Una de las más graves falencias del dictamen aprobado es que mantiene la apuesta por el sistema de justicia penal como una herramienta regulatoria. ¿Son necesarios estos delitos para controlar al mercado? ¿Son imprescindibles tantos requisitos para el consumo? La respuesta es no, pues no sólo son desproporcionados, sino que carecen de sentido en un sistema en el que el cannabis es legal y que busca la justicia social. La permanencia de estos delitos y los requisitos para el consumo, evidencian que lo que se busca es la protección de los intereses económicos de aquellas personas o empresas que tienen la suficiente capacidad económica para ingresar al mercado legal del cannabis. Es claro que lo que aprobó el Senado resultó en un peor escenario al que vivimos actualmente, sin regulación.

Regular la mariguana para que puedas sembrarla y consumirla en tu casa, pero solo si te registras en un padrón y permites que las autoridades entren a tu domicilio, para comprobar que cumples con todos los requisitos. Esto es lo que propone Morena en el Senado. Sin embargo, organizaciones advierten que estas medidas serían intrusivas, y que la iniciativa en realidad se basa en el miedo y los prejuicios. Además, señalan que el dictamen terminaría beneficiando, sobre todo, a las grandes industrias cannábicas, antes que a campesinos y grupos vulnerables.

Candi CdeBaca voted to legalize the free sale of marijuana in Colorado four years ago because she thought it would be good for her Denver neighborhood. She hoped that when Colorado became the first state in the nation to legalize the sale of recreational marijuana in 2014 it would not only keep people out of court, but also open up a legitimate means of earning a living. Today she would vote differently. “We have just swapped one kind of drug dealer for another,” said CdeBaca. All legalization has done is open the door to a takeover by corporate interests.

The amount of outdoor-grown cannabis will make up a small portion of the market this year — less than 10 per cent of the cultivation licenses granted in Canada are for outdoors — but many more are in the pipeline after the Canadian government changed its rules last year to allow pot farms. Growing outdoors eliminates the need for costly lighting, heating and cooling systems. WeedMD CEO Keith Merker said it can grow for about 20 cents at its farm versus $1 a gram in a greenhouse and $2 a gram for a typical indoor site. (See also: Cannabis can be grown outdoors for pennies on the dollar. So why is hardly anyone doing it?)

New York Mayor Bill de Blasio supports Governor Andrew Cuomo's pledge to legalize recreational marijuana, but he doesn't want the the market to be overrun by big corporations when cannabis prohibition is repealed. "We have an industry that is just licking its chops, waiting to come in and corporatize marijuana—to do exactly what the tobacco industry did with cigarettes, to do exactly what the pharmaceutical industry did with things like oxycontin. What we need [to do] is legalize marijuana without corporatized marijuana," Mayor De Blasio told Bill Maher. To prevent that from happening, the mayor wants to hand the market over to former victims of cannabis prohibition—people who were arrested and imprisoned for marijuana-related offsenses.

As cannabis producers add to their harvest as Canada prepares to legalize recreational use starting Oct. 17, some companies are already exploring novel ways to dramatically reduce the cost of growing pot. While most cannabis companies build massive indoor facilities and greenhouses to meet the expected demand that Canadians will have for legal pot, the cost needed to operate these modern grow-operations is also climbing with the average cost of producing marijuana hovering at about $1 a gram. Now, producers are turning to old-school methods such as outdoor production as well as new technological innovations in an effort to reduce the cost of growing a gram to pennies on the dollar. (See also: Retail investors in Canadian cannabis are 'buying air,' analyst says)

Noted cannabis advocate Ras Iyah V has issued a warning to prospective overseas investors who may have intentions of exploiting small ganja farmers to line their own pockets. "Don't come with the sugar cane plantation mentality that you going to work these boys and make yourselves rich and put the money in your pocket and gone." Meanwhile, Iyah V, who is a CLA board member, invited foreign investors to partner with grass root ganja farmers to make up the shortfall in government funding. While his Orange Hill community in Westmoreland was chosen, along with Accompong Town in St Elizabeth, as ganja planting pilot projects under the Cannabis Licensing Authority's (CLA's) Alternative Development Project (ADP), the Westmoreland project is yet to sprout as a result of a dearth of suitable lands.

