Global Ganja Report

Global Prohibition Regime

Although levels of tolerance for cannabis vary widely worldwide, nearly every nation on earth is a party to the 1961 Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs, which establishes uniform “schedules” for controlled substances—with our favorite herb in the most restrictive schedule. Nations may establish their own enforcement policies, in consultation with the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime.

The US, with the most restrictive laws in the West, led the way in the development of this system. Morphine and cocaine are Schedule 2, for drugs with legitimate medical uses. Marijuana, with heroin, is Schedule 1—those supposedly without.

Racist Legacy

The first drug laws were blatantly linked to racism. In  1914, the Harrison Act brought opiates and cocaine under federal control, imposing high taxes meant to effectively ban the substances. Legislators played to fear of the "Yellow Peril," with lurid tales of white women becoming addicted and shacking up with "Chinamen." The Treasury Department launched a new Narcotics Division. The US pushed for the 1912 Hague Convention, that committed signatories to restrict opiates and cocaine.

In 1915 California passed the first state law against cannabis. Numerous other states followed—with the press campaign this time playing to anti-Mexican racism.

Anslinger's Crusade

In the 1930s, Harry Anslinger, head of the Treasury Department’s Federal Bureau of Narcotics (FBN), launched a crusade for a federal marijuana law. In 1937, the Marihuana Tax Stamp Act passed after a high-pressure propaganda campaign personally directed by Anslinger—who linked marijuana to adolescent axe-murderers, with propaganda articles produced by Anslinger’s FBN carrying names like “Youth Gone Loco” and “Marihuana: Assassin of Youth.” With high taxes imposed, and the “tax stamps” basically unavailable, cannabis was de facto illegal. The 1947 Boggs Act imposed criminal penalties for possession.

In 1961, Anslinger's campaign to have the US prohibition regime imposed worldwide succeeded with the UN’s adoption of the Single Convention, establishing internationally-recognized “schedules” for drugs. Harry Anslinger, his work done, finally retired.

In 1970, Congress passed the Controlled Substances Act, which adopted the schedule system as US law. Simultaneously, the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws (NORML) was founded to advocate for tokers’ rights.

In 1972, the Protocol to the Single Convention was adopted by UN, standardizing extradition procedures for drug offenses. In 1973, President Richard Nixon launched the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), with worldwide operations. This replaced Anslinger's old FBN, but now with a much bigger budget and under the Justice Department.

The Decriminalization Movement

Simultaneously, however, Oregon decriminalized—the first state to remove criminal penalties for possession of personal quantities of cannabis. In 1975, Alaska's supreme court struck down the state's marijuana laws on privacy grounds, effectively instating the country’s most liberal decrim policy—even allowing growing of small quantities.

In 1977, New York decriminalized, overturning the harsh 1973 "Rockefeller Laws" where personal quantities of marijuana are concerned (although draconian provisions for cocaine and heroin would remain intact until 2009). Jimmy Carter supported decrim on the campaign trail, but failed to support federal decrim legislation once in the White House.  In 1978, the DEA began aiding Mexican police in spraying marijuana crops with the defoliant paraquat.

The Empire Strikes Back

Things got rapidly worse in the 1980s, as President Ronald Reagan revived the Nixonian phrase "War on Drugs" for a new era. In  1986, as crack hysteria hits media, the Omnibus Drug Act toughened federal drug laws—further tightened two years later, instating mandatory minimum sentences for controlled substances. A wave of piss tests swept American workplaces. Meanwhile, the UN Convention Against Illicit Traffic in Narcotics Drugs once again tightened the global prohibition regime.

Cannabis Culture Wars

In 1988, after a petition by NORML and two years of hearings, DEA Chief Administrative Law Judge Francis L. Young, Jr. recommended to DEA administrator John Lawn that marijuana be reclassified to Schedule 2, to permit its medical use. Lawn over-ruled the recommendation, and his power to do so was upheld by the DC Court of Appeals in 1994.

In 1990, Alaska voters overturned their state’s decrim policy in a referendum. In 1993, President Clinton had Attorney General Joycelyn Elders sacked for suggesting that drug legalization be studied.

In 1996, California voters approved Proposition 215, the historic initiative that instated the country's first medical marijuana law—in defiance of federal policy.

In 1997, Oregon voters collected enough signatures to force a referendum on a bill the state house passed to recriminalize cannabis, and succeeded in defeating it.

The Contemporary Struggle

Today, the US arrests some 1.8 million on drug charges annually—not quite 50% for pot violations, and 80% for mere possession (of pot or hard drugs). This compares with just over a half million for violent crimes. There are nearly 100,000 people in federal prisons for drug offenses, 50% of the total federal prison population. Of the more than 2 million people in combined federal, state and local prisons, 60% are doing time on nonviolent drug offenses—including 10% for marijuana. There have been more than 20 million marijuana arrests in the United States since 1965.

