The 13 members of the VOCM will temporarily take the market out off the hands of the illegal dealers by opening their doors for all, including non-residents, on May 5th, 2013, which is Annual Liberation Day in The Netherlands. The goal of this action is to reduce public nuisance and protect the health of every cannabis consumer (’regardless their nationality).

The 16th traditional annual demonstration, march and culturally uplightening event for the legalization of cannabis will take place on Saturday, May 4th, 2013, a part of the worldwide campaign Million (also Global) Marijuana March. The demonstration will commence at 12.30 PM by assembly at Karlovo náměstí in Prague, Czech Republic.

The event is organized by the Legalizace.cz citizens’ association and strives to express the citizens’ disapproval of the current anti-marijuana policy in our country. Furthermore, it aims to highlight key problems and imperfections of effective laws including the recently passed bill regarding medical marijuana. It also wishes to voice its solidarity with the victims of cannabis prohibition in this country and abroad. By way of this happening, thousands of citizens from the entire Czech Republic will join the hundreds of thousands of people and several hundred cities spanning five continents together in protest against the nonsensical and harmful worldwide prohibition of cannabis.

On January 11th, 2013, Bolivia rejoined the Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs, with a reservation to the articles that oblige the signing parties to abolish the traditional consumption of the coca leaf. Despite the opposition of the the International Narcotics Control Board and 15, especially Western countries, the United Nations had to accept the return of Bolivia under the new conditions.

This shows that the rules of the game in decision-making within the UN has changed. Twenty years ago it would have been unthinkable that the UN would adopt anything against the will of the collective formed by the U.S.A, Canada, the UK, Germany, Russia, France, Italy and Japan. But the days when the North could buy the votes of African and South American countries have gone.

Since 2005, Encod, a European platform of 150 organisations and individual citizens opposed to the war on drugs, is campaigning for what we call Freedom to Farm: every adult should have the right to grow and possess natural plants for personal use and non-commercial purposes, using all technical equipment that is available for this.

An investigation into the psychiatric and neuropsychological status of long-term ayahuasca users has been conducted by the Human Experimental Neuropsychopharmacology group of Hospital Sant Pau, in collaboration with researchers from several Spanish and Brazilian research centers and the Institute for Applied Amazonian Ethnopsychology (IDEAA), directed by psychiatrist Josep Maria Fábregas. The study’s first author is psychologist José Carlos Bouso, currently a member of the International Center for Ethnobotanical Education, Research & Service (ICEERS).