When Thailand became the first country in Asia to decriminalise cannabis in 2022, it sparked a major tourism boom – and a domestic industry now worth $1 billion.

But now, the government is "harshing that buzz", said Time magazine.

Last month, it imposed rules "designed to rein in the country's 'green rush'" and reclassify cannabis as a controlled herb, said CNN. Citizens now need a doctor's prescription to buy the drug, restricting consumption to medical purposes. The public health minister also said he would "recriminalise cannabis as a narcotic", according to the broadcaster, which would be a "major reversal from Thailand's liberal approach".

The government says the move is designed to protect children and combat international smuggling, but critics argue that the rushed move could endanger the thousands of small cannabis stores.

The 'weed wild west'

After cannabis was decriminalised in Thailand, there was a "frenzy of investment", said the BBC's Southeast Asia correspondent Jonathan Head. There are about 11,000 registered cannabis dispensaries in the country. In parts of Bangkok, it is "impossible to escape the lurid green glare of their neon signs and the constant smell of people smoking". This has "flooded the market and driven the price down".

But some describe the "free-wheeling" market as "out of control". A promised regulatory framework was never implemented, perhaps because of "obstruction by vested interests with links to the marijuana industry", said one MP involved in the process. The result: a "weed wild west", and an "influx of foreign drug syndicates hiding behind Thai nominees".

There have been growing calls to restrict the industry, but "the final straw appears to have been pressure from the UK". A "flood" of Thai cannabis has been smuggled into the country, often by young people "lured by drug syndicates" into carrying suitcases of it home, because "very few regulations" exist in Thailand to control it. Last month, two British women were arrested in Georgia and Sri Lanka "with large amounts of marijuana from Thailand".

"It's massively increased over the last couple of years," said Beki Wright, spokesperson for the National Crime Agency in London. The NCA intercepted 800 couriers carrying 26 tonnes in 2024, up from 142 couriers carrying five tonnes in 2023.

The Thai government is "probably getting yelled at during international meetings", Kitty Chopaka, an advocate for smaller cannabis producers, told the broadcaster. "Countries saying 'all your weed is getting smuggled into our country', that is quite embarrassing."

'Bracing for real pain'

The government's "major policy reversal" has plunged the industry into "a state of confusion", said The Guardian. Shops are "scrambling" with the new restrictions, and many owners fear the changes will "unfairly push out smaller businesses" that can't afford to comply with rules or register as medical clinics. "Most of the registered shops will shut down", or go underground, said store owner Natthakan Punyathanaworakit.

There are also fears that new regulations will scare off tourists and hurt profits. Other owners say the issue has been "politicised"; the policy reversal comes after the Bhumjaithai Party, which "championed" legalisation, withdrew from the ruling coalition over Prime Minister Paetongtarn Shinawatra's "perceived poor handling of a border row with Cambodia".

That allowed the ruling Pheu Thai party to "pursue its promises of restricting the use of marijuana to medical purposes only", said Time. It's a popular one: a 2024 poll found that more than 60% of the public were in favour of reclassifying cannabis as a narcotic.

Legalisation was "widely criticised" – it allowed "thousands of people convicted of cannabis-related offences to be released from jail", said The Guardian. "Piecemeal" rules also had to be implemented after the fact, such as banning cannabis from schools and children.

But now, with "stricter controls on sales and distribution" on the horizon, said Bloomberg, communities in the "lush northern countryside" where the plants grow are "bracing for real pain".

Sadiq Khan's recent call for possession of small quantities of cannabis for personal use to be decriminalised set himself on a collision course with the government.

In May, the Mayor of London backed a report by the London Drugs Commission, led by the Labour peer Charlie Falconer, which included 42 recommendations, including removing cannabis from the Misuse of Drugs Act – though it stopped short of suggesting full legalisation.

The current rules, said the report, were wasting police officers' time and souring police-community relations. But Angela Rayner, the deputy prime minister, poured cold water on the proposal, saying Labour had no plans to relax the laws on cannabis.

'Evidence-based reform rooted in common sense'

The report represents "yet another attempt to inject sanity into Britain’s archaic drug laws", said Simon Jenkins in The Guardian.

Among the many arguments it set out, it highlighted "the current law with respect to cannabis possession is experienced disproportionately by those from ethnic minority (excluding white minority) groups, particularly London's black communities". According to 2024 figures, Black people are four times more likely to be stopped and searched than white people, but are no more likely to be carrying cannabis.

Then there is the cost. Detainments for cannabis offences have set the taxpayers back well over £2.5 billion in the last decade. By contrast it is estimated that a regulated and taxed cannabis market could net the Treasury more than £1 billion annually.

"This isn't about promoting drug use, but about evidence-based reform rooted in public health and common sense", said Jon Robson, CEO and founder of Mamedica, a medical cannabis clinic, in City A.M. "Criminal sanctions have done little to reduce cannabis use, but they've caused real harm: young people burdened with lifelong records, patients denied treatment due to stigma and communities disproportionately targeted by outdated enforcement."

What is worse, this hardline approach is increasingly out of step with the rest of the Western world – and the British public.

A recent YouGov poll of 5,306 adults found that 54% of the British public think small amounts of cannabis for personal use should be decriminalised, compared to 34% who were opposed.

All the while, the UK is falling behind the likes of Portugal, Spain, Italy, Germany, Canada and numerous US states, which have either decriminalised or fully legalised recreational cannabis use in recent years. While not universally successful, these case studies have all recognised that "controlled regulation protects public health far better than prohibition", said Robson.

'Cannabis is a seriously harmful drug'

"Khan's plan for cannabis isn't just naive", said The Telegraph, "it's dangerously divisive."

He seems to believe that the "greatest harm arising from cannabis usage is that its policing might damage relations between the police and ethnic minorities, or that criminalising them might do more harm than the cannabis they consume", said The Spectator. "In this he is wrong.

"Cannabis, especially the very potent, high-THC cannabis which is now on the streets, is a seriously harmful drug" and "the production and distribution of it generates huge income for organised crime and even funds the people-smuggling trade".

In 2001, the commander of Lambeth police, Brian Paddick, briefly ran an experiment by empowering his officers to let off everyone caught with small amounts of cannabis with a caution. "It saved police time and enabled them to focus on more dangerous drugs", said Tom Calver in The Sunday Times, "yet as dealers flooded the borough, the number of cannabis offences actually rose by a third". A follow-up study by researchers at University College London concluded that the "total welfare of local residents likely fell" during the period.

As an NHS psychiatrist who witnesses on a daily basis the damage done by cannabis, "I see the tragic human fallout from our lackadaisical attitude towards cannabis", said Dr Max Pemberton in the Daily Mail. Research has shown that, "far from being the benign substance campaigners would have us believe, cannabis is a dangerous intoxicant that has a profound effect on the structure and function of the brain". The drug is to blame for about a third of psychosis cases in the capital, according to one study.

The whole idea of decriminalisation is "nonsensical", he said. "If we are going to accept that we have lost the war on this drug then, rather than turn a blind eye to its use, we must make it legal, regulate it and control it."

Why has France arrested the head of a social network? Will cannabis ever be legal in Britain? And have government spending cuts led to worse art? Olly Mann and The Week delve behind the headlines and debate what really matters from the past seven days. 

A podcast for curious, open-minded people, The Week Unwrapped delivers fresh perspectives on politics, culture, technology and business.

It makes for a lively, enlightening discussion, ranging from the serious to the offbeat. Previous topics have included whether solar engineering could refreeze the Arctic, why funerals are going out of fashion and what kind of art you can use to pay your tax bill.

You can subscribe to The Week Unwrapped wherever you get your podcasts:

• Spotify
• Apple Podcasts
• Global Player

For decades, the federal government has classified cannabis as a Schedule I substance, deeming it to have a "high potential for abuse" and "no currently accepted medical use in treatment" in the United States. But now, half a century after the Controlled Substances Act placed marijuana alongside heroin and LSD in terms of its perceived dangers, pot's days as one of the nation's most incongruously restricted substances may be nearing an end.

Last week, The Associated Press reported the Biden administration was on the cusp of reclassifying cannabis from a Schedule I to Schedule III narcotic — a move that would overturn years of drug policy precedent, and dramatically change the way the government engages with a substance used at one point or another by approximately half the country, according to a recent Gallup poll. The process is not a simple one, with any eventual reclassification occurring only after a series of various administrative hurdles, public comment period, and final judicial review. Still, the reclassification of cannabis would mark a new era in America's often contradictory relationship with a substance already legalized in one form or another in more than half the states. Crucially, reclassification isn't full federal legalization. So what would the administration's more permissive pot posture actually do? 

Scientific study and medical moves

Perhaps the biggest change reclassification would bring is expanding the ability for the government to conduct further research into the health benefits of cannabis. As a Schedule I substance, scientific studies of cannabis have faced "something of a Catch-22: calls for more research, but barriers to doing it," with researchers sometimes relying on "people's own reports of their marijuana use" rather than clinical testing, the AP said. Revising its federal classification would "ease some restrictions on studying the drug," such as the onerous process of applying and registering with the DEA, although "researchers caution barriers would still remain" The Washington Post said. 

Reclassification also means the government acknowledges cannabis, like all other Schedule III substances, has an "accepted medical use and may lawfully be dispensed by prescription," the Congressional Research Service said. However, any such prescriptions must be approved by the Food and Drug Administration. Though the agency has green-lit medications "derived from or related to cannabis, marijuana itself is not an FDA-approved drug." States with medical marijuana programs in place already have "some federal protections in place via appropriations legislation that restricts the Justice Department from interfering in those programs" which will remain unchanged by reclassification, CNN said. 

The business of bud

Beyond expanding and easing access to federal research opportunities, reclassifying cannabis will have a major impact on the booming — but still legally murky — marijuana industry as a whole. Once in effect, the new rules will "ease access to banking services and free licensed cannabis companies from IRS rule 280e, which denies most standard business deductions to companies selling Schedule I substances," High Times said. Under Schedule I rules, cannabis marketers operating in states that have legalized marijuana faced "punishing IRS levies" which in turn created "perverse incentives for black market operators to remain in the shadows," Rolling Stone said. 

But many experts say rescheduling won't ease banking challenges for the cannabis industry, which has dealt almost exclusively in cash for lack of banking options. No matter its Schedule placement, "cannabis would still be illegal under federal law, and that is a line many banks in this country will not cross," said American Bankers Association spokesperson Blair Bernstein. Some industry insiders disagree: "Rescheduling cannabis should pave the way for much-needed safe banking solutions" which creates a "secure environment for financial transactions, granting access to essential services like checking accounts and loans," Bob Groesbeck, co-CEO of the Las Vegas-based Planet 13 dispensary told High Times. 

Legalize it? Not quite

Ultimately, many pre-existing tensions between states with legal cannabis and the federal government will likely remain unchanged. While reclassification means that some "applicable penalties for some offenses would be reduced," violations of the Controlled Substances Act which "apply to activities involving marijuana specifically, such as the quantity based mandatory minimum sentences [...] would not change as a result of rescheduling," Congressional Research Service said. 

Thailand's new government plans to ban cannabis for recreational use less than two years after the country became the first in Asia to decriminalise it.

The public health minister said a new bill will be proposed at the cabinet meeting next week after decriminalisation caused mass legal confusion over regulation of the drug. "The use for fun is considered wrong," Chonlanan Srikaew told the media.

'Gray market'

Thailand "was once notorious for its tough drug laws", said France24, and people found in possession of cannabis could face up to 10 years in prison and a large fine. But in 2022 the country sought to "cash in on the global boom in medical marijuana".

Decriminalisation was "touted as a lucrative move for the tourism-heavy economy" that was "badly dented by the pandemic", it added, with forecasts that the market may be worth $1.2 billion by 2025.

Thailand delisted the marijuana plant as a narcotic, a move that had been "years in the making", said CNN, and made the kingdom "a rarity in a region where many countries give long jail terms and even death sentences for people convicted of marijuana possession, consumption or trafficking".

As a result a "lucrative cannabis industry catering to locals and foreigners alike" was able to flourish across the country, said CNN, with a "boom of cannabis cafes and weed dispensaries in popular tourist destinations such as Bangkok, Chiang Mai and Pattaya", said The Guardian.

A "gray market" was created for local vendors, who took advantage of the country's tropical climate, which is well suited to cultivating the plant. Some cities have held weed festivals and a rooftop cafe in Bangkok hosted the inaugural Cannabis Cup Thailand, a joint-rolling competition.

But not all Thais have enjoyed the new atmosphere. There was a public outcry last weekend after audience members at  Coldplay's concerts in Bangkok complained of a "pervasive odour" of weed that overtook the venue, said Thai News.

"The failure to pass legislation to regulate its use has opened a legal vacuum in the country," said The Guardian, and there has been mass confusion about the precise legal status of the drug.

Even the former health minister who strongly lobbied for cannabis legalisation in the country said the plan was not to allow Thais and tourists to smoke weed recreationally in public.

"There has never once been a moment that we would think about advocating people to use cannabis in terms of recreation – or use it in a way that it could irritate others," Anutin Charnvirakul told CNN in 2022.

'Too late'

The prime minister, Srettha Thavisin, has "frequently voiced his opposition to the recreational use of the drug" and said it should only be allowed for medicinal use, said France24. He believes that recreational cannabis use could cause "wider narcotic drug problems".

Reaction to his plan has been mixed. Several tourism operators have "welcomed the move to curb its use", said The Guardian. Thanet Supornsahasrungsi, group executive director of Sunshine Hotels and Resorts in Pattaya, said there have been reports of marijuana overdoses at cannabis shops.

The Centre for Addiction Studies recently called for recreational cannabis to be banned, the Bangkok Post reported. But Kitty Chopaka, a cannabis activist in Thailand who owns a small cannabis shop in Bangkok, told VOA she hopes the government won't concentrate on "preying on the poor and starting a war on cannabis just as much as the war on drugs".

Some feel the move to decriminalise weed did not happen early enough. Pasit Chulajata, who works in the medical cannabis industry, believes it is "too late to put the genie back in the bottle", said ABC News. "I think Thailand has come quite a bit too far for everything to go back," he told the news site, "and I think the government kind of knows that as well."

