Florida loves Publix, the supermarket chain routinely ranked the most valuable and beloved company in the whole state thanks in no small part to its fantastically salty sub sandwiches. So it's sure to jar a few hard-core Publix fans to learn that the family that founded the chain just donated $800,000 to a conservative-led campaign fighting medical marijuana legalization.

Less than two weeks after Los Angeles County supervisors agreed to move forward with a 10 percent tax on cannabis businesses in order to fund homeless services, the proposal’s author wants to shelve the plan.

Late last week Supervisor Shiela Kuehl moved to pull the measure from November ballots, explaining that there had been “a good deal of ambivalence” about the tax from social service providers. Drumming up enough support for the proposal — which would require a two-thirds supermajority among voters — would be a long shot, Keuhl said.

Organizers of a ganja forum to prepare a policy paper on reform of local marijuana laws, described today’s turnout as disappointing.

“I thought that more people would come but a few of them told me that they would be coming in the afternoon because some could not come in the morning,” Andre ‘Pancho’ Decaires of the Cannabis Movement told the Times during a break in the morning session of the event.

He explained that other people had to work and would drop in later.

Decaires said however that organizers were happy that three school principals were among those in attendance, along with a high ranking representative from the Royal Saint Lucia Police Force and a representative from the churches.

Don't hold your breath in hope of hearing presidential nominee Hillary Clinton or her vice presidential candidate Tim Kaine discuss marijuana at the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia this week. Clinton is, at best, a tepid supporter of marijuana reform while Kaine opposes legalization. But cannabis will be represented at the DNC by a number of pro-legalization celebrities who are showing up to support (or protest) the event.

Here are six famous advocates to look for.

Supporters of former US Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders held a giant inflatable joint and called for the legalization of marijuana during a rally in Philadelphia.

Two large “joints” passed through downtown Philadelphia Monday as marijuana advocates marched toward the Democratic National Convention’s headquarters to call for the full legalization of the leafy drug.

Ottawa’s marijuana dispensaries are inching closer to becoming legitimate business — if not in the eyes of the law, at least in the eyes of residents.

A new public opinion poll conducted by Forum Research Inc. finds as many as six in 10 respondents say marijuana dispensaries should be allowed to operate in Ottawa, while fewer than a third (32 per cent) said they oppose the pot shops.

Two-thirds of respondents (67 per cent) believe they should be regulated and zoned like any other retail business, while one-in-five said they should be immediately shut down.

The Anchorage Assembly approved the city's first commercial marijuana grow Tuesday night, a significant step forward for the developing legal cannabis industry.

"This whole green revolution, it starts here tonight with the City of Anchorage," said Assemblyman Dick Traini who voted to approve the local marijuana license and special-use permit for Dream Green Farms and to refer the application for a second proposed commercial marijuana grow, Arctic Herbery, to an Assembly committee for additional review after a flurry of late-night debate.

Democrats and Republicans have their presidential candidates, but Libertarian Gary Johnson is hoping to give Americans another option.

This marijuana legalization supporting third party candidate is gaining momentum and only needs two more percentage points in the polls to clinch a spot in the presidential debates. Johnson would become the first third party candidate in the debates since Ross Perot in 1992.

Johnson, who was a businessman before entering politics, is a fiscal conservative who, as governor of New Mexico from 1995 to 2003, instituted a small government platform and campaigned for marijuana legalization.

There is shade. And then, there are intricately constructed avenues of shade so dense that entire shadow-loving plants germinate, sprout and flourish at triple speed.

The latter is what Michelle Obama cast in the direction of Donald Trump on Monday night at the Democratic National Convention while reserving a special, at points emotional, type of praise for Hillary Clinton. Trump, an unnamed cartoon-character-like villain was referenced only indirectly as a kind of ego-driven, undisciplined potential president uninterested in both the rigors and goals of public service — a sharp and telling contrast to Clinton, according to Obama's speech.

A Riverina woman who turned to cannabis to deal with crippling pain has joined a chorus of campaigners calling for an amnesty on patients using medical cannabis.

Griffith veterinary nurse Kelly Cameron said patients “absolutely” needed an amnesty from prosecution.

“Without it they’re completely in pain,” she said. “You wind up having to be a criminal to be a productive member of society.”

Ms Cameron said a friend of hers was about to go to prison in Western Australia simply for trying cannabis oil for pain relief. The oil has no psychoactive properties, meaning patients can’t use it to get ‘high’.

“People want to take care of their health but at the moment they have to live illegally,” she said.