Global Ganja Report

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?

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.

The Czech Republic and especially its capital Prague have won a cachet among the international cannabis-cognoscenti. But now a local magazine dedicated to the cannabis culture may be forced to close by legal action — with its editor under threat of prison time.

Of all the post-communist countries, the Czech Republic is seen as the one that has best finessed the transition to an open society. Its predecessor state Czechoslovakia was at the forefront of the fight for freedom. Through it all, there was a strong whiff of alternative culture. The very word bohemia comes from one of the Czech Republic's two historical regions, Bohemia and Moravia.

South Dakota was one of four states that voted to legalize cannabis in November 2020. But now the state's supreme court has barred the amendment from taking effect, after a challenge brought with the support of the Republican governor—and based on narrow legalisms.

The VA only pledges not to cut off benefits to military veterans who use medical marijuana if they are enrolled in a state program. Those in states with no such programs remain the lurch. So vets are now speaking out in favor of pending state medical marijuana laws.

Amid continued federal intransigence on recognizing cannabis as legitimate medicine for military veterans, advocates take heart in legislation pending on Capitol Hill that would mandate that the VA study the question.

It's pretty surreal that even as a legal cannabis industry emerges on a global scale, there are still countries that impose outrageously draconian sentences for the herb—up to and including the death penalty.

The egregious case of a man sentenced to death for smuggling two pounds of cannabis into the Southeast Asian city-state of Singapore has focused global attention on the disturbing reality.

New York's new Gov. Kathy Hochul is hyping the coming cannabis boom in the state — although no adult-use licenses have yet been issued, and the bureaucracy is just starting to move on this. Meanwhile, the cops in Gotham City are turning a blind eye to small outfits that are setting up tables in the parks and on the sidewalks, selling edibles, extracts and bud. How long will this utopian free-for-all last?