What’s the point in criminalising people for possession of cannabis?

That’s a question that’s being asked more and more frequently and this week’s Manx Independent has asked the Home Affairs Minister about his views on the issue.

Also this week:

Figures show a big rise in parents who go to the foodbank to get food for their children during school holidays.

The government could grab part of local authorities’ rates.

The latest on the fiasco in which Castle Rushen High School pupils studied the wrong syllabus for their exams.

Should schoolchildren have access to phones during lessons? A report on the Tynwald debate about the issue.

A lawyer’s niece who swindled her uncle is banned from being a company director.

Something could happen at last to two eyesore hotels in the centre of Douglas.

A lot of people have been banging on about how we should develop brownfield sites instead of developing in the countryside. One problem. Nobody has a list of such sites.

After MPs from the UK - who want the Isle of Man to publish who really owns companies based here - visited, we find out what they thought.

What happens when a house is infested by bees? One has been and we discover more.

A picture special on the big beach clean over the weekend.

A team of archaeologists are set to return to the island to continue their study of a Bronze Age site.

A jailed Russian former senator has lost a legal challenge to the confiscation of his Manx assets.

It’s Parish Walk weekend and the sports team has more on that plus a look forward to the rest of the weekend’s action.

In the Island Life entertainments and leisure supplement, a preview of a burlesque show plus lots of features about, well, island life.

Also, your opinions, a seven-day television guide, the Isle of Man’s What’s On guide, a page of pictures from the past, readers’ photographs and lots of community news.

The Manx Independent is in the shops now.