Global Ganja Report

It has been a year and counting since Ohio passed its medical marijuana law in June 2016, and nobody has yet received any cannabis under the program. The logjam is due to the failure of the state to issue licenses to any cultivators, processors, dispensaries or testing labs.

Finally, the first sign of progress is seen as a local technical college has come forward to offer cannabis testing services.

President Donald Trump signed an executive order on Aug. 28 overturning Barack Obama's 2015 directive that barred local police agencies from receiving most forms of military equipment from the federal government. Attorney General Jeff Sessions announced the order  in a speech to the Fraternal Order of Police, which led the campaign to reverse the Obama policy.

It's an ominous sign that even as California is on a countdown to cannabis legalization, to take effect in January, big pot raids continue in the Emerald Triangle. The most recent to make local news came on Aug. 22, when the Humboldt County Sheriff's Office Drug Enforcement Unit launched a three-day operation in the Conklin Creek area of Petrolia.

A bill signed by Oregon Gov. Kate Brown on Aug. 15 makes the Beaver State the latest to reduce the penalty for personal-use possession of cocaine, heroin, methamphetamine and other drugs from a felony to a misdemeanor. The state which famously was the first to decriminalize cannabis in 1973 is again leading the way to a more rational and humane drug policy.

After last weekend's horrorshow in Charlottesville, it's a relief that the white supremacist hate-fest planned for Boston on Aug. 19 (sickeningly billed as a "Free Speech" rally) was a total bust. Just some 40-odd "alt-right" protesters gathered on the historic Boston Common, dwarfed by about 40,000 counter-protesters, who chanted "wrong side of history" and "shame, shame." Eventually, police escorted the small group of haters with their Nazi regalia away to safety, and that was that.

Amid the legal ambiguities about the status of cannabidiol (CBD), authorities in one state that had cracked down on preparations of the salutary cannabinoid are now admitting that they themselves are confused. Weeks after Indiana State Excise Police declared products containing CBD oil to be illegal—and carrying out a raid on an Indianapolis-aread natural goods store to prove it—state officials say they don’t actually know if CBD oil products are illegal or not.

It has been a long, slow ride for patients hoping to get access to medical marijuana in the Lone Star state—and then just special strains of low-THC cannabis, and only for those suffering from "intractable epilepsy." Three dispensaries are hoping to get final approval from Texas authorities to start cultivating next month. Of course, it will be several more months before they can actually begin distributing—and then ambiguities in the law may mean further delays. Activists and lawmakers are pushing both to clear things up and expand the scope of the program.

Pollution from outlaw cannabis grows deep in California's national forests is far worse than previously thought, and has turned thousands of acres into virtual toxic waste dumps. That's the sobering assessment of an Aug. 6 Reuters report on the mounting ecological impacts of outdoor cultivation in the Golden State, which accounts for upwards of 90% of illegal marijuana production nationwide.