You don't want to be a medical marijuana patient in Kansas. You could face, arrest, prosecution, imprisonment, and the loss of your children. Just ask Shona Banda, who endured the latest chapter of her ordeal Monday.

The Garden City mother faces five marijuana-related charges, including three felonies, and had her 11-year-old son taken away by the state after the boy piped up during an anti-drug class at school to say that his mom "smokes a lot."

Shona Banda uses marijuana, and makes no bones about it. She has publicly said she uses cannabis oil to treat her Crohn's disease and even authored a book about it: Live Free or Die: Reclaim Your Life…Reclaim Your Country!

Minister of Tourism and Entertainment, Hon. Dr. Wykeham McNeill, says the ganja reforms, enacted earlier this year, are historic and revolutionary, and have placed Jamaica ahead of many other countries globally.

“In years to come, we will look back (with pride) at what has happened here in Jamaica and the changes that have taken (place with) how we treat cannabis. We are ahead of the curve. It has been revolutionary. We are among few countries in the world that have made these moves,” he said.

Minister McNeill was speaking at the Beckley Foundation Conference on Jamaica’s Cannabis Reforms and Regulations on Friday, November 13, at the Swept Away Resort in Negril, Westmoreland.

A lot can change in a month. 

Pendleton City Councilor Chuck Wood, who voted to draft a marijuana sales ban Oct. 20, changed his position and voted Tuesday not to support a ban without letting voters have the final say in November 2016, creating a 4-4 stalemate. 

Without the requisite five votes, the Pendleton City Council was forced to extend consideration of the ban to the Dec. 1 meeting. 

Mayor Phillip Houk opened the public hearing by saying he would only allow members of the public who had not already spoken at the last meeting to voice their support or opposition to the ban. 

Two people spoke against the ban, bringing the running total of opponents and supporters to 12-4 — in favor of ban opposers. 

WASHINGTON — Leading up to his meeting with the Black Lives Matter group Campaign Zero at the Frederick Douglass House in September, Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders steeled himself for an argument.

He’d only previously come face-to-face with Black Lives Matter protesters who wanted to interrupt him. But over the course of the meeting, the activists spoke authoritatively on policy recommendations to curb racial disparities in the criminal justice system, while Sanders impressed by synthesizing their talking points on police militarization, community empowerment, and systematic oppression.

As more states move towards legalizing marijuana for adult use, people tend to forget that, for many people suffering from debilitating diseases, even basic access to medical cannabis remains a major challenge. Nowhere is this injustice more clear than in the case of military veterans.

Cannabis has been used for its medicinal purposes for thousands of years, and modern studies have confirmed its healing properties. It has been shown to be effective for treating AIDS, multiple sclerosis, pain, glaucoma, Crohn’s disease, epilepsy, cancer and more. Furthermore, our bodies are hard-wired for cannabis, and one of the leading researchers on the endocannabinoid system even has a laboratory here at UCI.

MONTPELIER – Law enforcement officials and others who oppose marijuana legalization want to ensure they’re not forgotten as legislators get back to work on a regulation bill this week.

Opponents held a news conference Tuesday morning on the steps of the Statehouse in Montpelier.

“I really want to have a thoughtful conversation based on science,” said Debby Haskins, executive director of the group Smart Approaches to Marijuana Vermont.

Haskins’ group believes that legal marijuana would lead to greater rates of youth marijuana use and challenges to public safety, particularly through impaired driving.

Beginning in 2012, four states and the District of Columbia have voted to legalize marijuana. By this time next year, that number could well double, and then some. National polls consistently show majorities in favor of legalization, with a recent Gallup poll showing 58% support—tied for the highest level in the poll’s history.

That doesn’t mean legalization is inevitable in any given state, as the case of Ohio demonstrated earlier this month. There an initiative led by non-movement investors who sought monopolistic control of commercial pot cultivation got trounced despite spending millions of dollars.

As marijuana legalization sweeps the nation, Rhode Island could very well be one of the next states to go green. Experts say the state is among several that may end marijuana prohibition in 2016. A bill to legalize marijuana in Rhode Island, introduced in the state Legislature in January, will likely be debated next year. 

THE plan hatched to bring medical cannabis to Queensland has unearthed a groundswell of support which continues to grow.

The Daily understands State Member for Buderim Steve Dickson will this week lobby for a moratorium enabling doctors, nurses, ambulance officers and other medical professionals to come forward and present case studies to the Queensland Health Chief Health Officer.

Mr Dickson recently backed a push to explore the use of cannabis oil to treat medical conditions, while also sponsoring a petition requesting the State Government to allow all Queenslanders with medical conditions who could benefit from the treatment, access to Australian-made, whole-plant cannabis therapies.

MONTREAL — The new federal government should proceed slowly with changing the country's drug laws, says the Canadian Centre on Substance Abuse, which has released a report on the U.S.'s experience legalizing cannabis.

Representatives with the centre, which is funded by Health Canada, met with officials from the two U.S. states to legalize pot for personal use — Colorado and Washington — to learn about what mistakes to avoid.

Rebecca Jesseman, senior adviser for the centre, said in an interview the Canadian addiction experts were given one key message during their visit south of the border: Take your time.