Global Ganja Report

New Mexico's Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham signed the state's cannabis legalization bill on April 12, allowing those age 21 and over to start cultivating up to six plants at home and possess up to 2 ounces (56 grams) outside their homes starting at the end of June. Retail sales are to begin in a year. On April 7, Virginia's Gov. Ralph Northam reached a deal with the General Assembly, winning amendments that speed up the state's legalization to July 1. The law will make home cultivation of up to four plants and possession of up to an ounce legal for those 21 and older. Sales are expected to begin in 2024. The Virginia law has strong social equity provisions, while those in the New Mexico bill were mostly put off to future legislation. (National Law Review, AP, NPR, Virginia Mercury, Marijuana Moment, Marijuana Moment)

Bunny Wailer, a founder of the reggae musical genre, died in Kingston on March 2 at the age of 73. He was the last surviving member of the original Wailers, following Bob Marley's death from cancer in 1981, and Peter Tosh's murder during a robbery in 1987.

Some of her fans fondly recall that Gilligan's Island co-star Dawn Wells, who played innocent Mary Ann and passed away on Dec. 30 in Los Angeles, had been arrested for cannabis possession in 2007. Police in Idaho, where she then lived, stopped her car for swerving on the night of Wells' 69th birthday, Oct. 18, and said they detected the smell of marijuana. Four partially smoked joints were found in the car.

A group of more than 350 citizens filed suit against the Electoral Commission in the High Court of New Zealand on Dec. 6, seeking to have the "No" results of the country’s recent cannabis legalization referendum dismissed.

A new day has dawned for medical marijuana patients in Argentina, who have finally won the right to home cultivation, three and a half years after medicinal use of cannabis derivatives was officially legalized in the South American country.

President Alberto Fernández on Nov. 12 signed a decree that had been issued by the Health Ministry earlier this year, stating: "It is imperative to create a regulatory framework that allows timely, inclusive and secure access for those who require to use cannabis as a therapeutic tool."

The tradition of cannabis cultivation, hashish production and sacramental use goes back millennia in Nepal, and the country was among the last to sign up to the global prohibition regime. Now, a legalization effort is underway in parliament—even as eradication operations continue.

Voters in Arizona, Mississippi, Montana, New Jersey, Oregon and South Dakota passed statewide ballot measures favoring medical marijuana, adult-use cannabis legalization or hemp cultivation in the Nov. 3 elections.

Lebanon, long the Middle East's heartland of hashish, has legalized cannabis cultivation for the medical market—but before the law has even taken effect, rumblings of cynicism are heard from the country's traditional growers. The outlaw growers in the Bekaa Valley, with its centuries-long tradition of hash production, will likely remain illicit and face continued militarized enforcement—while corporate producers with state-of-the-art greenhouses on the urbanized coast dominate the industry. And the hashish market has been hard hit by the country's deep economic crisis, leaving the Bekaa cannabis farmers struggling.