Global Ganja Report

On New Year’s Day, as retail sales of cannabis went legal in Colorado, the state's dispensaries registered well over $1 million in sales. Despite cold and wet weather, most of the 36 shops that opened that day reported long lines, with some customers waiting outdoors for hours. By the end of the first week, by which time another dozen retail outlets had opened, the figure was a whopping $5 million. More than 100 dispensaries in the Centennial State have now received licenses for retail cannabis sales and over 500 are eligible to apply. More are applying every day.

"A new industry is developing in a nascent state in Colorado," says Rachel Gillette, director of the Colorado chapter of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws (NORML). "We're not just talking about retail sales, but a lot of other types of business associated with it—construction companies, HVAC contractors, nutrient companies, lighting and equipment sales, packaging, printers, labeling, marketing materials, websites, marijuana tourism, attorneys, payroll companies… This could represent a lot of jobs."

The US District Court for the Eastern District of California will hold rare formal hearings beginning Oct. 27 to determine whether an indictment against Brian Justin Pickard and others for conspiracy to grow more than 1,000 marijuana plants violates the US Constitution, and whether marijuana is misclassified by the federal government as a dangerous drug with no medical value. US District Judge Kimberly J. Mueller will preside over the three-day hearing, which includes expert testimony from doctors Carl Hart, associate professor of psychology at Columbia University in New York; Greg Carter, medical director of St. Luke's Rehabilitation Institute in Spokane, Wash., and expert witness Chris Conrad.

A Sept. 30 Associated Press story that got wide play in Northern California and the Pacific Northwest marked another concern about the ecological impacts of outdoor cannabis grows in the Emerald Traingle. The NOAA Fisheries Service in its new coho salmon recovery plan for the Northern California and Southern Oregon region finds that water use by the marijuana industry further threatens salmon already in danger of extinction. The plan calls for determining and decreasing the amount of water that growers illegally withdraw from creeks where young fish struggle to survive. Other threats from the unregulated industry include clear-cutting to make way for grows, punching roads that send sediment into streams, and use of fertilizer and pesticides that poison waters. Coho salmon have been listed as a threatened species since 1997, due to loss of habitat from logging, agriculture, urban development and dams, as well as overfishing—issues also addressed in the recovery plan. The highlighting of cannabis stems from a California Department of Fish and Wildlife study that said growers suck millions of gallons of water from salmon streams.

Amid mounting concern about the ecological impacts of outdoor cannabis grows in California's Emerald Triangle comes news of last week's massive raid on the Yurok Indian Resolution in Humboldt Country. The California National Guard on July 21 joined more than a dozen other agencies to help Yurok tribal authorities uproot the grows, the LA Times reported. Tribal leaders say that grow ops have threatened the reservation's water supply, harmed its salmon, and interfered with cultural ceremonies. At the request of Yurok officials, officers served search warrants at several properties in and near the reservation along the Klamath River. Participating agencies in "Operation Yurok" included the Sheriff's Drug Enforcement Unit, the North State Marijuana Investigation Team, the federal Bureau of Indian Affairs and Bureau of Land Management, as well as Yurok tribal police.  Yurok Tribal Chairman Thomas O'Rourke joined officers at their staging area at a hillside fire station, where he complained bitterly of the growers.  "They're stealing millions and millions of gallons of water and and it's impacting our ecosystem," O'Rourke said. "We can't no longer make it into our dance places, our women and children can't leave the road to gather. We can't hunt. We can't live the life we've lived for thousands of years." And while growers once "brought their fertilizer in in batches in the dark," O'Rourke said dump trucks now enter the reservation with impunity in broad daylight, using heavy equipment to carve roads through tribal land. Yurok authorities said tens of thousands of plants would likely be eradicated in the operation, chipped on-site.   

Los Angeles' first-ever marijuana farmers market was ordered closed by an LA Superior Court judge July 15 after City Attorney Mike Feuer asked for a restraining order against the California Heritage Market. Over the weekend of July 4, the California Heritage Market, a marijuana collective, or dispensary as it is known to the "compassionate care" crowd, opened a warehouse for cannabis cultivators to peddle their products in an open-air atmosphere. Thousands waited for hours to wade through thick crowds looking for bargains among the 60 or so booths selling dried marijuana flowers, hash, oils, and creams. One bubbly vendor told the cameras that he "couldn't believe how high the demand was."

In an unprecedented 219-189 floor vote late May 29, the House of Representatives approved the end of funding for Department of Justice (DoJ) enforcement in medical marijuana states. Advocates are hailing the vote as a major victory that signals a shift in the approach Congress is taking on this issue. The vote was on Amendment No. 25 to the Commerce, Justice & Science (CJS) appropriations bill. One hundred seventy Democrats and 49 Republicans voted in favor of the amendment. "This Congressional vote is a huge victory for patients," said Steph Sherer, executive director of Americans for Safe Access. "No longer will we have to look over our shoulder and worry when the next raid or indictment will prevent us from safely and legally accessing our medicine. This is a game-changer that paves the way for much more policy change to come."

The US Supreme Court ruled 5-4 on April 22 in Navarette v. California that a traffic stop that led to a marijuana arrest was constitutional because police had reasonable suspicion the driver was intoxicated. In 2008, California Highway Patrol officers stopped Lorenzo Prado Navarette's pickup truck on a Mendocino County road based on a 911 tip about reckless driving. The officers said they smelled marijuana when approaching the vehicle. They conducted a search and found 30 pounds of cannabis. Navarette and a passenger were arrested and charged. At trial, they moved to suppress the evidence on grounds that the search violated their Fourth Amendment rights because the officers lacked reasonable suspicion when they pulled Navarette over. But in the opinion authored by conservative Justice Clarence Thomas, the majority found that while an anonymous tip will not always lead to reasonable suspicion, in this case it did. The court found that "under appropriate circumstances, an anonymous tip can demonstrate sufficient indicia of reliability to provide reasonable suspicion to make an investigatory stop." Conservative Justice Antonin Scalia wrote a dissent that was joined by the court's liberals, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan. Conservatives John Roberts and Samuel Alito lined up with the majority, as did swing voters Stephen Breyer and Anthony Kennedy. (Sacramento Bee, This Week, Jurist, April 22)

The latest boost to anti-cannabis propaganda comes in the form of California's crippling drought. The dought is no joke. For the first time in its 54-year history, the State Water Project has cut off the flow to towns and farmland because there simply isn't enough water. But is cannabis a major factor here?