On February 8, 2016, Senator Elizabeth Warren wrote a well publicized letter to Dr. Thomas Friedan, the Director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. In her letter she expressed her concern about the current epidemic of deaths by overdoses of opiate pain medications. Among her recommendations was taking steps to broaden our understanding of how marijuana might both help relieve pain as well as reduce the number of deaths by opioid overdose. She was quite correct in her effort.

A Brantford man denied entry to Toronto’s CN Tower restaurant because he carried medical marijuana wants to take his case to the Ontario Human Rights Tribunal.

“I have a (medical marijuana) licence and I had a couple of joints with me,” Mike Knox said. “I use it for chronic pain. I explained all of that, but security still wouldn’t let me in.”

Knox said that, last Saturday, he asked CN Tower security to take his marijuana and lock it away while he, his girlfriend, Courtney Childs, and her two-year-old son visited the restaurant.

“I was told they couldn’t do that, so there wasn’t anything else I could do. We came in by train, so it wasn’t as if I could go lock it in a car,” Knox said.

There's a new push at the Colorado state capitol to allow disabled students to take medical marijuana while at school. As News5 has reported, no Colorado school districts have created medical marijuana policies even though "Jack's Law" passed in May of 2015.

Representative Jonathan Singer, wrote Jack's Law. He told News5 he's disappointed that districts still aren't allowing students that need medical cannabis to take it at school. He's considering new legislation that would make districts implement a medical marijuana policy.

"Instead of opening the doors to schools, and saying you can do this now, we're going to say you have to do this," Singer said. "You have to make reasonable accommodations for kids with serious medical issues."

Cannabidiol (CBD), one of the chemical components found in marijuana, may have fast-acting antidepressant effects, according to a study published in Neuropharmacology.

Marijuana has long been valued in many cultures for its mood-altering effects. Neuroscientists have identified several ways CBD influences neurochemical processes, especially by affecting production of the neurotransmitters serotonin and glutamate. Because the same brain systems are known to be related to depression, it has been suggested that CBD has the potential to impact depression through these pathways.

As state lawmakers move to decriminalize marijuana for medical and recreational use, the cannabis economy is simultaneously gaining momentum. As it does, there's been much discussion — and research — focused on how marijuana affects the human body and mind. In particular, researchers and marijuana advocates have devoted a fair bit of attention to the relationship between cannabis use and depression.

Though regular marijuana users tend to be diagnosed with depression more frequently than those who don't use cannabis, marijuana does not cause depression, wrote Dr. Daniel K. Hall-Flavin for Mayo Clinic. 

Helen Kelly, former president of the Council of Trade Unions, revealed last May that she was terminally ill with lung cancer (she has never smoked). In October, days before stepping down from her post, she went public with the fact that she was treating herself with cannabis oil.

"I was going on [TV current affairs show] The Nation anyway to talk about my health," Kelly explained to VICE. "And it was a really interesting drug that was making a big difference to my health. If I was going to get it illegally and it was all going to be fine for me, I thought, well there's other people it won't be fine for. You've got to put these things out in the open."

New Zealand should grow medicinal cannabis because of its potentially good returns, a Massey University scientist says.

Dr Mike Nichols, who has also researched hemp growing, said New Zealand risked losing out on a profitable industry, in the same way it once turned down the chance to grow poppies for legal codeine and morphine.

Even though New Zealand scientist Ralph Ballinger was the world's lead researcher into poppy growing in the 1950s, his work never resulted in an industry.

Mettrum Health Corp. ("Mettrum" or the "Company") (TSXV:MT), a vertically integrated licensed producer (LP) of cannabis products, this week launched the Mettrum Registry Research Program (MRRP) to systematically gather data on up to six thousand Canadian patients who have been prescribed medical cannabis.

The goal of this observational study is to provide information to prescribing physicians and the wider medical community to help determine if and how cannabis should be prescribed – focusing on which strains best suit a particular patient's needs. It also considers the impact of intercurrent illness or potential interactions with other medications. The study will run for one year, with results anticipated to be published by March 2017. 

Previously thought to be detrimental to people with gambling disorders, addiction specialists may now have to rethink their position on cannabis as related to pathological gambling. New research from Canada and Boston has determined that synthetic cannabinoid receptor agonists, which mimic the effects of cannabis at a higher potency, improve “choice performance” in rats with gambling disorders.

A national group’s campaign to legalize medical marijuana in Ohio would allow up to 15 large-scale grow sites and an unlimited number of smaller-scale growers.

Ohioans for Medical Marijuana, a campaign committee formed by the Marijuana Policy Project, announced the new ballot language Tuesday, with hopes of putting the constitutional amendment on the Nov. 8 ballot.

If approved – and polling has shown support for medical marijuana after an effort to completely legalize marijuana failed last year – entrepreneurs will have a variety of ways to profit.