Global Ganja Report

"Diamond" Dave Whitaker, a local legend and longtime counterculture figure in San Francisco, died March 2 at the age of 88. Long known as the "mayor of Haight Street," Whitaker was an organizer of underground poetry readings, pirate radio broadcasts, and countless other hippie-spirited events, keeping alive the flame of the city's vibrant 1960s scene for new generations of youth.

Cannabis is now legal in Minnesota, and the first adult-use sales have been on two of the state’s Native American reservations. The Red Lake and White Earth nations are using their sovereign status to get the jump on the North Star State's retail sector.

With growing legal and cultural space for cannabis, can the mere smell of the stuff still be sufficient cause for a search that could potentially land you in jail? The answer is that the courts are divided on this question. Meanwhile, cannabis attorneys warn against the fatal error of consenting to a search.

The original peoples of what is now the United States were left in legal limbo in the wake of the 2018 Farm Bill, which made hemp cultivation again lawful. Federally recognized Native American tribes could not cultivate under state regulation, because the states have limited jurisdiction on their reservations. But the US Agriculture Department dragged its heels in issuing federal regs that could apply on these lands. Caught between two sovereigns, many farmers in Indian country are asserting their right to cultivate hemp under the un-extinguished sovereignty of their own Native nations.

A month into the national uprising sparked by the killing of George Floyd, cities and states are responding to activist demands to defund police forces. Some are deciding that cannabis enforcement is the place to start in contracting the police apparatus.

Protests have spread across the country in response to the death of George Floyd at the hands of Minneapolis police—a haunting crystallization of institutionalized racism in law enforcement. The protests have been punctuated by looting in many cities, and cannabis businesses have not been spared. How the industry reacts at this moment will reveal much about the soul of America's cannabis community.

As first reported by Buzzfeed News, the US Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) is expanding its powers so that it can assist "to the maximum extent possible in the federal law enforcement response" to the wave of ongoing nationwide protests that have followed the killing of George Floyd by a member of the Minneapolis police.

Growing numbers around the United States and the world are using cannabis to treat a wide spectrum of medical conditions, and legal space is widening for them to do so. So it's a particular irony that hospitals as a rule bar cannabis from their premises. More voices in the medical industry are now grappling with this dilemma.