The Cannabis is Safer than Alcohol party has launched its manifesto, calling for a review of UK drugs policy.

Cista has 32 candidates and describes itself as the first pro-drug reform political party.

The manifesto includes a commitment to an economic evaluation of a legally regulated cannabis market.

The party says it will remain a single issue party, focused on creating a legal drugs market.

Paul Birch, the leader of Cista, who is also a co-founder of social network Bebo, said that in a regulated market, controls can be implemented.

"We've had a regulated alcohol market in the UK for hundreds of years. We need a regulated cannabis market for people's health and wellbeing," he said.

Many hydroponic users like this grower stick to legal produce but drugs gangs are involved elsewhere. Picture: Getty DAVID O’LEARY

COMPANIES selling equipment for cultivating plants without soil and with artificial light have revealed a huge sales boost due to the continued growth of the ­“urban homegrown market”.

Police have claimed the rise is linked to the cannabis industry as growing operations are uncovered all across Scotland with on average one farm a day being raided by ­officers.

However, industry leaders have disputed this claim, stating instead that increased public awareness of food security and people’s interest in harvesting their own fruit and vegetables are responsible for the growth in sales.

David Cameron and Jon Snow discuss skunk and mental health, in the anchor's flagship leader interview at this general election.
In February, Jon Snow inhaled skunk - the most potent form of cannabis - on camera for an experimental programme on drugs for Channel 4.

London, UK; 24 April 2015: GW Pharmaceuticals plc (AIM: GWP, Nasdaq: GWPH, "GW") announced today that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has granted orphan drug designation for Cannabidiol (CBD) for use in treating newborn children with neonatal hypoxic-ischemic encephalopathy (NHIE). NHIE is acute or sub-acute brain injury due to asphyxia caused during the birth process and resulting from deprivation of oxygen during birth (hypoxia).

The incidence of NHIE is 1.5 to 2.8 per 1,000 births in the United States, or, 6,500 to 12,000 cases per year. Of these, 35% are expected to die in early life and 30% may suffer from permanent disability. There are currently no FDA-approved medicines specifically indicated for NHIE.

For 40 years, Amanda Feilding, Countess of Wemyss and March, has believed psychedelics are an effective treatment for depression and anxiety. Now a growing number of scientists agree.

Imagine a family of drugs that could treat addiction, depression and post-traumatic stress: sicknesses of the soul for which modern medicine, in all its surgical wizardry, has few cures. Substances that were a fillip to creativity and could provide those who took them with an experience comparable to seeing God or witnessing the birth of a child. Say these wonder chemicals were found: why would a society make them illegal?

Civil servants will suggest the decriminalisation of the use of hard drugs as a way of tackling the Ministry of Justice’s budget woes when the new government takes power next month.

Officials are expecting the next Lord Chancellor to demand yet more spending cuts and revenue-raising measures to get one of the world’s most expensive legal systems under financial control.

With states legalizing marijuana by popular vote, some politicians, including Boston mayor Marty Walsh and New Jersey governor Chris Christie, are still calling marijuana a gateway drug.

Cannabis smokers will gather in an Exeter park tomorrow to openly smoke the drug during a protest picnic.

A total of 88 people have signed up on Facebook for the Devon Cannabis Club at Flowerpot Playing Fields in Exeter between 1pm and 6pm.

Last year around 60 people took part in a similar event at Flowerpot Fields.

Although there was a strong police presence in the park there were no arrests.

Police had pledged to monitor the event and said that while anyone smoking cannabis would be breaking the law, they recognised the right to peaceful protest.

And police confirmed that the protest passed without incident and no arrests were made.

MAKING cannabis treatment more readily available to patients for medicinal relief would be the first step to regulate and control marijuana use in Guernsey, a campaign group has said.

About 20 islanders behind the Guernsey Drug Strategy Campaign have put forward proposals that would eventually legalise and regulate the use of both ‘medicinal and recreational’ marijuana for over-21s using an ID system, but they insist their motives are not driven by encouraging or promoting cannabis use.

Cannabis should be legalised for medical use, according to Wales Green Party leader Pippa Bartolotti.

Ms Bartolotti will make the case for a change in approach in a speech at Cardiff University on Thursday night.

Legalising cannabis has been Green Party policy for some time.

Ms Bartolotti said: "No one has yet died from using cannabis, in fact the health benefits of cannabis in the treatment of epilepsy and cancer are already well documented."

She added: "Commercial organisations in the UK are already allowed to patent and sell cannabis extracts, whilst the population as a whole is criminalised for using it - even if it saves their life. This simply has to be changed."