An Ontario judge has struck down one of the Conservative government’s signature drug laws – a six-month minimum jail term for growing between six and 200 marijuana plants for the purpose of trafficking.

The ruling came after a constitutional challenge brought by a man who had pleaded guilty to working in a grow-op. The man, Duc Vu, 42, of Brampton, Ont., called the minimum sentences for growing marijuana “cruel and unusual punishment” under the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. And the judge agreed.

Mandatory minimums have been a pillar of the federal government’s approach to crime, with the Conservatives creating 60 mandatory minimum prison terms for drugs, guns, sex offences and other crimes, according to the Justice Department.

WINDSOR, NS – The fight to keep drugs off the streets in Nova Scotia is now starting hundreds of feet in the air.

For the last month, RCMP have been partnering with the Department of Defense to eradicate marijuana grow operations in the province.

Project SABOT is an annual initiative that sees officers take to the skies to seek out drug operations from a military helicopter. This year, Global News got to ride along on one of the explorations.

“The helicopter allows for a different perspective,”Const. Mark Skinner, RCMP told Global News. “It’s easier to spot the plants, where we couldn’t necessarily see the plants from the ground.”

A new study, Cannabis for the Management of Pain: Assessment of Safety Study (COMPASS), is being published in the Journal of Pain and found that patients who used marijuana daily for one-year reported reduced discomfort and increased quality of life.

The study also found that patients do not experience an increased risk of serious side effects, and that patients who used marijuana had a reduced sense of pain when compared to a control group, as well as reduced anxiety, depression, and fatigue.

CANNABIS IS NOT YET MAINSTREAM

When you take a moment to discuss medical cannabis with others, the odds are in your favour that they have tried the product and have an opinion, but by no means is it a typical conversation among strangers. By taking a look at numerous products that are also considered taboo, for various reasons, perhaps we can better understand the methodology for creating a brand in an industry surrounded by secret.

'Bongy' promotes a head shop in Esquimalt, before the mascot was banned. In Vancouver, illegal pot stores have employed scantily clad women to attract customers.

— image credit: Vancouver Metro

With medical marijuana dispensaries continuing to open in defiance of federal law, more B.C. communities have joined the call for local authority to regulate what are often little more than retail pot stores.

Lower Mainland communities found majority support at last week's Union of B.C. Municipalities convention to bypass legal wrangling over medical marijuana access, as a court challenge continues against the Conservative government's strict controls on growing and selling it legally.

The success and benefits of medical marijuana. Follow up on parents whose children suffer from up to 100 epileptic seizures per day if they’re on conventional anti-convulsion medication, but have zero seizures when treated with medical marijuana (dried medical marijuana extracts, in these cases, marijuana oil).  Also, medical researcher engaged in studying the benefits of CBD, parent Alex Repetski returns and is joined by  Dr. Mac Burnham.

I’ll be the first to have a parent and a doctor or research physician on air.

Guests:  Alexander Repetski. One of the parents last Sunday.  His three year old daughter is completely free of seizures with marijuana oil.

And

Take your medicine

Before we go any further with this article about weed, and doctors, and addiction, I want to make it clear that I know very little about weed, even less about being a doctor, and I am completely (and thankfully) ignorant about addiction. The issue of painkiller abuse in the United States is incredibly complex and incredibly sad, and like most incredibly complex and sad things, there are no easy solutions to fix the problem.

But there is definitely a problem:

In August, researchers announced they had genetically engineered yeast to produce the powerful painkiller hydrocodone. Now comes the perhaps inevitable sequel: Scientists have created yeasts that can make important constituents of marijuana, including the main psychoactive compound, tetrahydrocannabinol, or THC.

Synthetic versions of THC are available in pill form under brand names like Marinol and Cesamet; they are generally used to treat nausea, vomiting and loss of appetite caused by HIV infection or cancer chemotherapy.

Genetically modified yeast could make THC in a cheaper and more streamlined way than traditional chemical synthesis.

There is not yet enough clinical evidence suggesting that cannabis is effective for self-management of pain. Some short-duration trials have shown efficacy, whereas other studies have shown little improvement over placebo. Effective or not, however, cannabis continues to be widely used as a self-management strategy by patients with a wide range of symptoms and diseases. A study in The Journal of Pain suggests that such use over a one-year period did not increase patients’ risk of serious adverse events. This was a prospective cohort study in Canada to describe safety issues among subjects with chronic non-cancer pain, with a participant base of 216 individuals with chronic pain. A standardized herbal cannabis product (12.5% THC) was dispensed to eligible subjects for one year.