Global Ganja Report

Michael Butler, the Tony-winning producer who financed the 1968 Broadway sensation Hair: The American Tribal Love-Rock Musical, a key moment in the mainstreaming of the '60s counterculture, passed away Nov. 7 in Los Angeles at the age of 95.

Growing numbers around the United States and the world are using cannabis to treat a wide spectrum of medical conditions, and legal space is widening for them to do so. So it's a particular irony that hospitals as a rule bar cannabis from their premises. More voices in the medical industry are now grappling with this dilemma.

Inauguration of a global hemp research lab has been announced at Oregon State University, where a multidisciplinary team will be working to establish standards for the worldwide industry.

The newly enacted Farm Bill contains language implicitly removing hemp-derived CBD from the controlled substances list, along with industrial hemp. A CBD industry that has been growing fast in a legal grey zone stands to grow faster in the light of legal clarity. Conflicting state laws and even federal regulations, however, could prove an obstacle to unfettered expansion.

The Supreme Court has agreed to hear a case that could set limits on the federal government's sweeping powers to seize property in drug cases under "criminal forfeiture" laws. Tony and Terry Honeycutt were charged with federal drug offenses after selling quantities of iodine-based water disinfectant at their camping and hunting store in Chattanooga—because the substance can also be used in the manufacture of methamphetamine. Tony, the actual owner of the store, pleaded guilty, and had $200,000 seized—the amount believed equivalent to his proceeds from the sales of the chemical. Terry fought the charge, and lost. The government then sought an additional $70,000 from him. In Honeycutt v. United States, Terry is arguing that he is not liable for the proceeds because he wasn't an owner of the store.

The oddly named mapping website FloatingSheep.com has produced a map showing the differences in the retail price of cannabis in the United States, coast to coast. The map—apparently featured in the September issue of Wired magazine under the cheeky title "Infoporn: O Say, Can You THC?"—is based on information gleaned from consumer reports on the Price of Weed website.