ver 203,000 people have signed the petition on the government’s website to ‘Make the production, sale and use of cannabis legal’.  All petitions that pass 100,000 signatures are considered for a debate in the House of Commons and when MPs return from their summer break, the petitions committee will have a hard time refusing a debate on a petition that has doubled the required threshold.

The government has moved to crush a 200,000-strong petition to legalise cannabis before it's even been debated.

Activists hailed a victory when the huge campaign became the second-most popular cause on a new government website - beaten only by a bid to sack Jeremy Hunt.

It flew past 100,000 signatures, forcing a debate by a committee of 11 MPs when they return from their summer holidays in a few weeks.

The Tory administration has now issued a thundering reply which says it has no plans to end the war on drugs.

They're supposed to reply before a debate takes place, but the strength and tone of ministers' opposition could see the petition blocked before reaching the Commons chamber.

BUILDING A farmhouse is nothing new, but farmer Nick Voase has raised the bar, by building his new home out of hemp grown entirely on his own farm.

Nick, who lives in Baswick, near Brandesburton started growing hemp in 2002 as an alternative crop and a combination of the severe East Yorkshire floods in 2007 and changing family circumstances led to his visionary building project.

Explaining how it began, Nick said: “We were looking for a break crop and had tried borage and lupins, among other things, then we tried hemp, and it just fitted, growing it bi-annually with wheat.”

Novartis announced Friday morning it would spend more than $1 billion to purchase the remaining rights to multiple sclerosis drug Ofatumumab from drugmaker GlaxoSmithKline (GSK). 

Novartis initially acquired the rights to the drug earlier this year for treating cancer, writes The New York Times. This transaction will help the pharmaceutical company continue development of the compound for treating relapsing remitting multiple sclerosis (RRMS) and similar autoimmune diseases. 

Widely proscribed around the world for its recreational uses, cannabis is being used in a number of different therapeutic ways to bring relief for severe medical conditions. Products using cannabinoids, the active components of the cannabis plant, have been licensed for medical use. Sativex, for example, which contains an equal mixture of the cannabinoids tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) and cannabidiol (CBD), is already licenced as a mouth spray for multiple sclerosis and in the US, dronabinol and nabilone are commercially available for treating cancer-related side effects.

ONLY one third of arrests for suspicion of possession of cannabis in St Helens led to criminal convictions last year, police figures have revealed.

A debate surrounding whether forces should take legal action for use of the drug surfaced in the national media earlier this summer following the announcement by Durham Constabulary that they were relaxing their drugs policy by no longer targeting people who have cannabis plants at home.

Some drug experts have claimed police have effectively turned a blind eye to cannabis use to focus their attentions elsewhere, with users more likely to receive a warning than face prosecution.

As marijuana use becomes more acceptable, researchers are scrambling to answer key questions about the drug.

In 2013, Beau Kilmer took on a pretty audacious head count. Citizens in the state of Washington had just voted to legalize marijuana for recreational use, and the state's liquor control board, which would regulate the nascent industry, was anxious to understand how many people were using the drug — and importantly, how much they were consuming.

The prohibitionist said it was a myth—now it’s a fact. The US government recently added a Cannabis and Cannabinoid page in the Alternative treatment section of their cancer website.

Cannabinoids have anti-inflammatory and antiviral properties. They are known to block cancer cell growth, prevent the growth of blood vessels that supply tumors, and relieve muscle spasms caused by multiple sclerosis.

A landmark report by politicians, calling for a more liberal drug regime based onhuman rights, had one detail that attracted particular attention.

"Junkies could use privacy law to avoid jail," was one headline for a story that suggested our drug law could be at an end. A prominent MP predicted it could "open the floodgates" and lead to drug users challenging their prosecutions and winning.

He was complimented on the way he prepared his defence and the judge told him some lawyers could learn from him

A judge complimented a Polish man telling him members of the legal profession could learn from how he presented his defence - before jailing him for six months.

Representing himself, 28-year old Polish national Przemyflaw Pril, caught cultivating cannabis plants, was complimented on the way he prepared his defence and was told by Judge Gemma Loughran: "There are lawyers who could learn from the care you have taken in presenting your material."