The episode is "a reflection of the ongoing global dialogue on the role of cannabis in society", said Thai News, "balancing the scales between medicinal benefits and social responsibility".

Israel has long been considered a global leader in the research and development of the cannabis industry. The country has become a hub for other countries to conduct research in the medicinal cannabis field due to a history of pioneering studies in the field and less stringent restrictions on initiating clinical trials.  

How did Israel become a hub for medical cannabis research?

Israel's dominance in the medical cannabis sector can be traced back to the early 1960s and the work of Professor Raphael Mechoulam, an Israeli chemist. Mechoulam is credited with "opening the field of cannabis science" after he helped identify "the structure and function of the key compounds of cannabis," The New York Times wrote. 

His "groundbreaking" studies of cannabis began before marijuana and other drugs exploded in popularity around the world, "bringing seismic changes to popular culture while also kicking off decades-long battles about health effects and enforcement," the Times noted. His early discoveries helped earn him the title "the father of cannabis research." His fascination with drugs "was not cultural but scientific," the outlet added, "driven by a fascination with the chemical structures of plants and other natural products." In March 2023, he died at age 92 at his home in Jerusalem. 

Mechoulam's research is credited with codiscovering the endocannabinoid system, "the largest receptor system in the human body," US News explained. He also found that the human brain makes its own cannabinoids, "compounds that stimulate the body's receptor system." Experts believe these compounds could help alleviate illnesses like "schizophrenia, diabetes, cancer and multiple sclerosis, to name a few," the outlet added, "The revelation of this endogenous cannabinoid system essentially legitimized the study of a substance previously on the margins of scientific research."

That early foothold in cannabis research and development was solidified when Israel became one of the first countries to legalize medical marijuana and one of three countries, alongside Canada and the Netherlands, with a government-sponsored national medical cannabis program. Because of its less stringent policies over cannabis, Israel continues to be a central hub for research and development for other countries as well. 

For instance, cannabis is still classified as an illegal substance by the U.S. federal government, although over half of the country's states have state-sanctioned medical marijuana programs. That status makes initiating clinical trials in the U.S. "difficult to the point of being nearly impossible," Rolling Stone said. Some American companies have begun conducting the first two phases of their clinical trials in Israel and are completing phase 3 in the U.S. to speed up the process of applying for FDA approval, per the magazine.

The reliance on Israel for R&D is relatively new, but the country's impact on America's cannabis industry is not. Without their pioneering research, we "wouldn’t have the scientific interest we have now around the world,” says Paul Armentano, deputy director of the D.C.-based National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws (NORML) told Rolling Stone. 

The Israeli scientific community approaches cannabis research in an "incomparable" way, Charles Pollack, director of the Lambert Center for the Study of Medicinal Cannabis at Thomas Jefferson University, told the magazine. "Israel is a hotbed of quality cannabis research, because they have a much more favorable regulatory climate for doing serious scientific research on medical cannabis."

How have recent regulations attempted to change Israel's medical marijuana industry?

Cannabis legalization is a bipartisan issue for Israeli politicians. Pushes for legalization policies come from both sides, with some of the biggest proponents coming from the right wing. Sharren Haskel, a member of the Israeli Knesset, was one such right wing politician who helped successfully push for the decriminalization of marijuana in 2017. "When you see through your own eyes the impact that only cannabis has on these diseases…within minutes you understand that this is a public health issue, and you have to assist the citizens of your country," Haskel told US News. 

Despite becoming one of the largest exporters of medical marijuana in the world, many of the more than 100,000 medical license holders faced rising costs, "more bureaucracy" and difficulties obtaining their medicinal cannabis, the Jerusalem Post reported. In the face of complaints, Israel's Ministry of Health announced sweeping reforms in August aimed at significantly reducing regulation, improving production supervision, and giving more responsibility to cannabis farmers, 

The regulators also eased restrictions on how patients gain access to medicinal cannabis products. The Ministry of Health additionally approved reforms that would allow physicians to prescribe patients cannabis as a "first-line treatment rather than as an option of last resort," NORML reported. Patients with licenses to consume medicinal cannabis have qualifying illnesses such as cancer, Crohn's, multiple sclerosis, Parkinson's, dementia, epilepsy, autism and post-trauma stress disorder. Previously, doctors had to prove the patient had failed to respond to other conventional treatments, including opioids, before prescribing cannabis products. 

The regulations were reportedly meant to go into effect last December. 

Is the ongoing war affecting the industry?

In the months after the Israel-Hamas conflict began, the Ministry of Health published data showing a "sharp expansion in the reach of the medical marijuana program in that country," Marijuana Moment reported. There was a spike in patient enrollment in the medical cannabis registry, "especially those tied to PTSD and pain," with doctors prescribing "more cannabis by weight than ever before." Enrollments rose by 2,202 people in October, which was "roughly twice the recent monthly average," the outlet noted.  

Medical cannabis enrollments continued to surge the following month, per the Ministry of Health data, rising by 3,254 new patients, "the largest monthly increase since 2021," MJ Biz Daily pointed out. That brought the number of licensed medicinal cannabis patients to an "all-time high" of 135,213, "making it one of the world's largest markets," the outlet added. 

Despite the surge, the new patient might find it challenging to fill their prescriptions, as the regulations meant to ease access face a possible three-month delay due to the ongoing war. While some think the conflict might contribute to the increase in demand, "industry sources say the war is also to blame for the regulatory delay," per MJ Biz Daily.  

Because of the war, "the anticipated implementation of the medical cannabis regulatory reform, originally scheduled for December 29, 2023, has been postponed by three months,” Israeli marijuana producer IM Cannabis Corp. said in a statement.

When the regulation overhaul was announced in August, the company believed "it could change the face of the medical cannabis market in Israel" by easing access for many patients, said Oren Shuster, CEO of IM Cannabis. "We still believe this to be the case," he added. Because the number of new patients enrolling in the medical cannabis program was slowing down, the spike in enrollments in November was "remarkable," he continued. 

"We cannot currently determine if this increase is directly related to the war," Shuster noted. "We anticipate gaining more insights in the coming months."

Marijuana use may be linked to a higher risk of heart attack, heart disease and stroke, according to two preliminary studies presented at the American Heart Association’s Scientific Sessions 2023. The research found that people who use marijuana daily were 34% more likely to develop heart failure. However, the study doesn’t prove that marijuana usage causes these health complications, rather, it points to an association worth studying. 

Scientists have associated cardiovascular risk with marijuana in previous studies, but "further studies are needed to validate these findings and further explore potential mechanisms," Gregg Fonarow, director of the Ahmanson-UCLA Cardiomyopathy Center in Los Angeles, told HealthDay. “Marijuana use isn’t without its health concerns,” Yakubu Bene-Alhasan, a resident physician at Medstar Health in Baltimore, who led one of the studies, said in a statement. “Our results should encourage more researchers to study the use of marijuana to better understand its health implications, especially on cardiovascular risk.”

The other study found that cannabis users over 65 with existing cardiovascular risk factors including high blood pressure, Type 2 diabetes or high cholesterol had higher rates of cardiovascular issues compared to those who didn’t use. It is important to note that “both abusers and non-users had already been diagnosed with high blood pressure, type 2 diabetes or high cholesterol,” and “the study found that having high blood pressure readings of over 130/80 mm Hg and high cholesterol were key predictors of major adverse heart and brain events in the marijuana users,” CNN explained.

Despite the findings, marijuana has had a positive effect on many users and has often been used for medical purposes. Other factors, such as diet and exercise, also greatly impact the risk of cardiovascular complications. "My presumption is it's the association with other unhealthy behaviors rather than cannabis use per se that is driving the association highlighted in these latest AHA papers,"  Paul Armentano, deputy director of NORML, which advocates for the legalization of marijuana, told HealthDay.

Doctors are warning that cannabis users could wake up in the middle of surgery, and that anaesthetists need to administer higher doses to regular users to keep them asleep. The American Society of Regional Anaesthesia and Pain Medicine said that medics should ask patients about their marijuana use before they go under the knife and “be prepared to possibly change the anaesthesia plan or delay the procedure in certain situations”, said The Times.

Magistrate ‘runs screaming from owl’

A court session in South Africa was disrupted when an owl swooped into the chamber through a hole in the ceiling. The Owl Rescue Centre in Hartbeespoort said that it was contacted for help rescuing a barn owl from a magistrate’s courtroom in Brakpan. “The owl actually flew in through a hole in the ceiling which had the magistrate and the entire room full of people running out screaming,” it said in a post on Facebook. The owl was eventually removed from the courtroom, said UPI.

Woman sells home after 102 years

A 104-year-old woman is selling the house she has lived in since she was two years old. Nancy “Joan” Gifford spent 102 years living in a three-bedroom house in the Somerset village of Street, which her family had bought for £200. She is now putting it on the market, “having lived in it through the Second World War, the invention of television and the discovery of Tutankhamun’s tomb”, said Sky News. The house is priced at £169,950.

For more odd news stories, sign up to the weekly Tall Tales newsletter.

Smoking cannabis on the street in Amsterdam’s world-famous red light district will soon be illegal under new regulations being introduced by the city council.

The new laws are expected to come into effect from mid-May in an attempt to improve living conditions for local residents. “With more than 18 million visitors thronging its narrow 17th-century streets last year”, people living in the city centre have “long complained” that the area was “becoming unlivable”, said The Guardian.

The Dutch capital is famous for its cannabis-selling “coffee shops”, but locals have complained that the huge influx of tourists attracts street dealers and say frequent drug and alcohol abuse is driving up crime rates.

“The atmosphere can get grim especially at night,” said a council press release on Thursday, which announced the new rules. “People who are under the influence hang around for a long time. Residents cannot sleep well and the neighbourhood becomes unsafe and unlivable.”

Under the new regulations, smoking cannabis in public will be outlawed, with the council also prepared to extend the ban to the terraces of cannabis coffee shops if needed.

The city council also said restaurants and bars would have to close by 2am on weekdays and 4am on Fridays and Saturdays and no new customers would be allowed in after 1am. Sex workers in the red light district of De Wallen will also have to close their venues at the earlier time of 3am, rather than 6am.

Dutch newspaper Het Parool called the new rules a “historic intervention”, describing Amsterdam as a place known worldwide “where everything was possible and everything was permissible – including smoking weed on the street”. But it noted that an influx of “brawling tourists” had made the red light district unlivable for ordinary residents.

The city council is due to launch a “stay away” campaign this year in an attempt to deter foreign visitors from coming to Amsterdam just “for alcohol, drugs, and sex”.

A French hospital was evacuated after a man in his 80s presented to doctors with a First World War shell stuck inside his rear. “An apple, a mango, or even shaving foam… we’re used to finding unusual objects inserted where they shouldn’t be,” an unnamed ER staffer told Nice-Matin. “But a shell? Never.” Doctors had to perform abdominal surgery to remove it. “It rarely comes out from where it comes in”, said one.

‘Glitch’ blamed for ‘smoke weed’ road sign

Officials in India have blamed a “technical glitch” after the message “smoke weed every day” was displayed on an LED sign at the side of a road in Mumbai. After a video of the display went viral on Twitter, Pravin Padwal, joint commissioner for traffic with the Mumbai cops, told India Today that L&T, the company responsible for the sign, had blamed “some technical glitch” for the “wrong message”.

Deserted village to hold funeral

A village deserted since 1943 is to host a funeral for one of its last-known residents, reported The Times. Raymond Nash, 87, will posthumously return to the village of Imber, on Salisbury Plain, where he was born before people were evacuated during the war. The funeral, to be held in January by special arrangement with the Ministry of Defence, is believed to be only the second since the evacuation.

For more odd news stories, sign up to the weekly Tall Tales newsletter.

Robins “get road rage” when they are subjected to traffic noise, said The Guardian. A study found that robins living in the countryside grew more aggressive when they were exposed to the recorded sound of horns and engines. After previous studies found that robins living in cities were more physically aggressive than their rural cousins, the new research, by a UK-Turkish team, suggested that noise pollution could play a part.

Man breaks t-shirt hanging record

A US man with more than 250 Guinness World Records titles to his name added yet another by hanging up five T-shirts in record time, reported UPI. The aptly-named David Rush, who attempts Guinness World Records to promote STEM education, successfully hung up the five shirts in 16.78 seconds, beating the record of 27.93 seconds set by Kaito Koizumi of Japan in 2015. Among his other records are one for running a half marathon while wearing 111 T-shirts.

Elderly couple fund daughter’s studies with cannabis farm

A couple in their sixties moved their family 200 miles to the countryside to set up a “sophisticated” cannabis farm that funded their daughter’s university fees, reported The Times. A court heard that Edward McCann, 63, his wife, Linda, 60, and their son, Daniel, 38, moved from Hampshire to Wales after spotting an isolated farm for sale for £385,000 . There, they set up the cannabis-growing business in a large outbuilding and made up to £3.5m over five years, buying expensive cars and paying tuition fees for their daughter. The trio were jailed.

For more odd news stories, sign up to the weekly Tall Tales newsletter.

A presidential candidate in Kenya said marijuana and hyena testicles are the answers to the country’s economic woes. George Wajackoyah has emerged as a wildcard candidate, with his vow to erase the country’s debt with his “ganja solution”. Sky News said the “grave-digger-turned-law-professor” has promised to wipe out Kenya near $70bn debt by establishing a medical cannabis industry and exporting animal parts to China, where he says hyena testicles are considered a delicacy.

Utah man takes excavator for a joyride

A man in Utah was arrested after he allegedly stole an excavator from a construction site and drove it a mile to a grocery store in Salt Lake City, where he used it to tear up the parking lot. Police said the suspect caused significant damage after hitting a water pipe and ripping out fibre optic utility lines that were recently installed. Fox News said the suspect was taken into custody without incident and was expected to be booked into the Salt Lake County Metro Jail on charges of felony theft and felony criminal mischief.

