Global Ganja Report

As California legalizes cannabis on Jan. 1, it will be opening the door to multiple conflicts with the federal government. How state and federal authorities manage to negotiate the overlapping jurisdictions with now completely contradictory policies will be interesting to watch. In one obvious example, the Associated Press notes that state legalization won't stop federal agents from seizing even in small quantities at checkpoints they maintain on the Golden State's busy freeways.

Media accounts mostly played it for laughs when a confused pot dealer cluelessly got into a police car outside Copenhagen's famous squatter community of Christiania on Dec. 21, apparently thinking it was a taxi-cab. The cops searched him and found 1,000 pre-rolled joints.

Dana Beal, a longtime fixture in New York City's cannabis activist scene, is once again back in the slammer. In this new misadventure Dec. 16, Beal was popped by sheriff's deputies in Northern California's Trinity County. He was reportedly pulled over near the town of Hayfork, and is currently being held in the jail at county seat Weaverville.

In the cold war between North African neighbors Morocco and Algeria, the latter has long used the status of the former as the world's top cannabis producer for propaganda, painting the conservative kingdom as a drug menace to the greater region. Now the narco-baiting has exploded into a diplomatic flare-up. 

Medical marijuana advocates and bureaucrats from regulatory agencies around the world have both been awaiting a statement on the risks and benefits of cannabidiol (CBD) from the World Health Organization's Expert Committee on Drug Dependence (ECDD). Now the assessment on the non-psychoactive cannabinoid is in, and it is encouraging news for those who have been hoping for its removal from Schedule 1, the international designation for drugs with no therapeutic value but high potential for abuse.

Amid the controversies about federal versus provincial control of the cannabis biz as Canada prepares for legalization, another jurisdictional issue has emerged. At the annual meeting of the Assembly of First Nations (AFN) in Ottawa Dec. 6, leaders of Canada's indigenous peoples demanded the right to set the laws that will oversee cannabis within their own territories.

Pretty ironic timing. Just as Canada is moving toward legal cannabis, dispensaries are coming under more legal pressure and being forced to shut down—most recently in Toronto. On Dec. 7, the city's Cannabis Culture outlet—which had been targeted in a police raid back in March—finally shut its doors, and seemingly this time for good. The Ottawa Citizen reports that police arrived at the popular Cannabis Culture dispensary on Bank Street with a bailiff, who changed the locks and posted a notice on the door saying the lease was being terminated.

Colombia, with a burgeoning medical marijuana industry, just saw its first international exposition on the theme, marking a step toward normalization of cannabis in a country hit hard by drug war violence over the past generations. The Medellín Botanical Garden was the scene of the ExpoMedeWeed from Nov. 24-27, with workshops and discussions on technical, medical and cultural themes related to expanding Colombia's legal cannabis sector. The affair won favorable coverage from major Colombian news outlets such as Bogotá daily El Espectador.