A British Columbia civil rights group is asking the City of Vancouver to reconsider its plan to ban dispensaries from selling edible forms of medical marijuana.

The request comes as city council prepares to vote Wednesday on new zoning regulations for medical marijuana shops, even though the sale of pot in any form by dispensaries remains illegal under federal drug laws.

The B.C. Civil Liberties Association said it recognized the logistical challenges to regulation, but it argues an outright ban on items such as cookies and brownies would just transfer the problem to patients.

“This is not comparable to other kinds of medication,” said Micheal Vonn, the organization’s policy director.

Marijuana at a medical marijuana dispensary in Los Angeles. Twenty-three states and the District of Columbia have legalized medical marijuana.

People who buy medical marijuana products might not be getting what they paid for, a study finds. And evidence remains elusive on benefits for most medical conditions, even though almost half the states have legalized medical marijuana.

By Leigh Coulter, GGS Structures Inc.

Yesterday at the Trump Hotel and Towers in downtown Toronto, Jacobs Securities hosted the Canadian Cannabis Conference to bring investors and cannabis businesses together. If there was anyone in the room with any doubt of the significance of the Canadian cannabis industry it was put to rest when, Richard Carleton, CEO of the Canadian Securities Exchange ( CSE ) admitted that the local joke that he is the President and CEO of the “Marijuana Business Exchange” is not far from the truth with 21% of the CSE market value being in the cannabis sector.

Chemist Markus Lüdi is Switzerland’s only producer of a natural tincture made from cannabis. In his laboratory in Burgdorf in canton Bern he demonstrates how a liquid drug can be produced from cannabis flowers. 

The cannabis contains around 5% THC (tetrahydrocannabinol), the psychotropic substance of the plant with therapeutic properties.

Santa Ana can move ahead with issuing licenses to 20 medical marijuana collectives after Superior Court Judge David R. Chafee denied a request to temporarily bar the city from implementing its pot shop ordinance.

The lawsuit -- which was brought by Rallo Law Firm, P.C. on behalf of dispensaries that didn’t win in the city’s lottery to determine which collectives could obtain an operating permit – contended that the lottery was unfair because it allowed submissions from applicants that should have been disqualified.

The Obama administration has removed a major regulatory barrier standing in the way of desperately needed research into medical marijuana.

On Monday, the Office of National Drug Control Policy, which oversees the United States' overall drug-fighting efforts, announced it will no longer require scientists seeking to study medical marijuana to pass a stifling Public Health Service review process, the Associated Press reports.

While this may seem like a small step for marijuana research, the recent announcement could pull the lynch pin that opens the floodgates for a wave of future scientific marijuana research that could add to the already growing list of potential medical applications of the substance. 

The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) has proposed a  massive increase in the amount of marijuana it will allow to be produced this year. The DEA’s objective is to meet the demands of researchers studying medicinal uses of marijuana.

The Controlled Substances Act, a law which categorizes drugs in accordance with their risk of abuse and medical benefit, provides for the DEA to control the growing and production of Schedule I and II drugs for research purposes. Cocaine and marijuana are both Schedule I drugs.

Scientists at The Scripps Research Institute (TSRI) have teamed up with several other institutions and pharmaceutical companies, including the University of Southern California (USC), San Diego's Receptos Inc. and Japanese company Ono Pharmaceutical Co., Ltd., to publish the first 3D structures of a receptor implicated in many diseases of the brain and in normal physiology throughout the body

Surprisingly, the structures revealed a new understanding of the body's use of cannabinoids—a naturally produced substance chemically related to marijuana.

Canada has seen the light. In the game of who can move past marijuana propaganda the fastest, Canada just drew a “move 5 spaces card”, while the U.S. keeps picking “lose a turn”.

Last week, the Canadian Supreme Court ruled that access to cannabis-infused products, including cookies and brownies, are a patient’s right. They further declared that these products are a necessary and less harmful alternative to smoking for many patients, especially children. The court stated that, "Inhaling marihuana can present health risks and is less effective for some conditions than administration of cannabis derivative."

As a lifelong conservative, I’m no fan of government regulation. Even so, I’m convinced it’s time for California to aggressively regulate the medical marijuana industry.

I’ve spoken with concerned citizens, local government officials, rural law enforcement officers, federal officials, anti-drug crusaders and medical marijuana industry insiders.

I visited the Emerald Triangle with fellow Board of Equalization member Fiona Ma. Our April tour showed how we can work with the industry to generate greater voluntary compliance with California law.