In the Strait of Gibraltar (Spain) (AFP) - As the powerful motors of their speedboat roared, Spanish police used a thermal imaging camera to scan the sea in the Strait of Gibraltar for traffickers smuggling hashish from Morocco.

It's just after midnight and the cameras and radars that monitor the coast detect a dodgy-looking boat.

The control centre informs police in Algeciras, a port city in southern Spain just 90 minutes by ferry from Morocco, and three officers immediately jump into the boat to investigate.

"They are likely looking for a place to unload their merchandise," said one of them, Jesus, who declined to give his last name.

By Russ Belville

While South Africa’s parliament continues to struggle with whether to legalize dagga (marijuana) or just allow medical marijuana use, the rest of the African continent continues to produce and use cannabis at rates that rival North America.

An important report by the West Africa Commission on Drugs (WACD) in June 2014, "Not Just for Transit: Drugs, the State and Society in West Africa", emphasized decriminalizing some degree of narcotic drug use and possession for personal use, while calling for drug traffickers and their accomplices to face the full force of the law. This sensible recommendation is particularly appropriate for marijuana or cannabis, which is widely cultivated and used in West Africa. Its users, partly because they are mostly young and poor, continue to be disproportionately penalized by the criminal justice systems in the region - a serious human rights and governance problem. This violation must be urgently stopped.

Here's an alphabetical list of Countries and States that have legalized treating yourself with the natural plant, cannabis: 

The first up is Argentina where it's legal for personal use in small amounts (in private).

Australia: Illegal (decriminalized in some states) One or two plants may be privately grown for personal use in the Australian Capital Territory and South Australia. Personal grows of up to two plants are decriminalized in the Northern Territory.

Belize: Illegal, but mostly tolerated.

Bolivia: Illegal (but decriminalized).

Botswana: Illegal, but mostly unenforced.

It could generate $79.8 billion a year and Africa is already the biggest cannabis producer in the world.

THE buzzword in relation to Africa is that the continent is rising and one of the key pillars championed to keep it rising is agriculture. 

Take the 2003 Maputo Declaration target for example, African governments pledged to allocate 10% of their national budgets to the sector, but the continent could be missing out on a potential cash crop that could transform the lives of smallholder farmers and economies dramatically: marijuana.  

On Friday night, while DJ Abstrakt was thrilling fans at the popular Persia Club at TRM along Thika road, National Environment Management Authority (Nema) officials walked into the venue in the company of police and ordered that the music be put off.

It was a moment of panic as the huge crowd of revellers, mostly university students, watched the officers summon the DJ, before whisking him away.

Rumours broke out that he was spinning under the influence of ‘something’ but Pulse would later establish that his arrest had to do with the Nema licence at the club.

After his arrest, he was locked up at Kamukunji and not even efforts by his friends, who camped outside the station pleading for his release, could get him bailed out.

For several years, the annual reports of the United Nations Office against Drugs and Crime (UNODC) and the International Narcotics Control Strategy Report (INCSR) indicate a net decrease in the production of cannabis cultivation in Morocco. But if the land areas used for this crop have undoubtedly been reduced since that Rabat has engaged in a "war against drugs" in 1992, cannabis resin production has not decreased in same proportions.

A real gap between the assessment of Moroccan hashish production made by UNODC or INCSR and quantities of cannabis seized in Europe and Morocco, thus casting serious doubt on the figures.

Evidence is mounting that moderate coffee intake may protect us from a range of diseases, and even increase life span.

So is it OK to be addicted to coffee? 

In March this year, after a project that lasted just shy of two decades, scientists at Japan's National Cancer Centre released some intriguing results.

Their study, published in The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, tracked the lives – and sometimes deaths – of more than  90,000 people. Its conclusion was remarkable: "The habitual intake of coffee is associated with lower risk of total mortality and three leading causes of death in Japan."

The Executive Director of Tema based anti-narcotics organisation Creg Afful Foundation, Michael Creg Afful has charged Ghanaians, especially religious leaders to reject calls by some persons in the entertainment industry advocating for marijuana to be legalised in the country.

According to him, such a call is borne out of an evil agenda aimed to devastate the country’shuman resources,adding that it is also intended to putstrings on financial fortunesof prospective wee or marijuana smokers.

Controversial radio presenterand reggae musician Blakk Rasta and a popularhiplife artiste Kwaw Kesse aka “abodam” have proposed that it was about time that “wee” or “marijuana” was legalised in the countrydue to its economic benefits.