Germany took a major step toward marijuana reform on Wednesday when the country’s cabinet approved a bill that will liberalize its cannabis laws.

The approval comes a month after the country’s ministry of health released the draft bill of the new marijuana regulations.

After Wednesday, the measure still must be approved by the German parliament before it becomes law, but it marks a significant step.

As the Associated Press put it, the approval by the cabinet sets the stage “for the European Union’s most populous member to decriminalize possession of limited amounts and allow members of ‘cannabis clubs’ to buy the substance for recreational purposes.”

“The legislation is billed as the first step in a two-part plan and still needs approval by parliament. But the government’s approval is a stride forward for a prominent reform project of Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s socially liberal coalition, though significantly short of its original ambitions,” the Associated Press reported on Wednesday. “The bill, which the government hopes will take effect at the end of this year, foresees legalizing possession of up to 25 grams (nearly 1 ounce) of cannabis for recreational purposes and allowing individuals to grow up to three plants on their own.”

According to the AP, German residents “who are 18 and older would be allowed to join nonprofit ‘cannabis clubs’ with a maximum 500 members each,” while the “clubs would be allowed to grow cannabis for members’ personal consumption.”

The reform effort has been months in the making, with German Health Minister Karl Lauterbach spearheading the charge.

“This is an important law that will represent a long-term change in drug policy,” Lauterbach said on Wednesday, as quoted by The New York Times.

In April, Lauterbach and other German officials unveiled a decidedly more scaled-back cannabis reform proposal than what was originally envisioned.

The original proposal, announced by Lauterbach last fall, “foresaw allowing the sale of cannabis to adults across the country at licensed outlets,” the Associated Press reported. 

The revisions to the cannabis proposal came after German officials met with the European Union. EU laws are always bound to be a potential impediment to the reform effort.

German Agriculture Minister Cem Özdemir said that European law “sets us limits we must respect, but that I will also say we are pushing,” as quoted by the Associated Press.

Still, the reform is significant for what is Europe’s largest economy.

The New York Times has more background on how the weaker measure arrived before the cabinet on Wednesday, and all the obstacles it overcame along the way:

“The socially liberal coalition announced its intent to legalize recreational marijuana when it came into power in 2021, quickly finding consensus on an issue opposed for years by the government of Chancellor Angela Merkel. But implementation has proved difficult. A version of the plan introduced last year by Mr. Lauterbach would have allowed the distribution of marijuana through commercial stores. That idea was scuttled after meeting resistance from the European Union’s executive arm, the European Commission. Instead, the legislation approved on Wednesday allows distribution through the creation of licensed private cultivation associations with no more than 500 members. Members would be allowed to buy up to 25 grams — slightly less than an ounce — on any one day, but with a limit of 50 grams in a month. The German government also plans to launch a series of regional pilot programs that would allow the sale of cannabis through a small number of licensed specialty shops, in an attempt to gather more information about the effects of allowing individuals to purchase marijuana commercially.”

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Democratic and Republican lawmakers in New Hampshire are gearing up for another effort to legalize marijuana, but the state’s governor doesn’t think they will succeed.

The latest cannabis bill being floated in the New Hampshire legislature has support from members of both parties, and the proposal was considered at a hearing in the state House Commerce Committee on Wednesday, according to New Hampshire Public Radio. 

Republicans have control over the New Hampshire state government, holding majorities in both the state Senate and state House of Representatives. 

The state’s governor, Chris Sununu, is also a Republican. 

As was the case last year, when another marijuana legalization was considered, the proposal has exposed a divide within the New Hampshire GOP. 

While the House of Representatives has “repeatedly backed plans to legalize cannabis,” according to New Hampshire Public Radio, the Republican-led state Senate has not been on board. 

Sununu, meanwhile, represents another obstacle to the bill. 

“I’ve always said now’s not the time. Every state does it very different. I’ve always wanted to see what works and what doesn’t,” Sununu said in a gubernatorial debate last year. “There may be a way to do it but given that we are facing an opioid crisis, given that we still don’t know what works with other states, it could be inevitable, I get it, but you got to be patient about how you do it and the steps that are best for New Hampshire.”

On Wednesday, Sununu’s office was dismissive of the latest legalization’s bill’s prospects.

“It’s failed in the Senate repeatedly, in both Republican-held years and Democrat-held years,” the governor’s office said, as quoted by New Hampshire Public Radio. “With teen drug use and overdoses on the rise, it is not anticipated that the legislature will see this as a time to ignore the data and move it forward.”

Sununu has backed other cannabis-related reforms, however. 

According to the Associated Press, “Sununu signed legislation decriminalizing small amounts of marijuana, expanding access to medical marijuana and creating a system for annulling old convictions for marijuana possession,” but “a bill to legalize recreational use has never reached his desk.”

“Governor Sununu has done more on the issues surrounding marijuana reform than any other governor in New Hampshire history,” Sununu spokesperson Ben Vihstadt told the AP.

The legislation was announced last month by two of the senior members of the state House of Representatives: House Majority Leader Jason Osborne and House Democratic Leader Matt Wilhelm.

“The House has long stood united in finding a pathway to getting this done for Granite Staters,” Osborne said at the time. “With any luck, the Senate will come around to supporting the will of the vast majority of New Hampshire citizens.”

On Wednesday, Osborne stumped for the bill before the House Commerce Committee.

“What you are looking at is a result of a number of months of work by an entire coalition of groups and advocates, everything from the business side to the consumer side, the civil rights side to the economic liberty side, as well as the recovery community and people concerned about child safety,” Osborne said at the hearing, as quoted by the Associated Press. “It’s about time we get something done.”

The Associated Press reports that “a coalition that includes both the ACLU of New Hampshire and the conservative group Americans for Prosperity is backing a bipartisan bill to legalize the drug, regulate and tax retail operations and allow it to be grown at home,” and that most of the revenue generated from marijuana sales “would go toward reducing the state’s pension liability, with some going to substance abuse prevention programs and other groups.”

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President Joe Biden added his signature last week to a bipartisan bill that seeks to broaden and streamline research into medical cannabis. 

Dubbed the “Medical Marijuana and Cannabidiol Research Expansion Act,” the law “establishes a new registration process for conducting research on marijuana and for manufacturing marijuana products for research purposes and drug development,” according to a release on Friday from the White House. 

Despite medical marijuana’s ubiquity throughout the country, cannabis remains illegal on the federal level, which has hamstrung the potential for research into the area. The newly signed bill aims to change that. 

It passed the United States Senate last month with bipartisan support after it won approval in the U.S. House of Representatives with the Democratic and Republican votes in July. 

It is the byproduct of the Congressional Cannabis Caucus, which celebrated Biden’s signing of the bill on Friday.

The group of lawmakers touted the measure as “the first standalone federal marijuana reform law enacted since the adoption of the Controlled Substances Act in 1971.”

The law aims to “facilitate research on marijuana and its potential health benefit…by streamlining the application process for scientific marijuana studies and removing existing barriers for researchers that frequently slow the research process.” 

“For decades, the federal government has stood in the way of science and progress—peddling a misguided and discriminatory approach to cannabis. Today marks a monumental step in remedying our federal cannabis laws. The Medical Marijuana and Cannabidiol Research Expansion Act will make it easier to study the impacts and potential of cannabis,” Cannabis Caucus Co-Chairs Earl Blumenauer (D-OR), Barbara Lee (D-CA), Dave Joyce (R-OH), and Brian Mast (R-FL) said in a joint statement following Biden’s signing. “Research is foundational for the path forward on cannabis policy. Research is essential to better understand the therapeutic benefits of cannabis that have the potential to help millions of Americans struggling with chronic pain, PTSD, multiple sclerosis, anxiety disorders and more.”

“We celebrate the enactment of this critical and long-overdue legislation, and we know there is much more to do to remedy the ongoing harms of the failed war on drugs,” the chairs added. 

In the other chamber, Democratic Sen. Diane Feinstein of California said that there is “substantial evidence that marijuana-derived medications can and are providing major health benefits,” and that the bill “will make it easier to study how these medications can treat various conditions, resulting in more patients being able to easily access safe medications.”

“We know that cannabidiol-derived medications can be effective for conditions like epilepsy. This bill will help refine current medical CBD practices and develop important new applications. After years of negotiation, I’m delighted that we’re finally enacting this bill that will result in critical research that could help millions,” Feinstein said. 

The group of lawmakers said that the caucus “will continue working to reimagine the federal government’s approach to cannabis and enact further reforms,” including “the SAFE Banking package, the Veterans Equal Access Act, the PREPARE Act, and the Veterans Medical Marijuana Safe Harbor Act.”

It marks the second action that Biden has taken on federal marijuana policy in the last two months. In October, the president announced pardons for those who have previously been convicted of simple pot-related offenses under federal law. 

In addition, Biden also signaled his desire to move toward federal decriminalization, saying he has directed cabinet officials to reclassify marijuana under the Controlled Substances Act, which enshrines federal prohibition on pot.

“As I often said during my campaign for President, no one should be in jail just for using or possessing marijuana,” Biden said in his announcement. “Sending people to prison for possessing marijuana has upended too many lives and incarcerated people for conduct that many states no longer prohibit. Criminal records for marijuana possession have also imposed needless barriers to employment, housing, and educational opportunities. And while white and Black and brown people use marijuana at similar rates, Black and brown people have been arrested, prosecuted, and convicted at disproportionate rates.”

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No matter how slowly cannabis reform is moving in the West, there is one place where cannabis reform is moving at an even more tortoise-like pace: China and its territories, including the island of Taiwan. Merely smoking cannabis can land a user a jail term. Selling it can garner a life sentence. This even includes hemp.

The slow track of reform here is not because there are no advocates pressing for reform. Indeed, cannabis legalization efforts are gaining momentum, including marches and reform rallies. This includes a demonstration outside of the Ministry of Justice in Taipei this month by the advocacy group Green Sensation—although organizers were pressured by police—several times—to disperse. A new effort to try to crystalize political support by the group has now managed to obtain 14,000 signatures. 

This reform effort is also not happening in a vacuum. The Taiwanese legislature just passed a law reducing the penalty for cannabis cultivation for personal use from a minimum sentence of five years imprisonment to one, with a maximum of seven years. 

It is hard not to see why. The most abused drugs here are amphetamines.

Cannabis Reform in China

While cannabis reform has been slow to gain traction in Asia, there are signs that this is now slowly changing. Thailand, for example, has just decriminalized cannabis use and is forging ahead with a medical cultivation program. Even recreational use here is not off the table.

However, despite this “Asian Miracle,” China and its territories remain the last great uncharted territory for reform. On the Chinese mainland, even hemp seeds and CBD skincare products are banned—despite the fact that China remains the world’s largest hemp-cultivating country—producing about half of the world’s entire supply. 

China classified cannabis as a dangerous narcotic drug as of 1985.

This has not always been the case. Historically, cannabis has been used for medicine and some ritual purposes of Taoism. The word ma, used to describe medical cannabis circa 2700 BCE is the oldest recorded name for the hemp plant. The earliest recorded human cultivation of cannabis was actually found on Taiwan.

During the 19th century, the Xinjiang province of China was a major producer and exporter of hash. Tons were exported annually to British India legally until 1934.

Yet, as of 2020, when the UN voted to remove cannabis from its global schedule IV listing, China joined the United States in opposing the removal of the plant from Schedule I designation. 

“Science” Vs. Fact

The continuing resistance to cannabis reform by the world’s largest countries even after the scientific advances over the last 40 years—including identification of the endocannabinoid system of the body—may well, in retrospect, go down in history as one of the world’s last great unscientifically-based witch hunts. The Cannabinoid “Dark Ages” as it were.

So far, Canada remains the only G7 country to have federally legalized the drug. Germany or the United States may become the second or third countries respectively to do so, but as is clear in both countries, despite large numbers of citizens supporting such change, and even promises to proceed with reform, the issue remains stalled due to political inaction on a federal level.

China may punish users harshly, in other words, but it is continuing to do so in line with other great power countries. Cannabis remains illegal in Russia too.

Constitutional Rights are Being Violated Everywhere

There is only one way to fight injustice—and that is to organize. However, even the greatest movements for freedom and equality took decades. The formal “civil rights” movement is frequently cited as lasting from 1919 to the end of the 1960s—over 40 years. Some would argue that it is not over yet.

That is about the same amount of time, so far, that activists and reformers have been pushing against international sanctions against cannabis—even for medical use.

While it is very clear that reform can no longer be ignored anywhere, it is also clear that the entrenched forces of the status quo are deliberately delaying a global decision to move forward on both a scientific, as well as civil liberties, basis to enact complete and final cannabis reform.

Until then, being a cannabis activist, advocate, or in many cases, part of the legitimate industry, remains a highly hazardous enterprise.

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A higher percentage of Maryland voters support legalizing cannabis than approve the job performance of President Joe Biden, according to a new poll out this week. 

The findings, which come via the latest Goucher College Poll, could offer meaningful insight on both local and national politics, with a legalization referendum potentially heading to the Maryland ballot this November, and a White House that has shown reluctance to get behind a policy that has wide support among its base of Democratic voters.

Sixty-two percent of voters in Maryland say they support legalizing cannabis for recreational use, according to the survey, while 34 percent said they were opposed. 

The party breakdown of the findings suggests what advocates have long argued: support for ending prohibition is bipartisan. Sixty-five percent of Democrats and independents said they are in favor of legalization, while 54 percent of Maryland Republicans said the same. 

Lawmakers in Maryland have taken up legislation that would send a proposal to legalize recreational pot for adults aged 21 and older to the state’s ballot this year. Last month, the Democratic-controlled state House of Delegates overwhelmingly passed a bill to bring the measure before voters in November. It is now being considered by the state Senate. 

