Be aware: scammers offering cannabis oil are ripping off cancer patients.

We have become aware that scammers are tricking cancer patients and their families into handing over money for ‘cannabis oil’, yet receiving nothing in return.

At least one of these fraudsters is using the email address ukcancerresearchcentre @ gmail.com and claiming to be based at 407 St John Street, London, which is the address of our London office.

We believe this to be a scam. The email address given has nothing to do with Cancer Research UK or our employees. If you believe you have been a victim of this fraud, please contact the police.

Marijuana has come a long way.  In just a few short years, the drug has gone from being banned throughout the United States to holding some legal status for the majority of Americans. As of April 20, four states have legalized recreational use of cannabis and 23 allow marijuana to be prescribed for medical use.

But marijuana hasn’t shed its reputation as a subversive gateway drug in the collective American consciousness on its own. For years, investors, entrepreneurs, advocates and researchers have been pushing the dialogue on marijuana forward, helping to back well-heeled campaigns aimed at changing hearts, minds and laws around the country.

Medicinal cannabis experts from North America and Australia will feature at this year’s ‘Hemposium’ at the 23rd Mardi Grass at Nimbin.

Mardi Grass organisers said the impressive line-up of speakers would showcase their medical cannabis methods, discuss cutting edge advances in cannabis science, and share their experiences with the evolution of law reform.

‘We’re excited to welcome Dr David Bearman from California who is a world leader in the field of cannabinoid medicine; from Canada, Ajia Mae Moon, creator of WeedWoman, and founder and owner of Threehappycats; and from the booming green economy of Colorado, Abe Acton and Matthew Appleseed from High Country Cannabis Tours,’ Nimbin Hemp Embassy president Michael Balderstone said.

How much longer does Father Joe Quinn have to wait?

Sometimes, when the Franciscan friar says Mass at St. Anthony’s Shrine downtown, he is in so much pain that tears roll down his face. He has Ogilvie’s syndrome, a rare gastrointestinal disorder that has put him in the hospital for months at a time, required multiple operations, and left him dependent on a feeding tube. It hurts, all day every day, the agony an 8 or 9 on a 10-point scale.

“After a while, the pain becomes unredemptive,” he said, his eyes welling. “It doesn’t serve any purpose, except to be in pain.”

The inception of the recreational marijuana market has caused medical sales to decrease significantly in the state of Colorado, according to a new report published by GreenWave Advisors.

Police chiefs across the state are preparing for the launch of Minnesota's medical marijuana program this summer.

Minnesota passed one of the country's most restrictive medical marijuana laws last year. It prohibits personally growing marijuana or smoking marijuana and can be prescribed for less than a dozen conditions.

Kevin Sabet, a former senior adviser at the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy and head of the Drug Policy Institute at the University of Florida, is speaking at a gathering of police chiefs in St. Cloud this week. Sabet said he's so far been impressed with the narrowness of Minnesota's medical marijuana program.

Understand that Las Vegas is not the town it claims to be.

If you’re an adult in Las Vegas, you can do almost anything. On the strip, you can smoke, drink, and gamble. Drive an hour in one direction, and you can fire heavy weapons, legally. Drive an hour in another direction, and you can pay for sex, legally. But if what helps you relax is a prescribed dose of medicinal marijuana, you’re out of luck.

Kevin Sabet speaks Tuesday during a keynote address on marijuana legalization at the annual Police Chiefs’ Conference in St. Cloud.(Photo: Dave Schwarz, dschwarz@stcloudtimes.com)Buy Photo

Police chiefs from around Minnesota heard a case against the legalization of marijuana Tuesday from a former White House drug policy adviser.

As the summer opening of the state's medical marijuana program approaches, Kevin Sabet, a former senior adviser at the Office of National Drug Control Policy, spoke at the annual Police Chiefs' Conference in St. Cloud about the dangers of making the drug's use legal.

In a federal research, commissioned by the government to prove that cannabis cannot be used as a medicine, accidentally result information leaked out , revealing that cannabis can kill cancer cells.

Another research, conducted at St. George`s  University of London, showed that tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) and cannabidiol (CBD), the two most common cannabinoids, can weaken the cancer cells and thus, make them more susceptible to radiation treatment, stated Mike Adams of Herbal Dispatch.

According to the study published last year in the medical journal Molecular Cancer Therapies, the previously mentioned cannabinoids, have dramatic killing effect on brain cancer cells when combined with radiation therapy.

Legislation extending Illinois' medical marijuana program beyond 2017 has passed the Illinois House despite some recent opposition from Gov. Bruce Rauner.

The bill is sponsored by Skokie Democratic Rep. Lou Lang. He sponsored the original legislation establishing the pilot program which is scheduled for automatic repeal on Jan. 1, 2018.