Bad news about the so-called "Green Rush" rolled in slowly at first, picking up steam around the end of last summer. Stocks started to dive. Layoffs were announced. Executives who just months earlier were forecasting great riches suddenly acknowledged — mostly in whispers — the deepening gloom. Since last August, the North American Marijuana Index, which tracks cannabis stocks, has fallen by half. The problem with pot stocks isn't limited to California. It's continental: too many investors looking for a quick buck creates a bubble, as with Internet stocks in 1999, or housing in 2007. That bubble has now burst. (See also: Dare we hope for federal legalization?)

In South Africa’s richest suburb, against the backdrop of dazzling tower blocks belonging to law firms and insurance companies, a brand-new industry is taking shape — one that its advocates say will transform South Africa’s economy. But not everyone is so sure that the profits from the expected legalisation of cannabis will be distributed fairly. In September 2018, in a landmark judgment, the Constitutional Court legalised the private use and cultivation of cannabis. Full legalisation of marijuana for both medicinal and recreational use is expected to follow. This might come sooner rather than later. In his budget speech last month, Finance Minister Tito Mboweni indicated that there will soon be a change in policy when it comes to “the green thing”.

How big is the legal cannabis industry? Every time I think I’ve seen the highest estimate along comes another breathless puff piece with an even bigger number to chew on. $50 billion? Not even close. $100 billion? That’s only the US, according to some figures. One consultancy reckons you’ll be able to stick another zero on that within ten years. A trillion dollar weed industry? Surely not. Is investing in cannabis shares the sure bet it’s made out to be? The experience of many investors already suggests otherwise. While many of the first weed companies to go public made big initial gains, most tumbled as quickly too. At the end of last year, just when Canada — the world’s largest cannabis market — announced its supply was running out, it triggered a rout in share prices.

With an estimated $7 billion in sales in 2016 and potentially exponential growth due to recent ballot initiatives on recreational use, the legal marijuana industry has a lot of businesses seeing green. But as is so often the case in this country, there’s a darker side to this story and it splinters on the lines of race. For decades, the war on drugs has disproportionately targeted black and brown users for arrest and incarceration, and legalization efforts have until recently not addressed what happens to people who have been put in prison for possessing a substance that voters have since opted to make legal.

The Hague has followed Amsterdam and decided not to take part in the experiment with regulated marijuana cultivation, saying the plan is unworkable. ‘We consider the conditions are not sufficiently practical,’ mayor Pauline Krikke said. The decision is based on conversations with licenced coffee shop owners in the city. ‘Their lack of support is a clear signal,’ Krikke said in a briefing to councillors. The experiment with regulated growing is supposed to remove the gray area between the sale of marijuana in council-licenced coffee shops and the illegal cultivation and supply. There are many problems with the proposals; the Dutch local authorities association VNG said that it will be difficult to find 10 councils which want to take part. (See also: The Hague also pulls out of regulated cannabis experiment)

Although the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act of 1985 prohibits the production, sale and consumption of certain parts of the cannabis plant, the leaves are an exception. There are even government-approved bhang shops in towns like Jaisalmer and Pushkar, and more than 200 such shops exist year-round in Varanasi. In Hinduism, bhang takes on special meaning as the plant preferred by Shiva, the god of destruction, who was believed to have used bhang to focus inward and to harness his divine powers for the good of the world. In the Atharva Veda, one of the four sacred texts of Hinduism, cannabis is named one of the five most sacred plants on Earth. The text also refers to it as a ‘source of happiness’ and a ‘liberator’.

What two American states, Washington and Colorado, have decided to do - legalize recreational use of marijuana - was the norm in India until 1985. All cannabis derivatives - marijuana (grass or ganja), hashish (charas) and bhang - were legally sold in this country. As a matter of fact, most state governments had their own retail shops to sell these drugs. India has known, consumed and celebrated ganja, charas and bhang for millennia. (See also:Recreational use of marijuana: Of highs and laws)

Decriminalizing cannabis doesn't lead to more widespread use, according to a study comparing cannabis users in two similar cities with opposing cannabis policies — Amsterdam, the Netherlands (decriminalization), and San Francisco, California (criminalization). The study compared age at onset, regular and maximum use, frequency and quantity of use over time, intensity and duration of intoxication, career use patterns, and other drug use. No evidence was found to support claims that criminalization reduces use or that decriminalization increases use.

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Decriminalizing cannabis doesn't lead to more widespread use, according to a study comparing cannabis users in two similar cities with opposing cannabis policies — Amsterdam, the Netherlands (decriminalization), and San Francisco, California (criminalization). The study compared age at onset, regular and maximum use, frequency and quantity of use over time, intensity and duration of intoxication, career use patterns, and other drug use. No evidence was found to support claims that criminalization reduces use or that decriminalization increases use.