The federal Cannabis Act specifies that each household can cultivate up to four plants — either indoors or out. Manitoba and Quebec have opted to prohibit homegrown cannabis, but there's already evidence Canadians in other provinces are set to take advantage of the herb's newly legal status. "For the price-conscious consumer, if you're paying around $10 a gram for the varieties at the store, you might be only paying 50 cents per gram or less for a variety you grow yourself at home," says Alex Rea of Toronto-based Homegrown Hydroponics. It's difficult to know yet just how many Canadians are taking advantage of the new opportunity to grow recreational cannabis at home. But demand is already outstripping supply, since a number of provincial authorities are reporting seed shortages.

Cannabis may be legal in Vancouver but visitors looking to score are likely to run into a seemingly counterintuitive suggestion: try the black market. Recreational marijuana was legalised across Canada in October 2018. And yet on Reddit, the specialist forum website used by millions every day, many of Vancouver’s cannabis connoisseurs still swear by their underground supply. This is one of the major issues facing North America’s marijuana companies, which experts say are in the midst of a dotcom-style market crash. Little over a year ago companies that cultivate and sell cannabis were seen by investors as one of the hottest tickets in town. Now billions of dollars have been wiped off the market values of the industry’s largest companies.

Cannabis industry insiders are bracing for a slew of bankruptcies in the coming year as small and medium-sized companies low on cash struggle to raise funds in the downtrodden sector. “We have had a busy few years, but next year we’re going to be busy for a different reason — we expect a few million dollars in legal fees from insolvencies and consolidation,” said Ranjeev Dhillon, a partner at McCarthy Tetrault LLP and the firm’s cannabis group lead. Dhillon says that his team is already seeing companies that are heading down that path. “Companies that cannot distinguish their brands and don’t have the money to keep up operations on existing facilities will not be able to carry forward.” (See also: Aurora Cannabis lists greenhouse for sale in move that 'implies massive writedowns': analyst)

A Los Angeles government program set up to provide cannabis licenses to people harmed by the war on drugs has been plagued by delays, scandal and bureaucratic blunders, costing some intended beneficiaries hundreds of thousands of dollars in losses. Black entrepreneurs and activists across LA said that the city’s embattled “social equity” program has left aspiring business owners on an indefinite waiting list, causing potentially irreparable damage to their families’ finances and preventing them from opening marijuana shops they have been planning for years. The community most disproportionately targeted by marijuana arrests is again facing discrimination.

British Columbia used to supply half of Canada’s marijuana, export it to the United States by the hockey bag, and bring home a bong-full of blue ribbons for its exotic “B.C. bud” strains from international Cannabis Cup competitions in Amsterdam. Premier John Horgan argues that this history is the main reason why legal marijuana has fizzled so far in B.C., a year into Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s bold legalization experiment. Horgan’s government is moving to take over the “economic development” part of legal cannabis from Ottawa, because its ponderous Health Canada licence system for growers is working great for mass-market producers in Ontario and Quebec. And it’s killing B.C. bud. (See also: British Columbia chamber lobbies province over craft cannabis cultivation)

In 2018 Canada became the second country, after Uruguay, to legalise recreational use. By catching the green wave, Canopy Growth’s co-chief executive, Bruce Linton, has built, in under six years, a company valued by the stock market at £11.5bn, positioned to be the number one global player. Though Canopy has yet to make a profit, revenues reached C$225m last year. More than half comes from its recreational cannabis brand Tweed, even though legalisation only took hold halfway through the year. But breaking America is the biggest prize in the near future. Canopy recently signed a C$4.5bn deal giving it an option to buy the US cannabis firm Acreage, putting it in pole position to grab a slice of the US if it opens up further.

Cannabis companies are positioning themselves for the greater likelihood that federal cannabis restrictions will be loosened significantly. Sales are already booming. Cannabis sales hit $20 billion last year — a 50 percent jump over 2019. Legalization continues to spread across the country, with more than one-third of Americans now living in states where marijuana is fully legal. “There's no stopping the industry now,” said Andrew Kline, who recently joined the law firm Perkins Coie after serving as public policy director for the National Cannabis Industry Association. “The bigger players are going to be interested in acquiring smaller companies and becoming multi-state operators or expanding their footprint in different states.”

