By Julia Kollewe Andrea Wright, 39, from Bristol, was diagnosed in 2013 with psoriatic arthritis and fibromyalgia, a long-term condition that causes pain all over the body. She was in such severe constant pain, and unable to sleep for more than two continuous hours a night, that she was retired on ill health from her job at National Grid “at the grand old age of 33”. She says: “I had to stop work because the pain was too much. It’s been very depressing; I really enjoyed my job. I tried so many different therapies and managed to get my arthritis under control but for fibromyalgia, there isn’t a ..read more

By Aria Bendix Smoking marijuana at least once a month is linked to an elevated risk of heart attack, according to a new study among nearly 160,000 people in the U.K. The research, published Friday in the journal Cell, looked at more than 11,000 people between ages 40 and 69 who said they smoked marijuana at least once a month. The scientists then compared that group to 122,000 other people in the same age bracket who did not smoke marijuana at all, and nearly 23,000 more who smoked less frequently. To read more ..read more

By Jon Brown The Washington State Legislature recently passed a bill replacing the word “marijuana” with “cannabis” in all state laws, citing the alleged racist origins of the Spanish word. “The term ‘marijuana’ itself is pejorative and racist,” said Democratic state Rep. Melanie Morgan claimed during 2021 testimony regarding House Bill 1210, which she sponsored, according to local CBS affiliate KIRO 7. To read more ..read more

By Maria Cramer Soon after a meal of meatballs, bread, tortellini and Caesar salad, the guests at the wedding of Andrew and Danya Svoboda began to feel strange, according to the authorities in Seminole County, Fla. One man, an uncle of the groom visiting from Michigan, said he felt “tingly.” His heart raced and he was “having crazy thoughts,” the police said in an affidavit. Another guest began feeling nauseated and dizzy even though she had drunk only one glass of red wine. Another woman said her heart felt like it was going to stop. To read more ..read more

By Paula Cocozza Jodie Sharp’s days were all broken up the same way. “I smoked to go to work, smoked to do the washing-up, smoked for chill time.” Smoking marijuana “was a totally regular habit and every time I did it, I was smoking in exactly the same way, getting the same experience all over again.” Sharp used a little metal pipe, and she often ran her tongue over the hard skin on her lip where the pipe sat. Her lungs hurt, her gums bled. She slept poorly and had no dream function. “I thought, ‘This is crazy. Why am I doing this at this time of my life?’” To read more ..read more

By Tom Angell The House of Representatives voted to federally legalize marijuana. The bill now heads to the Senate, where Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) will soon file his own cannabis bill. White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki said President Joe Biden agrees with most Democratic lawmakers that “our current marijuana laws are not working,” but declined to specify if he supports the legalization bill the House passed hours earlier. Days after approving legalization, the House of Representatives is set to vote Monday on a bill to remove barriers to conducting ma ..read more

BY CRISTINA MARCOS  The House is poised to pass legislation this week that would legalize marijuana, just the latest example of the swiftly changing attitudes on drug laws that marks a near reversal from the Reagan-era war on drugs that also reverberated through the 1990s. The bill legalizing marijuana has near-uniform support among Democrats and a top ally in Senate Majority Leader Charles Schumer (N.Y.), who has been aiming to introduce a similar measure this spring. To read more ..read more

By GENE JOHNSON Over the past few years, Jonny Griffis has invested millions of dollars in his legal marijuana farm in northern Michigan, which produces extracts to be used in things like gummy bears and vape oils. But now that farm — like many other licensed grows in states that have legalized marijuana — faces an existential threat: high-inducing cannabis compounds derived not from the heavily regulated and taxed legal marijuana industry, but from a chemical process involving less strictly regulated, cheaply grown hemp. “It’s going to make our farm obsolete,” Griffis, the chief operating off ..read more

By David P. Ball The pioneering Nanaimo cannabis giant Tilray has finally pulled out of the city, taking with it roughly 170 jobs. Last week, it found a conditional buyer for its flagship property in the city which was listed for more than $18 million. Canada’s first legal medical cannabis grower opened its Vancouver Island facilities to great fanfare in April 2014, a year-and-a-half before the election of the federal Liberal government on a promise to legalize cannabis. To read more ..read more

By Nolan Hicks New York State officials plan to initially limit eligibility for highly lucrative marijuana dispensary licenses to those previously convicted on pot-related offenses before the drug was legalized, documents show. Draft regulations likely to be adopted by the Cannabis Control Board at its meeting Thursday would limit eligibility to operators where at least one applicant was convicted — or immediately related to someone swept up before marijuana’s legalization. To read more ..read more