Chile’s Operación Imperio Ámsterdam (Operation Amsterdam Empire, in English) mobilized more than 500 police officers and around twenty prosecutors, resulting in more than 70 arrests and the dismantling of a network linked to Dispensario Nacional, leaving more than 16,000 medical cannabis users facing disrupted access. The crackdown has brought longstanding legal gaps around collective cultivation and medical access into sharper focus, as attorneys, activists, and lawmakers warn of growing tension between criminal enforcement and the right to health.

It was a glimpse. Barely a breath—a light breeze, perhaps. In Latin America’s cannabis ecosystem, Chile once occupied a position at the forefront. Or, at least, that seemed to be where things were headed. It began with clinical debates, advances in academic research, and a certain proliferation of collective models focused on health. In this way, the country found itself navigating the fringes of technical pragmatism. Even on a continent largely trapped in prohibitionist dogma.

However, the recent launch of Operación Imperio Ámsterdam—an operation that mobilized more than 500 police officers and around twenty prosecutors and culminated in more than 70 arrests—has called that illusion of progress into question.

In that sense, the fall and dismantling of the network linked to Dispensario Nacional, one of the country’s largest and longest-running patient organizations, does not merely expose the limits of judicial persecution. More fundamentally, it lays bare the cracks in a contradictory legal system that now leaves more than 16,000 medical users on the brink of illegality.

Between the Right to Health and the Criminal-Law Paradox

The official narrative presented the operation as a decisive blow against organized crime, criminal association, and money laundering. Prosecutors argue that cannabis containing CBD is medicinal but exclude THC from that classification. That is, broadly speaking, the basic argument underpinning the case. However, from the perspective of the legal defense team and activists, the underlying issue looks very different from that narrative.

“The corporation is a patient organization with more than ten years of history and thousands of members. I’m not talking about 5,000, I’m talking about more than 10,000 people. And that’s important because they’re not customers who walk in off the street and sign up: they are people who have to submit an application, their medical records, their prescription for cannabis, their criminal record certificate, and sign a contract formalizing their membership in the corporation,” explains Hernán Bocaz, a criminal defense attorney.

The Patients’ Dilemma

For the defense, the crux of the problem lies in a structural contradiction in Law No. 20,000. While Article 8 explicitly recognizes a prescription issued by a physician as grounds justifying cannabis cultivation for medical treatment under Law No. 20,584 on patients’ rights, regulatory gaps surrounding how to access plant material turn every collective initiative into a minefield.

According to Bocaz, a contradiction has emerged that places citizens in an impossible dilemma. They are told they can use cannabis to alleviate symptoms associated with serious conditions such as cancer or rheumatism, but everything in the chain before and after use remains legally unclear—an uncertainty the state chooses to address through criminal prosecution.

In this way, collective production and cultivation are left entirely to the discretion of a police officer or prosecutor, for whom ten grams may be treated as a shipment linked to organized crime or as justified possession, depending on the interpretation applied at the time.

In addition, Bocaz warns of “the procedural inconsistencies in the case,” stressing that “in a large number of the arrests, there were clear pressure tactics, with workers and administrative staff kept in custody without even being provided a copy of the investigative file or the formal orders, violating the fundamental right to a defense.”

Health and the Illicit Market

The impact of the mass raids extends beyond the walls of the courts. At the community level, the closure of operating sites sparked panic among users who depended on specific strains to treat complex conditions. Activist Paola Sagués, popularly known as Muy Paola and director of the Santiago Verde platform, describes a climate of collective vulnerability that is worsening amid the lack of institutional responses and the emergence of an increasingly hostile political climate.

“As an activist, I’m worried. I feel that it is urgent for social and human rights organizations to come together because this is not only affecting cannabis. A very difficult situation lies ahead, and as a community we need to unite to confront it more effectively,” Sagués says.

The activist emphasizes that, after years of waiting for legal protections that never materialized under Gabriel Boric’s administration—in fact, seizures increased by 72.8% during the final year of his government—the community was left in an extremely fragile position in the face of an approach that “threatens the health of the population.”

Sagués explains the direct medical impact of these kinds of interventions. She says that “the choice of substance is not based solely on THC percentage, but on the full spectrum of cannabinoids, terpenes, and flavonoids that interact through the entourage effect.” In her words: “When a patient is looking for calm or relaxation, they will choose varieties with linalool or myrcene, while if they need stimulation, they will opt for profiles with limonene.”

By shutting down access to these stabilized profiles, thousands of people are pushed into the illicit market or into buying products informally, with no traceability. Added to this is criticism of trial by media: “On TV, they say the dispensary was a criminal front before there has even been a trial or a hearing. The people sitting in cold jail cells are workers, ordinary people who are not accustomed to the criminal world,” Sagués says.

The Political Backdrop

From a legislative standpoint, the political landscape calls for caution. Lawmaker Ana María Gazmuri, a longtime advocate for reforms on home cultivation and medical cannabis use in the Chamber of Deputies, stresses the need to understand Operación Imperio Ámsterdam within the “spirit of the times” shaping public debate in Chile.

“We have to be clear: in Chile, the right to cultivate individually or collectively through nonprofit corporations exists and has been upheld by the courts when traceability between the number of plants and members’ prescriptions is demonstrated,” the lawmaker explains.

With that in mind, Gazmuri clarifies that current legislation explicitly prohibits sales or commercial dispensing outside the pharmaceutical channel. Although she has introduced a bill seeking to establish rules for collective cultivation and adult use, she acknowledges that there is currently no parliamentary majority to move toward a regulated system of open sales.

Gazmuri places the legal crackdown in a broader context “where the security agenda and penal populism dominate public debate, amid executive proposals seeking to extend states of emergency and intercept communications.”

In this context, “deploying 500 personnel and around twenty prosecutors to target collective cultivation creates an immediate media impact, but diverts essential resources that should be devoted to fighting real organized crime.” Faced with this landscape, the lawmaker argues that the community’s priority should be to uphold and defend the historic gains already secured in the courts, while avoiding actions that exceed the existing legal framework.

Public Health Perspective and Regulatory Gaps

The outcome of Operación Imperio Ámsterdam could set a major precedent for the future of drug policy in the region. While legal defense teams work to secure the release of the dozens of people who have been jailed and challenge the money laundering allegations, more than 16,000 patients are facing the abrupt suspension of their treatments.

The tension between criminal prosecution and the fundamental right to health is once again laid bare. Without clear administrative regulations or the political will to resolve regulatory gaps, Chile’s experience demonstrates that when the state chooses to sidestep a public health approach, the first casualty is ultimately the safety of patients themselves.

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Barcelona’s Plan Druida expands police presence and surveillance in response to drug trafficking and use, while also placing the city’s cannabis clubs under renewed pressure. Although authorities present it as a modern public-safety strategy, its focus on control, pressure on cannabis clubs, and drug use reflects the same prohibitionist approach that could deepen the criminalization of users rather than shift toward health, human rights, and harm reduction.

Barcelona authorities have unveiled a new strategy to combat drug trafficking and use: Plan Druida (“Druid Plan”). Although it has been in effect since mid-June, the plan was presented in early August at a press conference by Albert Batlle, Barcelona’s third deputy mayor and head of Security, alongside the chief of the Guardia Urbana, Pedro Velázquez.

According to the Barcelona City Council’s official website, the measure was prompted by greater availability of drugs and increasingly sophisticated distribution methods. However, it is also targeting cannabis clubs —associations that, while existing in a legal gray area, operate as private member associations and community spaces rather than commercial points of sale.

What the Plan Druida Involves

This strategy can be broken down into three pillars: a stronger Guardia Urbana presence at drug-dealing locations, a new operational intelligence model, and closer coordination with the Mossos d’Esquadra and other municipal services.

On the one hand, the plan includes a permanent risk mapping and classification system, with ongoing operations aimed at preventing repeat offenses, keeping these activities from becoming established, and stopping them from shifting to other neighborhoods, as well as investigations and judicial interventions in narcopisos (homes used for the sale or distribution of drugs). The plan also includes measures to reclaim affected spaces through the involvement of “districts, cleaning services, municipal inspection, public health, and social services.”