The Baltimore Sun reported last month that the state’s Republican governor, Larry Hogan, “has not taken a position on legalizing recreational marijuana.” Hogan has previously “said he would prefer a referendum to legislators acting directly, but wouldn’t say how he would vote on the issue,” according to the newspaper. However, there has still been no meaningful action. 

Biden, who hasn’t been any more eager to embrace legalization, finds himself in middling territory among Maryland voters, according to the Goucher College Poll.

Only 48 percent of voters there say they approve of the job Biden is doing as president, compared with 47 percent who say they disapprove. Last year, the poll found that 62 percent of Maryland voters approved of Biden’s job performance. 

Biden carried the state by more than 30 percentage points over Donald Trump in 2020, and the state has gone to the Democrats in every presidential election since 1988.

Taken together, the poll’s findings may point to a political lifeline for an embattled president and the Democratic party as it approaches what figures to be a difficult midterm election this year. Recent polling has shown a large enthusiasm gap between Democratic and Republican voters.

Biden and congressional Democrats took power amid a wave of optimism among cannabis reform advocates last year. 

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said that his party was ready to fulfill the dream of ending prohibition on the federal level.

“We will move forward,” Schumer told Politico last April. “[Biden] said he’s studying the issue, so [I] obviously want to give him a little time to study it. I want to make my arguments to him, as many other advocates will. But at some point, we’re going to move forward, period.”

“In 2018, I was the first member of the Democratic leadership to come out in support of ending the federal prohibition. I’m sure you ask, ‘Well what changed?’ Well, my thinking evolved. When a few of the early states—Oregon and Colorado—wanted to legalize, all the opponents talked about the parade of horribles: Crime would go up. Drug use would go up. Everything bad would happen,” the New York Democrat added. “The legalization of states worked out remarkably well. They were a great success. The parade of horribles never came about, and people got more freedom. And people in those states seem very happy.”

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Pakistan appears to be the latest country to succumb to the cannabis legalization wave that has gripped the planet with increasing speed (and in a strange twist to all of this as the world struggles toward a pandemic-free future).

During a recent meeting of the National Assembly’s Standing Committee on Science and Technology, the Pakistan Minister of Science and Technology, Shibli Faraz, specifically discussed not only the worth of the global cannabis market in just a few short years, but also the place of Pakistan in it.

Beyond this, the government has already moved to begin cultivation of hemp for industrial purposes. Initially such supplies will be imported—but beyond this, greenhouses will be constructed in Lahore, Karachi and Islamabad. Hemp production has been legal since September 2020 as has medical use.

Experiments on cannabis oil have already begun (much like in Germany, in fact) and the government has now approved four sites for growing cannabis, with plans for tight control of the same so such materials are not exported except per the mandate of strict international control mechanisms.

With so many irons in the works, it is unsurprising that the government intends to formalize the nascent industry by legislative framework by the end of the year. 

A History of Cannabis in Pakistan

While the recent moves by the government to formally legalize the plant and create an industry behind it are clearly being influenced by modern global cannabis reform, there is a long history of cannabis use in the country (and of course India, from which Pakistan was separated after the end of WWII).

Hashish is widely consumed in both smoked form (charas) or in liquid form (bhang).

During the 1980s, criminal laws were put in place around drugs including cannabis, in part due to pressure by then-U.S. President Ronald Reagan. Ever since then, until the new legalization and reform wave of the last decade, the country’s politicians have not changed their stance.

Some have even suggested (falsely) that legalization is against Muslim beliefs, perhaps because the use of cannabis is well-documented in early and ancient Hindu and Sufi texts. Indeed, Sufis still use the drug as a part of religious worship, believing that its use provides both relaxation and an opening of the mind. 

During the 1960s and 1970s, the country was a must-stop on the Hippie Highway—including the hashish market in Peshawar. This is one of the reasons that many of the most popular commercialized strains hail originally from this part of the world. See Hindu Kush as just one example.

Cannabis grown in this part of the world also has a very distinctive purple and grey color and can grow to an exceptionally tall height.

Pakistan is now ahead of India in formalizing its cannabis market (although India is almost sure to follow).

Why is this Development so Intriguing?

Pakistan is home to landrace strains of cannabis. This is cannabis that occurs naturally in the wild. This generally means that strains are more stable. It also means such plants have characteristics that may add to the overall scientific inquiry about cannabis as reform continues to march across the world.

Pakistan, in fact, may become a valuable export market for the rest of the world just from a seed perspective, for this reason. Indeed, seeds for export are already on the planning board and will be produced initially near Rawat.

Beyond this of course, there are multiple ways that the cannabis plant can be used—and it is clear that Pakistan is looking at many of them. 

Cannabis, particularly when it is native to an area, is a highly sustainable crop. It is also beginning to turn into a must-grow crop for overall economic development (in both developed and emerging economies).

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