"Mi objetivo es ver diferentes opciones y escenarios que abran mercados internacionales para los productos de coca en su forma natural, que pueda facilitar la exportación desde Bolivia de una variedad de productos como mates, harina, energizantes o licores. Estamos convencidos de que hay una gran opción en el mercado internacional para la coca en estado natural. Hay que empezar a abrir espacios para la hoja de coca fuera del país, para Bolivia sería mejor levantar sus restricciones, pues las áreas grises le quitan posibilidades, por ejemplo, con Argentina. En Europa existen posibilidades, aunque no es legal todavía,  es posible pedir harina de coca. Se vende ahora por 200 euros por kilo, esto indica que hay una demanda potencial." (Véase también: Comercialización sube en 5% y el kilo de coca se encarece)

On 4/20, cannabis consumers across the United States will light one up in celebration of cannabis culture. In 10 states and counting, that celebration is perfectly legal. But as the annual ritual transitions from grassroots activism to commercialized indulgence, advocates want to remind consumers that the social justice work isn’t over just yet. On April 21, a coalition of justice and reform-minded organizations are launching what they’re calling the 421 For All campaign with a fundraiser designed to spotlight the ongoing need for comprehensive cannabis reform, especially in those states that have legalized but have yet to fulfill promises of “righting the wrongs of the drug war.” (See also: How the cannabis industry defeated legalization in New York)

Learn how lessening the barriers for small farmers while raising them for large companies can help to steer legal cannabis markets in a more sustainable and equitable direction based on principles of community empowerment, social justice, fair(er) trade and sustainable development.

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Canadian weed companies have their eye on a massive prize: the lucrative medical and adult cannabis markets that are emerging around the world. Much of the hype around corporate cannabis is linked to the acquisition of lands and smaller growing operations internationally. The selling point is that cannabis can be grown overseas and exported to meet demand in Canada (and eventually the US), but also that Canadian companies position themselves as suppliers in emerging local markets. Lobbying to impact national legislation, supporting criminalization of traditional producers, and moving into remote territories with plans to implement plantation style economies are just some of the critiqued practices of Canada’s emerging cannabis sector.

There is now a unique moment to build a coherent regulatory framework that would prevent the growing cannabis market from being concentrated in the hands of large for-profit conglomerates, beholden to purely commercial interests, which might well introduce new harms just as those created by prohibition are being mitigated. It is particularly important do so before big actors such as the United States follow and legalize medical cannabis at the federal level. There is first a pressing need to knock down the considerable market barriers that exist for small-scale farmers from traditional producer countries in low- and middle-income countries. These actors have often been those most affected by the so-called “war on drugs”, which has fostered discrimination, poverty, violence, and fear.

Significant policy shifts have led to an unprecedented boom in medical cannabis markets, while a growing number of countries are moving towards the legal regulation of adult non-medical use. This trend is likely to bring a range of benefits. Yet there are growing concerns over the many for-profit cannabis companies from the global North that are aggressively competing to capture the licit spaces now opening in the multibillion-dollar global cannabis market. This threatens to push small-scale traditional farmers from the global South out of the emerging legal markets.

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A flourishing dagga industry is high on the agenda of new Eastern Cape premier Oscar Mabuyane, especially in the Pondoland area, where locals have been farming the wisdom herb for a long time. If he has his way, Mabuyane says he intends to formalise the cultivation and trade in dagga which he says would have immense economic benefits for the people in the province. Mabuyane said those who had been growing dagga illegally for years would have to be embraced. “My attitude is that you don’t have to reinvent the wheel, but [we] must affirm those people who have been in the industry formally or informally, and set up cooperatives, formalise them and make them understand that they must work within the law so that we maximise opportunities out of this,” he said.

Policy changes over the past five years or so have dramatically reshaped the global cannabis market. Not only has there been an unprecedented boom in medical markets, but following policy shifts in several jurisdictions a growing number of countries are also preparing for legal regulation of non-medical use. Such moves look set to bring a clear range of benefits in terms of health and human rights. As this groundbreaking Report, highlights, however, there are also serious concerns about the unfolding market dynamics.

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Throughout India and Southeast Asia, indigenous farmers grow cannabis and make hashish using methods passed down for untold generations. Despite a global push to end prohibition, these traditional cannabis communities continue to struggle economically, as changes in climate and encroaching tourism threaten their existence. Now they find their unique landrace cannabis genetics under threat. Attempts to locate, preserve, and proliferate these strains date back decades. But most such efforts have been led by geographic and cultural outsiders, often driven more by profits than preservation. Over the past five years a grassroots, locally-led, globally crowdsourced effort, the Indian Landrace Exchange, has emerged to help defend and support these local cannabis-growing communities.

As Canada continues to work out the kinks of legalizing cannabis—and jurisdictions around the world follow suit—harm reduction advocates and drug policy researchers have their sights set on the regulation of all drugs, a reform they say is necessary to save lives and look at the issue from a public health perspective. Legalizing drugs would be different from decriminalizing drugs—the latter would make it legal to possess and use small amounts of banned substances but not to produce or sell them. Legalization would mean securing a safe supply of drugs and, with varying degrees of strictness, making those drugs accessible to the public.