Calls for ‘offensive’ Dick Turpin ride to be renamed

Parents are calling for a York tourist attraction to change the name of its new Dick Turpin carriage ride to Richard Turpin because they find the word “Dick” offensive. Turpin was a notorious highway robber in the 18th century and leisure giant Merlin Entertainments said it had received “a number of requests for the character to be renamed to Richard due to the apparent rude nature of his nickname”. However, York Dungeon’s general manager gave the requests short shrift, said The Telegraph. “Despite any potentially rude connotations, we’re here to say that Dick is here to stay,” he said.

For more odd news stories, sign up to the weekly Tall Tales newsletter

The tiny town of Moffat, Colorado is considering changing its name to “Kush”, to celebrate its growing cannabis industry. The idea came from Mike Biggio, the owner and founder of Area 420, which licenses land for cannabis cultivation in Moffat. Cassandra Foxx, the mayor of Moffat, said Biggio’s business “kind of gave us life, like a rebirth”. “Kush” is a popular slang term for cannabis, which is legal in Colorado.

Bidder pays $19m for Buffet lunch

An anonymous bidder paid $19m for a private steak lunch with the investor Warren Buffet. The deal was part of the 21st annual auction for a lunch with Buffet, to raise funds for Glide Foundation, a San Francisco-based non-profit working on combating poverty, hunger, and homelessness. CNN said the winning bidder will enjoy a private lunch with Buffet and up to seven guests at Smith & Wollensky Steakhouse in Manhattan.

Petition aims to block Corden’s UK return

An online petition saying that James Corden “should not return to UK” has gone viral. As the actor-comedian prepares to return back to the United Kingdom after he ends his run presenting The Late Late Show next spring, the uncompromising petition describes him as a “gargantuan t**t” and says his absence from these shores has been a “slight beacon of hope”.

1. It’s time Love Island features LGBTQ+ contestants

Sharon Gaffka in Metro

on representation

“June is huge for two reasons,” writes Sharon Gaffka in Metro. The first is it’s Pride month – “a celebration of the LGBTQ+ community’s love, acceptance, diversity and pride”. It’s also when series eight of Love Island kicks off, with the first episode airing last night. “Wouldn’t it be even better if we combined the two things and the show prominently featured LGBTQ+ contestants?” she asks. This former Love Island contestant would welcome the move “wholeheartedly”. The queer community “has been fighting for representation on TV for decades”, and it’s not necessarily “getting fair opportunities”. Gaffka first came out publicly as bisexual while on the show, “including to my parents”. Afterwards, her Instagram messages “were filled with young women” asking for advice. The show’s influence “extends far beyond the duration of its time on TV”, so “please can we remember that all love is love, and not just heterosexual love?”

Read more

2. Conservative civil war would be a gift to Labour – giving them the best possible chance at next election

Dominic Raab in The Sun

on ‘Westminster navel-gazing’

Dominic Raab says that Boris Johnson has “faced a series of unprecedented challenges” during the past three years. Writing in The Sun, the deputy prime minister says that “most leaders” would have found Brexit, Covid-19, war in Europe and the cost-of-living crisis “individually daunting, and collectively overwhelming”. But “not Boris Johnson. Time and time again he has got the big calls right – and proved the doubters wrong,” Raab continues. Given the global challenges at hand, “it is more important than ever that the Government has a laser-like focus on doing its job”. He says that “some would like to see a destructive, divisive and distracting Conservative civil war up at Westminster”, but that “would dominate the agenda for months” and “be a gift to Labour”. Instead, Raab says a page should be turned on “Westminster navel-gazing” and energy focused instead on “delivering for the British people the things that really matter”.

Read more

3. Watching the Queen grow old has made me reflect on my own mortality

Simon Kelner at the i news site

on doctors’ orders

Simon Kelner suspects that many people “will have been ruminating on the subject of age this past weekend of non-stop nostalgia”, he writes at the i news site. “Like all of us of relative vintage”, the Queen “has had to make the compromises that age forces on a person”. But the “revelation” that the monarch was “advised to give up her quotidian martini” struck Kelner as “particularly poignant”, and “largely because it is so relatable”. This writer likes “being alive, too” and finds “one of the things that makes the business of living so agreeable is to punctuate the end of my day with a martini, that most regal of cocktails”. During the Queen’s reign, “who knows how many family and national crises” she has “been able to deliberate on, to make sense of, to rationalise, finding succour while quietly sipping” her drink of choice. “The ageing process compels us to make sacrifices” and the jubilee will have given some “a rather melancholic pause for thought”.

Read more

4. Cannabis and the violent crime surge

Allysia Finley in The Wall Street Journal

on a possible pattern

“The stigma once attached to marijuana has vanished,” writes Allysia Finley in The Wall Street Journal. “But the public needs an honest discussion of its social and public-health risks, which include violence and mental illness.” There’s “a pattern”, she writes – the perpetrators of a number of mass shootings in the US in the past 11 years were reported to be marijuana users. “It could be coincidence, but increasing evidence suggests a connection.” The drug might be “supposed to make you mellow” but nowadays young people are “consuming marijuana more frequently and in higher doses”, leading to increased addiction and antisocial behaviour. “Countless studies” have linked “chronic cannabis use to schizophrenia” and “young people are especially vulnerable” to the drug’s effects as their brains develop. “Maybe it’s time that lawmakers and voters rethink their pot-legalization experiment before more young lives are damaged,” she concludes.

Read more

5. Quaint relics of our rural heritage should be saved

Sean O’Neill in The Times

on countryside crossings

“Stiles have graced the countryside for centuries,” writes Sean O’Neil in The Times. There are literary references to the wooden steps dating back to the 16th century, “but the stile police have decreed that it is no longer politically acceptable”. In February, Whitehall issued guidance “urging” landowners and farmers to “create gaps or put up accessible self-closing gates instead”. O’Neill says “the elimination of the stile is being carried out in the name of making the countryside more accessible”, something he has “no argument with”. “But must we replace every single stile?” This writer says installing gates “alongside” the crossing points would combine “access and charm”. “And if there must be a gate, could it at least be a locally made wooden one, more in keeping with the surroundings and preserving an element of craftsmanship?” Climbing over stiles is “part of the adventure” of a rural walk. “Let’s not obliterate it altogether.”

Read more

Hundreds of pounds of marijuana were strewn over a US highway following a crash, reported TMZ. A pickup truck allegedly carrying the cannabis was making its way across the state, where only medicinal marijuana is legal. Two men in the truck were arrested for drug trafficking. The crash happened on 20 April, or “420”, an international counterculture holiday, where people gather to celebrate and consume cannabis.

Whitby aims for vampire record

Whitby is hoping to set a new world record for the largest-ever gathering of people dressed up as vampires. English Heritage is inviting vampire lovers to don their black cloaks and fangs for a gathering at Whitby Abbey, which is regarded as “the birthplace of Dracula”. To qualify as a vampire for the gathering, revellers must wear black trousers or dresses, black shoes, waistcoats, shirts, black capes or collared overcoats and fangs on their top row of teeth.

Larger scorpions are less deadly

Larger scorpions have a less potent venom, a study has shown. Researchers the Ryan Institute at the National University of Ireland looked at 36 species and found the venom of the smallest was a hundred times more powerful than that of the largest. The news adds succour to a scene in an Indiana Jones film where the hero’s sidekick is stung by a scorpion and complains that it was huge. “Good,” replies Jones. “When it comes to scorpions, the bigger the better.”

1. Centrism is the great enemy of the working class

Ryan Coogan for The Independent

on a political placebo

“Centrism – an ideology that should have been crushed under the weight of its own ineptitude during the disastrous coalition years – is back with a fresh coat of paint,” writes Ryan Coogan, “and the same do-nothing attitude that made it the darling of people who don’t want to admit to being right wing”. Writing for The Independent, he argues that “today, the mainstream political discourse has moved so far towards Conservatism that today’s centre is yesterday’s right”. Having grown up on council estates, Coogan writes that “the real evil of so-called moderation is that the working class is suffering now, and has been for a long time” and that “it can’t wait much longer for positive change”. He describes centrism as “a placebo that requires nothing of us, and for which we receive nothing in return… change, on the other hand, is difficult, but also rewarding – and, ultimately, necessary”.

Read more

2. Why Rotterdam erupted

Senay Boztas for Unherd

on complex ashes

“Dutch leaders were quick to paint the riots as acts of hooliganism rather than protest,” says Senay Boztas, a Brit who lives in the Netherlands, after the recent anti-lockdown unrest in Rotterdam. But she argues that this is “overly simplistic”. “This isn’t some new phenomenon: the Dutch police have been highlighting the increasing violence of protesters for several years,” she writes for Unherd. Behind the resentment of rioters are bigger social problems. There is “a deep polarisation in Dutch society” and trust in government policy and leadership has “plummeted”. Meanwhile, she explains, a “light-touch legal system and emphasis on alternatives to prison and processes like mediation” could also be a factor in the unrest. She concludes that “this isn’t a time to sit back and dismiss the rioting as an ‘orgy’ of criminal activity” but it is “time to sift through the ashes”.

Read more

3. More fool countries that normalise drug use

Clare Foges for The Times

on ‘Big Weed’

Noting moves towards the legalisation of cannabis in Europe and the US, Clare Foges said she learned of them “with dread” because the West’s “steady progress towards cannabis legalisation” is a “slow-motion car crash”. She writes that “weed’s association with amiable stoners” masks the fact that the concentration of the main psychoactive component has become about five times higher over the past 15 years and is “devastating lives”. The Times columnist writes of “families who have watched as a once-vibrant son or daughter descends into the hell of severe mental illness, paranoia keeping them a prisoner in their bedroom”, and doctors “who dealt with a record 100,000 drug-related admissions last year”. She said that although “Big Weed” is seen as a progressive campaign, a “truly progressive policy would be to enforce the laws we already have, to help prevent more people from falling victim to this nasty drug”.

Read more

4. You cannot preach about going green from the luxury of your private jet

Lucy Burton for The Telegraph

on high-profile hypocrisy

“The corporate elite’s green preaching is currently being drowned out by the roar of their private jets,” argues Lucy Burton for The Telegraph. The paper’s banking editor reminds us that “hundreds of wealthy leaders recently flew into Glasgow for the Cop26 climate change conference in private jets and have continued to fly privately since”. Small jets emit ten times more greenhouse gases per passenger than scheduled flights and are 50 times more polluting than trains, she tells readers. Burton says that however convenient private jets are, “high-profile business executives who have become newly hooked on flying this way, or are used to it having done so all their careers, must wean themselves off” because “boasting about going green while jetting around in a private plane is not a good look as the planet burns”.

Read more

5. We are way past peak puppy – it’s time to end the great British dog obsession

Tim Dowling for The Guardian

on mutt madness

“When people ask me if I’m a dog lover I always say, ‘I’m a dog owner – it’s not the same thing’,” writes Tim Dowling in The Guardian, adding that he does not “wish to be mistaken for some kind of enthusiast”. With more than three million new pets acquired in the UK during the Covid crisis, many of them dogs, Dowling believes our obsession with dogs has got out of hand. He argues that the Dog TV channel and the DogPhone that allows your pet to call you are “completely barking”. He adds that: “I can’t really imagine what it would be like to have your phone go off in a meeting and then say: ‘Sorry, I need to take this; it’s from my dog.’” As unwanted dogs are handed over to the Dogs Trust, Dowling says that “as much as it’s worth reminding people that a dog isn’t just for Covid, I can’t help hoping that the fading of the pandemic will bring a stop to all the madness”.

Read more

When US sprinter Sha’Carri Richardson missed the Tokyo Olympic Games after testing positive for a chemical found in cannabis, her suspension “reignited a long debate over marijuana prohibition in Olympic sports”, said the BBC’s Robin Levinson-King.

Considered a top contender for the 100m, Richardson tested positive during the US Olympic Track & Field trials in June and was given a one-month suspension. The 21-year-old said she had used cannabis as a way of coping with the death of her biological mother and not to boost performance. Her exclusion became a matter of “heated debate”, Scientific American reported at the time.

“Don’t judge me, because I am human, I just happen to run a little faster,” she told NBC’s Today show. “I apologise for the fact that I didn’t even know how to control my emotions or deal with that during that time.”

‘Substance of abuse’

The 2021 World Anti-Doping Code classifies tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) - the main psychoactive constituent of cannabis, marijuana, and hashish - as a “substance of abuse”, Inside The Games reported. Athletes found to use it outside of competition face a three-month ban, but in Richardson’s case it was reduced to 30 days by the United States Anti-Doping Agency as long as she also undertook a treatment programme.

With cannabis legal in many states across America, why is it still outlawed in sports, the BBC’s Levinson-King asks. “Given that its performance-enhancing properties are disputed, many wonder why cannabis should still be banned.”

Scientific review

Richardson’s suspension sparked an outpouring of sympathy and calls for a review of anti-doping rules, The Guardian reported. And yesterday the World Anti-Doping Agency (Wada) announced it will launch a “scientific review” into cannabis’s status as a banned substance.

“Following receipt of requests from a number of stakeholders, the Executive Committee endorsed the decision of the List Expert Advisory Group to initiate in 2022 a scientific review of the status of cannabis,” Wada said in a statement. “Cannabis is currently prohibited in competition and will continue to be in 2022.”

Since Wada published its “prohibited list” in 2004, cannabinoids have been banned in all sports during competition. Drugs are prohibited if they meet two of three criteria: they harm the health of the athlete; are performance enhancing; are against the spirit of sport.

A British paratrooper whose parachute failed to open correctly during an exercise in California got away with only minor injuries after a 15,000ft fall saw him crash through the roof of a house. “It’s a miracle in my estimation, really. I mean, who lands like that without a parachute and lives?” said a neighbour. The Ministry of Defence said: “The soldier received minor injuries and is recovering well.”

Super Mario game sold for record sum

A sealed, mint condition copy of Super Mario 64 has sold at auction for more than $1.5m (£1.1m), making it the most expensive video game ever sold. US auction house Heritage Auctions said the video game cartridge, first released in 1996, was in high demand for its “historical significance, rarity and condition” as there are “fewer than five copies” in such good condition. The price tag was nearly double that of the previous record-breaker, an original The Legend of Zelda cartridge which had been sold two days before at $870,000 (£744,000).

