Global Ganja Report

A welcome blow is reported against the deeply ingrained stigma that attaches even to users of basically harmless drugs like cannabis that happen to be illegal. The Global Commission on Drug Policy—a body with dissident views but made up of prestigious elder statesmen and world leaders, so it can't be readily ignored—has just issued a statement calling on policymakers and the media to avoid using terms such as "drug user," "addict" and "junkie." The report includes a checklist of what terms should be eschewed or embraced to avoid language portraying people who use drugs as "physically inferior or morally flawed."

The latest stats from the UN's annual Afghanistan Opium Survey are in, and the news is grim. Opium production in the war-torn country jumped nearly 87% in 2017, to record levels—an estimated 9,000 metric tons (9,921 US tons). Areas under poppy cultivation rose by 63%, reaching a record 328,000 hectares (810,488 acres), according to the joint survey by the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) and the Afghan Counter-Narcotics Ministry. The survey also found that the number of poppy-free provinces in the country decreased from 13 to 10, with Ghazni, Samangan and Nuristan provinces joining the list of poppy-growing regions. This boosts the number of Afghanistan's 34 provinces now cultivating opium from 21 to 24. 

A federal judge in Sacramento on Sept. 12 ruled that sheriff's deputies and other officials in Northern California's Siskiyou County did not discriminate against Hmong residents while carrying out marijuana enforcement operations and other investigations last year.

A bill signed by Oregon Gov. Kate Brown on Aug. 15 makes the Beaver State the latest to reduce the penalty for personal-use possession of cocaine, heroin, methamphetamine and other drugs from a felony to a misdemeanor. The state which famously was the first to decriminalize cannabis in 1973 is again leading the way to a more rational and humane drug policy.

A 29-year-old man believed to be the godson of Mexican narco lord Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzmán was indicted on drug  charges in a San Diego federal court Aug. 7. Damaso López Serrano AKA "Mini Lic" was charged with smuggling unspecified quantities of methamphetamine, cocaine and heroin. He'd turned himself in to US border agents several days earlier, and is said to be the highest-ranking Mexican kingpin ever to surrender in the territory of the United States.

Although rarely in the news, the Central Asian republic of Tajikistan is a critical corridor for hashish and opiates bound from southern neighbor Afghanistan to Europe and world markets. Violence associated with the cross-border trade is predictably endemic and appears to be escalating. Border guards have repeatedly clashed with traffickers on the frontier in recent weeks, leaving several dead.

Attorney General Jeff Sessions has called on congressional leaders to overturn federal protections on medical marijuana that have been in place since 2014, according to a May letter that the Washington Post published June 13. The letter, addressed to the Senate majority and minority leaders as well as Speaker of the House Paul Ryan, called for repeal of the Rohrabacher-Farr amendment, which bars the Justice Department from using federal funds to prevent named states "from implementing their own State laws that authorize the use, distribution, possession or cultivation of medical marijuana."

Security forces in southeastern Turkey, where authorities have been waging a brutal counterinsurgency war against Kurdish guerillas, reported the seizure last week of 2,290 kilograms of hashish and 6,632 kilograms of unprocessed cannabis "in an operation against the drug activities of the PKK terrorist organization."