Global Ganja Report

US basketball star, Olympic gold-medalist and LGBTQ icon Brittney Griner was popped at the Moscow airport, supposedly in possession of cannabis oil. She faces up to 10 years—and given the anti-cannabis, anti-gay and anti-American atmosphere in Russia, things are not looking good for her. Will she be used as a bargaining chip to exact concessions from the US in the war for Ukraine?

In a proverbial case of "good news, bad news," a national study finds that even as overall incarceration rates have dramatically dropped over the past decade, drug arrest rates have remained high—and racial disparities in arrests have persisted. The disparities have, nonetheless, decreased, as have overall cannabis arrests—with a big uptick in meth arrests taking up the slack.

Ukraine has been suddenly thrust upon the center of the world stage, as Russia pours forces over the border in defiance of the West. In the atmosphere of militarization, space for cannabis and alternative culture is likely to close in both countries—but at least such space had been, slowly and tentatively, opening in Ukraine. Russia, pursuing an aggressive drug-war police state at home, may now be poised to impose its cultural-conservative agenda and roll back the recent gains in its smaller neighbor.

There has been a flurry of vague but lurid reportage about a supposedly addicting and debilitating pseudo-cannabis that is going around in Sierra Leone and other West African countries. This may be akin to products such as K2 and Spice, widely marketed in the US and Europe—but if reports are to be believed, it is far more dangerous.

The National Football League has awarded a $1 million research grant to study the impacts of cannabinoids on pain management and neuroprotection in football players. The move represents a breakthrough given the NFL's longstanding zero-tolerance stance on cannabis use.

With political and legal space opening for cannabis in state after state, a backlash is manifesting in the idea of caps on the potency—whether of bud, extracts or edibles. Voices from the industry and activist community see this as a throwback to the days of Reefer Madness.

Native American nations in New York state are eyeing the legal cannabis business, with some reservations already operating dispensaries. With state authorities yet to issue licensing regulations, the Shinnecock and Iroquois nations are asserting their rights under principles of indigenous sovereignty.

New York’s new mayor has inherited a real human rights crisis at Rikers Island, the city’s principal jail, with desperate inmates launching hunger strikes in protest of oppressive and dangerous conditions. Promises by the previous administration to close the facility saw insufficient action, “decarceration” advocates charge. But with the new admin, the situation may be going from bad to worse.