling for a referendum to legalise the drug.  The New Zealand Drug Foundation says politicians need to "wake up" over the issue. 

The NZ Drug Foundation say politicians need to stop beating around the bush over the legalisation of cannabis.

Ross Bell says, "I think on this issue we need to grow up.  I think because it's cannabis it's a dirty word.  Politicians are really scared of that, they think if you do something on cannabis the floodgates are going to open and everyone is going to be smoking cannabis."

Legalising cannabis for medicinal use is just one policy that any new mayor of London might consider to help tackle inequality, writes one leading educationist 

Premier Kathleen Wynne said she is pleased Prime Minister Trudeau has asked former Toronto police chief Bill Blair to lead legalization of marijuana.

The Blair roach project has won a powerful supporter.

Premier Kathleen Wynne said she is pleased Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has asked former Toronto police chief Bill Blair, now Scarborough Southwest MP, to lead the marijuana legalization efforts.

“I have a lot of respect for Bill Blair. I think that he’ll do a great job and his taking on of that role is the beginning of that national conversation that I said we have to have,” Wynne told reporters Monday at Queen’s Park.

Located about a block away from the Colorado State Capitol Building in Denver is the legal marijuana dispensary Good Chemistry. 

By Steve Brown

DENVER, Colo. There is a distinct possibility that legalized recreational marijuana could soon arise as a new industry in Massachusetts. And with an expected ballot question on the horizon, some state lawmakers are taking new measures to help the body prepare for such a change.

New Yorkers may be toking more brazenly than ever before, but the NYPD says marijuana arrests are the lowest they've been in almost two decades.

In 2015, arrests for sale, felony possession, and low-level criminal possession of marijuana in New York city were down by 11,000 — for a total of just under 22,000. "We have not seen this low level of marijuana arrests in New York City since 1997," said NYPD Deputy Commissioner Dermot Shea during a press conference on the city's overall reduction in crime. "That's a 33-percent reduction, that's on top of the big reduction last year."

My Turn: Critics say an Arizona initiative to legalize marijuana would be disastrous. But evidence proves otherwise.

A recent New York Times editorial got it wrong. Despite its push for legalization, there’s no reason the feds should OK marijuana for recreational use when states are still experimenting with the consequences. AP AP This April 21, 2011 photos shows marijuana growing in the home of two medical marijuana patients in Medford, Ore. The City of Cave Junction, Ore., has filed a lawsuit asking a judge to determine if the new state law authorizing the sale of medical marijuana through dispensaries complies with the state and federal constitutions.

Manhattan's first and only medical marijuana dispensary is like a fortress. To enter the building, located on 14th Street near the 3rd Avenue subway station, patients have to pass through two security systems before they even encounter another human. First, they flash their medical marijuana card in front of a camera. If everything looks in order, the first set of doors opens to a vestibule and then closes behind them. There, they hold their cards under an electronic scanner. If there's a problem, guards — many of them ex-cops — will escort them from the premises.

Dear Editor,

Those pushing for the legalization of marijuana should take note of the growing number of murders of Guyana’s innocent citizens, and now a young, promising non-resident. I have yet to hear of one murderer who was not a drug addict. All these murders-for-hire, all these premeditated killings, all the savage robbery-murders are being perpetrated by a set of young drug addicts, whose minds are being altered by the imbibing of the abundance of narcotic substances available here in Guyana.