In Marokko werden gut zwei Drittel des Marihuanas des europäischen Marktes hergestellt. Der Anbau der Hanfpflanzen hat hier eine lange Tradition, momentan leben noch ungefähr 200.000 Kleinbauern von ihrem Ertrag. Allerdings ist die Haschischgewinnung auch hier illegal, doch das Verbot wird kaum akzeptiert. Die Dokumentation "Haschisch" von Daniel Gräbner versucht ein Portrait des Lebens der Bauern zu entwerfen, indem sie diese bei ihrer täglichen Arbeit zeigt und sie davon und ihrem Land sprechen und philosophieren lässt. Ein Bild des Lebens in dem für uns fernen Land kann er damit liefern - leider ist die Entscheidung gegen einen Kommentator der Geschehnisse allerdings eine problematische. Denn letztlich hätte man als Titel vielleicht auch "Marokko" wählen können oder "Marokko und Haschisch". Die Betonung der Droge im Titel jedenfalls lässt eine stärkere Konzentration auf diese vermuten.

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blinkx.com
g26.ch

For generations this remote mountainous town has been the heart of Morocco's cannabis-growing area, where growers earned a reasonable living from cultivating marijuana.
Although growing cannabis was officially illegal, authorities turned a blind eye and farmers had fields of the leafy green weed.
But now farmers are angry that they are being forced to pay bribes to local police to continue growing the crop.

Since 2003, Morocco has received $28 million euros from the European Union to eradicate the cultivation of cannabis. In addition the United States has given $43 million, between 2005 and 2012, to help farmers find new crops to replace marijuana.

moroccoboard.com
globalpost.com

One week after ending his hunger strike, convicted pot dealer Bernard Rappaz has returned to his farm in Saxon in canton Valais.

“I’m happy to be home,” Rappaz told the Swiss News Agency on Thursday. He left the Bern hospital where he had been staying late Wednesday night.

swissinfo.ch
old zack

laughingsquid.com

A Mendocino County sheriff's officer shot and killed a man who leveled a rifle at him in a large, remote marijuana garden early Tuesday morning, law officials said.

The shooting occurred at about 6:45 a.m. on U.S. Forest Service land in northeastern Mendocino County, roughly four miles west of the Tehama County line, said Mendocino County Sheriff Tom Allman.

The name of the veteran officer who fired is not being released at this time, and the suspect's identity is unknown, he said.

pressdemocrat.com

Der kalifornischen Polizei ist nach eigenen Angaben eine großangelegte Aktion gegen die Drogenmafia gelungen. Dabei stießen die Ermittler auf eine Marihuana-Plantage von geradezu agrarindustriellem Ausmaß. In einem Gebirgszug der Sierra Nevada seien Drogen im Wert von mehr als 1,7 Milliarden Dollar (1,3 Milliarden Euro) sichergestellt worden, teilte Sheriff Margaret Mims am Donnerstag mit.

spiegel.de

Police in California say they have seized $1.7bn worth of marijuana plants in the Sierra Nevada mountains.

They have also arrested 97 people over the past three weeks, most of them Mexican nationals believed to have ties with Mexican drug cartels.

bbc.co.uk

Giving a heroin addict one of the most powerful psychedelic drugs seems like a bad idea. Yet that’s exactly what a group of scientists will do this month. Ibogaine, they say, might be the best way to break drug addicts of their habit.

Ibogaine, a brown powder derived from the African Tabernathe iboga plant, has intrigued researchers since 1962, when Howard Lotsof, a student at New York University and an opiate addict, found that a single dose erased his drug cravings without causing any withdrawal symptoms. Unfortunately, the hallucinogen can increase the risk of cardiac arrest, and the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency lists it as a Schedule 1 substance, a classification for drugs like ecstasy and LSD with “no known medical value” and “high potential for abuse,” making it difficult to get federal funding to run clinical trials.

popsci.com