Galen G. Weston wants in on the medical marijuana business. Weston, the head of the country’s largest drugstore and grocery chain, said Thursday that pharmacists are well-positioned to dispense the drug in a safe manner.

“We’re an industry that is extremely effective at managing controlled substances,” said Weston, Loblaw’s president and executive chairman, following the company’s annual general meeting Thursday.

“It gives pharmacists the opportunity to work directly in real time with patients as opposed to doing it through the mail, working on their doses and making sure it actually has the therapeutic effect that it is intended to have.”

Gov. Robert Bentley says patients deserve 'every possible option' to treat their illness

 Alabama Gov. Robert Bentley signed legislation into law to allow medical marijuana oil in the state.

The law, which will decriminalize possession of cannabidiol produced in other states, will go into effect June 1.

The legislation, nicknamed Leni’s Law, follows a similar bill in 2014 that established a CBD oil medical study at the University of Alabama at Birmingham.

In a first for Ohio legislators, House lawmakers passed a plan to legalize medical marijuana after a lengthy debate and hand wringing on both sides of the aisle.

After years of opposing plans to legalize marijuana, medicinal or otherwise, House lawmakers passed a plan 71-26 Tuesday. Members of GOP-controlled House – under pressure from two medical marijuana efforts shooting for the November ballot – talked seriously and passionately about medical marijuana for the first time.

The use of recreational drugs is seen at much higher rates in populations with mental health problems than in the general population, and this is true for both legal substances such as alcohol and tobacco, as well as prohibited substances like cannabis.

But understanding what these associations mean is problematic:

On May 6, 2016, the Washington State Department of Health announced that it had reviewed and approved two programs for medical marijuana consultant training, with both programs ready to register students.

NGR Enterprises, based in Seattle, is offering in-person training for its Washington Medical Marijuana Certification Program, which is a 20-hour program with a course fee of $379.00

An advertisement for Weedmaps, a U.S.-based pot-related tech company, is pictured in this undated handout photo. The company plans on launching a billboard campaign in Toronto by the end of the month.

Mainstream medical marijuana ads could soon be coming to Toronto.

Weedmaps — a tech company that provides an online directory to connect medical marijuana users with dispensaries — is gearing up to launch what it calls the first mainstream marijuana-related ad campaign in Canada.

Pending permission from a local company, the ad campaign will launch at the end of May and feature the words “High Toronto” on a billboard towering above a yet-to-be-determined location.

Cannabis consumers are turning to more discreet concentrates and oils.

Smoking pot will soon be as retro as smoking a cigar or enjoying a fine wine.

As the legal market for marijuana expands, product offerings have diversified from the standard dried flowers and cannabis-infused edible items like cookies and gummy bears to vaporizable oils and concentrates. They have become a major portion of legal marijuana sales, allowing consumers more potent and less overt forms of consumption. “Patients don’t want to be stigmatized or ostracized, they don’t want to be obvious,” says Rob Hunt, a general partner at cannabis-focused private-equity firm Tuatara Capital. “It’s important for people to have alternative forms of consumption, to consume in a way that’s anonymous.”

It all starts with a furtive joint in the schoolyard handed round among nervous giggles and coughs. Later, when these teenagers have become frequent users, they will tell you: “Cigarettes are much worse for you than marijuana. It’s straight from a plant so it’s more natural.”

A group that advocates for medical marijuana is ratcheting up pressure on Louisiana lawmakers by paying for billboards depicting sick children and their mothers who want the state to pass legislation that would allow access to the drug.

Sensible Marijuana Policy for Louisiana, a nonprofit group that was behind a medical marijuana bill filed by state Rep. Ted James, D-Baton Rouge, is planning a news conference Tuesday (May 10) to announce the billboards. Each ad will appear on digital billboards, one of them in Baton Rouge and the other in Shreveport.

Vancouver pot shops have won seven-for-10 at the city’s board of variance since March, having brought forward successful arguments for second cracks at marijuana business licenses. 

While it’s a tidal shift from the first two months of hearings when every decision went against shopkeepers, even the most keen observers, appellants and their lawyers would have a difficult time divining the precise ingredients that make for a successful pot shop appeal. In some cases, shops with nearly identical characteristics have received opposite decisions at the board.