cocaine

Albania, Europe's capital of illicit cannabis, under US pressure to eradicate

Posted on April 23rd, 2019 by Global Ganja Report and tagged , , , , , , , , , .

AlbaniaAlbania is pledging another one of its endless and fruitless cannabis eradication campaigns, which never succeed in bumping the country from its spot as Europe's biggest illicit producer. The US is pressing the small Balkan nation for the campaign—and kicking in military aid.

El Chapo guilty: prohibition-fueled narco-wars rage on

Posted on February 13th, 2019 by Bill Weinberg and tagged , , , , , , , .

ChapoNotorious narco-lord "Chapo" Guzmán was convicted by a federal jury in New York and faces life in prison. But violence in Mexico has only escalated since his capture. Few media accounts have noted how Chapo and his Sinaloa Cartel rose as militarized narcotics enforcement escalated in Mexico—a trajectory mirrored by the cartels' move from dealing in cannabis to deadly white powders.

Cannabis in the Balkans: from criminals to capitalists?

Posted on January 25th, 2019 by Global Ganja Report and tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , .

EuropeA contraband cannabis economy booms in the Balkan Peninsula, where the wars of the 1990s spurred an underground dope-for-guns network that still thrives today. But amid EU pressure to crack down, a legal industry is now starting to emerge.

Colombia returns to hardline policies —even as legal cannabis booms

Posted on November 15th, 2018 by Global Ganja Report and tagged , , , , , , , .

ColombiaColombia is facing a strange contradiction—foreign capital is pouring in for the legalized cannabis sector, yet the new right-wing President Iván Duque is returning to the hardline "drug war" policies that the country has moved away from in recent years. This means not only a resumption of glyphosate spraying to wipe out illegal crops in the countryside, but an overturn of the former decriminalization policy. Street arrests for cannabis use and possession have soared since Duque issued his recrim decree.

UN 'shadow report' blasts drug war as 'failure'

earthAn international network of non-governmental organizations has submitted a "shadow report" to the United Nations, calling the war on drugs a "spectacular failure"—and calling on the world's governments to reconsider it. The report takes heart from the growing official tolerance of cannabis in several countries around the world, but warns of escalating and horrific repression in the name of drug enforcement in several others. Will the UN take heed when it revisits the question of drug policy in 2019?

Canada's Le Dain Commission: Vindicated at Last

Posted on October 19th, 2018 by Bill Weinberg and tagged , , , , , , .

Canada legalizationCanada's course to cannabis prohibition closely followed that in its southern neighbor. As in the United States, cannabis a century ago was widely available in tincture form as a medication before being banned in a campaign that blatantly harnessed racism and xenophobia. Yet now Canada is legalizing coast to coast, while the US federal government remains intransigent.

An early harbinger of Canada's enlightenment was the 1969 Le Dain Commission, which studied illegal drugs at the order of Ottawa, in response to then exploding use—especially of cannabis. The Le Dain Commission cut through the propaganda to recommend a common-sense policy—which Canada's government is actually now going beyond.

Sri Lanka to 'replicate' Philippine drug-war police state

Posted on July 17th, 2018 by Global Ganja Report and tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , .

South AsiaSri Lanka has announced that it will start hanging drug convicts, ending a long moratorium on executions. Leaders explicitly hope to "replicate the success" of Rodrigo Duterte's bloody anti-drug campaign in the Philippines, which has now reached the point of mass murder. And while the imminent executions are for cocaine and heroin charges, the move comes amid a widening crackdown on cannabis. Yet proposals to allow medical cultivation provide some hope for a more tolerant model.

Global Commission on Drug Policy strikes blow on semantic front

Posted on January 10th, 2018 by Global Ganja Report and tagged , , , , , , , , , , , .

cocaineA welcome blow is reported against the deeply ingrained stigma that attaches even to users of basically harmless drugs like cannabis that happen to be illegal. The Global Commission on Drug Policy—a body with dissident views but made up of prestigious elder statesmen and world leaders, so it can't be readily ignored—has just issued a statement calling on policymakers and the media to avoid using terms such as "drug user," "addict" and "junkie." The report includes a checklist of what terms should be eschewed or embraced to avoid language portraying people who use drugs as "physically inferior or morally flawed."

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