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.

Arnobis Zapata, vocero nacional de la Coordinadora Nacional de Cultivadores de Coca, Amapola y Marihuana (Coccam) respondió a las declaraciones de Hernando Londoño, director del programa de sustitución de cultivos, quien señaló que no han sido asesinados líderes de sustitución. De acuerdo con Zapata, este Gobierno no tiene voluntad con el programa. Zapata, vocero nacional de la Coccam y presidente de la Asociación Nacional de Zonas de Reserva Campesina (Anzorc), reiteró que en dichas organizaciones han documentado al menos 56 casos de líderes de sustitución asesinados y explicó por qué para ellos es evidente que el Gobierno, contrario a lo dicho por Londoño, no tiene voluntad con el PNIS.

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.

Mbuso has been growing cannabis for 14 years. He lives and tends the illicit crop in Swaziland, which is now known officially as Eswatini. Mbuso is just one of scores who depend on high demand from their larger neighbour South Africa for their potent cannabis strain known as "Swazi Gold". They are worried that a recent legal amendment in SA could choke their businesses. In September, South Africa's Constitutional Court decriminalised the use and cultivation of cannabis in private space. But the decision did not legalise its trade or distribution. Florida-based company Profile Solutions Inc has recently received a coveted 10-year licence to produce and sell hemp and medical-grade cannabis in Eswatini. But small-scale farmers are still being prosecuted, detained and having their crops burnt.

Last month Lebanese President Michel Aoun signed an order paving the way for a change in the country's legislation. If the bill passes through parliament then the production of cannabis could be allowed. But for the moment, the whole plan is confused and far from concluded. To start with, the type of plant the government is proposing to be legalised is not the same variety the farmers currently sow. Perhaps more problematic though, is that it's being suggested that the law will not allow anyone who currently grows cannabis illegally to be involved in future legal production. So instead of benefiting from a change in the law, the farmers who rely on the plant for their livelihood would be out of a job. (See also: In Lebanon's Beqaa Valley, locals divided over legalisation of medical marijuana)

A village in Lebanon, where cannabis grows everywhere, has long counted on hashish for income. But the country’s economic crisis has farmers reconsidering the crop. The Lebanese pound has lost 80 percent of its value against the United States dollar since last fall, and farmers have taken the hit. The costs of imported fuel and fertilizer needed to grow the crop have soared, while the Lebanese pounds that growers earn by selling their hash are worth less and less. Lebanon’s financial crisis has also undermined the drug’s domestic market, and the war in Syria has snarled smuggling routes, making it harder for middlemen to reach foreign markets.

For centuries, the mountains of the Rif have been a centre of cannabis farming. Morocco is to this day the biggest producer of cannabis resin in the world, according to the United Nations. In July 2021 in an effort to improve the economy of one of the poorest regions, the kingdom decided to officially approve a bill legalising the production of cannabis for industrial, medicinal and cosmetic uses in the Rif. Up to now, the local farmers who have made the choice to grow cannabis legally are still few. By May, only about 400 of them had received authorization to begin. According to Khalid Mouna, a Moroccan anthropologist, with a focus on the Rif and kif, the small-scale local farmers might become the ones who will be left behind by the new law.

The Eastern Cape government is calling for the protection of the local cannabis industry in South Africa. Dohne Agricultural Development Institute research director Dr Mfundo Maqubela said in a virtual presentation to Parliament’s Justice and Correctional Services Portfolio Committee that there could be no cannabis industry if the local market is not developed. Last November, the Eastern Cape government embarked on a roadshow to gauge public sentiment about the draft bill. The bill in its present form has been accused of discriminating against people who did not have access to private spaces in which to grow their own cannabis, and it failed to make provisions on how growers could access seeds for cultivation. (See also: The poor must be included in SA’s cannabis industry boom, says Cosatu)

The pungent aroma of cannabis and the sound of dub music fill the air at a hacienda as about 150 smokers, users, growers, activists and business people gather for Mexico’s second annual Toquefest. In anticipation of the long-delayed legalisation of cannabis – after a number of supreme court decisions decreed the right to cultivate and deemed unconstitutional the ban on recreational use – the war on weed in Mexico is winding down and the festival is just one of 20 marijuana-related events being held across the country. Bills have been passed in both legislative chambers over the past two years but they have not agreed on the same version.

Despite knowing that they could be penalised under provisions of the Narcotics Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act, 1985, for growing cannabis, villagers came out in the open to put conditions that they would stop cultivating the illicit crop if all Government welfare programmes were implemented in their locality. About 10,000 residents of 35 villages of Ralegada gram panchayats assembled at Dhuliput to put forth their 19-point demand. “We are not getting actual price for our agricultural produce. Most of the villagers of Ralegada and other neighbouring gram panchayats depend on cannabis cultivation. The money earned from cannabis cultivation helps us send our wards to distant places for education.” (See also: Ganja confiscation leads to overcrowding in Odisha jails | From Odisha to Rajasthan, cannabis trade on a new high)

As South Africa looks to enter the booming commercial cannabis market, which could be worth up to R27 billion locally by 2023, the Eastern Cape Department of Rural Development and Agrarian Reform, has repeatedly reiterated the plant’s economic promise for the Eastern Cape, the country’s poorest province. “We must not be left behind as cannabis is brought into the spotlight and the world jumps to grab their drag on the spliff,” said the department’s MEC Nomakhosazana Meth at a stakeholder event in August. But despite the fanfare, Beecee Nombanga, a Manhlaneni community leader, remained sceptical that small-scale growers would see any benefits from a legal trade that was geared towards “big companies in big towns who have a lot of resources that we simply don’t have”.

