The Prime Minister of Canada, Justin Trudeau, spoke out clearly in favour of legalizing marijuana during the election campaign that brought him to power on October 19. Professor Serge Brochu of University of Montreal's School of Criminology would support this policy change and has answered several questions to clarify the rational and nuance surrounding his opinion.

Q: What are the arguments in favour of legalization?

Last week, just a day after voters in Ohio rejected a constitutional amendment to legalize the recreational and medical use of marijuana, Mexico’s Supreme Court headed in a different direction: The country’s top justices concluded that national laws making it illegal to personally produce, possess, and consume marijuana violated the rights of Mexicans. The ruling itself has received considerable attention, but the rationale behind it less so.

New polls show strong support for marijuana in Florida, Ohio, and Pennsylvania ahead of next year's national elections.

Super-majorities of voters believe that medical cannabis should be legal, and most men additionally support legalizing marijuana for all adults, according to the results of a Quinnipiac University Swing State poll.

Pollsters gauged support for marijuana law reform in Florida, Ohio, and Pennsylvania.

Majority approve of legalized, regulated, taxed cannabis

Most want it licensed and sold through government agencies

TORONTO November 8th, 2015 - In a random sampling of public opinion taken by the Forum Poll™ among 1256 Canadian voters, the majority, close to 6-in-10, approve of the Liberal government’s promise to legalize, tax and regulate marijuana (59%), and this is an increase over the proportion who said they agreed marijuana should be legal in mid-August of this year (August 20 - 53%).

The government’s policy promise is especially popular with the youngest (67%), the wealthiest (66%), in Atlantic Canada (75%) and BC (68%), among Liberals (70%) and New Democrats (65%) but not so much among Conservatives (28%).

The National Council on Drug Abuse (NCDA), in partnership with the United States Embassy, has launched the Youth Ganja Awareness Programme.

The programme is a public education campaign that is geared towards discouraging ganja use among young people, particularly those between 13 and 18 years of age.

Executive Director of the NCDA, Michael Tucker, told a JIS ‘Think Tank’, on November 5, that the campaign is very important and timely, because many of the young people in Jamaica are getting into problems because of ganja use.

“Over 20 per cent of young people in Jamaica experiment with ganja…in fact, 95 per cent of the clients that we see at the NCDA are actually young people who have issues that result from the use of ganja,” he said.

Joint undercover operation busts nationwide cannabis ring.

An anesthesiologist took bribes to write false recommendations for medical cannabis for dozens of people, police said Monday, as he and with dozens of other suspects were arrested.

The chief suspect, Dr. Avraham Dotan, is a senior anesthesiologist at Wolfson Hospital in Holon. The 64-year-old doctor’s main alleged accomplice, 36-yearold Moshav Ametz resident Roi Habera, is accused of bringing him patients and brokering the deals.

Police said in court that they had already brought in 40 suspects for questioning on Monday, and that they plan to question as many as 130 people suspected of wrongfully receiving recommendations or of knowing information pertinent to the case.

The ‘General Assembly’ is the principle policy-making organ of the United Nations (UN), and the only one in which all 193 UN member states have equal representation. At the request of member states, it convenes UN General Assembly Special Sessions (UNGASS) on specific issues. There was an UNGASS on drugs in 1998 at which member states agreed on a Political Declaration on Global Drug Control.

Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto says he will open a national debate to review the country's marijuana laws ahead of a key United Nations meeting next year, following a landmark court ruling.

Speaking a few days after Mexico's Supreme Court ruled to allow four plaintiffs to grow and smoke pot recreationally in a decision that could eventually open the door to marijuana legalisation, Pena Nieto said he was not personally in favour of legalisation as it could induce people to taking harder drugs.

However, he has asked the Interior Ministry to bring together various specialists, including academics, doctors and sociologists, to debate the future of marijuana regulation in Mexico, which has suffered a decade of gruesome drug violence.

Last Wednesday, November 4th, the Mexican Supreme Court heard a case regarding whether or not individuals had a human right to use cannabis. This case began in 2013, when the Sociedad Mexicana de Autoconsumo Responsable y Tolerante (SMART), a Mexican cannabis advocacy group, petitioned the Federal Commission against Health Risks (COFEPRIS) for the legal right to cultivate, consume, and possess cannabis because it is a human right.

LIMA, Peru — “I live in a pacific way. I don’t harm anyone and they have tried to make me a criminal,” says Ernesto Paz as he exhales a thick cloud of smoke.

“They even cut off my dreadlocks by force in jail. When I asked them why, they told me, ‘Your human rights stay outside.’”

Paz, 29, is one of around 100 practicing Rastafarians in Peru. Smoking marijuana is a sacred ritual for him, his way of communing with Jah, as the religion of black liberation founded in Jamaica calls God.

He is taking a landmark case to Peru’s Supreme Court, one that could establish the right of Rastas and other cannabis users here to grow their own pot.