• Bundesrat zweifelt an rechtlicher Grundlage

    Kiffer-Clubs
    Neue Zürcher Zeitung (Switzerland)
    Donnerstag 4. September 2014

    In Genf wird derzeit darüber nachgedacht, ob Lokale für eine kontrollierte Cannabis-Abgabe für den Eigenkonsum eingerichtet werden sollen. Auch andere Städten spielen mit dem Gedanken. Der Bundesrat geht aber davon aus, dass solche Lokale mit dem Betäubungsmittelgesetz nicht vereinbar wären. Der Bundesrat erinnert auch an die Hanfinitiative, die 2008 von Volk uns Ständen deutlich verworfen wurde. Vor diesem Hintergrund sieht er aktuell keinen Anlass, eine Cannabislegalisierung voranzutreiben.

  • Costa Rica: A new model for prison standards in Latin America?

    Costa Rica has slowly started to implement politically sensitive, but needed, reforms
    Christian Science Monitor and Washington Office on Latin America (US)
    Friday, August 29, 2014

    prisonsPrison overcrowding is a widespread problem in Latin America, primarily because of harsh drug-sentencing laws and inadequate budgets, but Costa Rica may be setting a useful example for dealing with it. In most countries, guards control the perimeter, but groups of prisoners or criminal gangs organize and control life inside the prison compound. Rehabilitation and re-integration programs are limited.

  • Washington judge upholds small city’s pot shop ban

    Washington Post (US)
    Friday, August 29, 2014

    A state judge said that a small city can continue to ban state-licensed marijuana businesses, in a case with big implications for Washington’s experiment in legal pot. Pierce County Superior Court Judge Ronald Culpepper issued the ruling after extensive arguments over whether Initiative 502, the voter-approved state law that legalizes adults’ recreational use of marijuana, left any room for such local bans.

  • Catalonia set to legalize medical marijuana

    Will help the region to crack down on its booming cannabis club scene
    The Local (Spain)
    Thursday, August 28, 2014

    Catalonia is drawing up rules to allow the use of marijuana for the treatment of patients suffering from conditions with symptoms such as pain and loss of appetite, the region's health minister Boi Ruiz has said. The move would open the way for the drug to be prescribed to cancer and AIDS patients, among others. The plan was partly designed to stop Barcelona's increasingly popular cannabis clubs from controlling the supply of medical marijuana, Ruiz said.

  • This is your federalism on drugs

    Washington Post (US)
    Thursday, August 28, 2014

    legal-patchwork-usConservative Republicans often talk about the need to constrain the power of the federal government. On everything from environmental regulation to education policy, Republican officeholders argue that individual states should be able to adopt their own policy priorities, free from federal interference. Yet many of these same people are silent when the question turns to marijuana. In 2012, voters in Colorado and Washington state voted to legalize marijuana possession within their states. This November, voters in Oregon, Alaska and the District of Columbia will get the chance to follow suit. (See also: Let states decide on marijuana)

  • Leading anti-marijuana academics are paid by painkiller drug companies

    What does it say about medical academia today that many of that painkiller-funded researchers are now standing in the way of a safer alternative: smoking a joint
    Vice (US)
    Wednesday, August 27, 2014

    herbertkleberAs Americans continue to embrace pot—as medicine and for recreational use—opponents are turning to a set of academic researchers to claim that policymakers should avoid relaxing restrictions around marijuana. It's too dangerous, risky, and untested, they say. Just as drug company-funded research has become incredibly controversial in recent years, forcing major medical schools and journals to institute strict disclosure requirements, could there be a conflict of interest issue in the pot debate? (See also: The real reason pot is still illegal)

  • Marijuana: Yes to more steps toward decriminalization

    Editorial
    The Globe and Mail (Canada)
    August 20, 2014

    Peter MacKay, the Minister of Justice, is broaching the prospect of a marijuana bill that would verge on decriminalization. Well, better late than never. If such a bill were to become law, Canadian police would be able to ticket anyone smoking pot in public. But possession wouldn’t necessarily be a crime. It is a waste of the police’s time to criminally charge people for possession of small amounts of marijuana, and the Canadian Association of Police Chiefs have said as much. (See also: Looser marijuana laws still possible, Peter MacKay says)

  • Black market boom lays bare a social divide in Colorado’s marijuana market

    Nascent cannabis industry splits between wealthy with clean criminal records and those who turn to less than legal methods
    Guardian Weekly (UK)/Washington Post (US)
    Tuesday, August 19, 2014

    That the black market in Colorado bustles in the emerging days of legalisation is not unexpected. By some reckonings, it will continue as long as residents of other states look to Colorado as the nation’s cannabis cookie jar. And as long as its legal retail competition keeps prices high and is taxed at rates surpassing 30%. “I don’t know who is buying for recreational use at dispensaries unless it’s white, middle-class people and out-of-towners,” said a longtime community activist. “Everyone I know still has the guy on the street that they hook up with.”

  • Les clubs de cannabis passent un nouveau cap

    L’Exécutif genevois a lancé une étude de faisabilité des Associations de consommateurs de cannabis, prônées depuis deux ans par un groupe interpartis
    Le Matin (Suisse)
    Samedi, 16 aout 2014

    suisse-cannabis-flatLe chemin qui mène à la régularisation du cannabis se poursuit malgré les récentes réserves de l’Office fédéral de la santé publique (OFSP). «Le Conseil d’Etat est conscient de la réalité quotidienne de nos villes. Il ne s’interdit pas de réfléchir à de nouvelles pistes», explique le magistrat genevois MCG Mauro Poggia. Ce dernier a mandaté une commission présidée par l’ex-conseillère fédérale Ruth Dreifuss pour étudier la faisabilité des Associations de consommateurs de cannabis (ACC).

  • Dynamics of ganja cultivation in Manipur

    Case study of a village in Ukhrul district
    Economic & Political Weekly (India)
    Saturday, August 16, 2014

    india manipur cannabisIn the absence of alternative means of livelihood, ganja cultivation for decades has been the mainstay of livelihood for many families in the backward district of Ukhrul, Manipur. For these poor cultivators, earning a living takes precedence over considerations of morality and dangers involved in the illegal cultivation of this crop. The cultivation of ganja has been in practice for the  more than five decades in the district. About one-third of the respondents’ parents were reported to have cultivated ganja. One of the respondents had been cultivating ganja for the last 36 years. However, there were new entrants as well, who were cultivating it for the first or the second time.

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