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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Thousands of small producers have made Albania, Europe’s second-poorest country, its biggest open-air producer of cannabis, exported mainly to western Europe through Greece and Italy. But as Albania tries to clean up its act ahead of hoped-for EU accession talks next year, the government is cracking down on the drug trade. In the past year alone, the area under plantation has dropped by 75 per cent. In the desperately poor countryside, there is a strong economic imperative to grow the crop. Cannabis cultivation provides a cash income in rural areas, where the estimated unemployment rate is 70 per cent. Local growers are estimated to have earned around €300m last year, a similar amount to the annual remittances sent home by Albanians working in western Europe.

Traditional leaders from the amaMpondo nation and cannabis farmers in the Eastern Cape have rejected the Private Use Cannabis Bill. They are calling for a comprehensive consultation process that must also be extended to the indigenous cannabis farmers in deep rural areas. The area known as Mpondoland is the cannabis belt of South Africa. Cultivating and selling cannabis provides a livelihood to many here. Now they believe that the new bill threatens their only means of generating an income. Cannabis farmers says the Bill proposes that a household will only be allowed to have up to eight plants for private use. “We have been planting cannabis in our fatherland here in Pondoland. Now there are restrictions that prohibit us from using and selling it. The restrictions seek to deprive us and enrich the rich.”

Depuis sa maison de Ketama, à 1 700 mètres d’altitude, Abdellatif Adebibe surplombe la vallée où les embruns d’iode venus de la Méditerranée se mêlent aux senteurs des cèdres. « Nous sommes ici dans le temple du kif »,présente le cultivateur de 70 ans, président de l’Association pour le développement du Rif central. A l’instar du laboratoire Pharma 5, qui, dans une étude publiée par le média marocain Le Desk, met en avant la qualité de la beldiya, sa moindre teneur en THC, son odeur et sa saveur uniques… Un label « made in Rif » ? « Made in Ketama »,préfère Abdellatif Adebibe, qui, lui, défend une « appellation bio, appellation d’origine contrôlée (AOC), équitable »dans la « zone historique du kif ».

Au pied du mont Tidghine, plus haut sommet du massif du Rif, dans le nord du Maroc, le village d’Azila est couvert de plantations de cannabis, prêt à être récolté. Mais les temps sont durs pour les cultivateurs locaux, dont l’activité, tolérée bien qu’officiellement interdite, pâtit de la concurrence du chanvre produit en Europe et de « lenteurs » dans la mise en œuvre d’une loi adoptée en 2021 légalisant le cannabis thérapeutique. « On reste attachés à cette plante et pourtant elle ne nous rapporte plus rien. Plus personne n’en veut ! », se désole Souad*, cultivatrice de chanvre à Azila, dans la commune de Ketama. « On est loin des années fastueuses. On vivote dans des conditions difficiles ».(Voir aussi: Maroc : les nouveaux rois du Rif)

L’année 2023 sera peut-être celle de sa première récolte légale de cannabis. Après des années dans la semi-clandestinité, Aziz a décidé de se ranger « du côté de la loi ». Ce cultivateur du Rif, région montagneuse du nord du Maroc qui abrite l’une des plus grandes productions de la planète, entend tourner le dos aux narcotrafiquants pour vendre son « kif » aux industriels lancés dans la fabrication de produits issus du cannabis. « Deux Américains sont venus dans le village il y a quelques jours,raconte-t-il. Ils veulent construire une usine dans la région et auront besoin de grandes quantités. Ils sont intéressés par nos plantes. Nous n’avons pas encore parlé du prix. »(Lire aussi:Maroc : Les Douanes rappellent les conditions d’acheminement licite du cannabis)

The British Columbia government announced that they will allow “small-scale producers”, including nurseries, the option of delivering cannabis directly to licensed retailers, as well as farm-gate sales, in the coming years. The provincial government says the decision came from recommendations from long-time cannabis growers, Indigenous leaders and other stakeholders, and is one more step towards allowing for so-called “farm-gate” sales, which the Province also says it continues to work towards. The “targeted launch” for both programs is 2022. How they are defining “small scale” producers is unknown. Federal regulations require that licence holders selling into a provincial retail system must have a processing licence, as well as product sales licences.

Campesinos amapoleros de la sierra de Heliodoro Castillo (Tlacotepec), denunciaron la fumigación mediante helicópteros militares cerca de las comunidades donde hay niños y plantíos que no son enervantes, y amenazaron “con derribar a los fumigadores” si el Gobierno federal continúa con esas acciones. Un representante de las comunidades de Campo Morado y El Durazno manifestó vía telefónica que desde el miércoles, el “helicóptero del Ejército se encuentra fumigando esta zona, había un acuerdo con las autoridades de que no se iba a fumigar y todo lo iban a erradicar por tierra”. (Véase también: La amapola ni negocio es, dejen ya de la lanzar químicos, exigen comuneros a Gobierno y Sedena)