• Kiffer sollen wie Falschparker bestraft werden

    Hamburger Justizsenator Till Steffen (Grüne) fordert einen Modellversuch zur Cannabis-Abgabe.
    Die Welt (Germany)
    Dienstag, 21. Juli 2015

    Till SteffenHamburgs Justizsenator Till Steffen (Grüne) will das Kiffen zu einer Ordnungswidrigkeit herabstufen. "Es wäre wie beim Falschparken. Da kann abgewogen werden: Schreibe ich ein Knöllchen oder nicht", sagte Steffen der "Hamburger Morgenpost". Das bisherige System, wonach auch auf den Besitz kleiner Mengen Cannabis eine Strafanzeige folgen muss, ist aus Steffens Sicht gescheitert. "Das bringt nichts und macht viel Arbeit", sagte Steffen. Bei dem Thema Cannabis-Freigabe müßte im Ernstfall auch die CDU bewegen würde und einem Modellversuch zur kontrollierten Abgabe zustimmen würde.

  • Police force gives cannabis users green light to grow drugs

    Durham Police and Crime Commissioner Ron Hogg says the force will not proactively target small scale cannabis producers who are growing their own
    The Telegraph (UK)
    Tuesday, July 21, 2015

    john-hoggDurham Police has given users the green light to grow cannabis at home after declaring that officers will no longer proactively target small scale producers. In a move, which will be seen as a step towards decriminalisation, Durham's Police Commissioner Ron Hogg said it will only go after people if there is a complaint or if they are being "blatant", while the force will continue to tackle large scale cannabis farms. (See also: Cannabis users won't be a priority for County Durham Police | Durham police stop targeting pot smokers and small-scale growers)

  • Guzmán: The buried truth

    Was the Mexican government more inept or more corrupt in its stewardship of its most notorious prisoner
    The New York Review of Books (US)
    Monday, July 20, 2015

    On June 25, 2015, the United States issued a formal request to the Mexican government for the extradition of Joaquín Guzmán Loera, known as El Chapo, who was being held at Mexico’s highest security prison. On July 11, less than three weeks later, Guzmán Loera released himself from the supposedly impregnable prison in President Enrique Peña Nieto’s home state, by means of a sixty-foot-deep tunnel that had apparently been dug from a half-built house a mile away, directly into the shower of his prison cell. (See also: Chapo saga highlights Mexico's convoluted extradition policy)

  • Italy takes step toward legalizing pot

    Even members of Prime Minister Matteo Renzi's party voted for the measure, a first step toward full legalization
    Politico (EU)
    Wednesday, July 15, 2015

    italy-cannabis2Italy took a first step toward legalization of pot, leading Europe in what would be a groundbreaking change. The Intergrupo Parlamentare Cannabis Legale, a cross-party committee, agreed on a provisional text to legalize the consumption, growing, production and sale of cannabis under certain conditions. The text was signed by 218 members of parliament, and not just by the usual suspects. The proposal would allow growing cannabis at home or as members of "cannabis clubs" where a maximum of 50 people could cultivate and then share the product, with a strict prohibition on selling to the general public. (See also: Bill would legalize marijuana)

  • Cities renew effort to cultivate marijuana; parliament still opposed

    According to a recent survey 70 percent of Dutch people are for regulating cannabis cultivation
    NL Times (Netherlands)
    Tuesday, July 14, 2015

    The city of Utrecht, as well as the cities of Rotterdam, Nijmegen, Eindhoven, Heerlen and Tilburg, are still investigating whether cannabis cultivation can be regulated. The Tweede Kamer, lower house of parliament, is still opposed to the idea, saying that regulation does not contribute to the fight against organized crime and that it is contrary to international obligations. According to a recent survey by research firm Motivaction, 70 percent of Dutch people are for regulating cannabis cultivation or making it completely legal. (See also: Cannabis opinion polls in the Netherlands)

