WeedMD Inc. (TSX-V:WMD) (“WeedMD” or the “Company”) is pleased to announce it has officially begun registering patients and fulfilling orders through its online store. The WeedMD team has passionately worked towards this goal for the past three years, and looks forward to meeting the rapidly growing demand for medical cannabis. Starting pre-registration in May, the Company was fortunate enough to develop a wait list of over 1,000 patients, and plans to leverage its clinic relationships to further accelerate enrollment. 

or the first time, scientists have demonstrated that a component of cannabis reduces seizures in children with a rare form of epilepsy, marking a significant step in efforts to use marijuana and its derivatives to treat serious medical conditions.

Powerful pot strains put developing brains of young people at risk, CMAJ editorial says.

Marijuana legalization will harm the health of youth unless major changes to the proposed law are made to protect their developing brains, a medical journal editorial says.

Dr. Diane Kelsall, interim editor in chief of the Canadian Medical Association Journal, says Bill C-45 fails to safeguard vulnerable youth.

"There are a number of things in the legislation that are truly worrisome," Kelsall said in an interview. "If the intent is truly a public health approach and to protect our youth this legislation is not doing it."

Fewer than 150 people in Australia have ever been given approved access to medicinal cannabis products and there are only 25 authorised prescribers of the drugs, according to evidence at a Senate estimates committee.

Officials from the Health Department told the hearing that figure had only increased by two since February, and most of those doctors were in New South Wales. 

"We now have 25, it would have been good to have a greater increase but we are responsive to what applications we receive from ethics committees, so we can't write these things ourselves," said the department's deputy secretary in charge of drug regulation, adjunct Professor John Skerritt.

In 2009, Matthew Kahl of the 101st Airborne Division returned stateside from his first combat deployment. In Afghanistan he had seen firsthand the carnage of explosions set off in crowded street markets. Back on base at Fort Campbell, Kentucky, he tried to put those memories behind him. But echoes of wartime still haunted him as he as he inched through the commissary.

He made his way through the market with his back to the aisles’ shelves, keeping a watchful eye on the bustle. Children toddled behind their mothers, sometimes squealing or crying. Kahl couldn’t stand the crying.

Major Canadian employers are considering covering the drug, says an industry insider.

The winds of change are blowing through employee benefit plans across Canada, and they smell like weed.

Benefits industry insider Mike Sullivan caught a whiff at a recent meeting with some of his clients, who represent private companies with benefit plans that cover about three million Canadian workers across a range of industries.

"This group that was in attendance, the No. 1 topic of discussion was medical cannabis," said Sullivan, who is president of Cubic Health, which provides analytics to employers who sponsor health benefit plans.

Vancouver-headquartered Tantalus Labs has become B.C.’s 10th Health Canada-licensed medical marijuana producer, aiming to start sales sometime in the summer of 2018 under the Access to Cannabis for Medical Purposes regulations.

In an interview Monday, CEO Dan Sutton said Tantalus received word Friday that it was approved, which allows it to start acquiring materials and planting seed crops, including clone plants, at its high-tech greenhouse facility in Maple Ridge, which has the capacity to grow up to 10,000 kilograms of cannabis per year.

Ohioans wanting medical marijuana have been crossing the border into Michigan, where some Detroit-area dispensaries will sell to out-of-staters who are issued recommendations for cannabis use months ahead of the drug becoming available in their home state, according to officials from a company providing the recommendations.

Those recommendations, given by doctors working for a Toledo business or any other Ohio physician, won’t necessarily help someone in court if they are busted for having pot into Ohio. Possession of less than 100 grams (about 3.5 ounces) is a minor misdemeanor in Ohio with a maximum $150 fine, but could lead to someone losing their driving privileges for six months.

Jeanine Moss never expected to get into the cannabis industry. But that was before her hip-replacement surgery.

Moss, 62, of Marina Del Ray, California, had quit her job as a marketing consultant before she had her hip done in 2014. As she left the hospital, her doctors handed her a “shopping bag filled with opiates,” she said. The drugs made her disoriented and woozy.

So she switched to medical marijuana, which is legal in California and was familiar to her, having grown up in the nearby Venice section of Los Angeles. Within a week, she had tossed away her pharmaceuticals.

The Cann Group has been given a permit by the Office of Drug Control to grow medicinal cannabis at a secret location in Melbourne.

The company, which listed on the ASX earlier this month after raising $13.5 million, has been issued permits for one medicinal cannabis permit and two cannabis research permits.

The first plants are expected to be harvested by early August.

A short time ago, Cann shares were down 4.4% to $0.535.

Harvested material from the plants is being supplied under a commercial agreement, the terms of which, including manufacturer details, volume, and price, will be kept confidential.