Global Ganja Report

A proposed ordinance going before Oakland City Council’s Public Safety Committee next week aims to curtail indoor cannabis growers in the city by regularizing major producers for the medical market. Councilmembers Rebecca Kaplan and Larry Reid propose permitting four large, industrial-scale cultivators, who would then supply Oakland’s six dispensaries (the ordinance would add two dispensaries to the currently permitted four) with the 6,000 pounds of cannabis the dispensaries sell a year.

A New Jersey lawmaker who was instrumental in passage of a medical marijuana law back in January is now suggesting that the state's premier university become a national center for research into the plant and its beneficial properties.

The first ever High Times Medical Cannabis Cup was held this week in San Francisco. For two days hundreds of guests shelled out $60 a head to pack the Terra Gallery on Harrison Street, where an "all-star" panel of High Times cultivation writers and California medical marijuana experts picked the best product from dispensaries around the Bay Area. 

On July 3, medical marijuana users can head out to Quixote’s True Blue bar in Denver, Colorodo, to experience the HomeGrown Freedom Festival, a gathering and concert exclusively for MMJ patients. This gathering is designed to connect patients with the local dispensaries and caregivers that best fit the individual’s needs.

A new drug made from cannabis has been licensed in the UK. Sativex, a tincture of extracts from the plant, is sprayed under the tongue up to 12 times a day, as a treatment for the stiffness and spasticity associated with multiple sclerosis. The Home Office has rated it as having zero abuse potential. Britain is the first country to give the drug full regulatory approval, although Canada gave Sativex a limited license to treat neuropathic pain in 2005. It is made from plants grown at a secret location in southern England by GW Pharmaceuticals, whose shares have risen 60% in the last six months in anticipation of the new product.

Months after Iowa's pharmacy board recommended the state approve a medical marijuana law, progress is stymied as a legislative leader and a board official each say the other needs to act.

Territorial Sen. Rory Respicio June 16 revised and reintroduced his bill that would allow for the medicinal use of marijuana on Guam. Among changes to the Compassionate Health Care Act, now Bill 423, language was added to state that doctors cannot write prescriptions for cannabis, but can recommend its use and certify that recommendation.

Oregon on June 16 became the latest state and the first in many years to officially reclassify cannabis from its status as a dangerous drug with no medical value. The Oregon Board of Pharmacy (BoP) voted 4-1 to move cannabis from Schedule I to Schedule II. The Oregon BoP decision comes after many months of deliberation and input from the public.