Global Ganja Report

After a one-year hiatus for just the second time since 1973 (the other being the pandemic year of 2020), New York City's Cannabis Parade returned to Lower Manhattan on May 3. The event had become increasingly mainstream in recent years, even drawing big-name politicians—like Sen. Chuck Schumer in 2021 and '22. The next year, the NYC Department of Small Business Services' new cannabis office issued a statement marking the event's 50th anniversary, and paying homage to its Yippie founders! The year after that, 2024, the City became an official partner in the event. But in 2025, the City would not grant a permit for either Washington Square Park or Union Square, the two traditional locations, and instead held a more commercialized NYC Cannabis Festival & Resource Fair outside the Harlem State Office Building on 125th Street. This year, however, downtown activists succeeded in getting a permit for a rally in Washington Square and march to Union Square, where a concert was held featuring the punk-reggae-hip-hop fusion bands Ricanstruction and Rebelmatic. The adversarial spirit, in spite of New York's legalization, brought the event back to its radical roots.

President Donald Trump signed an executive order Dec. 18 to accelerate the reclassification of marijuana, a move that would ease decades-old restrictions that have classified the drug alongside heroin as having no accepted medical value.

The US Controlled Substances Act ranks drugs along a five-tier spectrum based on their potential for abuse and recognized medical value. Schedule I drugs are those with a high likelihood of abuse, no accepted medical use, and considerable health risks even when administered under medical supervision. Since 1970, marijuana has been listed alongside heroin as a Schedule I drug. Schedule V drugs are those with accepted medical uses and a relatively low likelihood of abuse.

The US Supreme Court announced Dec. 15 that it will not hear a case challenging the federal illegality of marijuana. The case, Canna Provisions v. Bondi, was brought by four Massachusetts commercial cannabis growers. The businesses alleged that the Controlled Substances Act exceeds the powers of Congress under the Commerce Clause and violates the right to due process under the Fifth Amendment.

As their name implies, World Breeders is a cannabis seed company with a planetary consciousness. Co-director Gorka Cid Luaces says he is proud of the founders' trajectory from the "underground side" to an enterprise with operations on three continents, and an ambition to "export THC seed worldwide."

State and local law enforcement made nearly 190,000 marijuana possession-related arrests in 2024—comprising more than 22% of all drug arrests nationwide, according to data compiled by the US Federal Bureau of Investigation and posted on its Crime Data Explorer website. According to the database, police made at least 204,036 arrests for marijuana-related violations last year.

California's Oaksterdam University has announced the passing of its founder and longtime activist Richard Lee. As an entrepreneur, Lee opened some of the first Amsterdam-style cannabis coffeeshops in the United States, years before statewide legalization in California—the Blue Sky Coffeeshop and Bulldog Coffeeshop, both in an area near downtown Oakland that became known as "Oaksterdam." He founded Oaksterdam University in 2007, the first brick-and-mortar establishment to offer in-person educational training to those seeking to enter the cannabis industry. The University has graduated over 110,000 students.

New York City's Democratic Party primary winner for the 2025 mayoral race Zohran Mamdani was a big supporter of marijuana legalization in New York state when the bill passed in 2021. He's also reportedly a cannabis consumer himself. In 2024, City & State New York said, "Assembly Member Zohran Mamdani enjoys cannabis personally." It's unclear whether Mamdani's ever been asked specifically about his personal use of cannabis. But on the day the Marijuana Regulation & Taxation Act (MRTA) was signed into law by then-Gov. Andrew Cuomo, March 31, 2021, Mamdani enthusiastically tweeted no less than 11 times. He also made the following memorable floor statement:

Election day, Nov. 5, saw the defeat of ballot measures to legalize cannabis in Florida, North Dakota and South Dakota. In Florida, the measure actually received upwards of 1.2 million more "yes" than "no" votes. However, because of unique rules in Florida, the constitutional amendment required support from a supermajority (60%) of voters, and it did not meet that threshold. The amendment was publicly opposed by Gov. Ron DeSantis, who spent millions of dollars on taxpayer-funded messaging and made several unfounded claims against the initiative.