  • Les partis politiques demandent la dépénalisation du cannabis

    Le ministre de l’Intérieur affirme que la «culture du kif et sa commercialisation sont illégales» et qu’«elles le resteront»
    Maroc Hebdo (Morrocco)
    Mardi, 14 juillet 2015

    cannabis-maroc-rif-eradication«Je trouve l’attitude de l’Union européenne (UE) d’un cynisme sans pareil», selon Nourdin Moudiane, président du Parti de l’Istiqlal (PI). «D’une part, elle cultive du cannabis, en France, aux Pays-Bas et je ne sais où encore. Les Pays-Bas permettent même d’en vendre dans des cafés. Mais à nous Marocains, chez nous où la culture du cannabis est plus que millénaire, on nous l’interdit. [...] On peut interdire l’usage récréatif, bien que celui-ci ait, pour information, été toléré jusqu’en 1974, tout en produisant du cannabis à des fins plus «légales», en l’état». (Cannabis: le Maroc résiste à la concurrence)

  • Obama calls for shorter sentences for nonviolent convicts

    For non-violent drug crimes, we need to lower long mandatory minimum sentences -- or get rid of them entirely
    The Washington Post (US)
    Tuesday, July 14, 2015

    obama-criminal-justiceCalling it an issue America can’t afford to ignore, President Barack Obama laid out an expansive vision for fixing the criminal justice system. “In far too many cases, the punishment simply doesn’t fit the crime,” Obama told a crowd of 3,300 in Philadelphia. Low-level drug dealers, for example, owe a debt to society, but not a life sentence or 20-year prison term, he said. The United States needed to reevaluate an “aspect of American life that remains particularly skewed by race and by wealth.” Working in Obama’s favor: tentative but optimistic signs of common ground between Republicans and Democrats. (See also: President Obama for the prisoners)

  • With marijuana price down 70%, Colombia growers are bailing

    The price of a pound of the potent “creepy” strain of marijuana grown in Cauca has plunged to $15 from $50 per pound
    Bllomberg News (US)
    Tuesday, July 14, 2015

    marihuana-caucaOn a farm in the central Andean mountains of Colombia, workers are digging up marijuana bushes and replacing them with avocados. They’ll get no subsidies from a government crop substitution program since the state barely exists in these remote mountains in Cauca province. They’re responding instead to a 70 percent crash in prices over the last year after farmers here planted so much marijuana that they saturated the market. “It’s barely profitable anymore because everyone’s growing it,” said a farmer, who asked not to be named. “I’m getting out of it.”

  • Smoking may be causal factor in developing schizophrenia: researchers

    It’s possible that nicotine exposure, by increasing the release of dopamine, causes psychosis to develop
    The Globe and Mail (Canada)
    Monday, July 13, 2015

    In research that turns on its head previous thinking about links between schizophrenia and smoking, scientists say cigarettes may be a causal factor in the development of psychosis. Previous studies have linked cannabis use to psychosis. But there is much debate about whether this is causal or whether there may be shared genes that predispose people to both cannabis use and schizophrenia. James MacCabe, a psychosis expert who co-led the research at King’s College London’s Institute of Psychiatry, said the new results suggest “it might even be possible that the real villain is tobacco, not cannabis” – since cannabis users often combine with tobacco.

  • Uruguay cannabis market still struggles for legitimacy a year after historic ruling

    Regulatory bodies, police and pharmacies have yet to catch up with home growers and their steady clientele
    The Guardian (UK)
    Monday, July 13, 2015

    yes-we-cannabis-mujicaIn May 2014, then-president Mujica signed far-reaching regulations for Uruguay’s marijuana market, making the nation the first country in the world to legalize sales of cannabis. The measures – passed by the senate in December 2013 – allowed marijuana users to access in three ways: by growing it at home, or buying it from pharmacies or collective “grow clubs”. But more than a year later the government body supposed to control the legal market is underfunded and understaffed, while police continue harassing growers and the pharmacy plan has barely advanced beyond the drawing board.

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