Baron Cohen sues cannabis company

Sacha Baron Cohen is suing a cannabis dispensary for allegedly using his comedy character Borat on its advertising. The 49-year-old British actor has accused Solar Therapeutics of copyright infringement and false advertising. He is seeking damages of at least $9m (£6.5m), according to a lawsuit filed in the US state of Massachusetts. He alleges that the advert featured Baron Cohen as Borat, giving a thumbs up with the words “it’s nice!”

A Canadian soldier has been accused of feeding cannabis-laced cupcakes to unsuspecting members of her artillery unit during a live fire exercise. Bombardier Chelsea Cogswell is facing 18 charges at a court martial, including administering a noxious substance and behaving in a disgraceful manner. Court documents state that members of the unit experienced symptoms including “dehydration, overheating, fatigue, confusion, dry mouth and paranoia”.

Man has wrong leg amputated at hospital

A hospital in Austria has admitted that a man had the wrong leg amputated during surgery. The 82-year-old was due to have his left leg removed but “human error” meant the right leg was amputated above the knee instead, the Freistadt Clinic has announced. Following the error, the unfortunate man needed to have the correct leg removed as well.

Grieving family given dead rat instead of baby

A hospital in Colombia also had a bad day when grieving parents who lost their baby girl during childbirth were allegedly given a dead rat instead of her body. Jari Daniela Velez and Daniel Alejandro Jaramillo say they were handed a huge rodent at the hospital in Tulua. Jari’s cousin, Majo Velez, said: “At the hospital they gave us a dead rat; I demand they give us the girl.”

Sadiq Khan is to launch a review on the “feasibility” of decriminalising cannabis as part of a new approach to tackling drug-related crime should he be re-elected mayor of London.

Khan is to set up an independent London drugs commission “to examine the potential health, economic and criminal justice benefits of decriminalising the class-B drug”, The Guardian reports.

The plans are expected to be outlined in Khan’s mayoral election manifesto, which is being published today in the run-up to the 6 May vote.

The London mayor believes there is “widespread public support for a more relaxed approach to decriminalisation”, says The Guardian, with his office citing polls that show more than two-thirds of Londoners support legalising cannabis for adult recreational use. More than half of UK residents feel the same.

As mayor of London, Khan “only has the ability to recommend a policy position”, notes London Playbook. While he cannot change the law or decriminalise cannabis himself, he is willing to consider supporting changes to the legal status of cannabis if that is what his new commission concludes.

The Telegraph writes that a “mayoral endorsement” would give decriminalisation of cannabis “a boost”.

A London drugs commission would include independent experts from criminal justice, public health, politics, community relations and academia, said the paper.

It is likely to look at Portugal’s approach to drug policy. There, possession and consumption of illicit substances have been decriminalised since 2001. Drug users in the country are also given access to treatment programmes and harm reduction and support services, rather than face arrest for possessing a “personal supply”.

The commission is also likely to consider the experiences of Canada, Uruguay and several US states, where cannabis for recreational use has been legalised.

The Survation survey, commissioned by the Evening Standard and cited by the mayor’s office, found that 63% of London residents backed the legalisation and regulation of cannabis, while just 19% opposed the idea. Across the UK as a whole, 47% backed legalisation, while 30% were against, said the 2019 survey.

A Toronto police officer who ate a cannabis-laced chocolate bar seized during a raid was described as a “complete idiot” by a judge. Vittorio Dominelli pleaded guilty to attempting to obstruct justice in connection with the incident at an illegal marijuana dispensary. Justice Mary Misener, who presided over the case, said: “From the point of view of public interest, the impact is profound,” she said. “The conduct here you cannot describe as anything other than stupid … He was just a complete idiot.”

Beery pals stuck at sea on mattress

Two friends had to be rescued after the blow-up mattress drifted further out to sea then they had planned. Jackson Perry and Noah Palmer found themselves stranded in the Indian Ocean on Australia’s west coast for almost three hours with just each other, some beer and a dying phone for company. They contacted a friend who rushed to pick them up on his jet ski. They advise anyone who likes drinking at sea on a mattress to “definitely check the wind forecast before anything”.

Man breaks record for water jump

A 21-year-old Egyptian man has set the world record for the highest jump out of water wearing a monofin, recording an impressive leap of 2.3m. Omar Sayed Shaaban was the first to break the record in nine years. It was previously held by Cesare Fumarola, Stefano Figini, both from Italy, and fellow Egyptian Soliman Sayed, all of whom managed a jump of 2m.

Lockdown has been a challenge for almost everybody, not least a wanted man who handed himself in to Sussex police for “peace and quiet” after he got fed up with people he lives with. An inspector at Burgess Hill police station said: “The man said he would rather go back to prison than have to spend more time with the people he was living with!” The man had been wanted for recall to prison.

Mum drinks urine in Covid protection bid

A mother trying to protect herself and her family from Covid-19 has drunk her own urine after receiving false information. For four days, the British woman and her four children drank their own urine, believing it would protect them from infection. The mother says she puts her faith in natural cures, however, there is no evidence that drinking your own urine protects you from Covid-19.

Joints for dogs scheme a success

An animal shelter in Arizona has offered a curious incentive for people adopting their dogs. Those who attended a special event over the weekend and agreed to give one of Desert Tails Shelter’s animals a home were given five free pre-rolled cannabis joints. The initiative, known as “Pups and Prerolls”, has proved popular. During the first weekend it was held, 14 dogs were adopted.

Mexico’s senate has approved a landmark cannabis legalisation bill in a landslide vote that paves the way for it to become the third country in the world to market the drug.

Senators voted 82 to 18 to approve the measure, with seven abstentions, marking a “major shift in a country where drug cartel violence in recent years has claimed over 100,000 lives”, Reuters reports.

In 2018, Mexico’s Supreme Court ruled that recreational marijuana should be permitted, however, the new legislation means that “safe, regulated consumption” could soon become a reality, The Washington Post adds.

The country is the first with such a strong drug-related underworld to take the step, with advocates “long arguing that legalisation would put a dent in the black market”, the paper continues.

However, supporters of the move are unsure over some of the details of the legalisation plan, with concerns that the move could “favour large corporations over small businesses and family-owned farms”, as well as “doing little to address the issues at the root of the country’s illegal drug trade”, it adds.

As The Economist notes, fears that the “jolt of legalisation could provoke gangs to behave even more violently than now” have been raised, while there has also been warnings that cutting streams of income could see “gangs diversify faster into such activities as kidnapping and cooking fentanyl”.

“I’m not sure if the initiative being pushed by Congress actually makes things better,” Julio Salazar, a senior lawyer and legalisation advocate with the non-profit group Mexico United Against Crime, told the Washington Post.

“It makes a cannabis market for the rich and continues to use criminal law to perpetuate a drug war that has damaged the poorest people with the least opportunities.”

Socially conservative President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador has “shied away from publicly backing the legalisation push, but neither has he opposed it”, Reuters says. However, Lopez Obrador’s left-of-centre Morena party backs the initiative and holds a majority in both chambers of Congress.

Having passed through Congress, the legislation will now go to the lower house of Congress, meaning the creation of the largest legal cannabis market in the world could be just around the corner.

A wild mouse has passed out after chewing on a Canadian man’s crop of cannabis. “I've caught this little pot-head taking leaves off of my plant and eating them until he passes out,” said Colin Sullivan from New Brunswick in Canada, where growing small amounts of cannabis is legal. Sullivan cared for the stoned rodent and weaned him off the substance before releasing him back into the wild.

Extinction Rebellion spokeswoman now campaigns for nuclear power

A former Extinction Rebellion spokesperson has left the group to campaign for nuclear power. Writing for the Daily Mail, Zion Lights said that although the green movement is “steeped in an anti-nuclear mindset,” any “rational, evidence-based approach shows that a strategy including nuclear energy is the only realistic solution to driving down emissions at the scale and speed required”.

Study finds that labradoodles are more poodle

Researchers have examined the genetics of the Australian labradoodle and revealed that the dogs are mostly poodle. The study of Australian labradoodle DNA also suggests more poodles have been introduced over the years. “We were surprised to see that it was really quite dramatic,” said Dr Elaine Ostrander, a co-author of the research paper.

–––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––For a round-up of the most important stories from around the world - and a concise, refreshing and balanced take on the week’s news agenda - try The Week magazine. Start your trial subscription today –––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––

Britain is being “overrun” by “sex mad” rats, reports the Daily Star. There has been a 79% increase in visits to Rentokil’s site after a warm winter provided the perfect breeding ground for “randy rodents”. A spokesman said the numbers could get even higher because unoccupied office buildings across the country could be providing rodents with an opportunity to breed in peace.

Did ancient Israelites smoke cannabis and animal dung?

Ancient Israelites used cannabis as part of their religious rituals, according to researchers who found residue of the herb at a nearly 3,000-year-old shrine. Traces were found on an altar at the Tel Arad temple, in the Negev Desert. An archaeologist said the material contained traces of cannabis and animal dung, probably used to help the plant burn.

City may outlaw looking at your phone while walking

A Japanese city is planning a bill to make looking at your phone while walking illegal. Politicians in the city of Yamato, in Kanagawa Prefecture, are set to vote on new legislation that would ban staring at a device while walking. They say there has been an increase in the number of accidents involving people staring at their mobiles.

–––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––For a round-up of the most important stories from around the world - and a concise, refreshing and balanced take on the week’s news agenda - try The Week magazine. Start your trial subscription today –––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––

Olly Mann and The Week delve behind the headlines and debate what really matters from the past seven days.

In this week’s episode, we discuss:

Skywriting

The UK government is considering the legalisation of skywriting, six decades after it was banned during the Cold War. If it goes ahead, we could see advertisements, marriage proposals and other messages written in the sky by the summer. Can the dying art be revived to take aviation to dizzy new heights or is it just pie in the sky?

Electric trees

Catalina Lotero, an industrial designer, believes we can harness the static electricity produced naturally when leaves brush against each other to power homes in remote off-grid communities. The technology is in its early stages, but Lotero says a single tree could provide enough electricity for seven homes.

Legal weed

Cannabis was legalised in Canada 18 months ago, but the nation’s marijuana black market is booming. Weed aficionados point to high prices and poor quality as the reason they are sidestepping legal traders, favouring instead their old dealers. The boon for underground dealers, meanwhile, has wiped billions of dollars off the values of the industry’s largest companies, in a collapse that is being compared to the dotcom bubble.

You can subscribe to The Week Unwrapped on the Global Player, Apple podcasts, SoundCloud or wherever you get your podcasts. It is produced by Sarah Myles and the music is by Tom Mawby.

North America’s licensed marijuana companies are reporting major losses as users continue to buy from black-market dealers despite the legalisation of the drug.

Recreational cannabis use has been allowed under Canadian law since October 2018, but it remains illegal for any unlicensed person to be a seller.

Yet up to 42.7% of users still buy at least some of their stash from illegal sources, according to a survey last year by the country’s national statistics agency.

In an interview with the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) in October, Mike Serr, head of Canada’s Association of Chiefs of Police, said: “We haven’t disrupted the black market significantly. If there is a strong, vibrant, dark market out there selling illegal drugs, people will go to that and we need to direct them to the legal market.”

Why are so many Canadians buying illegal cannabis?

The black market offers a cheaper and more varied range of marijuana than legal providers, reports Business Insider.

A scarcity of licensed stores is another reason why many buyers turn to illegal dealers, adds The Guardian.

Omar Yar Khan of public relations consulting firm Hill & Knowlton, which advises several cannabis companies, said: “There just aren’t enough legal licensed points of sale across the country. If it’s not convenient for consumers to access the product through the legal system, why would they ever leave the legacy illicit market?”

Users have posted messages on forum website Reddit complaining about quality, too.

One post on Vancouver’s cannabis-focused Reddit feeds said: “The government’s pot is too expensive. The government doesn’t show you a picture of what you’re buying before you buy it, so you cannot be informed as a consumer. The government weed has been full of bugs, mouldy or too dry in some cases, and often takes too long to get there.”

As the black market continues to flourish, “billions of dollars have been wiped off the market values of the industry’s largest companies”, reports the newspaper.

But three of Canada’s biggest licensed producers - Canopy Growth, Tilray and Aurora - are fighting back.

In a bid to “draw consumers from the illicit market and into legal channels”, the firms are set to introduce lower-cost cannabis options, Canopy’s business development head Adam Greenblatt told Newsweek.

–––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––For a round-up of the most important stories from around the world - and a concise, refreshing and balanced take on the week’s news agenda - try The Week magazine. Start your trial subscription today –––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––

What does this mean for legalisation elsewhere?

In the neighbouring US, recreational cannabis use is already legal in 11 states.

And a survey by the Pew Research Center think-tank last November found that 91% of Americans were in favour of legal marijuana for medical or recreational use, with 59% supporting both. Only 32% opposed the legalisation of marijuana, down from 52% in 2010.

Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders has stated his support for legalisation, saying: “We’re going to provide help to the African-American, Latino, and Native American community [to] start businesses to sell legal marijuana, so that a few corporations don’t control the legal marijuana market.”

After Canada legalised recreational cannabis use in 2018, Steve Rolles, a drug policy expert at the Bristol-based Transform think-tank, predicted that the UK would also eventualy change its drug laws, as The Independent reported at the time.

“The tide has turned,” he said. “Canada is a G7 nation and one of the largest Commonwealth countries. We expect the UK and many others to follow suit in the next five years, so that they can put government, not gangsters, in control of the production and supply of cannabis.”

Luxembourg is now set to decriminalise the recreational use of cannabis, New Zealand is to hold a referendum later this year on the issue, and Bermuda has draft legislation tabled for May.

A Chinese company claims it has created a Batman-style suit that uses “bionic design principles” to protect the wearer from catching the coronavirus. Designers say ultraviolet radiation heats up to sterilise the surrounding environment and eliminate the virus before it can reach the wearer. “When we were little, we all dreamed to be a Batman,” they add.

