FOR most of his 67 years, Verald Vassell has preached ganja's medicinal and religious virtues. Until last year, those who listened were largely from his Rastafarian faith.

With use of small portions of the weed decriminalised in Jamaica this year, Vassell, popularly known as Ras Iyah, is preparing to host the Cannabis Cup in Westmoreland, his home parish.

The 'Cup' was first held in 1988 and has been staged mainly in Amsterdam, The Netherlands, hailed by many ganja lovers as the weed capital of the world.

Promoted by High Times Magazine, the Cannabis Cup will be held for the first time in Jamaica, from November 12-15 in Negril.

DIRECTOR OF THE Criminal Justice Research and Planning Unit Cheryl Willoughby is concerned about the number of young people being incarcerated for marijuana offences and she says it is clogging up the justice system. 

Willoughby said with statistics indicating it costs $85.03 a day to house one prisoner at Dodds Prisons, drug offenders are adding to burden on the public purse.  The information was imparted to students from schools across Barbados this morning, during a youth forum marking the beginning of National Youth Week 2015, at the Radisson Aquatica Resort. From 2009 to 2014 more than 1100 people were admitted to Dodds on drug offences. 

History will be created in Negril, Westmoreland, between November 12 and 15 when Rastafari In Inity (RII), in association with the internationally known High Times Magazine, Rastafari Rootzfest, the inaugural ganja festival, in the resort town of Negril

"The feedback has been great both locally and internationally," said Ras Iyah V, CEO of RII and chairman of the Westmoreland Hemp and Ganja Farmers Association. "We have gotten all the requisite permits and we are now ready to create history. This will be the first legal ganja event to take place in Jamaica."

Some out-of-province patients accessing the MMPR via telemedicine clinics in Ontario are being told they will no longer be able to use these clinics.

In the past few weeks, Lift has recently begun hearing from patients who live outside Ontario and have accessed or attempted to access a medical document for medical cannabis (re: prescription) using telemedicine from a doctor in Ontario, only to be denied. The reasoning behind this change remains unclear. Some clinics have blamed Health Canada, but Health Canada has publicly issued no such rule at this time.

One such patient, Chase, 27 of Saskatoon, told us that he recently received a call from his clinic in Ontario informing him that the doctor will no longer be evaluating out of province patients.

The Canadian Medical Cannabis Industry Association (CMCIA) announced on 1 September that it has received a letter from the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA), officially confirming that medical cannabis purchased by an individual from a licensed producer under Health Canada’s Marihuana for Medical Purposes Regulations (MMPR) would be an allowable medical expense under the Income Tax Act.

Conversations about cannabis policy are heating up. So it’s no surprise that we suddenly seem immersed in claims and counterclaims on a slew of topics related to cannabis use and regulation.

Cannabis causes schizophrenia. Cannabis regulation leads to increased traffic fatalities. These are just some of the examples that seem to pop up, again and again, in news articles and online. They sound true, perhaps because they are repeated so many times, and also because they are often said to be based on scientific evidence.

Executive summary: 

Considering that up until about 85 years ago, cannabis oil was used around the world to treat a variety of diseases, including cancer, it is not surprising that the phasing out of cannabis to treat illness coincided with the rise of pharmaceutical companies.

Rick Simpson, a medical marijuana activist, is on a crusade to help others heal. He regards cannabis as the most medicinally active plant on the face of the earth, and shared this apparent miracle with others — completely free of charge. He now has thousands of testimonials from those who were healed from ‘incurable’ disease to back up his claims ~ that cannabis annihilates cancer.

Global patterns of cannabis cultivation have followed a fascinating development, from highly concentrated production in certain developing countries to decentralized production in almost every country around the world (UNODC, 2014). Historically, the spread of cannabis cultivation across the globe reflected the industrial utility of hemp; the widespread use of cannabis as a recreational drug did not appear until much later (Abel, 1980, Booth, 2003). It is with the emergence of modern patterns of cannabis use in the developed world that we have seen major changes in patterns of cannabis production. As demand for cannabis increased globally, fuelled by the developments of the “counter-culture” of the 1960s and 1970s, so cultivation in the developing world began to take on new dimensions.

Last week, a Brookings Institution discussion on international drug policy began with the premise that "no policy has failed as badly in the past 30 years as drug policy," according to moderator and former Mexican ambassador to the U.S. Arturo Sarakhan in his opening statement. But now a group of non-profit organizations are working to change that.