Researchers at the University of Canberra will collaborate with a pharmaceutical company to test the efficacy of medicinal cannabis in treating melanoma.

The university announced a $1 million deal with Israel-based Cann Pharmaceutical to provide specific medical-grade strains of cannabis, which will be administered to patients along with the current standard of care for melanoma patients.

Molecular and cellular biology professor Sudha Rao said the research could benefit the almost-55,000 Australians that live with the skin cancer.

"Australians have the highest rate of melanoma in the world, with estimates of more than 13,000 new cases to be diagnosed in 2016 alone," she said.

Full-fledged cannabis legalization: is it only a matter of time? Before we get to the odds on the topic de jure, a little context.

Cannabis was a part of America’s consciousness long before Harry Chapin’s song “Taxi” was on the airwaves in the early 1970s, and even before grass enthusiasts endured days of rain at Woodstock a few years earlier.

MEMBER for Buderim Steve Dickson has challenged candidates in the upcoming Federal election to declare if they support the issue of a licence to grow medicinal cannabis on the Sunshine Coast.

Mr Dickson was one of more than 80 people who attended a medicinal cannabis round table discussion at Nambour today.

He and councillor Greg Rogerson have declared their support for the production of medical cannabis on the Sunshine Coast.

The meeting, hosted by Queensland Health and the Department of Agriculture and Fisheries, heard there would be eight licences issued in Australia to grow medicinal cannabis.

Those attending the meeting were updated on timelines and legislative changes.

Marijuana addiction is something that people right swipe when they relate it to drug addiction. It is being puffed until people reach a saturation point or maybe beyond that. As government hushed up facts it comes out that Australians are living under a misapprehension that cannabis is not addictive.

National Cannabis Prevention and Information Centre researched that Australians are secretly struggling with cannabis addiction. And they are becoming dependent.

Big-party support for a motion to legalise dope, introduced into parliament by the Greens?

Anyone convinced of that scenario a few years ago would have been accused of, well, smoking something. But that’s in effect what happened with the Narcotic Drugs Amendment Bill 2016, which opened the way for medicinal-grade cannabis to be made available to patients.

The bill, which proposes a licencing regime for both production and research — was similar to a 2014 bill introduced by Greens senator and future leader Robert Di Natale.

For years, Lisa Tollner, co-founder of the California marijuana edibles company Sensi Products, says she’s received calls and emails from customers reporting her cannabis-infused Sensi Chew caramels had helped alleviate pain, insomnia, nausea and other ailments. But Tollner wanted more.

“These people are telling me their stories, but with no real consistency,” said Tollner, who was interested in hard data on how her products worked, not shifting anecdotal evidence. “I need ways to prove our products’ efficacy.”

THERE’S a secret addiction sweeping across Australia and we aren’t hearing about it.

We all know the damaging effects of the monster drug ice and other hard narcotics, but what about the substances that are a little easier to get and widely spread?

Marijuana is not something you often associate with the word “addiction” or consider it to be dangerous, but many people are hooked on the drug and it’s a problem experts say we need to take more seriously.

A National Epidemiological Study of Alcohol Use and Related Disorders found adults who smoked marijuana were more likely than non-users to also abuse alcohol.

According to the National Institute on Drug Abuse, marijuana use is also linked to other addictions like nicotine.

Raising seed funding for a medical cannabis start-up is just half the battle.

Entrepreneurs are jostling for position in the nascent but lucrative medical cannabis industry, even as political and legal traction is proving difficult.

Take Chris Nasr, founder of LeafCann, who represents the contemporary face of the medical cannabis industry.

A 24-year-old electrician from a conservative Arabic family, Nasr is hard to dismiss as law-flouting drug user.

Helen Kapalos' documentary A Life Of Its Own: The Truth About Medical Marijuana has been scheduled a release date. 

In the works since 2014, the chairperson of the Victorian Multicultural Commission took to her Facebook page to express delight over the news.

"Finally!! am proud to say my documentary, which features so many incredible Australians speaking with courage on medical marijuana, is about to be released at Palace Cinemas," she wrote on Monday. 

Directed and produced by Kapalos herself, A Life Of Its Own follows her quest to investigate the medical truths behind the life-giving and enhancing properties of marijuana. 

I think I am the only member of parliament in Australia to acknowledge my recreational use of cannabis. In fact, I have enjoyed the many blessings that cannabis can bestow for a lot of my adult life and have not lost my mind or become a serial killer.

Indeed, I became a politician and some have even said I would not have been elected without it!

Jokes aside, I'm declaring my usage or non-usage of cannabis, just so everyone knows where I'm coming from. This debate would be far more informative if every journalist, every politician and every commentator on the subject of cannabis law reform did the same, instead of hiding their drug use, drug abuse or their non-use in the closet.