Global Ganja Report

Germany’s parliament, the Bundestag, passed a bill Feb. 23 legalizing the regulated production and  consumption of cannabis. The legislation was brought by the federal government, led by the center-left Social Democratic Party (SPD), the center-right Free Democratic Party (FDP), and the ecologist Greens party. In a roll-call vote, 407 MPs supported the law, 226 opposed it, and four abstained. The legislation faced opposition from the conservative Christian Democratic Union of Germany (CDU) and affiliated Christian Social Union in Bavaria (CSU) as well as the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD). 

The widely denied media reports turned out to be true, even if not all the details were correct. Cannabis Now can confirm that the new regime in Afghanistan is in talks with a foreign company to establish legal cannabis production for the export market.

Progressives coast to coast breathed a heavy sigh of relief as Joe Biden took the oath of office, ending the turbulent and reactionary rule of Donald Trump over the past four years.

But hemp cultivation, like the rewriting and replacement of NAFTA, was one of the few areas that actually saw positive change in the Trump years—with bipartisan support. The 2018 Farm Bill that re-legalized the crop after generations of prohibition bore Trump’s signature.

And there are fears that Biden could mean a return to the Washington consensus of a corporate-friendly “free trade” status quo ante, shorn even of the limited populist measures of the Trump era.

For small farmers, including some hemp cultivators, Biden’s choice to lead the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) may provide a case in point.

In the near future, the CBD, THC or other cannabinoids you consume in edibles or medications may not be derived from cannabis at all, but grown in a laboratory.

Kevin Chen, CEO and co-founder of Hyasynth Bio, describes the Montreal-based start-up as "focused on engineering strains of yeast to produce the active compounds of cannabis without having to grow plants."

Israel is a world leader in medical marijuana and has adopted an experimental decriminalization policy. But activists are pushing to make it the world's third country to outright legalize—and are using some very audacious tactics.

Hemp’s Curious Cultural Trajectory

Now that hemp has finally arrived at its long-sought status as a legal crop and commodity, there is a sense of inevitability to its deviation from the utopian vision that animated the advocates who fought for it a generation ago.

A tension that has always existed between two currents in the subculture of hemp advocacy is increasingly weighted toward the more mundane—activists versus entrepreneurs, idealism versus pragmatism, agrarianism versus agribusiness. And finally the original paradigm of a crop with multitudinous uses as “food, fuel and fiber,” holding the potential to solve humanity’s ecological crisis, versus the hegemony of CBD.

A ground-breaking study is set to begin in Australia, to determine if cannabis can improve the quality of life of those suffering from dementia. Elderly care facilities are watching closely, hoping cannabis will prove a key to help those they look after lead happier lives, with less medication.

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez won praise from activists when she decried a white-dominated legal cannabis industry. As if to prove her point, the man she ousted in her 2018 Congressional run, Joe Crowley, is now joining an investment firm linked to the cannabis industry.

Northern Swan, a New York investment house specializing in the cannabis industry, just announced the appointment to two prominent political figures to its advisory board.