• Partnership critical for ganja industry success - SRC head

    Farmers should also recognise the value of research and development in helping them to realise the economic potential of medical marijuana
    The Gleaner (Jamaica)
    Friday, July 6, 2018

    Executive Director of the Scientific Research Council (SRC) Dr Cliff Riley has underscored the importance of working partnerships that acknowledge and incorporate the expertise of small players as critical to the success of Jamaica's fledgling medical marijuana industry. He warned scientists, in particular, against alienating farmers. "I am asking our researchers, please, for God's sake, do not go to communities take the farmers' ganja and carry back to our lab and study. Incorporate the farmers within your research teams," he said. (See also: $260m ganja study - Jamaica eyeing investment in medicinal marijuana market | Jamaica advised to standardise ganja)

  • Incoming Mexican president to seek negotiated peace in drug war

    Lopez Obrador wants to rewrite the rules of the drug war
    Reuters (UK)
    Friday, July 6, 2018

    Mexican President-elect Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador’s transition team unveiled a plan to shake up the fight against crime, including reduced jail time but stiffer controls on weapons, as the country reels from a militarized drug war. The concept of “transitional justice” is part of the incoming government’s integral security strategy, Olga Sanchez, Lopez Obrador’s proposed interior minister, told Reuters in an interview before her team unveiled the plan. Sanchez had said the new administration, which takes office on Dec. 1, would move fast to reconsider drug policies and use of the military that, despite toppling some high-profile kingpins, failed to prevent more than 200,000 murders since first adopted in 2006.

  • Smoke rings: more councils volunteer for cannabis growing trial

    Many believe legalisation and control of the growing industry would reduce criminality
    Dutch News (Netherlands)
    Friday, July 6, 2018

    Municipalities in the Netherlands have signed up to a mooted four-year trial in legally growing cannabis for the first time. The new coalition agreement said that the policy would be tested in six to 10 areas, and more have now joined up. It is intended to see whether controlled weed growing leads to a decline in criminality around cannabis cultivation, and whether the crop could be monitored to have fewer harmful substances. A commission report in June advised that it would be beneficial to sign up more areas. The Netherlands currently has 573 coffeeshops in 103 districts but although they can sell the substance, it is illegal for them to buy or grow it. (See also: Controlled Cannabis Supply Chain Experiment Act - Explanatory memorandum)

  • Canada’s cannabis firms plot world domination

    Being in the first big country to legalise pot means first-mover advantage
    The Economist (UK)
    Thursday, July 5, 2018

    It is rare to see the words “Canada” and “world domination” in the same sentence. The country’s cannabis producers want to change that. With an eye on October 17th, the date on which recreational marijuana will become legal, medical-cannabis firms have been expanding at home and talking up their global ambitions in a most un-Canadian way. Lots of joint ventures—in the legal sense—are being signed abroad. The hope is that having a base in the first large country to make pot legal for adults (Uruguay legalised cannabis in 2017) will give them an unbeatable lead. (See also: Medical cannabis producer Canopy Growth's plan to enter the new recreational marijuana market)

  • High hopes: Who will benefit from NZ's legal cannabis industry?

    Māori are disproportionately targeted by drug policing. With NZ poised to legalise medicinal cannabis, will they continue to lose out?
    Vice (New Zealand)
    Thursday, July 5, 2018

    In New Zealand, it’s Māori communities who have been hit by racial bias in drug policing. Even when accounting for rates of use, at every stage of the criminal justice system, Māori are more likely to be apprehended, charged, and given a prison sentence than their Pākeha pot-smoking counterparts. In this 2007 report, for example, Corrections notes that on the basis of equivalent usage of cannabis, Māori experienced arrest at three times the rate of non-Māori users. Now, New Zealand is poised to legalise. But who stands to benefit from a medicinal cannabis industry?

  • Swiss government supports legalising medical cannabis

    The home affairs ministry has been tasked with proposing a change to the law by summer 2019
    Swissinfo (Switzerland)
    Wednesday, July 4, 2018

    The Federal Council has recommended the approval of the sale of cannabis for medical purposes. It also wants to legalise pilot tests to establish how a general legalisation would impact consumers. The changes are intended to facilitate access to medical cannabis for patients in Switzerland, according to the Federal Office of Publish Health (FOPH). The Federal Council also said it wanted to allow pilot studies to go ahead to examine the drug’s effects when used recreationally. Although cannabis for recreational purposes is illegal, the number of users had remained stable and the black market was flourishing. Authorities in several Swiss cities and cantons have expressed interest in the studies. (See also: Switzerland weighs relaxing marijuana ban)

  • South Australia's 'counter-productive' cannabis crackdown likely to be defeated

    Labor and upper house crossbenchers signal opposition to jail sentences for cannabis possession
    The Guardian (UK)
    Tuesday, July 3, 2018

    Australian cannabis laws infographicThe South Australian government’s plan to introduce jail sentences for people caught in possession of cannabis faces defeat in the state’s parliament after Labor and upper house crossbenchers signalled their opposition to the bill. On Monday the SA attorney general, Vickie Chapman, announced a new “war on drugs” in the state with the introduction of a bill to make cannabis a controlled substance on par with ecstasy and heroin. The bill would mean people caught in possession of marijuana could face a maximum jail term of two years. It would also include tougher penalties for members of outlaw motorcycle gangs. But Labor and the crossbench MPs in the state’s upper house have signalled that the bill is unlikely to make it through in its current form.

  • Death penalty for drug crimes: How the law changed over time

    How and when Section 31A was incorporated to the Act and what all it contains
    The Indian Express (India)
    Tuesday, July 3, 2018

    A 2012 report by Harm Reduction International, formerly known as International Harm Reduction Association, a NGO working globally on the subject of drug trafficking mentioned India as one of 33 countries that retains death penalty for drug related offences. Section 31A, NDPS Act, 1985 already has a provision of death penalty for subsequent conviction under law. First incorporated in the statute in 1989, the Section 31A was amended in 2001 introducing the death penalty for subsequent conviction. However, 13 years later, another amendment in 2014 made it optional for the judge to award the death sentence. (See also: Punjab wants death for drug traffickers)

  • Sajid Javid looks into easing rules on medical cannabis prescription

    Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs to carry out study for home secretary
    The Guardian (UK)
    Tuesday, July 3, 2018

    The home secretary, Sajid Javid, is considering whether cannabis could be made easier to prescribe for medical use, Downing Street has said. It comes after a review last month was published in which the chief medical officer of England, Sally Davies, concluded there was evidence of “therapeutic benefit” for some conditions. Javid ordered part one of the review last month after a number of high-profile cases involving children being denied access to cannabis oil to control epileptic seizures. Cannabis is currently a schedule 1 drug, which means it is thought to have no therapeutic value and cannot be legally possessed or prescribed. (See also: Medical cannabis: Doctors 'should be able to prescribe drug', says UK's chief adviser)

  • CARICOM heads to consider dismantling marijuana prohibition

    The commission used Jamaica as a point of reference
    The Gleaner (Jamaica)
    Monday, July 2, 2018

    Caricom marijuana commissionThe dismantling of the prohibition of marijuana in its totality across member states is a key recommendation contained in the report of the CARICOM Regional Commission on Marijuana 2018, which will be reviewed by heads of government at the 39th conference of the regional body to be held in Montego Bay from July 4-6. In its report, the Commission, comprising professionals with expertise in the fields of law, ethics, sociology, psychiatry, medical, and social research, and criminology, argued that a strictly regulated framework for marijuana akin to that for alcohol and tobacco, should be introduced.  (See also: No room yet for trade of recreational marijuana | Caricom heads to discuss marijuana decriminalisation)

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