Global Ganja Report

US basketball star, Olympic gold-medalist and LGBTQ icon Brittney Griner was popped at the Moscow airport, supposedly in possession of cannabis oil. She faces up to 10 years—and given the anti-cannabis, anti-gay and anti-American atmosphere in Russia, things are not looking good for her. Will she be used as a bargaining chip to exact concessions from the US in the war for Ukraine?

Ukraine has been suddenly thrust upon the center of the world stage, as Russia pours forces over the border in defiance of the West. In the atmosphere of militarization, space for cannabis and alternative culture is likely to close in both countries—but at least such space had been, slowly and tentatively, opening in Ukraine. Russia, pursuing an aggressive drug-war police state at home, may now be poised to impose its cultural-conservative agenda and roll back the recent gains in its smaller neighbor.

The Mediterranean island nation of Malta has become the first European Union member state to legalize cannabis. It's a seemingly unlikely candidate, and the country's powerful conservative bloc is still trying last-minute maneuvers to prevent the law from taking effect. But if Malta can pull it off, is the rest of Europe far behind?

The widely denied media reports turned out to be true, even if not all the details were correct. Cannabis Now can confirm that the new regime in Afghanistan is in talks with a foreign company to establish legal cannabis production for the export market.

The Czech Republic and especially its capital Prague have won a cachet among the international cannabis-cognoscenti. But now a local magazine dedicated to the cannabis culture may be forced to close by legal action — with its editor under threat of prison time.

Of all the post-communist countries, the Czech Republic is seen as the one that has best finessed the transition to an open society. Its predecessor state Czechoslovakia was at the forefront of the fight for freedom. Through it all, there was a strong whiff of alternative culture. The very word bohemia comes from one of the Czech Republic's two historical regions, Bohemia and Moravia.

At the annual Vienna meeting of the Commission on Narcotic Drugs, the governing body of the UN Office on Drugs & Crime (UNODC) voted Dec. 2 to strike cannabis from Schedule IV of the 1961 Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs, the global treaty regulating drug control policy.

Fernanda de la Figuera, Spain's "Grandma Marijuana," has been sentenced to nine months in prison for growing cannabis in her backyard and providing healing herb to her “association” of medical users. She pledges to appeal the ruling to the European Court of Human Rights, in what could become a landmark medical necessity and personal freedom ruling for the entire European Union.

The global prohibition of cannabis affords the opportunity for imperial powers and authoritarian regimes to exploit those caught in the web of enforcement to advance their own political agendas. The recent case of Naama Issachar was deftly leveraged by Vladimir Putin, and could encourage other depots to similarly use pot prisoners to exact concessions from foreign governments.