• A banker who helped hide Mexican drug money is helping U.S. prosecutors

    Compliance official admits to misconduct on border accounts
    Bloomberg (US)
    Monday, December 18, 2017

    A former U.S. manager for Dutch banking giant Rabobank Groep says he helped hide possible criminal activity by clients and is assisting U.S. prosecutors in a long-running investigation of whether the lender was tied to laundering millions of dollars in Mexican drug money. The manager, George Martin, entered an agreement with the Justice Department. Martin, who worked as a compliance official in the bank’s California unit from 2007 until 2012, admitted to aiding a criminal scheme to mask possible money laundering by account holders. (See also: New calls to prosecute Dutch bank for laundering Mexican drug money)

  • High and dry: Pakistan's penchant for hash

    Anything that causes intoxication or bodily harm is strictly forbidden in Islam
    The News (Pakistan)
    Monday, December 18, 2017

    Many Pakistanis are surprisingly open to using cannabis, with the spongy, black hash made from marijuana grown in the country’s tribal belt and neighbouring Afghanistan the preferred variant of the drug. Whereas alcohol is explicitly forbidden in Islamic scripture, hash seemingly straddles a theological gray zone, which could explain its popularity in the country. People have been smoking hash on the subcontinent for centuries. It predates the arrival of Islam in the region, with reference to cannabis appearing in the sacred Hindu Atharva Veda text describing its medicinal and ritual uses. “We know that it is haram but it’s an intoxication that doesn’t harm anyone else.”

  • Lawmakers, pot growers say California's marijuana cultivation rules favor big corporate farms

    With cultivation licenses set to take effect next month, the lawmakers also promised legislative hearings on why the rules were drafted to disadvantage small, mom-and-pop farms
    Los Angeles Times (US)
    Monday, December 18, 2017

    California’s new rules allowing marijuana cultivation favor large corporate farms despite a promise in Proposition 64 that small growers would be protected, according to a group of state lawmakers and marijuana industry leaders who called for the policy to be changed. The California Department of Food and Agriculture issued emergency rules last month that allow for small and medium-sized farms of up to a quarter acre and one acre, respectively, to get licenses for the first five years. That five-year head start for small farms was promised in Proposition 64, the initiative approved last year by voters that legalized growing and selling marijuana for recreational use.

  • Law on marijuana should be eased

    The country has been late in recognising the advantages of hemp. It should learn the lesson by going ahead with the use of medicinal marijuana and waste no more time
    The Bangkok Post (Thailand)
    Sunday, December 17, 2017

    In a long overdue move, the government this past week decided to relax the narcotics law and allow hemp to be grown as a cash crop in six provinces in northern Thailand. The government has realised a need to revamp the narcotics law, but somehow moves sluggishly in translating it into action. According to researchers, another narcotic that is worth considering for a change is marijuana or ganja. This change should be made because marijuana is known for its medicinal values. Fears over the impact of marijuana as imposed by the West through the United Nations are exaggerated. The ban has given a bad name to the plant, which grows well in Thailand's hot climate.

  • Jeff Sessions isn’t giving up on weed. He’s doubling down

    Congressional dysfunction may do what the pot-hating attorney general hasn’t managed to do all year: Remove protections for the booming legal weed industry
    Politico (US)
    Saturday, December 16, 2017

    When president-elect Donald Trump announced Senator Jeff Sessions would be his attorney general, advocates for marijuana law reform were suddenly seized with panic. The longtime Alabama senator, they knew, had once joked that he considered the Klan to be OK guys until he found out they smoked pot. Only they weren’t quite sure he was kidding. In August, the DOJ’s Task Force on Crime Reduction and Public Safety, which had been at work behind closed doors since April, reported back with no new policy recommendations to curb legal marijuana programs, advice that would have remained secret if the Associated Press hadn’t obtained the documents. Federal prohibition on marijuana was practically unenforceable without state and local police doing the feds’ dirty work.

