Global Ganja Report

Ann Arbor's Hash Bash marked its 46th annual celebration of cannabis culture, with public smoking, no arrests—and an activist call to arms to get a legalization measure passed in Michigan this November.

The Hash Bash was a landmark counterculture event when it was launched on the University of Michigan's Diag on April 1, 1972. This year, organizers were openly hoping it would be the last one before cannabis is legalized in the Wolverine State—and urging a push to make it so.

Amid legal challenges and disputes over zoning in Detroit, Michigan's long-awaited regulatory regime for cannabis dispensaries continues to face obstacles to implementation. This has left hundreds of dispensaries operating in a "gray market"—tolerated by the authorities on an unofficial basis while the mess is being worked out. But now state authorities have started to order these outlets closed—potentially leaving thousands of registered users without access to their medicine.

A recent court decision regarding a seemingly prosaic controversy over the zoning of medical marijuana businesses in Detroit actually sheds light on issues of what some activists are calling "cannabis equity"—how questions of social and racial justice related to the war on drugs will be addressed as the industry is day-lighted.

The group High NY, "New York's Cannabis Community," hosted an event on "How to Apply Your Skills in the Cannabis Industry" at a Lower Manhattan venue the evening of March 22, featuring speakers with background in the biz from California, Massachusetts and the District of Columbia. Unlike these three polities, New York state has not legalized. But organizers took heart that on that very same day as their meet-up, chronic pain was added to the qualifying conditions under the Empire State's burgeoning if still limited medical marijuana program.

Amid a shameful paucity of media coverage, inmates at facilities in several states have organized work stoppages following a call for a nationwide prison strike to begin on Sept. 9—the anniversary of the 1971 Attica prison uprising. Organizers say inmates in at least 29 prisons in 12 states have launched strikes, with an unprecedented more than 24,000 prisoners participating. "This is a call to end slavery," reads the official call for the strike, issued by the Incarcerated Workers Organizing Committee. "They cannot run these facilities without us." While there have been prison strikes before—two earlier this year, in Texas and Alabama—this marks the first one to be nationally coordinated. Prisoners are using social media and smuggled cell phones to organize the national strike.

On New Year’s Day, as retail sales of cannabis went legal in Colorado, the state's dispensaries registered well over $1 million in sales. Despite cold and wet weather, most of the 36 shops that opened that day reported long lines, with some customers waiting outdoors for hours. By the end of the first week, by which time another dozen retail outlets had opened, the figure was a whopping $5 million. More than 100 dispensaries in the Centennial State have now received licenses for retail cannabis sales and over 500 are eligible to apply. More are applying every day.

"A new industry is developing in a nascent state in Colorado," says Rachel Gillette, director of the Colorado chapter of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws (NORML). "We're not just talking about retail sales, but a lot of other types of business associated with it—construction companies, HVAC contractors, nutrient companies, lighting and equipment sales, packaging, printers, labeling, marketing materials, websites, marijuana tourism, attorneys, payroll companies… This could represent a lot of jobs."

US Attorney General Eric Holder delivered a speech Aug. 12 to the annual meeting of the American Bar Association in which he outlined a new sentencing and enforcement strategy. Holder said that the Department of Justice is "considering compassionate release for inmates facing extraordinary or compelling circumstances." Holder also spoke out against the indiscriminate use of mandatory minimum sentencing for non-violent offenders. There are currently more than two dozen federal medical marijuana patients and providers who are serving sentences for violating federal marijuana laws, despite being in compliance with the laws of their respective states.

In a decision that may shutter most of the state's medical marijuana dispensaries, the Michigan Supreme Court ruled 4-1 Feb. 8 that the private sale of medical marijuana is illegal. The court granted an injunction enjoining the defendants' business, Compassionate Apothecary, from selling medical marijuana on the grounds that such sales constitute a public nuisance.