features

Global Ganja Report's past, and current Feature stories.

The Emerald Triangle enters the post-CAMP era

Posted on February 12th, 2013 by Bill Weinberg and tagged , , , , , , , , , .

A market glut and paranoia about criminal cartels getting into the act coincide with the end of the CAMP program. Can Northern California's cannabis industry remake itself along ecological and community-rooted lines?

With the 2012 fall harvest season, Northern California's legendary cannabis-growing Emerald Triangle—centered around the counties of Humboldt, Mendocino and Trinity—is at a turning point. And as the old cliché goes, the Chinese character for crisis is made up of the characters for danger and opportunity.

The current juncture is ripe with both.

Blood Ganja

The most enlightened cannabis connoisseurs—those who still have a link back to the values that defined the hippie culture—tend to be conscious consumers when it comes to food or computers or whatnot. They may buy organic tomatoes, boycott Taco Bell to support exploited farm workers in Florida, and petition Apple about the brutal conditions in their Chinese assembly plants. But do they pay as much attention to the source of their preferred smoking herb? 

Is there blood on your ganja?

Colorado and Washington: will the ripples reach Mexico and Colombia?

Posted on November 24th, 2012 by Peter Gorman and tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , .

leafWell, the dust has hardly settled but the boots are at the door; they might come storming through, riling up that dust some more.

But we hope not. The boots belong to the Justice Department and the door belongs to the states of Washington and Colorado. The dust is the election that saw those two states make the biggest moves toward cannabis legalization any state has made in a long long time. No, neither law is perfect, and it is going to be a cold day in hell probably before state stores are up and running. But still, the fact that the voters got out there and said enough is enough and let's get something on legalization out there is very freaking refreshing. Ask anyone who works in any capacity to end the drug war: Wins are few and far between. It took more than 10 years of effort to rein in law enforcement's forfeiture spree; it took a lot longer than that to get New York's racist Rockefeller sentencing laws even semi-tossed. So what happened in Washington and Colorado is in the win column, though we cannot be at all sure that the feds are not going to come in and try to muck things up like they have with California's and Oregon’s medical marijuana laws.

Ron Paul + Potheads = Racist Dopes

Posted on February 4th, 2012 by Michael I. Niman and tagged , , , , .

Ron Paul's popularity, given his history of racism, is troubling. More troubling, however, is the willingness of his supporters, an odd coalition of one-percenter corporatists and anti-war pothead libertarians, to ignore or excuse these views.

Politically and economically multifarious as Ron Paul's posse may be, they almost all share a common trait—that’s their whiteness, which translates into their historical immunity from racist persecution. This is also why their willingness to accept and excuse Ron Paul’s history of racism is particularly revolting.

Crisis in New Mexico law enforcement

Posted on October 9th, 2011 by Frontera NorteSur and tagged , , , , , , .

TucsonBarely a week goes by without a scandal involving a New Mexico law enforcement officer making the headlines in the state. Angelo Vega, the former police chief of the border town of Columbus, pleads guilty to extortion and trafficking arms destined for La Linea criminal organization, one of the protagonists in the so-called Mexican drug wars.

Jim Squatter: Testament to the human spirit—and cannabis!

Posted on June 29th, 2011 by Bill Weinberg and tagged , , , , , , .

Jim SquatterJim Squatter was already a longtime veteran of the squatting, anti-nuclear and anarchist movements before a devastating accident turned him into a medical marijuana user—and a fighter for the right to medicinal cannabis.

Move over Coca-Cola: here comes Bolivia

Posted on May 20th, 2010 by Nikolas Kozloff and tagged , , , , .

Dancing coca leaves at closing rally of the The Andean nation's indigenous people have long resented the U.S. beverage company for usurping the name of their sacred coca leaf. Now, they are aiming to take back their heritage. Recently, the government of Evo Morales announced that it would support a plan to produce a coca-based soft drink which would rival its fizzy American counterpart.

The Rainbow Gathering

Posted on March 11th, 2010 by Bill Weinberg and tagged , , , , , , , , .

Every year since 1972, the Rainbow Family of Living Light has been holding its Summer gathering in the National Forests of the United States, bouncing to a different state each year, from coast to coast. A loose network of hippie tribes that celebrate their diversity, the Rainbow People caravan cross-country for the annual back-to-nature affair that starts building in June and climaxes with a silent meditation for world peace when the rest of America is setting off fireworks on July 4.

 

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