Global Ganja Report

Authorities' denial of a permit to the longtime organizers of Denver's annual 420 rally has prompted a change of leadership and tone. Now, the new leaders that got the permit are saying it will no longer be called a "rally," and are downplaying its usual activist spirit. Have oppositional politics outlived their place in the age of legalization?

After last weekend's horrorshow in Charlottesville, it's a relief that the white supremacist hate-fest planned for Boston on Aug. 19 (sickeningly billed as a "Free Speech" rally) was a total bust. Just some 40-odd "alt-right" protesters gathered on the historic Boston Common, dwarfed by about 40,000 counter-protesters, who chanted "wrong side of history" and "shame, shame." Eventually, police escorted the small group of haters with their Nazi regalia away to safety, and that was that.

The new Justice Department policy to take a hands-off approach to cannabis cultivation on Indian reservations could be a boon for the Lakota Sioux, who have long been pressing their right as a sovereign nation to grow industrial hemp. US Attorney for North Dakota Timothy Purdon (who is also the US Attorney General's pointman for Native American issues) told AP he's not aware of any tribes in either North or South Dakota actively considering a cannabis industry. The tribal council of the Oglala Lakota Nation this year rejected a proposal to allow cannabis cultivation on the Pine Ridge Reservation in southwest South Dakota. The council's Law and Order Committee chair Ellen Fills the Pipe said: "For me, it's a drug. My gut feeling is we're most likely going to shoot it down." (The San Francisco Chronicle's cannabis-friendly Smell the Truth blog couldn't help noting the irony of her name, but also acknowledged fears, realistic or not, that rez pot sales could excacerbate already existing alcohol abuse problems.) But that's the smokable variety, not the industrial. Chairman Dave Archambault of the Standing Rock Sioux, with a reservation straddling North and South Dakota, said that his tribe might consider industrial hemp cultivation.

The Japanese Buddhist community Shinnyo-en on Sept. 14 joined with Quechua elders and shamans for a "Prayer for World Peace" at Saksaywaman, the Inca archeaological site just outside Cuzco, Peru. Saksaywaman is a walled complex on the northern outskirts of the city of Cuzco, the former capital of the Inca Empire and today a UNESCO World Heritage site. The event included both traditional Quechua dance ritual and a special fire ceremony officiated by Her Holiness Shinso Ito, leader of Shinnyo-en and daughter of the late Shinjo Ito, who founded Shinnyo-en at Kyoto's ancient Daigoji monastery in 1943. Shinnyo-en is part of the esoteric Shingon Buddhist tradition, which dates to the 9th century CE. (Shinyo-En, Sept. 14; Cusco en Positivo, Sept. 11)

All eyes are on the Crimean Peninsula, which has just been annexed by Russia after a popular vote to secede from Ukraine. Potential flashpoints for escalation, with very ominous implications for world peace, include the fate of the Crimean Tatar ethnic minority and the thousands of Ukrainian military troops that remain in the territory. But Crimea, with its agreeable climate (by Russo-Ukrainian standards), has also long been a hippie haven. Since 2007, "Fairy Town" festivals have been held several times each year in different parts of Ukraine, mostly Crimea. These events, on the model of the Rainbow Gatherings and Burning Man in the USA, are organized by a group calling itself the Rainbow Academy, based in the Ukrainian capital Kiev and the local Crimean capital Simferopol. And while Crimea's Black Sea coast is now more famous for the Russian naval fleet based there, it also hosts numerous nude beaches that have long been a magnet for Ukrainian and Russian hippies and self-styled Slavic Rastafarians. It will be interesting to see if these ecstacy-seeking bliss bunnies will continue to have a haven as Crimea is contested by rival powers—or, if some of the more activist-oriented Crimean hippies can play a role as peace-makers, advocating ethnic co-existence. We'd love to hear from any contacts in the Rainbow Academy...

Before the 1988 GMC Thomas Built school bus was dubbed the "Cannabus" and made over with its marijuana-themed paint job, it was a red ski resort shuttle bus until two guys from North Carolina bought the bus in 2012 and set out on the "Green Bus Tour for Marijuana Legalization." The pair toured the East Coast for approximately nine weeks before certain events kept them from continuing, and the CannaBus went up for sale on eBay.

Gunfire erupted at Colorado's annual 420 Rally—the first since the state voted to legalize cannabis least year—injuring two people and scattering a crowd of thousands in Denver's Civic Center Park. A man and woman were shot in the leg, and a third grazed with a bullet. Both victims are in their 20s. They were taken to Denver Health Medical Center. Police asked attendees for possible photo or video footage of the shootings, and had no immediate motive. Witnesses described a jovial scene quickly turning to panic. Some thought firecrackers were going off, until a man fell bleeding, his dog also shot.

Speaking before a crowd on the Boston Common at the 23rd Boston Freedom Rally Sept. 15, US Rep. Barney Frank said using cannabis is an individual choice that should not be criminalized. Frank said he has "been fighting for some time for a measure that will reduce crime very substantially," and will actually "make money for the government." Frank told the crowd: "We can reduce the crime rate by stop treating people as criminals because they have made the decision to smoke marijuana personally."