BERLIN — It wasn’t the world’s best-hidden marijuana plantation.

Berlin police say they were were called to a subway station Monday morning by a street cleaner who reported finding “numerous small plants that seemed suspicious to him.”

Officers found 700 small cannabis plants growing among weeds on a traffic island outside the Kottbusser Tor station in the capital’s Kreuzberg district. They pulled up the plants.

It wasn’t immediately clear who planted the cannabis but police are investigating.

Police: Prague march for marijuana legalization saw no notable incidents

Prague, May 8 (ČTK) — Some 5,000 mainly young people took part in the Million Marijuana March 2015 in the center of Prague for the legalization of cannabis growing.

The march started on Karlovo náměstí (Charles Square) and continued across Wenceslas Square to ŠtvaniceIsland where it culminated with celebrations.The police imposed several fines for marijuana possession and smoking on the spot, but no incidents accompanied the march, the police patrol commander told the Czech News Agency.

The main demand of the 18th Million Marihuana March is the legalization of the growing and possession of cannabis and its products for personal use and not only for medical treatment.

Sporting T-shirts and caps printed with marijuana leaves and with joints hanging from their lips, hundreds of people demonstrated in Paris on Saturday as part of a world march calling for the legalisation of cannabis.

Crowds of protesters, many dressed in Jamaican colours, made their way through the streets of the French capital from the Place de la Republique to Bastille calling for the legalisation of recreational marijuana use.

"What do we want? Legalisation," chanted the crowd, wreathed in clouds of hashish smoke and gathered behind a banner reading "Another drug policy is possible" and placards calling for "Ganga for all".

Some, like 16-year-old Julien, came because they wanted to "smoke in peace". 

While the United Nation prepares for the first time in nearly two decades to examine the staleness of international drug law, advocates from all over the world have joined forces in an attempt to persuade the global governance to reform the policies that bind individual nations to a standard of prohibition.

This furious legion of activists, which consists of more than 100 influential organizations, submitted a declaration on Tuesday demanding that world leaders allow governments to make changes to their country’s drug laws without repercussion.

Legal marijuana is already big business in America. Colorado alone sold more than $700 million worth of legal weed in 2014, its first full-year of legal recreational and medical sales. Three other states and the District of Columbia have legalized recreational marijuana. Twenty-three states and Puerto Rico have legalized medical marijuana, and revenue for the industry as a whole has been growing nearly 34% a year for the past five years. And it’s only expected to keep growing.

These five numbers show just how big legal American marijuana could be in five years.

$13.4 billion

Many praise marijuana legalization as the most effective way to wrest from criminals the well-entrenched illegal market they have created over the past few decades. Many praise the regulations that come with legalization for helping to ensure control and transparency over marijuana businesses and their products. Of course not everyone approves of marijuana regulation, especially those who make their money on unregulated marijuana markets. Marijuana cups and competitions thrive on an unregulated cannabis industry and regulations are starting to cause them hard times.

Supporters of a broad bill that would ease marijuana laws wending its way through the Kansas Legislature claim it's a narrow enough set of reforms that conservative Republicans can vote for and demonstrates a shift in the long-running discussion.

Kansas' GOP-dominated House passed the bill by a wide margin Thursday, making it the most serious push to liberalize Kansas' marijuana policies in decades. The bill would decrease penalties for marijuana possession, order a state study of industrial hemp and allow limited production and sale of hemp oil to treat seizures.

Democratic Rep. Gail Finney from Wichita, who for many years has supported comprehensive marijuana legislation, said efforts to "educate" the Legislature have "paid off."

Being a seasoned traveler and photographer, a journey to the Kingdom of Bhutan placed high on my bucket list.

Several years ago I visited there in a trip which also included China, Tibet and Nepal. The breathtaking flight from Nepal to Bhutan gave us spectacular views of Mt. Everest and the snow-covered Himalayan mountain range.

I thought I must have died and gone to Heaven.

As it turned out, the King of this tiny mountain democratic monarchy in the Himalayas was getting married the same week as my visit. The towns were exquisitely decorated and people donned their best regalia. Excitement was at a near frenzy in this normally sleepy and pastoral country. Every television was tuned in to the festivities, all eyes glued to the screen.

Seated at a desk inside his downtown Seattle hotel room, Dr. Gil Mobley pulled out a sterile field surgery kit, snapped on latex gloves and pulled a mask over his face.

He carefully arranged his medical instruments, grabbed tweezers and went to work.

Mobley, 60, wasn’t performing hotel-room surgery. He and fellow medical-marijuana activist Brian Stone were carefully preparing two ounces of Blazin’s Grapefruit purchased that morning from Uncle Ike’s Pot Shop in Seattle’s Central District. The pot cost more than $700.

The room reeked when a hotel maid cracked the door and said, “housekeeping.” Mobley shooed her away.

Oregon legalized medical marijuana in 1998 with Ballot Measure 67, and last year Oregon legalized the recreational use of marijuana with Measure 91, which will take effect July 1, 2015.

Even though marijuana use will be legal at the state level, it remains illegal at the federal level per the 1970 Controlled Substances Act.