In terms of operational intelligence, the Guardia Urbana will introduce a model that cross-references police data, incidents, neighborhood complaints, and area-specific information to turn them into “analysis and anticipation tools,” detecting new points of sale, identifying patterns of use, and directing its operations accordingly.

This will be accompanied by greater coordination with the Mossos d’Esquadra, Catalonia’s regional police force. In 2025 alone, collaboration between the two forces resulted in collaboration between the two forces resulted in 110 investigations, 165 points of sale shut down, 210 arrests, and the recovery of 57 properties used as drug flats. So far in 2026, there have been 90 additional arrests, 74 points of sale shut down, and 22 homes recovered. Plan Druida now seeks to strengthen this coordination with the Mossos d’Esquadra.

The plan also includes drug and alcohol checks in nightlife areas, festivals, large events, and major roads entering and leaving the city. As announced at the press conference, the Guardia Urbana will also add 50 officers in September.

What About Cannabis Clubs?

The outlook appears bleak for Barcelona’s cannabis clubs. They have spent several decades navigating the ups and downs of Spanish regulation and remain in a fragile position since they have never been protected by a clear legal framework. The clubs have been facing closure threats from authorities for years, but this new strategy tightens restrictions even further.

Now, officials overseeing the Plan Druida said they had opened administrative proceedings against “practically all” of the city’s clubs. What’s more, they explicitly spoke out against their presence in the city: “We have an excess of legislative safeguards, and it is not just a matter for the Urbana or for us. We will continue applying pressure because it is an activity that should have no place in the city,” Batlle said at the press conference.

They also said that a period of tighter enforcement lies ahead and that they are working to establish, through administrative and criminal proceedings, that what happens in these spaces amounts to drug trafficking. It is worth clarifying that cannabis clubs are nonprofit associations, spaces conceived around a community-based, harm-reduction approach, that allow members to use marijuana in a safe place. Those members pay a fee, as they would at any other club.

Plan Druida and Its Objectives

In remarks from the press conference reported by Europa Press, Batlle said the plan “is another step in Barcelona’s commitment to safety, coexistence, and the recovery of public space. We are talking about a complex phenomenon that has a direct impact on coexistence and everyday life and that we cannot normalize.”

The third deputy mayor also signaled a further tightening of controls in line with the prohibitionist model: “There will be more police presence, more technology, including more security cameras, and a greater capacity for anticipation. Modern, effective security adapted to current challenges.”

Velázquez, head of the Guardia Urbana, also said there would be increased surveillance, explaining that “special attention” would be paid to venues and events open to the public “that show a permissive attitude toward drug use.” He also said the plan includes a line related to “assistance policing and the consumption of addictions” (it is not clear what he meant by that phrase, since addictions are not something you consume) and that resources would be allocated to “prevention and awareness efforts aimed at young people.”

With all this emphasis on surveillance and control, one thing is clear: the strategy is not limited to drug trafficking, but also includes measures related to drug use in public spaces. This detail is relevant because, in Spain, drug use or illicit possession in public places does not, in itself, constitute a criminal offense, but it can be subject to administrative penalties under Organic Law 4/2015 on the Protection of Public Safety. The arrest figures reported by the authorities are tied to investigations, points of sale, and narcopisos, so available sources do not make it possible to determine whether any of them resulted solely from drug use. Policies focused on policing drug use have been criticized from public health and harm-reduction perspectives for their potential effects on stigma, criminalization, and access to health services.

Another detail—perhaps a minor one, but no less curious—that may raise some eyebrows is the choice of name. Druids were members of the priestly class who held a central place in Celtic societies during the Iron Age, several centuries before Christ. They were neither a military nor a police force, nor did they have a role linked to population control. What connection the authorities saw between that historical figure and an operation against drug trafficking and use in 21st-century Barcelona is, for now, beyond us.

Did we say “new strategy”? We have our doubts: no matter how much the name changes or how new the hat may look, Barcelona’s brand-new plan appears to offer little that is genuinely new. It repeats the same rhetoric and repressive measures, which could produce similarly inadequate results, placing drug users at greater risk and deepening their criminalization. The day prohibitionism gives way to an approach rooted in health, support, human rights, and harm reduction, perhaps then we can talk about something new.

Cover photo: Bernard Gagnon, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons // Joanne and Matt, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons // Edited with AI

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We’ve all had nightmares at some point. The agitation, the fear, the scenarios our own minds create and take us into. The problem is that for people with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), nightmares aren’t simply occasional bad dreams. They can become an endless loop that is desperately difficult to manage; a way of reliving that traumatic experience over and over again.

This month, a new study published in Nature Medicine found that a marijuana-derived medication greatly reduced nightmares in patients with PTSD. In more than a third of those who received the treatment, after ten weeks the nightmares had disappeared altogether.

Does this mean that smoking marijuana before bed is a new treatment for PTSD? No. Not even close. But the results do provide interesting evidence about something much more specific: the relationship between THC, sleep, dreams, and one of the most persistent manifestations of trauma.

What Is PTSD and Why Can It Cause Nightmares?

Post-traumatic stress disorder can appear after going through a traumatic experience. It is much more than simply remembering the terrible thing that happened; in some people, the brain continues reacting to that memory as though the danger were still present.

Possible symptoms include intrusive memories or flashbacks, avoidance of situations associated with the trauma, changes in mood, hypervigilance, sleep problems and, yes, recurring nightmares.

The latter are especially common in PTSD and can be part of what are known as re-experiencing symptoms: during sleep, elements, emotions, or sensations connected to what happened can resurface.

On top of that, a pretty cruel cycle can develop. A person has nightmares, starts becoming afraid of falling asleep, sleeps worse, and the sleep disruption can, in turn, make the condition even more difficult to manage.

That’s why, even though nightmares are one of the symptoms of PTSD, treating them can be a clinical goal in itself. And that’s where the study comes in.

What Did the Researchers Do?

A team led by researchers at Charité – Universitätsmedizin Berlin, in Germany, conducted a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled clinical trial involving 171 adults with PTSD and trauma-related nightmares. In other words, neither the participants nor the people evaluating the results knew who was receiving the actual medication and who was receiving a placebo.

For ten weeks, 87 participants received dronabinol and 84 received a placebo. Overall, 79.3% of the sample were women. The medication was administered once a day before bedtime, in doses that could be individually adjusted between 2.5 and 15 milligrams.

So what is dronabinol? Here comes the first important clarification. Although it is tempting to summarize the study by saying that patients were treated with “medical cannabis,” the researchers did not give them cannabis flower or study what happens when someone smokes a joint before bed.

Dronabinol is a pharmaceutical preparation of delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), a hugely important cannabis compound. In this case, the researchers used a standardized oral solution.

This distinction is crucial to understand, because a controlled pharmaceutical dose of a specific molecule is not equivalent to consuming cannabis, a plant that can contain highly variable concentrations of THC, CBD, and many other compounds.

What Did They Discover About Marijuana’s Effect on Nightmares?

The researchers measured participants’ “nightmare burden,” taking both frequency and intensity into account.

After ten weeks, the score used to measure it had decreased by an average of 3.7 points in the group that received dronabinol and 2.2 points in the placebo group. In other words, the placebo also produced an improvement, something common in clinical trials, but the reduction was significantly greater among those who received dronabinol.

And some of the individual results are even more striking. More than a third of patients treated with dronabinol stopped experiencing nightmares, while another 21% saw their nightmare burden decrease by at least 50%.

In addition, about five out of six participants in the treatment group felt that their health had markedly improved. But here it is worth making something equally important clear…

No, THC Does Not Cure PTSD

The treatment worked on one specific symptom: nightmares. The researchers also evaluated overall PTSD severity and associated depression symptoms, but they did not find conclusive evidence that dronabinol produced a significant improvement in those areas compared with placebo.

Put another way: someone could have far fewer nightmares and still continue experiencing other symptoms of the disorder. That is why it would be incorrect to conclude from this study that THC is a proven treatment “for PTSD.”

