Global Ganja Report

After years of activist effort, New York state finally passed the Marijuana Regulation & Taxation Act (MRTA), signed into law by a politically besieged Gov. Andrew Cuomo. This is being hailed as a victory by advocates, who pledge to craft a model of legalization that will dismantle a long legacy of racism and oppression under the prohibition regime.

After a frustrating delay and deadlock in the statehouse, New Jersey finally answered the will of the voters in last year's referendum, and passed enabling legislation to create a regulated adult-use cannabis market. Activists are still dissatisfied with limits—most significantly, no provision for homegrown—and have concerns about how a "recreational" market will impact medical users. But the belated move is being hailed as a victory that ups the pressure on neighboring New York to follow through on pledges to legalize—and even on the federal government.

At the annual Vienna meeting of the Commission on Narcotic Drugs, the governing body of the UN Office on Drugs & Crime (UNODC) voted Dec. 2 to strike cannabis from Schedule IV of the 1961 Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs, the global treaty regulating drug control policy.

With the Democratic horserace having narrowed into a two-man contest, cannabis voters appear to face a clear-cut choice: Bernie Sanders supports legalization, while Joe Biden has only in recent years come to support decrim. A look at the details, however, reveals that Bernie too has compromised with the Drug War establishment in the past.

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.

There has been significant progress toward cannabis legalization in the United States and globally over the past years, but pockets persist of the most repressive and reactionary prohibition. What are the prospects for expanding cannabis freedom in the coming year?

In a Capitol Hill hearing that advocates hailed as “historic,” numerous Congress members openly embraced lifting the federal strictures on cannabis—and even outright legalization. The discussion was particularly framed in terms of recognizing and correcting the racial and social iniquities of cannabis prohibition and the "war on drugs."

The Cannabis Cultural Association won at least a limited legal victory, with a federal appeals court ruling that the DEA must consider with "alacrity" their petition to have cannabis rescheduled.