Global Ganja Report

Eight police officers were arrested in South Africa March 1 after the death of a man they apparently tied to the back of a police van and dragged along a road in Daveyton, east of Johannesburg. Video footage showing the treatment of Mido Macia, a 27-year-old taxi driver and immigrant from Mozambique, went viral on the web, and was published by South African newspaper the Daily Sun. It shows how Macia's hands were tied to the rear of a police van behind his head before it moves off. Two hours later he was found dead in a cell, said the Independent Police Investigative Directorate (IPID). A postmortem gave the cause of death as head injuries and internal bleeding.

Police in the border city of Mexicali on Feb. 27 announced the discovery of a powerful improvised cannon used to hurl packets of marijuana across the border fence into California. Police told Mexico's Televisa network the device consisted of a plastic pipe and a metal tank that used compressed air from the engine of an old car. The apparatus fired cannabis-packed cylinders weighing up to 13 kilos, police said. It was confiscated after US officers informed Mexican police that they had found a large number of drug packages that appeared to have been fired over the border. (AP, Feb. 27)

More than a dozen members of Congress co-introduced legislation Feb. 14 that would reclassify cannabis for medical use and provide federal defendants the right to use state law compliance as evidence in medical marijuana trials, a right they're currently denied. Rep. Earl Blumenauer (D-OR) authored H.R. 689, the "States’ Medical Marijuana Patient Protection Act," which in addition to rescheduling cannabis will allow states to establish production and distribution laws without interference by the federal government, and will remove current obstacles to research. Rep. Sam Farr (D-CA) authored H.R. 710, the "Truth in Trials Act," to overturn the prohibition on medical marijuana evidence in federal court. 

A market glut and paranoia about criminal cartels getting into the act coincide with the end of the CAMP program. Can Northern California's cannabis industry remake itself along ecological and community-rooted lines?

With the 2012 fall harvest season, Northern California's legendary cannabis-growing Emerald Triangle—centered around the counties of Humboldt, Mendocino and Trinity—is at a turning point. And as the old cliché goes, the Chinese character for crisis is made up of the characters for danger and opportunity.

The current juncture is ripe with both.

In a decision that may shutter most of the state's medical marijuana dispensaries, the Michigan Supreme Court ruled 4-1 Feb. 8 that the private sale of medical marijuana is illegal. The court granted an injunction enjoining the defendants' business, Compassionate Apothecary, from selling medical marijuana on the grounds that such sales constitute a public nuisance.

Applications to carry concealed weapons have spiked just about everywhere in Northern California in recent months, part of the ominous national trend. A Feb. 9 report in the Yuba-Sutter Appeal-Democrat notes the surge in those two counties which lie in the Sacramento Valley and Sierra Nevada foothills, directly east of the Emerald Triangle. "There's been a dramatic increase in applications in the last few years," Yuba Sheriff Steve Durfor said. "I think it's reflective of uncertainty in the world and more people feeling vulnerable with increased talk of gun control restrictions." Sutter County Sheriff J. Paul Parker reported the same trend: "Five years ago, we had 650 permits. Now we're at 1,174."

Seattle's Mayor Mike McGinn on Feb. 7 ordered his police department to abandon its plan to use drones after residents and privacy advocates protested. McGinn said the two small drones obtained through a federal grant will be returned to the vendor. "Today I spoke with Seattle Police Chief John Diaz, and we agreed that it was time to end the unmanned aerial vehicle program, so that SPD can focus its resources on public safety and the community building work that is the department's priority," he said in a brief statement.

Ontario's high court on Feb. 1 upheld Canada's general ban on cannabis, overturning a lower court decision that found the nation's marijuana laws unconstitutional. The Court of Appeal for Ontario held that while a total ban on use of medical marijuana would be unconstitutional, serious illness does not create an automatic right to use cannabis. The Court of Appeal overruled a trial court decision that struck down parts of Canada's Marihuana Medical Access Regulations (MMAR) and Controlled Drugs and Substances Act (CDSA). The Court of Appeal ruled that the lower court erred in its finding that Canadian law made it nearly impossible for patients to obtain medicinal marijuana. The case concerned Matthew Mernagh, who was charged under the CDSA with growing his own cannabis after failure to obtain a medical exemption.