The first round of France’s Socialist party primary has yielded a surprise victory for the country’s cannabis enthusiasts.

It comes in the form of Benoit Hamon, described by BBC News as the “French Bernie Sanders”, who has captured public interest with a series of policy proposals, including legalising cannabis.

Benoit Hamon. (Source: Wikimedia Commons)

A legal form of cannabis, C-Pure, is being bought, sold, and consumed in Switzerland due to an inadvertent legislative loophole – throwing into question the wider ability and purpose of policing cannabis.

C-Pure is legal under Swiss law as it contains less than one per cent THC (tetrahydrocannabinol), the main psychoactive constituent of cannabis. Dario Tobler, director of Bio Can AGOrganic – the company that created C-Pure – says that the product “has no intoxicating effect” because of its low THC content.

Marijuana's official designation as a Schedule 1 drug — something with "no accepted medical use" — means it is pretty tough to study.

Yet both a growing body of research and numerous anecdotal reports link cannabis with several health benefits, ranging from pain relief to helping with certain forms of epilepsy. In addition, researchers say there are many other potential ways marijuana might affect health that they want to understand better.

French left-wingers are fed up with being in power.

That appeared to be the message that 600,000 of them were sending Sunday when they made a little known former education minister the favorite to win the left’s presidential nomination.

After relaxation of rules on possession, campaigners await judgment on punishment for cultivation.

Until recently, anyone caught with cannabis twice in 12 months in Georgia faced up to 14 years behind bars. Today you can carry enough for more than 200 joints, after the constitutional court in effect decriminalised possession of the drug.

The landmark ruling follows the case of 27-year-old Beka Tsikarishvili, who was arrested in 2013 with 65 grams of cannabis, which he said was for his own use. Facing a long sentence, he argued imprisonment was unlawful because it infringed his human dignity.

The German parliament (Bundestag) is expected to pass a law on Thursday that would officially make marijuana legal for medicinal purposes.

Sources from the various parties in the Bundestag say the proposal by the Health Ministry will pass on Thursday, according to DPA, allowing seriously ill patients to receive prescriptions for cannabis products.

Currently only certain people with serious medical conditions may be granted permission to use the drug for self therapy, and the bar is set fairly high. Only around 1,000 people in the whole country currently have been given permission to use the drug.

Medicinal cannabis company Creso Pharma, which aims to launch two medicinal cannabis pet products by April, has been registered by the EU health authority.

An Australian pharmaceutical developer has received the European Union's first ever health registration to commercialise medical cannabis for pets.

ASX-listed Creso Pharma is now registered with the EU and is in the process of applying for a global import and export license as it aims to sell two cannabidiol-based pet products by April.

The products, which are essentially food additives for horses and dogs, are designed to help target behavioural disorders including anxiety and noise phobias as well as chronic pain, arthritis and diabetes.

Recreational marijuana is becoming legal in more jurisdictions throughout the US and is being used medically at an even greater rate. 

The push has driven Vicente Sederberg LLC to create the International Cannabis Practice Group for the potential onslaught of weed related legal issues to arise from the regulatory adoption.

“Public perception of marijuana is rapidly shifting around the world, and the cannabis industry is poised to become a large, mature marketplace with a host of legal needs,” Brian Vicente, partner and founding member of Vicente Sederberg said.

Vicente Sederberg also announced its partnership with Spain’s top cannabis law firm Soriano Fernández Abogados (S&F Abogados) to launch a Spanish language website providing legal advice.

Medical marijuana can be defined as the use of cannabis for treatment of certain ailments. It can be utilized for medicinal uses; however, the complete safety and efficacy profiling is till unavailable. Medical marijuana is available in various forms such as flower or concentrates, which is extracted in the form of oils, extracts or edibles. Packaging medical marijuana is a growing business and many companies offer holistic solutions to medical marijuana manufacturers.

The key packaging modes available in the market include: