Global Ganja Report

This weekend, the Sonoma County Fairgrounds in Santa Rosa, California, will host the 32^nd annual Harmony Festival. Considered both a music festival and an exposition for counter-culture lifestyle options, Harmony Festival’s core values include health, art, ecology, healthy living, and spirituality. Starting out as the Health & Harmony Festival in 1978, Harmony is now the longest continuously running premier music and lifestyle festival on the West coast.

Gov. Bill Ritter Jr. signed two bills into law on June 7 intended to increase oversight of Colorado’s medical cannabis industry. Under the new legislation, municipalities can ban dispensaries.

A new Los Angeles ordinance went into effect June 7, requiring that more than 400 unauthorized medical marijuana dispensaries to immediately close their doors. A Superior Court judge rejected a last-minute legal bid to delay implementation. The targeted dispensaries all opened after November 2007, when the LA City Council approved a widely-ignored moratorium on new medicinal cannabis outlets. An estimated 130 dispenasires which were open before then will be allowed to stay open—but will have to register with the city and be subject to inspections. (Vertex News, June 8)

In San Jose's first public discussion on crafting an ordinance regulating medical cannabis dispensaries, ideas were shot down and applauded at an emotionally charged City Hall meeting June 7. Parents and teachers expressed fears about the proximity of the dispensaries to schools, while patients and operators dismissed the city's proposals as too restrictive.

With all eyes on November's vote on cannabis legalization in California, the state Senate narrowly voted this week to reclassify possession of less than an ounce an infraction with a penalty of $100—rather than its current status as a misdemeanor with the same fine. Since possession of a less than an ounce is not punishable by jail time, "That's an infraction, by definition," according to Sen. Mark Leno (D-San Francisco), the author of SB 1449. "All this bill does is call it what it is—an infraction. It doesn't change the penalties."

Police launched a major anti-cannabis operation in Quebec June 3, arresting 35 in raids on four "compassion centers" in Montreal and one in Quebec City. A police spokesman said no organized crime gangs were linked to the centers—but that doesn’t make it OK.

Jonathan Braun, 27, and looking more like a "skinny slacker from Staten Island" than the leader of an international drug-trafficking ring, was denied bail at a Brooklyn hearing June 3, with federal magistrate Viktor Pohorelsky saying, "The government has posited substantial evidence of Mr. Braun's involvement in this conspiracy, which involves huge amounts of marijuana and huge amounts of money."

The Montana Caregivers Network is traveling the state in "cannabis caravans," setting up shop in local hotels, where patients can walk in, see a doctor and—if they qualify—get a medical marijuana recommendation for a $150 fee. "You're helping end suffering on this planet for human beings," said mobile clinic organizer Jason Christ.