Across social media it’s ‘on message’ to despise Big Pharma and to promote the idea that government and pharmaceutical companies are engaged in the business of making people ill and feeding them with drugs in the pursuit of profit.

In the cannabis campaign it’s virtually compulsory to abuse, defame and promote conspiracy theories about GW Pharmaceuticals, the world’s leading developer of cannabis-based medicines.

Now GW Pharma is hardly ‘Big Pharma’. It’s annual revenues for 2014 were £30 million. By contrast, Pfizer’s 2014 revenue was $50 billion. But such trifling facts are of no concern to the keyboard warriors and trolls that plague the cannabis campaign and bring it into disrepute every day.

Recently, a petition demanding the British government put the issue of cannabis legalization up for a debate managed to collect more than enough signatures over the course of just four days to force Parliament into action. Meanwhile, in the United States, a similar petition was launched around the same time on the White Houses’ We The People website that has barely garnered enough support to even be considered a threat to the sanctity of Uncle Sam’s prohibition model.

Although the topic of cannabis legalization often focuses on what is going on in the grand scheme of North American politics, the recent push to legalize weed in the United Kingdom suggests that the British population may actually be hungrier to win the fight against prohibition than their American counterparts.

On arrival at the Psychoactive Substances Bill protest last Saturday 1stAugust, it felt less a protest, more a sparsely-populated picnic. Of the 1500 + people who were down as attending on Facebook, less than 100 actually showed up. Consider how little success much larger protests have been met with in recent years. The protest against the Iraq War in February 2003 drew up to two million people in London alone and was the largest ever coordinated protest world-wide. Yet, it had no effect. The war machine trundled on regardless.

Richard Branson and former director of public prosecutions Lord Macdonald lead call for inquiry into Home Office’s support for anti-narcotics operations

Thirty-seven public figures, including Sir Richard Branson, Lord Macdonald QC, the former director of public prosecutions, and Alistair Carmichael, the former Scottish secretary, have called for an urgent inquiry into the UK’s role in anti-narcotics operations abroad, which they say have helped to fund executions in countries such as Pakistan and Iran.

A recent marijuana study has presented some alarming results but not in the way you might think. This study actually shows that teens and adolescents who use marijuana earlier in life do not necessarily have a higher risk for things like depression or psychosis or asthma, as earlier studies have shown.

“What we found was a little surprising,” explains lead study author Jordan Bechtold. “There were no differences in any of the mental or physical health outcomes that we measured, regardless of the amount or frequency of marijuana used during adolescence.”

Cambridge biomedical innovator, GW Pharmaceuticals, has won fast track designation from the US FDA for a potential treatment for babies deprived of oxygen during childbirth – a problem that can lead to brain damage and death.

NASDAQ-quoted GW has received FDA support for a proprietary intravenous form of cannabidiol (CBD) to treat Neonatal Hypoxic-Ischemic Encephalopathy, or NHIE.

The European Medicines Agency has granted orphan designation for the same product to treat perinatal asphyxia, an alternate term that describes the same condition as NHIE, for which GW has already received Orphan Drug Designation from the FDA.

There are currently no approved medicines in Europe or the US specifically indicated for NHIE or perinatal asphyxia.

William Shakespeare sought inspiration by smoking weed in the sort of pipe commonly referred to as a "bong", a South African scientist has claimed.

In a paper published in the South African Journal of Science last month, Francis Thackeray suggested the playwright used cannabis as a "stimulant which had mind-stimulating properties".

Thackeray, who currently holds the Phillip Tobias Chair in Palaeoanthropoloy at the Evolutionary Studies Institute at University of the Witwatersrand, analysed the "plant residues" found in the tobacco pipes used in Stratford Upon Avon during the 17th Century - some of which were reportedly found in the Bard's garden.

A spokesman for the ‘Feed the Birds’ organisation, which aims to spread awareness of the medicinal and practical uses of the plant, said 40kg of hemp and cannabis seeds had been scattered ‘on every roundabout, slip road and entrance into the town’.

“We have tried to create a green cannabis wall around the town,” he said.

On Wednesday, police swiftly removed around 25 hemp plants on a patch of private land next to the A143 Great Barton roundabout near Moreton Hall after being alerted by the Bury Free Press.

A spokesman from Feed the Birds said: “The main aim of the campaign is to raise awareness of the medicinal uses for cannabis but also to help people understand the other qualities of the plant, its useages for food, building and fuel.

• The FDA designates GW Pharmaceuticals' (NASDAQ:GWPH) intravenous cannabidiol for Fast Track review for the treatment of neonatal hypoxic-ischemic encephalopathy (NHIE). The European Medicines Agency also designates it an Orphan Drug for NHIE, a status granted earlier by the FDA.

London, UK, 6 August 2015: GW Pharmaceuticals plc (Nasdaq: GWPH, AIM: GWP, “GW,” “the Company” or “the Group”), a biopharmaceutical company focused on discovering, developing and commercializing novel therapeutics from its proprietary cannabinoid product platform, announced that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has granted Fast Track designation for a proprietary intravenous form of cannabidiol (CBD) to treat Neonatal Hypoxic-Ischemic Encephalopathy, or NHIE. In addition, the European Medicines Agency (EMA) has granted orphan designation for the same product to treat perinatal asphyxia, an alternate term that describes the same condition as NHIE, for which GW has already received Orphan Drug Designation from the FDA.