Trials for medical marijuana should be encouraged despite "prejudice" from the medical profession, Associate Health Minister Peter Dunne says.

The debate over medical marijuana has sparked up after the Australian government announced a licensing scheme to allow the cultivation of cannabis for medical trial purposes this month.

And Mr Dunne says New Zealand was "highly likely" to follow suit if the trial products were approved.

He told TVNZ's Q + A programme it would be "very, very good" to get clinical trials in New Zealand.

"I do think there is a bit of prejudice there in the medical profession.

"At the moment we've got a lot of very general talk, we talk about medical cannabis - actually there's no such thing. There's medical cannabis products.

The current push to legalize marijuana is wrong-headed and dangerous, says a Canadian group that calls it a "human rights issue."

SAM Canada, the Canadian chapter of Smart Approaches to Marijuana, is looking to push back on the pro-marijuana crowd, founder Pamela McColl told the Sun.

McColl said the legalization, currently in talks, would be normalizing the use of marijuana instead of "dampening" its consumption.

"We consider it to be a public health risk, especially to children ... This is a human rights issue."

She added there hasn't been enough conversation between Canadians on marijuana use. It would have negative effects on productivity, educational system and health, McColl added.

Prime Minister-designate Justin Trudeau has promised to move to legalize marijuana possession/consumption, but has expressed reservations about cannabis being available at corner stores.

What has the U.S. experience of legalizing marijuana in Colorado and Washington state been and what would the executive director of the largest pro-marijuana legalizing organization in the U.S. (and Canada) recommend as the steps to take in the legalizing process?

Roy’s guest is Allen St. Pierre. He is the Executive director of NORML (National Organization for Reform of Marijuana Laws), in Washington D.C.

The Brookings Institution, a venerable non-profit research and education association which has been ranked the most influential think tank in the world, has issued a 21-page report entitled "Ending the U.S. government's war on medical marijuana research." For those involved in marijuana reform, or those who have ever wondered how we got to where we are today with federal marijuana policy, this report is an essential read.

he United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime has responded to the ‘leak’ of its briefing paper calling for the decriminalisation of drug possession for personal use. Before considering this response, it’s important to be clear this wasn’t really a ‘leak’ in the classic sense. The document was to be presented by the UNODC at the International Harm Reduction Conference in Kuala Lumpur, and an embargoed copy had already gone to select media (the norm for such publication events).

With weak polling and lackluster fundraising, Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) is struggling to stay in the 2016 presidential race. So far, some of his strongest financial supporters have come from a new, growing industry: legal marijuana.

As of Sept. 30, Paul’s second-biggest contributor is the National Cannabis Industry Association, a D.C.-based trade group that lobbies Congress on behalf of state-legal marijuana businesses. Since it was founded in the later part of 2010, the association has spent $200,000 on lobbying.

ICYMI: Trudeau 2.0 swept to power with a new majority government on Monday evening (October 19).

Justin Trudeau made a number of lofty promises that are unprecedented in Canadian politics, should he actually follow through on them. That’s perhaps most evidence in his promises to legalize marijuana and to reform our first-past-the-post electoral system.

How risky, really, is lending to Colorado’s marijuana industry? It depends on whom you talk to, and, whoever it is, you’re not going to come away feeling any better, or worse.

That’s because the unknowns abound, more than in any other business lending, and unknowns are anathema to lenders, as opposed to venture capitalists, who assess what is known, and then bet on it.

Both investor categories are making assumptions about future events, with lenders taking the conservative approach. It’s pretty hard to know what those events might be when you don’t even know the rules of the game.

When the latest round of Democratic presidential candidates stepped out on to the stage in Nevada to give the American people a first-ever televised meet-and-greet with the political figures marred with certifiable delusions of changing the United States for the better, it was apparent from the beginning that the event had been secretly billed “The Hillary Clinton and the Bernie Sanders Show.” With the former First Lady positioned directly in the middle of a zoo of unpredictable political animals, the initial tone of the so-called debate suggested that at least one of the well-dressed snarling dogs would be eaten alive in front of millions of viewers before 

'And it's going to cost more than you think,' prime minister-designate is told

A Colorado official has some sobering words of advice for prime minister-designate Justin Trudeau if he fulfils his promise to legalize pot in Canada.

"It's going to be a lot harder to implement than you think. It's going to take a lot longer to do it. And it's going to cost more than you think," said Lewis Koski, director of the state's Marijuana Enforcement Division.

Colorado is one of four U.S. states to fully legalize recreational bud. Their challenges — including how to regulate edibles like brownies and cookies and a rise in drug-impaired driving — could be instructive for Canada's incoming prime minister.