Morocco pardons over 4,800 cannabis farmers

Posted on August 27th, 2024 by Global Ganja Report and tagged , , , , , , , .

MoroccoMorocco’s King Mohammed VI has pardoned over 4,800 individuals who were convicted or wanted for illegal cannabis cultivation, the Ministry of Justice announced Aug. 19. The move comes as part of the country's ongoing transition toward a regulated cannabis economy. The royal pardon, granted to 4,831 people involved in cannabis-related cases, came on the eve of Morocco's Revolution Day, commemorating the 1953 uprising against French colonial rule.

Snapshot from pre-legalization Massachusetts

Posted on July 31st, 2024 by Global Ganja Report and tagged , , , , , , .

BostonThose stigmatized as “drug dealers” can be good people too seems to be the overarching message in A Weed Grows in Boston by Valerie Vande Panne. The slim volume is a reproduction of a news story that originally ran in 2009 in the Boston Phoenix, which received both an AltWeekly award and a New England Newspaper & Press Association award. The author is former news editor for High Times, yet she is amusingly shocked by how ordinary is “Mary Jones” (the pseudonym given to the subject).

Podcast: Bill Weinberg's neo-Yippie memoir

Posted on July 6th, 2024 by Global Ganja Report and tagged , , , , .

YippieIn Episode 233 of the CounterVortex podcast, Bill Weinberg recalls his days as a young neo-Yippie in the 1980s. A remnant faction of the 1960s counterculture group adopted a punk aesthetic for the Reagan era, launched the US branch of the Rock Against Racism movement, brought chaos to the streets at Republican and Democratic political conventions, defied the police in open cannabis "smoke-ins"—and won a landmark Supreme Court ruling for free speech. The Yippie clubhouse at 9 Bleecker Street, the hub for all these activities, has long since succumbed to the gentrification of the East Village, but it survived long enough to provide inspiration to a new generation of radical youth during Occupy Wall Street. Listen on SoundCloud or via Patreon.

Brazil Supreme Court decriminalizes cannabis possession

Posted on June 26th, 2024 by Global Ganja Report and tagged , , , , .

RioThe Supreme Court of Brazil ruled June 25 to decriminalize possession of cannabis for personal use. The judges are yet to rule on the maximum quantity that may be considered for "personal use," and are yet to determine when the decision will take effect. The judges also ruled to order allocation of funds from the National Anti-Drug Fund to youth educational campaigns on the harms of drug use.

Maryland governor pardons 175,000 cannabis convictions

Posted on June 17th, 2024 by Global Ganja Report and tagged , , , , .

MooreGov. Wes Moore of Maryland signed an executive order June 17 pardoning 175,000 convictions related to possession of cannabis and drug paraphernalia, becoming one of the first US states to issue such a mass pardon. The order includes more than 150,000 misdemeanor convictions for marijuana possession and more than 18,000 misdemeanor convictions for use of paraphernalia.

South Africa passes law regulating personal cannabis use

Posted on June 14th, 2024 by Global Ganja Report and tagged , , , , .
South AfricaSouth African President Cyril Ramaphosa on May 28 signed into law the Cannabis for Private Purposes Act (CfPPA), codifying the personal use of cannabis by adults. The new law removes cannabis from the federal Drugs & Drug Trafficking Act and recognizes the rights of adults to possess and grow personal-use quantities of cannabis in private.

CWCBExpo brings together business, government, academia and activists

CWCBExpoIn the ultimate imprimatur of mainstream acceptance, the 10th annual Cannabis World Congress & Business Expo was held June 5-6 in Manhattan’s Javits Convention Center, the Big Apple’s premier venue for trade shows and industry confabs. And the event had the open participation of New York city and state government agencies, as well as capitalist enterprises from around the country and the planet.

Podcast: a cannabis coup in the Congo?

Posted on June 2nd, 2024 by Global Ganja Report and tagged , , , , , , , , .

DRCThe attempted coup d'etat in the Democratic Republic of the Congo may or may not have been assisted by the CIA, but one of the Americans arrested in the affair is named as a "cannabis entrepreneur"—pointing to the possibility of legal cannabis playing the same destructive role in Central Africa that bananas have played in Central America. Yet while corporate power sees a lucrative new cash crop, lives (and especially Black lives) are still being ruined by cannabis prohibition in the United States. In Episode 228 of the CounterVortex podcastBill Weinberg argues that the old anarchist slogan "Neither your war nor your peace" can be updated as "Neither your prohibition nor your legalization!"

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