What the researchers found is something narrower, though no less interesting: administering pharmaceutical THC before bedtime significantly reduced trauma-related nightmares in this group of patients. The next question is inevitable: why? And to try to answer it, we have to get, quite literally, inside our dreams.

What Is REM Sleep?

While we sleep, our brains do not remain in the same state all night. We repeatedly move through different stages of sleep, which are usually divided into non-REM sleep and REM sleep.

REM stands for rapid eye movement. During this stage, brain activity changes considerably, and many of the most vivid, complex, and emotionally charged dreams that we can later remember occur.

REM is also connected with memory and emotional regulation, which is why scientists have been deeply interested for years in understanding what happens during this stage of sleep in people who have gone through traumatic experiences.

But the issue is more complicated than saying “nightmare = REM.” Trauma-related nightmares can also occur during other stages of sleep, and science is still debating exactly which sleep disturbances are characteristic of PTSD. But REM appears to be an important piece of the puzzle. And it turns out cannabis has a hand in it too.

THC, the Endocannabinoid System and Dreams: What Do These Three Characters Have in Common?

Our bodies produce their own cannabinoid molecules. These are endocannabinoids, and together with their receptors and the enzymes that regulate them, they make up what is known as the endocannabinoid system. This system is involved in numerous physiological processes, including the stress response, appetite, pain, memory, emotions, and the sleep-wake cycle.

THC can interact with this system because its structure allows it to activate cannabinoid receptors, particularly CB1, which are widely distributed throughout the brain. The available evidence indicates that THC administered acutely can reduce or delay REM sleep. This is precisely why there is a fairly well-known experience among regular cannabis users: some people feel that when they consume regularly, they dream less or, more precisely, remember fewer of their dreams.

That doesn’t necessarily mean the brain has completely stopped dreaming. But THC can alter normal sleep architecture and reduce the amount of time spent in REM, which could decrease certain dream experiences or the ability to remember them later.

The German researchers believe that something related to this phenomenon could help explain what they observed in patients with PTSD. According to Stefan Röpke, one of the researchers leading the study, there is evidence that during REM sleep, THC can reduce dream activity and, in this way, possibly alleviate some nocturnal stress responses.

But, as with any scientific research, we have to tread carefully. The trial showed that the marijuana-based medication reduced nightmares. It did not demonstrate, through measurements of each participant’s brain, that reduced REM sleep was the cause of that improvement. It is a biologically plausible hypothesis, not yet the end of the story.

And Why Do Some People Dream So Much When They Stop Using Marijuana?

Interestingly, the relationship also works in the opposite direction. People who frequently consume THC often report particularly intense or vivid dreams when they stop using it. The phenomenon is known as REM rebound.

If THC has reduced or altered this stage of sleep for a period of time, removing the substance can temporarily produce an increase in REM. And with it, much more intense, memorable and, in some cases, unpleasant dreams can return.

This is especially interesting when we talk about nightmares because it shows that altering dreams through THC does not necessarily amount to improving sleep overall.

In fact, the evidence on cannabis and rest is far more ambiguous than its reputation as a “sleep aid” might suggest. The effects can change depending on dose, frequency of use, and tolerance, and frequent use can alter sleep architecture. Stopping use can also lead to insomnia, disrupted sleep, and intense dreams.

So, once again, this study does not mean that using marijuana before bed is a solution for nightmares. Still, alongside previous research that had already explored cannabinoids such as nabilone for treatment-resistant nightmares in people with PTSD, this new finding provides a much broader view of this difficult treatment landscape.

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Gore, Michael Myers, lots of blood, brutal deaths, torture. So far, so good. But… weed? In a game that kids could play? That’s crossing the line.

At least that seems to be the reason why Halloween: The Game, the new survival horror game developed by IllFonic and scheduled for release on September 8, 2026, was ultimately kept off the Australian market.

This is an asymmetrical survival horror game: one player takes on the role of Michael Myers while the others try to survive by alerting and warning their neighbors in order to stop him. It will also include a single-player mode.

However, the game will not be available for sale in Australia after authorities refused to issue a rating for it. IllFonic also announced that, as a result of that decision, the game will not be sold in New Zealand either, even though that country has its own rating system.

The reason? It wasn’t the stabbings…

Why Did Australia Ban the New Halloween Video Game?

It wasn’t because of the violence or the famous character who embodies terror itself as he hunts down and kills people, but because of a feature related to cannabis.

Survivors can use weed in the game and receive a benefit: for a few seconds, they can detect Michael Myers’s location. That’s where the regulatory problem lies.

Australian regulations are particularly strict when a video game links the use of an illicit or controlled substance to an in-game incentive or benefit. It’s not simply a matter of “someone smoking marijuana”; the player consumes the substance and gains an advantage from it.

As a result, the Australian Classification Board refused to classify the game, giving it an RC (Refused Classification) designation. In practice, a video game that receives this rating cannot be sold normally in Australia.

IllFonic responded by pointing out just how absurd the discrepancy seems to them: according to the studio, the refusal was not related to Michael Myers or the violent killings the player can carry out, but rather to the presence of a controlled substance.

HobbyConsolas points out that “the use, possession, or trafficking of marijuana/cannabis is strictly prohibited in Australia.” So, it would seem that the relevant regulatory issue for the video game is not simply the appearance of cannabis, but rather that its use produces a positive effect within the game.

This also explains why directly comparing the case to GTA V or Far Cry 3 can be misleading. Both games include references to or depictions of cannabis and are available for sale in Australia, but depicting a drug is not necessarily the same as turning its use into a “power-up” or an advantage.

Australia Already Has a History With Cannabis in Video Games

Halloween: The Game is far from being the first video game to run afoul of this particular aspect of Australian regulations.

One of the clearest examples is DayZ. In 2019, the Australian Classification Board found that the game allowed players to use a joint to improve their character’s health stats: it increased their food and water levels and lowered their body temperature. For regulators, this meant that using cannabis improved the chances of survival, effectively turning it into a reward. Guess what happened… yes: Refused Classification.

More revealingly, the board explained that if cannabis had appeared without providing that benefit, the content could have fallen under an R18+ rating. In other words, the problem wasn’t necessarily the joint; it was that the joint improved your chances and gave you an advantage while playing. 

DayZ ended up being modified and subsequently received a rating that allowed it to be sold.

There’s also the case of We Happy Few. In that game, characters can take a fictional drug called Joy, which alters their perception and allows them to navigate certain situations more easily. The Classification Board considered that making the game easier through the use of the substance constituted an incentive and originally denied it a rating.

RimWorld faced a similar issue in 2022. The agency concluded that the game depicted illicit drug use associated with incentives or rewards and once again issued a Refused Classification.

Even Fallout 3 initially received a Refused Classification in Australia in 2008 amid objections related to its depiction of drugs. The official Australian registry still retains that initial decision.

This pattern, then, has been going on for some time.

Australia can classify video games with extremely high levels of violence for adult audiences. But if an illicit drug becomes a tool that makes a character stronger, restores their health, or makes a mission easier, that content may fall outside the classification system entirely.  So, simply saying that Australia “bans marijuana in video games” would be incorrect.

In Halloween: The Game, the equation seems pretty straightforward: smoking marijuana makes it easier to find Michael Myers. And that was enough for Australia to say, “Hmm… No.”

Michael Myers? Yes—A Joint to Help You Escape? No

The result highlights a paradox that’s hard to ignore. We’re talking about an adaptation of Halloween, a franchise built around a serial killer who hunts people down with a knife, often in graphic and disturbing ways. Violence isn’t an incidental element of the game: it’s essentially its raison d’être. 

However, it was a relatively minor cannabis-related mechanic that ultimately led to the game’s removal from the Australian market.

On the other hand, the situation in New Zealand is a bit different. Although IllFonic announced that Halloween: The Game will not be sold there either, the “Refused Classification” decision that sparked the controversy was made by the Australian regulatory body. New Zealand has its own classification authority, so the game’s absence from that market appears to stem from the commercial and regulatory decision made following the Australian rejection, and not necessarily from an independent ban issued by New Zealand authorities.

