Global Ganja Report

The government of New Zealand has announced that it plans to hold a referendum on cannabis legalization, possibly as early as next year. A medical marijuana bill is already pending in the country's parliament. But it has taken generations of activist effort by Kiwis to bring Aotearoa (by the country's indigenous Maori name) to this point. Cannabis Now speaks with some of the leaders who made it happen.

A federal appeals court has turned down a challenge by the cannabis industry to the DEA's official finding that CBD is a controlled substance. But questions about whether CBD should be treated as a controlled substance remain pending at the state level.

New Mexico is the latest state to announce that it will play host to the biggest legal cannabis grow operation in the United States. But other claims to that title over the past years have still not panned out, and a facility in Arizona now occupies the number one slot. And as various states vie for the honor, Canada is far in the lead of its southern neighbor.

Reports indicate that promoters of a popular initiative for a medical marijuana law in Utah have won enough signatures to get their proposal before the state's voters in November. A far more restrictive law allowing use of CBD preparations is meanwhile before the state house. The ballot initiative would make the legislation basically irrelevant—but faces stiff opposition.

Cannabis is completely verboten n Japan—rare, expensive and very illegal. First Lady Akie Abe broke taboo by advocating a medical marijuana program from the country—but she's now embroiled in scandal, nipping the proposal in the proverbial bud. Yet more grassroots advocates have also emerged. One local historian in agricultural Tochigi Prefecture has opened a "cannabis museum," documenting millennia of use of the plant for medicine, sacrament and fiber in the archipelago.

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.

Morocco has long been the world's leading cannabis producer, but the conservative monarchy has managed to keep any talk of legalization out of political discourse—until last year, when the country's biggest opposition party submitted a bill in parliament to at least allow cultivation for medicinal and industrial purposes. Now that effort has been dealt a setback, with the unexpected resignation of Ilyas El-Omari as head of the Authenticity and Modernity Party (PAM).

Hemp Business Journal reports that products infused with CBD oil are leading growth in hermp-derived products sold in the United States generally, which in 2016 had a collective retail value of $688 million. This figure represents a five year 22% compound annual growth rate (CAGR). Joining more traditional products such as shelled seed, protein powder, soaps and lotions, are growing lines of medicinal preparations such as CBD edibles. Hemp-derived cannabidiol (CBD) accounted for $130 million in sales last year.