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Drug Decriminalisation Across the World
Tuesday, 31 December 2030The criminalisation of people who use drugs compounds drug-related challenges and worsens health and welfare outcomes. Across the world, there is a growing number of jurisdictions where the possessio ...
Labelsaustralia | germany | czech republic | spain | netherlands | portugal | decriminalization | uruguay | peru | colombia | brazil -
Belize
Tuesday, 01 January 2030Overview of drug policy, drug law and legislative trends in Belize The Belizean government has traditionally taken a zero-tolerance approach towards the cultivation, sale, possession, and consumption ...
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Cannabis cafés and self-growing: Czechia presents draft of new marijuana law
Thursday, 11 January 2024The Czech government presented a draft of a cannabis regulation bill that, does not include the previously envisioned regulated cannabis market. The Pirates party, which has traditionally been a stro ...
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Minister signs bill banning recreational use of weed
Monday, 08 January 2024Public Health Minister Cholnan Srikaew has signed proposed legislation regarding cannabis in Thailand, emphasising that it cannot be used for recreational purposes. "The new law will clearly stipulat ...
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As the mayor of Amsterdam, I can see the Netherlands risks becoming a narco-state
Friday, 05 January 2024In the Netherlands, we used to look on the international “war on drugs” with a certain amount of disdain. Its solutions were prohibition, criminalisation, stiff penalties and sentences; our national ...
Labelsamsterdam | crime | cocaine | ecstasy | law enforcement | money laundering | netherlands | regulation | cannabis -
Barcelona city council threatens to shut down cannabis social clubs
Thursday, 04 January 2024The Barcelona City Council is considering tightening regulations on access to cannabis social clubs. The concept of cannabis social clubs has drawn numerous locals and tourists to Barcelona over the ...
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Swiss capital Bern considers legal cocaine project
Wednesday, 20 December 2023Switzerland's capital is examining a pilot project to allow the sale of cocaine for recreational use - a radical approach to the war on drugs that is not thought to have been tried elsewhere. The mun ...
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High time: after five years, Dutch start legal cannabis trial
Friday, 15 December 2023The Netherlands’ legal weed experiment kicked off in Breda and Tilburg, with Europe’s first ever licensed and controlled cannabis arriving in city coffeeshops. Health minister Ernst Kuipers joined Br ...
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Legal Cannabis cultivation pilot set to begin on Friday
Thursday, 14 December 2023The Netherlands’ long-awaited experiment with regulated cannabis cultivation starts in Tilburg and Breda on Friday. Coffeeshops in these two municipalities will be the first to sell weed that was leg ...
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Scholz’s SPD puts cannabis legalisation on hold
Wednesday, 06 December 2023Germany’s plans to legalise cannabis appear to be in limbo after the Social Democratic Party of Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s three-party coalition announced that the law will not be passed this year as i ...
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After 50 years, a Danish commune is shaken from Its utopian dream
Tuesday, 05 December 2023Founded in 1971 by squatters on an abandoned military base, Christiania was devised as a post-’60s anarchistic utopia, where people could live outside of Denmark’s market economy. Denmark’s governmen ...
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NSW drug law overhaul would allow six marijuana plants for personal use
Tuesday, 28 November 2023People would be allowed to grow six marijuana plants for personal use and give their friends pot as a gift under a proposed law being introduced to the New South Wales parliament, as the government c ...
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Germany will likely legalize adult-use cannabis in 2024
Tuesday, 28 November 2023The coalition government in Germany is finalizing details for long-awaited cannabis legalization, including dates for cannabis cultivation and the establishment of cannabis clubs. The legalization of ...
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German government to loosen up cannabis legalisation law
Monday, 27 November 2023Recreational use of cannabis is set to become legal in Germany. The government has agreed the final draft of the legislation that will be discussed and voted on in the Bundestag next year. According ...
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Cannabis loopholes to be closed
Monday, 20 November 2023The Public Health Ministry in Thailand has completed the first draft of the Cannabis-Hemp Act and said it will not reclassify cannabis as a narcotic, Public Health Minister Cholnan Srikaew said. Dr C ...
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Cannabis : pourquoi la France bloque quand nos voisins européens assouplissent la législation
Sunday, 19 November 2023« Clubs de cannabis, culture à domicile, Weed care… » : l'Allemagne, le Luxembourg, les Pays-Bas, la Belgique et la Suisse - ces pays frontaliers de la Lorraine et de la Franche-Comté - assouplissent ...