Kid's prank cop call exposes cannabis plants

A five-year-old's prank call to the police inadvertently revealed her mother's stash of 15 cannabis plants. After the young girl’s call, police dispatched officers to her home address. A police spokesman said: "As officers have entered the garage they've found a number of cannabis plants.”

Woman watered plastic plant daily for years

A woman has discovered a plant she's been watering for two years is fake. Caelie Wilkes watered her succulent faithfully every day but made the discovery when she tried to repot the plant. “It's completely plastic,” she wrote on Facebook. “How did I not know this. I feel like these last two years have been a lie.”

––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––– For more outlandish tales and news to make you smile, sign up for our new Tall Tales email at theweek.co.uk/sign-up-for-the-tall-tales-email. –––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––

Ian Hamilton, Associate Professor, Addiction and Mental Health, University of York and Harry Sumnall, Professor in Substance Use, Liverpool John Moores University, discuss the future of cannabis legalisation in an article originally written for The Conversation.

The Conservative government abruptly and unexpectedly lifted restrictions on medicinal cannabis in 2018. This is viewed by some as a necessary prelude to a more liberal approach to recreational drug use. Certainly, recent opinion polls suggest the British public support legalisation - even if they are unsure of Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s views on this.

Predicting what will happen with drug policy is difficult, but here are three reasons a shift in cannabis policy could well happen.

1. Voter appeal

Such a shift would appeal to younger voters, while not necessarily riling traditional (and new) Conservative supporters. Tailoring a message to these differing groups is something Dominic Cummings has proved to be adept at. Health-orientated responses to drugs tend to be better supported by younger people. In contrast, criminal justice is the priority for older people and those who identify as being politically conservative.

One of Johnson’s key crime and justice advisers, Blair Gibbs, has worked with prominent UK cannabis policy reform groups. This brings specialist insights into the framing of cannabis policy proposals and the potential impacts of legal change.

There is growing public concern about the harms of county lines, where gangs expand their drug dealing activity from urban to rural areas. There is also concern about modern slavery and the exploitation of trafficked growers. While the reality doesn’t always match the headlines, it’s clear that these are issues that ministers see as a priority and ones the public care about.

New modern slavery powers have been introduced that are designed to tackle the domestic and international trafficking of vulnerable people in the drugs trade. A legally regulated domestic cannabis market could disrupt both gangs and traffickers and undermine their operations.

A strategy that permits adult recreational use that is “sold” to the public through protection of the health of the vulnerable but still shows toughness towards other types of drug use, might bridge this generational divide.

2. Mental health benefits

The Conservatives have already promised to treat mental health with the same urgency as physical health. We could go some way to protect the population by limiting the THC content of cannabis. Regulation could also limit contaminants or pesticides that consumers are exposed to in cannabis products. We should learn from the way that American states have tried to regulate access to cannabis, some appear to have little influence on the strength of cannabis products or prevent other public safety issues such as drug driving.

3. Tax revenues

The potential for raising tax revenue and making investors and party donors rich may be the most compelling attraction for regulation. States in the US that have legalised cannabis have raised hundreds of millions of dollars. But caution is warranted because tax receipts haven’t always matched optimistic projections, and we may be seeing a burst of the cannabis investment bubble.

This tax revenue is often pledged to fund specialist drug treatment, something governments should be doing anyway. Relying on overly optimistic tax revenue projections adds to the fragility of these services. And as we saw with sugar tax revenue, unless the money is protected, the danger is that it is just absorbed by the Treasury.

While we might not be able to predict the speed and nature of cannabis policy change, new approaches must be informed by lessons learned from the regulation of the tobacco and alcohol markets. If policy does change, it’s important to prioritise public health and social justice interests, rather than just those of industry.

We also need to ensure that smaller growers and distributors have equitable access to any new market - not concentration of industry populated by the already rich and privileged. But if the history of alcohol and tobacco regulation is repeated for cannabis, then perhaps money rather than evidence will shape who sells and who benefits from policy change.

Ian Hamilton, Associate Professor, Addiction and Mental Health, University of York and Harry Sumnall, Professor in Substance Use, Liverpool John Moores University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

The Week’s daily round-up highlights the five best opinion pieces from across the British and international media, with excerpts from each.

1. Dominic Lawson in the Daily Mail

on the royal family

For the Monarchy’s sake, the Queen was right to be ruthless with her beloved son

“It is when the Royal Family’s future becomes a General Election issue that the panic button is pushed in Buckingham Palace. Rule One is that the Crown is above politics: it cannot otherwise function as it should. There is no room for complacency on this point. A YouGov poll last week, asking the public the question ‘Should the monarchy survive?’ received the support of 63 per cent. Pensioners were 82% in support, but only 41% of the 18-24 group were in favour of its continuation. In an age of decreasing deference, that is unsurprising. But it demonstrates the long-term challenge to an institution which can survive only as a unifying force. It is a peculiarity of the Royal Family that, because it has the ultimate status, it has nothing to gain, but everything to lose. That means (although Andrew may be the unfortunate exception) it is never greedy, but always fearful.”

2. Stephen Bush in the New Statesman

on the Tories’ election promises

Manifesto Destiny

“Safety first is the message that the Tories want the media to repeat and voters to take from the manifesto. But this isn’t a safety first manifesto – it is, albeit in a very different way, every bit as transformative a programme as Labour’s, but where Labour think their interests are best served by talking up how radical they are, the Conservatives think their aims are better served by stealth. Are they right? Well, if the polls are even close to accurate, yes. But in office, something is going to have to give here and while Theresa May showed that there are risks in writing a manifesto and forgetting the voters, Boris Johnson might, like David Cameron before him, live to regret neglecting the question of what happens after.”

3. Tim Stanley in The Daily Telegraph

on public spending

The Tories have conceded too much to Labour

“My greatest worry [is] that by trying to echo Labour’s language on spending, the Tories validate Labour’s direction of travel, if not its destination. If there is to be a national consensus that the UK needs to spend a whole lot more, then all it takes is for Labour to replace Jeremy Corbyn with someone more attractive and it could easily win an election by outbidding the Tories.”

–––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––For a weekly round-up of the best articles and columns from the UK and abroad, try The Week magazine. Start your trial subscription today –––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––

4. John Rentoul in The Independent

on covering the election

Corbyn is right to be neutral on Brexit – because he wants to change the subject

“Projecting an enthusiasm deficit onto the electorate is part of a larger mistake that we journalists often make. Our problem is that we have been writing about the arguments of this election for months, and the debate about Brexit has been soul-drainingly intense for a whole year now. Yet it is only now, with less than three weeks to go until polling day, and with postal ballots about to arrive, that most normal people start to pay close attention to politics. This means that not only is there an enthusiasm gap between voters and journalists, but there is an agenda gap too, in that journalists regard the finer points of Labour’s Brexit policy or Tory NHS spending plans as old news at just the time when many voters want to know more about them.”

5. Clare Foges in The Times

on drugs

Legalisation of cannabis is a fool’s crusade

“If you are against the legalisation of cannabis, you are automatically cast as defender of the status quo, which is a difficult role to play. Those who point out that ‘the war on drugs’ isn’t working are right. But then neither is ‘the war on violent crime’, ‘the war on domestic abuse’, or ‘the war on burglary’. Failing to stop these other crimes would never be seen as a reason to down weapons and admit defeat, and yet this is what many propose we do on drugs.”

I remember visiting London when I was in my early teens and being struck by how many people wore the same rubber-toed trainers. Those trainers were Converse, and despite this being only around 16 years ago, I’d never seen them before. Ever since then I’ve been fascinated by how long it takes certain fashions and trends to make their way 250 miles north to my provincial hometown, admittedly not a bastion of culture, but still, an interesting benchmark.

Harrogate, a historically conservative spa town, isn’t far from Darlington, so when I heard that the town’s Rudding Park Hotel & Spa was offering “CBD experiences”, I was taken aback for two reasons. Firstly, there are only a handful of spas and clinics that offer these treatments in the whole country; those are largely in London, and most of them can be found at Soho Houses (impressive then to find somewhere on this latitude). And secondly, just how pervasive CBD has become if it can be found in such a capacity in this unlikely corner of the country.

I’m very aware that you’ll find countless CBD products – teas, coffees, moisturisers, sweets, chocolates, oils, balms, clothing, you name it – as far north as the Shetlands. For those you only need to visit your nearest Holland & Barrett. What I didn’t expect was that someone in a genteel country house hotel in North Yorkshire might run you a CBD bath, squirt a couple of measures of CBD under your tongue, and then proceed to rub you down with CBD-infused massage oil.

“We’re always looking for something new and niche, and we try to jump on any new wellness trends,” says Rudding Park Spa’s manager, Sarah Johnson. More reassuringly she adds, “We currently work with the National School of Healthcare Science so we’re very aware of the benefits: managing anxiety, reducing chronic pain, balancing inflammation, improving sleep, as well as helping to treat symptoms relating to Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, Epilepsy, and MS.”

Perhaps this is exactly where the difficulty with CBD lies. There’s most certainly a bandwagon that’s gained considerable momentum, and anyone in wellness, beauty, food or drink, would be well within their rights to jump on it. But is that really credible motivation?

Meanwhile, there’s more and more evidence to suggest that CBD does actually do what it says on the tin – The Harley Street Clinic for example swears by Maripharm CBD, the same oil used at Rudding Park – yet it still gets branded “snake oil” almost as often as it does a “miracle cure”.

Either way, in Harrogate it’s definitely caught on. Johnson tells me they do approximately half a dozen CBD spa treatments a day, and their CBD Meetings – corporate get togethers furnished with CBD tea, chocolate and the customary squirt under the tongue – are particularly popular. I imagine Rudding House could be the only place in the country to offer this unusual facility. It’s probably not every CEO’s cup of tea.

So with conjecture this rife, the only thing to do was to see for myself. The Friday afternoon drive from London to Harrogate was long enough to leave a couple of convenient little knots in my back that during my pre-treatment consultation we decided it would be useful to focus on. Those and a lingering ankle injury I wasn’t too hopeful about helping.

As my therapist squirted CBD oil under my tongue and wrapped my hands in a hot towel – also infused with CBD – she explained how the vitamin E in the oil has great anti-aging properties that would give my skin incredible elasticity, and how the thermal detox wrap she was about to give me was a “circulation-boosting body tonic”. I have to admit, I was already feeling particularly relaxed, but then I had spent the morning leisurely sweating, showering and sipping my way around the hotel’s state-of-the-art rooftop spa.

After a CBD foot scrub and invigorating body brush (intended to shed dead skin cells before the nourishing mask), it was on to the thermal wrap; a head to toe massage using Elemis Cellutox oil infused with, you guessed it, CBD, on a heated bed. I was then wrapped in plastic to help the mask soak in. By this point I was extremely relaxed, and any anxieties about the whole trip being a self-indulgent waste of time were long gone.

But then I got to thinking, even if this massage didn’t have the CBD infusion it would still be the most relaxing thing I’d done all day. How much is it the cannabinoid, and how much is it the combination of the massage, the soothing soundtrack and that huge breakfast? Accurately ascribing any accentuated relaxation is like sitting in the sauna counting beads of sweat when you’re already wet.

What it boils down to is you’re not really in a position to decide whether CBD works unless you do suffer from anxiety, or chronic pain or a degenerative disease; in which case you can actually measure the effects. For that reason, I admit, I might not have been the best writer for this review. But then again, how could I resist?

After my treatment I’m given a cup of CBD tea, a couple of CBD chocolates and a bottle of Love Hemp Water – that’s CBD infused spring water, by the way. What next? What, if anything, is beyond CBD?

It might not have fixed my ankle, but my niggly back was as good as new. And I slept like a baby that night. That for me was enough.

Rudding Park Hotel and Spa, Rudding Ln, Follifoot, Harrogate HG3 1JH;

Book now by phoning 01423 844822 or visiting https://www.ruddingpark.co.uk/

Medicines derived from the cannabis plant are to be made available to patients on the NHS for the first time.

The move comes after the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (Nice) approved two new products containing cannabis extracts.

Which drugs have been approved?

Epidyolex, a medicine made with cannabis oil, or cannabidiol (CBD), has been approved for the treatment of two rare types of severe epilepsy.

According to the BBC, doctors will now be able to prescribe Epidyolex for children over the age of two who suffer from either Lennox Gastaut syndrome and Dravet syndrome, which can cause “multiple seizures a day”. An estimated 3,000 people in England have Dravet, while 5,000 have Lennox Gastaut syndrome.

The broadcaster reports that clinical trials have shown the oral solution “could reduce the number of seizures by up to 40% in some children”. Epidyolex was approved for use in Europe in September, but Nice initially ruled that it not sufficient value for money.

The drug costs between £5,000 and £10,000 per patient each year, but its manufacturer, GW Pharmaceuticals, has agreed a lower discounted price with the NHS.

The other newly approved drug is Sativex, a mouth spray containing both CBD and tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), the main psychoactive ingredient in cannabis.

The spray has been approved by Nice for the treatment of symptoms relating to multiple sclerosis (MS), including muscle stiffness and spasms, but “doctors will not be allowed to prescribe it to treat pain”, says the BBC.

Both medicines were developed in the UK, where they are also grown.

–––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––For a round-up of the most important stories from around the world - and a concise, refreshing and balanced take on the week’s news agenda - try The Week magazine. Get your first six issues for £6–––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––

What about patients with other conditions?

Some campaigners have criticised the scope of the new Nice guidelines, which state that both medicines will be ineligible for prescription to treat other medical conditions. And only a limited number of doctors in the UK will be able to prescribe Epidyolex or Sativex to patients.

The Guardian reports that charities say “thousands of other people who could benefit from cannabis-based medicines” have been left “in limbo”.

Experts and activists fighting for the legalisation of cannabis have voiced disappointment after Nice claimed there was not enough evidence to support about the use of THC to manage chronic pain.

The drug watchdog also said more research was needed into the use of cannabis-based medicines to treat forms of epilepsy other than Lennox-Gastaut and Dravet.

Charities had “hoped that the drug would become widely available after it was decriminalised for medical use by Sajid Javid last November”, The Telegraph reports. Up to 1.4 million people in the UK are thought to use cannabis to treat health conditions and chronic pain, adds the Daily Mirror.

