Medicinal marijuana has been prescribed on the NHS to an 11-year-old boy in what is believed to be the first case of its kind. 

Billy Caldwell had been travelling to the USA to get the medication for help to treat his epilepsy which at its worst saw him suffer up to 100 life-threatening fits a day. 

But when his supply of cannabis oil was about to run out and he was unable to make the return trip to Los Angeles, his mother Charlotte took him to see his local GP in desperation. 

Dr Brendan O’Hare, realising the “unique and unusual” situation, opted to prescribe him the CBD oil - a derivative of cannabis containing the component cannabidiol which under MHRA guidelines doctors are allowed to prescribe.

Fields of cannabis could soon be carpeting the Borders countryside if ambitious new plans get off the ground.

But not because an international drugs cartel is expanding into Scotland – it’s down to a young entrepreneur and his green design and manufacturing business.

Sam Whitten grew up in the village of Broughton in Peeblesshire and studied product design at Glasgow Caledonian University.

The 25-year-old has recently started his own firm making handcrafted luxury sunglasses and fashion accessories. He plans to move into jewellery, clothing and even sustainable architecture in the next couple of years.

And it’s all made out of cannabis, or hemp – industrial-grade, which won’t get you high.

Canadian stoners rejoiced at the weekend after news broke that cannabis could soon be decriminalised. It would become the second country in the world, behind Uruguay, to make the move.

A statement released by the Canadian government said: "The current approach to cannabis does not work. It has allowed criminals and organized crime to profit, while failing to keep cannabis out of the hands of Canadian youth. In many cases, it is easier for our kids to buy cannabis than cigarettes.

"The proposed Cannabis Act would create a strict legal framework for controlling the production, distribution, sale and possession of cannabis in Canada."

A DRUG that turns users in ‘zombies’ is made in Chinese labs and smuggled to the UK in the post, it has been reported.

Spice, which has been banned in the UK and is 100 times stronger than cannabis, is causing havoc on the streets of the UK and is behind a raft of people suffering severe psychotic episodes, terrifying hallucinations, vomiting and seizures in public.

The spice outbreaks of altered behaviour in Manchester and Wrexham have hit the headlines. Scare stories and images of so-called zombie–like behaviour (people being completely intoxicated and sometimes frozen in an unresponsive state), have become commonplace. Although these terms sound perjorative, this is not scaremongering - these behavioural changes show the profound impact that new powerful forms of synthetic cannabinoids can have on users. So what is spice, why do we have it, and what can we do to mitigate its possible harms?

Whatever your stance on cannabis may be you can’t fault the ingenuity of our nation’s illicit growers. This year alone factories have been uncovered in a mock Tudor home, an iconic chapel, an empty shopping unit just yards from a police station and even in a mansion a stone’s throw away from the Queen herself. Plenty of cases to show, if we needed evidence, that the industry is alive and well in Britain.

Across the pond the legalised industry is reporting its financial results for 2016. The Arcview Market Research showed that people in the United States and Canada spent an estimated $53.3 billion of taxable money on legal cannabis products in 2016, with the black market finally losing ground to the legal market which operates under the eyes of the law.

Last October, Volteface reported on how Vietnamese children are being trafficked to the UK in large numbers and forced to work in inhumane conditions. Whilst Vietnamese girls are usually trafficked for the purpose of prostitution or to work in nail bars, boys are generally forced into cannabis cultivation. Despite this being a known phenomenon for years, police have not managed to adequately tackle the issue of child slaves hidden in plain sight all over the country.

Shatter’s also known as butane hash oil (BHO) – and users make it using large amounts of (highly flammable) butane gas.

At least two people have died and 27 people have been injured across the UK in explosions thought to be associated with the drug.

Shatter is made by using the solvent to strip THC – the active ingredient in cannabis – out of the plant, creating a glass-like or oily extract.

The legalisation of cannabis is once again in the headlines. Following the death of his 21-year-old son Rupert Green, Lord Monson has called for a ‘war on skunk’ and the legalisation of less potent forms of cannabis. According to his father, Rupert became addicted to skunk, developed paranoia and psychosis, and took his own life.

Scientists have called for further research into the effect of cannabis compounds on cancer cells after a teenage boy who was given the drug by his mother survived the disease.

Callie Blackwell said she decided to give cannabis to her son Deryn, who was suffering from a rare, aggressive form of leukaemia, to ease his pain and anxiety as he lay dying in a hospice.

After unsuccessfully requesting a prescription for a cannabis-based painkiller from a doctor, Ms Blackwell and her husband Simon met a dealer in a service station to buy some cannabis, which they prepared at home in a pressure cooker using instructions found online.