• Where there’s smoke, there’s political fire

    The Legalise it! association plans to launch a citizens’ initiative for the legalisation of cannabis consumption in Switzerland
    Swissinfo (Switzerland)
    Sunday, July 16, 2017

    The rising popularity of marijuana that doesn’t make you high – a product known as “cannabis light” or “CBD cannabis” – is causing a headache for Swiss politicians. It is sold in many Swiss shops and generates millions of Swiss francs in sales. Swiss authorities now ban growing, selling or consuming cannabis with a THC content, the main psychoactive element in the plant, over 1%. Above this limit, cannabis is considered a narcotic. Now, as the legal cannabis market continues to boom in Switzerland, supermarket giant Coop says that by the end of July it will stock the first ever ‘cannabis cigarettes,’ made by a local tobacco producer. The Swiss Customs Administration has now registered 250 manufacturers – a gold rush of sorts since it was just five at the start of the year.

  • Court set to revisit old dagga legislation

    Trial of the plant: Couple believe 1928 law should be revisited
    The Citizen (South Africa)
    Friday, July 14, 2017

    A highly anticipated court case later this month will revisit a 1928 South African law against cannabis – with the aim of legalising the plant for various uses, including medicinal, industrial and recreational purposes. The case – titled “The trial of the plant” – will be heard on July 31 and was launched by Myrtle Clarke and Julian Stobbs, also known as the “Dagga Couple”. It challenges cannabis being classified as an illegal substance under the South African Drug and Drugs Trafficking Act. The Act lists marijuana as an “undersirable dependence producing substance”. Clarke pointed to 1 000 arrests a day, many of these young people.

  • A brief history of DARE, the anti-drug program Jeff Sessions wants to revive

    The DARE of yesteryear didn’t work, and it may have actually made the drug problem worse
    The Washington Post (US)
    Wednesday, July 12, 2017

    Speaking at a DARE (Drug Abuse Resistance Education) conference, Attorney General Jeff Sessions praised the past work of the famous anti-drug program, saying it saved lives. Sessions may believe that the program saved lives, but decades of evidence-based research, including some conducted by the Justice Department he now heads, has shown the program to be ineffective — and it might even make the drug problem worse. One study even suggested that DARE students were more likely than their peers to experiment with drugs and alcohol. A little history. (See also: Jeff Sessions’s praise of DARE shows he just can’t quit the 1980s)

  • Cannabis cash conundrum: Some businesses bury money, others truck it to a federal vault

    Cannabis and banking industry trade groups, attorneys, regulators and others, are trying to figure out how to bring the cannabis industry into the financial mainstream
    The Cannabist (US)
    Wednesday, July 12, 2017

    With recreational use set to become legal next year under Proposition 64, cannabis sales in the state are expected to top $7.5 billion in 2020, up from about $3.3 billion last year, according to data provider New Frontier and cannabis investor network Arcview Group. But while Proposition 64 broadened the legal use of pot, it did nothing to relax banking regulations. “It left significant questions unresolved,” California Treasurer John Chiang said. “How do you handle the taxation of cannabis dollars and the banking of billions of dollars of transactions that are going to take place here in California?” (See also: State lawmakers group endorses descheduling of cannabis with eye on banking)

  • Swiss supermarket to start selling 'legal cannabis' cigarettes

    The cannabis in its cigarettes respects the legal limit of THC but contains a high level – some 20 percent – of CBD
    The Local (Switzerland)
    Wednesday, July 12, 2017

    An independent Swiss cigarette maker has this month launched what it calls the first hemp cigarette in the world – and from July 24th they will be on sale in major Swiss supermarket Coop. Heimat has been producing tobacco cigarettes since last year. But now it has turned its hand to making cigarettes using legal cannabis. In 2011 Switzerland legalized cannabis containing up to one percent tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) – higher than the 0.2 percent legal limit in many other European countries. The low level of THC means this legal Swiss cannabis won’t make you high, but it does still contain cannabidiol (CBD), thought to have certain health benefits making it useful for treating pain, inflammation and panic attacks.

  • Why João Doria’s war on drugs is doomed

    The São Paulo mayor's approach to fighting addiction ignores history's lessons
    Americas Quarterly (US)
    Wednesday, July 12, 2017

    When São Paulo Mayor João Doria set out to fulfil a campaign promise and rid the city of its cracolândia (crackland), an area that was home to a group of homeless people, he did so with an overwhelming and telegenic show of force: 500 police officers armed with guns, tear gas and dogs marshalled to take on this marginalized and disempowered population. In the words of one of the people caught in the mayhem six weeks ago, the police treated their subjects as if they were “nothing” and “like trash.” His raid also destroyed one of Latin America’s most promising health and social initiatives focused on drug users, São Paulo’s De Braços Abertos (With Open Arms) program, which was showing evidence of stabilizing participants’ lives and even reducing their use of crack.

  • Oregon bill decriminalizes possession of heroin, cocaine and other drugs

    Studies have shown that Oregon conviction rates disproportionately affect minorities
    The Washington Post (US)
    Tuesday, July 11, 2017

    The Oregon legislature passed a bill that reclassifies possession of several drugs from a felony to a misdemeanor, reducing the punishments and expanding access to drug treatment for people without prior felonies or convictions for drug possession. Oregon lawmakers hope to encourage drug users to seek help rather than filling up the state’s prisons as an epidemic of abuse spreads. The bill also attempts to reduce racial profiling via data collection and analysis to help police departments understand when their policies or procedures result in disparities. If signed into law, Oregon would be among several states that have reduced punishments for possession of small amounts of some illicit drugs.

  • Bundesrat lehnt Cannabis-Antrag ab

    Mit dem Vorstoß wollten die drei Länder unter anderem feststellen lassen, welche Konsequenzen die Freigabe weicher Drogen haben könnte
    Weser Kurier (Germany)
    Samstag, 8. Juli, 2017

    Der Bundesrat hat den Antrag Bremens und Thüringens zur Einführung von Cannabis-Modellprojekten mit großer Mehrheit abgelehnt. Somit ist das Vorhaben der rot-grünen Koalition in Bremen, Cannabis-Konsumenten vom Schwarzmarkt wegzuholen, um sie vor den Gefahren der Droge besser zu schützen, vorerst gescheitert. Trotzdem will die Bremer Koalition an ihrer liberalen Drogenpolitik festhalten. "Wir Grünen schlagen vor, zumindest die Möglichkeiten auf Landesebene zur Entkriminalisierung auszuschöpfen und die dadurch frei werdenden Mittel in die Prävention, insbesondere für Jugendliche, zu investieren", sagt deren gesundheitspolitische Sprecherin, Kirsten Kappert-Gonther. (Mehr dazu: Bundesrat lehnt den Thüringer Vorstoß zu Cannabis-Modellprojekten ab)

  • In Uruguay’s marijuana experiment, the government is your pot dealer

    Uruguay’s government has developed a legalization model whose apparent goal is to make marijuana use as boring as possible
    The Washington Post (US)
    Friday, July 7, 2017

    In coming weeks, cannabis-seeking citizens in Uruguay will be able to walk into a pharmacy and buy government-approved marijuana for the state-mandated price of $1.30 a gram. No questions asked. Uruguay is the world’s first country to fully legalize the production, sale and consumption of marijuana. But under its strict rules, there will be no Amsterdam-style smoking cafes, and foreigners won’t have access to the national stash. Nor will there be shops selling ganja candies, psychedelic pastries or other edible derivatives offered in pot-permissive U.S. states such as Colorado and Washington, where entrepreneurial capitalism fertilizes the United States’ incipient marijuana industry.

  • Revealed: The London boroughs that grow the most weed

    An FOI has shown which areas are responsible for producing most of the capital's green
    Vice (UK)
    Thursday, July 6, 2017

    uk cannabis plantation policeIn recent years, UK police have quietly eased off their prosecution of cannabis farmers. Between 2011 and 2014 the number of people taken to court for growing cannabis fell by 87 percent. In London there isn't a single borough that hasn't been home to a cannabis farm in the last three years. Most cannabis farms are contained indoors with hydroponics and expensive lighting equipment. The vast majority of offenders are white British men from 25-34 (there is a decline among South East Asian offenders, although using Vietnamese growers on slave wages remains a trend). Large scale grows might be found in warehouses, and there aren't a lot of spare warehouses in London, so if you want to find the cannabis farming capital of the UK you have to look outside the city.

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