Millie Hinton, from campaign group End Our Pain, has criticised the new guideline as a “massive missed opportunity” by Nice.

“It is particularly devastating that there is no positive recommendation that the NHS should allow prescribing of whole plant medical cannabis containing both CBD and THC in appropriate cases of intractable childhood epilepsy,” she said.

“It is this kind of whole plant extract that has been shown to be life-transforming for a significant number of children, including those involved in the high-profile cases of last year which led to medical cannabis being legalised.”

Up to 20,000 patients are to be given medicinal cannabis in the first large-scale clinical trial of the drug.

Project Twenty21, which will measure the drug’s impact on seven medical conditions, will subsidise cannabis for thousands of patients by the end of 2021, and is backed by the Royal College of Psychiatrists.

The trial is aiming to “create the largest body of evidence on medical cannabis in Europe”, according to The Guardian, with the hope that it will convince policymakers that “the drug should be made as widely available, and affordable, as other approved prescription medications”.

It will study the drug’s effects on patients who have either chronic pain, epilepsy, multiple sclerosis, post-traumatic stress disorder, Tourette’s syndrome, anxiety disorder or who have had a history of substance misuse. Across the UK, 28 million people are estimated to suffer from chronic pain.

What is the law on medicinal cannabis in the UK?

Although medical cannabis was legalised in the UK a year ago, it remains unobtainable for many patients, according to campaigners.

Since legalisation, NHS doctors have rarely prescribed the drug because of “a lack of evidence about its efficacy”, according to the Guardian.

“There are also fears it is being over-hyped by a nascent industry focused on maximising profit,” the newspaper adds.

Sky News reports that medical authorities have said that there is only a “paucity of evidence” that medicinal cannabis works.

This means that the only option for patients is to “source cannabis illegally, and risk prosecution, or pay for a private prescription of the drug”, Sky News says.

The BBC reports that one family from Cardiff pays around £4,000 a month for medicinal cannabis, as it is not available to them on the NHS. The drug is used to treat their 17-year-old son who has a rare form of epilepsy.

What is the reaction to the trial?

Sky News reports that while the trial is the largest of its kind, it will have to overcome “medical scepticism”, after the clinical watchdog NICE said that cannabis should not be prescribed for a range of conditions, including chronic pain.

However, Professor David Nutt of the organisation Drug Science, the charity running the trial, said that cannabis can be “life-saving” in certain cases, for example severe childhood epilepsy.

–––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––For a round-up of the most important stories from around the world - and a concise, refreshing and balanced take on the week’s news agenda - try The Week magazine. Get your first six issues free–––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––

Nutt said: “I believe cannabis is going to be the most important innovation in medicine for the rest of my life.

“There are children who have died in this country in the last couple of years because they haven’t had access to cannabis. It’s outrageous, it’s unnecessary and we want to rectify it.”

Nutt is a former government adviser and has worked on the misuse of drugs in the Ministry of Defence, Department of Health and the Home Office.

He was dismissed from his post as a government adviser in 2009, after the publication of a pamphlet that contained elements of a lecture he had given on the relative harm caused by illicit drugs.

Using medicinal cannabis to treat people with mental health issues cannot be justified because there is little evidence that it works or is safe, according to a major new study.

The authors of the report, published in Lancet Psychiatry, analysed the results of a total of 83 trials dating back 40 years into the effects of medicinal cannabinoids on patients with conditions including depression, anxiety, attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), Tourette syndrome, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and psychosis.

The team of researchers, from Australia, concluded that evidence of a positive effect was rare. And THC, one of the derivatives of cannabis, was found to made people with psychosis worse, The Guardian reports.

The study authors say “a large body of research” suggests that cannabis use “can increase the occurrence of depression, anxiety, and psychotic symptom”.

“Further high-quality studies directly examining the effect of cannabinoids on treating mental disorders are needed,” they add.

–––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––For a round-up of the most important stories from around the world - and a concise, refreshing and balanced take on the week’s news agenda - try The Week magazine. Get your first six issues for £6–––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––

As Time magazine points out, the news comes as marijuana is “more mainstream than it’s ever been” with a growing number of US states “legalising it medicinally and recreationally”, millions of people “vaping products that contain the compound THC”, and non-psychoactive CBD “in everything from beauty products to seltzer water”.

In an article in Lancet Psychiatry commenting on the findings, psychiatry professor Dr Deepak Cyril D’Souza of Yale University School of Medicine argues that “in light of the paucity of evidence, the absence of good quality evidence for efficacy, and the known risk of cannabinoids, their use as treatments for psychiatric disorders cannot be justified at present”.

Earlier this year, new research connected marijuana use among teenagers to depression and suicide in early adulthood. Researchers found that “the odds of attempting suicide were almost 3.5 times worse among those who used cannabis before the age of 18 than those who did not,” according to The Guardian.

A group of metal detectorists were hospitalised after unwittingly eating cakes apparently spiked with cannabis. Thirteen men and women were taken ill at an event in a village near Doncaster called High Melton. Julian Evan-Hart, editor of Treasure Hunting Magazine, said it was a “dreadful incident”.

Man offers advertising space on his forehead...

A man in Birmingham is offering advertising space on his forehead. Tony O’Rourke, from Erdington, made the offer on the Gumtree website. The 25-year-old said the price is “negotiable” but insisted that he won’t take less than £200.

... as porn site offers town of Dildo free advertising

In other advertising news, a porn website has written to Dildo, a town in Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada, offering $100,000 worth of free ad space on its homepage to promote tourism in the curiously named town. “We hope Dildo’s Tourism Department accepts our offer soon,” read the letter from the YouPorn site.

For more outlandish tales in ‘It must be true… I read it in the tabloids’ - and a concise, refreshing and balanced take on what really matters - try The Week magazine. Get your first six issues free

Building cannabis factories in neglected British towns could provide a solution to unemployment in deprived areas, a former Conservative justice minister has said.

Jonathan Djanogly, who served as the under-secretary of state for justice under David Cameron, pointed to towns in Canada with declining manufacturing industries, now flourishing as hubs for the cannabis industry.

Djanogly recently travelled to the North American country on a research trip to explore the possibility of legalisation in the UK. His visit is the subject of the BBC Radio 1 Newsbeat documentary Legalising Weed - Canada’s Story, broadcast yesterday.

Canada legalised the recreational use of cannabis last October, having permitted it for medical purposes in 2001. Under the new law, an individual aged over 18 is allowed to possess up to 30 grams, own up to four cannabis plants, and buy from a licensed retailer, Djanogly writes on news site CAPX.

During his time in Canada, Djanogly visited a “post-industrial town” where a cannabis factory had opened, he told The Daily Telegraph. “[The Mayor said], ‘Look, this has provided us with jobs, and better jobs than we had before’.”

Legalising and regulating cannabis is, he continued, “easier said than done”, and regulations would need to be put in place to avoid user risk. Moreover, as he wrote on CAPX, nine months after legalisation in Canada, an estimated “60% of recreational cannabis is still sold illegally”.

Nonetheless, Djanogly suggests that the industry could provide the UK with a solution to unemployment in northern post-industrial cities, writing that experts told him that the “teething problems” in Canada would be “ironed out over the coming years”.

“There have been significant economic benefits to Canada, where the contribution of legal cannabis to GDP is 0.4% and rising”, he concludes in his piece for CAPX. According to forecasts by the Toronto-Dominion Bank, meanwhile, legislating cannabis may have boosted the country's economy by as much as C$8bn (£5bn), says Bloomberg.

A report from the UN’s International Narcotics Control Board (INCB), cited in The Telegraph last year, noted that Britain is already the world’s largest producer of legal cannabis. In 2016, it produced 95 tonnes of marijuana for medical and scientific use, and now accounts for 44.9% of the world’s cannabis production. Canada, said the report, was the second largest producer.

Djanogly says that when it comes to the drug, British law is “out of kilter with reality”. He added that in his own constitency, he has been told, “more young people are now smoking cannabis than tobacco.”

Several UK medical bodies - including the Royal College of Physicians of London, the Faculty of Public Health, and the Royal Society for Public Health - now support decriminalisation, reports the BMJ.

Sir Norman Lamb and David Lammy also joined on the research trip, which was organised by Volteface drugs think tank, reports The Telegraph.

“I want the market legalised and regulated, taken away from criminal gangs, young people not criminalised by use and properly educated”, Parliament Member Lammy said. “But I want to see the strength of the stuff reduced, labelled and properly organised in our country.”

Liberal Democrat politician Lamb added that there is still a debate around the impacts of cannabis on users' mental health.

“I would have a cap on potency if legalised in the UK”, he said.

All three of the politicians said they expect cannabis to be legalised in the UK within the next decade, reports The Telegraph.

But “the Tories oppose legalising weed unlike Labour, which has championed legalisation for decades. The Lib Dems now also want medical and recreational cannabis legalised”, International Business Times reports.

The Home Office has repeatedly stated that it has no intention to legalise cannabis for recreational use.

The Week’s daily round-up highlights the five best opinion pieces from across the British and international media, with excerpts from each.

1. Rafael Behr in The Guardian

on Jeremy Corbyn

Corbynism’s greatest liability is now Jeremy Corbyn himself

“Brexit is degrading the Corbyn brand at a rate that alarms ideological devotees. It has been disorienting for many Labour supporters that the leader, normally quick on the draw with a megaphone, refuses to broadcast pro-European resistance. He sounds tongue-tied on the subject and looks like a man hiding from battle, which undermines the image of a candid crusader. When the hero no longer embodies principles on which his movement was founded, the whole edifice wobbles. The attention of young idealists drifts; affection turns conditional; benefit of the doubt is withdrawn.”

2. Con Coughlin in the Daily Telegraph

On the diplomatic challenges facing the Tory leadership hopefuls

Can we trust either of our potential prime ministers with the nuclear codes?

“Much of the criticism concerning Boris Johnson’s tenure in King Charles Street has centred on his handling of the case of Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, the British-Iranian woman jailed in Iran on false spying allegations. Her supporters claim her plight has been made worse by Mr Johnson’s suggestion that she had taught journalism in Iran prior to her arrest, an activity guaranteed to attract the ayatollahs’ ire. Mr Johnson has vigorously defended his corner, pointing out that it is the Iranian authorities, not him, who are ultimately responsible for Mrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe’s incarceration. Nevertheless, the suggestion that Mr Johnson misspoke when commenting on the case has raised questions about his judgment when handling delicate diplomatic issues. In times of crisis, the country cannot afford to have a leader with their finger on the nuclear trigger who has misread the situation.”

3. Angelica Malin in The Independent

On the gender pay gap

‘Rapid and real change’? The BBC’s pay gap shows women in the media are still underappreciated

“The BBC sets the tone for all media companies in the UK. So long as there is a gender imbalance at the BBC, the message is clear: gender inequality is acceptable. But that also means that achieving gender parity at the Beeb will go a long way to driving gender parity elsewhere. And by placing a greater emphasis on women at the BBC, and on their potential to be role models for others, they will encourage a flow of women towards higher and higher positions.”

4. Gideon Rachman in the Financial Times

On how environmental policy has become a battle ground in the culture wars

The perilous politics of climate change

“All this public attention suggests that putting climate change at the heart of their political programmes is not just a moral imperative for the left. It could also be smart politics. But there are warning signs that show how this could backfire. The urban riots that shook France in recent months had their origins in the government’s decision to raise fuel taxes. President Emmanuel Macron saw this as a vital step in the battle to save the planet. The gilets jaunes demonstrators saw it as an assault on the living standards and lifestyles of rural and small-town France.”

5. Alice Thomson in The Times

On drug reform

Only fools rush in to cannabis legalisation

“It is businesses that are pushing the weed agenda hardest because they are keen to replace the dealers. They will be equally determined to get as much of the population (legally) hooked as possible. For them it’s just a lucrative new market. But there’s no rush. We should wait to see the long-term results in Canada and Colorado before we start enabling people to order a spliff with their takeaway pizzas.”

The Oxford English Dictionary, widely regarded as the most important dictionary in the English language, added more than 650 words to its compilation this month.

According to OED senior assistant editor Jonathan Dent, “each new and revised entry has been painstakingly researched, and at no point have our editors simply mailed it in”.

Updates include the revival of words that have come back into use, from Old English vocabulary to those first recorded a decade ago. User-submitted appeals have also been taken into account, including ones derived from the online campaigns #wordwhereyouare, calling for regional vocabulary additions, and #hobbywords for those related to particular pastimes.

Some of the most noteworthy additions are influenced by the ways in which the world is changing today.

Gender-related changes

A number of gender-neutral and inclusive pronouns have been added. The new words “zir”, “hir” and “peoplekind” were all created as alternatives for traditional male or female pronouns.

“Latin@”, which uses the @ symbol to represent the letters a and o, and “Latinx”, symbolising an unknown or undetermined ending, were also added. Both words are used as gender-neutral alternatives to the adjective Latino/Latina.

Cannabis vocab in the era of legalisation

Words related to the cannabis industry have also been added, including “cannabis edibles” and “cannabutter”, the mixture of butter and cannabis that is used to make them. “Cannabusiness” refers to “the production and sale of cannabis or cannabis-related products”, which is on the rise in countries around the world, according to Forbes.

Cocktails now on the menu

Drinks such as the crème de menthe, crème de cacao and plain old cream mixture known as a “grasshopper cocktail” and this summer’s favourite “Aperol spritz” can now be found in the OED. There are also new words related to drinks: “spritzy” (bubbly) and “skunked” (beer that is smelly and spoiled after being exposed to too much light).

Recognition for furry friends

Pedigree dog breeds are no longer the only pooches recognised in the OED. Owing to the growing popularity of dogs who are parented by two pedigree animals, a few common cross-breeds have been added: “puggle”, a mixture between a pug and beagle; “maltipoo”, half Maltese terrier and half toy poodle; and “dorgis”, a dachshund/corgi mix, all gained entries.

