Global Ganja Report

Advocacy group Americans for Safe Access (ASA) issued a letter Nov. 17 urging that Los Angeles' prestigious Cedars-Sinai Medical Center promptly re-list 63-year-old patient Norman B. Smith for a liver transplant. Smith was diagnosed with inoperable liver cancer in 2009 and became eligible for a transplant at Cedars-Sinai the following year. Smith's oncologist at Cedars-Sinai, Dr. Steven Miles, approved of his cannabis use to deal with the effects of chemotherapy and pain from an unrelated back surgery. But in February he was removed from the transplant list after testing positive for cannabis use.

Survey data collected from members of the Berkeley Patients Group, one of California's most prominent medical marijuana collectives, indicates that most patients reduce their use of prescription medications following their initiation of cannabis therapy. The anonymous survey found that 66% of respondents said that they consumed cannabis as a prescription drug substitute. Many said they preferred cannabis because it caused fewer side effects than conventional medications.

Nine Congress members on Oct. 31 issued an open letter to President Obama urging him to put a halt to new aggressive Justice Department tactics aimed at dismantling California's medical marijuana industry. "It's unconscionable...to endanger the lives of patients," the reps state in the strongly worded letter, which calls for rescheduling cannabis. It especially urges support for HR 1983, the States' Medical Marijuana Patient Protection Act, which was introduced by Rep. Barney Frank (D-MA) earlier this year.

Trustees of the California Medical Association, representing more than 35,000 physicians statewide, on Oct. 14 adopted a position calling for legalization of cannabis at their annual meeting in Anaheim—becoming the first major medical association in the nation to do so. Dr. Donald Lyman, the Sacramento physician who wrote the group's new policy, attributed the move to growing frustration over California's medical marijuana law, which puts practitioners in the situation of having to decide whether to recommend a substance that is illegal under federal law.

Northern California's Humboldt Plant Fertilizers (HPF) announced Sept. 22 that it will become "the only natural liquid plant nutrient company banning any use of slaughterhouse by-products such as the bone meal, blood meal, and feather meal almost universally found in all other natural fertilizer products." Every product manufactured by HPF will now bear the "Holy Cow" symbol—a smiling bovine head with a halo and the words "We never use slaughterhouse by-products."

Cannabis administered in a timely manner may block the development of post-traumatic stress disorder symptoms in rats, a new study conducted at Israel's Haifa University finds. The study, published in Neuropsychopharmacology journal, found that rats given cannabis within 24 hours of a traumatic experience successfully avoided PTSD symptoms. "There is a critical 'window of time' after trauma, during which synthetic marijuana can help prevent symptoms similar to PTSD in rats," said study leader Dr. Irit Akirav.

Cannabis is increasingly the drug of choice among young adults in the US, while methamphetamine use  is dropping, according to a national survey released Sept. 8 by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA). Overall, 8.9% of the US population or 22.6 million people aged 12 and older used illicit drugs in 2010, up from 8.7% in 2009 and 8% in 2008, the study finds according to Reuters. Cannabis use appears to be driving the increase, with some 17.4 million—or 6.9% of the population—saying they used marijuana in 2010, up from 14.4 million or 5.8% of the population in 2007.

Last year, when the New York Times ran a story on "haute stoner cuisine"—suggesting that cannabis use by chefs is encouraging a trend for "chin-dripping, carbohydrate-heavy food"—we responded that, while we did not have the figures to back it up, there is probably a higher percentage of vegetarians and healthy eaters among pot-smokers than the general population. Now, our assumption appears to be vindicated by a new study. From the NY Daily News, Sept. 4: