After a privacy breach that affected thousands of people enrolled in the medical marijuana program, including some from P.E.I., a Halifax law firm wants to launch a class-action lawsuit against the federal government.              

Canada's privacy commissioner ruled earlier this week that Health Canada violated privacy rules in 2013 when it mailed out information to more than 40,000 people enrolled in the medical marijuana program.

The mailouts, which explained changes that were coming to the program, revealed the recipients were receiving medical marijuana.              

Health Canada says it was an administrative error and it's put measures in place to make sure it doesn't happen again.              

by Kira Lerner Posted on March 19, 2015 at 8:00 am Updated: March 19, 2015 at 9:28 am

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The Victorian Law Reform Commission has released its issues paper to help guide its recommendations for how the state government might legislate to legalise cannabis use in exceptional medical circumstances.

The government has not asked the commission to report on whether such legislation is desirable – that is a matter for the government itself to decide.

Rather, the commission has asked for public submissions to help it consider two questions central to its review: “Who should be eligible to use cannabis for medicinal purposes” and “How extensive should any Victorian medicinal cannabis scheme be?”

Michael E. Barton, MD, an emergency medicine physician at Sewickley Valley Hospital near Pittsburgh, PA started posting parody videos on YouTube 5 years ago.

Recently his Emergency Department staff helped him create a parody on Taylor Swift's "We Are Never Getting Back Together" -- aptly titled "We Are Never Giving You Drugs in the ER" -- which focuses on the growing issue of prescription drug abuse. Barton said he hopes the message is an entertaining way to highlight the actual addiction issue facing hospitals across the country. The daughter of one of the nurses sang the song.

New York’s Compassionate Care Act contains a provision that appears to protect certified medical marijuana patients from enforcement of zero tolerance drug policies in the workplace. The law was widely criticized when it was enacted in July 2014 because it covered so few conditions and specified vaporization as the only legal means of ingestion.

KAMLOOPS - A provincial court judge has denied a Kamloops man's application to be reunited with 10 medical marijuana plants that were seized by RCMP last summer.

Judge Roy Dickey says he sympathizes with Henry Rhode's plight, but he was breaking the law by having expired licenses and not growing at an approved site.

Dickey criticizes what he calls a "bureaucratic bungle" created by the Conservative government and Health Canada when the country's medical marijuana rules were changed.

He says a new law requiring those with permits to grow medical pot to instead purchase from an approved supplier has left people like Rhode "out to dry."

MEXICO CITY – The growing legalization of cannabis in the United States is forcing Mexico’s drug cartels to rethink their illicit business model, turning to opium poppy plantations and domestic pot consumption, experts say.

Americans have been legally allowed to light up joints in the U.S. capital since late last month, joining Washington state and Alaska, while Oregon will follow suit in July.

A total of 23 U.S. states have legalized the drug for medical use, and opinion polls show that a slim majority of Americans favor legalization.

The changes in the world’s biggest drug market appear to have prompted the criminal organizations producing narcotics in Mexico to switch strategies.

Lawmakers in Italy have taken a bold stance on marijuana legalization, signing a motion Monday to legalize cannabis across the country, according to the ANSA news agency. The proposal, introduced by Sen. Benedetto Della Vedova, was backed by 60 politicians, mostly from the ruling center-left Democratic Party but with some support from the right. Della Vedova himself, a senator who also serves as the deputy foreign minister, was a longtime member of Italy's small but influential Radical Party, which has campaigned since the 1970s to liberalize marijuana laws.

As a result of policy changes introduced by the Conservative government, corporations are taking over medicinal cannabis, concentrating business in the hands of people with ties to Big Pharma.

One morning in February, Nanaimo councillors and business leaders met in an industrial area about 20 minutes from the city’s downtown.

The building they stood before is nondescript. But, recounted Sasha Angus, CEO of the Nanaimo Economic Development Corporation, “It’s like a vault wrapped by Fort Knox wrapped in a castle.

“Cameras, vibration sensors, and a lot of time and effort,” he continued, describing the facility’s security measures. “There’s a vault that’s two feet thick with more vibration sensors. It’s about one level below a nuclear-missile silo.”

Tomorrow is the day.

The RCMP told Bryan Raiser that he had to close his medical marijuana dispensary by Thursday, March 19.

Tuesday night he won, symbolically anyway, the support of district of Squamish council.

Raiser appeared before council Tuesday night and asked that they pass a motion in support of access to medical marijuana derivatives. The motion was similar to that passed in January by city council in Grand Forks, which is also an RCMP jurisdiction.

The motion stated that council will request that the federal government include marijuana derivatives, such as cannabis oils, be included in the legal marijuana program and that government further review legislation and options for greater local access.