Global Ganja Report

What will ultimately be a multimedia extravaganza on the history, culture and politics of the cannabis plant is currently under production in New York City. The music for Cannabis! A Theatrical Concert was just unveiled for New York audiences in a special performance at a nightspot on Manhattan's Lower East Side.

Having just undertaken a "critical study" of CBD, the non-psychoactive cannabinoid held to have multifarious medicinal applications, the World Health Organization is now opening such a study on THC. Stigmatized due to its psychoactive properties and currently in the shadow of the suddenly sexy CBD, tetrahydrocannabinol shows its own potential for application by the medical industry.

A new product is being plugged as containing CBD derived from humulus—that is, hops, the buds used as a bittering agent in beer. Some of the media hype has implied that this novel origin gets around the US federal stricture on the cannabinoid. But experts raise a skeptical eyebrow at the claim of hops-derived CBD. And in any event, the federal stricture is on the cannabinoid itself, regardless of how it is derived. 

Attorney General Jeff Sessions' newly announced Religious Liberty Task Force has progressives fearing the worst. But might it open political space to argue for a right to sacramental use of cannabis?

A parliamentary initiative has been launched to legalize medical marijuana cultivation in fabled hashish producer Lebanon, amid growing proposals for a general legalization of cannabis. But many growers in the Bekaa Valley are watching warily, fearing they will be left behind as foreign capital flows in for a legal industry.

The Oklahoma Board of Health has issued new rules to oversee the state's medical marijuana program, and advocates are relieved that the ban on smokable herbaceous cannabis has been removed. However, concerns remain about other restrictions that could make it essentially impossible for cannabis business to function in the state.

Israel's Knesset overwhelmingly passed a cannabis decriminalization measure—sponsored by the ruling conservative government. This fruit of a long campaign by activists is, however, tentative. The law is set to expire in three years, pending a review of the policy's impacts.

Compassionate care—providing medical marijuana to the ill—was what first opened legal space for cannabis in California a generation ago. But the state's Adult Use of Marijuana Act only regulates commercial businesses—leaving caregivers in legal limbo.