Global Ganja Report

For the third time in ten years, New York City has agreed to pay millions of dollars to settle a lawsuit over illegal strip searches of thousands of nonviolent prisoners. The settlement, announced March 22, provides $33 million to the roughly 100,000 people who were strip-searched after being charged with misdemeanors and taken to Rikers Island and other city jails.

Two Los Angeles police officers spoke out March 17 against a medical cannabis law for Hawaii in testimony before a Hawaii Medical Marijuana Summit held in Wailuku, Maui. "It's so bad in LA," said Sgt. Eric Bixler of the LAPD Narcotics Division. He said law enforcement officials there deal daily with what he called the effects of California's Proposition 215, including people driving while smoking, and teens buying cannabis at medicinal dispensaries to resell on the street.

Trevor Douglas, 25, of Avon, Colo., was convicted of cannabis possession March 9, despite his claims that the plant is a crucial part of his spiritual practice and deserves First Amendment protection. Douglas told the court he uses cannabis as a religious sacrament, similar to the use of bread and wine in Catholic Holy Communion.

Alaska State Troopers are investigating a 15-plant cannabis grow discovered off Tower Circle in Seward on March 20. The local Peninsula Clarion reports March 25 that no one has been charged in the grow operation. "If you think something is connected and put the information out there that we're looking, the other people may go underground," state police spokesperson Peters said. "They could burn the evidence." Troopers apparently discovered the Tower Circle grow by following their noses. "Due to aromatic nature of the marijuana, a trooper was able to smell it during one of the contacts with the residence, and they went back later to verify," Peters said.

The Regulate, Control and Tax Cannabis Act of 2010 will appear on California's November ballot, state election officials announced March 24. Secretary of State Debra Bowen certified that the petitions had hundreds of thousands more signatures than the 433,971 minimum needed to qualify. Supporters turned in 694,248 signatures, collecting them in every county except Alpine. County election officials estimated that 523,531 were valid.

Top leaders from the US and Mexico agreed to emphasize intelligence coordination in the next $331 million phase of the Merida Initiative following discussions in Mexico City on March 23. Mexican President Felipe Calderon and Government Secretary Fernando Francisco Gómez-Mont hosted the meeting with US Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano, Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman Adm. Mike Mullen, and National Intelligence director Dennis C. Blair.