Global Ganja Report

The Supreme Court announced Oct. 20 that it will consider whether a federal law prohibiting gun possession by unlawful drug users violates the Second Amendment, marking the latest firearms dispute to reach the high court following its landmark 2022 ruling that significantly expanded gun rights.

State and local law enforcement made nearly 190,000 marijuana possession-related arrests in 2024—comprising more than 22% of all drug arrests nationwide, according to data compiled by the US Federal Bureau of Investigation and posted on its Crime Data Explorer website. According to the database, police made at least 204,036 arrests for marijuana-related violations last year.

Amnesty International has urged Singaporean authorities to immediately halt the execution of Pannir Selvam Pranthaman, scheduled for Oct. 8. The Malaysian national has been on death row since 2017 for importing 51.84 grams of diamorphine (heroin) into Singapore. Condemning the practice of mandatory death penalties for drug-related offenses as well as "multiple layers of unfairness" in Pranthaman’s case, Amnesty deemed the case emblematic of the Singaporean justice system's violations of international legal standards.

The District of Columbia filed a lawsuit Aug. 15 challenging President Donald Trump's emergency order placing the city’s police department under federal control. Four days earlier, the Trump administration had declared a crime emergency in the nation's capital, and announced the federal takeover of the force. Trump invoked his emergency powers under Section 740 of the DC Home Rule Act, which grants the president authority over local police during "special conditions of an emergency nature."

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott on June 11 signed a bill creating a consortium of universities, hospitals and pharmaceutical firms to conduct clinical trials on ibogaine, in hopes of receiving US Food & Drug Administration approval. The press release on the signing hails ibogaine as an "emerging treatment for neurological and mental health conditions." Lawmakers approved $50 million to support the effort, making Texas the global leader in psychedelic research investment. (Texas Tribune)

California's Oaksterdam University has announced the passing of its founder and longtime activist Richard Lee. As an entrepreneur, Lee opened some of the first Amsterdam-style cannabis coffeeshops in the United States, years before statewide legalization in California—the Blue Sky Coffeeshop and Bulldog Coffeeshop, both in an area near downtown Oakland that became known as "Oaksterdam " He founded Oaksterdam University in 2007, the first brick-and-mortar establishment to offer in-person educational training to those seeking to enter the cannabis industry. The University has graduated over 110,000 students.

US citizen and Army veteran George Retes on July 16 spoke out after being arrested during an immigration raid at his workplace on a California cannabis farm, stating that he was detained for three days without explanation.

ICE agents raided a cannabis farm in California's Ventura County July 10, sparking a clash with protesters and resulting in the death of an employee. Agents threw smoke canisters and flash-bangs into a crowd that gathered to confront them as the operation was taking place at Glass House Farms near Camarillo. A farmworker who had apparently climbed onto a roof to evade the agents fell during the chaos, and expired after two days on life support with a brain injury. Jaime Alanis, 57, is the first known person to die during one of the Trump administration's ongoing immigration enforcement operations. Similar confrontations were reported in a raid on a second Glass House Farms facility around 35 miles away in Carpinteria. ICE said that they detained 361 "illegal aliens" in the raids on the two sites. (KABC, LAT, NYT, SBI, NNN, USAT, AP)