For now, IllFonic has not publicly announced whether it will modify the game’s mechanics to try to obtain a new classification. Australian media have already reported that major retailers have begun removing the title from their listings.

So Michael Myers will be able to continue doing his thing in much of the world when Halloween: The Game arrives in September. But in Australia, at least for now, this is apparently too dangerous: his victims smoking a joint and being able to track the killer’s location. 

Cover photo by Mooshuu from San Diego, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons // Edited with AI

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Colombia is once again looking to the skies to combat drugs. In his first speech as president, far-right leader Abelardo de la Espriella announced that his government will resume spraying illicit crops—one of the most controversial tools in the country’s long war on drugs.

“Coca cannot be combated with doctored statistics or manipulated maps,” the president said on August 7, before assuring that he will use “state-of-the-art herbicides,” which, he claimed, will not harm human health or the environment and will comply with the conditions established by the Constitutional Court.

This promise comes at a time when Colombia still sits at the top of the global cocaine production map. According to Infobae, the country had approximately 261,000 hectares under coca cultivation in 2024, a 3.5% increase from the previous year.

But discussing aerial spraying in Colombia means discussing much more than just hectares and herbicides. The country has already been through massive eradication campaigns as part of the War on Drugs, and some of their consequences turned out to be very different from what their proponents had imagined.

To understand why, we have to go back nearly half a century, to a time when the crop Washington wanted to eradicate in Colombia was not primarily coca, but cannabis.

Before Cocaine, There Was ‘la Bonanza Marimbera’

Long before Pablo Escobar and the Medellín and Cali cartels, Colombia experienced another drug boom.

From the late 1960s through the 1970s, the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta and La Guajira became major centers of cannabis production for the U.S. market. The so-called “Bonanza Marimbera” transformed the region’s economy: farmers, transporters, merchants, and smugglers all participated in a market fueled by huge demand from the U.S. counterculture.

That region was also the birthplace of one of the most famous strains of that era: Santa Marta Gold, which achieved an almost mythical reputation in the United States.

Colombian historian Lina Britto reconstructed that period in Marijuana Boom: The Rise and Fall of Colombia’s First Drug Paradise. Her research describes how a marginalized rural region became integrated into a transnational marijuana trade and how, by the late 1970s, the relationship between Colombia and the United States had become increasingly dominated by the logic of the War on Drugs.

The U.S. government increased pressure on Colombia, and in 1979, Operation Fulminante was launched. As Rolando García recently recounted for High Times, the campaign seized some 3,500 metric tons of cannabis and destroyed nearly 25,000 acres of crops. In the years that followed, chemical eradication became an increasingly central part of the drug-war strategy. 

And that’s where the paradoxical part of the story begins. Destroying the marijuana economy did not mean destroying the networks that had made it possible. The routes were already in place. The contacts were already in place. There were transporters, smugglers, money, logistical expertise, and massive demand from the United States. As Colombian weed lost ground, a far more profitable commodity began to take its place: cocaine.

Britto describes this process as a transition in the history of Colombia’s illicit economies—from products like coffee and marijuana to cocaine. Her work does not argue that spraying alone “created” the cartels, but rather that the crackdown on the cannabis market and the militarization of drug policy transformed an economy that already had the infrastructure, capital, and smuggling networks that allowed it to shift toward another product. 

By the mid-1980s, Colombia was already entering a much more violent era.

Spraying Doesn’t Always Make the Problem Go Away

Almost half a century later, the debate is back.

De la Espriella’s current focus is on illicit crops—and coca in particular—in a country whose drug landscape is very different from that of the “Bonanza Marimbera.” We still do not know exactly which substances his administration will use when it speaks of “state-of-the-art herbicides.” At the same time, the return of spraying brings back a question Colombia has been trying to answer for decades: What happens after the crops are destroyed?

The problem with policies based exclusively on eradication is that a crop does not exist in isolation from the surrounding economy. Behind it are families, local economies, buyers, armed groups, trade routes, and, in many cases, rural communities with few economic alternatives. That debate has even made its way into Colombian case law.

The Constitutional Court has ruled that voluntary crop substitution must take priority over forced eradication. According to Ruling T-146 of 2024, the State must refrain from carrying out forced eradication operations wherever verifiable substitution agreements exist.

For years, the Court has also applied the precautionary principle to aerial spraying with glyphosate due to its potential impacts on health and the environment, in addition to requiring safeguards such as community participation and prior consultation when indigenous and ethnic communities may be affected.

That is why it is no coincidence that, from his very first announcement, De la Espriella stressed that the strategy would comply with the Court’s rulings.

During Gustavo Petro’s administration, Colombia drastically reduced forced eradication and maintained the suspension of the large-scale aerial glyphosate spraying that had defined previous decades, prioritizing voluntary crop substitution. However, toward the end of his term, that stance began to soften: the government moved forward with a program of ground-based glyphosate spraying using drones to eradicate coca and received U.S. support for that strategy. In other words, spraying did not disappear entirely, but it no longer occupied the central role it had historically played in anti-drug policy.

Now, the new government’s strategy seems to be bringing chemical eradication back to the center of drug policy.

Colombia Returns to an Old Question

Nothing forces history to repeat itself in exactly the same way, and, of course, the Colombia of 2026 is not the same as that of 1979. Coca is also very different from the marijuana of the Bonanza Marimbera; legal restrictions have changed, and modern spraying methods may use different technologies from those used in previous decades. 

But historical experience offers a warning that is hard to ignore: eliminating a plant does not necessarily eliminate the economy that revolves around it. That is precisely what happened after the collapse of Colombia’s major cannabis market.

The infrastructure of the “Bonanza” didn’t disappear overnight. Some of its routes, expertise, and players were repurposed for a smaller, more expensive, and far more profitable commodity.  And the country that had been known in the United States for its marijuana ended up becoming a global synonym for cocaine during the 1980s.

Now Colombia is once again betting on spraying and eradication while attempting to reduce more than 260,000 hectares still planted with coca. The question is what happens next, because if the history of the “Bonanza Marimbera” has shown anything, it’s that burning, uprooting, or spraying a crop can be much easier (but less effective) than eliminating the conditions that made it profitable to plant it in the first place.

Cover photos via Wikimedia Commons.

<p>The post Colombia Wants to Spray Illicit Crops Again. The ’80s Offer a Warning  first appeared on High Times.</p>

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Germany has received nearly 900 applications for cannabis cultivation associations, but only just over half have been approved as clubs struggle with licensing, location rules, financial risk, and inconsistent enforcement. At the same time, medical cannabis patients face new reimbursement restrictions that could force tens of thousands to pay out of pocket, switch treatments, or challenge the reforms in court.

The German cannabis landscape continues to change constantly. Local authorities have already received 896 applications to establish cannabis cultivation associations for adults. Of those, only 455 have been approved, according to data compiled by the Federal Association of German Cannabis Growers (BCAv) and shared by International CBC.

In other words, just over half of the applications submitted have successfully made it through the authorization process. The figure confirms the growing interest in this model, but it also highlights the gap between forming an association, securing a license, and actually beginning legal production.

Cultivation associations—often called cannabis social clubs—began applying for permits on July 1, 2024, three months after the first phase of Germany’s Cannabis Act took effect. Unlike a dispensary or retail store, these are nonprofit organizations that collectively grow cannabis to supply their adult members.

The law allows each association to have up to 500 members, who must be at least 18 and have lived in Germany for the previous six months. Club membership must last for a minimum of three months, a measure designed to prevent so-called “cannabis tourism.”

Cannabis Is Legal, but There Are No Stores—and No On-Site Consumption

The German model has several distinctive features. Clubs may grow and distribute cannabis to their members, but they may not sell it to the public, mail it, or operate as commercial businesses. Consumption is also not permitted on the club’s premises.

Each member may receive up to 25 grams per day and 50 grams per month. For members aged 18 to 21, the monthly limit is reduced to 30 grams, and the product’s THC content cannot exceed 10%. Cannabis must be handed over in person, after verifying both age and membership.

