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.

Cuando un joven empieza a salir de noche, todavía siendo menor de edad, le puede resultar más sencillo llamar a un camello y comprar una pastilla de éxtasis que entrar a un supermercado e intentar que le vendan una botella de ron. Imaginen qué acabarán eligiendo muchos. El ejemplo demuestra que cuando algo es ilegal no significa que esté más o mejor controlado. Tal vez al contrario: hay una serie de requisitos sobre su calidad, su pureza y su acceso que quedan en manos de criminales en lugar de las autoridades. ¿Ha sido efectivo prohibir las drogas? Los resultados de la prohibición de las drogas están a la vista de todos y sus efectos se extienden por todo el mundo. El resumen es que ha sido un auténtico desastre.

For those partial to the psychoactive herb cannabis, 20 April (known in the US as 4/20) is a day of celebration for the drug, with groups sometimes gathering to “light up” at the given hour on the given day. Not so in Belgium, where a drug law dating back more than a century currently outlaws the drug and shrouds the use of its legal component CBD in ambiguity. With no plans for legalisation, the country lags far behind its progressive neighbours Luxembourg and the Netherlands on cannabis-related policy. Is it time the country considers decriminalising the plant?

Almost 40 Dutch mayors, mainly from the south of the Netherlands, have signed a manifesto calling on the government to legalise soft drugs (cannabis) as part of a campaign to tackle organized crime and the infiltration of legitimate companies and organisations by drugs criminals. The issue must have a prominent place in the next cabinet’s plans, the mayors say. ‘By removing the criminals’ earnings model, vulnerable citizens can be protected,’ the manifesto states. According to the Parool, Amsterdam’s mayor Femke Halsema told city councillors that she supported the manifesto as well. (See also: Mayors push for tougher approach against organized crime | Drugs crime costs Dutch society up to €4.1bn a year, report claims)

At least 500 pro-legalization protesters gathered in front of Berlin's Brandenburg Gate on Wednesday for 420, the annual April 20 celebration marked by cannabis consumers around the world, to urge the government to move forward with its plans to decriminalize the drug. "We will introduce the controlled distribution of cannabis to adults for recreational purposes in licensed stores," the government promised. But five months on and there has been no word or timetable about when legal stores might be opened, and pro-cannabis activists are getting impatient at what they consider unnecessary foot-dragging. After all, the Green Party, now a part of the government coalition, has already presented a draft law to the Bundestag in the last few years and seen it defeated.

With more than half of people in the UK in favour of legalising the recreational use of cannabis, and countries around the world adopting more liberal stances to cannabis legislation, it seems inevitable that the fierce debate over cannabis regulation will resurface. The main question still stands – will cannabis be legalised in the UK? The legalisation and regulation of cannabis in the UK has multiple benefits that could help revive our lagging economy including job creation, tax revenue and savings in public services. These benefits have stimulated the conversation surrounding the legalisation of cannabis and caught the attention of government officials looking to cushion the inevitable realities of a recession as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic. 

When Canada legalized the use of cannabis in October 2018 after decades of prohibition, the goals were to improve safety and public health as well as to reduce access by youth, crime and the illegal market. Five years later, public health experts say legalization hasn't created any health benefits — but it has been linked to some serious concerns. The Canadian Medical Association Journal includes a commentary taking stock on what's happened with the legalization of non-medical cannabis. More than a quarter of Canadian adults — 27 per cent — say they use cannabis, up from 22 per cent in 2017. The CMAJ paper notes the important social justice benefits from substantial reductions in criminal arrests and charges, along with the associated stigma.

More than 8,000 convicted people and suspects will be cleared of legal charges when kratom (Mitragyna speciosa) is removed from the narcotics list on Aug 24, Office of Narcotics Control Board secretary-general Wichai Chaimongkol said. Kratom (Migragyna speciosa) is a tropical evergreen plant with opioid properties and some stimulant-like effects. It had long been used in tradtional medicine but was declared a Class 5 narcotic under the Narcotics Act of 1976. The law was amended in 2021 to remove kratom from the list. The amendment was published in the Royal Gazette on May 26 and the removal of kratom from the narcotics list is effective from Aug 24.

About 80 % of Moroccans say legalizing cannabis for therapeutic, cosmetic or industrial use will have a positive impact on society. The Economic, Social and Environmental Council (CESE) surveyed 1,054 individuals aged 18-69 years on legalizing cannabis as part of its 2020 report on Morocco’s socio-economic situation. The survey aims to identify attitudes and perceptions towards cannabis and determine the perceived impacts of the legalization of the use of cannabis for therapeutic and industrial purposes. 86% of those surveyed said that legalizing cannabis would contribute to economic development, while 61% percent argued that areas where cannabis is cultivated should be supported with public investment in infrastructure, including the construction of roads, hospitals, schools, etc.

