A new law aimed at banning 'legal highs' could criminalise buying herbal remedies online, like those favoured by Prince Charles, being criminalised

AN ex-police officer who dished out advice on stocks and shares was ordered to look after a large cannabis factory when his tips went wrong.

Waquas Manzur, 42, told customers how to invest their cash from behind the counter of his dad’s grocer’s shop.

But when stocks fell and they lost money, he was ordered to stump up £3500.

Manzur – who was cleared of alleged bribing offences in 2007 – agreed to watch cannabis plants as a way of repaying the lost funds. He was in a flat during a police raid that uncovered 107 plants.

At Glasgow Sheriff Court, Manzur, from Pollokshields, pled guilty to being concerned in the supply of cannabis. Police were called to a flat in Langside when residents smelled the drug in a close area.

The City of London is the money-laundering centre of the world’s drug trade, according to an internationally acclaimed crime expert.

UK banks and financial services have ignored so-called “know your customer” rules designed to curb criminals’ abilities to launder the proceeds of crime, Roberto Saviano warned. Mr Saviano, author of the international bestseller Gomorrah, which exposed the workings of the Neapolitan crime organisation Camorra, said: “The British treat it as not their problem because there aren’t corpses on the street.”

Over the past decade, the legal wins enjoyed by marijuana and its supporters have far outnumbered the losses.

Despite Florida failing to become the 24th state to legalize medical marijuana in last year's election (by a mere two percentage points), we've still seen a rapid rise in the number of new states willing to give medical marijuana a try in recent years, and four states (plus Washington D.C.) experimenting with the legalization of marijuana for recreational purposes.

Lord Rea: 'There are real reasons why it [cannabis] should be made legal for researchers to concentrate on doing proper, controlled clinical trials to work out what cannabis can do'

CANNABIS should be legalised to improve research into its medicinal qualities, a prominent Camden doctor has told the House of Lords.

Lord Nicolas Rea of Eskdale, who worked as a GP at the Kentish Town Health Centre for 25 years, said the country was “crying out” for a change in the law.

The hereditary peer, from Tufnell Park, is an expert in the drug and served on a select committee in the 1990s that looked into its potential to ease muscle spasms and pain.

Multiple Sclerosis patient< Michelle X, arrested for growing her own medicine.

Michelle X of the NORML UK Women’s Alliance and her partner Albert Bloom were last night raided and arrested by Thames Valley Police for the production and possession of cannabis.

Their arrest came shortly before the airing of the Channel 5 show ’37 Years on the Dole’, which featured Michelle’s story of her own use of cannabis to treat Multiple Sclerosis (MS).

CANNABIS with a potential street value likely to be in excess of £1.5m has been seized by Border Force officers at London Gateway.

Officers discovered the 580kgs of herbal cannabis following a search of a container that had arrived at the port from Jamaica.

The majority of the container was filled with boxes of cakes, buns and tins of callaloo.

Border Force Assistant Director for London Gateway Mark Kennedy said:

“In amongst the load were 55 boxes of what appeared to be further tins of callaloo and ackee. It was only when the tins were opened that their true contents were revealed.

Oliver Letwin MP is, according to The Independent, “probably the most powerful person in the government after the Prime Minister and Chancellor”.

New treatments for depression and experiments which might help explain human consciousness will be put at risk if the bill banning legal highs is passed, researchers have warned.

In an open letter to Theresa May, leading British scientists urged the home secretary to add an exemption for "research pharmaceuticals being used to develop new medicines or progress neuroscience research", so that new treatments and experiments were not brought to a halt by the bill.