Associations must also monitor inventories, document cultivation and distribution, ensure product traceability, and periodically report their stock levels to the authorities. Cannabis must be handed over in neutral packaging, accompanied by information on its weight, strain, harvest date, average THC and CBD levels, and potential risks associated with use.

But before reaching that point, interested groups must go through an authorization process that can include everything from background checks to plans for security, youth protection, prevention, storage, and access control.

Finding a suitable location is no easy task either. The law stipulates that facilities must be located at least 200 meters away from schools, youth centers, and playgrounds. Additionally, land or buildings designated for growing cannot be part of a private residence.

It’s worth noting that the way these rules are applied varies across Germany’s federal states. The BCAv itself has pointed out that some clubs face difficulties obtaining building and use permits, even when they plan to operate in industrial zones. The lack of uniform criteria and differing interpretations of the regulations can delay or outright block projects that had already moved forward with investments and planning.

Eight Obstacles to a Model That Aims to Displace the Illicit Market

The difficulties are not limited to official statistics. A study by researchers at Aarhus University, published in the International Journal of Drug Policy, analyzed how administrative burdens are hindering the early stages of German associations.

The researchers combined survey responses from 32 associations with seven semi-structured interviews with their representatives. Based on this work, they identified eight major challenges:

• the need for an extremely committed individual to drive the project forward
• financial risks
• finding suitable facilities
• obtaining a license
• unclear legal terminology
• the 200-meter rule
• the ban on consumption within the club
• social stigma.

The first point is particularly revealing. Although the clubs are supposed to be nonprofit organizations rather than commercial entities, their creation often depends on one person willing to invest time, money, and energy for months on end with no guarantee that a permit will be granted. Initial costs may include rent, legal counsel, equipment, security systems, and building renovations long before the first harvest.

According to the researchers, these barriers could limit the associations’ ability to meet three of the reform’s stated objectives: reducing risks, protecting young people, and displacing part of the illicit market.

If only groups with sufficient capital, legal knowledge, and the persistence needed to navigate the bureaucracy manage to access the system, the model runs the risk of remaining too limited to provide a meaningful legal alternative.

Germany’s Public Health System Faces Obstacles of Its Own

Furthermore, the tightening of regulations is not limited to adult-use associations. Recently, Germany’s public health insurance system stopped reimbursing the cost of treatment with medical cannabis flower. The measure took effect without a transition period, even for patients whose treatment had already been approved and was underway.

The change does not prevent doctors from continuing to prescribe flowers or patients from purchasing them at pharmacies. What it does eliminate is coverage under statutory health insurance, so those who wish to continue treatment will have to pay for it out of pocket, switch therapies, or try to qualify for an exception.

The reform also tightens reimbursement rules for cannabis extracts, dronabinol, and nabilone. To begin one of these treatments, patients will, in most cases, have to undergo a six-month trial with an approved finished cannabis-based medicinal product. The problem, according to doctors and industry organizations, is that these products are approved for very specific indications and are not suitable substitutes for many of the conditions currently treated with cannabis.

The Federal Association of Cannabinoid Pharmaceutical Companies (BPC) estimates that around 65,000 patients with established treatments could be affected. The organizations also warn that there is no approved inhalable finished medicinal product in Germany that can directly replace cannabis flower for patients who need rapid effects, including some receiving palliative care.

With the measure set to take effect, several groups began seeking to overturn it through the courts. The Association for Cannabis as Medicine (ACM) announced that it will file a constitutional complaint with the Federal Constitutional Court, arguing that the legislation is based on the mistaken assumption that all cannabis-derived medications are interchangeable. The German Hemp Association (DHV) stated that it will support the initiative.

The measure does not directly affect clubs, which operate outside the medical system and cannot provide cannabis on prescription or replace pharmaceutical care. However, it helps illustrate Germany’s current regulatory landscape: while the country is authorizing community associations for adults, it is imposing new economic and administrative barriers on medical patients.

In both cases, a similar tension arises. The law recognizes legal avenues for access, but the bureaucracy, costs, and requirements necessary to use them can still place them out of reach for part of the population.

Germany has created a legal, community-based pathway to cannabis access, but turning that possibility on paper into fully operational clubs is proving far more difficult than simply submitting an application. At the same time, the loss of coverage for medical cannabis flower shows that Germany’s shift toward broader access is neither linear nor equally beneficial to everyone who uses it.

<p>The post Cannabis in Germany: Club Licenses Stall While Medical Access Shrinks first appeared on High Times.</p>

The post Cannabis in Germany: Club Licenses Stall While Medical Access Shrinks appeared first on Paradise Found.

This article originally appeared in High Times’ 50th Anniversary print issue. Get yours here.

In the 1970s, Colombia’s Sierra Nevada became the source of the world’s most famous cannabis. Then Washington’s War on Drugs destroyed the trade and helped create the cocaine cartels that replaced it.

Back in the 70s, before cannabis prohibition and the U.S. crackdown turned Latin America’s jungle-green leaves red, there was a time defined by vibrance, transformative power and cultural surge, fueled by tons of weed money flowing from North American pockets into Colombia’s Sierra Nevada. That period, which saw the Santa Marta region rise as an empire built on cannabis, is known as La Bonanza Marimbera. It is the subject of an upcoming documentary by producer Lucas Nosiglia and director Guido Mignogna. Nosiglia is also working with cannabis legend Sergio Puerta on multiple initiatives to revitalize cannabis culture and production in the region.

El Corazón del Mundo, to be presented in 2026, tells the story of those crazy, vibrant years, showcasing how that ever-changing agricultural landscape became the theater of operations for one of the most violent and cruel chapters in the history of drug prohibition, and how those years echo in today’s revival of cannabis production in Colombia.

The Real OGs Are Actually Campesinos

In the late 60s and 70s, the lush slopes of Sierra Nevada became the unlikely epicenter of a new transnational economy. What had been a relatively isolated agricultural frontier of maize, plantain and coffee, turned into the source of Colombia’s first great “green rush” through what can only be described as a convergence of multiple unpredictable circumstances, perhaps a twist of fortune. Weed was an unpredictable revolution. Dense, resinous, and sun-kissed by the Caribbean, it flowed northward in staggering volumes, fueling the anti–Vietnam War counterculture in the U.S., lining the pockets of hippie smugglers, small farmers, and of the newly converted middle classes of the region.

Colombian campesino families, long trapped in cycles of poverty and exploitation at the hands of the United Fruit Company, became master growers. A curious mix of foreign Peace Corps volunteers, adventurers, and young Americans fleeing Vietnam while searching for alternative ways of life, shared cultivation tricks, exchanged seeds and opened new channels of distribution. In towns like Santa Marta and Barranquilla, the bridge was built by marijuana as cargo, stuffed into boats, trucks, and even airplanes and on its way to Miami and New York.

By 1975, an estimated 80% of the campesinos in the Sierra and La Guajira were dependent on cannabis cultivation. But this new Latin American rural economy, tied to the appetite of distant cities and foreign governments, was condemned to face reactionary policies.

Along Those Roads of Gold and Silver Snow

Traditionally, marimba refers to the Afro-Colombian xylophone, central to music and festivity on the Pacific coast. But the very word took on a new life during these years. “There’s, of course, the sound similarity between marihuana and marimba,” explains author, anthropologist and historian Lina Britto. “But there’s also another history, linking African culture to the term.” During the bonanza (Spanish word for “economic boom”), it became a cultural slang, shorthand for bundles of pressed weed ready for shipment. Out of this, the figure of the marimbero was born: men and women who grew, transported, and traded the plant in what quickly became a regional craft.

Small farmers finally earned the money that the United Fruit Company no longer provided after abandoning banana operations in the area. There was also political turmoil, as talk of agrarian reform spread and campesino unions advanced over territories left behind. Money started flowing from hippie movements, smugglers, and urban consumers from developed countries straight into the pockets of Colombia’s middle and lower classes. Towns around Santa Marta and Sierra Nevada experienced growth and prosperity as never before. Being a marimbero became an identity, a way of life and a source of pride, as marimbero families thrived in the early years of the bonanza.

