Global Ganja Report

After much speculation that the US Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) would reschedule cannabis this summer, the agency on Aug. 11 dashed petitioners' hopes, rejecting their request to remove its classification as a Schedule I dangerous drug. The DEA denied two separate requests by former state governors to re-classify cannabis as a Schedule II drug or lower. The agency stated (PDF) that the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) has "concluded that marijuana has high potential for abuse, has no accepted medical use in the United States, and lacks an acceptable level of safety for use even under medical supervision." Tthe DEA did propose a new policy that would allow universities to apply to grow cannabis for research. Until now, the University of Mississippi had a monopoly on cultivation for study. (Jurist)

A police raid of a Southern California medical marijuana dispensary was caught on hidden cameras—leading to accusations that officers exceeded their legal authority during the operation. "These guys were doing this to shut down a business without due process because they don't like it," Matthew Pappas, attorney for the now-closed Costa Mesa Collective told the Orange County Register in an Aug. 4 report. "They became judge, jury and executioner."

From Orlando, Fla., comes the maddening case of Daniel Rushing—who was literally arrested, handcuffed and charged with methamphetamine possession over a tiny flake of donut glaze on the floor of his car. The Orlando Sentinel reports that Rushing was driving home after dropping off a neighbor at the hospital for a chemotherapy session—something he did every Friday—when he stopped at a 7-Eleven to give another friend a ride home. The 7-Eleven was being staked out for suspected drug activity, and Rushing was stopped by police for failing to come to a full stop on pulling out of the parking lot. Threatened with a ticket, he agreed to a search of his vehicle—confident that he had no illegal materials. But the officer found "a rock like substance on the floor board," claimed to test it positive as meth, and dragged Rushing off to jail.

Is the alcohol industry spending money to get members of Congress to pay attention to the problem of "marijuana-impaired driving"? That's the case made on the cannabis industry website Marijuana.com, where a blogger seems to have assiduously searched the famous WikiLeaks dump of DNC e-mails for any reference to our favorite herb. What they found was in the May 24, 2016 edition of Huddle, a daily e-newsletter for Capitol Hill insiders produced by the Politico website. That issue included a paid advertisement from the Wine & Spirits Wholesalers of America (WSWA), which read in part:

In an utterly bizarre case reported in Oregon's Willamette Week on July 27, the federal government is taking the almost unheard-of move of prosecuting an individual for possession of a small amount of cannabis. Making it all the more perverse, this is happening in Oregon, which last year legalized recreational cannabis by popular vote. More perverse still, the taregted individual is a Native American youth—who may face one year in prison for possession of just about enought herb to roll a fat joint.

Northern California's traditional cannabis heartland of Humboldt County this summer gave an official go-ahead for two commercial medical marijuana farms, the Eureka Times-Standard reports. The two operations are Honeydew Farms, a seven-acre outdoor grow in the town of Honeydew, and a quarter-acre "mixed-light" farm run by Blessed Coast LLC in Carlotta. These are the first such enterprises in the county, "marking the beginning of a new era for the industry."

Amid a growing sense of crisis here in the United States, comes the unwelcome news that the White House will reconsider its May 2015 ban on police forces getting armored vehicles and similar military gear from the Defense Department. The leaders of two police organizations boasted of this to Reuters on July 21.  The named sources are Jim Pasco, executive director of the Fraternal Order of Police, and Bill Johnson, that of the National Association of Police Organizations. The ban was instated following a public outcry over use of the military-grade riot gear by police in Ferguson, Mo,, and other cities in protests against police brutality.

A north Florida company on July 20 was awarded the state's first license to process and distribute medical marijuana for the limited number of patients who qualify under stringent regulations. Hackney Nursery, doing business as Trulieve, received approval from the state Health Department to process the state's first harvest at a facility in Quincy, with the first sales expected in the coming days at its Tallahassee dispensary..