Doug Fine giving a talk on cannabis law reform at London South Bank University. Oh my! (Photo by Jake Lewis)

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The Anti-Drug Alliance is calling for the decriminalisation of dagga, saying money spent on criminalising it should be spent on rehabilitating drug users.

In a report, “At what cost? The futility of the war on drugs in South Africa”, released this month, the alliance’s chief executive, Quintin van Kerken, said legalising dagga would help to make the government money, as it would be able to tax it.

The picture to your left is showing immunofluorescence of the human glioma cell line. (View more pictures here)

A European based pharmaceutical company called GW Pharmaceuticals is set to commence its first phase of clinical trials for the treatment of Glioblastoma Multiforme (GBM). It’s a bio-pharmaceutical company focused on discovering, developing and commercializing novel therapeutics from its proprietary cannabinoid product platform.

New research out of the UK may explain why chemicals from marijuana offer protection in various models of Parkinson’s disease.

Parkinson’s is more common among the aging population and is marked by a widespread loss of dopamine-producing cells in the brain.

However, investigators from the Peninsula Schools of Medicine and Dentistry at University of Plymouth say that numerous studies have found cannabinoids to protect cells from Parkinson’s-related damage.

Cannabinoids such as Δ9-tetrahydrocannabinol [THC] are neuroprotective in animal and cell culture models of Parkinson’s disease.

In the latest study, the team, led by Camille Carrol, Ph.D, identified a mechanism that appears to underlie these benefits.

www.economist.com 11.12.2013 by H.C.

“A CRITICAL turning point in the failed war against drugs,” is the verdict of Martin Jelsma of the Drugs and Democracy Programme at the Transnational Institute, an Amsterdam-based think-tank. On December 10th Uruguay’s Senate approved a law that not only legalised marijuana use but also regulated its production and sale. Others have gone down this route before: the American states of Colorado and Washington legalised marijuana for recreational use in 2012. But Uruguay is the first country to do so.

Daraine Luton, Senior Staff Reporter

WITH JAMAICA'S Ministry of Justice positioning itself to seek approval from Cabinet for the decriminalisation of marijuana, government Senator Mark Golding said the country is to advance constitutional justification to its international partners for the revision of the law.

Golding, the country's justice minister, said his ministry is giving active consideration to reforming the law relating to ganja in Jamaica.

Responding to questions posed in the Senate by Robert Montague yesterday, Golding said the revised law would permit the possession of small amounts of ganja, about two ounces, for recreational use.

MONTEVIDEO, Uruguay (AP) — Uruguay's drug czar says the country plans to sell legal marijuana for $1 per gram to combat drug-trafficking, according to a local newspaper.

The plan to create a government-run legal marijuana industry has passed the lower house of Congress, and President Jose Mujica expects to push it through the Senate soon as part of his effort to explore alternatives in the war on drugs.

The measure would make Uruguay the first country in the world to license and enforce rules for the production, distribution and sale of marijuana for adult consumers.

Marijuana sales should start in the second half of 2014 at a price of about $1 per gram, drug chief Julio Calzada told a local newspaper, El Pais, on Sunday.

In this Monday, Oct. 14, 2013, Martina Kafkova, a patient diagnosed with multiple sclerosis, smokes a joint at her home in Tyn nad Vltavou, Czech Republic. Confined to a wheelchair, the former non-smoker needs five short joints a day to get relief from severe stiffness, painful spasms and breathing troubles because other available medicine is not effective enough to help. Czech Republic has approved legislation for use of medical marijuana but it is still impossible to obtain it legally. (AP Photo/Petr David Josek)

Authorized medical patients in Romania may now use marijuana derivatives to allay their pain under new provisions in two of the country's narcotic laws, according to local reports.