Global Ganja Report

Portugal's Public Security Police (PSP) announced Nov. 19 the seizure of 128,000 "individual doses" of hashish in a Lisbon raid, which also saw one arrest. The operation coincided with Spanish police seizing 1.5 tons of hashish in a joint cross-border maritime raid. Portugal's National Republican Guard (GNR) seized the boat at the fishing village of Isla Cristina after it was intercepted and boarded by the Spanish Coast Guard off Andalusia. It was apparently bound for Portugal when it was intercepted. (Portugal News)

Colombia's President Juan Manuel Santos, in an interview with BBC Mundo Nov. 13, said he was ready to issue a decree legalizing medical marijuana, and would act within a matter of days. "It is now scientifically proven that marijuana has a variety of medicinal attributes," he said. "There is great demand, and there are companies in Canada and the United States that are utilizing marijuana for a variety of therapeutic and medicinal treatments." He said the decree would provide a regulatory framework for production, distribution and commercialization of cannabis for medicinal purposes.

Another massive marijuana raid is reported from Peru's high Andean region of Áncash, which is quickly emerging as the country's key cannabis cultivation zone. Newspaper Primera Página reports that the National Police force's new and unsubtly named "Green Squad" discovered a field with 1,463 plants in the hamlet of San Miguel Chico, Caraz district. The crop was burned in the field. A photo in Correo newspaper of the police operation shows cannabis plants interspersed with corn stalks, so it is fairly clear that legal crops were also burned in the raid. The Huaylas Provincial Prosecutor's office has issued an arrest order for the landowner.

Members of the Seneca Nation of Indians in western New York state voted up a referendum Nov. 3 giving tribal leaders approval to move towards setting up a medical marijuana business on their territories. The measure passed by a vote of 448-364, giving the Seneca Nation Council the power to draft laws and regulations allowing the manufacture, use and distribution of cannabis for medical purposes. "A decision on our Nation's path of action on medical cannabis is far from made," cautioned Seneca President Maurice A. John Sr. in comments to the Buffalo News. "But now, having heard from the Seneca people, our discussions and due diligence can begin in earnest."

Voters in Ohio on Nov. 3 rejected a proposal to legalize medical and recreational use of cannabis. Issue 3 would have allowed adults 21 and older to use, purchase or grow regulated quantities, and also made cannabis available for medical use in the same vote—a unique approach nationally. It would additionally have permitted retail sale of cannabis-infused products, and created a "Marijuana Control Commission" to oversee the industry. Complicating matters, the Ohio General Assembly put a competing initiative on the ballot, Issue 2, which would have blocked Issue 3 by prohibiting the granting of special rights by the state constitution. This "anti-monopoly measure" was aimed at barring Issue 3 language that would establish exclusive rights to produce cannabis for the retail market. If both had passed, a legal quagmire loomed. In the actual fact, Issue 2 was approved while Issue 3 was defeated by over 63% of voters. (Jurist, Nov. 4; WLWT, Cincinnnati, Nov. 3; NYT, Nov. 1)

Arkansas cannabis activists were evidently so eager to get a legalization measure before the voters that they shot themselves in the foot by submitting ballot language ridden with grammatical errors. Attorney General Leslie Rutledge said she was forced to reject a proposed constitutional amendment to legalize the herb after finding a number of grammar and spelling bloopers. Rutledge said that even if the folks behind the "Arkansas Cannabis Amendment" had run spell-and-grammar checks before handing in the proposal, it still wouldn't have passed muster.

Oxford University scholar Maziyar Ghiabi has a startling piece in Britain's The Conversation website (reprinted in The Independent) asserting that Iran's leaders are considering legalization of cannabis and opium. The Islamic Republic certainly lives up to its rep as a puritanical police state. Ghiabi admits that up to 70% of its inmates are charged with drug-related offenses (out of a total prison population of some 225,000, according to the World Prison Brief website). We've also noted a recent surge in executions in Iran, contributing to a global spike in death penalty use over the past two years. As Ghiabi writes: "Drug traffickers risk harsh punishments that include the death penalty." But he also tells us that Iran is now pursuing the kind of harm reduction policies that actvists have long pressed for in the US, including "distribution of clean needles to injecting drug users, methadone substitution programmes (also in prisons) and a vast system of addiction treatment."

Cannabis legalization proponents in Canada are rejoicing in the wake of the Oct. 19 elections that gave the Liberal Party a clear majority and position its leader Justin Trudeau to become prime minister. The son of Canada's revered former prime minister Pierre Trudeau, Justin openly advocates legalization. He even admitted to Huffington Post in 2013 that he had toked since becoming an MP representing Montreal in 2008.  He also revealed that his late brother, Michel Trudeau, was facing cannabis possession charges before his death in an avalanche in 1998, and that the experience influenced his position. In vivid contrast the Conservative Party's incumbent Prime Minister Stephen Harper has been leading a crackdown on Canada's medical marijuana program, and even recently called cannabis "infinitely worse" than tobacco. But how easy will it be for Trudeau to follow through on his promise to legalize?