Under federal law, possessing one marijuana cigarette or less is punishable by a fine of up to $10,000 and one year in prison, the same penalty as for possessing small amounts of heroin and cocaine. In one extreme case, attorney Edward Czuprynski of Michigan served 14 months in federal prison in 1992-3 for possession of 1.6 grams of marijuana—about enough for one fat joint—before a panel of federal appellate judges reviewed his case and demanded his immediate release. Cultivation of 100 marijuana plants or more carries a mandatory prison term of five years. Large scale marijuana cultivators and traffickers—meaning at least 60,000 plants or kilos—may actually be sentenced to death under an amendment to the 1994 Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act. (The Drug Importer Death Penalty bill of 1997, which would have lowered the amount for capital punishment to kick in, fortunately failed to pass.)

Twenty-five states have now decriminalized, to varying degrees: California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Mississippi, Missouri, Nebraska, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, North Dakota, Ohio, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont—and Alaska, where courts struck down the state's recriminalization law on privacy grounds in 2003, effectively making it permissible to possess personal quantities again, although a new and less restrictive law passed in 2006 was upheld by the state's courts. There is controversy over whether the Connecticut and North Carolina laws counts as decrim, since their cut-off point is a half-ounce rather than the usual ounce. There is similarly controversy over the 2014 Missouri law, which technically kept simple possession a criminal charge even while removing penalties for a first offense. (This was also the case under the 1975 California law, until a new law finally enacted "offical" decriminalization there in 2010.)

In 2012, Colorado and Washington voted to approve measures that actually legalize cannabis—within proscribed quantities, and under tight state regulation. In 2014, these were joined by Oregon and Alaska—finally returning the Last Frontier to the trail it blazed back in 1975. The 2014 elections also saw a legalization measure approved by voters in the District of Columbia, but this portended a showdown over the policy with Congress, which controls the district's budget. The 2016 elections saw a major advance, with legalization measures passing in California, Massachusetts, Maine and Nevada. In January 2018, Vermont became the ninth state to legalize cannabis and the first to do so by legislation. Michigan voted to legalize in November 2018. In May 2019, Illinois became the second state to legalize via legislation. In November 2020, voters in Arizona, Montana and New Jersey all approved legalization measures. In March 2021, New York's legislature passed a legalization measure, followed the next month by Virginia and New Mexico. Connecticut's governor signed a legalization bll in June 2021. Rhode Island similarly passed a legalization act in May 2022. Legalization ballot measures were approved by voters in Maryland and Missouri in November 2022. Delaware approved legalization by vote of the state house in April 2023. Minnesota was next to do so in May 2023. Ohio legalized via referendum in November 2023. At present, this makes for a total of 24 states, plus DC.

But don’t think pot use is free and safe in these states. Not only are the federal laws still in force (although this generally just affects dealers and growers), but public use in every state but New York can still technically get you arrested—and often does. So can (and does) unlicensed cultivation.

Thirty-six states have passed medical marijuana laws (of widely varying degrees of leniency) either by legislation or referendum since California led the way with Prop 215 in 1996 (making for a total of 37): Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Illinois, Louisiana, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Dakota, Texas, Utah, Vermont and Washington. The territory of Guam also passed a medical marijuana ballot measure in 2014. These measures generally allow for a medical defense for possession or cultivation of a quantity that varies from state to state. The 2014 New York and Minnesota laws allowed for medical use of cannabis extracts, but not herbaceous cannabis. The same is true of many of the subsequent state measures. State and local law enforcement have not always honored these laws, and the feds explicitly do not. A 1998 voter-approved medical marijuana law in the District of Columbia was blocked by the US Congress until 2010.

Several other states have basically irrelevant laws passed in the '70s allowing participation in the federal medical marijuana program, which was extremely limited and shut down by the DEA years ago. Additionally, Utah in 2014 passed a law allowing medical use of cannabis extracts that contain the non-psychoactive cannabinoid CBD. A few other states have since followed in passing CBD-specific laws, including Wisconsin, Wyoming and Virginia. Texas and Florida allow low-THC CBD-heavy strains of herbaceous cannabis, but bar actually smoking it, allowing only vaporization.

Twenty-seven states have defined industrial hemp as distinct from marijuana and removed barriers to its production: California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Maine, Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New York, North Carolina, North Dakota, Oregon, South Carolina, Tennessee, Utah, Vermont, Washington, West Virginia and Virginia. Provisions of the 2014 Farm Bill allow these states to establish limited hemp cultivation plots for "research" purposes. The 2018 Farm Bill allows commercial cultivation of such strains.

Cannabis still accounts for nearly half of all arrests for simple drug possession nationwide.