Global Ganja Report

A five-county study assessing impacts on salmonids presented Jan. 10 in Eureka, CA, named unpermitted grading as a major impact—and cited the cannabis industry as a key culprit. Humboldt County's Supervisor Mark Lovelace said the effects of illegal grading connected to cannabis grows are as bad as the impacts seen during the worst years of the timber industry. "It's shocking," he said, referring to photos he'd viewed of grow-related grading. "It compares with the worst of the worst from some of the bad years of the timber industry."

On Jan. 11—at exactly 4:20 PM—three medical marijuana dispensaries in the city of San Diego were raided by the cross-jurisdictional Narcotic Task Force (NTF) of San Diego County. The locations attacked included California's Best Meds on University Ave., Golden West in North Park, and San Diego Organic Wellness Association in Pacific Beach. Armed with handguns, rifles, and battering rams, dozens of masked NTF officers rushed into the facilities, breaking down doors and windows, and forcing all patients inside to the floor.

Colorado US Attorney John Walsh on Jan. 12 issued an ultimatum in letters to 23 dispensaries and landlords he claimed are in violation of federal and state law. The dispensaries, which he said are located within 1,000 feet of schools, were given 45 days to cease operations or face civil and criminal penalties. "When the voters of Colorado passed the limited medical marijuana amendment in 2000, they could not have anticipated that their vote would be used to justify large marijuana stores located within blocks of our schools," Walsh said in a statement announcing the letters. 

Officials in Mendocino County revealed Jan. 11 that the US Attorney's Office in San Francisco had threatened to sue the county over its medical marijuana cultivation permit program, prompting its suspension. The warning was delivered at a Jan. 3 meeting between County Counsel Jeanine Nadel and representatives of the US Attorney's Office, Nadel said. County supervisors are scheduled to review the permit ordinance on Jan. 24. The program was also suspended pending the outcome of a Southern California court case that tests the legitimacy of issuing permits for cannabis-related endeavors—the reason given by officials at the time of the suspension on Jan 9.

Mendocino County's unique income-generating medical marijuana cultivation permit process has been suspended, officials announced Jan. 9. The decision was made in light of a Southern California court case that challenges the legality of issuing permits for activities that are illegal under federal law.

Moderate cannabis use appears to cause no long-term damage to the lungs, according to a new study by the University of California at San Francisco and the University of Alabama at Birmingham, released Jan. 10 in the Journal of the American Medical Association. Results of the 20-year study, funded by the National Institute on Drug Abuse, indicate that cannabis doesn't do the kind of damage tobacco does.

Long the main gateway to Europe for Moroccan hashish, Spain has over the past year emerged as one of the continent's main cannabis cultivation hubs, rivaling the Netherlands. Principal cultivation zones are Andalusia, Murcia, Catalonia, Aragon and especially Valencia—which the Guardia Civil describes as "a jungle of cannabis."

A British study discounts a link between occasional cannabis smoking or other light illicit drug use and the decline in mental functions that comes with middle age. The study, carried in the American Journal of Epidemiology, tested the mental function and memory of nearly 9,000 Britons at age 50 and found that those who had used illegal drugs as recently as in their 40s did just as well on the tests as peers who had never used drugs—or slightly better.