The Royal Pharmaceutical Society (RPS) will host a debate on whether the legal status of cannabis should be changed from a Schedule 1 to a Schedule 2 drug at its annual conference on Monday 14 September.  
Some argue a change in the listing would make it easier to research the drug’s potential to provide treatments for cancer, multiple sclerosis, Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) and pain relief. 

A Schedule 1 listing under the Misuse of Drugs Regulations 2001 is given to drugs considered to have no medicinal use and potential for harm and abuse. 

• Marijuana smokers found to be 65 per cent more likely to have blood sugar 
• People who've smoked it 100 times are 50% more likely to get prediabetes
• One in 10 people with the condition develop full-blown type 2 diabetes

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Cannabis smokers are far more likely to develop the early stages of diabetes, according to new research.

People who smoke marijuana were found to be 65 per cent more likely to have abnormally high blood sugar, which is a precursor for type 2 diabetes, a study found.

Sebastian Pacher goes underground on legalising marijuana in the UK. With the first debate on the prohibition of cannabis in the UK for ten years what are the highs and lows of legalisation? Baroness Meacher Co-Chair of  The All Party Parliamentary Group for Drug Policy Reform discusses the failures of the war on drugs and what she hopes for the debate in October. We speak to people who are treating cancer and other diseases with cannabis oil and ask why the government refuses to acknowledge the benefits of regulation. Plus addiction expert Sarah Graham talks about what the negative effects of legalisation could be.

But new figures show number of people caught cultivating cannabis plants is falling across west London as a whole

Hounslow is west London's cannabis growing hot spot, but the numbers being caught cultivating the drug are falling elsewhere in the area.

Police in west London recorded 147 production of cannabis offences in 2014/15, 34 of which were in Hounslow, according to statistics revealed under the Freedom of Information Act.

The total number of such offences in the area was down from 205 last year but in Hounslow it rose slightly from 32 in 2013/14.

MPs are now wise to what they call ‘campaign emails’. The large number of campaigns by groups such as 38 Degrees have really swamped MPs with repetitive correspondence. It doesn’t work to send what is clearly a template or automatically generated email and unfortunately you will just be ignored. Many MPs have started to and actually warn against this now on their website.

Here is some advice from our friends at CLEAR:

Find out who your MP is by entering your postcode on this website: http://www.theyworkforyou.com/

When we last signed off on the petition to ‘make the production, sale, and use of cannabis legal’, back in July, we left it on a still-rising total of 116,893 signatures. Well, we’re stumbling our way through September and the petition currently stands at 215,308 signatures and rising. The number of signatures required on a petition for it to be considered for a government debate is 100,000. As you’ll note, that’s a total that had already been surpassed when we previously discussed it(alongside the legalisation debate as a whole). In fact, that total had been cleared in the petition’s first five days of going live.

A petition was started calling for the UK Parliament to debate cannabis legalization. The petition needed 100,000 signers to initiative the debate. As of this date, the petition has received 215,769 signatures. As such, a debate has been planned for next month. Per High Times:

In response to a public petition demanding that the United Kingdom repeal prohibition, Parliament has announced that it will put the issue of marijuana legalization up for debate at the beginning of next month.

AN illegal immigrant paid $20,000 to human traffickers on the promise he would be given employment in the UK, only to be left to run a 245 cannabis plant facility.

Vietnamese national Dong Hoang, 41, handed his family savings to people smugglers and left his wife and two children behind, a court heard.

Hoang was told he would be given a job but instead had to look after the cannabis facility at a Blackwood house in isolation, his barrister Andrew Jones said.

Today, Newport Judge RA Britton sentenced him to nine months in prison after he pleaded guilty to producing cannabis.

Hoang is to be deported back to his country after serving half his sentence in custody, Newport Crown Court heard.

"We don't want people to feel oppressed and like they're hiding anymore. Prohibition is making people feel isolated in their own homes." 

Max, the founder of one of more than 60 cannabis social clubs in the UK, is clear in his position: cannabis decriminalization is long overdue in the UK. "It's the feeling of being oppressed that does the damage," he told VICE News.

Clubs like Max's bring users together to grow, sell and buy their own cannabis on a non-profit basis, offering members the chance to bypass unscrupulous dealers and know exactly what they're getting, as well as places to come together and smoke.