27 August, 01:39 PM

With the  Medical Innovation Bill already tabled in Parliament, the legalisation of marijuana in South Africa is a hotly contested topic. William Wallace from cannabis culture magazine Below the Lion speaks us through the process of legalisation in SA. (See video above.)

Medical Marijuana in South Africa seems inevitable as Medical Innovation Bill receives unprecedented support: http://t.co/Jzc5iljp7J

— BTL (@belowthelion) June 6, 2014

Battling terminal lung cancer, Mario Ambrosini passed away during the early hours of Saturday morning at the age of 53. A flurry of tributes have since followed from leading political parties and judicial representatives.

• Chico Ryder, son of Happy Mondays star Paul, was diagnosed with a rare soft tissue cancer shortly after Christmas 2012
• Doctors told his father - a recovering drug addict - and mother, Angela, surgery was too risky and he would need chemotherapy and radiation
• They prescribed the 11-year-old Marinol - a synthetic form of cannabis - to ease the effects of his gruelling treatment, such as nausea and vomiting
• His parents decided to go a step further, injecting cannabis oil into his stomach tube - with the doctors' full support

By Peter Reynolds

The last British politician to have the courage to follow the evidence on drugs policy and introduce radical reform was Margaret Thatcher.  Now Norman Baker isn't normally in the same category as Thatcher but they have both demonstrated courage in the face of opposition from their colleagues and widespread bigotry and ignorance in parliament and Whitehall.

Tory cabinet members in 1986 must have been spluttering into their claret and very large whiskies when they heard Margaret was insisting on introducing clean needle exchange for injecting drug users. She was absolutely right to do so and her action saved thousands of lives. Many other countries followed her lead and it slowed the spread of HIV dramatically.

Norman Baker MP is calling for liberalised drug laws so that medicinal cannabis can be made available (Minister calls for looser restrictions on cannabis to treat sick, 14 August). People with multiple sclerosis who turn to street cannabis to treat their condition often do so out of desperation. For years they have been told by successive governments to wait for a pharmacological, legal alternative to cannabis as a way of treating their symptoms and pain.