Macedonia legalizes medical cannabis

Macedonia legalizes medical cannabis
 
Skopje. Macedonian Health Minister Nikola Todorov said on Saturday that medicinal marijuana will be available in pharmacies across the country from the end of May this year, Xinhua reported.
Todorov told reporters that amendments to the Law on Control of Drugs and Psychotropic Substances have made the use of cannabis products for medicinal purposes possible for “people suffering from serious illnesses, such as malignant diseases, multiple sclerosis, HIV and childhood epilepsy.”
 
Full Article: 
http://www.focus-fen.net/news/2016/05/15/406437/macedonia-legalizes-medical-cannabis.html

Jamaica – Development of Marijuana Industry Urgent says Minister of Finance and Public Service

By Alecia Smith-Edwards
Minister of Finance, The Hon. Audley Shaw, CD, MP
 
Minister of Finance and the Public Service, Hon. Audley Shaw, says Jamaica must move with urgency to develop a medical marijuana industry.
He pointed out that exploiting the benefits of marijuana is “not about smoking a spliff” or “walking around with two ounces of the weed.”
“This is about building an industry of value-added products,” the Minister emphasised.
Mr. Shaw was  opening the  2016/17 Budget Debate in the House on May 12. His presentation was made under the theme: ‘Partnership for Economic Growth’.
Citing other countries that have benefited from using the plant, the Minister contended that Jamaica is uniquely positioned to play a leading role in the medical marijuana industry which can create wealth for the country.
 
Full Article: 
http://jis.gov.jm/development-marijuana-industry-urgent-shaw/

Washington marijuana sales surpass $1Billion

Ryan Simms , KREM

 
Marijuana sales in Washington continue to rise nearly two years after recreational marijuana became legal in the state.
Sales just passed $1 billion in May and retailers do not expect sales to slow down.
“It’s about a revolution,” Salesman Devon Swanson said. “It’s about taking it to that next level.”
 
Full Article: 
http://www.krem.com/news/local/2-on-your-side/washington-marijuana-sales-surpass-1b/193172339

Former NHL Player Says Marijuana Saved His Life

James McClure
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When former NHL enforcer Larry DePalma retired from professional hockey in 1997, he faced a gruelling off-ice battle with addiction, depression and suicidal thoughts after suffering numerous traumatic brain injuries as a player. He says that using marijuana medicinally not only treated his symptoms but saved his life.
“These concussions ruin people’s lives,” he told Rick Thompson of The Compassion Chronicles – a marijuana news site serving the American midwest. Before turning to cannabis, DePalma says he put a “gun in my mouth three times…And finally the cannabis came out and saved my life.”
 
Full Article: 
https://www.civilized.life/larry-depalma-nhl-medicinal-1798347439.html

From weed-smoking baby boomers to cannabis-treated patients, senior citizens have become the new market for medical marijuana

By

Activist Ray Turmel holds a bag of medical marijuana while he smokes a marijuana cigarette, as he calls for the total legalization of marijuana, outside the building where the federal election Munk Debate on Canada’s Foreign Policy is being held in Toronto, Canada, September 28, 2015. Reuters/Mark Blinch
 
To those who are concerned that legalisation of cannabis will spawn a community of pot-smoking teenagers, park aside those fears. To begin with, a decades-long study conducted by the National Institute of Health from 1991 through 2014 arrived at the conclusion that making recreational marijuana legal will not necessarily increase its use among teenagers. However, the reverse is true: it is these adolescents’ grandparents who are asking that cannabis — but this time, of the medical kind — be made more available and affordable. Legalisation can certainly help. These so-called Baby Boomers, who are aged 55 and above, have taken to cannabis as a way to alleviate joint pain, remove insomnia and prevent the spread of cancer.
 
Full Article: 
http://www.ibtimes.com.au/weed-smoking-baby-boomers-cannabis-treated-patients-senior-citizens-have-become-new-market-medical
 
 

Uber for Stoners: Marijuana-Friendly Ride Loopr Launches

Who needs Uber when there’s the cannabis-friendly Loopr? Photo courtesy of Loopr

Going out for a night on the town but pretty sure you’re going to be partaking in cannabis? Loopr to the rescue.

The “mobile cannabis lounge” is a marijuana-friendly concept bus ride, similar to The Hopper, that’s like a shiny new Uber for stoners.
Loopr revved up this week, with rides from 4 p.m. to midnight Thursday and Friday (with plans to expand to other weekdays), as well as noon to midnight Saturdays and, to appease the brunch crowd, 10 a.m. to noon on Sundays.

 
Full Article: 
http://www.westword.com/news/uber-for-stoners-marijuana-friendly-ride-loopr-launches-7901811
 

First hemp house in Texas!

