New York's medical-marijuana program is slated to be up and running by January 2016. But whilecompanies have been scrambling to show they meet the state's criteria to grow and dispense marijuana, little has been done to give doctors the tools they need to register patients to get them the drug. Even more worrisome, many doctors say they wouldn't recommend marijuana to their patients.

"This has been my biggest concern," state Sen. Diane Savino said Wednesday, speaking at a meeting on the logistics of getting the state's medical cannabis program up and running. "We don't have a single trained physician. They are the gatekeepers of all of this," she said at the panel, hosted by the Manhattan Chamber of Commerce.

In a heavily-guarded lab in Florence, many hundreds of a new type of marijuana plant are being grown. It’s part of the Italian army’s latest mission, to grow medical grade cannabis for the nation.

General Giocondo Santoni directs the business unit at the military pharmaceutical facility in Florence.

“We expect to make this drug available by the end of this year in a quantity of about 100 kilos (220 lbs), which is double the amount that we are currently importing from the Netherlands.”

Italy legalised the use of medical marijuana in 2007, meaning patients suffering from cancer, sclerosis and chronic pain have relied on the plant for relief.

Pharmacist, Marco Ternelli has been selling Dutch marijuana since 2013.

Medical cannabis campaigner Rose Renton says news cannabis spray is to be considered for public funding is "exciting".

Pharmac, the agency responsible for deciding which medicines get subsidised, plans to discuss the Sativex spray with its primary clinical advisory committee, the New Zealand Herald reported.

In April Nelson teen Alex Renton was hospitalised for seizures. His family campaigned for him to be given medicinal cannabis and in June he was prescribed Elixinol, a cannabidiol. Alex died on July 1 in Wellington Hospital.

When the oil was approved for use in June, Alex was the first person in New Zealand to receive the cannabidiol in hospital.

His mother, Rose said Pharmac was making an "exiting small step forward" in looking at the spray.

Health Canada Also Approves 8 More Growing Rooms

Immediate Increase in Product Revenue

TORONTO, July 28, 2015 /CNW/ - Bedrocan Cannabis Corp. (TSXV: BED) ("the Company" or "Bedrocan") announced today that it has received a license amendment from Health Canada allowing for the sale of the Company's domestically produced medical cannabis. Bedrocan has been growing six proprietary genetic strains of standardized cannabis at its new production facility since February, and eight harvests have been completed successfully to date. The Company can begin immediately taking orders for sales of its existing inventory.

HALIFAX - The Federal Court of Canada has certified a class action started on behalf of medical marijuana licensees alleging that Health Canada violated their privacy.

The plaintiffs allege in a news release that Health Canada sent notices to over 40,000 participants of the Marihuana Medical Access Program advising them of changes to regulations governing the use of medical marijuana.

They say the envelopes sent in November 2013 made clear they were sent by the program, and therefore failed to protect the identity of the recipients.

The plaintiffs are seeking damages for breach of contract, breach of confidence, invasion of privacy and Charter violations.

The allegations haven't been proven in court.

LANSING, MI — The state Supreme Court on Tuesday issued its ninth ruling on the Michigan Medical Marijuana Act in just under seven years, making special note of that frequency while expressing frustration with the ongoing legal debate over the voter-approved law.

"Unlike the procedures for the editing and drafting of bills proposed through the Legislature, the electorate — those who enacted this law at the ballot box — need not review the proposed law for content, meaning, readability, or consistency," Justice James Zahra wrote in the opening paragraph of the unanimous opinion.

THE first time you meet Robin, it’s easy to be misled by her fragile appearance. She’s in her 40s and painfully thin, and she grips her aluminum walker with hands that have been twisted by rheumatoid arthritis. But she’s both tough and resourceful, and she doesn’t give up easily.

I met Robin and many others like her at a California medical marijuana clinic where I was doing research for a book. She was one of almost a dozen patients seeking recommendation letters that would let them buy marijuana at designated dispensaries.

I asked how marijuana helped her.

“I can’t live without it,” she told me.

Out of the nearly 100 plant nurseries eligible to produce “Charlotte’s Web,” a low-THC, non-euphoric medical strain of marijuana, 24 are competing for one of only five available growing licenses.

According to Mara Burger, press secretary of the Florida Department of Health, 28 applications in total were received during the three-week open enrollment period. Several of the nurseries applied for licenses in more than one of the five designated regions (Northwest, Northeast, Central, Southwest, and Southeast).

Anyone who suffers from overactive bladder syndrome knows what an inconvenience it can be—to have constant, sudden urges to go to the bathroom and the social embarrassment that often follows—but a new study offers hope for OAB sufferers, and that hope comes from an unexpected source: marijuana.