• Chile plants cannabis for medicinal use

    BBC News (UK)
    Wednesday, 29 October, 2014

    Chile-cannabis-medicinal_ceciliaIn most countries in the world, if you asked the local authorities for permission to grow 750 cannabis plants in a residential area of the capital city, you would probably end up in trouble. But in Chile, the state has just agreed to such a project. The cannabis will be planted on 29 October in La Florida, a district of Santiago. It will be harvested next April and turned into an oil which will be used as a painkiller for 200 cancer patients.

  • Cannabis: A burning issue for Austria's Neos

    Austria’s centrist Neos party has sparked controversy by speaking out in favour of legalizing cannabis
    The Local (Austria)
    Wednesday, October 29, 2014

    Neos chairman Matthias Strolz has spoken out in favour of selling cannabis over the counter in pharmacies and allowing people to grow their own plants for personal consumption. He said that half a million people who regularly use cannabis in Austria risk having a criminal record and that legalization would take cannabis out of the hands of dealers and criminal gangs. He added that the goal of legalizing cannabis in Austria would be primarily to reduce drug abuse. (See also: Big cannabis fields in Vienna?)

  • Controversial São Paulo project offers jobs to crack addicts in Cracolândia

    But critics say the city’s Open Arms programme is flawed by not requiring participants to give up drugs
    The Guardian (UK)
    Wednesday, October 29, 2014

    On a mild winter morning in São Paulo, two dozen people pick up brooms and rubbish bins from a warehouse. They wear blue jumpsuits with a De Braços Abertos (With Open Arms) logo, referring to a controversial new programme for crack cocaine addicts, and set off to sweep streets in the city centre. The Open Arms programme provides housing, food and jobs to more than 400 people in an area known as Cracolândia (Crackland). The city-run programme is the latest intervention to try to curb the city’s large open-air drug market. Proponents say it could be a model for other cities in the region. Critics worry that it will delay addicts’ rehabilitation.

  • Grow your own marijuana law

    SFGate (US web)
    Sunday, October 26, 2014

    Retail marijuana sales for adults are now legal (at least at the state level) in Colorado and Washington. Next month, voters in Alaska and Oregon may decide to follow suit. It is nearly certain that marijuana legalization will make it onto the California ballot in 2016, during a presidential election season that will generate enormous interest among young voters. Robert MacCoun looks at options for designing a marijuana proposal.

  • The marijuana industry could be bigger than the NFL by 2020

    The Washington Post (US)
    Friday, October 24, 2014

    A report from Greenwave Advisors, a "comprehensive research and financial analysis for the emerging legalized marijuana industry," projects that legal cannabis could be an industry with revenues of $35 billion by 2020 if marijuana is legalized at the federal level. To put that figure in perspective, $35 billion represents more annual revenue than the NFL (currently $10 billion), and is roughly on par with current revenues for the newspaper publishing industry ($38 billion) and the confectionary industry ($34 billion).

  • Race, class, and cannabis in the Caribbean

    Without sufficient regulation, drug legalization in the Caribbean could end up benefitting international business interests, and hurting those who depend on the informal cannabis economy to survive
    NACLA (US)
    Thursday, October 23, 2014

    Given the regional discussions of allowing the use of ganja for medicinal purposes—and its eventual decriminalization—two prominent ganja advocates in the Eastern Caribbean have been arguing that things are much more complex than they seem. If the decriminalization or legalization of ganja takes place without sufficient regional and domestic regulation, the Caribbean may end up losing out on one of its most lucrative, albeit illicit exports. During my time in both St. Vincent and St. Lucia, I have seen increasing concern and skepticism over who would truly benefit from the legalization of ganja in the Caribbean.

  • No, marijuana use doesn’t lower your IQ

    The Washington Post (US)
    Wednesday, October 22, 2014

    A 2012 Duke University study made international headlines purporting to find a link between heavy marijuana use and IQ decline among teenagers. Other researchers questioned the findings immediately: Columbia University's Carl Hart noted the very small sample of heavy users (38) in the study. A follow-up study published 6 months later in the same journal found that the Duke paper failed to account for a number of confounding factors. A new study from the University College of London provides even stronger evidence that the Duke findings were flawed.

  • Dreifuss unterstützt Cannabis-Vereine

    Die Initianten gehen davon aus, dass ein drei- bis fünfjähriger Pilotversuch mit den heutigen rechtlichen Vorgaben realisierbar sein müsste
    Neue Zürcher Zeitung (Switzerland)
    Sunday, October 19, 2014

    In Anwesenheit der ehemaligen Bundesrätin Ruth Dreifuss haben sich Vertreter aus Genf, Zürich, Bern und Basel getroffen, um über ein Projekt zur Cannabis-Legalisierung zu diskutieren. Der Genfer Soziologieprofessor Sandro Cattacin sagt auf Anfrage, das Gremium suche derzeit nach Möglichkeiten, um die geplanten Cannabis-Vereine auf eine gesetzliche Basis zu stellen. Diese Einrichtungen würden den Mitgliedern den Anbau, Vertrieb und Konsum der Droge unter Aufsicht ermöglichen.

  • How marijuana legalization in Colorado and Washington is making the world a better place

    Washington Post (US)
    Friday, October 17, 2014

    No pressure, Colorado and Washington, but the world is scrutinizing your every move. That was the take-home message of an event today at the Brookings Institution, discussing the international impact of the move toward marijuana legalization at the state-level in the U.S. Laws passed in Colorado and Washington, with other states presumably to come, create a tension with the U.S. obligations toward three major international treaties governing drug control.

    READ MORE...

  • Dutch court lets off cannabis growers

    Court ruling on cannabis growers prompts fresh demands for legal supply chain
    Sky News
    Thursday, October 16, 2014

    A Dutch court refused to punish two cannabis growers, criticising a government policy that criminalises production while allowing its sale in coffee shops. In its judgment, the court found the suspects guilty but "no punishment will be applied". "Given that the sale of soft drugs in coffee shops is tolerated, this means that these coffee shops must supply themselves and so cultivation must be done to satisfy these demands," the court said. "The law does not state how this supply should be done." The ruling is groundbreaking; it might open up the back door of the coffeeshops. (See also: No jail or fines for 'idealistic' marijuana growing couple)

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