Is it better to have drug use made legal, and therefore taxed and regulated, or might this encourage more drugs to be consumed – with the social and other costs associated with that? 

The UN wants its members to decriminalise drugs, and Sir Richard Branson thinks that is just great. Well, it is not quite like that; as so often, the story is more nuanced than the headline. The paper Sir Richard leaked, which urges “decriminalising drug use and possession for personal consumption”, was drawn up for a conference in Kuala Lumpur on harm reduction by Dr Monica Beg, an official at the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) in Vienna. It has since been withdrawn and, as you can gather from the outcry, it is certainly a “third-rail issue” – you touch it at your peril.

The first legal cannnabis vaporiser went on sale earlier this year and already it is changing lives, according to its customers.

The MediPen's creators say their device contains a very respectable dose of Cannabidiol, an active ingredient in the cannabis plant with a vast array of positive benefits and health uses.

CBD does not produce any of the psychoactive effects associated with traditional cannabis use, such as paranoia or anxiety.

A user, Amy Yapp, who suffers from fibromyalgia (a condition which causes muscular pain, aches and tenderness) has reviewed the MediPen.

The University has changed its accommodation policy to remove its zero tolerance stance on illegal drugs. This was in part a response to a campaign by the Newcastle chapter of Students for Sensible Drug Policy, (SSDP) an international network of students calling for a welfare-based approach to drugs policy.

The owner of a 50 pounds of marijuana who posted it to the wrong address has been urged to come forward and collect their illegal haul by a US police force.

Officers from the Hazlet Township Police Department on the northern coast of New Jersey were alerted to the cache of Cannabis when a resident phoned them and told them it was addressed to someone who didn’t live at their home.

“Officers opened the packages and found they contained approximately 50 pounds of marijuana,” the force said on their Facebook page. They estimated it is worth around £65,000.

The government's new blanket ban on psychoactive substances will be unworkable, difficult to prosecute and will put lives at risk, MPs have heard.

Evidence from legal experts and leading academics, submitted to the Home Affairs Select Committee (HASC), suggests that prosecutors will struggle to prove that many legal highs are actually psychoactive.

Cases brought against producers of legal highs could fail due to the absence of any clinical trials on humans, MPs heard.

The first legal cannabis vaporiser has hit the UK, intended for medicinal use.

Creators of the MediPen say their revolutionary device contains a very respectable dose of CBD, an active ingredient in the cannabis plant with a vast array of positive benefits and health uses.

CBD does not produce any of the psychoactive effects associated with traditional cannabis use, such as paranoia or anxiety.

Amy Yapp, who suffers from fibromyalgia (a condition which causes muscular pain, aches and tenderness) has reviewed the MediPen.

She doesn’t usually use cannabis, but her condition was causing a lot of pain, so despite early scepticism, she decided to go ahead with the trial.

A Conservative MP who was famously tricked into condemning a made up drug called “Cake” has been put in charge of scrutinising the Government’s new drugs policy.

David Amess appeared on the satirical television programme Brass Eye in 1997 where he was filmed referring to Cake as “a big yellow death bullet”.

As a result of the encounter he asked ministers a real life question in Parliament about the made up drug.

It was announced this week that Mr Amess will chair the bill committee for the Government’s Psychoactive Substances Bill.

He will co-chair the committee with another MP, George Howarth.

The new bill seeks to ban the recreational use of legal highs, including laughing gas. 

CLEAR has published a report from the Independent Drug Monitoring Unit (IDMU) that shows a tax & regulate policy on cannabis could produce a net benefit to the UK economy of £6.7 billion per annum. This estimate is made from a detailed study of the size of the UK cannabis market, potential tax revenues, criminal justice system savings and additional costs of regulation including health information and education.

A caretaker received a death threat after spotting suspicious activity in the Drakelow Tunnels, which had been turned into a drugs factory, a court heard.

Wayne Robinson, 47, of Kidderminster, denies allowing the tunnels to be used for the production of cannabis.

He told Hereford Crown Court he had rented out one of the former military tunnels under Kingsford Country Park near Kidderminster, to two men – known only as Thomas and Fabian – for £200 a month.

When Robinson saw items, including car bumpers, being dumped near the tunnels he told the pair they needed to clear up, or clear off, he said.

A Vietnamese mother who claimed she had been “trafficked” into the UK is facing deportation after she admitted helping to grow nearly 300 cannabis plants at a house in Halifax.

Ut Tran, who speaks no English, was living in the lounge of the rented house in Glen Terrace, Savile Park, and sleeping on a mattress in what a judge described as “very meagre circumstances” when police officers went to the property in April.

After forcing an entry into the house the police found three bedrooms and a cellar had been coverted into a sophisticated cannabis-growing operation with smaller plants being grown in the “nursery” in the cellar.