Canadian securities regulators have issued a warning to investors about claims being made by would-be medical marijuana companies, saying a review has concluded many are providing deficient information when announcing plans to join the sector.

Securities commissions in British Columbia, Alberta, Ontario and Quebec teamed up to review press releases issued by 62 publicly traded companies announcing plans to become marijuana producers under a new federal program that opened last April. The program will permit private-sector companies to grow and sell marijuana under license from Health Canada.

A tough new law against drug-driving comes into force next week - but Greater Manchester Police will not be enforcing it.

‘The biggest shake-up of drug-driving laws for 85 years’ will be rolled out by the Department for Transport next Monday.

Modelled on drink-driving testing, it places legal limits on eight illegal drugs and eight medicinal drugs.

The Department for Transport has set low limits for illegal drugs like heroin and cocaine and higher limits for the eight prescription drugs.

Police are meant to enforce the new laws with roadside saliva-testing kits followed by blood and urine tests at the station.

A constitutional challenge of Canada's new medical marijuana laws got underway Monday morning in Federal Court in Vancouver.

The case centres on whether patients can grow their own pot for medicinal purposes.

Last April new federal marijuana laws banned all home growing for medical purposes, meaning users would have to buy pot from licensed growers.

But four patients who grow their own marijuana challenged the new regulations in court, arguing licensed producers will inflate the price, making medical marijuana too costly.

The court heard testimony from Shawn Davey, who uses medical marijuana to alleviate chronic pain.

His lawyer John Conroy argued the new laws force patients like Davey to choose between liberty and health.

To be a good investor you have to know about the company, the industry, the macro-economics, and the legal context in which the investees operate.

If you’ve been following the MMPR (Marihuana for Medical Purposes Regulations) licencing story, you know it’s been a confounding morass of stumbling fits and starts. No jurisdiction in the world has gotten it right from the beginning, and we can add Canada to that list. Investments in public MMPR applicants or licence holders have been frustrating at best, a shocking loss of capital at worse.

TORONTO, Feb. 23, 2015 /CNW/ - Members of the Canadian Securities Administrators (CSA) today released CSA Staff Notice 51-342 Staff Review of Issuers Entering Into Medical Marijuana Business Opportunities, which summarizes the CSA's findings and disclosure expectations for reporting issuers contemplating involvement inCanada's medical marijuana industry.

The CSA's review aimed to determine if reporting issuers were meeting the requirements of National Instrument 51-102 Continuous Disclosure Obligations, in providing sufficient and balanced disclosure on their intent to enter the medical marijuana field.

A constitutional challenge of Canada’s new medical marijuana laws will hear from marijuana law experts from Holland, Israel and the U.S. when it begins Monday in Vancouver.

The expert witnesses will include Robert Mikos, a law professor at Vanderbilt University in Nashville; Dr. Yehuda Baruch, the former head of Israel’s Medical Use of Cannabis Program; and Catherine Sandvos, an official with the Netherlands Office of Medicinal Marijuana.

Also on the witness list is Paul Grootendorst, a health economics expert at the University of Toronto, and Surrey Fire Chief Len Garis.

The fire chief is a witness for the defence – the Attorney General of Canada – who will testify about the dangers of marijuana grow operations.

As scientists and patients discover the pain-relief and healing properties of cannabis, more governments are legalizing the distribution of medical marijuana by prescription. Yet physicians remain uneasy about the way it’s administered (rolled up in smoking paper or dropped into a vaporizer) and the inability to measure exact dosages.

A two-year-old Israeli-American company, Cannabics Pharmaceuticals, says it has a revolutionary technology to put the medicinal compounds of cannabis into a sustained-release capsule in standardized doses.

To put it mildly, the marijuana industry is rapidly evolving before our eyes. What seemed like a long shot to succeed a decade ago is quickly becoming a flourishing industry.

Over the last decade, we've witnessed the pendulum swing from 75% of those surveyed by Gallup being against the legalization of marijuana to 58% of respondents being in favor of its legalization as of 2013. The implications, as we've previously discussed, are twofold.

Kosher marijuana could soon be available to Orthodox Jews in New York State — but only on doctor’s orders.

Rabbi Moshe Elefant, COO of the Orthodox Union’s kosher certification agency, said he has held “preliminary discussions” with several companies interested in obtaining a kosher seal of approval for medical marijuana.

The move comes as legalization of cannabis for medicinal and recreational purposes spreads across the country, with many of the leading pro-legalization activists, philanthropists and entrepreneurs drawn from the Jewish community.

Medical marijuana is legal in about half of U.S. states today. A handful of states have legalized recreational marijuana use.

WITH Caribbean neighbour Jamaica making moves to decriminalise marijuana University of the West Indies (UWI) Professor Emeritus Kenneth Ramchand is renewing his calls for marijuana to be decriminalised in Trinidad and Tobago for medicinal purposes.

In January this year the Jamaican Government tabled the Dangerous Drugs (Amendment) Act, 2015 in that country’s Senate to decriminalise marijuana for medicinal, religious and personal use.