Global Ganja Report

Oregon on June 16 became the latest state and the first in many years to officially reclassify cannabis from its status as a dangerous drug with no medical value. The Oregon Board of Pharmacy (BoP) voted 4-1 to move cannabis from Schedule I to Schedule II. The Oregon BoP decision comes after many months of deliberation and input from the public.

More than 200 people have been killed over the past seven days in Mexico's most violent week since President Felipe Calderón unleashed federal forces against the country's warring drug cartels.

The California State Assembly Committee on Health voted 10-3 on June 15 to pass a resolution urging the federal government to end medical marijuana raids and to "create a comprehensive federal medical marijuana policy that ensures safe and legal access to any patient that would benefit from it."

In an interview with SFGate.com's Zennie62 blog June 4, Oakland City Attorney John Russo became the first elected official to openly support cannabis legalization, which will be on the November ballot in California. Why does he support legalization? "Well, first, number one I think marijuana prohibition has been a demonstrated failure at this point, no different than alcohol prohibition in the 1920s." Russo says it's also "cooler" for the young to use marijuana and that's it's time for us to get out of "this collective denial" of the situation.

Mexican navy officials June 9 confirmed the arrest of a Brownsville man near Matamoros who is accused of guarding a stash house with approximately 550 pounds of marijuana.

Humboldt County's Civil Liberties Monitoring Project will host a forum June 19 in Garberville, entitled "Cannabis Health and Safety: The Chemistry, the Economics and the Politics," featuring experts from California and Montana who have taken a "transparent" business approach to cultivating and dispensing marijuana. The Garberville Veterans Association is co-sponsoring this presentation, which will start 7 PM at Veterans Hall.

Jacob Hunter, Policy Director of the Beyond Prohibition Foundation, was arrested June 10 at the Niagara, Ontario, office of Canadian Justice Minister and Conservative MP Rob Nicholson in what activists are calling "assault and police intimidation."

This weekend, the Sonoma County Fairgrounds in Santa Rosa, California, will host the 32^nd annual Harmony Festival. Considered both a music festival and an exposition for counter-culture lifestyle options, Harmony Festival’s core values include health, art, ecology, healthy living, and spirituality. Starting out as the Health & Harmony Festival in 1978, Harmony is now the longest continuously running premier music and lifestyle festival on the West coast.