TORONTO -- A benchmark study has found that patients who use medical marijuana to treat chronic pain don't have more serious side-effects than sufferers who don't use the herb.

Dr. Mark Ware, the Montreal pain specialist who led the national study, says medical cannabis appears to have a reasonable safety profile when taken by patients who are experienced users.

The four-year study followed 215 adults with chronic non-cancer pain who used medical cannabis and compared them to a control group of 216 chronic pain sufferers who were not marijuana users.

The cannabis group was given access to herbal cannabis containing 12.5 per cent of the active ingredient THC from a licensed cannabis producer.

An Ontario judge has struck down one of the Conservative government’s signature drug laws – a six-month minimum jail term for growing between six and 200 marijuana plants for the purpose of trafficking.

The ruling came after a constitutional challenge brought by a man who had pleaded guilty to working in a grow-op. The man, Duc Vu, 42, of Brampton, Ont., called the minimum sentences for growing marijuana “cruel and unusual punishment” under the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. And the judge agreed.

Mandatory minimums have been a pillar of the federal government’s approach to crime, with the Conservatives creating 60 mandatory minimum prison terms for drugs, guns, sex offences and other crimes, according to the Justice Department.

The success and benefits of medical marijuana. Follow up on parents whose children suffer from up to 100 epileptic seizures per day if they’re on conventional anti-convulsion medication, but have zero seizures when treated with medical marijuana (dried medical marijuana extracts, in these cases, marijuana oil).  Also, medical researcher engaged in studying the benefits of CBD, parent Alex Repetski returns and is joined by  Dr. Mac Burnham.

I’ll be the first to have a parent and a doctor or research physician on air.

Guests:  Alexander Repetski. One of the parents last Sunday.  His three year old daughter is completely free of seizures with marijuana oil.

And

When I see the youthful curiosity in the Gwen Repetski’s glistening eyes, I feel a fluttering in my heart along with a sensation of lightness. They make me want to dance.

Council appears ready to accept medical marijuana facilities.

But it’s still trying to figure out where they should go in Niagara Falls and the distance they should be from schools, churches and homes.

After a lengthy debate Tuesday night, where politicians discussed a consultant’s study, council directed staff to come up with options for a future meeting where residents will be able to speak.

Council wants maps showing lands affected, the distance separating medical marijuana buildings and sensitive areas.

Alex Herlovitch, the city’s director of planning, building and development, said it would allow council to “see how much land we actually have where these facilities could locate.”

Tweed Marijuana Inc. is officially renaming itself Canopy Growth Corp. as it prepares for its next leg of growth after a landmark acquisition.

Shareholders approved the name change at the company’s annual meeting in Toronto on Thursday. In explaining the move, chairman and chief executive Bruce Linton noted the company has two established brands (Tweed and Bedrocan) in the medical marijuana space. The new name reflects the fact that the parent company will continue to expand into new markets and release new products such as oils.

“We want to dominate (the industry),” Linton told investors.

Bedrocan Canada and its sister company Tweed just announced the launch of the EQUAL (Evaluation QUAlity of Life) study. The clinical research initiative is a multi-centre, non-interventional, un-blinded study to evaluate quality of life in Canadian patients treated with medical cannabis. The company-sponsored study will evaluate patients who use Bedrocan and Tweed strains of cannabis to help manage symptoms of a range of chronic health conditions, and the resulting data will be submitted for publication by a peer-reviewed medical journal. To ensure patient privacy, all data collected will be anonymized and stored in a secure electronic database.

TORONTO - An Alberta mother whose daughter has severe epilepsy has travelled to Ontario for a medical marijuana prescription after the girl's doctor said he was no longer allowed to provide permission to purchase the product.

In 2013, Sarah Wilkinson had started extracting cannabis oil from dried marijuana - purchased from a licensed grower with a prescription from a neurologist at Alberta Children's Hospital - to prevent life-threatening seizures in her eight-year-old daughter Mia.

But in July, the physician declined to renew the prescription because of a hospital policy based on the position of Alberta Health Services, the provincial health authority, which does not support the use of medical marijuana for pediatric patients with epilepsy.

Zoning to accommodate a medical marijuana facility in Oldcastle has been approved by the Town of Tecumseh.

Town council hosted a public meeting Tuesday night to discuss the operation on Outer Drive and approved the zoning change.

The property owner asked to re-zone the land so it can be sold to a prospective buyer called Global Organiks, which wants to open a medical marijuana facility there.

That company plans to buy the land and then hire about 10 workers to start, and 27 when at full capacity.

Global Organiks originally planned to build five new greenhouses, but now says it will build a steel structure instead.

The proposed facility would produce about 50,000 grams of medical marijuana every month.