Culture

A total of 119,846 people from over 50 countries participated in Global Drug Survey (GDS) 2017, including 10,100 participants from the United States and 5,400 from Canada.
For the recently published report, researchers focused on national patterns of use/purchase and includes information on how price, dominant preparations, and methods of use vary across cultures. The survey’s cannabis section includes data from 69,299 cannabis users worldwide.

On Wednesday, the Global Drug Survey released the 2017 edition of their annual report on worldwide drug trends. There was a plethora of fascinating data included in the report, but one topic in particular was striking in its extreme contrast — the varying societal acceptance of spliffs from country to country.
For the potentially uninformed American reader, a spliff most often defines either a joint or blunt filled with a mixture of cannabis and tobacco.

As a long-standing grow shop employee, I have had to look at disappointed faces from behind the counter time and time again, as ambitious home growers have only managed to produce a few sorry buds instead of the giant harvest they had been expecting. Usually, these failed harvests were caused by a combination of inexperience and avoidable mistakes. However, despite an abundance of books, blogs, and video tutorials, many a home grower wishes to find their “own” way – whatever that may be – to grow cannabis at home.

A recent poll reveals that a majority of Canadians support expungement of marijuana criminal records. It has certainly been interesting to follow the national trends in our northern neighbor Canada for cannabis legislation and overall public opinion about cannabis as we try to navigate this territory in the United States.In our most recent coverage of Canadian cannabis policy, we reported on the unveiling of their plans to implement legalization via the Cannabis Act, which is an act that was introduced to Canadian Parliament in 2017 that would legalize cannabis in Canada.

On April 13 of this year, the Canadian federal government introduced legislation that will eventually end cannabis prohibition in Canada.
This historic move based on a campaign promise made by Prime Minister Trudeau in 2015 has been lauded as revolutionary and criticized for being too restrictive.
One reality of this legislation is the long leash that has been given to the individual provinces to establish a framework for legal cannabis that works within the guidelines of their borders. This is no easy task, given that each province is quite unique in its own way.

According to Joe Jonas, then-Disney Channel stars Demi Lovato and Miley Cyrus were the ones who first got him to smoke weed. These days, however, both singers are staying clean. Lovato, who has been vocal about her time in rehab …

In this April 20, 2016, file photo, people smoke marijuana during a 4/20 cannabis culture rally in Toronto. The Canadian government, which introduced nationwide pot legalization legislation last month and expects to pass it next year, hopes to undercut the underground marijuana market with the lower age limit of 18 and not 21, an untested theory that is being closely watched around this country and in the U.S. (Mark Blinch/The Canadian Press via AP, File)
The most controversial thing about Canada's move to legalize marijuana nationwide may be setting the minimum age for use at 18.

For the first time in Oregon’s history, marijuana is included in the state’s economic forecast presented to Gov. Kate Brown each fiscal quarter.
Presented by the Office of Economic Analysis’ Department of Administrative Services (DAS), the purpose of this statewide economic forecast is to “provide information to planners and policy makers in state agencies and private organizations for use in their decision making processes.”
As hopeful entrepreneurs pour millions of dollars into the Oregon cannabis industry, this economic outlook can advise business owners on trends in their nascent enterprise.

If there’s one word that sums up the Cannabis Life Conference this past weekend, it’s normalization.
Cannabis business functions in legal-ish hotspots like Toronto are becoming a dime a dozen for our rapidly burgeoning industry. The vast majority of these events take place at venues long-accustomed to the corporate conference lifestyle, such as downtown hotels and convention centers.
The Cannabis Life Conference, however, was held at the Evergreen Brickworks.

Opioid addiction is a real epidemic in our nation, with the numbers growing every year. We hear about the heroin addiction tragedies every day on the news, but addiction to prescription opioid painkillers is an equally large problem, destroying thousands of lives every day. In light of this serious problem, more and more medical professionals are turning towards a potentially untapped resource in treating those suffering from these addictions: marijuana.As cannabis becomes decriminalized and even legalized for medical purposes in states across the nation, scientists are exploring its possible use to treat the addiction epidemic.