Of the many active ingredients in cannabis, cannabinoids — the miracle molecules that deliver most of the medical efficacy of marijuana — aren’t the whole picture. Some cannabis consumers may be aware of terpenes, the cannabinoid-like chemicals that give herb such a pungent smell. What most don’t know is that terpenes also deliver therapeutic relief, just like their cousins the cannabinoids.

Some believe cannabis could be useful in treating a range of medical and psychological problems

Yesterday, Baroness Molly Meacher asked a question about cannabis in the House of Lords. The question was whether cannabis could be re-scheduled out of schedule one - which determines that it has no medicinal value - to schedule two or three, which would allow doctors to prescribe it and researchers to use it more easily in studies and clinical trials.

The government behaved exactly as expected.  The most generous interpretation is that its spokesman, Lord Bates, was misinformed. His first response to Lady Meacher's question was to parrot the Home Office's usual line on cannabis about it being a harmful drug etc etc.

As of last Friday, 14 patients have enrolled in Minnesota’s medical cannabis program.

Two weeks before the launch of Minnesota’s medical marijuana program, there are more doctors signed up for the program than patients.

As of Friday, the state had enrolled 14 patients in the program, out of the 65 so far who have been certified by their doctors to participate. That’s nearly double the eight patients who managed to get signed up in the first week of enrollment, but far short of the 5,000 patients the state had estimated might try the treatment in the program’s first years.

Imagine waiting more than nine years to hear the sound of your child’s voice. That is a narrative all too familiar to Abiel and Gladys Santiago, parents of 9-year-old Kalel.

Kalel was diagnosed with a rare form of cancer as a baby and then severe, nonverbal autism just three years later.

Abiel, Kalel, and Gladys Santiago

“While he was in the hospital, we noticed he didn’t speak at all and had some behavior that wasn’t right, like hand flapping, and walking on his toes.”

Explained Abiel Santiago.

Medicinal cannabis is controversial, in Germany there are many caveats. In Israel, more than 20,000 patients receive such products - including children.

It started when Jali was four months old. The boy squirmed under convulsions, muscle twitching. The epileptic seizures occurred in the following years repeatedly, often several times a day. In order not to get hurt, the child was wearing a helmet. The parents lived in constant worry, the two brothers felt neglected. "The disease had determined our lives," says mother Jael Bracha.

The bewildering humming sounds resembling jackhammer’s fill the free space between my brain and the inside of the MRI machine.

Lying motionless to such a degree that I focus on my lungs retracting and expanding, ensuring my slight movements will not alter the instruments outcomes.

A million dollar state-of-the-art machine braking down boundaries, allowing the human brain to be observed with the patient unharmed, let alone inebriated on cannabis.

The medical marijuana bill that has stalled in Harrisburg, SB3, has many flaws. We've discussed these shortcomings, at length, here in the column. Yet there are some important protections for patients built into the measure that are quite innovative and forward-thinking. 

On Monday, the Colorado Supreme Court issued a bizarre ruling that allows for medical cannabis patients to be fired simply for testing positive for THC metabolites. 

COTTAGE GROVE – In a field where soybeans used to grow stands a building where new plants are being cultivated to bring medical marijuana to patients in St. Cloud and others statewide.

LeafLine Labs on Wednesday opened the doors to its Cottage Grove facility to show off the place where medical marijuana is grown and processed into the liquid and pill form that will be available to qualified patients.

"If I didn't already believe in the power and the potential of a small seed and a big dream I most assuredly do now," said Dr. Andrew Bachman, as he pointed to the 42,000-square-foot facility that holds dozens of marijuana plants.

Opponents of legalizing marijuana for medical purposes have long argued that such laws will encourage more youngsters to partake. But that notion may have no factual grounding, according to a new study that shows cannabis use among teenagers didn’t increase in states that legalized medical marijuana.

Proprietary delivery system makes essential medical marijuana more predictable, eliminates dosing concerns