Peru’s president has proposed legalising medicinal marijuana after two women found that cannabis oil helped their seriously ill children.

dental technician and mother of four, Ana Alvarez lives in a flat in Lima that she has converted into a cannabis laboratory. It is, she says, for the love of her son that she has become one of Peru’s leading advocates for liberalising drug laws in the conservative country.

Her mission started out as a desperate search for something to alleviate her son Anthony’s multiple daily seizures. Alvarez ended up turning part of her home into an improvised lab and informal medical practice where patients can be prescribed marijuana derivatives as a palliative for terminal illness, cancer or multiple sclerosis. 

For 21 years, The Madrid Global Marihuana March has been filling the streets of the city with pleasant smoke and more tangible and urgent demands. A good atmosphere where people ask and hope for change that is now felt imminent. 

Each year, for the past twenty-one years, the Global Marihuana March (abbreviated to MMM2017 in Spanish) brought thousands of people into the streets of Madrid, mixing celebration and people’s demands. Different currents from the cannabis movement tried to convey unity and demanded legal change, in a moment when many regulation processes are in abundance, and it seems as though no one wants to be left out of the picture.

Gov. Phil Scott signed into law a bill that expands Vermont’s medical marijuana system.

The legislation, S.16, expands the list of conditions that qualify for the medical marijuana registry to include Parkinson’s disease, Crohn’s disease and post-traumatic stress disorder, as of July 1.

Under the new law, PTSD patients will also need to receive regular psychiatric or therapeutic care in order to qualify.

The new law also will allow more medical marijuana dispensaries to operate in Vermont.

With the moratorium on the sale of medical marijuana coming to an end in August, the Panama City Commission plans to discuss regulations at their meeting on Tuesday.

A proposed ordinance would require medical cannabis dispensaries to be located at least 500 feet away from any church, school, public park or other cannabis dispensary. In addition, the dispensary would not be allowed to have a drive-through, sell alcohol or allow patients to consume medical cannabis on site.

It might seem like a bit of deja vu for the three companies vying to set up a medical marijuana facility in Methuen.

In the coming days, representatives from Alternative Therapies Group Inc., BeWell Organic Medicine Inc., and Natural Remedies Inc., will come before a selection committee to present proposals for their dispensaries.

It's a process they've been through before, including when they went before the mayor and City Council for letters of non-opposition late last year. Letters of non-opposition, or support, are required by the state Department of Public Health as one of several steps in the application process to operate a registered marijuana dispensary. They indicate that a municipality will not stand in the way of a proposed facility.

Marijuana reform advocates say there was unprecedented, bipartisan support for their efforts in this year’s legislative session, but it still wasn’t enough to change state law.

Medical marijuana dispensaries are beginning to open in Hawaii, but they're not allowed to sell their products.

Instead, the leafy medicinal greens they've harvested are sitting on a shelf unsold because nearly a year after dispensaries were legally allowed to open, the state has not yet certified any labs to run required safety tests.

That means dispensaries such as Aloha Green on Oahu have no income despite payroll, rent and operations expenses that top $100,000 a month.

"For us it's a little frustrating, having so many people on board, but it has to be done," said James H.Q. Lee, CEO of Aloha Green. "I'm more concerned for the patients, because people have been calling: 'We see it online, when are you going to open? We need our medical cannabis.'"

Weed, pot, reefer, grass, Mary Jane, hash, herb – whatever you call it, marijuana historically has had a bad reputation as an illegal street drug. Marijuana elicits images of high school kids hiding in bathrooms, college parties filled with smoky air and the gateway drug to harder addictions.

But in the midst of an opioid epidemic in the Blue Water Area, some advocates argue that using marijuana to treat chronic pain is a safer, less addictive alternative to narcotics.