Global Ganja Report

With Oklahoma’s passage of a medical marijuana law, advocacy organizations say there is now only one state in the entire union without some sort of legal provision for medicinal use of either herbal cannabis or cannabinoid extracts: Idaho. And with a governor's race this year, there may be hope even there. One by one, even the most culturally conservative states are succumbing to the demands of patients and the findings of science to pass laws to allow use of (at least) extracts containing cannabinoids, or (at most) actual herbaceous marijuana, for either medical or "recreational" purposes.

A figure from the Bay Area cannabis industry was embroiled in America's fast-escalating culture wars when she threatened to call the police on a young Black girl selling water on a San Francisco street. In the outcry, she has stepped down from her own company—and helped draw a line over what behavior is considered acceptable in the cannabis community.

For a generation now, science has known of two cannabinoid receptors—specialized protein molecules that interact with the active compounds in the cannabis plant for the human body. These are CB1 and CB2, both discovered in the early '90s. Now there is growing awareness of a third such receptor that was identified in 2007. This receptor, GPR55, may be key to understanding a wide spectrum of therapeutic applications for cannabinoids—and especially the non-psychoactive cannabidiol, or CBD.

The government of New Zealand has announced that it plans to hold a referendum on cannabis legalization, possibly as early as next year. A medical marijuana bill is already pending in the country's parliament. But it has taken generations of activist effort by Kiwis to bring Aotearoa (by the country's indigenous Maori name) to this point. Cannabis Now speaks with some of the leaders who made it happen.

Something of a corporate scramble is underway to secure patents for the various curative properties of CBD, and associated products and procedures. Pharmaceutical firms see a windfall, but some activists raise concerns about the creeping privatization of a cannabinoid that should belong to the genetic and intellectual commons of the human race. How realistic are fears about the imminent arrival of "corporate cannabis"?

With US stock exchanges still almost entirely closed to cannabis businesses, the stateside industry is increasingly seeking access to the Canadian exchanges in order to secure investment. Taking over publicly traded Canadian firms through reverse mergers has emerged as the critical tactic in this endeavor.

Around the world, mothers are on the frontlines of demanding legal access to cannabis products for their children who suffer from epilepsy and other ailments. Often, these courageous moms have risked their freedom to provide medicine for their offspring. Sometimes they have actually shamed the authorities into changing the law—but still face the prospect of prison time.

A federal appeals court has turned down a challenge by the cannabis industry to the DEA's official finding that CBD is a controlled substance. But questions about whether CBD should be treated as a controlled substance remain pending at the state level.