Peru

Peter Gorman, naturalist and legend of cannabis journalism, passes on

Peter GormanPeter Gorman, the acclaimed journalist, naturalist and adventurer who aggressively covered cannabis and the drug war beat for over 30 years, died at his home in Texas on April 24 at the age of 71. He had just returned from a long-planned river journey into a remote area of the Peruvian Amazon that he had first visited in 1984, and where he first encountered the psychoactive shamanic substances that would define much of his life's work.

Peter Gorman's Fantastic Tales

Posted on November 12th, 2021 by Global Ganja Report and tagged , , , , , , , , , .

Peter GormanFurther adventures of Peter Gorman are chronicled in this quasi-memoir, Magic Mushrooms in India & Other Fantastic Tales. Gorman's best known for his work in the Peruvian Amazon, where he's spent the good part of the last three decades hunting for rare flora and connecting with curanderos who turned him on to ayahuasca and other exotic hallucinogens.

Gorman was a contributing editor at High Times in the '90s, where many of these stories first appeared—visits to India seeking mushrooms and bhang, and to Morocco on the kif trail.

Struggle for patient cultivation continues as Peru approves medical marijuana regs

Posted on February 26th, 2019 by Bill Weinberg and tagged , , , , .

PeruAfter a delay of a year beyond what was mandated by the law passed in November 2017, Peru has finally unveiled regulations for its new medical marijuana program. Now the activists who fought for the law say they will keep fighting for what has always been their central demand: the right to home cultivation by patient "associations."

Multi-billion dollar legal cannabis industry foreseen for Latin America

Posted on October 9th, 2018 by Bill Weinberg and tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , .

leafOver the past two years, the Latin American cannabis industry has "emerged from the shadows" to command the attention of international firms and investors. Legal cannabis sales within the region are on track to reach $125 million in 2018—but that figure is expected to rise to $12.7 billion by 2028.

Mother Courage in Peru

Posted on October 3rd, 2018 by Bill Weinberg and tagged , , , , , , , .


The woman behind the South American nation's new medical marijuana law may yet face prison time. Her crime? Providing the only medicine that worked for her ailing son.

In the working-class Lima district of Pueblo Libre, I make my way to an apartment complex and up to the flat of Ana Álvarez—the unlikely woman almost singly responsible for Peru’s groundbreaking new medical marijuana law.

In a bedroom, 18-year-old Anthony watches a noisy Spiderman movie, occasionally interrupting through the open door as I chat with his mom in the living room. Anthony suffers from tuberous sclerosis, a severe form of epilepsy, and was the voiceless central figure behind the events that led to a major reform of Peru’s drug laws in 2017.

The next likely countries to legalize cannabis

earthWith Canada now joining Uruguay as the second country to legalize cannabis at the national level, industry eyes are scanning the world map for which could be the likely third. Latin America may provide the candidate, as even UN experts now urge the region's governments to consider legalization as a way out of the endemic narco-violence. But pressure for legal cannabis is fast mounting in several European countries as well. Legalization may soon be on the legislative agenda in Australia, while New Zealand has promised to put the questions before the voters. 

Marijuana and Mother Courage

Posted on May 9th, 2018 by Global Ganja Report and tagged , , , , , , , , , .

medical marijuanaAround the world, mothers are on the frontlines of demanding legal access to cannabis products for their children who suffer from epilepsy and other ailments. Often, these courageous moms have risked their freedom to provide medicine for their offspring. Sometimes they have actually shamed the authorities into changing the law—but still face the prospect of prison time.

$57 billion world cannabis market foreseen

earthOakland-based cannabis industry research firm ArcView Group has released a new study, ambitiously entitled "The Road Map to a $57 Billion Worldwide Market." It provides a sweeping overview of recent progress and future prospects for legal or medical herb across the globe. But it also warns that, due to continued legal restrictions and bureaucratic overstretch, the market is in most areas bottlenecked from achieving its potential.

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