Seventeen people suffering effects of synthetic cannabis were brought into Waitakere Hospital over the course of five days.

Many of these patients were near-unconscious and one person had seizures, emergency clinical director Kate Allen says.

"We don't know the long-term or permanent effects of synthetic cannabiniods. The users of these drugs are essentially being used as lab rats, whether they realise this or not," Allen says.

The Waitemata District Health Board is warning people of the drugs' risks.

These patients showed unexpected effects, like low levels of consciousness and seizures, indicating potentially dangerous unknown chemical additives, Allen says.

A documentary following a man who has treated his sciatica pain by eating medical marijuana edibles aired this past Tuesday night on CBC. The man, a Montreal comedian named Mike Paterson, insists that consuming these edibles has been the only successful treatment to ease his chronic back pain.

Grass Fed

The 81-minute film, aptly titled Grass Fed, is the brainchild of Jewish-Canadian director and cinematographer Ezra Soiferman. It is produced by Muse Entertainment Enterprises.

Venerated singer-songwriter, renowned equal rights and cannabis legalisation activist, and Byron Bay Bluesfest 2016 drawcard Melissa Etheridge says that she believes users of the Devil's lettuce should start to 'come out' in order to better spur on normalisation and decriminalisation processes.

Having spent more than 20 years as a vocal supporter of gay rights — and a significant period as an advocate for legalisation, notably while she was battling breast cancer mid-last decade — Etheridge says that she sees surface similarities in the transition of social attitudes towards non-heterosexuality and marijuana use (without, obviously, actually equating the two issues in terms of severity, before anyone gets upset).

Signature gathering was underway for an initiative that would ban all privately owned medical marijuana cultivation sites and dispensaries and create a state-owned and operated medical marijuana cultivation site and dispensaries.

What authors Roger D. Morgan, Scott Chapman, Carla Lowe and the Rev. Ron Allen have dubbed “The California Safe and Drug-Free Community Act” would also allow local governments to ban or restrict the number and location of state-owned dispensaries, and establishes packaging, lab testing and potency standards for medical marijuana.

Gummy candy stars made of marijuana are seen at Perennial Holistic Wellness Center medical marijuana dispensary, which opened in 2006, on July 25, 2012 in Los Angeles, California. The Los Angeles City Council has unanimously voted to ban storefront medical marijuana dispensaries and to order them to close or face legal action. The council also voted to instruct staff to draw up a separate ordinance for consideration in about three months that might allow dispensaries that existed before a 2007 moratorium on new dispensaries to continue to operate. It is estimated that Los Angeles has about one thousand such facilities. The ban does not prevent patients or cooperatives of two or three people to grow their own in small amounts.

Some gifts are almost too good to give away.

Case in point: these sweet gifts to suit every cannabis consumer - and any price range.

Synthetic cannabis has caused a cluster of cases of near-unconsciousness and in one person seizures, says an emergency doctor who is now warning the public of the drugs' risks.

Seventeen patients suffering the ill effects of using synthetic cannabis were brought to Waitakere Hospital's emergency department over a period of five days this month. Brought in by family, friends or ambulance, they had to be monitored for several hours until the effects of the drug started wearing off.

"Many of these patients had low levels of consciousness and were near comatose, while one patient experienced seizures," says Dr Kate Allan, associate clinical director of emergency care at the Waitemata District Health Board.

Marijuana may contain a chemical that can help fight cigarette addiction, according to new research out of Britain.

Researchers at the University College London found that a non-psychoactive chemical in marijuana, cannabidiol (CBD), given via inhaler could significantly reduce the number of cigarettes consumed by smokers that wanted to quit.

Celia Morgan, Ph.D, who co-authored the study, explained that CBD may help in a number of ways. One way could be how it affects memories, or cues, that underlie the desire to smoke.

Exemption for medical pot users was only announced on Wednesday

Ontario's Liberal government says it will re-examine its recent move to allow medical marijuana users to smoke and vape the drug anywhere in the province, just one day after announcing the change.

"We've heard the concerns around this regulation, and we're going to take this feedback and see if this regulation is the best way to move forward," Associate Health Minister Dipika Damerla said Thursday.