Body parts are in the book

Body parts have also made the OED – “though you may need to use the following words with caution as they might get you into trouble”, says Metro. “Bawbag”, meaning scrotum; “bosie”, meaning breast; and the less crude but equally unusual “geggie”, meaning mouth, have all been added to reflect the evolution of the English language.

People who use high-strength cannabis may be at increased risk of developing serious mental health issues, according to new research.

The study, outlined in a paper in The Lancet Psychiatry journal, found that an estimated one in ten new cases of psychosis may be associated with strong cannabis.

And “in London and Amsterdam, where most of the cannabis that is sold is very strong, the risk could be much more”, reports the BBC.

The researchers, who looked at data from 11 European cities and towns, estimated that 30% of first-time cases of psychotic disorders in London, and half of those in Amsterdam, could be avoided if high-potency cannabis was not available.

The findings back up those of other experts who “have previously flagged a link between cannabis use and psychosis, particularly among vulnerable people with heavy use of the drug”, says The Guardian.

“If you are a psychologist like me who works in this catchment area and sees first-episode psychosis patients, this has a significant impact at the level of services and, I would also argue, family and society,” said Dr Marta Di Forti, lead author of the new study, from King’s College London.

“If you decide to use high-potency cannabis bear in mind there is this potential risk,” she added.

High-strength cannabis, such as that known as “skunk”, has levels of the psychoactive substance tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) above 10%. According to data released last year, 94% of police cannabis seizures in the UK were of high-strength varieties.

The new study found that daily cannabis users in Amsterdam were seven times more likely to develop a psychotic disorder than people who had never used the drug. “Almost all cannabis sold in ‘coffee shops’ in Amsterdam is high-strength, while varieties with 67% THC have been found in the Netherlands,” notes The Guardian.

Study-co-author Professor Robin Murray said the research had implications for the debate on whether cannabis should be legalised.

“If you are going to legalise cannabis, unless you want to pay for more a lot more psychiatric beds and a lot more psychiatrists, then you need to devise a system where you would legalise in a way that wouldn’t increase the consumption and increase the potency,” he said.

A US police department is facing criticism from the public after video footage emerged showing officers searching a terminal cancer patient’s hospital room for marijuana.

In a confrontation streamed to Facebook Live, two police officers are seen entering Nolan Sousley’s room at Citizens Memorial Hospital in Bolivar, Missouri.Sousley was diagnosed with stage four pancreatic cancer - which has a five-year survival rate of just 1% - in May 2018, and “takes cannabis to manage his pain as he approaches the end of his life”, says the Springfield News-Leader.

Police were called after a hospital security guard reported smelling marijuana.

“There is no way they could smell it, because I don’t smoke it,” Sousley is heard telling the officers. “I don’t ever use ground-up plant.

“I had some capsules that had some THC oil in them. I took them outside in the parking lot.”

The police then proceed to search through his bags. One tells Sousley: “If we find marijuana we’ll give you a citation... We’re not taking you down to the county jail.”

Missouri residents voted to legalise the use of marijuana for medical purpose in November, but lawmakers are still working on the new legislation, which is due to come into effect by 4 June.

When Sousley mentions the legalisation vote, an officer replies: “It’s still illegal.”

“But I don’t have time to wait for that,” Sousley says.

Police found legal CBD oil but no marijuana in the room, and no further action was taken, Time reports.

The video has been viewed more than 800,000 times and the post was flooded with comments, the overwhelming majority of them supportive of Sousley and critical of the perceived heavy-handedness of the police.

The department’s receptionist “said she’d been ‘called every name in the book’ by irate callers since the search”, reports the Kansas City Star.

However, Bolivar police chief Mark Webb said that officers had followed procedure and obtained proper consent to search the room, and that the department has no plans to investigate the incident.

In a follow-up video, Sousley said that he felt violated by the search. “Politicians should stop trying to limit our right to use cannabis and its derivatives,” he said. “There are many issues that are demanding the attention of politicians. This is not one of them.”

CBD oil has entered the mainstream in recent years, bringing with it zealous advocates and dismissive sceptics.

Also known as Cannabidiol, CBD is found in the cannabis plant. But unlike THC - the ingredient that makes cannabis users high - CBD has no psychoactive effect.

Instead, it is used by people who want to manage conditions like chronic pain, PTSD and epilepsy. The substance is also being trialled to see if it can help with anxiety and arthritis.

CBD can now be found in a range of products in high street stores, from vape liquid to “sweets, creams and even sexual lubricants”, says ITV News.

The number of people using CBD oil, also known as cannabidiol, in the UK alone is estimated to stand at around 1.3m. As GQ magazine says, “thanks to a brand reimagining and increased medical research”, the naturally occurring compound has “gone from dangerous to desirable”.

Advocates of CBD oil say it can relieve chronic pain and inflammation, depression and insomnia, among other conditions. But others say its benefits are oversold and unproven, while many others are confused over its legal status.

Here's what you need to know:

What is CBD oil?

Cannabis plants are made up of more than 100 different cannabinoids, chemical compounds that act on cannabinoid receptors in cells that alter neurotransmitter release in the human brain. These have different impacts on the body and are concentrated to different extents in certain parts of the plant, the BBC reports.

The most well known of the compounds are tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) and cannabidiol (CBD).

In the UK, it is possible to get a prescription for oil made from CBD because it won’t get users “high”. By contrast, THC is a psychoactive chemical and is a controlled substance under the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971.

Why and how is it used?

A 2017 report by the World Health Organisation (WHO) found that CBD could provide relief for a variety of debilitating conditions including Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s, multiple sclerosis, cancer and diabetic complications, as well as general pain, anxiety and depression.

“There isn't enough evidence to say that the oil definitely does help with these things, nor that simply cramming some in a milkshake will do the slightest bit of good, just that doctors are optimistic about their research,” says lifestyle magazine The Street.

One recent study has also now linked CBD oil to healthy weight loss. The research, published in the journal Molecular and Cellular Biochemistry, linked the drug to three causes of “fat browning”, which turns the dangerous white fat associated with obesity and diabetes into hard-working brown fat cells. These actively aid weight loss by burning extra calories through thermogenesis, your body’s heat-production process.

What’s more, CBD “reduces the expression of proteins involved in creating new fat cells, and it boosts the number of mitochondria in your brown fat cells”, says Men’s Health. This could further increase their fat-stripping power, the scientists suggest.

However, it is important to note that licences for CBD oil as a medicine have not been granted yet, and manufacturers cannot make claims about their alleged medical benefits.

CBD oil can be used in a number of different ways, says health information site Verywell. “You can smoke it (typically in vape pens), take it in capsule form, use it sublingually (under the tongue), use oral sprays or drops, or apply it topically to your skin,” the site explains.

Gels and rubs aimed at athletes are available in shops, while pensioners are using the products in the hope of alleviating arthritis.

“A crystalline form of pure CBD is also available, and it’s generally taken sublingually.”

CBD is available in a range of products sold on the high street and online, including creams, oils, tinctures and edible treats such as gummy sweets. There are even CBD-infused pillowcases and yoga classes offering CBD-assisted guided meditation.

The medical effects of CBD aside, “in many cases, the industry is taking consumers for a ride”, says Mike Power in The Guardian. He cites lab tests commissioned by the think tank Centre for Medicinal Cannabis (CMC) which analysed high-street offerings and found that more than half of the most popular CBD oils sold do not contain the level of CBD promised on the label.

Yet market research by the CMC estimates that the CBD market in the UK could be worth almost £1bn a year by 2025, “equivalent in size to the current entire UK herbal supplement market”, writes Power.

Ultimately, says ITV News, there’s a big difference between CBD you are given by a healthcare professional, and the less regulated CBD oil you can get on the high street.

CBD available in shops is often of lower quality and far lower strength than the oil used in clinical trials.

According to the British Medical Journal (BMJ), high street products contain roughly 25mg CBD, compared to the 150-1,500mg/day that users are given in clinical trials, says ITV.

But is it legal?

As Business Matters notes, there is currently “a great deal of confusion around CBD oil UK law”, with the vast majority of cannabinoids listed as controlled substances under the Misuse of Drugs Act.

However, CBD is an exception and is completely legal in the UK, “provided it has been derived from an industrial hemp strain that is EU-approved”, or comes from outside the EU.

For CBD oil to be legal in the UK, it must contain no THC. Cannabis oil, which has THC content, is not usually allowed in the UK.

There is an exemption to this rule, the BBC reports. Sativex, a 50-50 mix of THC and CBD produced in a lab, has been approved for use in the UK as a treatment for multiple sclerosis.

And specialist clinicians are allowed to prescribe other cannabis-derived medicinal products under changes to the law that came into force in November.

However, medicinal cannabis is currently unlicensed - so it can only be prescribed if a patient has a need that cannot be met by licensed medicines.

One of the arguments against the use of the medication “is that there have not been satisfactory drug trials to prove its safety and effectiveness”, reports the BBC’s Debbie Jackson.

In The Guardian, Mike Power writes: “There is now no denying the medicinal value of CBD and THC – not even by the British government, which for years maintained that lie even as it rubber-stamped the cultivation and export of the world’s largest medicinal cannabis crop. But the landmark decision in November 2018 to allow UK doctors to prescribe cannabis under extremely limited circumstances, inspired by the cases of Billy Caldwell and Alfie Dingley, whose epilepsy is improved immeasurably by medicinal cannabis products containing both THC and CBD, has left many in a limbo: knowing or believing that cannabis offers a cure, yet remaining unable to access it.”

This has resulted in a number of high-profile cases of parents taking their children out of the UK in order to access treatment.

One such parent is Julie Galloway, who left Scotland with her severely ill daughter Alexa, seven, almost 12 months ago to live in the Netherlands.

“I feel like a refugee forced to live abroad to save my child,” Galloway told the BBC. “I want to come home but I am terrified the medication will be confiscated. I am struggling to pay for it and I know this can't go on forever.”

The increasing liberalisation of cannabis across the world is fuelling excitement among investors who regard the drug as the next big trend for both consumers and medicine.

In October, Canada became the second country, after Uruguay, to legalise the possession and recreational consumption of marijuana.

Canadian cannabis companies such as Canopy Growth, Tilray, Aurora and Cronos were not well known to investors at the beginning of the year, but by October their stocks were “flying high”, says financial news site InvestorPlace.

So will the green rush be the next gold rush?

What are the benefits of investing in pot stocks?

“Getting into a growing industry at an early stage is often the best route to a handsome return,” says personal finance site Love Money.

According to London-based economic think-tank the Adam Smith Institute, the global market for medicinal cannabis alone is expected to be worth £40bn by 2025.

Along with the legalisation in Canada, investment is being driven by increasing interest in the potential US market, with more than half of the country’s states having legalised cannabis for medical purposes, says the Financial Times.

Recreational use of the drug is also allowed in nine US states, and Coca-Cola is even said to be considering developing a line of cannabis-infused drinks.

The UK market looks set to thrive, too, following the relaxation of laws on medicinal cannabis, with doctors now able to prescribe cannabis-derived drugs to patients.

At least two UK manufacturers are aiming to develop cannabis-based medicines - Ananda Developments and Sativa Investments, which are both listed on the junior Nex market, according to the FT. “GW Pharmaceuticals, another British company, was previously listed on Aim but has since relisted in the US,” says the newspaper.

–––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––For a concise, refreshing and balanced take on the news agenda, delivered to your inbox, sign up to the WeekDay newsletter–––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––

What are the biggest drawbacks?

Most institutional investors are “proceeding with caution” in the US because of the illegal status of marijuana under federal law, says Yahoo! Finance.

Investors are also divided over whether the cannabis market should be lumped into the so-called sin industries, which include cigarettes and alcohol, or whether it is closer to the healthcare industry - an important debate amid an increasing push towards socially responsible investing.

Another big concern is the volatility risk. Analysts advise that investors should only buy cannabis stocks as part of a diversified portfolio, after carrying out thorough research into the relevant laws, industry and company.

Despite such provisos, many investors believe the potential rewards are worth it.

Rick Kimball, managing member of Samphire Capital Management, tells Forbes: “If you have the resources to do the research and can stomach the risk, these are the fanciest returns we’ve seen in a long time.”

Canada is running low on supplies of legal cannabis a month after laws allowing the recreational use of the drug kicked in.

According to a poll by the non-profit Angus Reid Institute, one in eight Canadians has used marijuana since it was legalised on 17 October. But with demand outstripping supply in the new regulated market, authorities fears some users may return to buying from illegal dealers.

Khurram Malik, CEO of Toronto-based cannabis company Biome Grow Inc, told Canada’s Global News that the shortages are the result of the government’s strict controls on marijuana, and the resulting time it takes for producers to develop a compliant product.

All private retailers are required to pass extensive background checks, and approved operators must order their cannabis through suppliers regulated by the provincial government.

“The rules here are so difficult to grow cannabis, quite frankly more difficult than anyone else in the world,” said Malik.

Even companies that stockpiled supplies of marijuana before it was legalised are now reporting shortages.

James Burns, CEO of Alcanna, an off-licence chain that sells the drug in the province of Alberta, told the BBC that the provincial supplier, the Alberta Gaming, Liquor and Cannabis Commission (AGLC), is out of stock on most cannabis products.

“It doesn’t matter how big you are, there’s just none there. If the government warehouse is empty, it’s empty. There’s nothing you can do,” he said.

There has been a recent global rise in “green fever”, with various jurisdictions either decriminalising or legalising cannabis.

But alongside relaxing the rules comes concern about the health implications of cannabis use. We often hear of a link between cannabis use and psychosis. So how strong is the link, and who is at risk?

What is psychosis?

There’s consistent evidence showing a relationship over time between heavy or repeated cannabis use (or those diagnosed with cannabis use disorder) and an experience of psychosis for the first time.

Psychotic disorders are severe mental health conditions. They’re characterised by a “loss of contact with reality”, where the individual loses the ability to distinguish what’s real from what’s not. Psychotic symptoms can include visual hallucinations, hearing voices, or pervasive delusional thinking.

These can often present as a “psychotic episode” – which is a relatively sudden worsening of psychotic symptoms over a short time-frame, frequently resulting in hospitalisation.

