Global Ganja Report

A majority of  Maastricht city councillors on Nov. 7 called upon the Dutch government to delay for at least a year its plans to force cannabis cafes to become members-only clubs. The southern city is also calling on other border towns to join its campaign for a delay to the new rules, which the government says are necessary to combat public nuisance and organized crime. Maastricht says it needs more time to work out a system for enforcing the new rules, and to take a decision on extra policing.

Survey data collected from members of the Berkeley Patients Group, one of California's most prominent medical marijuana collectives, indicates that most patients reduce their use of prescription medications following their initiation of cannabis therapy. The anonymous survey found that 66% of respondents said that they consumed cannabis as a prescription drug substitute. Many said they preferred cannabis because it caused fewer side effects than conventional medications.

Lawsuits were filed Nov. 4 in federal courts in Sacramento, Los Angeles and San Diego in a move to block efforts by US attorneys to crack down on medical marijuana dispensaries in California. A similar suit was filed in San Francisco days earlier. "We will ask for injunctive relief in all four districts," said PJ Johnston, a spokesman for the statewide legal effort, coordinated by American for Safe Access (ASA). "The US attorneys in each of the four districts have basically threatened landlords, cannabis cooperatives and media outlets with prosecution and property forfeiture if they don't shut down operations immediately."

Fort Collins became the largest city in Colorado to ban medical marijuana Nov. 1, as Question 300, a measure to prevent dispensaries and grow facilities from operating within city limits, passed by a margin of 53%. The ban will force 21 licensed medical marijuana businesses in Fort Collins to close within 90 days. But opponents of the ban said they are not giving up the fight, and may try to bring the issue back to voters in 2012. (Fox31, Denver, Loveland Connection, Nov. 2)

Colombia's President Juan Manuel Santos said that legalization of soft drugs such as cannabis would allow shifting focus to harder drugs and help to stop international violence and trafficking. In an interview with Metro News, Santos said: "The world needs to discuss new approaches... we are basically still thinking within the same framework as we have done for the last 40 years." 

Nine Congress members on Oct. 31 issued an open letter to President Obama urging him to put a halt to new aggressive Justice Department tactics aimed at dismantling California's medical marijuana industry. "It's unconscionable...to endanger the lives of patients," the reps state in the strongly worded letter, which calls for rescheduling cannabis. It especially urges support for HR 1983, the States' Medical Marijuana Patient Protection Act, which was introduced by Rep. Barney Frank (D-MA) earlier this year.

State, local and federal law enforcement in Arizona announced Oct. 31 that they have dismantled a smuggling ring allegedly operated by the Sinaloa Cartel, which is believed to have trafficked some $2 billion of drugs from Mexico through the state over the past five years. "We in Arizona continue to stand and fight the Mexican drug cartels, who think they own the place," Pinal County Sheriff Paul Babeu said in a statement about the investigation, dubbed Operation Pipeline Express. A total of 76 individuals are being held in connection to the ring, from organizational bosses to stash-house guards to those who transported the drugs in backpacks and in vehicles. Weapons and large bundles of compacted cannabis were seized in the raids.

Richard Lee, central figure in downtown Oakland's cannabis-friendly Oaksterdam enclave, does not appear intimidated by the federal government’s crackdown on medical marijuana dispensaries. Lee closed his dispensary, Coffeeshop Blue Sky, this week after US Attorney for California's Northern District Melinda Haag sent a letter to his landlord threatening criminal prosecution. But he promptly reopened it three doors down, with giant posters of cannabis buds in the windows. An employee at the door hands out fliers reading: "Thank you for your support. Together we will survive the attack. Long Live Oaksterdam." Lee told the New York Times he is not afraid of being a target. "If they do decide to prosecute me criminally," he said, "my defense is that juries cannot be punished for their verdicts."