Global Ganja Report

"Diamond" Dave Whitaker, a local legend and longtime counterculture figure in San Francisco, died March 2 at the age of 88. Long known as the "mayor of Haight Street," Whitaker was an organizer of underground poetry readings, pirate radio broadcasts, and countless other hippie-spirited events, keeping alive the flame of the city's vibrant 1960s scene for new generations of youth.

"Country Joe” McDonald of the band Country Joe & the Fish, immortalized as an icon of the 1960s counterculture through his proudly subversive performance at the Woodstock festival, died March 7 at his home in Berkeley, Calif. He was 84. In the defining moment of his career, he led a crowd of nearly half a million at the 1969 Upstate New York mega-concert in the "Fish Cheer" (spelling out the word FUCK) before launching into his satirical anti-war anthem "I-Feel-Like-I’m-Fixin'-to-Die Rag."

Bob Weir, who helped define the sound of the Grateful Dead, flagship band of the 1960s San Francisco scene, died Jan. 10 at the age of 78. His life was synonymous with the Dead, which he saw through its various incarnations—from its early roots in the Bay Area folk revival and bluegrass circuit to preeminent symbol of the youth counterculture, to an American institution and grand-daddies of the "jam band" tradition.

US air-strikes on so-called "drug boats" have now destroyed 30 vessels and killed more than 100 people in the Caribbean and eastern Pacific. And on Dec. 26, President Donald Trump boasted in a radio interview that the United States had knocked out "a big facility"—implying that it was a drug-trafficking hub on the Venezuelan mainland, although he provided no details and neither the White House, Pentagon nor US intelligence agencies would comment.

President Donald Trump signed an executive order Dec. 18 to accelerate the reclassification of marijuana, a move that would ease decades-old restrictions that have classified the drug alongside heroin as having no accepted medical value.

The US Controlled Substances Act ranks drugs along a five-tier spectrum based on their potential for abuse and recognized medical value. Schedule I drugs are those with a high likelihood of abuse, no accepted medical use, and considerable health risks even when administered under medical supervision. Since 1970, marijuana has been listed alongside heroin as a Schedule I drug. Schedule V drugs are those with accepted medical uses and a relatively low likelihood of abuse.

The US Supreme Court announced Dec. 15 that it will not hear a case challenging the federal illegality of marijuana. The case, Canna Provisions v. Bondi, was brought by four Massachusetts commercial cannabis growers. The businesses alleged that the Controlled Substances Act exceeds the powers of Congress under the Commerce Clause and violates the right to due process under the Fifth Amendment.

It was federal subsidies for healthcare that were center-stage in the government shutdown and the Capitol Hill deal that finally ended it. But the fight over the heretofore ambiguous legal status of hemp-derived THC was also at issue in the end—and this could represent a serious blow to America’s farmers.

In response to the growing tensions between the Trump White House and Colombia, the South American nation's President Gustavo Petro called for replacing the policy of marijuana prohibition with a regulatory framework allowing for adult use and international export of cannabis, like "any good."