• Dutch ministers unveil marijuana plans

    Ministers say they expect the decision about which local authorities will take part will be made by the end of the year
    Dutch News (Netherlands)
    Thursday, April 11, 2019

    The Dutch government is to press ahead with experiments in regulated marijuana production involving 10 licenced growers, according to the detailed plans. The long-awaited experiment with regulated growing is supposed to remove the gray area between the sale of marijuana in council-licenced coffee shops and the illegal cultivation and supply. The plans, which were put out to consultation last year, state that the 10 growers will all have to produce at least 10 different types of marijuana product and the thc content will have to be clearly marked on the packaging. The plans have been criticized by the Dutch local authorities association VNG, drugs and legal experts and coffee shop owners. (See also: Holland’s half-baked attempt to return to the marijuana vanguard)

  • Alex Berenson and the last anti-cannabis crusade

    How a best-selling thriller writer and media hound is spreading a moral panic about pot
    The New Republic (US)
    Wednesday, April 10, 2019

    harry anslinger quoteThe encroaching specter of mass legalization of cannabis has triggered a strange reprisal of the alarmist themes of Anslinger’s assault on the plant over 80 years ago. More curious still, our celebrated latter-day apostle of Anslingerism—the thriller novelist Alex Berenson—has been embraced by a credulous mainstream and liberal press. One might imagine that in this day and age we would have grown immune to moral entrepreneurship in the context of cannabis, now that a movement has begun to unravel Anslinger’s legacy. But in tandem with the momentum toward national legalization of cannabis, a new crop of moral entrepreneurs, led by Berenson, have stepped forward to enforce the crumbling status quo.

  • Cannabis banking prospects improve; scepticism and stigma remain

    The SAFE Banking Act aims to protect banks that service the cannabis industry from being penalised by US federal legislators
    Jamaica Observer (Jamaica)
    Wednesday, April 10, 2019

    jamaica flag ganjaThe nascent medical cannabis business in Jamaica is challenged by limited access to banking facilities. Many of the major banks have asked clients engaged in legal medical cannabis businesses to close their accounts for fear of breaching federal laws in the USA. Further, despite provision in law for researchers to investigate and innovate, projects are being held until financial rules are settled. On top of this structural barrier, scepticism and stigma perfuse the system. (See also: Jamaican ganja is a US$250-million industry)

  • Mania for China’s hemp-related companies prompts stock regulator to crack down

    Hemp-related companies listed in Shanghai, Shenzhen and Hong Kong have enjoyed a stellar rise so far this year, but can it last?
    South China Morning Post (China)
    Sunday, April 7, 2019

    china hemp workersChinese cannabis-related stocks have been getting way too high this year for Beijing’s taste, prompting a crackdown to control the investor mania. Marijuana growth and consumption is illegal in China, but cultivation of hemp is allowed in the southern province of Yunnan and in the northern province of Heilongjiang, which legalised the trade in 2010 and 2017 respectively. Though tightly controlled, China is the world’s largest hemp producing country and the biggest exporter of hemp paper and textiles, according to official figures. Hemp contains just a trace of psychoactive component THC, and is used industrially in things like clothing, paper and seed products.

  • Mother of girl with epilepsy has supply of medical cannabis confiscated

    Campaigner Emma Appleby was stopped with £4,500 worth of cannabis oil for her daughter
    The Observer (UK)
    Saturday, April 6, 2019

    The law in the UK was changed last November to make access to medical cannabis legal, but parents have been struggling to secure prescriptions, due to reluctance within the medical community. NHS England says it expects cannabis-based products for medicinal use should “only be prescribed for indications where there is clear published evidence of benefit”. Hannah Deacon, mother of one of the first children to be prescribed medical cannabis, said that people need help from the government, rather than an insistence on randomised control trials to prove the efficacy of medical cannabis. “We need observational trials and modern thinking from clinicians and ministers to make these life-changing medicines truly accessible.” (See also: Teagan Appleby to have confiscated medical cannabis returned)

  • A budding trade: Industrial cannabis is booming in China

    Hemp stocks reach an all-time high
    The Economist (UK)
    Thursday, April 4, 2019