The heaviest users of cannabis are around four times as likely to develop schizophrenia (a psychotic disorder that affects a person’s ability to think, feel and behave clearly) than non-users. Even the “average cannabis user” (for which the definition varies from study to study) is around twice as likely as a non-user to develop a psychotic disorder.

Furthermore, these studies found a causal link between tetrahydrocannabinol (THC - the plant chemical which elicits the “stoned” experience) and psychosis. This means the link is not coincidental, and one has actually caused the other.

Who is at risk?

People with certain gene variants seem to be at higher risk. However our understanding of these factors is still limited, and we’re unable to use genetic information alone to determine if someone will or won’t develop psychosis from cannabis use.

Those with these genetic variants who have also experienced childhood trauma, or have a paranoid personality type, are even more at-risk. So too are adolescents and young adults, who have growing brains and are at an age where schizophrenia is more likely to manifest.

The type of cannabis material being used (or the use of synthetic cannabinoids, known as “spice”) may also increase the risk of psychosis. As mentioned above, this is due to the psychological effects of the chemical THC (one of over 140 cannabinoids found in the plant).

This compound may actually mimic the presentation of psychotic symptoms, including paranoia, sensory alteration, euphoria, and hallucinations. In laboratory-based research, even healthy people may exhibit increased symptoms of psychosis when given THC compounds, with more severe effects observed in people with schizophrenia.

Many cannabis strains contain high amounts of THC, found in plant varieties such as one called “skunk”. These are popular with consumers due to the “high” it elicits. However with this goes the increased risk of paranoia, anxiety, and psychosis.

But can’t cannabis also be good for mental health?

Ironically, one compound found in cannabis may actually be beneficial in treating psychosis. In contrast to THC, a compound called cannabidiol (CBD) may provide a buffering effect to the potentially psychosis-inducing effects of THC.

This may occur in part due to its ability to partially block the same brain chemical receptor THC binds with. CBD can also inhibit the breakdown of a brain chemical called “anandamide,” which makes us feel happy. Incidentally, anandamide is also found in chocolate and is aptly named after the Sanskrit word meaning “bliss”.

CBD extracted from cannabis and used in isolation is well-tolerated with minimal psychoactive effects. In other words, it doesn’t make a person feel “high”. Some studies have found CBD is actually beneficial in improving the symptoms of schizophrenia. But one more recent study showed no difference in the effects of CBD compared to a dummy pill on symptoms of schizophrenia.

Perhaps this means CBD benefits a particular biological sub-type of schizophrenia, but we’d need further study to find out.

Would legalising make a difference?

It’s important to note most studies finding a causal link between cannabis use and psychosis examined the use of illicit cannabis, usually from unknown origins. This means the levels of THC were unrestricted, and there’s a possibility of synthetic adulterants, chemical residues, heavy metals or other toxins being present due to a lack of quality assurance practices.

In the future, it’s possible that standardised novel “medicinal cannabis” formulations (or isolated compounds) may have negligible effects on psychosis risk.

Until then though, we can safely say given the current weight of evidence, illicit cannabis use can increase the risk of an acute psychotic episode. And this subsequently may also increase the chances of developing schizophrenia. This is particularly true when high-THC strains (or synthetic versions) are used at high doses in growing adolescent brains.

Jerome Sarris, Professor of Integrative Mental Health; NICM Deputy Director, Western Sydney University and Joe Firth, Postdoctoral Research Fellow at NICM Health Research Institute, Western Sydney University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Canada has become the second nation in the world, after Uruguay, to legalise the possession and recreational consumption of cannabis, fulfilling a 2015 campaign promise by prime minister Justin Trudeau.

Trudeau made the campaign promise, arguing that century-old laws that criminalised non-medical possession and use of cannabis had been ineffective, on the basis that Canadians are among the world’s heaviest users of the drug.

The new laws, which came into effect at midnight on 17 October local time, have been introduced in order to reduce the burden of cannabis laws on the Canadian justice system.

CTV News reports that federal officials are also planning to grant pardons for any Canadian citizen convicted of past simple possession charges in relation to cannabis.

It remains illegal for any unlicensed person to sell cannabis to another person, meaning that Canadians will have to purchase the drug for their own consumption from a registered dispensary.

“Anyone found selling marijuana without a licence will face fines up to $5,000 or up to 14 years in prison,” The Guardian reports, noting that “You are, however, allowed to freely share your drugs with your friends”.

Questions remain over how law enforcement and health officials will be able to deal with the expected surge in cannabis use, in particular cases of citizens driving while under the influence of the drug.

Driving while under the influence will remain illegal throughout Canada, with anyone testing positive for THC levels of more than five nanograms per millilitre of blood facing fines of up to £585 for a first offence, up to a minimum of 120 days in jail for repeat offenders.

The BBC reports that the new laws are “not just a domestic affair”, given that global trends are “shifting away from a strict prohibition of cannabis”, meaning that “the world will be watching this national experiment in drug liberalisation”.

Coca-Cola is considering developing a line of cannabis-infused beverages, according to reports.

The company is in “serious talks” with Canadian producer Aurora Cannabis to create beverages containing cannabidiol, the non-psychoactive ingredient in marijuana, BNN Bloomberg says.

Sources told the Canadian business website that the product would be marketed as a recovery drink, designed to ease pain and inflammation, rather than one intended to get users high.

Canada is set to become the first G7 nation to legalise recreational marijuana use next month, after years of permitting it for medicinal purposes.

The soft drink giant’s “possible foray into the marijuana sector comes as beverage makers are trying to add cannabis as a trendy ingredient while their traditional businesses slow,” says Bloomberg.

Last month, Corona beer brewer Constellation Brands Inc. announced a $3.8bn increase in its stake in Canadian marijuana producer Canopy Growth Corp. It follows beer giant Molson Coors Brewing’s decision to make cannabis-infused drinks with Hydrotherapy.

But a partnership between Coke and Aurora “would mark the first entry of a major manufacturer of non-alcoholic drinks into the market,” the BBC reports.

Responding to the report, a Coca-Cola spokesperson said the company is “closely watching the growth of non-psychoactive CBD as an ingredient in functional wellness beverages around the world,” but added that “no decisions have been made” yet.

Medicinal cannabis products is available on NHS prescription for the first time ever, as groundbreaking legal changes come into effect from today.

Consultant medical professionals may prescribe products containing products containing cannabis, cannabis resin or cannabinol if they feel their patients could benefit from it, Sky News reports.

What has changed?

Previously, all cannabis products were classified as unlawful drugs, and UK patients could only access cannabis-based treatments with a special Home Office licence granted by the Home Secretary.

Cannabis-based products can now be prescribed, but only by consultant medical practitioners at hospitals, and only in a small number of cases, such as nausea caused by chemotherapy, muscle stiffness linked to multiple sclerosis, and for children with rare or severe forms of epilepsy.

New NHS guidance states that medicines containing cannabis cannot be prescribed by a GP, although they will be able to refer their patients to specialists to request prescriptions.

The new guidelines also state that cannabis products should only be made available “where there is a clinical need which cannot be met by a licensed medicine and where established treatment options have been exhausted”.

Why has it changed?

Home Secretary Sajid Javid’s decision to ease legislation on medical cannabis followed a number of high-profile cases, including that of young epilepsy sufferers Alfie Dingley and Billy Caldwell, whose conditions appeared to be eased by the drug.

Dingley’s mother, Hannah Deacon, previously travelled to Canada to procure the cannabis oil that she says controls his seizures, but was not allowed to bring it back into the UK, the BBC reports.

Deacon has welcomed the change to drug laws, saying: “I have personally seen how my son’s life has changed due to the medical cannabis he is now prescribed.”

Caldwell’s mother, Charlotte, added: “For me, what started off as a journey which was about the needs of my little boy actually turned into something, proved to be something, a lot bigger. It proved to be the needs of a nation.

“Medicinal cannabis gave me back my right as a mummy to hope, but the most important thing medicinal cannabis has done is given Billy back his right to life.”

What is the evidence for medical cannabis?

An initial review by Dame Sally Davies, the UK’s chief medical adviser, concluded there is evidence medicinal cannabis has therapeutic benefits.

The Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs, which carried out the second part of the review, ruled that doctors should be able to prescribe medicinal cannabis provided products meet safety standards.

The council recommended that cannabis-derived medicinal products be listed in Schedule 2 of the Misuse of Drugs Regulations 2001, meaning it can be administered to a patient by a doctor or dentist.

As The Independent notes, cannabis had previously been classed as a Schedule 1 drug, “meaning it was thought to have no therapeutic value but can be used for the purposes of research with a Home Office licence”.

Is this a step towards recreational legalisation?

Javid has been quick to stress that the Government’s decision was “in no way a first step to the legalisation of cannabis for recreational use”.

That means possession of the class B drug will still carry an unlimited fine and up to five years in jail, with dealers facing up to 14 years in prison.

Yet calls for complete legalisation are growing, even in the most unlikely of quarters.

In an article for The Daily Telegraph in June, former Conservative leader William Hague called for the legalisation of cannabis for recreational use. He argued that the war on the drug had been “irreversibly lost” and that a change of policy was needed.

Licensing cannabis for medical use would be a “step forward”, Hague said, before adding that the Conservatives should be as “bold” as Canada, which recently voted to legalise cannabis for recreational use.

The Lib Dems and Greens have long advocated for the full legalisation of cannabis. Shadow home secretary Diane Abbott has described the war on drugs as a failure, but ruled out a Labour government legalising cannabis.

Calls for a change to British laws on medicinal drugs are growing amid anger over the case of Billy Caldwell, a severely epileptic 12-year-old whose cannabis oil medication was confiscated by customs officers.

What happened to Billy Caldwell?

The schoolboy, from County Tyrone in Northern Ireland, suffers from a life-threatening form of epilepsy. His condition was finally brought under control after the family was given medical cannabis in the US. His local GP began prescribing it when they returned home but was then told that he could no longer issue the drug.

Billy’s mother, Charlotte, recently travelled to Canada to bring back seven bottles of cannabis oil to help her son, but these were confiscated when she landed at London Heathrow last week. Matters came to a head when Billy suffered a severe fit and was admitted to London’s Chelsea and Westminster Hospital on Friday, prompting Home Secretary Sajid Javid to issue an emergency licence to allow the cannabis treatment, based on the advice of senior clinicians. Following two doses, Billy’s health is now improving, reports The Times.

What is the medication?

The oil that Billy has been taking contains a psychoactive substance from the cannabis plant called tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), which is illegal in the UK.

The Government claims there is no medicinal value to cannabis, although it has made an exception for a drug called Sativex, licensed in the UK to treat multiple sclerosis (MS).

“Doctors could, in theory, prescribe it for other things outside of this licence, but at their own risk,” says the BBC. “MS patients prescribed Sativex, who resupply it to other people, also face prosecution.”

Another type of cannabis oil, called CBD, is legal in the UK, but contains less than 0.05% of THC.

What difference will Billy Caldwell’s case make?

The Home Office has not updated the law, but has granted a limited licence for the drug to be administered to Billy in hospital for 20 days.

However, now that the Government “has made it clear they’re willing to bend the rules for one individual, it’s impossible to justify the status quo”, says Annie Corcoran on The Independent.

Charlotte Caldwell has said she will not leave London until she has met government ministers to demand a review of the “massively outdated” laws on medicinal cannabis use.

She has the backing of Sir Mike Penning, a Tory MP leading an all-party group looking at medical cannabis. Penning has called the existing laws “bizarre and cruel” and wants a “fundamental reform” of the system, with cannabis reclassifyed as having a medicinal use.

Although a number of European countries, including Germany and the Netherlands, and almost 30 US states have legalised medicinal cannabis, critics in the UK fear it is a way to decriminalise the drug “through the back door”.

Penning insists: “Medical cannabis is a health issue, not a misuse of drugs issue. It’s about patients and relieving suffering.”

The Home Office says it is considering allowing a medical cannabis trial to treat a six-year-old boy with a rare form of epilepsy.

Alfie Dingley, from Warwickshire, suffers up to 30 seizures a day. His mother, Hannah Deacon, took him to the Netherlands this September to undergo treatment with a cannabis-based oil. This medication is said to have reduced the duration and severity of his seizures, and to have cut their frequency to “once every 27 days rather than every seven to ten days”, says Sky News.

UK officials have so far denied Alfie access to the drug, explaining that it “cannot be practically prescribed, administered or supplied to the public” since it is a banned substance in the UK. He is currently being treated with powerful steroids, which his family say are less effective and leave him at risk of long-term organ damage.

However, after meeting with Alfie’s family, ministers say they are “exploring every option”.

A Home Office spokesperson said: “The Government has a huge amount of sympathy for the rare and difficult situation that Alfie and his family are faced with.

“No decisions have been made and any proposal would need to be led by senior clinicians using sufficient and rigorous evidence.”

Possession of cannabis is currently punishable with up to five years in prison, and it “is not recognised in the UK as having any medicinal benefit”, reports the BBC. The Home Office says the drug “can only be used for research under a licence”.

Almost all of the cannabis being illegally sold in the UK is super-strength sinsemilla, otherwise known as skunk, a new study has found.

Researchers from King’s College London analysed 995 samples seized by police in Kent, Derbyshire, Merseyside, Sussex and London, the BBC reports. They found that skunk accounted for 94% of cannabis seizures in 2016, compared with 85% in 2008, and 51% in 2005.

Experts are warning of “potential mental health risks” associated with the high-potency marijuana, says Sky News. According to the most recent figures available, there were 7,545 hospital admissions in 2016-17 for “drug-related mental health and behavioural disorders” - a 12% increase from 2006-07, The Daily Telegraph reports.

Lead study author Dr Marta Di Forti, Medical Research Council clinician scientist at King’s College London, said: “In previous research we have shown that regular users of high-potency cannabis carry the highest risk for psychotic disorders, compared to those who have never used cannabis.

“The increase of high-potency cannabis on the streets poses a significant hazard to users’ mental health, and reduces their ability to choose more benign types.”

Cannabis is now the most commonly used drug in England and Wales, with 6.6% of people aged 16 to 59 - 2.2 million people - having used it in the past year, according to Home Office statistics.