A north Italy-based ice cream parlour in the small resort town of Alassio – which is seven square miles with a population of approximately 11,000 – hopes to begin selling its Bob Marley-inspired hemp treats before year end.

The parlour teamed with the Canapa Ligura organisation – best known for promoting awareness of the health benefits associated with hemp – to create the ice cream flavour as a tribute to the late reggae icon.

Hemp is a variant of the cannabis sativa or ganja plant, and is mainly used for making fibres and textiles. It is also refined into products such as seed foods, oil, wax, resin, rope, pulp, paper, and fuel.

A small Italian town has decided to pay tribute to reggae legend Bob Marley by selling cannabis-flavoured ice cream. The producers claim that the “high” ice cream “tastes good and it does good.”

The exotic yummy will be issued by the ice cream shop in the small town of Alassio in northern Italy. And the producers hope their customers will try ‘Bob Marley’ ice cream before the New Year, RT.com reported.

The delicacy, which includes peeled hemp seeds as a base, was created together with Canapa Ligura, a local association that promotes health benefits associated with hemp.

There is little doubt in my mind that marijuana — cannabis, weed, pot, ganja, skunk, bud, herb, sticky icky, mota (in Mexico), le shit (in France), whatever you want to call it — is on the road to legalization. There are a lot of reasons for that. One of them is the changes taking place around the world.

PSNI detectives working on an international crackdown on a ‘skunk’ cannabis trafficking racket have arrested a suspect in England as part of the long-running probe.

Police have warned that sinsemilla, which is known as ‘skunk’ on the streets, is particularly dangerous because it can significantly increase users’ chances of suffering a psychotic episode.

Detectives from Reactive and Organised Crime Branch arrested a 20-year-old man in Birmingham on Tuesday evening. The suspect, who is the 18th person to be detained so far, with 12 people charged to date, is being brought to Northern Ireland for questioning

General cargo vessel MUNZUR was intercepted by Italian police on December 2 in Tyrrhenian sea northeast of Pantelleria island, near Sicily, on a suspicion of drug trafficking.

A huge quantity of hashish was found, some 11 tons divided into 500 parcels. It was a final stage of an international operation, involving Spain, Portugal, Greek and Italian drug enforcement agencies and Europol.

LetsWeed.com is the first Italian platform for the exchange of medical cannabis. It was founded by Antonio and Stefano, both born in 1985, and it aggregates and interconnects patients with doctors who prescribe marijuana, pharmacies that provide it and the Cannabis Social Clubs.

This is a totally free tool, designed to give support to ill people. Thanks to an interactive map that will make the research easier, anyone can find all the services offered.

Love has often been described as a drug – but that’s now been backed up by science.

A brain chemical known as the “love hormone” makes people more sociable by mimicking the effects of cannabis, scientists have said.

Oxytocin is known to enhance bonding between lovers and between mothers and their babies, and also to boost the pleasure of social contact.

The new research, conducted on mice, found that higher levels of the hormone in the brain led to the release of anandamide – an “endocannabinoid” similar to the psychoactive ingredient in cannabis.

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.

Europe has always been an unlikely advocate for pot reform — despite its liberal platforms toward social aid and welfare, most nations still hold surprisingly conservative views toward drugs and immigration. Globally, only one country — South America’s Uruguay — has permitted completeweed production and use, and a handful of others has allowed mere possession. Yet there’s reason to believe that the “forest of chestnuts” and “orchards of fruit trees” that Ernest Hemingway romantically described as the Italian front in A Farewell to Arms could become the fertile soil for the first fully legal green stuff in the Western world.

A new step forward for the bill of the Movimento 5 Stelle to support and encourage the industrial hemp sector. In the House Agriculture Committee, in fact, with the incorporation of the changes which have taken over the conditions of the relevant committees, the bill before signing Loredana Lupo (M5S) finally has a single text shared by all political forces. Another element that makes you feel closer to final approval: a vote that could be early as next week with the final discussion of the measure in the legislature.