One woman's fight to honour her son's legacy has made her an icon of hope for thousands of suffering Australians

She had convinced 235,000 people to support her including doctors, business leaders and a state premier, but the two people Lucy Haslam most needed to convince still weren’t returning her calls, so she booked a plane ticket and headed for Canberra.

A new study is linking lifelong and recent marijuana use that is over 100 times by early adulthood to poor control of blood sugar, increasing the risk of developing prediabetes.

According to Medical News Today, a study from the University of Minnesota School of Public Health shares that the researchers have seen a noticeable difference in the blood sugar control of marijuana users and non-users. The researchers are still trying to find out if it will develop further to type 2 diabetes, although the result is another evidence to the many adverse effects of marijuana use.

Today in Vancouver, a seminar will look to shed some light on an issue that has become the subject of international debate: should Cannabis-based medications be used to treat children with epilepsy?

The session, called “State of the Science, Law, and Access to Medical Marijuana: Implications for Families of Children with Autism and Epilepsy” will feature medical marijuana advocate Elaine Nuessler, the founder of Medical Cannabis for Sick Kids, an Okanagan-based group that was founded last year.

TORONTO - An Alberta mother whose daughter has severe epilepsy has travelled to Ontario for a medical marijuana prescription after the girl's doctor said he was no longer allowed to provide permission to purchase the product.

In 2013, Sarah Wilkinson had started extracting cannabis oil from dried marijuana - purchased from a licensed grower with a prescription from a neurologist at Alberta Children's Hospital - to prevent life-threatening seizures in her eight-year-old daughter Mia.

But in July, the physician declined to renew the prescription because of a hospital policy based on the position of Alberta Health Services, the provincial health authority, which does not support the use of medical marijuana for pediatric patients with epilepsy.

What are the long-term effects of marijuana use on the body’s metabolic health?

That’s what a doctoral student, Michael Bancks, at the University of Minnesota set out to learn when he dug into the data for CARDIA, a long-term health study whose 5,115 participants were recruited by the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI) in 1985-1986. At the time, they were ages 18 to 30.

Now, in the 30th year of the study, the group has entered middle age. This is when prediabetes, a major metabolic risk factor, often starts to appear.

"People who use marijuana may be more likely to develop pre-diabetes than those who have never smoked it," The Independent reports, after a US study found a link between long-term cannabis use and pre-diabetes.

Pre-diabetes is defined as having abnormally high blood sugar levels, but not high enough to meet criteria for diagnosis of type 2 diabetes.

The study enrolled around 3,000 healthy young US adults in the mid-1980s. Over the following years, researchers carried out regular medical assessments and questioned participants about their use of cannabis and other substances.

CHICAGO • Gov. Bruce Rauner’s administration issued a broad rejection last week of expanding the list of diseases that can be treated with medical marijuana in Illinois, refusing to add osteoarthritis, migraine, post-traumatic stress disorder and eight other health problems.

Separately, the governor vetoed a bill that would have added PTSD via a legislative route.

The moves were a stern rebuke of recommendations from an expert advisory board appointed by Rauner’s predecessor, Democrat Pat Quinn.

Adding conditions would have expanded the potential base of patients. So far, only 3,000 Illinois patients have been approved to use marijuana for conditions listed in the original law, such as cancer, HIV and multiple sclerosis.

WALNUT CREEK (KPIX) — Across from the championship lawn bowling greens at an upscale, gated community in Walnut Creek, inside a clean, well-lighted clubhouse, there’s a meeting going on.

Welcome to the Rossmoor Medical Marijuana Education and Support Club. About a hundred members are in attendance on this evening but they’re not here to get high.

“Not at all! At my age? I’m going to be 88 and at my age if I got high what difference would it make? But I don’t, I just don’t,” insisted club member Beverly Kivel.

These seniors are looking for an alternative solution to their medical problems.

The Royal Pharmaceutical Society (RPS) will host a debate on whether the legal status of cannabis should be changed from a Schedule 1 to a Schedule 2 drug at its annual conference on Monday 14 September.  
Some argue a change in the listing would make it easier to research the drug’s potential to provide treatments for cancer, multiple sclerosis, Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) and pain relief. 

A Schedule 1 listing under the Misuse of Drugs Regulations 2001 is given to drugs considered to have no medicinal use and potential for harm and abuse.