Global Ganja Report

You know the times they are a-changing when Forbes magazine runs a headline predicting that the international market for cannabis will hit $31.4 billion within the next four years. This projection is based on  a new report from the Brightfield Group, a cannabis market research firm based in Chicago. Currently, the global market is estimated to be worth $7.7 billion, but a compound annual growth rate of 60% is foreseen as countries around the world liberalize their marijuana laws.

The trial of a paralyzed man who was prosecuted by Swedish authorities for self-medicating with cannabis sparked debate over the right to cultivate medicinal herb in the Scandinavian nation. Now Sweden's Supreme Court has just ruled against the defendant, dealing a blow to the right to self-medicate.

The latest stats from the UN's annual Afghanistan Opium Survey are in, and the news is grim. Opium production in the war-torn country jumped nearly 87% in 2017, to record levels—an estimated 9,000 metric tons (9,921 US tons). Areas under poppy cultivation rose by 63%, reaching a record 328,000 hectares (810,488 acres), according to the joint survey by the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) and the Afghan Counter-Narcotics Ministry. The survey also found that the number of poppy-free provinces in the country decreased from 13 to 10, with Ghazni, Samangan and Nuristan provinces joining the list of poppy-growing regions. This boosts the number of Afghanistan's 34 provinces now cultivating opium from 21 to 24. 

Sudan's conflicted western region of Darfur has receded from the headlines since the wave of global concern about genocide there a decade ago. But horrific violence in the stark desert region continues—and there are signs that Sudan's regime is resorting to the tried-and-true tactic of using drug enforcement as a rationale for counterinsurgency. AFP reports that Sudan's paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF), usually used to fight rebels in the country's conflict areas, are now boasting a massive hashish haul of 19 metric tons in the state of South Darfur.

Peru's President Pedro Pablo Kuczynski on Nov. 16 signed a bill to legalize the use of cannabis products and derivatives to treat medical conditions such as cancer and epilepsy. PPK, as he is popularly known, hailed the law as opening a new chapter in his country's approach to the herb. "Here we are breaking with a myth," he said, referring to marijuana's reputation as a dangerous drug. "Peru is turning several pages, moving toward modernity."

After 13 years of occupying the country—during which they fired on protesters and accidentally introduced cholera to the island, setting off an epidemic—UN "peacekeepers" were finally withdrawn from Haiti in October. To take up the slack in figting drug gangs in the capital Port-au-Prince, the United Nations has called for increased international support for the 15,000-strong Haitian National Police.

Just a matter of weeks after the Philippines' President Rodrigo Duterte won rare favorable headlines by pledging to pull the National Police out of his ultra-deadly "war on drugs," he is already backpeddaling and threatening to send them back in—as cynics had predicted. Duterte made his threat Nov. 18 in a speech at a business event in his hometown Davao City (where he first honed his death-squad tactics when he served there as mayor). "The drug problem, if it becomes worse again, the police has to enter the picture," he said in his typically crude syntax. "I want it eradicated if possible."  

The Balkan country of Albania, trying to live down its pariah status as Europe's top cannabis producer, has cracked down hard in recent years, sparking instances of armed resistance from peasant growers. But despite repeated declarations that the country is "marijuana-free," the issue won't go away—and is coming to the fore once again as Albania seeks to join the European Union. The latest to lecture Albanian leaders is US ambassador Donald Lu, who this month warned that the country's criminal networks remain intact.