Blogs

Mexico: legalization languishes as narco-wars escalate

Posted on July 9th, 2020 by Bill Weinberg and tagged , , , .

MexicoMexico's President Lopez Obrador met with Trump at the White House this week to inaugurate the new trade treaty that replaces NAFTA. Embarrassingly, the meeting was punctuated by horrific new outbursts of narco-violence in Mexico. And the country's promised cannabis legalization—mandated by the high court and looked to as a de-escalation of the dystopian drug war—is stalled by a paralyzed Congress. 

Illinois: June cannabis sales break record

Posted on July 9th, 2020 by Global Ganja Report and tagged , , , , , , , .

IllinoisIn the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic and historic levels of unemployment, Illinois cannabis retailers saw record-breaking sales in June, taking in nearly $48 million in revenues.

South Africa's 'dagga' advocate Julian Stobbs murdered

Posted on July 5th, 2020 by Bill Weinberg and tagged , , , , , .

StobbsSouth Africa's cannabis community is grieving and shocked after the slaying of Julian Stobbs, one of the country's frontline activists—and one half of the famous "Dagga Couple" who successfully challenged the marijuana law in the courts. Stobbs was killed in the early hours of July 3 in an apparent armed robbery at his farm outside Johannesburg.

Lester Grinspoon, pioneer of cannabis normalization, passes on at 92

Posted on June 27th, 2020 by Bill Weinberg and tagged , , , , , , , .
GrinspoonCannabis advocates across the United States and the world bid a grateful farewell to Lester Grinspoon, the Harvard psychiatrist and prolific author who probably did more than any other individual to change the national conversation about marijuana, stressing the need for a more tolerant and enlightened policy.

Defund the police —starting with cannabis enforcement

BlackLivesMatterA month into the national uprising sparked by the killing of George Floyd, cities and states are responding to activist demands to defund police forces. Some are deciding that cannabis enforcement is the place to start in contracting the police apparatus.

Hemp Farming While Black

Farmer CeeCan Rural America's Expropriated Use a New Crop to Forge a New Agrarianism?

Green Heffa Farms, in North Carolina’s Piedmont, has emerged as a national symbol of vision and success in America’s new hemp economy. As a producer of boutique full-spectrum hemp-flower products, it has won a cachet in the industry—which is augmented, at least in more enlightened sectors, by the fact that it is Black-owned, and has an overt political consciousness.

Green Heffa’s CEO is Clarenda Stanley—popularly known as Farmer Cee. She was featured in the April issue of Oprah Winfrey’s O Magazine, and was last year the 2019 “Featured Farmer” for National Hemp History Week.

The cannabis industry and the Black Lives Matter uprising

leafProtests have spread across the country in response to the death of George Floyd at the hands of Minneapolis police—a haunting crystallization of institutionalized racism in law enforcement. The protests have been punctuated by looting in many cities, and cannabis businesses have not been spared. How the industry reacts at this moment will reveal much about the soul of America's cannabis community.

DEA expands powers to target protesters

Posted on June 4th, 2020 by Global Ganja Report and tagged , , , , , , .

BlackLivesMatterAs first reported by Buzzfeed News, the US Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) is expanding its powers so that it can assist "to the maximum extent possible in the federal law enforcement response" to the wave of ongoing nationwide protests that have followed the killing of George Floyd by a member of the Minneapolis police.

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