Global Ganja Report

With US stock exchanges still almost entirely closed to cannabis businesses, the stateside industry is increasingly seeking access to the Canadian exchanges in order to secure investment. Taking over publicly traded Canadian firms through reverse mergers has emerged as the critical tactic in this endeavor.

In Humboldt County, famed as the heartland of Northern California's cannabis-producing Emerald Triangle, big police raids of cultivation sites—with thousands of plants eradicated—are continuing despite the Golden State's new legalization program. Many growers are choosing to remain underground, in spite of the risks to their property and freedom. And a big part of the reason why seems to lie in a confusing and contested county regulation regime.

A big multi-agency "reclamation" effort on national forest lands in the Emerald Triangle points again to the serious environmental impacts of outlaw cannabis cultivation. Will this be the last gasp of this sort of thing now that California has legalized?

A deadly five-car pile-up on a Bay Area freeway brings into sharp focus the questions around cannabis use and road safety. Media exploitation of such carnage as propaganda against legalization, however, is missing some critical points.

California's Gov. Jerry Brown has unveiled a special investigative force to go after unregistered cannabis growers. This is certainly bad news for the many growers who have failed to register because they consider the taxes and regulations burdensome. In the face of disappointing tax revenues from legal cannabis, is the state using the stick of enforcement rather than the carrot of lower taxes and more favorable regulations to bring more growers in from the shadows?

In a still-murky scenario of rare federal enforcement against municipal corruption, FBI agents last week raided the home of the mayor of Adelanto in Southern California's San Bernardino county. In the same operation, a local cannabis dispensary was also searched. Economically troubled Adelanto has aggressively sought investment in its cannabis industry, but paranoia in the wake of the federal raids could have a chilling effect.

A federal appeals court has turned down a challenge by the cannabis industry to the DEA's official finding that CBD is a controlled substance. But questions about whether CBD should be treated as a controlled substance remain pending at the state level.

Five months into legal cannabis in the Golden State, the temporary licenses issued by authorities to get things off the ground are running out. But the full annual licenses are still being held up by several factors—including the failure of local authorities to approve cannabis operations, and implementation of a "track-and-trace" system to monitor marijuana from seed to sale.