Afghanistan’s Opium Production Surges 400% Four Years After Taliban Ban
Four years after the Taliban banned opium cultivation, Afghanistan’s poppy-growing area has increased 330% in a single year, while estimated opium production has risen 400%. With stockpiles potentially running low and farmers lacking viable alternatives, the resurgence raises questions about whether the increase is temporary or signals a broader return of Afghanistan’s opium and heroin […]
California Legalized Medical Marijuana 30 Years Ago. So Why Is Most of Its Cannabis Still Underground?
Prop 215 made California the first state to legalize medical cannabis 30 years ago this month. Ed Rosenthal, Ethan Nadelmann and Lanny Swerdlow look back on how it won and what it left unfinished. “Remember, remember, the Fifth of November.” The line belongs to Guy Fawkes and his failed 1605 plot against Parliament, but in […]
Black People Accounted For 83% Of Last Year’s Increase In U.S. Marijuana Arrests, Report Shows
It has long been known that despite similar marijuana usage rates across races, cannabis criminalization is enforced in a racially disproportionate manner in the U.S.—with people of color being arrested at much higher rates than white people are. Now, a new analysis shows that when marijuana arrests went up in 2025 compared to the prior […]
Federal Cannabis Sentencing Gave Her 8 Years. She Has Missed Her Son’s First Steps, First Christmas, First Birthday.
Yasquasia Delcarmen was remanded into custody the day her federal sentence came down. Her son was 11 months old. She has missed his first steps, his first Christmas and his first birthday. Yasquasia Delcarmen is 29 years old. She is a mother, a musician, and an aspiring screenwriter. She was building a life, pursuing a […]
Texas Gave Him 75 Years for Cannabis. He Was 19, and His Son Was Born While He Was Inside.
Julian Andrade was 19 when a Texas court sentenced him to 75 years for a nonviolent cannabis charge. He is 22 now. His son was born while he was inside. Julian Andrade is 22 years old. He was born and raised in Fort Worth, Texas, and he has now spent three of those years inside […]
Ed Rosenthal Looks Back on 50 Years of Cannabis on the Good PizzZa Podcast
Ed Rosenthal spent close to two hours on episode 200 of the Good PizzZa podcast, which premiered Sept. 14, walking host JP through a run of cannabis history he happens to have lived through: the first grow books, the Yippies, his federal arrest, and where he thinks the plant is headed next. From the Bronx […]
25 Years Of Drug Decriminalization In Portugal Shows Importance Of Investing In Public Health Approach (Op-Ed)
“Reducing the harms of drug use requires painstakingly building and sustaining a system that connects people with treatment, healthcare and social support.” By Karyn Sporer and Robert Glover, University of Maine via The Conversation Nearly 70,000 Americans died of a drug overdose in 2025. While that is a decline from the nearly 108,000 deaths recorded […]