And the child prodigy of this new identity was called Santa Marta Gold, both a strain and a cultural icon. This resinous, golden strain is still known around the world, although most of it is not produced in Santa Marta. These distinctively aromatic buds became the most coveted product of the Bonanza Marimbera and arguably the first global cannabis brand, its reputation in U.S. countercultural markets elevating it to mythic status, where “Colombian weed” became synonymous with Santa Marta Gold. The strain represented the perfect convergence of local ingenuity and global demand.

Cultivated in the microclimates of the Sierra Nevada, Santa Marta Gold was both a commercial label and a symbol of quality, commanding premium prices abroad. Hippie networks of the late 60s and 70s celebrated it in underground guides, song lyrics and travel stories, cementing Colombia’s place in the global weed culture’s imagination.

This moment also illustrates how local farmers transformed their knowledge into an international brand without corporate intermediaries, unlike coffee or bananas. Santa Marta Gold was not marketed by a state export board, but by smugglers, travelers and word-of-mouth in New York, Miami, and California. In Britto’s words, it was a “vernacular globalization,” where campesino labor and U.S. counterculture co-produced a commodity that became legendary.

The Empire Strikes Back

So how did something that generated such economic dynamism, such a burst of cannabis culture and local circuits, become a cradle for revenge and armed violence?

By the late 1970s, in the context of the Cold War, Washington decided to tighten its control over Latin America. The “War on Drugs” had already been tested as a tool of political repression, and the U.S. government applied it to a new scenario, launching an international anti-narcotics campaign aimed at seizing control in Central America under the pretext of eradicating marijuana crops in Sierra Nevada and along the Colombia–Venezuela border.

In 1979, Operation Fulminante seized 3,500 tons of cannabis and destroyed almost 25,000 acres of crops. By 1982, fumigations with paraquat and glyphosate, both chemical warfare tools honed during the Vietnam War, were unleashed on campesino fields. These aerial sprays devastated not only cannabis but also subsistence crops like plantain and yucca, and anyone who stood in the way of the planes.

The impact was paradoxical and tragic, notes Britto, author of Marijuana Boom: The Rise and Fall of Colombia’s First Drug Paradise. State violence, she argues, “disrupted and rendered useless the mechanisms that more or less functioned to contain violence. Large wars never broke out within the business. But once the state began its attacks, you started to see cinematic shootouts, because now they had the money, the trucks, the arsenals, the big guns, the bodyguards…” What had been a tense, but relatively contained, system of exchange was thrown into chaos.

Scholar Freddy González Subiría explains that every illegal economy inevitably generates a sector of predators, actors for whom violence is the preferred tool. This was a new layer added to the already tense smuggling theater of operations before the U.S. decided on a military crackdown in the region. By the end of the 70s, under increased pressure from the U.S., said predators found fertile ground and became beasts. Inside the business of growing, trading and exporting cannabis, violence was not indispensable. But as the risk of operating increased, predators found an environment perfectly suited to thrive.

Marijuana, once a plant of cultural exchange and subsistence, was now framed as a symbol of criminality, imperial confrontation and national shame.

There Could Have Been Another Way

The scale of the cannabis economy was undeniable. In 1979, Colombia’s own National Association of Financial Institutions (ANIF) estimated that as many as 150,000 Colombians were directly or indirectly linked to the cannabis complex: farmers, transporters, processors, dock workers and traders. That same year, in an extraordinary moment, proposals for legalization were publicly discussed at a symposium, even attended by the U.S. ambassador, Britto reminds us. For a brief instant, legalization was on the table, an alternative path before repression and criminalization locked in.

As a result, minor farmers who wanted to stay in business were forced toward the cocaine markets. By the mid-80s, much of the infrastructure that had once carried weed was now trafficking coca paste and cocaine hydrochloride. The transition gave rise to the infamous cartels of Medellín and Cali, and with them, an escalation of violence far beyond anything the marimberos had imagined.

Summoning Spirits from Ancestors

The Bonanza Marimbera is long gone, but in some ways it still defines how Colombians talk about marijuana, development and sovereignty.

When I asked Britto, who grew up near these regions, what kinds of memories local people from Sierra Nevada have of those years, she admitted that violence overshadowed the bonanza and transformed its memory into one of conflict and struggle. She believes the mechanisms locals once used to resolve disputes—rituals, duels or negotiations, which seldom escalated into serious bloodshed—were disrupted by the huge sums of money flowing from the smuggling complex, compounded once producing cannabis became a dangerous business under Nixon’s “War on Drugs.”

Today, as cannabis legalization sweeps across the Americas, Colombia once again faces a crossroads. The same soil that produced the legendary Santa Marta Gold could now be the foundation for a legal, regulated industry. The work of historian Lina Britto, alongside filmmakers and entrepreneurs like Nosiglia and growers like Sergio Puerta, is crucial for allowing this story the depth and dignity it deserves, and to reclaim a glorious history now displaced by violence. Puerta appeared on High Times magazine many times, but notably once 30 years ago. That year, he’d produced around 120 different weed strains. All while narcotic and state-backed networks prohibited master growers like Sergio from cultivating cannabis in their own regions and homelands. Now, Sergio is back in Santa Marta, leading multiple initiatives. The Marimbera generation, and those who grew under its shadow, are ready to rewrite history and set the record straight.

<p>The post How Washington Killed the Colombian Cannabis Boom And Created the Cocaine Cartels by Accident first appeared on High Times.</p>

The post How Washington Killed the Colombian Cannabis Boom And Created the Cocaine Cartels by Accident appeared first on Paradise Found.

This article originally appeared in High Times’ 50th Anniversary print issue. Get yours here.

A three-week experiment in channeling the cannabis plant, what she said about a century of stigma, prison and disrespect, and how to start listening yourself.

There’s a hypothesis that’s been circulating in the science field for some decades that has, in recent years, grown legs: Plants, and trees, are sentient beings. They have consciousness. Perhaps not the same consciousness as humans or animals, but one that exhibits complex behaviours and communicates all the same. The entire plant body has even been likened to a human brain, a network of receptors and cells that uses chemical and electrical signals, which enables the plant to have short and long term memory, sense their environment and communicate not only with each other, but other organisms too.

It turns out one of those organisms is me. I talk to plants. There, I said it. When I say talk, I’m not saying I hear voices as such, nor am I often speaking out loud (although by all means, do speak kind words and play music to plants, we must have all seen or heard of the studies demonstrating the benefit that has to offer. Some even suggest plants may have specific taste in music). It’s more of a knowing in my body and heart, almost like someone has just said something, and now there’s silence, the words still echo somewhere inside.

I realise, maybe more than anyone, how crazy this sounds, but it’s the truth. A truth I’ve learned is largely accepted among indigenous people who remain connected to nature to the extent humans should, including my own ancestral lineage of the Celts and Druids in the U.K. I was delighted when on a trip to the Amazon last year, a member of the group I was with asked a man who had grown up in a jungle village how people there knew which plants were medicinal and which were poisonous. With a look of total incredulity, he simply said “they told us”.

The Three Weeks

This journey of mine all started with cannabis. No, not when I smoked enough for it to become an honorary psychedelic. That’s another story. In fact, although I sat and meditated with two growing plants, I abstained from all drugs (including alcohol) entirely for the whole three weeks I participated in the group channelling of her spirit. During this time, me and 6 others shared thoughts, feelings, dreams and experiences that arose as we worked with her. And she is, most definitely, a ‘her‘.

What came through was unexpected, and at times emotionally painful to feel, but a message that needs to be heard and heeded by anyone who loves her, works with her, grows her or uses her. I’m assuming that means you.