By Brianna Gallegos
hemp+pic
 
MARFA – A unique house is being built in Marfa but it’s not constructed with bricks and mortar, instead it’s made of hemp. The byproduct of the same species of plant as marijuana.
Yoseff Ben-Yehuda fell in love with the southwest feel in Marfa after he arrived in Marfa from New York. So he bought property and started building a house of his own but what makes his future home unique is its being built with 100 percent hemp. It comes from Marijuana but it has less than 1 percent THC.
 
Full Article: 
http://www.cbs7.com/content/news/First-Hemp-House-in-Texas–379068141.html

Hemp takes off in South Korea

by

The demand for hempseed in South Korea is thought to be driven by fears of contaminated fish following a nuclear power plant accident in Japan five years ago. Safety concerns have prompted consumers to seek alternative sources of protein.  |  File photo

The demand for hempseed in South Korea is thought to be driven by fears of contaminated fish following a nuclear power plant accident in Japan five years ago. Safety concerns have prompted consumers to seek alternative sources of protein. | File photo

A strange product appeared on a home shopping channel in South Korea last November.
It was hempseed, which was virtually unknown in Korea at the time.
The entire supply, nearly 10,000 kilograms, sold out in less than an hour.
The surprising response prompted more shipments of Canadian hempseed to South Korea and a distribution deal between Seoulution, a Korean firm, and Hempco, a hemp food company from Burnaby, B.C.
Hempco announced in late April that it would supply Seoulution with 30 tons of hulled hemp seed a month for the next year. The deal is worth $3 million.
“As a major import and export company in Asia, we are going to … maintain the high demand for hemp products in South Korea and further work with our partners in East Asia and Southeast Asia to expand (markets),” said Jon Lee, general manager of Seoulution.
The contract is significant for Hempco because the company recorded $4.1 million in sales of hemp protein power, hemp seed oil and hemp seed nut in the last fiscal year.
The distribution deal was a pleasant surprise because Hempco wasn’t targeting the South Korean market. It had received a few emails and inquiries from Korea, which led to the first order for hempseed and the home shopping channel exposure.
“It (hemp) wasn’t known well (in South Korea) until the last few months,” said Hempco chief executive officer Charles Holmes, who was raised in Winnipeg.
“We were asking … the question, what’s going on over there? Why all of a sudden this (interest) in hemp?”
Holmes learned that many South Koreans are seeking alternative sources of protein and healthy oils because they have become wary of fish after the 2011 accident at the Fukushima nuclear power plant in Japan.
“There are lots of changes going on in their basic dietary plan,” Holmes said.
“Hempseed, as they looked at its nutritional profile, lined up (as a substitute for fish).”

 
Full Article: 
http://www.producer.com/2016/05/hemp-takes-off-in-s-korea/

Emotional debate ends with Louisiana House’s approval of medical marijuana bill

BY TYLER BRIDGES|

Advocate staff photo by TRAVIS SPRADLING — Sen. Fred Mills, R-Parks, right, gestures while talking with Rep. Helena Moreno, D-New Orleans, right, while working the House floor Wednesday, May 11, 2016 at the State Capitol in Baton Rouge. His medical Senate Bill 271 on medical marijuana was on the House agenda to come up later . Rep. Ted James, D-Baton Rouge, center, had previously deferred his own medical marijuana bill in a House committee.
 
Adults and children would be able to take marijuana in an oil form for a specific list of diseases under legislation approved by the Louisiana House Wednesday night.
The vote was 62-31 following an often emotional debate. The measure, Senate Bill 271, must return to the Senate — where it was already approved — for minor changes made in the House.
Gov. John Bel Edwards would sign the legislation, his spokesman Richard Carbo said after the late night vote.
Two powerful political groups — the Louisiana Sheriffs’ Association and the Louisiana District Attorneys Association — opposed the legislation, but that was overridden by heartfelt pleas to aid children and adults suffering from seizures, epilepsy, cancer and other diseases.
“This bill will enable our doctor to have another tool to treat my baby girl,” state Rep. Reid Falconer, R-Mandeville, told a hushed chamber, referring to his 29-year-old daughter, Caroline, who suffers from Juvenile Myoclonic Epilepsy.
Rep. Mike Huval said he wished his brother had had the opportunity to consume the marijuana while he was terminally ill with cancer.
“The pain he endured hopefully would have been take care of by this miracle medication,” said Huval, R-Breaux Bridge.
 
Full Article: 
http://theadvocate.com/news/15764276-154/louisiana-house-oks-therapeutic-use-of-marijuana
 

Sri Lanka – Government plans to cultivate cannabis for export

Govt. plans to cultivate cannabis for export
 

Ministry of Health has taken steps to cultivate cannabis for export.
The Minister of Health Rajitha Senaratne has revealed that Sri Lanka has received a proposal from Western countries to export cannabis for the production of Ayurvedic medicine. He said it is planned to be implemented.
The Health Minister said that they planned to grow cannabis in Sri Lanka and export them.
 

Full Article: 
http://www.news.lk/news/sri-lanka/item/13307-govt-plans-to-cultivate-cannabis-for-export