The Mayor of Vancouver says he is frustrated the federal government has dealt the cards, but not finished the game when it comes to regulating medical marijuana.

Gregor Robertson says Federal Health Minister Rona Ambrose is off base.

“She must be misinformed.”

She fired off a letter to the city saying Vancouver doesn’t have the authority to legitimize pot and it’s concerned with its proposal to regulate dispensaries.

“It is frustrating when there are comments made or letters from the federal government when this is the arena that they are responsible for setting policy on, and dealing with that the courts say, which people do have a right to access to their medicines, we are not seeing constructive steps coming out of Ottawa on this yet.”

For 40 years, Amanda Feilding, Countess of Wemyss and March, has believed psychedelics are an effective treatment for depression and anxiety. Now a growing number of scientists agree.

Imagine a family of drugs that could treat addiction, depression and post-traumatic stress: sicknesses of the soul for which modern medicine, in all its surgical wizardry, has few cures. Substances that were a fillip to creativity and could provide those who took them with an experience comparable to seeing God or witnessing the birth of a child. Say these wonder chemicals were found: why would a society make them illegal?

FT. LAUDERDALE, Fla. -- The New Mexico Department of Health's Medical Cannabis Program has awarded BioTrackTHC™, a division of Bio-Tech Medical Software, Inc., a contract for the provision and deployment of an integrated patient and provider tracking software application. This award makes BioTrackTHC the cannabis industry's first company with marijuana regulatory technology contracts in two states, following the company's existing contract for the state of Washington'sMarijuana Seed-to-Sale Traceability System.

Legalized marijuana sales are booming in the U.S., with the industry growing by a whopping 74% last year. Even so, total sales came in less than $3 billion in 2014, according to a report from the ArcView Group, showing that the drug remains in its infancy in terms of its economic potential. 

Source: Wikimedia.

The interesting part from an investing viewpoint, though, is that although the medical marijuana market is expected to grow to over $10 billion by 2018, that figure still pales in comparison to other rapidly growing healthcare segments, such as treatments for severe pain.

Source: Wikimedia.

In a somewhat surprising move, a comprehensive medical marijuana bill passed in an Alabama Senate committee on Wednesday.

The Senate Judiciary Committee gave Sen. Bobby Singleton's bill a favorable report on a 4-3 vote after little debate. The Medical Marijuana Patient Safe Access Act can now be considered on the Senate floor.

See related: Could medical marijuana legislation pass this year in Alabama?

Senate leadership could, however, refuse to put the bill on a calendar so it can be debated and voted on by the full body.

According to Military.com, “The Choice plan is supposed to be open to patients who live more than 40 miles from a VA hospital or clinic or who have been told they would have to wait more than 30 days for VA care.

As of April 1, there were nearly 432,000 appointments pending in the VA's scheduling system involving a wait that long.

VA leaders have previously acknowledged that few vets were successfully using the Choice program, but the new statistic came as a surprise -- as of mid-March, officials were saying that more than 45,000 appointments had been completed and that participation had been rising.”  

The faded sign off a West Quebec road still points to an old garden centre.

But the greenhouses at the end of the peninsula in the Masson-Angers neighbourhood of Gatineau no longer grows the types of plants your average gardener buys in spring.

The former Botanix-Aux Jardins de La Pointe now houses the Hydropothecary, a small-but-growing medical marijuana production plant. It’s the first of its kind in Quebec.

``We get at least two or three cars showing up a day, saying, where do we get our flowers?” said Adam Miron, who co-founded the company with his brother-in-law Sébastien St-Louis.

OLYMPIA, Wash. (AP) — Nearly two decades after voters passed a medical marijuana law that often left police, prosecutors and even patients confused about what was allowed, Gov. Jay Inslee signed a bill Friday attempting to clean up that largely unregulated system and harmonize it with Washington's new market for recreational pot.

Among the law's many provisions, it creates a voluntary registry of patients and, beginning next year, eliminates what have become in some cases large, legally dubious "collective gardens" providing cannabis to thousands of people.

Possessing small amounts of marijuana in Illinois would be punished by ticket

SPRINGFIELD — A bill that cleared the Illinois House on Thursday by a bipartisan 62-53 vote would put possession of small amounts of marijuana on par with traffic tickets.

The proposal by Rep. Kelly Cassidy, D-Chicago, would make a possession of 15 grams (about half an ounce) or less a civil law offense punishable by a maximum fine of $125.

The measure, House Bill 218, does not make marijuana a legal substance.

Cassidy said her intent is to bring uniformity to a patchwork of more than 100 local government ordinances that vary tremendously regarding amount of the drug and size of the fine.

Ottawa is unequivocal in its stance on pot.

A generation after Canada’s first medical cannabis dispensary opened in Vancouver in 1997, city council and police are scrambling to regulate the business as if taken by surprise.

City Manager Penny Ballem says Ottawa has created “greyness and confusion,” sounding incredulous that there is a pot precinct downtown and more cannabis cafés on corners than Tim Hortons.

Where has she been?

The federal government has never been clearer about the demonized weed and has used the plant to draw a hardline for the fall election between it and Liberal leader Justin Trudeau.