Global Ganja Report

Amid a bloody prison uprising in Mississippi, hip-hop superstar Jay Z has launched suit against state authorities on behalf of inmates at the violence-plagued penitentiary. Mississippi has some of the harshest cannabis laws in the country, and pot convictions are big factor contributing to the dire crisis of overcrowding and brutality in the state's lock-ups.

Martin Luther King Jr never spoke about cannabis, but his life and works have much to say about the fight for legalization, and against the "New Jim Crow" of the war on drugs. 

The Emerald Triangle mourns the passing of BE Smith, the legendary Trinity County grower who did time in federal prison for openly cultivating cannabis under California's medical marijuana law—throwing down the proverbial gauntlet to Washington DC from his mountain homestead. His bold action put the Justice Department on the spot, and helped prompt a change in federal policy.

In an outrageous case in France, the admitted perpetrator in an anti-Semitic murder will not stand trial, and will be going to a drug rehab facility instead of prison—on the basis of his claim of temporary insanity due to cannabis use. French Jewish leaders are of course aghast. But the decision also sets an alarming precedent in the fight for cannabis normalization—legitimizing the dubious notion of cannabis-induced psychosis, and further entrenching the stigma.

Hundreds of cannabis possession charges have been dismissed in Texas in recent weeks because police don't have labs that can differentiate between marijuana and newly legal hemp. The governor, attorney general and politicians are up in arms about it. Other states are updating their test kits to distinguish between CBD and THC in confiscated samples.

An ICE raid in the LA district of Echo Park sparked local outrage, with a longtime resident and pregnant mother of two detained for deportation—despite the fact that the agents apparently had no warrant. Her family is now left struggling—and it all seems based on a cannabis conviction from many years ago.

Big militarized raids by state police and National Guard forces on illicit grows in Northern California's Trinity County brought back bad memories for locals. Several homes were raided and helicopters brought in for the operation—exactly the kind of thing Californians thought they had seen the end of after legalization.

In Episode 35 of the CounterVortex podcast, Bill Weinberg interviews Emily Ramos, Pilar DeJesus and Kara Bhatti, members of the worker-owned marijuana consumer cooperative High Mi Madre, on their lobbying and activist efforts in support of the Marijuana Regulation and Taxation Act, still pending in the final countdown to the close of the current New York State legislative session. They emphasize the demand for "Day One Equity" with cannabis legalization in the Empire State—measures for reparative justice and reinvestment in the communities that had for generations been criminalized and oppressed by cannabis prohibition. Listen on SoundCloud, and support our podcast via Patreon.