MEDFORD — A German prison was the last place Alex Rogers expected to find himself shortly after marrying his Slovenian bride.

Three weeks earlier, on Dec. 19, 2005, the Ashland resident was in Medford, where he had married Tina Rogers. Gathered around him at the family home were his parents, Hank and Charlotte Rogers, and his sister, Paige, who was attending Princeton University. Retired Judge Ray White performed the ceremony.

The couple returned to Europe and landed Jan. 13, 2006, in Salzburg, Austria, where authorities arrested Rogers on an international warrant related to the sale of 50 pounds of marijuana a couple of years earlier. It was Friday the 13th.

The ‘General Assembly’ is the principle policy-making organ of the United Nations (UN), and the only one in which all 193 UN member states have equal representation. At the request of member states, it convenes UN General Assembly Special Sessions (UNGASS) on specific issues. There was an UNGASS on drugs in 1998 at which member states agreed on a Political Declaration on Global Drug Control.

Any way you look at it, dagga is medicine. Even if you smoke it just to get “high”, the South African weed won’t just alter your consciousness.

It has a host of other powerful pharmacologic effects on body and mind, which make it medicine by definition.

Depending on which side of the legalisation or criminalisation fence you sit on, you’ll see those effects in a good or bad light.

“The dagga couple”, as the media have dubbed activists Julian Stobbs and Myrtle Clark, sit on the side of the fence bathed in the glow of a good light. They are part of an influential legalisation campaign in South Africa that has spread faster than the weed grows, and now includes medical doctors, psychologists, lawyers, and other interested parties.

Is it better to have drug use made legal, and therefore taxed and regulated, or might this encourage more drugs to be consumed – with the social and other costs associated with that? 

The UN wants its members to decriminalise drugs, and Sir Richard Branson thinks that is just great. Well, it is not quite like that; as so often, the story is more nuanced than the headline. The paper Sir Richard leaked, which urges “decriminalising drug use and possession for personal consumption”, was drawn up for a conference in Kuala Lumpur on harm reduction by Dr Monica Beg, an official at the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) in Vienna. It has since been withdrawn and, as you can gather from the outcry, it is certainly a “third-rail issue” – you touch it at your peril.

According to the latest research results from the Medical University of Vienna, endocannabinoids, cannabis-like substances produced by the body itself, can affect the development of a baby's pancreas. The study also highlights the importance of diet during pregnancy for the foetal pancreas to form. These are the findings of a recent study that has now been published in the journal, PNAS.

Austrian cannabis activists are holding a ‘social march’ in Vienna on Saturday 19th September to protest against the planned reform of drug laws which will still criminalize patients who use cannabis to treat pain and symptoms of disease.

Organisers expect up to 10,000 people to join the march, which begins at 1pm at Museumsquartier, and will then progress along the Ringstrasse, crossing the Aspernbrücke and ending up in the Prater on Jesuitenwiese at 6pm, for an 'after-party'.

The Mayor of Graz wants to introduce €100 administrative fines for people caught with small amounts of cannabis in a bid to tackle drug dealing in the city.​

The proposal from Mayor Siegfried Nagl (ÖVP) is a direct challenge to the amended National Narcotics Act, which says people caught with small amounts of cannabis should be provided treatment from the health department rather than be punished.

Nagl says that these amendments, which will come into effect on January 1, will cause administrative headaches while not curbing “a single dealer”, adding: “The law is bad, it is bureaucratic and will incur costs.”

Buchkirchen, 04/05/2015. The Anmathe Beteiligungs AG has been able to reach an agreement with the US company Quality Products Distribution LLC (short QPD). QPD develops and manufactures under the brand label Accuvape (www.accuvape.net) very successful vaporizers and associated products that are increasingly common in the United States. In these devices active compound concentrates are vaporized and so there is unanimous opinionthey represent a healthier alternative to the traditional smoking.

"Legalize It" was said on Saturday from 12,000 voices. At the 8th marijuana march, hemp friends gathered at the center of Vienna. With this as a figurehead, the Bavarian Kiff icon Hans Söllner, the mood was a concert made before hiking.

White smoke over the ring: Some hemp marchers "demonstrated" the legislator too obvious. Over 50 attendees were after the Narcotic Substances Act.

Part of the global march committed to Cannabis for releiving patients pain. It is an alternative to morphine, so the argument goes. Others want may consume marijuana as legal stimulants. As in recent years, Saturday again attracted thousands for the legalization of cannabis on the street.

Buchkirchen, 04/21/2015. The Anmathe Beteiligungs AG acquired an additional license of an established California-based company. It is the first edible product (edibles) in the portfolio of future cannabis BRANDS AG. The change of name will be proposed in the Annual General Meeting to be convened shortly. The market for edible products that are enriched in the US with THC or CBD, has very strong growth and is gaining in importance, says André H. Müller, CEO of the company.