Aphios Corporation, a green biotechnology company based in Massachusetts that uses environmentally sustainable technologies, recently announced it was awarded the Phase II portion of a Fast Track SBIR grant from the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA), National Institutes of Health (NIH) for the production of cannabidiol (CBD) from marijuana. The compound is expected to be an effective therapeutic agent for multiple sclerosis and other disorders affecting the central nervous system (CNS).

5-month-old baby with cerebral palsy remains in BC Women's Hospital

Parents of a severely ill baby girl in care at BC Women's Hospital in Vancouver are no longer seeking the right to treat her with cannabis oil.

Justin Pierce and Michelle Arnold have withdrawn their court application asking for greater control of treatment for their five-month-old, Mary Jane Pierce, who has cerebral palsy.

Arnold and Pierce both have epilepsy, and take cannabis oil, and they believed the oil could help their daughter. 

They allege that officials from the Ministry of Children and Family Development pressured them into giving up custody of their baby.

Bedrocan Canada and its sister company Tweed just announced the launch of the EQUAL (Evaluation QUAlity of Life) study. The clinical research initiative is a multi-centre, non-interventional, un-blinded study to evaluate quality of life in Canadian patients treated with medical cannabis. The company-sponsored study will evaluate patients who use Bedrocan and Tweed strains of cannabis to help manage symptoms of a range of chronic health conditions, and the resulting data will be submitted for publication by a peer-reviewed medical journal. To ensure patient privacy, all data collected will be anonymized and stored in a secure electronic database.

Throughout the nation, one of the hottest social and political discussions right now is whether or not we should legalize marijuana.  I believe that when examining what is known about the utility and the importance of the marijuana plant, specifically as it relates to health, it becomes clear what a grave mistake it is to deprive ourselves of this truly nutrient rich plant.   I believe that its cannabinoid compounds meet the definition of “vitamins”, not just any vitamin, but a vitamin that may be necessary for controlling our bodies ability to eliminate cancerous cells, in addition to supporting numerous bodily functions.(1)

New York’s medical marijuana program is due to go online by January, but there are still a number of questions with how it will all work.  In part of the four-part series "The Growing Economy," Capital Tonight's Nick Reisman traveled to Minnesota to understand how that state’s medical marijuana program works for both doctors and patients. 

MINNEAPOLIS, Minn. -- Patrick McClellan was running out of hope. 

"I needed an option, other than something that could potentially kill me, to try and fight these massive attacks and that's how I discovered cannabis," he said.

An experimental drug made from a cannabis compound, cannabidiol (CBD), has been found superior to placebo for treating schizophrenia in a mid-stage trial, according to FOX News.

The CBD drug was developed by UK-based GW Pharmaceuticals Plc, and the company’s UK-listed shares jumped 12.5 percent since news of this most recent medical trial broke. U.S. listed shares were up by 10 percent.

On September 30, 2012, Sierra Riddle’s life was turned upside down when her 2-year-old son, Landon, was diagnosed with Leukemia and given an 8 to 10 percent chance to live past the next 24 to 48 hours.

“It was the absolute most terrifying day of my life,” Riddle wrote on Landon’s blog.

For the next four months, Landon would be subjected to rounds of chemotherapy, drugs and the side-effects of treating his cancer. Just 30 days after he started chemo, Landon’s physical appearance and quality of life changed.

TRENTON — The mother of a teenage New Jersey girl with epilepsy cannot come to school to feed her daughter cannabis oil that has helped control her seizures, a state judge ruled Tuesday, saying state and federal drug possession laws trump their right to use medical marijuana on school grounds.

This is the third legal defeat for the Barbour Family of Maple Shade, which has vowed to keep appealing the case legal experts believe is the first court challenge of its kind in the country.

Care By Design surveyed thousands of patients who had been using CBD-rich cannabis medicines for over 30 days. They asked patients what they were taking CBD-rich cannabis for, the ratio of CBD-to-THC they were using, and about its impact on pain, discomfort, energy, mood, and overall wellbeing. 

Here's what they learned:

The history of medical cannabis is long and turbulent, encompassing almost every corner of the globe and spanning over 6,000 years. Here, we set out what we believe are the most significant milestones on the long march to gain recognition of cannabis as a powerful, effective, and safe medicine.

Publication of the Sanskrit Ayurvedic texts

Unlike the dates of many early Chinese texts, the Ancient Indians were fairly proactive when it came to dating their historical records, and as a result modern scholars are fairly confident that the first known references to cannabis appear in the Atharvaveda, written in around 1,400 BCE.