Tag: cannabis

Lawmakers Debate Whether Marijuana Legalization Helps Or Hurts Organized Crime At Hearing On Chinese-Linked Illicit Grows

A GOP-led House committee held a hearing on Thursday focused on Chinese criminal organizations behind large-scale illicit marijuana grows, taking testimony from a group of law enforcement officials and a researcher who each attempted to link the issue to state-level legalization.

But one Democratic lawmaker took the opportunity to make the case for cannabis rescheduling and broader federal reform to mitigate the issue.

The House Homeland Security Subcommittee on Oversight, Investigations, & Accountability hearing was titled “Invasion of the Homeland: How China is Using Illegal Marijuana to Build a Criminal Network Across America.”

While there was some talk among experts and lawmakers about differentiating state-sanctioned cannabis cultivation from the illicit market, the conversation largely skewed prohibitionist. Witnesses included a former Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) agent, top Oklahoma law enforcement official and a researcher with the conservative Heritage Foundation think tank.

The subcommittee chairman, Rep. Josh Brecheen (R-OK) said in his opening remarks that “we’ve enabled these foreign organizations with potential links to the [Chinese Community Party, or CCP] to build up a sophisticated network throughout the United States, which facilitates a wide range of other criminal activity and presents a national security threat.”

“This is a convergence of organized crime, human drug trafficking, public health risks—all operating at scale and sophistication crossing the state national lines beyond the normal capabilities of state and local law enforcement to combat,” he said. “These agencies need the help of federal law enforcement to unravel these criminal networks.”

Rep. Troy Carter (D-LA), however, spoke about the collateral consequences of prohibition, saying the “federal government’s decision to criminalize marijuana has been nothing short of disastrous for our communities, for our economy and for justice in America.”

“The failed war against cannabis has especially devastated Black and brown communities. Arrest and incarceration rates for marijuana offenses have been wildly disproportionate,” he said. “Today, with most Americans supporting legalization, it is past time that we acknowledge the truth: Marijuana prohibition has failed.”

“If we want to dismantle foreign criminal networks and protect American communities, then we need to strengthen, not weaken, regulated markets,” Carter said.

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Feds provide anti-cannabis group a platform to bash legalization

A federal health agency on Monday hosted a leading marijuana prohibitionist group for an event focused on cannabis use trends and youth prevention, giving the organization a prominent platform for a discussion that largely promoted an anti-reform agenda.

The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Service Administration (SAMHSA) invited Kevin Sabet, president of Smart Approaches to Marijuana (SAM), to speak at a webinar on cannabis-related emergency incidents, the “potential negative impacts of state legalization” and methods of deterring youth usage.

The conversation skewed heavily toward the prohibition side of the cannabis reform debate, with Rear Admiral Christopher Jones, the director of SAMHSA’s Center for Substance Abuse Prevention, opening by overviewing data on “an upward trajectory of marijuana use” and its potential harms.

“What we hope to do today is sort of unpack some of the data that are underneath these trends,” he said. “But certainly the recent uptick is concerning as we look at past-month marijuana use.”

While Jones acknowledged that youth cannabis usage in recent years as more states have legalized cannabis have been “a little bit flatter” compared to rising use rates for adults, there was no discussion about how that might be related to the enactment of regulated markets for adults, which require IDs to ensure that underage people are not accessing the products. A question about the issue submitted by Marijuana Moment during the event was not addressed.

Sabet, for his part, accused pro-legalization advocates and industry stakeholders of selectively promoting data around youth consumption trends to demonstrate that legalization is not associated with an increase among that cohort.

“What you will find the industry often do is cherry pick some of those studies and find one or two states in the timeframe that suits them to show that there was a decrease—you know, remarkably worse there—or there was no increase, they often say, because it’s even hard for them to say there’s a decrease,” Sabet said. “That’s almost impossible. But they can finagle the numbers to say that there was no increase.”

SAMHSA’s just this summer put out data showing that youth cannabis consumption has remained stable amid the state legalization movement.

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California Professor Indicted for Assaulting Federal Agents During Marijuana Farm Raid

A federal grand jury indicted a professor at California State University Channel Islands who is charged with throwing a tear gas canister at federal agents executing a search warrant at a marijuana farm in Camarillo this summer. The grand jury returned the indictment on Wednesday.

Jonathan Caravello, 37, of Ventura, California, is charged with one count of assault on a federal officer using a deadly or dangerous weapon. Caravello, who is free on $15,000 bond, is expected to be arraigned in the coming weeks in the United States District Court in Los Angeles.

According to the indictment and court documents previously filed in this case, on July 10, federal agents with Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) and United States Border Patrol executed a high-risk search warrant at a marijuana farm sitting on a 160-acre property in Camarillo. A group of protesters gathered near law enforcement personnel around the farm’s entrance and used their bodies and their vehicles to impede law enforcement from exiting the location.

According to the United States Attorney’s Office for the Central District of Los Angeles, protesters became violent, throwing rocks at the government vehicles attempting to depart the location because of the danger posed by the protesters. The thrown rocks broke windows and side-view mirrors, among other damage to the government vehicles driven by authorities participating in the immigration enforcement action.

The indictment indicated law enforcement agents on the scene in Camarillo deployed tear gas to assist with crowd control and ensure officer safety. The measure also allowed law enforcement to depart the location. Border Patrol agents rolled tear gas canisters by protesters’ feet at which time the indictment alleged Caravello ran up to one of the canisters and attempted to kick it. After the canister rolled past him, Caravello turned around, ran towards the canister, picked it up, and threw it overhand back at Border Patrol agents.

Border Patrol agents eventually arrested Caravello, who continuously kicked his legs and refused to give agents his arms during the arrest.

Breitbart Texas reported in July that federal officials were offering a reward of up to $50,000 for information leading to the arrest of another suspect in the assaults on agents during this operation.

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526 Members of Congress Decline to Join Anti-Marijuana Rescheduling Letter to AG Bondi, Just 9 Sign On, Down From 25 in 2024

The signatories include Representatives Pete Sessions (TX), Andy Harris (MD), Robert Aderholt (AL), Paul Gosar (AZ), Chip Roy (TX), Blake Moore (UT), Gary Palmer (AL), David Rouzer (NC), and Mary Miller (IL). No senators signed the letter.

The contrast with last year is stark. In 2024, Smart Approaches to Marijuana (SAM) circulated a similar letter opposing rescheduling that drew the support of 25 lawmakers, including several U.S. senators. This year’s version secured less than half as many backers, with support confined entirely to a small bloc of House Republicans.

The letter, led by Congressman Pete Sessions, warns that rescheduling would provide tax benefits to marijuana businesses and drug cartels, while citing concerns about addiction, mental health impacts, and links to foreign crime organizations. Despite these claims, the limited number of signatures—despite the letter being heavily circulated among lawmakers—underscores the declining influence of marijuana reform opponents in Congress.

With public opinion polls consistently showing majority support for legalization and more states moving to regulate marijuana, the shrinking list of congressional voices against reform highlights how rapidly the political landscape is shifting. Opposition to rescheduling, once much broader, is now increasingly isolated to a small group of lawmakers.

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The 10th Circuit Agrees That Prosecuting Cannabis Consumers for Gun Possession May Be Unconstitutional

On a Friday in May 2022, Jared Harrison was on his way to work at an Oklahoma medical marijuana dispensary when a police officer stopped him for running a red light. When Harrison rolled down his window, the officer smelled marijuana. A search of the car discovered a loaded revolver, a pill bottle containing a few partially smoked joints, another joint in a console tray, and a backpack containing marijuana, THC gummies, and two THC vape cartridges.

Because Harrison did not have a state-issued medical marijuana card, he was charged with illegal possession of cannabis under state law, a misdemeanor. But he also faced a felony charge under 18 USC 922(g)(3), the federal law that bars illegal drug users from possessing firearms. That charge, he argued, violated the Second Amendment. A federal judge agreed, ruling in February 2023 that the government had failed to show Harrison’s prosecution was “consistent with this Nation’s historical tradition of firearm regulation”—the constitutional test that the U.S. Supreme Court established in the 2022 case New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen.

This week the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 10th Circuit reversed that ruling and remanded the case for further consideration. The 10th Circuit’s decision in United States v. Harrison, because it endorsed U.S. District Judge Patrick Wyrick’s reasoning in nearly all respects, nevertheless represents another in a series of blows to a policy that affects millions of peaceful Americans, depriving them of the constitutional right to armed self-defense for no good reason.

As it has in other Section 922(g)(3) cases, the government argued that cannabis consumers are not part of “the people” whose “right to keep and bear arms” is guaranteed by the Second Amendment because they are not “law-abiding.” Wyrick made short work of that claim, noting that the Supreme Court has said “the people,” as used in the Bill of Rights, “unambiguously refers to all members of the political community, not an unspecified subset.”

The government’s argument amounted to “an outright declaration of the federal government’s belief that it can deprive practically anyone of their Second Amendment right,” Wyrick added. “Who among us, after all, isn’t a ‘lawbreaker’? For sure, there
may well exist some adult[s] who [have] never exceeded the speed limit, changed lanes without signaling, or failed to come to a complete stop at a stop sign, but they are few and far between.”

The three-judge 10th Circuit panel unanimously agreed with Wyrick on this point. “A contrary conclusion would defy law and logic,” Judge Veronica Rossman, a Joe Biden appointee, writes in the majority opinion, which was joined in full by Judge Michael R. Murphy, who was nominated by Bill Clinton, and in part by Judge Paul J. Kelly Jr., who was appointed by George H.W. Bush. “The First and Fourth Amendments also refer to the ‘people,’ and nobody contends only ‘law-abiding citizens’ enjoy the rights protected by these constitutional guarantees….Restricting the Second Amendment to ‘law-abiding’ citizens—as the government urges us to do—would make it harder to administer and would risk turning it into ‘a second-class right.'”

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Cannabis Use Linked to Lower Inflammation Among People With HIV or Methamphetamine Disorder

The research, published in the journal Viruses, involved 234 participants, including 86 people with HIV (PWH) and 148 without HIV (PWoH). Participants provided blood and urine samples and completed assessments covering medical, psychiatric, and substance use history. Researchers analyzed markers of immune activity and inflammation, focusing on CXCL10/IP-10, CCL2/MCP-1, ICAM-1, and VCAM-1.

Results showed that participants with HIV had higher levels of CXCL10/IP-10 compared to those without HIV, confirming heightened inflammation in this group. However, cannabis use was independently linked to lower CXCL10/IP-10 levels overall. Among people with lifetime MUD, cannabis use was also tied to reduced levels of CCL2/MCP-1, ICAM-1, and VCAM-1, suggesting cannabis may mitigate immune overactivation in this population. Interestingly, only participants without HIV displayed cannabis-associated reductions in VCAM-1.

The authors conclude that cannabis use is associated with lower concentrations of key immune and inflammatory molecules in individuals with HIV or MUD. They suggest that cannabinoid pathways could offer a promising target for treating complications tied to chronic inflammation.

This study adds to a growing body of evidence that cannabinoids may hold therapeutic value in managing immune dysfunction and inflammation, particularly among populations facing elevated risks due to substance use or chronic conditions.

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Federal Appeals Court Says Government Must Prove Marijuana Users ‘Pose A Risk’ Of Danger To Justify Gun Ban

A federal appeals court has ruled that the government must prove that people who use marijuana “pose a risk of future danger” if it wants to justify applying a law banning cannabis consumers from owning firearms.

In its opinion on Tuesday, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit sided with a federal district court that dismissed an indictment against Jared Michael Harrison, who was charged in Oklahoma in 2022 after police discovered cannabis and a handgun in his vehicle during a traffic stop.

The case has now been remanded to that lower court, which determined that the current statute banning “unlawful” users of marijuana from possessing firearms, known as 922(g)(3), violates the Second Amendment of the Constitution.

The Justice Department appealed that ruling in 2023, sending it to the Tenth Circuit. That three-judge panel said they “agree with much of the district court’s analysis” of the legal considerations, including its challenge to the federal government’s claims that there is historically analogous precedent substantiating the firearm ban for cannabis consumers.

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Anti-Drug, Law Enforcement And Religious Groups Urge Trump To Oppose Marijuana Rescheduling

A coalition of anti-marijuana, law enforcement and religious groups are imploring President Donald Trump to oppose a cannabis rescheduling proposal that he says his administration will decide on within weeks.

Led by Smart Approaches to Marijuana (SAM), the coalition sent a letter to the president on Monday, saying the organizations “strongly urge that you reject reclassifying marijuana as a Schedule III drug” under the Controlled Substances Act (CSA), a move that Trump had endorsed during last year’s campaign.

One signatory of the letter, the Drug Enforcement Association of Federal Narcotics Agents, represents personnel at the Drug Enforcement Administration, the agency that the cannabis reform proposal currently sits before.

“President Trump has an opportunity to make a stand for the safety of children across America by opposing the flawed proposal to reschedule marijuana,” SAM President Kevin Sabet said in a press release. “Marijuana has not been approved for any medical use by the FDA, nor has any raw plant. And it likely never will. It is an addictive drug with a high risk of abuse. That’s why it sat in Schedule I for decades and why it must stay there.”

Cannabis is currently classified as a Schedule I drug, but the Biden administration initiated a scientific review that led it to it to propose moving it to Schedule III. That wouldn’t federally legalize the plant, but it would allow state-licensed marijuana businesses to take federal tax deductions and remove certain barriers to research.

In the letter, the organizations acknowledged that the argument that marijuana shouldn’t be placed in the same schedule as heroin are “politically salient and easy to understand.” However, they said reform advocates “fundamentally misunderstand how drug scheduling works.”

“Contrary to popular belief, drug scheduling is not a harm index,” they said. “Rather, it balances the accepted medical use of a substance with its potential for abuse.”

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Oklahoma Bureau of Narcotics shuts down illegal marijuana farms

Oklahoma Bureau of Narcotics agents, with assistance from multiple sheriff’s departments and county commissioners, served search warrants at three marijuana farms in southwestern Oklahoma, seizing over 40,000 plants and more than 1,000 pounds of processed marijuana.

The farms, located near Tipton, Frederick, and Grandfield, were targeted as part of an ongoing investigation into black market marijuana trafficking and fraud. Five people are currently in ICE custody, and investigators expect more arrests.

“We were at the height of this 8,400 grows, seen as the wild west of weed,” said Mark Woodward, with the Oklahoma Bureau of Narcotics. “We’ve really flipped the script, OBN is going to put your business under a microscope, if you’re a criminal you’re going to go to fail.”

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Scientists Find First Evidence of Rare Compounds in Cannabis Leaves

Scientists in South Africa say they have found the first evidence of a rare class of phenolics, called ‘flavoalkaloids’, in leaves from the cannabis plant.

Phenolic compounds, especially flavonoids, are well-known and sought after in the pharmaceutical industry because of their antioxidant, anti-inflammatory, and anti-carcinogenic properties.

Researchers from Stellenbosch University have identified 79 phenolic compounds in three strains of cannabis grown commercially in South Africa, of which 25 were reported in the plant for the first time.

Sixteen of these compounds were tentatively identified as ‘flavoalkaloids’, and were mainly found in the leaves of only one of the strains. The findings are published in the Journal of Chromatography A,

First author, Dr Magriet Muller, an analytical chemist in the LC-MS laboratory of the Central Analytical Facility (CAF) at Stellenbosch University, says the analysis of plant phenolics is challenging due to their low concentration and extreme structural diversity.

“Most plants contain highly complex mixtures of phenolic compounds, and while flavonoids occur widely in the plant kingdom, the flavoalkaloids are very rare in nature,” she explains.

“We know that Cannabis is extremely complex – it contains more than 750 metabolites – but we did not expect such high variation in phenolic profiles between only three strains, nor to detect so many compounds for the first time in the species. Especially the first evidence of flavoalkaloids in Cannabis was very exciting.”

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