There’s a hint of disappointment in Courtney Betty’s voice when he talks about the present state of Jamaica’s legal medicinal cannabis regime. “I don’t think some of the companies coming in to do business here want to understand the social realities of Jamaica, or the real history of ganja in my country,” he said from his home in the country’s capital, Kingston. “I don’t think it is out of ignorance; I think this is just the way Western companies conduct business abroad.” By “Western” companies, Betty — the chief executive officer of Jamaican medical marijuana company Timeless Herbal Care — means Canadian. Since Jamaica legalized cannabis for medicinal cultivation and sale four years ago, a slew of Canadian pot companies have flooded the tiny island nation.

En julio de 2016 el gobierno colombiano expidió la ley 1787 que regula el uso y la comercialización del cannabis medicinal en el país. Con esta decisión y una serie de resoluciones subsiguientes, Colombia se sumó a más de una decena de países que han puesto en práctica distintos tipos de reglamentación para explorar las ventajas de esta planta como alternativa farmacéutica. A pesar de que la legislación contempla que el 10 por ciento de la producción debe provenir de pequeños y medianos cultivadores, la realidad es que el negocio ha sido mayoritariamente acaparado por los grandes capitales locales y extranjeros.

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Los cambios políticos ocurridos en los últimos cinco años han reconfigurado dramáticamente el mercado del cannabis. No solo ha habido un boom sin precedentes en el mercado medicinal sino que, siguiendo los cambios políticos en muchas jurisdicciones, un número creciente de países también se están preparando para la regulación legal del uso no medicinal. Tales movimientos son impulsados por el reconocimiento de la inefectividad probada de las políticas represivas durante décadas, que han acarreado graves consecuencias negativas y apuntan a proporcionar un amplio rango de beneficios en términos de la salud y los derechos humanos.

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The Position Paper "For inclusive business models, well designed laws and fair(er) trade options for small-scale traditional cannabis farmers” produced by The Fair(er) Trade Cannabis Working Group aims to contribute to the debate on finding sustainable and realistic solutions to the challenges posed by the developing cannabis industry, with a special focus on traditional and small scale farmers.

Across the world, the state of environmental stress is unprecedented. As scholarship and activism on ‘environmental justice’ points out, poorer and marginalised communities face particular exposure to environmental harms. This holds particularly true for populations in the global South. The role of illicit drugs in relation to these environmental stresses is an underexplored terrain. Yet, as this report will argue, drugs, as well as the policy responses to them, are an environmental issue.

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A supreme ganja, smoked by Rastas and even Bob Marley himself in the 1970s? This pipe dream of every ganja aficionado is becoming reality thanks to the horticultural talents of scientist Dr Machel Emanuel of the Biology Department at the University of the West Indies in Kingston. His specialty: landrace cannabis, which grew naturally in Jamaica before it disappeared as a result of human intervention. The reggae legends' ganja would not have been as strong as modern, artificially created cannabis, which has higher levels of THC — the plant's main psychoactive ingredient. But in the 1980s, during the US war on drugs, landrace cannabis was easily spotted because of its height and destroyed, and cultivation of the plant was abandoned. Over time, easier-to-hide hybrids replaced the landrace cultivars.

Director of the Cannabis Licensing Authority, Delano Seiveright, encouraged European stakeholders to continue to pursue further cannabis-related reforms in their respective countries as it will, in part, assist “small developing states like Jamaica to further deepen its cannabis liberalisation efforts so as to bring much-needed benefits to small traditional farmers who are suffering from marginalisation due to complicated laws and regulations brought on by geopolitical realities, and to foster growth and development in emerging market economies”. Much more is needed to be done to ensure the full incorporation of small traditional players who need to be brought into the regulated environment. (See also: CLA director lobbys Europe to push cannabis reforms)

In July 2016, the Colombian government enacted Law 1787, which regulates the use of medicinal cannabis and its trade in the country. With this decision and a series of subsequent resolutions, Colombia joined the more than a dozen countries that have put into practice different types of regulation to explore the advantages of this plant as an alternative pharmaceutical. Even though the law stipulates that 10 per cent of production should come from small- and medium- scale growers, the reality is that most of the business has been dominated by large local and foreign investors.

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The cannabis industry can build a better and regenerative culture, rather than falling into the same old tired and destructive human and corporate patterns of extractive companies. We can create a diverse industry from the ground up. The federal and provincial governments can incentivize and support the creation of small sustainable environmentally friendly farms. In a transparent legal market, consumers can purchase cannabis aligned with their values, whatever they may be. We can promote gender parity and inclusiveness in the boardroom, and foster equity in the licencing process with buy-in from local, provincial and federal governments. Let’s create fair trade standards that will help farmers to not just survive but thrive, and give back to our communities economically, in the spirit of good stewardship.