In response to rapidly changing cultural and legal contexts, researchers from the University of Montreal and the Sainte-Justine University Hospital have discovered a way to prevent, reduce or delay the use of cannabis among young people at risk.

Cannabis users are exposed to neurocognitive deficits, lower educational and professional success, to road accidents, psychiatric symptoms and exacerbated the outbreak of psychosis. Teenagers are especially at risk because their brains are developing.

Perth, May 28, 2015 AEST (ABN Newswire) - PhytoTech Medical Limited (ASX:PYL) ("PYL" or the "Company") is pleased to announce that production of MMJ Bioscience Limited's ("MMJ") proprietary, Good Manufacturing Practice ("GMP") produced cannabidiol ("CBD") capsules commenced in Switzerland on 25 May 2015.

Highlights:

- Production of MMJ's GMP-produced CBD food supplement capsules commenced 25 May 2015 - Capsules to be branded and sold as SativolTM

- SativolTM will be the first product launched by Satipharm (an MMJ subsidiary) under exclusive development alliance with Swiss partners Ai Fame gmbH and Gelpell AG

This is where I get my energy to go out and help other Veterans.

In observance of PTSD Awareness Month this June, VA’s National Center for PTSD introduces a Veteran who is living with PTSD and is turning his life around with treatment.

“I built my own home — I built it for me,” Whitcomb said. “This is my place to come and rejuvenate. It’s the most peaceful place I know on Earth. This is where I get my energy to go out and help other Veterans.”

Treatment for a young man in an induced coma for 54  days is being held back because of the politics and bureaucracy around medicinal marijuana, his mother says.

Nelson teen Alex Renton was hospitalised in early April after a serious seizure. He has been in an induced coma in Wellington's intensive care unit since April 8.

Alex remains in 'status epilepticus', a kind of prolonged seizure.

"The seizure has sort of stuck on. They can't get under the receptors with the medication to stop the seizures." said his mother Rose Renton said.

Veterans suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder have a new place to turn in Cape Breton.

It's a centre that offers to help vets get access to medical marijuana.

Marijuana for Trauma — Veterans Helping Veterans — has opened in the former Victoria Order of Nurses building on King's Road in Sydney.

Founder Fabian Henry is from New Waterford but now lives in Fredericton.

He is a former military combat engineer who has suffered for years from post-traumatic stress disorder.

"After three years, I tried cannabis for the first time in my life and I got relief," said Henry. "That was five years ago and I've only been on one medication for five years now."

'They're not dope addicts'

Opiate dependence can have severely detrimental effects on normal life and everyday function, and can be extremely difficult to overcome. Cannabis can not only reduce the need to take opiate-based painkillers in the first place, but may also help to alleviate withdrawal symptoms even in existing cases of addiction.

Analgesic

Chronic pain is one of the primary reasons for utilization of opiate painkillers. It is also one of the primary reasons for utilization of medical cannabis: in a patient survey of 350 Michigan-based medical cannabis patients, over 85% of respondents reported that they used cannabis to treat pain.

Enrollment opened Monday for Minnesota’s medical marijuana program, and Shelly Rapp was ready and waiting to sign up her son.

The Rapp family recently moved here from California, where 18-year-old Scott had been taking cannabis oil — a few drops, a few times a day — to treat the intractable seizures that have racked him since birth. His mother, skeptical at first about the drug’s usefulness, watched as Scott’s seizures dropped from hundreds a day to just a handful.

He started smiling. His eyesight improved. They weaned him off his other epilepsy medications and treatments.

“Scott has so many seizures, I never really had any hope of anything working,” Rapp said. “But we had amazing success.”

BELLE PLAINE, Minn. – Monday was the day that Angie Traxler hopes will make a difference. It was the first day that qualified patients were able to register for medical marijuana. Actual sales of the drug will not begin until July 1.

Angie Traxler's daughter, Madelaine, 11, spends up to 90 percent of her time in a wheelchair. The fifth-grader suffers from Rett syndrome, a neurodevelopmental disorder that mainly strikes girls.

"She lost her ability to speak, or use her hands," said Traxler. "She has scoliosis, so she wears a back brace."

Gov. Greg Abbott signs a bill to allow cannabis oil for some medical treatments but says he opposes
legalizing marijuana for medical or recreational use. Office of the Governor

Gov. Greg Abbott signed into law a bill allowing epilepsy patients to use medicinal oils containing a therapeutic component found in marijuana. Could this be the toe in the water for legal medical marijuana use in Texas?

Not as long as Abbott is governor, he vows. How disappointing.

If you had asked me at the start of the session whether this bill had a chance, I would have said “no.” Texas and 15 other states have archaic laws to prohibit both medicinal and recreational use.

FARMINGTON —  More than $100,000 in research grants, received by two natural science faculty members at the University of Maine at Farmington, will fund a study on the chemical profile of medicinal cannabis.

Jean Doty, University of Maine at Farmington professor of biology, right, and Terry Morocco, associate professor of chemistry, have received more than $100,000 in research grants to study the chemical profile of medicinal cannabis.

Jean Doty, professor of biology, and Terry Morocco, associate professor of chemistry, have started a four-year project to look at medical cannabis strains and analyze the plant's profile to determine the medicinal compounds in the plant, Doty said.