To a child on the prowl for sweets, that brownie, cookie or bear-shaped candy left on the kitchen counter is just asking to be gobbled up. But in states that have legalized marijuana for recreational use, notably Colorado, that child may end up with more than a sugar high.

A study published on Monday in the journal JAMA Pediatrics says that in Colorado the rates of marijuana exposure in young children, many of them toddlers, have increased 150 percent since 2014, when recreational marijuana products, like sweets, went on the market legally.

Not long ago, whenever professional athletes dabbled with marijuana, it was bad news: multigame suspensions, ruined careers, endless stoner jokes. Not anymore. Just take a look at this week’s Sports Illustrated, which dedicated its cover story to former NFL running back Ricky Williams’ relationship with cannabis. Williams’ 11 NFL seasons were marked by repeated suspensions for positive marijuana tests, hand-wringing, and forced contrition; now the big story is that Williams has become an outspoken marijuana advocate and co-founder of the world’s first cannabis-friendly gym, Power Plant Fitness and Wellness.

A new study from the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration provides an in-depth examination of marijuana use in the United States, as well as data regarding the public’s perception of the risks associated with the drug.

Using data collected by the National Survey on Drug Use and Health from 2012 to 2014, SAMHSA analyzed various regions around the country and within states to determine the rates of marijuana use and “perceptions of risks of harm” associated with the drug’s use in different parts of the U.S.

It's estimated that absenteeism costs American industries approximately $24-billion every year. And according to a new study examining the frequency of sick days in states with medical marijuana programs, legalization could actually increase productivity, and thereby decrease the cost of doing business.

The study, published this month in the journal Health Economics, found that safe, legal access to medical marijuana resulted in a “statistically significant decline" in employee sick leave. Illness-related absences dropped anywhere from 8 to 15 percent in states where medical marijuana was legal, compared to those compared to states where pot is still against the law.

When antibiotic drugs were first discovered in 1928, they revolutionized healthcare. By the end of World War II, their production had exploded.

Decades later, things have changed.

Today, according to an estimate from the CDC, about half of the antibiotic prescriptions in the United States are totally unnecessary. The effects of that over-prescription are serious.

Minister Costa says legislation doesn't have enough support.

A bill on legalising cannabis will not be voted on until after parliament's summer recess in September, Walter Verini, an MP for Premier Matteo Renzi's centre-left Democratic Party (PD), said on Monday.

Some 2,000 amendments have been presented to the bill, which is set to be debated on the floor of the Lower House on Monday, mostly by lawmakers opposed to it.

"Today we will start the debate (on the bill) without any hypocrisy, but the the examination of the bill will be postponed until September and then the parties will have to decide what approach to take," said Verini, the PD leader in the Lower House's justice committee.

The woman behind a push for medicinal cannabis says it is important to make sure Australia takes the lead on research and does not let international companies capture the market for profit.

The New South Wales Government on Sunday announced it was the first state authorised to conduct cultivation research, after the Federal Government in October announced it would legalise the growing of cannabis for medicinal purposes.

State Minister for Primary Industries Niall Blair said the research would lay the foundations for future non-government cultivation.

In at this time’s world, it has change into a lot simpler to be a hashish activist. As individuals change into increasingly excepting of the miracle drugs, it’s simpler and simpler to face out in public and protest criminalization or anti-cannabis legal guidelines, with out concern of repercussion. It hasn’t all the time been this manner, although, a couple of hashish activists blazed the way in which and supported hashish legalization earlier than many people even considered it an possibility.

Florida is all set to launch its limited medical marijuana market. It will start selling medicinal cannabis but only company has been approved to dispense it. Marijuana investors are however divided in their opinion on whether this is the right time to invest in the state’s emerging cannabis industry.

“We're not talking about having a dispensary on every street corner. It is still a very controlled, closely tailored and very heavily regulated structure,” an attorney who leads the regulated products practice at the Florida law firm of GrayRobinson, Richard Blau, told CNBC.

Italian lawmakers will begin discussion on Monday of a proposal to ease up on the recreational use and growing of cannabis -- a highly inflammatory topic, with the government on the fence.

Were the draft to pass into law, people would be allowed to grow up to five cannabis plants for personal use and keep up to 15 grams of marijuana at home and five grams on their person.

It would still be illegal for people to buy or sell weed or smoke marijuana in public, but the Italian state could start issuing licenses allowing the drug to be grown and sold in a similar way to tobacco.

Several European countries, as well as a number of US states, have legalised marijuana in recent years, both for medical and recreational use.