Global Ganja Report

In an August 24 ruling (PDF), the Colombian Supreme Court rejected a 2009 constitutional amendment recriminalizing the possession of personal-use amounts of illegal drugs. Prior to that amendment, pushed vigorously by then-president Alvaro Uribe, the possession of small amounts of drugs for personal use had been legal under a 1994 Constitutional Court decision. Between the 1994 ruling the 2009 amendment, adults were allowed to legally possess up to 20 grams of marijuana, one gram of cocaine, and two grams of synthetic drugs. After Uribe's reform, people arrested with small amounts of illegal drugs faced prison sentences of 64 to 108 months.

The US Justice Department announced Aug. 30 that Kenneth Melson, acting head of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (ATF), had been reassigned to another position in the department and that Dennis Burke, US attorney for Arizona, was resigning from his post. The department gave no reason for the changes, but they were clearly fallout from Operation Fast and Furious, a bungled ATF program that allowed some 2,000 weapons to go from the US to Mexico, where they were probably used in drug cartel violence.

Mexican marines shot and killed Gustavo Acosta Luján in the early morning of Sept. 1 in his home in Jardines de San Andrés, Apodaca municipality, in the northern state of Nuevo León. According to the Secretariat of the Navy, the marines, responding to an anonymous tip, were fired on from inside the house, and Gustavo Acosta, an "alleged criminal" with the alias "M-3," died in the operation. The marines said they found a 9 mm submachine gun, an AR-15 rifle and quantities of cocaine in the house. Mexican president Felipe Calderón Hinojosa has been using soldiers for police work in northern Mexico since militarizing the "war on drugs" shortly after he took office in December 2006.

Residents of Kington's poor district of Tivoli Gardens reacted with shock and disbelief to the news that extradited accused drug kingpin Christopher "Dudus" Coke arranged a plea bargain this week at Federal District Court in Manhattan. "I'm devastated," one anonymous member of the Coke clan told the Jamaica Gleaner. Scores were killed in days of street-fighting in the district last year as police and army troops were deployed to hunt down Coke for extradition to the US.

East Bay physician Dr. Frank Lucido, Mendocino activist Pebbles Trippet and attorney William Panzer have announced a new California initiative to legalize the state's biggest cash crop. The Repeal Cannabis Prohibition Act of 2012 would allow adults to legally possess up to three pounds and grow a ten-by-ten-foot garden, with the California Department of Public Health to oversee the commercial side. The text of the initiative has been submitted to the state Attorney General's office for review.

Sweet Leaf Pioneer owner Dave Manzanares in Eagle, Colo., must shut down his medical marijuana dispensary Oct. 31, even if he proceeds with plans to collect signatures for a special election to keep it open in the long term. On Aug. 23, Manzanares told members of the town board that he is circulating petitions to put the question to the voters, and asked for an extension beyond the Oct. 31 deadline established by a municipal ordinance. "Our family's future is in the balance here," Manzanares said.

A Michigan court of appeals ruled Aug. 23 that medicinal cannabis cannot be sold at private dispensaries. The defendants were owners of the Compassionate Apothecary, a privately owned dispensary that facilitates patient-to-patient transfer of cannabis using a locker system for patients to store and trade. Compassionate Apothecary retains 20% of proceeds from each transaction, and has 345 members, all certified by the state to use cannabis for medicinal purposes. An Isabella county prosecutor filed the complaint, seeking to enjoin operations for failing to comply with the Michigan Medical Marihuana Act (MMMA). (Detroit Free Press, Aug. 25; Jurist, Aug. 24)

The US Navy transport ship USS New Orleans recovered an estimated 1,800 pounds of cannabis from a small boat off the coast of San Diego Aug. 20. Coast Guard officials received a call about a 20-foot fishing boat apparently from Mexico, and requested the New Orleans respond as they were operating in the vicinity. As the New Orleans approached, the boat's crew dumped several bundles overboard. Officials said some 1,800 pounds of cannabis was recovered from the dumped bundles. The recovered cannabis and several crew members were turned over to the Mexican navy.