• When will weed be legalised in India?

    We asked one of the leaders of India’s biggest marijuana movement
    Vice (India)
    Friday, April 20, 2018

    The Great Legalisation Movement - India (GLM) was founded in Bengaluru in 2014, with the aim of legalising cannabis and hemp production. The movement held marches in several cities late last year in support of Member of Parliament Dharamvir Gandhi’s private bill to legalise the medicinal use of cannabis and opium. Gandhi and other MPs argue that the ban on cannabis is “elitist”, and that the drug should not be clubbed together with harder intoxicants in the eyes of the law. The Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act was formulated in 1985, where cannabis was listed as a Schedule I drug. But it’s a naturally growing plant, why would you make it illegal? (See also: Youngsters try to weed out taboo)

  • Cannabis products sold in Lidl Switzerland

    Health and addiction experts are less enthusiastic about the normalisation of a product whose effects remain relatively unknown
    Swissinfo (Switzerland)
    Thursday, April 19, 2018

    Hemp containing active ingredient cannabidiol (CBD) can now be bought in Swiss branches of German discount supermarket chain Lidl. Start-up company The Botanicals, from Thurgau in northeastern Switzerland, will be supplying pure hemp flowers grown exclusively in Switzerland in partially automated greenhouses and specially designed indoor facilities. They say they support sustainable agriculture and are renouncing the use of chemical, synthetic or genetically modified substances. The hemp is obtained according to the Good Agricultural and Collection Practice guidelines of the European Medicines Agency. The hemp flowers, which are produced as a tobacco replacement intended to be used in roll-up cigarettes, are available in stores in French and German-speaking Switzerland.

  • Schumer to introduce bill to decriminalize marijuana

    It comes amid a shift in opinion on marijuana among voters and lawmakers
    Politico (US)
    Thursday, April 19, 2018

    Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) said that he would introduce legislation to decriminalize marijuana at the federal level, marking a significant shift in policy for the Democratic leader and lending the movement to lower government barriers to the drug a powerful ally. The top congressional Democrat told VICE News in an interview that legislation to increase access to marijuana is “long overdue” and that far “too many people” have been affected by the government’s crackdown on the drug. “I’ll be introducing legislation to decriminalize marijuana at the federal level from one end of the country to the other,” Schumer said, according to a clip of the interview released by the outlet.

  • Australia should tax and regulate cannabis, not prohibit it

    Drug policy has surprisingly little effect, if any, on consumption patterns but does produce serious harm
    ABC News (Australia)
    Wednesday, April 18, 2018

    Cannabis arrests have accounted for the largest proportion of illicit drug arrests in Australia. In 2015-16, of the two million Australians who use cannabis every year there were almost 80,000 cannabis arrests. Of these arrests, the overwhelming majority (90 per cent) were consumers while the remainder were providers. Yet in 2017, 92 per cent of drug users reported in a national survey that obtaining hydroponic cannabis was "easy" or "very easy" while 75 per cent reported obtaining bush cannabis was "easy" or "very easy". A poll by Essential Media found in 2016 that 55 per cent of Australians support taxing and regulating cannabis, with at least 50 per cent of the following groups supportive: men, women, ALP voters, Greens voters. 47 per cent of LNP voters favoured taxing and regulating.

  • Cannabis harm to teenagers' brains 'overstated', finds study

    Marijuana’s impact on adolescents’ brain development and mental health remains a major concern
    The Independent (UK)
    Wednesday, April 18, 2018

    Fears that cannabis causes irreparable harm to teenager’s brains have been stoked by trials which “overstated” the effects on intelligence and other functions, according to a review which found little ill-effect after three days abstinence. Studies have shown it is 114 times less harmful than alcohol, but marijuana’s impact on adolescents’ brain development and mental health is a major concern for policy makers in debates over legalisation. This is a key time developmental period and studies have found negative impacts on attention, learning, memory and organisation in heavy or frequent cannabis users. The study found that the “persistence and magnitude of impact” on teenagers had been overblown.

