Global Ganja Report

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.

Paul Krassner, the legendary underground-press publisher, counterculture comedian, and the man credited with naming the Yippies, died July 21 at his home in Desert Hot Springs, Calif. He was 87 years old, and still active in radical press endeavors.

Hardcore Tuna-heads aren't going to be able to resist this one. They already know the basic outline of Jorma Kaukonen's life: an authenticity-obsessed student of traditional finger-picking country blues in the folk revival of the early '60s (Harlem legend Blind Gary Davis was his special inspiration), he was catapulted to stardom when he went electric as the lead guitarist for the Jefferson Airplane, flagship band of the San Francisco sound.

In his new memoir True Stories: Tales from the Generation of a New World Culture, Garrick Beck spans a personal journey through radical bohemia in the 1950s, hippie utopianism in the 1960s, back-to-the-land communalism in the 1970s, to applying those ethics today through community work and urban land-reclamation back in the New York City of his youth.

He was born into artistic activism as the offspring of Julian Beck and Judith Malina, the leading figures of the Living Theatre.

Attorney General Jeff Sessions' newly announced Religious Liberty Task Force has progressives fearing the worst. But might it open political space to argue for a right to sacramental use of cannabis?

A new study by the Psychedelic Research Group at Imperial College London has reached astonishing findings about the therapeutic potentialities of psilocybin, the psychoactive chemical in magic mushrooms. A first report from the group's study, released in October, indicated that psilocybin can "reset" the brains of depressed patients. A second report, just published in the Journal of Psychopharmacology, indicates that the psychedelic agent may even affect political views.

A bill signed by Oregon Gov. Kate Brown on Aug. 15 makes the Beaver State the latest to reduce the penalty for personal-use possession of cocaine, heroin, methamphetamine and other drugs from a felony to a misdemeanor. The state which famously was the first to decriminalize cannabis in 1973 is again leading the way to a more rational and humane drug policy.

Did you ever want to trip out for the benefit of science? That's what a lucky group of religious clerics got to do, and researchers are now in the process of evaluating the results. Scientists at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore signed up more than 20 spiritual leaders from various denominations after issuing a call for volunteers last year. Following an initial screening process, the participants were given strong doses of psilocybin—the psychoactive chemical in magic mushroom.