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.

Data coming out of Washington and Colorado suggest that those states' legalization experiments, which began in earnest in 2014, are not causing any spike in use among teenagers. Teen marijuana use in Colorado decreased during 2014 and 2015, the most recent time period included in federal surveys. A separate survey run by the state showed rates of use among teenagers flat from 2013 to 2015, and down since 2011. A state-run survey of 37,000 middle and high school students in Washington state finds that marijuana legalization there has had no effect on youngsters' propensity to use the drug. The Washington State Healthy Youth Survey found that the 2016 rate of marijuana use was basically unchanged since 2012.

Ten years ago this week, Colorado voters approved Amendment 64, making the state among the first two in the nation (along with Washington) to legalize the use and possession of cannabis, a.k.a. marijuana, for recreational purposes. Today, the once-underground endeavor is a $2 billion per year industry in Colorado, and research on its chemical makeup, health benefits and risks is flourishing at institutions around the country. "Before, research focused almost exclusively on the harms because it was only thought of as an illegal substance," said Angela Bryan, a professor of psychology and neuroscience at CU Boulder whose team studies the health impacts of cannabis. "Now we can focus on the full continuum."

Uruguay paved the way when it legalised cannabis in 2013. But it is the reform in Canada, a G7 member, that has done most to heighten international tension over cannabis’s legal status. Last year it fully legalised the drug. Part of its rationale was that a regulated legal trade would curb the black market and protect young people, who were buying it there. Canada’s change has caused fierce fights within the UN in Vienna, according to Martin Jelsma of the Transnational Institute, a think-tank. A possibility that intrigues international-policy wonks is for Canada and other law-breakers to form an “inter se” (between themselves) agreement, allowing them to modify existing drug-treaty provisions. For this to be an option, Canada will probably want to wait until the club of outlaws is bigger.

In a recently published report, ‘High compliance, a lex latalegalization for the non-medical cannabis industry’, Kenzi Riboulet-Zemouli claims to have discovered a new legal justification for regulating recreational cannabis in accordance with the 1961 United Nations Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs. A close reading quickly reveals the confused and legally indefensible nature of the paper’s proposed escape route. And while we consider the UN drug control treaties to be out of date and not fit for purpose, we strongly disagree with proposals that would seek to overcome the challenges on the basis of legally unsound and invalid arguments. The ‘High compliance’ paper constructs a legal house of cards that comes tumbling down when its core arguments are contested and taken out.

With two US states - Washington and Colorado - voting to legalise the recreational use of marijuana, a similar liberal approach towards mild intoxicants in India is up for debate. Consumption of marijuana and other cannabis derivatives such as bhang dates back hundreds of years with strong roots in Indian culture. Untill 1985, marijuana and other cannabis derivatives were legally sold in the country through authorised retail shops. The enactment of the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances (NDPS) Act in that year - carried out under pressure from the US - pushed the marijuana trade underground.

In mid-January, the Czech National Drug Coordinator Jindřich Vobořil plans to introduce a bill to free up the cannabis market. The exact form of regulation is currently being drawn up by working groups, after which Vobořil will seek public and political support. However, this is currently lacking among the People's Party, which considers the relaxation risky.  "We have to deal with complex topics like Schengen," Vobořil said. With the People's Party, which has 23 seats in the lower house, despite the willingness to discuss a specific proposal, friction can be expected. "We do not agree with the general legalization of cannabis. However, we support its use for medicinal purposes."

Marijuana may be an issue of easy agreement in the ongoing coalition talks between Germany's leading parties. Despite numerous points of contention, the center-left Social Democrats (SPD), neoliberal Free Democrats (FDP) and Greens can find themselves aligned when it comes to cannabis legalization. The FDP emphasizes the revenue that the state could earn from taxing prerolled joints, cannabis flower and edibles. The Greens say legalization would put an end to illegal sales and reduce organized crime. Social Democrat health expert Karl Lauterbach urged the next government to legalize cannabis. Here is a look at countries that have already loosened their policies.

Learn how lessening the barriers for small farmers while raising them for large companies can help to steer legal cannabis markets in a more sustainable and equitable direction based on principles of community empowerment, social justice, fair(er) trade and sustainable development.

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Through manipulating trust and exploiting public ignorance, cannabis charlatans – new and old – are trying to construct corporate empires, some of which appear to be based on corruption, collusion and exploitation. Without transparency, credibility and integrity from the get-go, the equitable growth and sustainability of the South African cannabis community stands to be sacrificed purely for the sake of profit. In 2018 the Constitutional Court ruled that the prohibition of cultivating, possessing and consuming cannabis in private in South Africa was unconstitutional. Since then, much has been happening around cannabis. Unfortunately, the bulk of this action has been based on a misunderstanding of what both the new and developing laws mean, creating a great deal of uncertainty.