  • The plan to save California's legendary weed from 'Big Cannabis'

    Small operators have to cope with a sprawling new bureaucracy governing the cultivation and distribution of marijuana
    Wired (US)
    Tuesday, April 17, 2018

    The cannabis industry in California historically has been anything but centralized. That has made the cannabis in the Emerald Triangle legendary. Thousands of small farms have developed strains unique to their microclimates: A prized varietal needs specific conditions to thrive. But these farmers are in danger of losing their livelihood to consolidation. "As the cannabis industry is just coming out of prohibition and companies are beginning to get licensed, there are a lot of investment dollars going towards large indoor and greenhouse grow operations in the Central Valley of California," says Michael Steinmetz, founder and CEO of Flow Kana which quest is to save this cannabis culture to compete with the supply chains of Big Cannabis.

  • U.S. has been quietly helping Mexico with new, high-tech ways to fight opium

    The Drug Enforcement Administration said in a report last year that Mexico supplies 93 percent of all heroin consumed in the United States
    The Washington Post (US)
    Sunday, April 15, 2018

    In the past few opiate-soaked years, U.S. officials say, nearly all the heroin coursing through American cities has come from one place: Mexico. “There are still a lot of question marks around the figures,” said Martin Jelsma, director of the drug program at the Transnational Institute, a research organization based in Amsterdam, and the co-author of a forthcoming study on Mexican and Colombian poppy production. Equally challenging, Jelsma said, is identifying the source country of a heroin sample. He doubts that the DEA can always tell whether heroin is made from Mexican or Colombian poppy, given that Mexican drug traffickers in some cases have hired Colombians to teach heroin-production techniques, so the product is similar.

  • U.S. marijuana friends and foes cautious at signs of softer Trump

    The agreement made it "even more politically difficult for Sessions to initiate a crackdown"
    Reuters (UK)
    Saturday, April 14, 2018

    us buying marijuana dispensaryBoth advocates and opponents of legalized marijuana reacted with caution to signs from the White House that growers in U.S. states where the drug is permitted would be shielded from federal prosecution, saying it was too early to know the final impact. U.S. Senator Cory Gardner of Colorado announced that he had convinced President Trump, a fellow Republican, to protect from federal interference those state laws that legalize marijuana for certain uses. U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions, who opposes marijuana use, rescinded a memo issued by Obama, that dialled back enforcement of the federal ban in states that legalized the drug. That decision unnerved the fast-growing U.S. marijuana industry, which has been legalized in more than half of all states.

  • 'I will arrest you': Duterte threatens ICC lawyer over 'war on drugs'

    Duterte has cited numerous reasons why he believes the ICC has no jurisdiction over him
    SBS News (Australia)
    Friday, April 13, 2018

    rodrigo dutertePhilippines President Rodrigo Duterte has threatened to arrest an International Criminal Court (ICC) prosecutor if she conducts activities in his country, arguing it was no longer an ICC member so the court had no right to do any investigating. Hitting out at what he said was an international effort to paint him as a “ruthless and heartless violator of human rights”, Duterte withdrew the Philippines from the ICC’s Rome Statute a month ago and promised to continue his crackdown on drugs, in which thousands have been killed. ICC prosecutor Fatou Bensouda in February announced the start of a preliminary examination into a complaint by a Philippine lawyer which accuses Duterte and top officials of crimes against humanity, and of killing criminals as a policy.

  • Japan reports sharp increase in marijuana arrests, triggering concerns for drug issues seen in the West

    There was an almost 20 per cent increase between 2016 and 2017, as more youth say they tried it out of curiosity
    South China Morning Post (China)
    Friday, April 13, 2018

    Japan has seen a sharp increase in marijuana possession arrests, especially among teenagers and people in their 20s, prompting warnings of drug-related issues typically associated with the more tolerant West. But the number remains relatively low for a country of more than 127 million people. National Police Agency figures show 3,008 people were arrested on marijuana changes in 2017, up almost 20 per cent from 2,536 cases in 2016. The spike marks a new record for the largely drug-intolerant country and comes as arrests for hallucinogenic substances are declining – apparently due to a police crackdown on “dangerous drugs”.

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