• Wall Street experiments with marijuana investments

    Former Bear Stearns broker sets up legal cannabis industry networking business
    Financial Times (UK)
    Sunday, April 1, 2018

    dollar cannabis2More adventurous corners of Wall Street are experimenting with marijuana as an investment even though recreational use of the drug is illegal in New York and the US attorney-general has reminded the industry that cannabis is outlawed by federal statute. The gathering at Aretsky’s Patroon in midtown Manhattan gave 80 private equity executives, fund managers and family-office investors a chance to hear from pot entrepreneurs seeking capital. One bragged of management team experience that included Blackstone, Goldman Sachs and the Harvard Business School. The North American legal cannabis market grew by a third to nearly $10bn last year, according to ArcView Market Research, and is forecast to more than double in size by 2021.

  • Indonesia criminal code overhaul a step backwards for drug policy

    Sweeping criminal sanctions proposed in Indonesian parliament could worsen the country's drug problem
    Al Jazeera
    Friday, March 30, 2018

    As more countries move away from drug prohibition, Indonesia is about to step up its efforts to defend it. Proposed revisions to the country's criminal code promote harsh penalties for the use and possession of narcotics - including society's ultimate sanction, the death penalty - instead of a health-oriented approach. Rather than enabling a safer, healthier future for the world's fourth largest population, the changes guarantee a surge in prison overcrowding, inflated public health costs, decreased access to health care, and increased drug trafficking, availability, and misuse.

  • Canada’s next steps on cannabis and the UN drug treaties

    Canada’s proposed approach to cannabis will result in Canada being in contravention of certain obligations related to cannabis under the UN drug conventions
    Dave Bewley-Taylor, Tom Blickman, Martin Jelsma, and John Walsh
    Ipolitics (Canada)
    Thursday, March 29, 2018

    Ever since the introduction of Bill C-45, questions have been swirling concerning Canada’s position relative to the UN drug control conventions: conventions to which Canada is a party and that, crucially, prohibit the creation of regulated markets for the recreational use of cannabis. Amidst debates and discussion over the past few months on how best to manage the impending mismatch between Canada’s domestic cannabis policy and international commitments, various options have been proffered and examples from elsewhere sought. One possible avenue to explore is a mechanism called modification inter se, as outlined in ‘Balancing Treaty Stability and Change: Inter se modification of the UN drug control conventions to facilitate cannabis regulation.’

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  • Daily cannabis use could delay at-risk youth from moving to higher risk drug use: study

    Other recent research suggests cannabis may be a potential substitute for users of legal or illicit opioids, as well as crack cocaine
    The Globe and Mail (Canada)
    Thursday, March 29, 2018

    Various medical marijuana products are distributed as an alternative to intravenous drugs at an overdose prevention site in Vancouver, B.C., on Aug. 28, 2017Consuming cannabis every day could delay at-risk youth from moving on to injecting more dangerous drugs, according to a new study that casts doubt upon the age-old assumption that marijuana acts as a gateway for teens to try other more harmful substances. The research, from scientists at the BC Centre on Substance Use, also adds to other work that has suggested marijuana could be used as a substitute for people addicted to opioids. Researchers repeatedly interviewed 481 homeless young people in Vancouver’s downtown core who had never injected any drugs and found - over a decade of tracking this at-risk cohort - that daily cannabis use was associated with a 34 per cent decrease in the rate people started injecting drugs.

  • Most Luxembourg residents want cannabis legalised

    Survey shows most people in Grand Duchy would like to see marijuana legalised for personal use
    Luxembourg Times (Luxembourg)
    Thursday, March 29, 2018

    The majority of Luxembourg residents think cannabis should be fully legalised for personal use and not just for medical reasons, according to a survey carried out by TNS Ilres. Fifty-six percent of respondents were in favour for cannabis being legalised, with 18% being in "absolute" agreement that the drug should be fully legal in the Grand Duchy. However, the lion's share of those in agreement, at 38%, believe cannabis should be legalised "under certain conditions". Younger participants, particularly those aged between 18 and 24, generally responded favourably to total legalisation.

  • LibDem MSP says Scotland should ‘open regulated drugs market’

    Laws around cannabis are all currently reserved to Westminster, under the Misuse of Drugs Act
    The National (Scotland)
    Wednesday, March 28, 2018

    Scotland should have its own “regulated cannabis market” to control the pricing and potency of the drug, LibDem MSP Alex Cole-Hamilton has claimed. He made the call after new figures showed the vast majority of police seizures involved cannabis. In total, the force seized 347.9 kg of herbal cannabis, 322.1kg of cannabis resin and 18,310 cannabis plants from dealers. Cole-Hamilton said: “These new figures show that when it comes to drug related crime, police time is dominated by cannabis. Despite this, cannabis is freely available and widely used. The ‘war on drugs’ just simply isn’t working. It is costing millions and filling the pockets of criminal gangs."

  • Vancouver mayor calls for drug decriminalization after record year for opioid overdoses

    The police department has a progressive drug policy that does not target individual drug users unless that drug use interferes with public safety
    The Globe and Mail (Canada)
    Wednesday, March 28, 2018

    Vancouver Mayor Gregor Robertson is calling for the decriminalization of personal drug use and possession following the release of new numbers that show more than 4,000 Canadians are believed to have died of opioid overdoses last year – with nearly 10 per cent of them in the city. The mayor said Vancouver has long committed to treating drug use as a health issue, but that his recent and explicit calls to decriminalize are a direct response to an overdose crisis that has killed an average of one person every day in the city.

  • CAG raps Odisha govt. for weak enforcement in drug trafficking

    ‘No coordinated strategy, concerted approach by authorities’
    The Hindu (India)
    Tuesday, March 27, 2018

    india cannabis leThough illegal cultivation of hemp over 9,548 acres were destroyed during the past three years in Odisha, the enforcement agencies managed to arrest only nine persons, the Comptroller and Auditor General of India (CAG) has said. This showed lack of a coordinated strategy and concerted approach by the MDS to arrest the offenders before or during the destruction drive. In a bid to nip cannabis cultivation in the bud, the Narcotics Control Bureau under the Ministry of Home Affairs had devised a comprehensive action plan in 2013 to be adopted by the States to control illicit cultivation.

  • Malta has officially legalised medical cannabis

    The bill allows family doctors to prescribe medical cannabis to patients, who will be able to access non-smoking forms of medicine at pharmacies with a doctor's prescription
    Malta Today (Malta)
    Tuesday, March 27, 2018

    malta cannabis flagMalta has officially legalised medical cannabis and has applied to import 15 kilos of cannabis for medical purposes. The amendments to the Drug Dependence Act (Treatment not Imprisonment) were enacted on the 26 March by Maltese parliament after its third and final reading. The law will allow family doctors to prescribe medical cannabis to patients, who will be able to access non-smoking forms of medicine at pharmacies with a doctor's prescription after a control card has been approved by the Superintendent of Public Health.

  • Philippines tars rights groups with ‘drug lords’ smear

    Duterte’s subordinates issue veiled threat against activists
    Human Rights Watch (US)
    Monday, March 26, 2018

    Philippine presidential spokesman Harry Roque alleged that “some human rights groups have become unwitting tools of drug lords to hinder the strides made by the administration.” That echoed recent comments by Foreign Secretary Alan Cayetano equating efforts of some unnamed human rights organizations to stop President Rodrigo Duterte’s murderous “war on drugs” with “being used by drug lords.” Cayetano said that human rights organizations demanding accountability for the carnage of the anti-drug campaign that has killed more than 12,000 people since Duterte took office in June 2016 were doing so “for politics, for business.”

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