In Europe, the legislation varied from one country to another. And the most stringent laws do not necessarily produce the best effects.

According to the French Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction (OFDT), nearly one in two French smoked cannabis. However, France has one of the toughest laws on drug use, even so-called "soft" drugs. In Europe, laws differ. On one hand the countries that decriminalize, are tolerant, do not condemn. And conversely those which are very severe. Scientific studies are struggling to establish links between the laws in force and the actual consumption of drugs. If consumption is sometimes tolerated in different forms, the sale and cultivation of cannabis are of course mostly misdemeanors.

Countries that tolerate

Cannabis News Network reporters from Berlin, Vienna and Valencia went out on the streets to buy cannabis from street dealers. By doing so, they try to get an idea of the quality by bringing over the samples to a testing facility. in Amsterdam.

The 2015 Cannabis Cup is happening now and enthusiasts from all across the country have flocked to Colorado for the big day. And this year’s Cup should be one of the biggest, wildest and most talked-about cannabis celebrations of all time. 303 caught up with Dan Skye, Editor-In-Chief of High Times magazine and the man behind the Cannabis Cup, to talk about all things Colorado, weed, and 4/20. Here are ten pieces of knowledge you should definitely have before heading out to party this year.

Manipulation of marijuana figures by former Dutch Justice Minister Opstelten exposed.

Why the Dutch cannabis industry lost it's head start to the US, Spain and Uruguay.

The Netherlands have been the example of how to handle the consumption and tolerated and regulated sales of cannabis for almost 40 years now, an example that enabled other countries, like Uruguay, Spain and the US to get out of the strangle hold of prohibition.

Without this example, and the people that stood and stand up for the Dutch cannabis tolerance system, serving as a decades running experiment for the world to see and experience, it would not have been possible for pre-mentioned countries to follow that example the way they did.

The 'partial-prohibition' sought to ban smokers from France and Luxembourg

Today we release the first test of all the cannabis we purchased on the streets in order to get a better idea of its quality.

Lots is being said about the quality of cannabis around the globe. THC-levels, lack of CBD especially for medicinal use, the presence of pesticides and other contaminants, some used to increase weight.

Cannabis News Network is introducing the CannaTest, a test which shows which compounds are present in the plant. Reporters from all over the EU will gather weed from street dealers which will be tested in one testing facility.

The goal? To monitor, record and report the state of cannabis in Europe. 

In the blink of an eye, global debates about cannabis regulation have shifted from “whether” to “how.” In 2014, Uruguay became the first nation to explicitly regulate cannabis from seed to sale. Its preferred strategy? State-regulated production, cannabis clubs, and personal growing. Meanwhile, four U.S. states and the District of Columbia have moved ahead with legal regulation, Colorado and Washington being the first, and the federal government seems unlikely to intervene. More states, possibly even California, look set to follow. Likewise, in the rest of the world, there are a number of gray-area regulatory systems, including in Belgium, the Netherlands, and Spain. All offer insights into how the United States—and other countries—might tackle the “how.”

THE AMERICAN MODEL

Also, in his opinion, the Uruguayan law is better formulated compared to that of the Netherlands, since in the South American country the state regulates from production to marketing cannabis.

"Our results show that when a substance is legalized, people are more likely to consume and that can affect productivity," he told Efe this professor of Economics at the University of Maastricht.

Data were collected before and after implementation of a policy in 2011, which happened to allow only Germans, Belgians and Dutch could buy cannabis in the Dutch city of Maastricht.

"One of the effects we saw is that 5% was more likely to pass all courses," said the academic, compared to students of other nationalities in college, which became no legal access to marijuana.

The use of LEDs to provide specific light wavelengths could allow growers to increase nutritional values of edible crops, enhance the intensity of foliage and flower color and improve the postharvest longevity of ornamental and edible crops.
 

Improvement in the light intensity delivered by light emitting diodes (LEDs) is helping to expand their use for the production of both edible and ornamental crops. Research with LEDs has been going on for about 30 years. Only within the last 10 years have increases in the light intensities of LEDs allowed researchers to study the direct effects of narrow wave bands of light on plant physiology.

Because cannabis makes you lazy, right? Well, no. A report from the frontline of cannabis activism.