Cannabis is a mother, a healer and a protector. Playful and joyful, nurturing and nourishing, sensual and sensorial; a powerful medicine, both spiritual and physical. But the abuse she has sustained, in the twisting, manipulation and imprisonment of her loving nature and gift, which has in turn caused so much suffering across the world, has left her expressing a level of rage and hurt I never imagined possible for a plant. She showed me that the fire with which cannabis has been burned, in words, in actions, in shame and disgust in the face of her beauty is no different to the fire used to burn women at the stake. Healers, mothers, sisters, midwives. ‘Witches’. And it comes from the same source, a fear of something so powerful that it might change us and what we think we know.

For 100 years we have witnessed a relentless assassination of her character. We, as a collective, have been trained to see cannabis as our enemy or, at best, a novelty drug. In reality, she is so much a part of our story and evolution in mind, body and spirit that we have developed a physiological system, the endocannabinoid system, over millennia, which allows her energy to merge with our own. This deep relationship is what allows her to heal: to stop seizures, shrink tumours, alleviate pain and offer expansive insight. But when used without respect or understanding of her power and potential as an ancestral spiritual medicine and ceremonial tool, when we’re greedy, this is also where the danger lies. Anxiety and paranoia arise in response to total overwhelm when we unknowingly, and unpreparedly, enter into something we have been very deliberately so shut off from that we no longer know how to comprehend or process it.

Cannabis gives and we take too much. Breathing in everything she has and more, drowning our sorrows, hiding in a haze and soon finding that the cold light of day is too much to bear without her. But this is not her abuse of us. She is not the harmful one. We are. We have belittled her magnificence, farmed, imprisoned and poisoned her. It’s time for this trauma to end, for us to be intentional and respectful in how we use her, to continue to fight for her until she is free and to show the world who she really is, by deepening and redefining our own relationships with her, and seeing her in her true light.

This gift of communicating with plants like cannabis is not something unique to me. It’s something I believe many, if not all, of us have the ability to do, should you allow yourself to accept it as a possibility. On a scientific level, we know that plants ‘talk’, albeit without words or vocal chords. Music has even been made using electrical signals produced by plants through attaching instruments to their body, which can translate the signals into sounds that we can actually hear (you can try this at home with a device called Plantwave). It’s been found that these signals, even without sound, elicit responses between plants and even other species. That’s a conversation. On a spiritual level, across continents and throughout most indigenous populations, an understanding that we are in constant communication with nature as a whole is pretty standard. Whether we in the West remember or not, we are a part of nature, not apart from it.

How Druidry Sees It

To gain some clarity on my own experience on Scottish soil, I spoke to Philip Carr Gomm, one of the world’s most highly regarded modern-day Druids, recently retired leader of The Order of Bards, Ovates and Druids and now a member of the ACER psychedelic integration team.

“One of the key ideas in Druidry is that nature communicates, that includes trees and plants and the landscape and so on,” says Philip. “This is an understanding that humanity has had for thousands of years, but we lost it at some point. In the UK, Christianity had this monopolist agenda that repressed everything, so anyone who continued to work with plants had to go underground. Now we’re regaining this wisdom, and this is really one of the values that psychotropic plants like cannabis and classical psychedelics have, they can help us re-establish those connections.”

In recent years, one of the messages deemed most important by spiritual leaders and indigenous elders is that plants and trees are trying to help us. They’re trying to communicate. This has been shared and discussed time and again in conferences like the Mother Earth Delegation of United Original Nations (which anyone can listen to on YouTube, and I strongly suggest you do). But they can only do that if we remember how to listen.

“When you recognise that plants and trees are trying to help us, you’ll start to realise that they’re our sort of brothers and sisters,” says Philip. “We can’t actually live without them. Our destinies are completely entwined. Any approach that enhances a sensitivity to the natural world and to plants and trees is bound to be good for us because it helps us to become more environmentally aware and sensitive, rather than seeing nature as a separate entity we can control. It’s important for our own sanity, health and development that we know we can receive wisdom guidance from nature in a way that really helps us in our lives.”

Cannabis is now one of many plants and trees I’ve communicated with, but she remains one of the most remarkable beings I’ve had the privilege of meeting. If I loved her before (and I really, really did) it’s nothing compared to the respect I have for her now. But this connecting of spirits is just one benefit of reaching out to nature in this way. There are many gifts to be discovered, from information about how to move forward in a challenging situation, or to access healing. This might be energetic, as with South American Icaros; or physical and pragmatic, with messages of which plants to work with and how to use them. So, how can you try communicating with your cannabis plant, or any other nature being for that matter?

How to Try It

“Oh, it’s really coming out of love. Love is at the heart of everything,” explains Philip, in a way that I strongly resonate with. In my experience, I can feel the entire stream of communication coming from the heart space. I’ve even seen this working by trying out the Wyrd Experiments in Broughton Sanctuary, Yorkshire, which aim to prove, in a visual and tangible way, that consciousness exists outside the body.

“Communication with nature comes from really loving it. You can just sit next to a plant, touch its soil with reverence and tune in as you might with a little child, in the sense of not imposing yourself, not being a heavy-duty human, but just trying to be as open and as loving as possible,” says Philip.

The first step is to close your eyes and try bringing your attention here, into your heart. Learn to know how that feels. And, if you need more science to help you feel less hippy about the whole thing, do a little research into the heart’s magnetic field, which reaches about 3 feet outside the body and is estimated to be about 60 times greater in electrical component and 5,000 times greater in electromagnetic energy than the brain’s. But, of equal importance: adjust your perception of what communication is.

“We’ve fallen victim to the false belief that understanding can only come through the mind, and I think that’s the biggest hurdle to get over, that all information comes through the mind and through language,” says Philip. “If you actually take a moment to drop into your body, you’ll know that the heart and body have their own kind of wisdom too, that operate in very different ways. Once you kind of let go of that particular paradigm, you can then start listening to the wisdom of the body again and receive information in these subtler ways.”

It’s likely to take practice to re-familiarise yourself with this, and to be able to interpret the messages that come through in this way without overriding it with the mind. But it’s worth it.

At the end of my three weeks of communicating in this way with cannabis, I went into a final meditation where I felt her energy enter into my body and give me healing. She reminded me of who I really am and settled my nervous system. She told me: “You have done something for me, now I would like to do something for you”. I have dedicated years of my life learning about her, writing about her, and fighting for her and the people who need her, because I love her. This had not gone unnoticed, and nor will your love and appreciation. Next time you’re having a smoke, tending to your grow or simply finding yourself with a little time to sit in peace and quiet, why not invite cannabis to communicate and see what happens? Tell her you love her, show you’re aware of her and open. You’ve got nothing to lose, but everything to gain. It might just change everything you think you know about the world, and if there was ever a time to shift our perception of reality and what we believe is possible, it’s now.

<p>The post I Talk to Plants. The Cannabis Plant Talks Back. first appeared on High Times.</p>

The post I Talk to Plants. The Cannabis Plant Talks Back. appeared first on Paradise Found.

Berlin police are warning residents after receiving reports that suspected drug samples were being left in residential mailboxes, allegedly in an effort to attract new customers. While only a limited number of cases have been confirmed so far, the incidents highlight how the illegal drug market continues to adopt increasingly sophisticated marketing tactics.

What Berlin residents can expect to find in their mailboxes—say, a pizza flyer or an appliance repair brochure—seems to be changing. Police issued an unusual warning after receiving reports that small packages containing suspected drugs had been left directly in residential mailboxes. According to authorities, the apparent goal was to attract new customers through free samples.

Although the number of confirmed cases remains limited and there is still no evidence that this is a widespread phenomenon across the city, the incidents have drawn attention both for the unusual method and for what they suggest about the evolution of the illegal drug market. Instead of waiting for users to seek them out, some dealers appear to be taking their marketing directly to potential customers’ doorsteps.

Berlin Drug Dealers’ New Tactic: Free Samples, QR Codes, and Underground Marketing

Berlin police issued the warning on July 7, as reported by The Berliner, after officers received reports that envelopes or small packages had been left in private mailboxes. According to images released by authorities, some packages appeared to contain what were believed to be samples of substances such as cocaine, ecstasy, ketamine, hashish, cannabis, or 3-MMC, along with contact details for a dealer.