  • Cannabis ingredient holds promise as antipsychotic medicine

    The next steps are to carry out larger trials of CBD to confirm these initial promising findings, and to assess the effectiveness of CBD in other types of patient
    Reuters (UK)
    Friday, December 15, 2017

    An ingredient in cannabis called cannabidiol or CBD has shown promise in a clinical trial as a potential new treatment for psychosis, scientists said. Scientists conducted a small trial of people with psychosis and found patients treated with CBD had lower levels of psychotic symptoms than those who received a placebo. Psychosis is characterized by paranoia and hallucinations. The study found that they were also more likely to be rated as “improved” by their psychiatrist and there were signs of better cognitive performance and functioning. (See also: An ingredient in cannabis may be useful for treating psychosis – new study)

  • Marc Emery was right; Julian Fantino was wrong

    The activist faces a huge fine and will be locked out of the legal weed business. The former cop is set to cash in
    Maclean's (Canada)
    Friday, December 15, 2017

    It seems absurd that Marc and Jodi Emery, who have spent years fighting the unjust laws against marijuana, in and out of prison, can’t now sell the product, while Conservative MP and former OPP commissioner Julian Fantino, who once compared marijuana to murder, is going to cash in. The Emerys will appear in a Toronto courtroom where they will plead guilty to marijuana charges laid after the police busted marijuana stores they were running in Ontario and British Columbia. They will have to pay large fines. The Emerys will likely eventually find a way to participate in the legal marijuana business – using their high profile to boost the business prospects of a licensed producer after pot is legalized next summer – but the immediate future is uncertain.

  • Norway becomes first Scandinavian country to decriminalise drugs in historic vote

    The vote is just the starting point and that there is no legislation yet
    The Independent (UK)
    Friday, December 15, 2017

    Norway is to become the first Scandinavian country to decriminalise drugs as it focuses on treatment rather than punishment. The majority of the Norwegian parliament, the Storting, backed the historic shift. They directed the national government to reform its policies on drugs. Sveinung Stensland, deputy chairman of the Storting Health Committee, told Norwegian publication VG: "It is important to emphasise that we do not legalise cannabis and other drugs, but we decriminalise. The change will take some time, but that means a changed vision: those who have a substance abuse problem should be treated as ill, and not as criminals with classical sanctions such as fines and imprisonment.” (See also: Norway’s parliament votes to decriminalize all drug use)

  • Opioid tramadol destabilizes, fuels terror in parts of Africa, UN warns

    Tramadol can work as a physical and emotional pain reliever and is attractive to people experiencing loss or trauma
    CNN (US)
    Friday, December 15, 2017

    TramadolThe illegal trade and growing abuse of tramadol, a synthetic opioid, are destabilizing parts of West Africa, especially in the Sahel region, where it is fueling terror groups and providing revenue for them to carry out attacks, UN officials and security experts say. The nonmedical use of tramadol has become such a health crisis in areas like northern Mali and Niger that the UN Office on Drugs and Crime, or UNODC, issued a warning to the international community. The problem "is serious, worrying, and needs to be addressed as soon as possible," Pierre Lapaque, UNODC's regional representative in West and Central Africa, said in a statement. "We cannot let the situation get any further out of control."

  • You want ganja to be legal in India? These MPs want it too

    The MPs call the criminalisation of cannabis consumption 'elitist' as it has been the intoxicant of the poor
    The News Minute (India)
    Friday, December 15, 2017

    There are many issues Indian lawmakers need to discuss in the Winter Session of Parliament includes a private member’s bill to legalise cannabis. Dharamvir Gandhi, a Member of Parliament from Patiala, is seeking to legalise cannabis possession and consumption in India among other “non-synthetic” intoxicants and earned the support of the late actor and politician Vinod Khanna, a BJP MP at the time, and Biju Janata Dal (BJD) MP from Odisha, Tathagata Satpathy. Currently, the Narcotics Drugs and Psychotropic Substances (NDPS) Act of 1985 criminalises possession, trade, transport and consumption of cannabis, among other narcotic and psychotropic substances. (See also: Why these Indian MPs want marijuana to be legalized)

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