In 1997 my father was diagnosed with a rare and aggressive cancer. He underwent treatments, both conventional and alternative, and despite a courageous fight, he passed away in the spring of 1998. 

During his illness I visited with him and my mother quite often and remember how people looked at him while he had the stent that delivered chemotherapy drugs directly to a vein in his chest. There was a palpable sense of discomfort. 

I have to admit, I had the same feeling of discomfort; the strong and vibrant man I remembered wasted away, as much from the treatments as from the cancer. 

For a year, state Senator Jason M. Lewis maintained strict neutrality as he studied marijuana legalization — interviewing 50-plus experts, scouring the research, and observing firsthand a state where it is legal. But now he is speaking out against the expected November referendum in Massachusetts.

His position carries special weight. Lewis chairs the special legislative committee on marijuana.

His concerns, voiced just after his committee submitted its report on the topic, arise from his role as both a father and a public official, he said.

“I am opposed to the likely ballot question because this is the wrong time for Massachusetts to go down this road, and a commercial, profit-driven market is the wrong approach to take,” the Winchester Democrat said.

Santiago, March 22 (IANS) Authorities have started harvesting the largest legal marijuana field in Latin America in a rural area in southern Chile, the media reported on Tuesday.

The initiative, which has been authorised by the Chilean government, will transform the buds of 6,000 marijuana plants growing near the city of Colbun into different phytopharmaceuticals for 4,000 patients free of charge.

"It is an important day. We want it to be the first harvest of many more to come in Latin American countries," Ana Maria Gazmuri, president of the Daya Foundation, an organisation for the promotion and research of alternative therapies, which fosters the initiative, told Efe on Monday.

I sit in a brightly lit doctors surgery in central Amsterdam. It’s clean, modern and pristine. A team of receptionists see to patients sitting waiting to my left. Sitting to my right is a UK pain patient who, for the sake of anonymity, we’re going to call Mr X. 

Mr X uses cannabis for his pain caused by spinal damage due to injuries sustained whilst working in the armed forces. He’s a UK citizen and he’s here to get a prescription he can’t get from his doctor at home in London.

Mr X is young, talkative and passionate about what he’s doing. He’s not just in it for himself either:

Reports out of Washington state last week confirmed what many suspected but few had publicly acknowledged: Colorado’s cannabis pesticide problem isn’t just Colorado’s problem. It exists in every state. 

HARTFORD, Conn. (AP) — Connecticut lawmakers are moving closer toward allowing qualified patients under 18 years old to use medical marijuana to treat their debilitating illnesses.

The Public Health Committee overwhelmingly approved the proposed legislation on Monday. It now awaits further action in the House of Representatives.

The vote comes days after a funeral in Montville for 13-year-old Cyndiemae Meehan, whose family moved her from Connecticut to Maine to receive medical marijuana to treat her rare form of epilepsy.

Montville Rep. Kevin Ryan, a Democrat, suggested the bill be named in honor of the girl. Meehan had previously testified with her mother in favor of Connecticut’s legislation.

The small South American nation is the world's first country to legalize marijuana. But just because the drug is legal to buy doesn't mean you can buy it legally.

PUNTA DEL ESTE, Uruguay — In December 2013, Uruguay offered itself as the world’s leading laboratory for marijuana policy. That month, the Latin American nation of some 3.5 million people became the first country to legalize and regulate the cultivation, sale, and consumption of the drug, turning itself into an outlier in a region where failed prohibition policies had been the norm. Marijuana legalization advocates from around the world eagerly waited to see how the case study would play out.

Establishing a regulatory framework for the sale of medical marijuana could generate between $44.3 million and $63.5 million annually in tax revenue for Michigan, according to a new report. 

Over time, the industry could create 10,000 jobs through processing plants, growth and testing facilities, delivery services, and dispensaries. 

For the report, Dr. Gary Wolfram, director of economics at Hillsdale College, based his findings on a statewide free market plan proposed in a three-bill package currently before the Michigan Legislature. If passed, the legislation would set in place a regulated, private and taxable marketplace for the sale of medical marijuana. 

Psychosis patients who have used cannabis have greater premorbid social skills than patients with psychosis who have never used the drug, data from five European countries suggest.

Laura Ferraro, a PhD student in psychiatry at the University of Palermo, in Italy, and colleagues found that lifetime cannabis use was associated with significantly increased improvements in premorbid social adjustment among psychosis patients.

Moreover, the results, which were presented here at the European Psychiatric Association (EPA) 24th ​Congress, indicate that the impact of cannabis on sociability was significantly greater among psychosis patients than among healthy individuals.

Pot prohibitionists frequently warn that legalization will flood the roads with dangerously stoned drivers, leading to a surge in traffic fatalities. So far there is not much evidence of such a surge inColorado or Washington, where marijuana was legalized in 2012. A new study may help explain why: It looks like marijuana’s impact on traffic safety has been greatly exaggerated.