Global Ganja Report

With Oklahoma’s passage of a medical marijuana law, advocacy organizations say there is now only one state in the entire union without some sort of legal provision for medicinal use of either herbal cannabis or cannabinoid extracts: Idaho. And with a governor's race this year, there may be hope even there. One by one, even the most culturally conservative states are succumbing to the demands of patients and the findings of science to pass laws to allow use of (at least) extracts containing cannabinoids, or (at most) actual herbaceous marijuana, for either medical or "recreational" purposes.

Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte took office last month with a pledge to unleash a deadly crackdown on drug users and other miscreants—and he's sure delivered. In his first State of the Nation address July 25, he issued more such rhetoric. "Show no mercy to them because they are not showing any mercy to us anyway," Duterte declared to cheers from his supporters in congress. He called on police and security forces to "double your efforts, triple them if need be... We will not stop until the last drug lord, the last financier and the last pusher have surrendered or put behind bars or below the ground if they so wish." Clearly addressing his critics, he added that "human rights cannot be used a shield or an excuse to destroy the country."

The new Justice Department policy to take a hands-off approach to cannabis cultivation on Indian reservations could be a boon for the Lakota Sioux, who have long been pressing their right as a sovereign nation to grow industrial hemp. US Attorney for North Dakota Timothy Purdon (who is also the US Attorney General's pointman for Native American issues) told AP he's not aware of any tribes in either North or South Dakota actively considering a cannabis industry. The tribal council of the Oglala Lakota Nation this year rejected a proposal to allow cannabis cultivation on the Pine Ridge Reservation in southwest South Dakota. The council's Law and Order Committee chair Ellen Fills the Pipe said: "For me, it's a drug. My gut feeling is we're most likely going to shoot it down." (The San Francisco Chronicle's cannabis-friendly Smell the Truth blog couldn't help noting the irony of her name, but also acknowledged fears, realistic or not, that rez pot sales could excacerbate already existing alcohol abuse problems.) But that's the smokable variety, not the industrial. Chairman Dave Archambault of the Standing Rock Sioux, with a reservation straddling North and South Dakota, said that his tribe might consider industrial hemp cultivation.

Arizona voters approved Proposition 203, authorizing the possession of up to two-and-a-half ounces of medical marijuana, according to results released by the Arizona Secretary of State Nov. 13. The measure, voted on during the midterm elections earlier this month, was too close to call on election night and remained so until all votes were counted this weekend, resulting in a final tally of 50.13-49.87%.

Proposition 19 mastermind Richard Lee spoke to supporters in Oakland after the initiative lost by some 540,000 votes, 46-53%, the night of Nov. 2. "The fact that millions of Californians voted to legalize marijuana is a tremendous victory," Lee said, noting that the measure won 3.3 million votes. "We have broken the glass ceiling. Prop. 19 has changed the terms of the debate. And that was a major strategic goal."

The country's leading advocacy group Americans for Safe Access (ASA) issued voter guides Oct. 26, highlighting several important races in the upcoming elections, including ballot initiatives establishing two new statewide medical marijuana laws in Arizona and South Dakota, and an expansion of Oregon's law to include licensed cannabis dispensaries. At the local level, voters in California and Colorado will be deciding on dozens of local medical marijuana initiatives, including banning distribution and imposing new taxes on patients. The race for California attorney general, however, may represent the greatest threat to patients this November. ASA strongly opposes AG candidate Steve Cooley, Los Angeles District Attorney and a longtime adversary of the state's medical marijuana laws.