Global Ganja Report

Mexico's new populist president announced that he is dropping out of the regional US-led drug enforcement pact, and will be turning down the aid package offered through the program. Instead, he is proposing a dialogue with Washington on across-the-board drug decriminalization in both nations. And Mexican lawmakers say they will pass a cannabis legalization bill by the end of the year.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer announced that he will reintroduce his bill to remove cannabis from the federal list of controlled substances—allowing states to set their own laws to regulate the plant without the shadow of Washington interference.

New York City's annual Cannabis Parade, launched long ago by Yippie counterculture freaks, this year headlined one of the Big Apple's highest officials, Public Advocate Jumaane Williams—a sure sign of that the leaglization cause has hit the mainstream. However, politicking in the statehouse in Albany has stalled passage of a long hoped-for legalization bill.

As New Zealand waits on a promised cannabis legalization referendum, a domestic industry is starting to blossom, with big capital inflows reported. But police cannabis seizures are actually up—and the government even shows sings of wavering on following through with its commitment to hold a binding referendum.

A new study finds that cannabis legalization is not linked to an increase in traffic deaths. This may come as little surprise to those with experience in cannabis' actual effects, but challenges an entrenched assumption of prohibitionist propaganda.

A US citizen was among a trio arrested in Burma for running a 20-acre cannabis plantation. The three could face life in prison, or even the death penalty. But the controversy could give new political energy to Burma's emergent legalization movement.

New York state's second city of Buffalo has long been a national symbol of rust-belt economic and infrastructural decay. Now urban planners have approved a massive cannabis facility backed by California capital for the city's long-inactive waterfront. Buffalo's boosters say the project could turn the Great Lakes region into a leading global hub of cannabis output.

The governor of the US territory of Guam signed into a law a cannabis legalization measure that would establish an adult-use industry on the island. But there is still opposition from local conservatives, and the same dilemmas that have held back establishment of a medical marijuana program in the territory may prove obstacles to implementation.