Global Ganja Report

Peter Gorman, the acclaimed journalist, naturalist and adventurer who aggressively covered cannabis and the drug war beat for over 30 years, died at his home in Texas on April 24 at the age of 71. He had just returned from a long-planned river journey into a remote area of the Peruvian Amazon that he had first visited in 1984, and where he first encountered the psychoactive shamanic substances that would define much of his life's work.

Ukraine has been suddenly thrust upon the center of the world stage, as Russia pours forces over the border in defiance of the West. In the atmosphere of militarization, space for cannabis and alternative culture is likely to close in both countries—but at least such space had been, slowly and tentatively, opening in Ukraine. Russia, pursuing an aggressive drug-war police state at home, may now be poised to impose its cultural-conservative agenda and roll back the recent gains in its smaller neighbor.

The National Football League has awarded a $1 million research grant to study the impacts of cannabinoids on pain management and neuroprotection in football players. The move represents a breakthrough given the NFL's longstanding zero-tolerance stance on cannabis use.

With political and legal space opening for cannabis in state after state, a backlash is manifesting in the idea of caps on the potency—whether of bud, extracts or edibles. Voices from the industry and activist community see this as a throwback to the days of Reefer Madness.

There is jubilation among cannabis advocates in Thailand after authorities announced a change to the narcotics code allowing personal cultivation—a breakthrough for the Asian continent. But does the reform really presage full legalization?

Voters in Montana approved a cannabis legalization initiative in 2020, which included language explicitly calling for expungement of past convictions. But the process has been meeting with some resistance from local courts—and plans for a special court to oversee expungement have been dropped.

With growing legal and cultural space for cannabis, can the mere smell of the stuff still be sufficient cause for a search that could potentially land you in jail? The answer is that the courts are divided on this question. Meanwhile, cannabis attorneys warn against the fatal error of consenting to a search.

The Mediterranean island nation of Malta has become the first European Union member state to legalize cannabis. It's a seemingly unlikely candidate, and the country's powerful conservative bloc is still trying last-minute maneuvers to prevent the law from taking effect. But if Malta can pull it off, is the rest of Europe far behind?