Global Ganja Report

If you missed the Feb. 12 episode of Real Time with Bill Maher, do yourself a favor and check out the video on YouTube. Bill made media history that night. He starts by relating how he's always being plied with proposals to go into the cannabis biz, cashing in on the growing legal market with "Maher-ijuana" or "Billy Buds." But then he goes into an admonition for his own team: "You hippies need to get your head out of your grass! Progress doesn't just automatically snowball." He notes the rollback of abortion rights over past generation, with hundreds of clinics shut down—and makes an analogy to the hundreds of dispensaries recently closed in Los Angeles. He quipped: "And dispensaries still can't get banking services, because they're too skeevy—the banks, not the dispensaries."

Australia is anticipated to soon legalize cultivation of cannabis for therapeutic and resarch purposes, following a bill introduced to Parliament in Canberra Feb. 10. The proposed legislation, backed by Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull and leading political parties, would amend the Narcotic Drugs Act of 1967 to allow licensed cultivation and distribution of medical marijuana. The law would also change the Therapeutic Goods Act of 1989 to permit farmers to cultivate and distribute. Introduction of the bill follows recent moves by several Australian states and territories to provide patients participating in clinical trials with access to the herb.

Retired Los Angeles County Sheriff Lee Baca pleaded guilty Feb. 10 to lying to federal investigators, in what the LA Times calls a "stunning reversal for the longtime law enforcement leader who for years insisted he played no role in the misconduct that tarnished his agency." In the plea deal filed in federal court for the Central District of California, Baca admitted to lying twice about his involvement in hiding a jail inmate from FBI investigators. In fact, Baca ordered the inmate to be isolated, putting his top deputy Paul Tanaka in charge of executing the plan, the agreement acknowledged. Baca also admitted he lied when he said he was unaware that his subordinates planned to approach an FBI special agent at her home. Baca now admits he directed the subordinates to approach the agent, stating that they should "do everything but put handcuffs" on her.  As part of the deal, prosecutors agreed not to seek a prison sentence of more than six months, Eileen Decker, US attorney for the Central District, told reporters. Tanaka is scheduled to stand trial in March on charges of obstructing the federal investigation into brutality and corruption in the county jails.

It started when gunmen disguised as a police SWAT team opened fire with assault rifles on boxing fans gathered for weigh-in ceremonies at Dublin's Regency Hotel Feb. 5, killing one man and wounding two others. The fatality was a young man named David Byrne. Escaping injury was the star of the show, Jamie Kavanagh, who was scheduled to contest the WBO European lightweight title the following night. The Continuity IRA claimed responsibility for the hit, saying it planned to carry out further attacks "on drug dealers and criminals." The statement blamed Byrine for the assassination of a Real IRA militant in 2012. But days later, CIRA released a new statement, denying involvement. The confusion could be due to factionalism in the Irish Republican movement. Or did gang hitmen issue the first statement, hoping to scapegoat CIRA for the hit? In any case, the Saturday night fight was to have been Kavanagh's first in Dublin since the gangland killings of his father, Gerard, and uncle Paul—both convicted as drug traffickers and lieutenants of Ireland's reigning cocaine kingpin, Christy Kinahan. Gerard was gunned down in an Irish bar in Spain's Costa del Sol in September 2014. Paul was shot to death in his parked car in Dublin in March 2015.

Colombia's President Juan Manuel Santos met at the White House with Barack Obama Feb. 4 to mark 15 years since the initiation of the Plan Colombia aid package, amid signs of hope that the South American country's 50-year armed conflict is winding down. The two of course congratulated each other on the success of the program, which has delivered some $10 billion to Colombia in mostly military aid since 2001. They also discussed a proposed new aid program that Santos is calling the "second phase" of Plan Colombia and Obama proposed actually be called "Peace Colombia." Obama said he supports a package of $450 million annually to support the peace process in Colombia—an incease over leat year's $300 million. This would go towards implementing the reforms to be instated following a peace deal with the FARC guerillas—with a conitnued focus on drug enforcement. Obama said the US "will keep working to protect our people as well as the Colombian people from the ravages of illegal drugs and the violence of drug traffickers." (Colombia Reports, Feb. 4; El Espectador, Feb. 3)

A seemingly schismatic Oregon branch of the Native American Church claims the US government illegally seized its sacramental cannabis—and is fighting in court to get it back. Oklevueha Native American Church leaders James "Flaming Eagle" Mooney and Joy Graves brought the case Jan. 15 in a US district court in Portland. Graves says she mailed five ounces of cannabis to a church member in Ohio on Dec. 10, but it never arrived. The Postal Service tracking website reported that the package had been seized by law enforcement. A postal inspector in Portland told her cannabis is illegal under federal law and was unimpressed by her claim that she sent the herb to a church member with esophageal cancer for use in healing rituals, according to Courthouse News Service. Oregon legalized medical marijuana in 2007 and approved recreational cannabis through a ballot measure last year. Both remain illegal in Ohio, although small quantities are decriminalized there. Sending cannabis through the mails is a federal crime.

Italy took a step towards relaxing its marijuana policy Jan. 15, when the Council of Ministers approved a measure that removes criminal penalties for researchers who violate terms of their cultivation license, making it punishable only by a light fine. Justice Minister Andrea Orlando was quick to emphasize: "This does not decriminalize those growing weed on their terrace." The Italian military maintains a monopoly on cultivation for medical users, while only a handful of private firms have licenses to cultivate for research purposes. Those caught growing their own without a license still face up to a year in prison and a €4 million fine. But support is growing in parliament for a general decriminalization or even legalization that would extend to personal cultivation. Last July, over 200 lawmakers agreed to provisional text for a legalization bill.

Operation TELOS, an effort by Spain's Guardia Civil to halt the flow of Moroccan hashish into the Iberian peninsula, is now in its thrid year—but ongoing busts only testify to the ingenuity and resources of the smugglers. On Jan. 13, the Guardia announced that they'd broken up a ring that brought the stuff into Spain's southern province of Cadiz using a fleet of pleasure boats with false bottoms, arresting 17 people and seizing five of the boats along with 4.5 ton of hash. The arrests were made in a series of raids over the past months. The nationality of those arrested was not specified.