Global Ganja Report

So California's rebel rednecks think they're taking Humboldt County with them when they leave the state, it appears. The latest split-the-state initiative was unveiled at a Sacramento press conference Jan. 16, covered by USA Today. "The current state of California has become governed by a tyranny," the group declared. Their proposed solution is to form the state of "New California," taking most of the rural counties with them, and leaving behind the heavily urbanized coast.

Media accounts mostly played it for laughs when a confused pot dealer cluelessly got into a police car outside Copenhagen's famous squatter community of Christiania on Dec. 21, apparently thinking it was a taxi-cab. The cops searched him and found 1,000 pre-rolled joints.

Dana Beal, a longtime fixture in New York City's cannabis activist scene, is once again back in the slammer. In this new misadventure Dec. 16, Beal was popped by sheriff's deputies in Northern California's Trinity County. He was reportedly pulled over near the town of Hayfork, and is currently being held in the jail at county seat Weaverville.

Both the absurdity of the war on drugs and the depravity of the current administration in Washington are illustrated by the maddening case of Alvin Queen, an internationally acclaimed jazz drummer who was denied entry to the US due to a minor drug arrest when he was still a teen—despite the fact that he was born in the country!

The networking group CannaGather held its fifth confab at lower Manhattan's Galvanize venue Sept. 28, bringing together some 200 entrepreneurs, investors, press and activists from throughout the New York metropolitan area. Inspired by the New York tech industry meet-ups of the dot-com boom in the late '90s, CannaGather hopes to similarly connect people in a burgeoning industry and help spur its growth.

The family of late reggae legend Peter Tosh announced June 22 that the superstar's son has been left in a coma following a beating in a New Jersey jail, where he was serving a six-month sentence on a marijuana possession charge.

Damian Marley, youngest son of late reggae superstar Bob Marley, has joined with a group of Colorado cannabis entrepreneurs associated with the firm Denver Relief to buy controlling interest in High Times magazine, the counterculture icon with a valuation of $70 million. According to the San Francisco Chronicle, the deal includes websites, publishing and the Cannabis Cup trade shows and competitions.

Gay pioneer and artist Gilbert Baker, famous as creator of the iconic Rainbow Flag, died in his sleep at age 65 on March 31 at his home in Manhattan. Baker's first flag was an eight-colored banner that flew above the 1978 Pride festivities in San Francisco—then the Gay Freedom Day Parade. Baker, well known for making banners for gay and anti-war street protest marches, created the flag at the behest of his friend Harvey Milk—the gay community leader later elected a San Francisco supervisor, and assassinated that November. The flag has since become a global symbol of the LGBT community—raised at pride festivals worldwide, and forever flying over the corner of Castro and Market streets.