As more municipalities relax restrictions on access to cannabis, questions about the plant’s potential for respiratory effects become more common. Given current limitations in developing an inhalant alternative for delivering cannabis medication, smoked marijuana remains the most readily accessible form of cannabis among medicinal users (1). An important question that remains is how to improve safety for the respiratory system in individuals who choose to use cannabis medicinally.

Note: This post has been updated to correct for a typo in the original data release that overstated the number of registered physicians by thousands. There are 334 practitioners registered with the Minnesota Office of Medical Cannabis.

After one month of legal medical marijuana in Minnesota, there are still more doctors than patients enrolled in the program.

One month into legalization, 250 people have enrolled in the new program. Meanwhile, there are 334 health care practitioners registered with the Office of Medical Cannabis.

Pharmac plans to discuss Sativex with its primary clinical advisory committee this month, a first step towards possibly more public funding. Photo / Thinkstock

For 11 years, Jacinta Newport's daughter has been in pain.

Sometimes in the hips, sometimes in her lower limbs, that pain, along with frequent visits to specialists, has been a constant, just like her cocktail of medicines and often terrible side effects.

"It's just affected her life on every level," Mrs Newport says.

Her daughter, now 22, was diagnosed with juvenile arthritis when she was 11. The condition affects about one in 1000 New Zealand children.

"We've tried everything. We've been everywhere. We know what works and what doesn't work."

The United States Healthcare System has been criticized for decades now by both foreign and domestic media outlets. US healthcare costs more, offers less and operates more slowly than most, if not all, countries of comparison. A new, groundbreaking decision out of Israel further thrusts America into the subcategories of global health leadership.

If you read the national headlines or watch the reports on TV, you’d think there was a dangerous epidemic sweeping the nation’s youngsters. According to a recent study, more kids are accidentally ingesting their parents’ cannabis, especially in states where the herb is legal. When marijuana-laced edibles are wrapped in darling packaging to look like delicious cookies, brownies, chocolate bars and ice cream sandwiches, it follows that a few kids will accidentally eat them.

However, the general reaction to the study is waxing hysterical. In reality, as Mason Tvert of the Marijuana Policy Project pointed out in an email, the actual statistics of the study aren’t as alarming as they seem.

CHEYENNE (WTE) - The Governor's Marijuana Impact Council met for the first time Wednesday.

The group, appointed by Gov. Matt Mead, said they want "valid and scientifically reliable data" on the pros and cons of potentially legalizing marijuana in Wyoming.

The group was created to study the health, economic and social impacts of potentially legalizing the drug in the state.

The group is also charged with determining how Wyoming has been affected by Colorado's decision to allow recreational sales at the start of 2014.

Their work comes as a signature-collecting effort is about to get underway to ask Wyoming voters in 2016 if medical marijuana should be legalized.

The director of the US National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA), Nora Volkow, believes that cannabidiol (CBD) – a nonpsychotropic cannabinoid – is “a safe drug with no addictive effects.”

Volkow made the comments in an op-ed published by The Huffington Post.

Volkow further acknowledged, “[P]reliminary data suggest that it may have therapeutic value for a number of medical conditions.”

Jodi Lenz prepares medical marijuana for packaging at Mohave Green medical marijuana dispensary in Arizona.

More residents on Thursday expressed disapproval over proposed costs of license fees associated with Guam’s new medical marijuana program.

The public hearing at the Guam Legislature was the second in a three-day series of hearings concerning proposed regulations for the program. Island voters approved the use of medical marijuana in last year’s General Election.

“I can’t charge $1,000 for a red velvet cookie! That’s just unacceptable,” said Andrea Pellacani, spokeswoman for Grassroots Guam. “At these rates, how many patients would even sign up for the program?”

On 24th June 2015, a Daily Mail headline screamed:

Medicinal cannabis DOESN’T ease pain, nausea, vomiting,

MS muscle contractions, sleep disorders or Tourette’s

In fact the study reported on, from the University of Bristol, found exactly the opposite.  It showed that medicinal cannabis DOES ease pain, nausea, vomiting and the other conditions referred to.

The exact words of the study’s conclusion were: