Daily Drug War Digest -- September 8, 2026

Opium production is rebounding in Southwest Asia's Golden Crescent, German cannabis clubs keep popping up like weeds, and more. 

Afghan poppy farmers are taking their knowledge and skills with them to grow in Pakistan and Iran. (UNODC)

Marijuana Policy

Trump Frees Two More Federal Marijuana Prisoners. Last Thursday, President Trump commuted the sentences of two people doing time for federal marijuana offenses. 

Jerry Haymon IV had a 10-year mandatory minimum sentence for his role in a marijuana distribution conspiracy and was serving time on house arrest when he was granted clemency. 

Kevin Harden had been serving a 30-year sentence after being convicted of conspiracy to distribute marijuana when his sentence was commuted. Trump had granted his codefendant, James Romans, clemency on the last day of his first term. 

Both Harden and Haymon included a letter from boxer Mike Tyson in their clemency applications. In that letter, Tyson praised Trump for moving to reschedule marijuana and noted the irony of Americans still serving federal prison sentences for pot. 

"There are Americans still sitting in federal prison for the very conduct your order addresses, waiting to see if your historic words will extend to them," he wrote. "With two-thirds of Americans in support of marijuana legalization, not more punishment, the politics align with common sense policy. Yet individuals remain behind bars under outdated federal laws for conduct that today would not result in prison in much of the country.

"Granting clemency to non-violent marijuana offenders would reunite families, restore lost opportunity, and write the final chapter of the federal war on marijuana—a chapter that only you have the power to close," Tyson said. "It would be a legacy moment: bold, decisive, and right. I respectfully urge you to act."

International

Golden Crescent Opium Cultivation Rebounds. Writing for the International Drug Policy Consortium, long-time Southwest Asia poppy watcher David Mansfield reports that opium poppy cultivation is on the rise across the region. 

"There are signs of increased levels of poppy planting in Afghanistan in 2026, especially in Badakhshan in northeast Afghanistan, where widespread cultivation has persisted despite the Taliban's drug ban. There are also changing patterns of poppy cultivation in neighboring Pakistan and Iran, where farmers from southwest Afghanistan are increasingly relocating to cultivate poppy in response to the Taliban’s efforts to restrict opium production," Mansfield wrote.

"Of particular concern is the evidence of a further shift in both cultivation practices and scale, with large plots of drip-irrigated poppy in Sistan Balochistan province in Iran, and possibly across the border in Balochistan in Pakistan. In both areas, farmers from southwest Afghanistan are playing a significant role in what is an unprecedented development in the region, and a further indicator of the limits of state power in the increasingly restive tri-border area between Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iran," he noted. 

"Consequently, while many drug analysts and commentators focus on the risk synthetic opioids pose to consumers in Western Europe and consider widespread opium production in southwest Asia a thing of the past, evidence suggests a rapidly evolving situation in what used to be known as the 'Golden Crescent.' One in which supplies of heroin to Europe are sustained because of substantial opium stocks in Afghanistan and the relocation of cultivation into Pakistan and Iran, as well as innovation in cultivation practices and processing, including improved conversion rates for opium to heroin, and widespread adulteration of opiates consumed in the region."

Germany Has Approved 474 Cannabis Clubs, Up 62 Percent Since Last Summer. The Federal Association of Cannabis Cultivation Associations reports that there are now 474 marijuana cultivation associations—widely known as cannabis clubs—approved in the country, up from 293 in July 2005. That is a 62 percent increase in the past year. 

Authorities nationwide have received 908 applications. Of those, 474 were approved, 90 were rejected, 131 were withdrawn, and the rest are pending. 

The clubs are most popular in North Rhine-Westphalia, where 138 have been approved out of 246 applications. Next is Lower Saxony, with 99 approvals out of 148 applications. On the other end of the spectrum, Saarland has only approved one application, Bremen has approved four, and Mecklenburg-Western Pomeria has approved six. 

Germany has legalized marijuana possession and home cultivation but not legal sales. Members of cannabis clubs, however, can obtain up to 25 grams of weed per day and 50 grams per month. The clubs are limited to 500 members each.

New Zealand Approves MDMA to Treat Trauma.The island nation's pharmaceutical regulatory body, Medsafe, announced last Friday that it granted approval for two psychiatrists to prescribe pharmaceutical-grade MDMA for people suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). New Zealand now joins Australia as the only countries in the world to approve the drug for treating the disorder. Australia approved it in 2023.

"PTSD ruins lives and is difficult to treat," said Deputy Prime Minister David Seymour, who last year backed the approval of magic mushrooms to treat people with severe depression. "MDMA can be very effective at treating it through psychedelic-assisted therapy."

New Zealand is committed to opening access to "innovative treatments," Seymour said.

The US Food and Drug Administration rejected allowing MDMA for medical use in 2024, saying there was insufficient evidence it was safe and effective. But clinical trials are again ongoing now. 

The Ministry of Health said MDMA-assisted treatment would be combined with psychotherapy and stressed that patients would not be supplied drugs to take home.

"Treatment takes place in a controlled clinical setting under the care of an authorized psychiatrist and forms part of a comprehensive treatment plan," the ministry said.