The Danish National Institute of Public Health has released its latest findings. School aged kids binge drink less alcohol but are replacing it with cannabis. Obviously in a perfect world, no school kids would bother with cannabis but in the real world, younger people have tried and will continue to try cannabis. It is certainly less damaging than booze, but too much of anything is going to create problems. Half of Danish school boys and a third of girls have smoked cannabis. A little over a third of all Danes have tried pot. That is a lot by European standards.

New figures from the Danish National Institute of Public Health show that cannabis use is up among high school students while drinking is down.

According to a survey from the Danish National Institute of Public Health (Statens Institut for Folkesundhed), cannabis use has increased significantly amongst teenaged Danes. Since 1996, the number of male high school students who have experimented with cannabis has grown from 26 to 50 percent. Usage amongst girls has gone from 19 to 31 percent over the same time period. 

Twelve percent of the 70,000 respondents said that they have smoked marijuana in the past month and 6.8 percent of girls and 22 percent of boys said they have done it at least ten times. 

The purity and potency of illegal drugs is Europe is on the rise, according to a new report by the European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction (EMCDDA). In its annual analysis of European drug trends, the EMCDDA also found that heroin use was in decline, that London's sewers had the highest concentration of cocaine among all European capitals, and that two new psychoactive substances hit the market every week.

Yesterday several thousand Danes marched  for the right to fire a fatty.

The bar around the hemp plants and fired so many joints that the photographer Ekstra Bladets felt unbalanced as he left the many demonstrators. Several thousand festive Danes going through the windy streets of Copenhagen in the battle for free hash of the Global Marijuana March.

- It is time that hemp is free, wrote Klaus Trier Tuxen in a press release prior to the demonstration.

He is president of the Hemp Party, which was co-organizer of the march.

A recent study has shown that a higher number of Danes either smoke cannabis regularly or have at least tried it than previously believed.

Aarhus University’s Centre for Alcohol and Drug Research revealed that around 17,000 Danes between the ages of 15 and 25 smoke the drug at least 20 days a month, while the Danish Health and Medicine Authority (Sundhedsstyrelsen) had previously put that figure at 11,000.

The research also revealed that 43 per cent on young Danes had tried cannabis, with one in 10 of them having smoked it in the past month. Furthermore, only a few days before the numbers were published, the Danish National Institute of Public Health (Statens Institut for Folkesundhed) released data showing that almost one in four 15-year-old boys had tried cannabis.

In Europe, the legislation varied from one country to another. And the most stringent laws do not necessarily produce the best effects.

According to the French Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction (OFDT), nearly one in two French smoked cannabis. However, France has one of the toughest laws on drug use, even so-called "soft" drugs. In Europe, laws differ. On one hand the countries that decriminalize, are tolerant, do not condemn. And conversely those which are very severe. Scientific studies are struggling to establish links between the laws in force and the actual consumption of drugs. If consumption is sometimes tolerated in different forms, the sale and cultivation of cannabis are of course mostly misdemeanors.

Countries that tolerate

A study released last week from Aarhus University’s Centre for Alcohol and Drug Research showed that some 17,000 Danes between the ages of 15 and 25 smoke cannabis at least 20 days per month. Previously, the Danish Health and Medicine Authority (Sundhedsstyrelsen) presumed that the number was just 11,000. 

The study also showed that 43 percent of Danish youths have tried cannabis and that one in ten has smoked it within the past month. 

“Cannabis abuse is a bigger problem than previously assumed,” Mads Uffe Pedersen, a professor at the Centre for Alcohol and Drug Research, told Kristeligt Dagblad.

83 people have been imprisoned for taking part in an organised drug trade in the Christiania commune in Copenhagen, following what some have described as the biggest drugs bust in Denmark’s history.

76 people were convicted of drug dealing during five hearings which were carried out on consecutive days this week. Seven people were also handed prison sentences in an earlier hearing in January as part of the same investigation, dubbed ‘Operation Pusherstreet’ by the police.

The sentences total 220 years of prison time, with the longest one lasting five and a half years, and the shortest six months.

A number of US states have legalized cannabis, and many more are expected to follow. Therefore, the industry explosive growth, and attract large investors. Berlingske Business Magazine took to speed dating between entrepreneurs and investors in San Francisco.

Brian MacKay looks frantically around the room. Is there an opening at a table?

Speed ​​Dating is stressful, especially when you are not looking for true love, but by an investor who can keep alive one's business.

He's worming its way into at a table and immediately starts to pitch his idea to the five men around the table. They study him with a closer look as to assess whether there sits a coming golden egg in front of them.