Global Ganja Report

The global prohibition of cannabis affords the opportunity for imperial powers and authoritarian regimes to exploit those caught in the web of enforcement to advance their own political agendas. The recent case of Naama Issachar was deftly leveraged by Vladimir Putin, and could encourage other depots to similarly use pot prisoners to exact concessions from foreign governments.

The race is on as to which state will be the 12th in the union to legalize cannabis. In New Mexico, measures are pending in both houses of the Legislature, and have the support of the governor. However, the Land of Enchantment isn’t just racing against other states, but its own short legislative session.

Today equity is a watchword in the cannabis legalization movement, with state and local governments intentionally crafting models for an adult-use market designed to correct the social harms of prohibition and the war on drugs. But this consciousness is due to the work of many who pushed the issue long before doing so was entirely socially acceptable. Sister Somayah Kambui, a veteran Black Panther turned cannabis advocate, was one of those. And before her untimely death, she won  a groundbreaking "jury nullification" victory, upholding her right to provide cannabis to treat sickle-cell anemia.

A month into legal cannabis in Illinois, Chicago is considering various experimental models for cultivation and retail sales aimed at empowering those communities criminalized under prohibition. Ideas being weighed include a city-owned cultivation coop which residents could join, including the low-income on a "sweat equity" basis.

The new budget just released by New York's Gov. Andrew Cuomo includes his promised cannabis legalization measure. But activists in the Empire State will be watching closely to see if the proposed legislation delivers on his pledge to instate legalization in a way the corrects the social harms of prohibition.

Amid a bloody prison uprising in Mississippi, hip-hop superstar Jay Z has launched suit against state authorities on behalf of inmates at the violence-plagued penitentiary. Mississippi has some of the harshest cannabis laws in the country, and pot convictions are big factor contributing to the dire crisis of overcrowding and brutality in the state's lock-ups.

A ground-breaking British Columbia dispensary that has been operating for 20 years won a request for an "exemption" from the licensing requirements of Canada's Cannabis Act by vote of the Victoria city council. This municipal action is a challenge to the national crackdown on Canda's "gray-market" dispensaries.

Martin Luther King Jr never spoke about cannabis, but his life and works have much to say about the fight for legalization, and against the "New Jim Crow" of the war on drugs.