Medical

This Feb. 19, 2013, file photo, shows OxyContin pills arranged for a photo at a pharmacy in Montpelier, Vt.

Cannabis needs a new taxonomy. Strain names are detrimental to the progress of the cannabis industry. Let’s dig in to this issue by looking at the story of a woman, who we will call Lydia:At 49, Lydia has finally succumbed to the suggestions of her family, and decided to try cannabis to manage her chronic back pain. She has avoided cannabis ever since having a terrible experience with it in college, but believes her family when they say that cannabis medicine has evolved.

Dr Alan Kivitz examines Heidi Wyandt, 27, at the Altoona Center for Clinical Research in Altoona, Pa., on Wednesday, March 29, 2017, where she is helping test an experimental non-opioid pain medication for chronic back pain related to a work related injury she received in 2014. With about 2 million Americans hooked on opioid painkillers, researchers and drug companies are searching for less addictive drugs to treat pain. (AP Photo/Chris Post)
Tummy tucks really hurt. Doctors carve from hip to hip, slicing off skin, tightening muscles, tugging at innards.

With medical marijuana legislation on the books in states throughout the U.S., the need for services that connect patients with doctors and cannabis products has become apparent. Web services like Nugg and Presto Doctor assist prospective patients obtain their medical marijuana card via online video consultations with local doctors. Others, like the San Francisco startup Eaze, go a step further by also providing home delivery services and an extensive cannabis marketplace.

With medical marijuana legislation on the books in states throughout the U.S., the need for services that connect patients with doctors and cannabis products has become apparent. Web services like Nugg and Presto Doctor assist prospective patients obtain their medical marijuana card via online video consultations with local doctors. Others, like the San Francisco startup Eaze, go a step further by also providing home delivery services and an extensive cannabis marketplace.

A majority of Americans and Canadians believe that marijuana should be legal. The governments of the two countries, however, appear to be moving in very different directions.Attorney General Jeff Sessions, who has been a staunch opponent of legalization for years, recently ordered a review of an Obama-era policy under which the federal government agreed not to interfere with state laws on marijuana, as long as the states took steps to regulate its distribution and use. Mr. Sessions’s apparent goal is to make Washington the ultimate authority.Prime Minister Justin Trudeau of Canada, by contrast, would decentralize authority.

Say goodbye to citations and hello to handcuffs, Tennessee. According to the Tennessean, Governor Bill Haslam signed a law on Wednesday that effectively nullifies city-sanctioned cannabis decriminalization in the state’s two largest cities.

It was big news in Texas yesterday when local legislators in Dallas passed a decriminalization law aimed at keeping low-level possession offenders out of jail. In states without medical or recreational weed laws on the books, decriminalization goes a long way in protecting cannabis users from the long reach of the War on Drugs.

As a freelance journalist based in Berlin, I regularly have to travel to internationally for my work. As a cannabis patient with a daily prescription of 300mg THC, taking my medicine inside the EU has always depended on the official in charge of border control. My Canadian or Dutch flowers from the local pharmacy were just as legal in the Netherlands, Italy or Czech Republic as in Germany, but cannabis was still an illegal substance mentioned in Appendix 1 of the Narcotic Drugs Act in my home until March 2017.

On Monday, the Florida Senate Committee on Criminal Justice will meet to discuss several topics, the most important of which is a bill aimed at reducing penalties for the personal possession of small amounts of marijuana.
Authored by Sen.

A legislative proposal from California’s Governor Jerry Brown that would reconcile aspects of the state’s medical and recreational cannabis industries is under fire from all sides as lawmakers, marijuana advocates, and police officials alike worry that the bill is too hands off and gives too much power to canna-businesses.

As we reported last week, the Governor’s bill (a trailer to the state’s annual budget) would allow individuals an unlimited number of cannabis licenses, allow cultivators to act as their own distributors, and remove permitting regulations that require local municipalities to approve pot shops before they can acquire a state