Global Ganja Report

A major player in Canada's legal cannabis sector is seeking to acquire a troubled US-based company—the latest example of the trend toward consolidation in the industry now crossing international borders.

After years of upholding employee firings for use of cannabis even under state medical marijuana programs, the courts are finally starting to turn around on the question.

One of the ways state medical marijuana programs have failed to fully extend protection to medicinal users is in failure to defend against employment discrimination. This is now beginning to change, thanks to a few recent court decisions in favor of patients and employees.

Among several cannabis-related bills signed into law by California's Gov. Jerry Brown was one creating an "equity" program for the state's legalized industry, aimed at justice and inclusion for those communities hardest hit by marijuana prohibition. Another measure will erase past convictions for possession of cannabis in quantities that are now legal.

The global cannabis industry is increasingly dependent on factories in China's industrial zones—and fears being impacted by Trump's trade war with Beijing. Chinese pharmaceutical firms meanwhile explore potential applications of cannabis. Yet possession of herbaceous cannabis can land you before a firing squad in China. Human rights groups express alarm about the furious pace of executions in the People's Republic—outstripping the rest of the world combined. And drug offenses—including pot possession—top the country's capital crimes.

Among several cannabis-related bills that cleared California's state house before the last legislative session came to close is one that would lift the tax burden on medical marijuana providers. The bill is intended to again open space for "compassionate care," which was ironically squeezed out under California's adult-use regulation regime. 

A verdict against glyphosate producer Monsanto in a case brought by a cancer sufferer has brought world attention to the dangers of pesticides and herbicides. This is a question with implications already felt in the cannabis industry—both legal and illegal.

With the North American Free Trade Agreement under renegotiation, Mexico's former president and born-again cannabis advocate Vicente Fox is calling for the new treaty to include provisions for legal cross-border commerce in cannabis. But of course the federal governments of both the US and Mexico prohibit cannabis—despite growing demands for legalization both sides of the border.

Recent years have seen ethnic tensions in the northernmost parts of the Emerald Triangle, as Hmong growers—immigrants from the Southeast Asian nation of Laos—have established themselves in local cannabis cultivation. This has led to civil rights litigation and a polarized atmosphere in Siskiyou County. But just to the south in Trinity County, a group is working to head off tensions by helping Hmong growers negotiate the transition to licensed cultivation.