Browsing: Global

Photo: Lossenelin
Industrial hemp being harvested

​Uruguay has pulled into the lead in becoming the first country in South America to authorize the cultivation of industrial hemp, Paula Alvarado reports at Treehugger.com.

The Ministry of Cattle, Agriculture and Fishing has authorized “experimental” cultivation of hemp to take place in October 2010. If results are successful, Uruguay could grant permits to farmers to start growing, according to El Pais.
The location selected for hemp cultivation is a secret. The National Institute for Farming Technology will oversee the pilot project.

Photo: Cannabis Culture

​Some unfortunate inmates who thought they’d be high for the holidays got the equivalent of coal in their stockings this weekend.

A raid on the cars and bags of visitors to Manawatu Prison in New Zealand uncovered “a large quantity” of cannabis, according to Corrections Officer Tracey Sinclair, reports 3 News.
Corrections Department staff, police and drug dogs searched about 50 visitors at a checkpoint outside the prison over the weekend.

Photo: pavric
An opium poppy field in Afghanistan. Slit marks on the bulbs are where raw opium has been harvested.

​Thousands of additional Marines flooding into Afghanistan’s opium-growing interior won’t go after those growing the crops, the commander in the area said, according to Reuters.

“The reality we have to face right now is that the number one cash crop in this area is still the poppy,” said Brigadier General Larry Nicholson, who commands 10,000 Marines in opium center Helmand.
Nicholson said he didn’t want to “alienate” local farmers by targeting their opium poppies.

cannabis.net
Sativex, which contains cannabinoids THC and CBD, is effective in reducing cancer pain.

​Cancer patients who used a cannabis mouth spray had their level of pain reduced by 30 percent, a study has shown, according to BBC.

The cannabis based spray, administered like a breath freshener, was tried on 177 patients by researchers from Edinburgh University in Scotland.
Patients in the study had not been helped by morphine or other conventional medications.
The spray was developed so that it did not affect the mental state of the patients in the way that using cannabis would, BBC reports.
The researchers were quick to hedge on their findings, reported in the Journal of Pain and Symptom Management, saying that the study didn’t justify smoking marijuana “as this could increase the risk of cancer.”
They evidently had spent so much time conducting their own study, they didn’t read the available literature. Multiple studies have shown that cannabis in fact contains anti-cancer agents.

Photo: DEA
Spend those government checks wisely.

​A jailed marijuana grower in the United Kingdom was given a government “crisis” loan after his release from jail — which he then used to set up another pot farm.

Stephen Duxbury was jailed for six months for running an earlier cannabis grow operation. He completed his time in October 2008. But on March 31 this year, police raided the house he was renting (the reason for the search is unclear).
A search revealed 123 marijuana plants in various locations around the home. The plants were being grown using a hydroponic system and illegally diverted electricity, according to the Telegraph.

Photo: Gerald Nino
U.S. Customs and Border Protection unmanned drone: Big Brother is watching you.

​The U.S. Homeland Security Department is expanding its use of unmanned drone aircraft, widely used in Iraq, Afghanistan, and other war zones, beyond the Mexican and Canadian borders to the Caribbean and possibly elsewhere.

The department already owns five of the aircraft, reports Randal C. Archibold in The New York Times. The drones, known as Predator B craft, already operate along the Mexican border from a installation in Arizona and along the Canadian border from a base in North Dakota.
Homeland Security assures us that these drones, unlike those used by the military, do not carry weapons and are purely for surveillance.

Photo: Zack Clark
Honduran police face a tough fight with drug traffickers, despite plenty of Yankee dollars.

​The top anti-drug cop in Honduras was killed by unidentified gunmen on Tuesday, a national police spokesman told CNN, Mariano Castillo reports.

Gen. Julian Gonzalez, director of the Office for Combatting Drug Trafficking, was shot in his SUV by two people on a motorcycle, according to police spokesman Orlin Cerrato.
No arrests have been made, and the investigation remains active, Cerrato said.

Photo: Psychonaught
Five of these? Yes, please. (Super Silver Haze sativa/indica hybrid)

​​The government of the Czech Republic in eastern Europe will allow ordinary citizens to grow up to five marijuana plants starting Jan. 1, 2010.

The cabinet of Prime Minister Jan Fischer defined “personal use” amounts of cannabis and other drugs, clarifying the nation’s new penal code that will decriminalize cultivation and possession of pot. 
While marijuana will remain technically illegal, possession will be punished only with fines comparable to those imposed for parking tickets, Sean Carney at the Wall Street Journal reports.
​What constituted “small amounts” for personal use was previously undefined. Police and the courts loosely interpreted the laws on a case by case basis, often resulting in home marijuana growers being jailed.

Photo: The Malay Mail
Alam Setiawan, 39, being led out of court Friday after being sentenced to death.

​Marijuana can’t kill you, but marijuana laws can. A 39-year-old Indonesian laborer on Friday was sentenced to death for the trafficking of cannabis.

Alam Setiawan from Tanjung Asahan Balai was arrested on April 25 after he was caught with 1,732 grams (just under four pounds) of marijuana at a fertilizer warehouse in Port Klang, reports Darshini Kandasamy in The Malay Mail.
Shah Alam High Court Judge Mohd Yazid said the defense failed to prove beyond a reasonable doubt Alam’s claim that the culprit was another Indonesian man named Udin.
Alam said it was Udin, not him, who had thrown a plastic bag containing two bricks of cannabis into the ocean during the raid.
The judge said Alam’s claim was not believable, and that Udin was a fictitious character.

Photo: Bennelliott
Verne Prison on the Isle of Portland, henceforth forever known as “that prison that lets prisoners grow weed.”

​British prison guards unwittingly allowed a convicted drug dealer to grow marijuana in his cell — and even decorate one four-foot plant as a Christmas tree.

Mohamed Jalloh, 28, must be very persuasive. He convinced jail staff for at least five months that his fast-growing cannabis crop was only tomato plants, according to reporter Brian Flynn in The Sun newspaper.
(Please God, give me guards that trusting if I’m ever locked up again.)
Jalloh, who’s serving eight years on a drug charge, got so cocky, he put festive seasonal decorations on one of the plants “to brighten his cell” at Verne Prison on the Isle of Portland, Dorset, U.K.
Eventually he was ratted out by an envious inmate. Guards then identified the plants using Google image search, according to The Sun. (There you have it: There are actually still people in existence who don’t know what marijuana looks like. Prison guards, at that!)
“You could see the plants from the grounds as his cell looks on to the education department and communal outside area,” a source told The Sun. “They were on show for the world to see.”
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