Global Ganja Report

For those who have been wondering what the truth is behind the media sensationalism about global cartels establishing Africa as their new theater of operations, Africa and the War on Drugs  by Neil Carrier and Gernot Klantschnig (Zed Books, London, 2012) clears the air in a welcome way.

The authors, a pair of British academics, portray a strategy by the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) to hype the threat and replicate the hardline policies pursued in Latin America and elsewhere on the African continent. Drug trafficking has definitely been growing in Africa in recent years—ironically, the authors argue, as a result of "successes" in Latin America. As the old cartels and their smuggling routes were broken up, new more fragmented networks have sought new routes and markets. This conveniently coincided with South Africa's reintegration to the world economy after the end of apartheid, and more generally with Africa's globalization.

Police on May 23 arrested four in raids on medical marijuana dispensaries in Southern Oregon. Medford Police Chief Tim George said the arrests followed a two-year investigation in which undercover police purchased cannabis outside the law governing medical marijuana. The Oregon medical marijuana allows growers to recover only their expenses, and nothing to cover their labor or a profit. Oregon's Mail Tribune reports that among the four was Lori Duckworth, executive director of Southern Oregon NORML.

An overwhelming 63% of Los Angeles voters passed Measure D on May 21, bringing long-awaited regulations to the city's medical marijuana dispensaries. Measure D, which was placed on the ballot earlier this year by the Los Angeles City Council, will provide "limited immunity" to more than a hundred dispensaries currently operating in the city. Voters approved a set of regulations yesterday that would permit the operation of certain dispensaries registered with the city since September 2007, as long as they comply with certain city-imposed requirements.

As US Attorney General Eric Holder delivered a commencement speech May 11 for UC Berkeley law school graduates, a plane flew overhead with a banner that read "Holder: End Rx Cannabis War. #Peace4Patients," in protest against recent actions by the Justice Department (DoJ) in the Bay Area. Outside the Hearst Greek Theater, where Holder gave his speech, medical marijuana advocates also handed out fake DoJ recruitment flyers, detailing how the Obama Administration is engaging in harmful tactics that are adversely affecting the lives of hundreds of thousands of patients in California.

The California Supreme Court ruled May 6 in the case City of Riverside v. Inland Empire Patients Health and Wellness Center that local governments may ban the distribution of medical marijuana and are not preempted by state law by doing so. However, the court also recognized the legality of dispensaries, more than 1,000 of which currently exist and operate throughout the state. More than 50 localities in California officially regulate the distribution of medical marijuana.

"The social sharing of a small amount of marijuana" by immigrants lawfully in the US does not require their automatic deportation, the Supreme Court ruled April 23. "Sharing a small amount of marijuana for no remuneration, let alone possession with intent to do so, does not fit easily into the everyday understanding of trafficking, which ordinarily means some sort of commercial dealing," Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote for a seven-justice majority. 

Gunfire erupted at Colorado's annual 420 Rally—the first since the state voted to legalize cannabis least year—injuring two people and scattering a crowd of thousands in Denver's Civic Center Park. A man and woman were shot in the leg, and a third grazed with a bullet. Both victims are in their 20s. They were taken to Denver Health Medical Center. Police asked attendees for possible photo or video footage of the shootings, and had no immediate motive. Witnesses described a jovial scene quickly turning to panic. Some thought firecrackers were going off, until a man fell bleeding, his dog also shot.

The number of cannabis plants eradicated by law enforcement has dropped over the past years from a record high of over 10 million plants in 2009 and 2010 to under 4 million in 2012, according to newly released statistics. DEA figures put the 2012 total at 3,933,950. DEA officials attribute the decline in part to the budget cutbacks in California, which resulted in "the decreased availability of local law enforcement personnel to assist in eradication efforts."