Politicians know how to harvest the low hanging fruit at election time.

Now, Justin Trudeau has sniffed out the low hanging cannabis on the campaign trail — and promised to legalize it.

It’s time, long past time. The Liberal leader can make up for the sins — or omissions — of his father in failing to decriminalize marijuana possession generations ago, when Pierre Trudeau ignored the recommendations of the 1973 Le Dain Royal Commission he created as prime minister.

In fairness to Trudeau the elder, it was a different time. In the decades since, Canada has decriminalized homosexuality and legalized gay marriage.

A nonprofit foundation linked to an Ohio State University microbiologist plans to build a $24 million medical marijuana research center near Columbus if voters approve legalizing pot on Nov. 3.

Michael Ibba, chairman of the OSU Microbiology Department and co-director of the Cellular and Molecular Biochemistry Training Program, is on the board of the newly formed International Cannabinoid Institute Research Foundation. It claims to be an independent group of researchers, medical professionals, technology experts, engineers and patient advocates committed to the discovery of advanced treatments using medicinal marijuana.

Stephen Harper’s recent comments on marijuana have drawn ire from community advocates and medical users of the drug.

While speaking at a campaign stop in Montreal Saturday, the Conservative Party leader said cannabis is “infinitely worse” than tobacco.

He insisted his government would continue to apply tough laws against its use, a stance he’s maintained even during candidate debates. Keith Fagin, founder and director with Calgary 420 Cannabis Community, an advocacy group that looks to legalize the sale of marijuana through regulation, much like alcohol, said Harper’s comments are “complete nonsense.”

“It’s ridiculous,” he said.  

Michigan would tax and regulate medical marijuana in a tiered licensing system similar to alcohol and gambling under legislation passed Wednesday by the House, where advocates said action is necessary due to confusion surrounding the legality of dispensary businesses and non-smokable forms of the drug.

The main bill, approved 95-11 and sent to the Senate, would require a state operating license to grow, process, sell, transport and test marijuana used for medical purposes. "Provisioning centers" that sell the drug to patients or their caregivers would pay a 3 percent tax on their gross retail income, in addition to the 6 percent state sales tax.

A new draft law aims to legalize marijuana growing for medical and industrial uses, a controversial idea for a Muslim nation

Kettama, Morocco — In the rugged Rif mountains, Abdelkhalek Benabdallah strode among towering marijuana plants, checking the buds for the telltale spots of white that indicate they are ready for harvest.

Much of the crop had been picked and left to dry on the roofs of stone-and-wood huts that dot the valley, the heart Morocco’s pot-growing region. Benabdallah says he openly grows the crop, while understanding the risk: “We are regularly subject to blackmail by the gendarmes,” he said as he scythed through stalks and wrapped them into a bundle.

Legalizing marijuana Issue 3 would legalize recreational and medical marijuana in Ohio. Click here for more information about the proposal. And click here for an updated list of supporters and opponents.

COLUMBUS, Ohio -- A majority of Ohioans favor legalizing recreational marijuana but support has not significantly changed in the past six months despite widespread advertising and campaigning for a legalization measure that appears on the November ballot, according to poll results released Thursday.

Nick Clegg, the former leader of the Liberal Democrats, is hoping for a global reform of drug laws, saying "we are losing the war on drugs".

With a campaign funded by Sir Richard Branson and Hungarian-American businessman George Soros, Clegg wants those caught in possession of drugs to be given health care rather than be punished, and will present his case at a United Nations meeting next year.

Preferring Portugal's approach, where drugs have been decriminalised and users are given treatment, Clegg hopes European leaders will challenge the strict approach currently employed by countries such as Russia.

States considering legalizing recreational marijuana should think again. That is the message of a federally funded agency which recently released a report on the negative effects of legal pot in Colorado. 

"[Traffic] fatalities related to marijuana, it showed about a 28 percent increase [since legalization]," said Tom Gorman, director of the Rocky Mountain High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area, which compiled the report. 

He said it also showed hospitalizations went up about 36 percent while "marijuana-related ER" visits went up around 30 percent. "Poison control calls [had] about a 72 percent increase. And all of this is within a year's period of time," he said. 

Durban - The mother of a Grade 8 Ballito schoolboy who was expelled after testing positive for dagga, has launched an urgent high court application challenging the school’s authority to randomly test pupils using shop-bought urine sampling kits.

But while the mother – who works in the legal profession – insists the school’s conduct was “unconstitutional and unlawful” and that her son must be reinstated, the school says its zero-tolerance drug policy is crucial because the upmarket suburb is the “crucible for drug taking and dealing on the North Coast”.

Willie Best did some crazy stuff in his life, before being sentenced to nearly a decade in federal prison. The jury that convicted him in 2008 heard that the D.C. drug dealer was found by cops in a stolen car clutching an assault rifle, after taking a potshot at a nemesis.

But Mr. Best is joining some 6,000 federal prisoners whose sentences are being cut short under new federal sentencing guidelines and whose release will be soon. Best told the Associated Press that he’s a new man: “I came in one way. I’m coming out another.”