Longtime Florida activist Cathy Jordan, a 63-year-old woman who consumes cannabis to mitigate symptoms of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS aka Lou Gehrig’s disease), a debilitating condition that she has lived with since 1986, today filed a suit against Sheriff Brad Steube of Manatee County, FL.

Ms. Jordan alleges wrongful conduct on the part of the sheriff’s department when, on February 15, 2013, they raided her home and confiscated 23 medical cannabis plants, which were being cultivated for her by Cathy’s husband Robert Jordan. The Jordans were both cooperative when the sheriff’s department arrived at their home, and they acknowledged they were growing medical marijuana for Cathy’s medical use. The police raid of the Jordan’s home came just days after lawmakers introduced legislation, the Cathy Jordan Medical Cannabis Act, which sought to authorize the physician-supervised use of cannabis for those diagnosed with serious debilitating conditions. (Florida lawmakers failed to hold hearings or vote on the measure.)

Governor Jan Brewer officially signed legislation in Arizona, approving it into law, which would allow colleges in the state to conduct marijuana research. The state’s House and Senate approved the measure last month.

The bill would remove a provision that was placed in a piece of 2012 legislation which banned all marijuana from college campuses, even if the marijuana was possessed or consumed by a qualifying patient in the state, or was being used for scientific research.

London, UK, 7 May 2013: GW Pharmaceuticals plc (Nasdaq: GWPH, AIM: GWP, "GW" or the “Company”), a biopharmaceutical company focused on discovering, developing and commercializing novel therapeutics from its proprietary cannabinoid product platform, announces that it has received commercialization approval for its prescription medicine Sativex® in Italy. A full marketing authorization has been granted by the authorities in Italy for the treatment of moderate to severe spasticity in Multiple Sclerosis (MS) patients who have not responded adequately to other anti-spasticity medications. This license to market Sativex® in Italy comes by way of the publication of Sativex® in the Italian Official Journal (Gazzetta Ufficiale) and reflects that regulatory, pricing and reimbursement approvals are now in place for an expected commercial launch in September by GW’s partner, Almirall S.A. The reimbursed price of the medicine granted by the authorities in Italy is consistent with the reimbursed Sativex® price in Spain.

Companies hoping to sell marijuana for medical use in Massachusetts will be required to hire an independent lab to test their products for contaminants, such as heavy metals and pesticides, under final rules that regulators approved by unanimous vote Wednesday morning.

The provision is among dozens of changes made by the Department of Public Health to draft rules the agency released in March, after staffers reviewed hundreds of suggestions from advocates on all sides of the contentious issue. The rules previously would have allowed marijuana dispensaries to conduct their own testing.

A new study reported on this week at the annual meeting for the American Association of Cancer Research has found that habitual marijuana consumers have no more increased risk of lung cancer than casual consumers, or those who don’t consume at all. This was found to be true regardless of how many times a day a person consumes cannabis, and regardless of how long they’ve been a consumer.

The study included data from six case-control studies conducted in the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, and New Zealand. It included a subject pool of 2,159 lung cancer cases and 2,985 controls – the studies were part of the International Lung Cancer Consortium (ILCCO), an international group of lung cancer researchers.