Be sure to consult your veterinarian first

Now that 23 states have given medical marijuana the green light (with even recreational use now allowed in another four states and Washington D.C.), growing weed has become a growing business. The newest frontier: getting Fido and Fluffy on board with the cannabis revolution.

Relax. We’re not talking about rolling doobies with your dog, or seeing “pretty colors” with your cat. Nope, these are cannabis-containing edible treats and capsules that are meant for sick or aging pets.

Placards and banners with the message "Ganga for all!" could be seen in the streets of Paris on Saturday as hundreds marched in support of legalising cannabis. As part of the Global Marijuana March, the crowds were calling for a change in France's drug policy.

The GMM is an annual rally held at different locations across the planet, now in its 15th year. Pro-cannabis rallies were held last weekend in several cities across France such as Marseille, Toulouse, Lyon, Bayonne and Poitiers.

Among the arguments for the legalisation of recreational marijuana use: less trafficking, better products and perhaps less crime.

Others say marajuana offers relief for the terminally ill.

PORTLAND, OR (KPTV) -

New Vansterdam, one of the first legal marijuana stores to open in Vancouver, is getting ready for sales in Oregon once the drug is legal here.

The company just opened a new store in the Portland area that sells medical marijuana. Employees say it's the first step in a plan to expand to other states.

"We're creating a model, basically," employee Brent Royce said. "So we want to have both states up and running before we move forward with anything else."

New Vansterdam's goal is to become a chain of stores as marijuana becomes legal in other states.

The Oregon Liquor Control Commission is still going through the process of establishing rules and regulations for the sale of recreational marijuana in Oregon.

The first cannabis festival in Greece is taking place today at Syntagma Square in Athens with the participation of the organized SYRIZA youth and the human rights department of the party.

The advocates of legalization of cannabis who have organized the festival call it Athens Cannabis Protestival and they ask for legalization of cannabis and soft drugs and the decriminalization of users.

CAPE TOWN – Hundreds of people have gathered in Cape Town ahead of a pro-dagga march.

This follows a series of other marches which are a part of the Global Cannabis campaign.

The group is marching through the streets of Cape Town this afternoon to highlight their desire to have the drug legalised.

The smell of dagga wafts through the air as the crowd prepares to march through the Mother City streets, some smoke, while others are rolling what appears to be dagga cigarettes.

Hundreds are holding placards in support of the campaign, including one that reads, “A high country is a happy country.”

Organisers say there were plans for similar marches in other parts of the country, but they could not secure permits to do so.

On April 24th, Governor Inslee signed SB5052, the “Cannabis Patient Protection Act” into law. Although named such, this bill threatens patient access to health care providers who are willing to work with medical cannabis patients and who have the clinical tools to do so.

The Cannabis Conference held in South Africa on 9 and 10 April 2015 discussed the pros and cons of the use of cannabis (aka marijuana, weed, dagga) for medicinal purposes and along with that the legalisation of marijuana in South Africa became a hotly debated topic.

On Saturday 9 May 2015, the Global Cannabis (legalisation) March will take place in the Cape Town CBD with an estimated 10 000 supporters in tow.

It's an "annual gathering of cannabis enthusiasts and sympathisers, in other words people who feel some kind of affinity for the plant and its liberation," The GCM (Global Cannabis March) website reports.

Marijuana legalization is likely far off in New Mexico, but you wouldn’t know it from the way some businesses are acting.

Recent news of a Canadian company’s encroachment into Santa Fe spawned backlash from those critical of an out-of-state, out-of-country company attempting to get a piece of New Mexicos’ medical marijuana industry.

Last month, Toronto-based Nutritional High announced that it would be acquiring 51 percent of shares from and assuming management operations of Sacred Garden, a Santa Fe nonprofit medical marijuana producer that’s been operating for nearly five years.

The plan drew immediate backlash from patient advocates and others in the industry.

Family First NZ says that medicinal marijuana should not be legalised, but is calling for further research into the components of the marijuana plant for delivery via non-smoked forms.

“NZ’ers need to be aware of the smoke-screen of ‘medicinal marijuana’. The strategy of groups who want dope legalised is to promote medicinal marijuana which simply manipulates society’s compassion for people with serious pain and health concerns. But marijuana will then be diverted from medical programs to ‘recreational’ purposes,” says Bob McCoskrie, National Director of Family First NZ.

Uruguay made the headlines 17 month ago by being the first country to completely decriminalize marijuana use, a decision that was not without controversy and opposition – for example, the country’s pharmacies have refused to distribute the product. But that’s recreational cannabis; this report is about medical cannabis and here, again, Uruguay seems to be setting the pace: it was the first nation in the world to fully legalise the research and development, as well as cultivation, distribution, sale and consumption of non-synthetic cannabinoids and hemp.