Lawmakers in Colombia, one of the world’s biggest drug producers and the backdrop of an often violent illegal drug trade, could debate legalizing marijuana this year, according to Colombia Reports. While legislators are already moving forward with considering legalizing marijuana for medical purposes, Sen. Roy Barreras from the southwestern city of Cali, once known as the most violent place in the country thanks to its warring drug gangs, hopes to get full marijuana legalization on the table.

Although she now serves an A-list clientele, Dina Browner first stepped into the medical marijuana biz to help out a friend with cancer

LOS ANGELES (JTA) – Stepping into the lobby of the West Hollywood medical marijuana dispensary where Dina Browner serves up buds to movie stars, it’s hard to miss the name Snoop Lion splashed across a hydroponic grow box painted red, green and gold.

The Rastafarian rapper formerly known as Snoop Dogg didn’t have anyone to operate the custom-made indoor marijuana greenhouse that came as a gift from its manufacturer, so he asked his “doctor” to keep it filled with cannabis flowers.

"There's no way Silk Road could be reasonably expected to reduce violence," Federal District Court Judge Katherine Forrest said at the recent sentencing hearing for Ross Ulbricht, the convicted founder of the Silk Road online drug market.

Legalising the medical use of cannabis has not led to a surge in the numbers of adolescents using it in the USA, according to new research that surprised its authors and will encourage those hoping for relaxation of the law elsewhere.

Since 1996, 23 US states and the District of Columbia (DC) have approved the medicinal use of cannabis. In the states of Colorado, Washington, Alaska and Oregon and DC, recreational use is also legal. These moves towards permissiveness, even where possession of the drug is restricted to medical use, have caused many critics to worry that cannabis use would rise, especially among teenagers.

Helen Branswell, The Canadian Press
Published Monday, June 15, 2015 6:47PM EDT
Last Updated Monday, June 15, 2015 7:04PM EDT

TORONTO -- Passing a medical marijuana law does not lead to increased use of the drug by teenagers in that jurisdiction, concludes a new study that looked at self-reported use of pot among more than one million adolescents from 48 U.S. states from 1991 to 2014.

The research was applauded by other social scientists for its size and strength. And the authors themselves suggested it is time for the debate over how to keep adolescents from using marijuana at an early age to move on to target on other factors.

Action Points

• Note that this observational study found that eighth- to 12th- graders in states which have passed medical marijuana laws were more likely to have used marijuana.
• Be aware, however, that the within-state changes from before- to after-legislation were not significant.

The availability of medical marijuana does not cause a surge in pot smoking among teens, according to a national, school-based survey.

AMHERST — Massachusetts should begin a robust discussion about marijuana policy and regulation right away so to avoid being caught flat-footed if voters approve legalization at the ballot box in 2016.

That was the central message imparted by nearly a dozen speakers at an invitation-only marijuana policy forum sponsored by the UMass-Amherst School of Public Health and Health Sciences on Saturday.

AMHERST — As the question of whether to legalize marijuana in Massachusetts looms on the horizon, Colorado’s top marijuana official on Saturday added new data to the debate: Since the state legalized recreational use of the drug, use by adults has not increased.

That was just one of the insights from Colorado’s legalization experience shared by Andrew Freedman, that state’s director of marijuana coordination, during his remarks at a conference held at the University of Massachusetts Amherst.

Northwestern District Attorney David Sullivan, meanwhile, expressed concerns about legalizing the drug for recreational use in Massachusetts, citing potential health impacts on teenagers and young adults.

Young people who use marijuana and are looking for a new way to get high may be increasingly turning to "dabbing," a new paper suggests.  

Dabbing is inhaling the vapors from a concentrated form of marijuana made by an extraction method that uses butane gas. Dabs, also known as butane hash oil (BHO) — which are sometimes called "budder," "honeycomb" or "earwax" — are more potent than conventional forms of marijuana because they have much higher concentrations of the psychoactive chemical tetrahydrocannabinol, or THC, than is found in regular cannabis, according to the paper.

The odds have been plainly against marijuana legalization for decades, but the tide appears to be turning to the point where the marijuana movement may soon be able to get over its previous barriers.

At a crossroads
Two decades ago public opinion was very much against the idea of legalizing marijuana for medical or recreational purposes. A survey from Gallup in the mid-1990s pegged the public's favorable opinion on the drug at just 25%.