Drugs in the United States

A documentary tracing an artist's campaign against the family behind the U.S. opioid drug epidemic scooped the Golden Lion, the top prize at the Venice Film Festival, on Sept. 10.

Cate Blanchett won her second Venice acting award for her performance as a predatory classical music conductor in "Tar," having won in 2008 for her unexpected turn as Bob Dylan in "I'm Not There."

The government passed an amendment to prevent speculation

New York state passed a law legalizing recreational marijuana, thus joining 14 other states in the United States where an adult can smoke a joint without being worried by police.

A police officer was among five suspects arrested on the southeastern Aegean island of Rhodes on drugs-related charges last weekend, authorities said on Tuesday.
According to police, the arrests were made during raids on the suspects' homes on Sunday which yielded around 400 grams of cannabis and nine marijuana plants.

People can't be punished for possession of marijuana in Georgia, the small nation on the shores of the Black Sea in the Caucasus region, following a ruling by the country's highest constitutional review court on Monday.

TIME - Canada passed a landmark bill Tuesday legalizing recreational marijuana, becoming the second country to make pot legal nationwide.

The legislation will allow Canadians to buy and consume weed as soon as September, the BBC reports. It is expected to receive royal assent sometime this week.

Taking a cue from the fight over immigration, some states that have legalized marijuana are considering providing so-called sanctuary status for licensed pot businesses, hoping to protect the fledgling industry from a shift in federal enforcement policy.

A 33-year-old man has been arrested after police raided a luxury home in Lagonissi, southeastern Attica, where hydroponic cannabis was been cultivated on a large scale.

The drugs squad carried out the raid following a tip-off.

A total of 564 cannabis plants were seized.

Police said that the man they took into custody was already wanted on rape charges.

The head of the German police union BDC Andre Schultz has called for the use of cannabis to be decriminalized, the Associated Press reported.

Uruguay will become the first country in the world where marijuana will be sold in drugstores, AFP reported.

At this point, only 16 pharmacies across the country with a population of 3.4 million will sell the mild drug. The Uruguayan authorities have failed to agree on the issue with large pharmaceutical chains.