In some cases, the packages featured colorful designs and candy-like packaging, raising particular concern over the risk that children might mistake them for regular sweets.

The tactic resembles a familiar marketing strategy: offering a product for free to encourage a later purchase. The difference, of course, is that in this case the strategy would be entirely illegal.

Indeed, the fact that the samples are free does not change their legal status. Distributing controlled substances without authorization is a criminal offense in Germany, regardless of whether money changes hands. Leaving these packages in mailboxes without consent could also constitute other offenses related to unlawful distribution and endangering third parties.

The Illegal Market Is Also Changing How It Advertises

Beyond the individual cases, the episode reflects a trend that German authorities have been observing for some time: the illegal market’s constant adaptation of its sales and marketing methods.

In Berlin, it was already common to find stickers, cards, or posters featuring QR codes that directed people to drug delivery services operated through messaging apps such as WhatsApp or Telegram. The appearance of suspected free samples would take that logic one step further by bringing the initial contact directly to recipients’ homes.

For now, however, it is important to keep the phenomenon in perspective. Police have not reported how many mailboxes were affected, in which neighborhoods the packages were found, or whether anyone has been arrested in connection with these incidents. Most of the coverage so far is based on the official police warning and the photographs released by authorities.

In other words, the police warning is real, but it still isn’t possible to say that this has become a widespread practice throughout Berlin. Even so, authorities recommend that residents avoid handling or opening suspicious packages from unknown sources and contact police if they find one.

While the investigation continues, the episode shows how even illegal markets are refining their strategies to attract new consumers, combining modern marketing techniques with digital channels and, now, even the good old mailbox.

<p>The post You’ve Got Mail: Are Berlin Drug Dealers Really Leaving Free Samples in Mailboxes? first appeared on High Times.</p>

The post You’ve Got Mail: Are Berlin Drug Dealers Really Leaving Free Samples in Mailboxes? appeared first on Paradise Found.

This article originally appeared in High Times’ 50th Anniversary print issue. Get yours here.

In the Rif Mountains, Indigenous Berber farmers have grown cannabis for generations and gone to prison for it. Now the country wants their hash on the global medical cannabis market. A dispatch from Morocco’s kif country with veteran activist Abdellatif Adebibe.

In the Rif Mountains of Morocco, the cultivation of kif (the word for cannabis in Arabic, which means “pleasure”) has long sustained thousands of Indigenous Berber farmers and their families, despite colonialism, state repression and ongoing structural inequalities. “We have resisted to preserve the temple of the plant,” says veteran reform activist Abdellatif Adebibe, as he smokes from a wooden pipe filled with Morocco’s endemic Beldiya strain, mixed with tobacco.

Adebibe, 70, would like to take his final breath, whenever that day may come, in the simple home where he was born in Morocco’s impoverished High Central Rif, which is, for him, the temple of kif. It’s a remote region where tall cedar trees line the hillsides some 1,600 metres above the nearby Mediterranean sea and, according to a myth popular with the locals, where Noah is said to have built his ark. But first, he wants to complete his mission to help liberate his people from the tyranny of anti-cannabis laws, which sometimes saw peasant farmers arrested as drug traffickers for producing Morocco’s vaunted hashish.

The King’s Pardon

That future came a step closer last year, when Morocco’s king Mohammed VI issued a royal pardon for almost 5,000 people convicted or wanted over illegal cannabis growing. In 2021, the country had legalized cultivation for medical purposes across three provinces, in a first for a Muslim country. At the time, Adebibe alluded to a song sung to welcome the Prophet and said the full moon had just appeared.

“We want to escape from being persecuted, but thanks to God now we will be ok, we just need to find a way to export,” says Adebibe, lamenting how countries which have legalized cannabis usually have strict controls over imports.

“We are also fighting for [permission to launch] an eco-tourism project so that people from all over the world can come here and experience our culture,” he adds. That vision includes legal coffeeshops and avenues for tourists to visit kif plantations, currently forbidden. Still, it’s not difficult to find a tucked-away cafe to smoke kif from a long terracotta and wood pipe in Chefchaouen, the home of illegal cannabis tourism in Morocco.

With some Rifian villages destitute, roads in disrepair and a general lack of basic infrastructure, Adebibe says it’s a no-brainer for Morocco to take its reforms one step further and bring cannabis tourism out of the shadows. “They need to legalize it because it’s a natural plant,” he says, “We have the knowledge to make the number one [cannabis globally].” He’s backed by his 30 years of campaigning, which has taken him to the UN in New York and Vienna, as well as South Africa and Jamaica.

When the State Was Absent

How long Rifian farmers have grown cannabis is unclear, but it has certainly been for several hundred years. Adebibe claims it is a thousands-year-old native plant, and rejects the well-documented evidence that cannabis somehow originated in India. Certainly, however, it was not until the early 70s when growers in the Rif began adopting the Asian method of collecting the resin from cannabis flowers and compressing it into hashish, a more potent product that was also easier to transport abroad.

“The drug baron is the cornerstone of the community,” a farmer said to Bloomberg in 2022, reflecting the deep mistrust of central authorities and big business. “When the state was not shouldering its responsibility towards this region, the drug baron was taking care of us by buying the crop every year.”

Moroccan hash quickly flooded Europe and fuelled countercultures as dealers like the Welshman Howard Marks, better known as Mr Nice, gained notoriety, fame and wealth. But today, in the Muslim country, even as cannabis becomes legal around the world, kif remains extremely stigmatized, says Khalid Tinasti, a research associate at the Switzerland-based Centre on Conflict, Development and Peacebuilding.

“15,000 men were sentenced over the years for farming cannabis. It caused socio-economic problems because men ran away from their homes. And so until recently you’d find families where there were just women and children,” he adds, detailing how the state criminalized entire villages. Even today, despite the reforms, “young men in the poorest parts of the country are still going to prison for smoking a joint,” Tinasti adds.

And yet, kif is everywhere. “You want happy?” hash-cake sellers in surf towns ask tourists discreetly, while holding very indiscreet platters of psychoactive baked goods. Other dealers mumble “hashish, kif?” with less poetic verve but equal sincerity. In Marrakesh, the smell of hashish sometimes wafts into your orbit, though, as in other cities, it’s not sold as openly.

What Comes Next

The prices for foreigners may start astronomically high, but they can go as low as $2 per gram. Equally, the quality can vary wildly, depending on where you are, from dried-out bunk to the most delectable hashish you are ever likely to smoke. Perhaps the dealers are right to put a premium on their product, which Adebibe refers to as the country’s “treasure”. The Rif’s farmers have reportedly been receiving about 4% of the profits from Morocco’s illegal market, but that figure could triple once all sales are legal, even while the market expands significantly, potentially reaching a staggering $15 billion.

Still, there are serious concerns that small growers could be left out of a legal market, as they have elsewhere in the world, with the Rif’s legacy of defiance co-opted rather than preserved. “Multinationals want to get their hands on it,” says Adebibe. “But it is our cultural heritage. It brings you up. [When you smoke kif] You’re very lucid, very calm, you think well, you eat well, and you make love well.”

For him, Morocco has everything in place to be a global cannabis leader: history, expertise, climate, quality and reputation. In the days following our conversation, Morocco officially entered the international medical cannabis market with its first export, of 50kg of Beldiya, to Australia, the beginning of a new chapter where the crop is no longer sped out on Zodiac boats, but shipped legally. It is the natural next step, perhaps, for a plant that has been a quiet ally in the Rif’s long battle for dignity and autonomy, representing both heritage and contraband, lifeline and liability, caught between centuries of rebellion and an uncertain future.

As the summer’s harvest ends in late August, Adebibe is positive about what the future holds, while remaining philosophical. “This is a story of man, and kif.”

<p>The post There’s a Mountain in Morocco Where Everyone Grows Hash. The Locals Call It the Temple of the Plant. The Government Called It Illegal. first appeared on High Times.</p>

The post There’s a Mountain in Morocco Where Everyone Grows Hash. The Locals Call It the Temple of the Plant. The Government Called It Illegal. appeared first on Paradise Found.