Global Ganja Report

Over the past generation, an informal alliance of activists, cultivators, entrepreneurs and medical professionals has struggled to redefine how the United States views the cannabis plant. Victories at state and municipal levels have created a new field of medicinal treatment for a wide variety of ailments in California and other mostly western states. Medical marijuana marks the starkest point in the divide between an industrial model of healthcare and a millennia-long tradition of herbal self-treatment—because nowhere else has the federal government been so intransigent.

Five cannabis dispensaries were raided by a multi-agency task force in Southern California Oct. 6, with 11 arrested in Los Angeles, Orange, Riverside and San Diego counties. Among those targeted was the Alternative Medicine Collective of Covina. "This organization was definitely working outside the law," said Capt. Ralph Ornelas of the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Narcotics Bureau said. "Our investigation proved they were charging people and making a profit out of it. You're not supposed to make a profit."

The US Senate last week approved a bill ostensibly aimed at toughening penalties for those who peddle pot brownies to minors. But the proposed law is actually far more sweeping, and will apply to those who simply bake brownies at home, doubling the penalties for the amount of cannabis involved.