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‘Prohibition is failing’
Wednesday, 15 November 2023Former Australian Federal Police boss Mick Palmer has said the prohibition of cannabis use “is not just failing, it is causing real harm” as he described his journey from a hard-nosed policeman to a ...
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Spain’s confusing cannabis policies spark similar problems faced by US states
Sunday, 12 November 2023“For some years, there was the possibility to regulate and keep it in the hands of those who aren’t crime-related,” said Óscar Parés, deputy director of the Barcelona-based ICEERS, speaking of past e ...
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Weed is now legal in Thailand. How long will the high times last?
Friday, 10 November 2023Thailand’s military government is carrying out an experiment: What happens when a country in Asia, a region where drug laws tend to be harsh, essentially legalizes marijuana overnight? But the high t ...
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State Department’s permissive reading of international drug treaties is ‘good sign’ for marijuana rescheduling, lawyer says
Tuesday, 07 November 2023Recent comments by a U.S. State Department official to a United Nations (UN) drug commission are being seen by some legal experts as “a good sign” for marijuana’s potential domestic move to Schedule ...
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High times in Basel: Swiss city experiments with recreational cannabis
Wednesday, 01 November 2023370 adults taking part in Basel’s “Weed Care” scheme – a 2.5-year recreational pot smoking study. Its aim is to examine the impact of regulated cannabis supply on the health and consumption behaviour ...
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B.C. toxic drug deaths ‘largely preventable,’ coroner says, amid push for expanded safer supply access
Wednesday, 01 November 2023The BC Coroners Service is urging the province to “immediately pursue” expanded access to safer supply as a new report on toxic drug deaths finds many of them have been “largely preventable.” The Cor ...
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Nurses condemn the arrests of safe supply providers
Tuesday, 31 October 2023With drug poisoning (overdose) now the leading cause of death in British Columbia, there remains an urgent need to invest in and scale up safe supply programs in addition to supporting existing model ...
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New report aims to protect small cannabis from corporate takeover
Thursday, 26 October 2023When cannabis is legalized, a lot is at stake for the existing, state-level industry. The entrepreneurs who make up weed’s $33.8 billion market are predominantly small business owners. A new report s ...
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DULF organizers arrested for operating safe drug compassion club
Thursday, 26 October 2023Vancouver police have arrested drug policy activists Eris Nyx and Jeremy Kalicum after executing search warrants on the Drug User Liberation Front office and their homes. Since 2020, Nyx and Kalicum ...
Labelslaw enforcement | safe supply | activism | opioids | fentanyl | cocaine | methamphetamine | canada | harm reduction -
Funding to residential drug treatment should increase as alternative to custody, says assembly
Sunday, 22 October 2023The Government of Ireland should increase funding to residential drug treatment facilities to provide an alternative to custodial sentences for convicted people dealing with problematic drug use, a C ...
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Hill touts legalised ganja sale to tourists
Saturday, 21 October 2023Minister of Industry, Investment and Commerce of Jamaica, Senator Aubyn Hill, has suggested the legalised sale of marijuana to visitors as a way for Jamaica to earn revenue from countries that do not ...
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A tale of two cannabis legalization experiments
Tuesday, 17 October 2023It’s been five years since the Canadian government legalized and regulated non-medical cannabis cultivation, commerce, and consumption. California is ahead of us by two years, having followed a simil ...
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The evidence shows that safer supply drug programs work
Thursday, 12 October 2023The mounting moral panic against safer supply and other harm reduction interventions to counter the toxic drug crisis is not based in evidence. The reality is safer supply works. We are researchers w ...
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5 years of legal cannabis: fewer charges, many hospitalizations and more than a few questions
Tuesday, 10 October 2023When 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 ...
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Cannabis in Canada: Debunking myths about the real impacts of legalization
Monday, 09 October 2023Before Canada legalized recreational cannabis in October 2018, there was considerable debate about its potential effects. Some predicted it would trigger an economic “goldrush,” while others worried ...
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Cannabis firms are cut off from the US financial system, but relief is in sight
Sunday, 08 October 2023Imagine that you run a perfectly legal business but are unable to open a simple checking account at a national bank. Believe it or not, that’s the case right now for anyone licensed to sell cannabis ...
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Changing drug use forces cities to come up with new solutions
Wednesday, 04 October 2023Swiss cities are adapting their drug policies in the face of new forms of drug use. Thirty years after the open drug scene in Zurich, experts say it is time to act. New ways of acting must also be de ...