Download the document (PDF)

The fight over the legalization of marijuana in Massachusetts isn’t over. But one side has already gone home. Last November, a well-funded and well-organized coalition of advocates led by the national Marijuana Policy Project persuaded more than 1.7 million Massachusetts voters to approve Question 4 and establish a system of regulated cannabis commerce. Since then, though, a new front has opened over legalized marijuana — dozens of fronts, actually, in cities and towns across the state, where voters and local officials have already imposed moratoriums and bans on licensed pot firms or are set to vote on similar measures this fall.

Marijuana has been shown to have both anxiolytic (anti-anxiety) effects and to induce anxiety and psychosis in certain people. In schizophrenics, it can increase symptoms, and in healthy people it can increase the risk of schizophrenia. Now, new study shows that the two active ingredients in pot, ?9-tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) and cannabidiol (CBD) may have quite opposite effects on the brain – and behavior – and could explain why pot’s effects can be unpredictable.

Dr David Potter and GW Pharmaceuticals – a company that is exploring how cannabis could help treat a range of illnesses ranging from epilepsy to cancer – have turned their attention to developing a cannabis-based treatment for psychosis and related illnesses such as schizophrenia. For a drug that is widely seen as a trigger for acute psychotic illness in young users, this at first sounds preposterous. But, as Potter explains, the cannabis plant is much more than just a psychedelic weed. A cannabinoid known as CBD (or cannabidiol) appears to have almost the exact opposite effect.

The city of Copenhagen wants to legalize cannabis and, if possible, get supplies of the drug from the United States. Following a Europe-wide trend, Denmark’s capital has been planning a three-year experiment that would aim to wrest the city’s soft drugs trade away from criminal gangs and place it under direct municipal control. But while city officials overwhelmingly support the move, the Danish national government may not let them proceed. Last year the national government rejected more tentative plans that Copenhagen city councillors had approved by 39 votes to 9.

Jamaica revised its ganja laws to build a legal medicinal cannabis industry with the hopes of exporting to the world. Many assumed that Jamaica, and the historically marginalized traditional ganja growers, including the Rastafari, would finally be able to cash in on the green gold rush in an industry one venture capital firm called in 2018 “the most compelling opportunity in the history of capitalism.” Today, it may come as a shock to some that the island infamously associated with prolific cannabis cultivation and consumption reported a shortage in 2021 and recently became an importer of Canadian cannabis. As a result, the most vocal opponents of Jamaica’s cannabis reforms are no longer the police or conservative church congregations, but the traditional growers and Rastafari themselves. How could such a seemingly transformative opportunity “go up in smoke” so quickly?

In Malta the Prime Minister has announced a White Paper on a possible new drug reform. Andrew Bonello: "In general, the gist of what the Prime Minister is proposing – that he is considering allowing cultivation of a couple of plants; and that people should stop getting arrested for simple possession – was all broadly in line with what we suggested in our meeting with him on February 9." The right to grow is one of the most fundamental aspects of the whole reform. "You can control your own product, so there is no danger of the cannabis being adulterated with other substances; you don’t have to go out and deal with the criminal market to score; and so on." (ReLeaf Malta: A Maltese Legalised and Regulated Cannabis Market 2020)

The legalization of cannabis in Canada just had its third anniversary, which means it's time for the federal government to review and possibly tweak the policy. In some areas, the reviews are positive. Legalization has resulted in the emergence of a multibillion-dollar industry, new jobs and tax revenue. There have also been fewer cannabis-related drug convictions among young people. But some health experts are concerned that the rapid growth of the industry combined with a lack of recent data about potential public health impacts means we could be missing some warning signs. Many of the concerns around legalized cannabis — including potential increased cases of cannabis-induced psychosis and schizophrenia, and driving under the influence of drugs — have not materialized.

You may have heard that marijuana is a gateway drug. New research in the Journal of School Health could shed some light on this question. They found that "the vast majority of respondents reported using alcohol prior to either tobacco or marijuana initiation." Not only that, but of those three main substances -- alcohol, tobacco and marijuana -- kids were the least likely to start using pot before the others. "Alcohol was the most widely used substance among respondents, initiated earliest, and also the first substance most commonly used in the progression of substance use," the researchers concluded.

Proposition 64, California’s 2016 landmark cannabis initiative, sold voters on the promise a legal market would cripple the drug’s outlaw trade, with its associated violence and environmental wreckage. Instead, the law triggered a surge in illegal cannabis on a scale California has never before witnessed. Criminal enterprises operate with near impunity, leasing private land and rapidly building out complexes of as many as 100 greenhouses. Police are overwhelmed, able to raid only a fraction of the farms, and even those are often back in business in days. The raids rip out plants and snare low-wage laborers while those responsible, some operating with money from overseas, remain untouched by the law, hidden behind straw buyers and fake names on leases. Labor exploitation is common, and conditions are sometimes lethal.