Medical cannabis is now a mainstream alternative to the pharmaceutical industry.  Cannabis is now available medically in much of the developed world and can be prescribed as a medicine widely in USA, Canada, South America and Europe.  

Today Dutch Passion get more questions about the medical uses of cannabis than ever before.  Rather than give our own opinions on this subject we prefer to give the official information provided by the Dutch Ministry of Health.  

The advocators of a ban on cannabis would have us believe that even incidental use causes the brain to shrink, and that it causes psychoses or schizophrenia. The rumours about the brain shrinking stem back to this study in 2014, on which various sensational news reports are based. The study is not, however, a longitudinal study, but rather represents a snapshot study of a limited number of test subjects.

A YACHT was so laden down with it's illegal cargo that it was on the verge of sinking when Spanish customs officers intercepted it.

The yacht was 27 miles south west of Almeria, when it was discovered by the customs officers, struggling to stay afloat.

As the officers boarded the vessel they found that the entire living area was jam packed with packages, which turned out to contain cannabis.

The boat, which was flying under the Dutch flag had three crew members, two men and one woman, who were promptly arrested and charged with smuggling and endangering public health.

A ministry spokesperson said “the drugs took up all the available space on the yacht, the hull was packed full with the packages and you could not see the cabin beds or floor.”

Justin Bieber may have been channeling his inner Cheech and Chong. While on a promotional tour in Amsterdam for his new song "What Do You Mean" and coming album, the Canadian singer was photographed at one of the city's many "coffee shops," where marijuana is sold legally.

The history of medical cannabis is long and turbulent, encompassing almost every corner of the globe and spanning over 6,000 years. Here, we set out what we believe are the most significant milestones on the long march to gain recognition of cannabis as a powerful, effective, and safe medicine.

Publication of the Sanskrit Ayurvedic texts

Unlike the dates of many early Chinese texts, the Ancient Indians were fairly proactive when it came to dating their historical records, and as a result modern scholars are fairly confident that the first known references to cannabis appear in the Atharvaveda, written in around 1,400 BCE.

A Dutch yacht was so overloaded with 10 tons of cannabis, it was in danger of sinking off the southern Spanish coast.

Spain’s finance ministry reported Monday that Spanish customs officials seized around 10 ton of cannabis from the unwieldy yacht in international waters off the Cabo de Gata coast some 92 kilometers (57 miles) southwest of the city of Almeria.

According to the Spanish language newspaper El Pais, three Dutch suspects, two men and one woman, were arrested from the yacht, which was flying a Dutch flag and severely in danger of sinking due to its heavy cannabis cargo.

Spanish customs officers have seized some 10 tons of cannabis from a yacht off the country's southern coast

A couple who grew marijuana ‘by the book’ and informed the tax office about their income have been found guilty of running an illegal plantation and given three month suspended jail sentences on appeal, news agency ANP reports on Wednesday. The middle-aged couple come from Bierum in Groningen province and have been arrested several times for marijuana production. They say that using legal electricity, paying tax and having no criminal connections show that marijuana can be grown without problems. The Netherlands turns a blind eye to the consumption of small amounts of marijuana sold through licenced coffee shops but production remains illegal.

Cannabis News Network presents you with a follow-up on the dramatic case of Johan van Laarhoven. This former Dutch coffeeshop entrepreneur and his wife are still being imprisoned in Thailand under horrific conditions.

The reason for their imprisonment is an investigation initiated by the Dutch government, who is accusing Van Laarhoven of money laundering. Van Laarhoven having retired to Thailand, the public prosecutor triggered the Thai government to investigate Johan van Laarhoven too, which led to his and his wife’s imprisonment for over thirteen months.

Attention deficit disorder or attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADD/ADHD) is a neurological disorder characterized by impulsiveness, inattention and hyperactivity. ADD/ADHD is one of a group of neuropsychiatric conditions (that also includes schizophrenia and autism) now linked to a dysfunctional endocannabinoid system.