Every morning, Rose Renton asks her son Alex to help her be strong and continue fighting in his name.

Alex was a fit and healthy teenager, but died on July 1 in Wellington Hospital, after spending months in an induced coma in "status epilepticus", a kind of prolonged seizure, the cause of which remains unknown.

During her son's illness, Renton made headlines as she and her family pushed for and were successful in getting Alex to be treated with medical cannabis oil.

Renton says the treatment was too little and too late, but regardless, her life has been turned upside down since.

Somedays, she still cries all day about him.

A Hawke's Bay mother wants people to know what drove her to break the law by giving her daughter cannabis oil.

Toni Matich told TV One's Sundayprogramme she had no regrets because she eased her daughter's suffering.

Ms Matich said she had "spectacular" results after supplying her 17-year-old daughter, Monique, with cannabis oil to alleviate the pain from enduring more than 1000 seizures a day.

Monique was diagnosed with Dravet syndrome, a rare form of epilepsy that begins in infancy.

Every seizure carries the risk of causing severe brain damage.

Ms Matich was told by doctors she had exhausted all treatment options and her daughter had only months to live when she began researching medicinal marijuana.

The other week, one of my friends was charged with a crime. When I say “crime”, I don’t mean anything serious.

I apologize for not using the language of the polite and the civilized; but he didn’t steal anything, he didn’t punch someone, he didn’t rape anyone, and he didn’t kill anyone.

All he did was forget to clean out his car properly, leaving 0.3 grams of cannabis in the car. That’s right, 0.3 grams. Nothing. Less than a “joint”, as those devilish hemp junkies would term it.

One tonne of marijuana worth up to $17 million has been seized by police this year but it is unlikely to bring any comfort to those with chronic pain or a terminal illness.

ACT Policing has raided numerous grow houses across the territory as part of a crackdown dubbed Operation Armscote, including its biggest haul in July of 900 plants worth an estimated $6 million.

The raids have filled police coffers with close to 1100 kilograms of cannabis but the drugs are destined to remain in storage for testing or as evidence before being destroyed.

A grow house discovered by ACT Policing during 2014-15. 

THE head of the Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines scored as “misleading” reports that the Catholic Church supports proposed legislation to legalize the medical use of marijuana.

Lingayen-Dagupan Archbishop Socrates Villegas clarified that the CBCP neither endorses nor objects to the proposal because regulatory schemes and administrative strategies are beyond the competence of the CBCP.

But Villegas stressed three points in the Church’s teaching to summarize the CBCP’s position on the matter.

“Addiction is wrong,” Socrates said. “Those who facilitate addiction by placing habituating drugs within easy reach commit a very serious wrong.”

A SYNTHETIC cannabis that makes users psychotic and gives them apparent superhuman strength has been banned in South Australia.

Attorney-General John Rau added two new synthetic chemicals that mimic cannabis — known by the street names Full Moon and Sinsence — to the list of substances outlawed in the state.

They are believed to be similar to a type of synthetic pot known as Spice, which has become prevalent among homeless people in the US and UK because it is a cheap high, but which has side effects likened to crack cocaine.

The drug increases body temperature, sometimes leading users to strip naked. It has been dubbed “weaponised marijuana” by New York’s police chief because it makes addicts impervious to normal police take-down measures such as Tasers.

A parliamentary committee is backing a plan by a cross-section of senators to make medical cannabis available to Australians.

The Senate's legal and constitutional affairs committee recommended the Greens bill to set up a regulator of medical cannabis be passed.

The regulator would be "responsible for formulating rules for licensing the production, manufacture, supply, use, experimental use and import and export of medicinal cannabis".

The committee unanimously recommended the bill's passage, with amendments to ensure scientific evidence is accessed to determine suitably of treatments.

It also wants amendments to ensure medical cannabis products are made available in Australia in line with international obligations.

A senior police sergeant in Samoa has lost his job after he was convicted and sentenced to five months in jail for official corruption.

Two constables have been discharged without conviction after they pleaded guilty to charges of being an accessory after the fact and conspiracy to defeat the cause of justice.

The senior officer, Antonio Tausili, was the supervisor at Faleata police post in December 2013 when the two constables attended a call from a family at Vaitale who needed assistance over a family commotion.

The officers, Heta Wilson and Luisa Lototau, found two cannabis joints on one of the family members, but Tausili told Wilson not to take the narcotics back to the police post.

They were later flushed down the toilet by Lototau.

Surveys show nearly three quarters of the population wants the nation's drug laws to change, and politicians across the political spectrum from the Prime Minister down are lining up to agree with them. So what's stopping thousands of sick and dying Australians from getting legal access to cannabis medication? Scott Hannaford meets those pushing hard for change.

There is certainly more to learn about medicinal cannabis, but we know more than enough to act now 

Medical Journal of Australia

The boxes were piled high in the reception area of Richard Di Natale's Parliament House office and a picture hook still hung empty on the wall from the recent move as he folded his laptop, stuffed it into his hand luggage and headed for the door.

All Medical Marijuana Will Have to Come From Marijuana That is Already On Island

Guam - Will be mirroring Arizona's medical marijuana as much as possible. Today public health officials gave a presentation on what they learned after visiting Arizona. One issue that came up is that Guam will not be able to import any marijuana for medical use which means that anyone that opens a medical marijuana grow and dispensary operation will have to get the marijuana locally from the marijuana that is already on Guam.