    The hemp plant has a history in China. It was probably twisted into the world’s first rope there around 2,800BC. Since its cooler sister, marijuana, became legal for recreational use in Canada and many American states, industrial-use hemp—a variety of cannabis that contains trivial amounts of weed’s mind-altering substance, THC—is flourishing in a country that until a few years ago banned its cultivation outright. China grows nearly half the world’s legal hemp. In 2018 sales, mostly of textile fibre made from the plant’s stalk, totalled $1.2bn. Now global demand for its seeds, leaves and flowers is surging. Packed with fulsome fatty acids, seeds go into snacks and oil. Leaves and flowers contain cannabidiol (CBD), a non-intoxicating compound that reduces anxiety and inflammation.

  • How cannabis is firing up the U.S. supply chain

    U.S. companies cannot stop talking about marijuana, hoping in part they can catch investor interest as the booming economy around the drug lifts revenues throughout the supply chain
    Reuters (UK)
    Thursday, April 4, 2019

    us cannabis deliveredWith the recreational use of cannabis now legal in 10 states and the District of Columbia and medical marijuana legal in 23 states, marijuana is on its way to becoming an $80 billion industry in the United States by 2030, according to estimates by Cowen Inc. That outsized growth is starting to bleed into adjacent industries ranging from energy to packaging to point-of-sale technology whose products are used in the production or sale of marijuana. As investors circle the cannabis space, supply-chain companies are showing a new willingness to associate themselves with an industry that remained largely illegal a decade ago.

  • Street cannabis 'contains dangerous amount of faecal matter'

    The hashish obtained in Madrid was found to contain dangerous levels of E.coli bacteria
    BBC News (UK)
    Thursday, April 4, 2019

    Cannabis resin sold on the streets of Madrid is contaminated with dangerous levels of faecal matter, a study says. Traces of E.coli bacteria and the Aspergillus fungus were found by analysts who examined 90 samples bought in and around the Spanish capital. The samples of hashish were wrapped up in plastic "acorns" were the worst offenders, reportedly because of the way they are smuggled into the country. Some 40% of these also had the aroma of faeces, the study's lead author said. Buying, selling and importing cannabis is against the law in Spain, as is using it in public - although it is technically legal to grow it for personal use, provided it is not publicly visible, and to consume it in private. (See also: Poo traces found in majority of cannabis sold on Madrid streets)

  • Can marijuana create a path to justice?

    Reparations and restorative justice for workers in the budding cannabis industry need to be a part of the conversation
    Laura Flanders Show (US)
    Tuesday, April 2, 2019

    social justice 640x320The fight to legalize marijuana has never been easy, as evidenced by the recent collapse of months-long efforts in New Jersey and New York. A key issue in both is how to ensure that legalized cannabis doesn’t just create another privatized, corporate monopoly, but instead repairs the harm that has been done by the war on drugs. Legalizing cannabis, repairing the economy. Our guests say, reparations and restorative justice for workers in the budding cannabis industry need to be a part of the conversation. Featuring: Drug Policy Alliance‘s NY State Director Kassandra Frederique, Greenworker Cooperatives‘ Communications Director Raybblin Vargas, and Cannaclusive‘s Founder and CEO Mary Pryor.

  • Medical cannabis reform leaves at least 5,000 patients with no medicine

    As activists sue and Health Ministry delays reform implementation, thousands of patients of largest provider are stranded without treatment
    The Times of Israel (Israel)
    Tuesday, April 2, 2019

    israel medical marijuanaThe Health Ministry’s medical marijuana reform, which was supposed to go into effect on April 1, has forced the country’s largest medical cannabis supplier to temporarily close as it relocates its farm, stranding at least 5,000 patients, and possibly as many as 9,000, without access to their medicine. Tikun Olam provides 15,500 people per month with medical cannabis, out of the approximately 38,000 who have prescriptions in Israel. Last month, it informed patients that due to the cannabis reform, which requires it to move to a new facility, it will be unable to provide cannabis in flower form (including loose flowers, pre-rolled joints, and pills filled with crushed flowers), although patients who use cannabis oil can continue to fill their prescriptions.

Page 127 of 471