Global Ganja Report

Advocates increasingly assert that cannabis legalization is not fully realized unless workers are guaranteed their right to employment even if they partake of the herb off-hours. Some states are finally taking measures to rein in the use of urine-test results as an excuse to fire or turn down job applicants.

The US Department of Agriculture is opening an Industrial Hemp Germplasm Repository, in conjunction with upstate New York's Cornell University. The facility is envisioned as a major hub for genetic analysis and research, helping to spur the hemp industry's growth regionally and nationally.

Cannabis industry leaders have announced certification standards to promote corporate responsibility. The move appears to be prompted by some embarrassing scandals in the young industry. Activists are meanwhile raising more far-reaching demands for drug war "reparations." 

A long hoped-for cannabis legalization bill died in the New York state assembly, but reform advocates got a consolation prize as lawmakers agreed to widen decriminalization and expunge thousands of low-level marijuana convictions.

In Episode 35 of the CounterVortex podcast, Bill Weinberg interviews Emily Ramos, Pilar DeJesus and Kara Bhatti, members of the worker-owned marijuana consumer cooperative High Mi Madre, on their lobbying and activist efforts in support of the Marijuana Regulation and Taxation Act, still pending in the final countdown to the close of the current New York State legislative session. They emphasize the demand for "Day One Equity" with cannabis legalization in the Empire State—measures for reparative justice and reinvestment in the communities that had for generations been criminalized and oppressed by cannabis prohibition. Listen on SoundCloud, and support our podcast via Patreon.

The Cannabis Cultural Association won at least a limited legal victory, with a federal appeals court ruling that the DEA must consider with "alacrity" their petition to have cannabis rescheduled.

With the end of the legislative session in Albany closing in, odds for legalizing cannabis in New York state this year are fast diminishing. Now a new bill has been introduced, to reconcile rival versions pushed by the Assembly and Gov. Cuomo. It has won support from advocates—but, with the clock ticking, Cuomo equivocates on whether he will support it.

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez won praise from activists when she decried a white-dominated legal cannabis industry. As if to prove her point, the man she ousted in her 2018 Congressional run, Joe Crowley, is now joining an investment firm linked to the cannabis industry.

Northern Swan, a New York investment house specializing in the cannabis industry, just announced the appointment to two prominent political figures to its advisory board.