Perry asked me not to use his last name. It wasn’t because of the plants in his basement — they’re perfectly legal now — but more out of garden-variety stoner’s paranoia. He worried some enemy might see his name in the news and come looking for him.

Whatever — his identity isn’t important. It’s not like he was leaking potentially false information about weapons of mass destruction. I was just there to talk to him about his experience and his opinions. He has red hair, thinning on top, but growing vigorously in a bushy beard beneath. He’s wearing rectangular framed glasses, a Grant Farm concert T-shirt, and shorts.

According to what we are hearing, it seems that the decriminalisation of marijuana will do a great deal of good to Jamaica; but the primary purpose we are being told, if it comes in effect, will be for medicinal use.

We are also being informed that, marijuana is a very vital ingredient, pertaining to health, in which people can be cured of certain ailments, which seems to be true and has already been proved.

But, more important, one of the major concerns about this herbal stuff, is that it will open widely a door for vast employment, which will be very beneficial to the economy.

Drug Enforcement Agency chair Michele Leonhart was done in by her agents’ unsanctioned, cartel-funded sex parties in Colombia, but it’s marijuana legalization advocates who are excited to see her go. 

“Hopefully this is a sign that the Reefer Madness era is coming to an end at the DEA,” said Mason Tvert, the director on communications at the Marijuana Policy Project. “Michelle Leonhart has maintained an opinion about marijuana akin to the opinion people had back in the 30s.” 

VANCOUVER -- Travis Williams works in the Cannabis Culture lounge on Davie Street, which does not sell weed but charges a $5 fee for people to bring in and smoke their own. A separate marijuana dispensary, run by Eden Medicinal Society, is located in the same building with a door that opens into the hazy lounge.

The businesses appear to violate two of the city’s proposed new regulations: that two marijuana-related business cannot operate within 300 metres of each other and that they cannot be located within 300 metres of a school.

Lord Roberts Elementary in the West End is just 180 metres from the two outfits on Davie.

The Michigan House of Representatives Judiciary Committee approved on Tuesday an amendment to the Michigan Medical Marihuana Act that will protect landlords on prohibiting the use of marijuana on their property, including medicinal marijuana.

The amendment, introduced as Senate Bill 72 by state Sen. Rick Jones, R-Grand Ledge, states that a landlord is not required to lease residential property to any person who smokes or cultivates marijuana on the premises if the lease stipulated a prohibition on the drug.

Attorney and Michigan Cannabis Development Association spokeswoman Denise Pollicella testified in favor of the amendment, and said it will prevent “unnecessary litigations.”

GW Pharmaceuticals plc, a biopharmaceutical company focused on discovering, developing and commercializing novel therapeutics from its proprietary cannabinoid product platform, announced  that it has initiated the second Phase 3 clinical trial of Epidiolex (cannabidiol or CBD) for the treatment of Dravet syndrome, a rare and catastrophic treatment-resistant form of childhood epilepsy. This follows GW’s recent announcement of the commencement of the first Phase 3 clinical trial of Epidiolex in Dravet syndrome. GW expects to complete patient recruitment into this second trial in 2015 and to report top-line results in early 2016.

When it comes to telling stories, heavy marijuana users might be all fiction. Researchers have found that regular pot consumers have a harder time remembering details from the past and were more likely than non-marijuana users to report things as they imagined them, not as they actually were. The effects of heavy marijuana use on memory were similar to the memory issues that arise as humans age, according to a new study published this week in the journal Molecular Psychiatry.

Cannabis users are more likely to have distorted memories and can even end up imagining situations that differ from reality, scientists have discovered.

Researchers used neuroimaging to look at the brains of heavy cannabis users compared with healthy people and found the former group have a less active hippocampus – a structure related to the storage of memories.

The findings were published in the journal Molecular Psychiatry and sheds light on why one of the side effects of consuming the drug is memory problems.

In brief

Vulnerable people are missing out on medical treatment due to governmental refusal to treat cannabis the same way as alcohol, a newcomer to election campaigning has claimed.

The Cannabis Is Safer Than Alcohol party (Cista) is calling for a Royal Commission to review current UK drug laws.

Its goal is to achieve the decriminalisation of cannabis and the establishment of a regulated industry for its supply.

The party, which was founded earlier this year by Paul Birch, the co-founder of social networking site Bebo, launched its Northern Ireland manifesto in Belfast tonight.

It is fielding 32 candidates in the UK.