Pacientes, consumidores lúdicos y empresarios miran con grandes esperanzas al nuevo Gobierno para que regule el cannabis, como mínimo para usos medicinales e idealmente de manera integral. Una encuesta reciente del Centro de Investigaciones Sociológicas (CIS) mostró que 84% de las personas encuestadas se mostraron favorables a una regulación medicinal y los que aprobarían la integral (47%) superan a los que mantendrían la prohibición (41%). Casi todas las fuentes consultadas están convencidas de que la regulación es más una cuestión de tiempo que de incertidumbre. También es cierto que esto se repite como un mantra desde hace unos cuatro o cinco años y nada ha cambiado. (Manifiesto del GEPCA sobre la necesidad de una regulación integral del cannabis)

Después del auge en la industria relacionada al consumo de cannabis, varias empresas de este sector podrían quebrar antes del final del año. Dos compañías canadienses ya declararon bancarrota el mes pasado. Y otras también están buscando una puerta de salida, esperando ser compradas por sus competidores. Ciertos productores, que buscan fondos líquidos, tratan de vender sus equipamientos y sus invernaderos. Por Rishi Malkani, asociado responsable del sector del cannabis en la empresa Deloitte Canadá, estima que más de una docena de compañías no tendrán suficiente dinero en los próximos seis y doce meses. Según él, las auditorias contables subjetivas y el despliegue mediático de ciertas empresas de la industria han disuadido muchos inversionistas.

On 4/20, cannabis consumers across the United States will light one up in celebration of cannabis culture. In 10 states and counting, that celebration is perfectly legal. But as the annual ritual transitions from grassroots activism to commercialized indulgence, advocates want to remind consumers that the social justice work isn’t over just yet. On April 21, a coalition of justice and reform-minded organizations are launching what they’re calling the 421 For All campaign with a fundraiser designed to spotlight the ongoing need for comprehensive cannabis reform, especially in those states that have legalized but have yet to fulfill promises of “righting the wrongs of the drug war.” (See also: How the cannabis industry defeated legalization in New York)

Minister of Agriculture and Food Security Indar Weir is making it clear that 30 per cent of any investment coming to Barbados for the medicinal cannabis industry must be reserved for ordinary Barbadians. Weir added that foreign investors will receive 70 per cent. Weir did not give details as to exactly how Barbadians will receive the 30 per cent. However, he said he was cognizant of the fact that if Barbadians were to receive the full 100 per cent investment, “we probably still would have to take Government’s intervention to get it off the ground, and Government certainly does not have those resources”. The Minister mentioned that Government was having a conversation regarding providing financial assistance for those who do not have resources.

Thanks to the most lenient policies in California for recreational marijuana, Santa Barbara county is now the state’s undisputed capital of legal cannabis, boasting more acres than each of the the storied Emerald Triangle counties of Humboldt, Trinity and Mendocino. Santa Barbara voters overwhelmingly backed California’s legalisation of recreational marijuana in 2016, with hopes that the cannabis boom would bring tax revenue and new jobs to the county. The transformation has been fast and furious. Santa Barbara county is now home to around a third of all cultivation licenses issued in California, despite making up only 1.8% of the state’s land, with some megafarms stretching over dozens of acres.

If you think two or three powerful companies owning and controlling the sales of all regulated marijuana sounds like a good thing, you can click away from this article. But if the thought of a market controlled by Marijuamazon, Canna-uber, or Weedbook (excuse me, Weedaverse) is unsettling to you, I want to introduce you to a valuable concept: antitrust laws. As the power grab for control of the multibillion-dollar industry heats up, consumers and patients need antitrust protection. By applying the concepts of antitrust law to all federal cannabis reform now, we can avoid the creation of national monopolies before it’s too late and create a diverse and fair marijuana market instead. (See also: Schumer gives update on federal marijuana legalization and banking in meeting with equity advocates)