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Himachal eyes pot of gold under grass
Sunday, 01 October 2023For almost 40 years now, cannabis cultivation has been a crime in India. But that has never stopped farmers in parts of Himachal’s Kullu, Chamba, Sirmaur, Shimla, Mandi and Kangra districts. In fact, ...
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Genève lance son essai de vente légale de cannabis
Friday, 29 September 2023L'essai-pilote de vente régulée de cannabis entre dans sa phase concrète dans le canton de Genève. Courant décembre, une boutique spécialisée devrait ouvrir dans le quartier de Châtelaine à Vernier. ...
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The predatory perils of cannabis legalization in Jamaica
Tuesday, 26 September 2023Jamaica revised its ganja laws to build a legal medicinal cannabis industry with the hopes of exporting to the world. Many assumed that Jamaica, and the historically marginalized traditional ganja gr ...
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Cannabis brain effects study struggles to attract black UK users
Sunday, 24 September 2023A major study into the effects of cannabis on the human brain is at risk of being partially thwarted because too few black users have agreed to take part. White people have come forward in large numb ...
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Potential cannabis associations to receive harm reduction training by next November
Saturday, 23 September 2023The Authority for the Responsible Use of Cannabis (ARUC) will be organising the first training on harm reduction for those Associations which have reached an advanced stage of application to form a ' ...
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Thailand to clamp down on cannabis use in major U-turn on drug policy
Friday, 22 September 2023Thailand’s new prime minister, Srettha Thavisin, has said his government will “rectify” its cannabis policy and limit its use to medical purposes within six months. Thailand became the first country ...
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Tilburg, Breda launch legal cannabis trials in December
Friday, 15 September 2023The Dutch government’s long-awaited legal cannabis experiment will kick off in Tilburg and Breda on December 15 when two licenced growers start supplying the cities’ cannabis cafes, or coffee shops. ...
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Expecting cannabis boom, New York lays down the rules
Wednesday, 13 September 2023Cannabis regulators in New York approved a package of regulations that laid the groundwork for an expansion of the state’s emerging cannabis industry. The rules, approved by the Cannabis Control Boar ...
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Marijuana rescheduling falls short of expectations on Biden
Friday, 08 September 2023The Biden administration’s recommendation last week for the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) to reschedule cannabis marked one of its most significant steps related to the president’s ambitious ...
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Christiania plan could push drug crime into other parts of Copenhagen: MP
Thursday, 07 September 2023A government plan to shut down the Christiania ‘Pusher Street’ cannabis market and double drug penalties in the zone risks pushing crime into other parts of Copenhagen, according to a spokesperson fo ...
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Nitrous oxide: Laughing gas to be illegal by end of year
Wednesday, 06 September 2023Possession of nitrous oxide, also known as NOS, will carry a sentence of up to two years in prison. Laughing gas is one of the most commonly used recreational drugs by 16 to 24-year-olds. Heavy use c ...
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Christiania hash sellers could get prison as ‘permanent closure’ announced for Pusher Street market
Wednesday, 06 September 2023The new law will target a specially designated zone in which fines for possession will be doubled even for a first offence. Any subsequent offence will lead to an immediate prison sentence. In a pres ...
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Copenhagen mayor urges foreigners to stop buying marijuana at city’s drug oasis following shooting
Monday, 04 September 2023Copenhagen’s mayor urged foreigners not to buy weed in the city’s Christiania neighborhood where a 30-year-old man was shot and killed and four others injured two weeks ago due to gang turf wars figh ...
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No joke: laughing gas ban has created ‘deadly waste hazard’
Friday, 01 September 2023Measures to dispose of laughing glass cylinders have turned the flasks into a potentially deadly hazard, waste processing industry body NVRD has warned. The problem started when the use of the popula ...
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German government anticipates huge windfall with legalization of cannabis
Friday, 01 September 2023In November 2021, when it was announced the German government would send a law to the Bundestag to legalize the consumption and possession of marijuana - which was approved on August 16 - a team of r ...
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Tackling Belgium’s drug problem: Legalising cannabis is ‘common sense,’ says Economy Minister
Thursday, 31 August 2023A solution to the drug and security problem in Belgium's bigger cities, such as Brussels and Antwerp, could be legalising the sale and use of cannabis, according to Federal Economy and Employment Min ...
Labelsluxembourg | taxation | belgium | germany | netherlands | legalization | regulation | cannabis | decriminalization -
Czech government wants to regulate kratom and other psychoactive substances
Thursday, 31 August 2023The Czech government has decided in favour of regulating, rather than banning, the sale of kratom, CBD or HHC products. A proposed bill to that effect would create a new legal category of "psychomodu ...
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