Indio leaders are looking into whether to allow medical marijuana dispensaries to open in the city.

Officials have created an ad hoc committee to research what role the city could play when it comes to permitting dispensaries and regulating sales.

The decision came after City Attorney Roxanne Diaz gave a presentation updating council members on other cities’ legal battles and pending state legislation.

“We need to fully understand all the issues related to medical marijuana facilities before the state passes any legislation, so that we may consider any city ordinance that might also address these facilities,” Mayor Lupe Ramos Watson said.

As legalization churns along, numerous issues are slowly but surely being addressed.

With 420 approaching, it's time for our annual reminder: Don't do anything that might bring shame to Denver, Colorado, or marijuana legalization in general.

This weekend's Cannabis Cup, a trade show for those in, or interested in, the bud industry, is doing its part to keep the jackassery to a minimum by disallowing and sales or giveaways of weed-related intoxicants. This should put it in stark contrast to the Great American Beer Festival, which every October floods our downtown streets with loopy, pretzel-necklaced nimrods.

Spare a thought for Bert Trautmann, a goalkeeper who suffered two cracked vertebrae in his neck while playing for Manchester City in the 1956 FA Cup final. “He played on for the last 15 minutes and made saves that won them the game,” says Prof David Finn. No subs were allowed back then.

Do you grow these for medical use? Major changes are coming your way. Kelly O

Marijuana is Oregon's most valuable crop, an OSU pot policy expert says, but conventional farmers would swamp the market if they jumped into it.

Pot quality would suffer and Oregon’s conventional farmers would swamp the market if they turned their skill, equipment, land and infrastructure to marijuana production, an Oregon State University expert says.

Seth Crawford, who teaches a pot policy class at OSU, said Oregon already produces far more high-quality cannabis than the state consumes, and could meet the state demand on 35 acres of farmland in Southern Oregon.

Crawford said Oregon’s growers could supply the total U.S. cannabis market on just 5,000 acres.

“Throw in another 500 and you’d cover Canada, too,” Crawford said.

KITTREDGE – An Evergreen resident is bringing a new business to the area: hemp farming.

Brady Bell is operating Ambary Gardens out of the old Evergreen Nursery at 26479 Highway 74 in Kittredge, with the help of owner Steve Cohen. The greenhouses there will be used to grow medical-grade hemp plants for cultivation of cannabidiol, or CBD oil, an extract being used to treat a number of chronic illnesses.

The business will not be a retail operation open to the public, but Bell said they plan to do plenty of outreach to educate the community about what they are doing and why.

“We’re trying to raise awareness and bridge the gap, sharing the differences between (marijuana) and hemp,” Bell said.

AUGUSTA — Melissa Burnham is allowed to send drugs such as Ritalin, a stimulant, or Valium, a sedative, to school with her 8-year-old son, as long as he has a prescription.

But she cannot send the medicine that best treats Noah’s sometimes-severe epileptic seizures.

“When he has seizures, cannabis is what stops them,” Burnham said.

She was forced to pull Noah out of school recently and arrange for a tutor to come to their house. Not because the school didn’t want to help, she said, but because the law doesn’t allow cannabis.

Burnham, who lives in East Dixfield, shared her story Thursday before a public hearing before the Legislature’s Education Committee on a bill that would allow schools to provide accommodations for children who use medical marijuana.

Cannabis SativaIt sounds absurd but it is true. The banned and neglected cannabis or rather marijuana popularly called 'Igbo' in Nigeria may be the next best treatment for cancers. New report suggests cannabis can kill cancer cells and shrink one of the most serious types of brain tumours. CHUKWUMA MUANYA writes.

Botanically called Cannabis sativa and more commonly known as marijuana, Cannabis is a hemp plant that grows freely throughout the world. The cannabis plant most commonly is known today as a potent psychoactive substance, but for many years it was harvested primarily for its fibre.

However, new advice published in DailyMailOnline reveals cannabis can kill cancer cells and shrink one of the most serious types of brain tumours.