Tag: marijuana

Top Federal Health Official Says Abstinence-Only Drug Treatment Is ‘Magical’ Thinking That ‘Costs A Lot Of Lives’

A top federal health official is offering some pointed critiques of the U.S. drug criminalization model, stressing how politicizing addiction has fostered a system of incarceration that increases overdose risk while biasing research that could reveal the benefits, as well as the risks, of substances such as marijuana and psilocybin. She also rebuked treatment approaches that focus exclusively on abstinence.

National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) Director Nora Volkow made the comments in an appearance last month at the International Drug Policy Reform Conference, speaking on a panel with Drug Policy Alliance (DPA) Executive Director Kassandra Frederique.

One of the conversation points touched on the dangers of focusing on abstinence in drug treatment, rather than meeting people who use drugs where they’re at. The “inflexibility” of abstinence-only “costs a lot of lives,” Volkow said.

If a person wants to get treatment and abstain from drugs, “that’s great” as a “theoretical ideal,” the official said. “But to basically impose that as a reality for everyone—who have very different backgrounds and opportunities—I think it’s sort of like a magical thought and not practical.”

In general, the policies and strategies the U.S. has historically pursued to combat drug misuse are “not helping to address the overdose crisis,” evidenced by the fact that “overdose fatalities are continuing to rise,” Volkow argued.

“What it tells us is whatever we’re doing is clearly not sufficient. What do we need to do to change this?” she said at the panel, a recording of which was shared with Marijuana Moment. “This very polarized categorical perspective that it’s either, ‘you go abstinent or we don’t pay any attention to you and we send you to jail’ is catastrophic. I mean, it has basically contributed to what we’re seeing as a horrific problem in our country with horrible fatalities like we’ve never seen.”

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Raid On Unlicensed Marijuana Business On Tribal Land In Minnesota Raises Complex Legal And Political Questions

About three months ago, Mahnomen County sheriff’s deputies and White Earth tribal police raided Todd Thompson’s tobacco shop, seizing around seven pounds of cannabis, along with $3,000 in cash, his cell phone and surveillance system.

The August 2 raid happened the day after recreational marijuana became legal across the state and was the first major enforcement action under the new law.

But no charges have been filed in the case—and the state may not have the authority to prosecute him or any other tribal member for marijuana crimes on reservations.

Thompson, a member of the White Earth Nation, didn’t have a state permit to sell cannabis nor did he have the consent of the tribal council, which voted days earlier to allow adult-use cannabis and sell marijuana cultivated in its tribal-run facility.

For his part, Thompson doesn’t believe he needs the permission of the state or the tribal council to sell marijuana on the reservation under the Minnesota Chippewa Tribe’s constitution or U.S. treaties with the Ojibwe. That’s why Thompson said he and four other tribal members decided to sell cannabis out in the open from Asema Tobacco and Pipe, the store he’s run for five years in Mahnomen.

“We were pushing our rights,” Thompson said in an interview. “We’re just sick of being held down. And every economic opportunity, we’re held back from.”

They made it hard for law enforcement to ignore, advertising marijuana for sale with Facebook photos and videos showing large jars of green marijuana buds and invited people to come in.

The next day, tribal police and Mahnomen County sheriff’s deputies came to Thompson’s store with a search warrant. In the search warrant application filed in Minnesota district court, a White Earth narcotics investigator said they had seen a Facebook Live video of Thompson promoting the sale, and an undercover agent then purchased cannabis there.

Thompson said police handcuffed him and workers at his store and held them for more than an hour while they searched the premises.

He said they also went to his house, where they broke into his safe and “desecrated” sacred items—he found his eagle feather on the floor and the ashes from his sage bowl dumped onto his white sheets.

“They’re just some rotten, dirty bastards,” Thompson said.

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Prosecutors of 6-Year-Old Shooter’s Mother Claim Gun-Owning Pot Users Are ‘Inherently Dangerous’

On Wednesday, a federal judge sentenced Deja Taylor, a 26-year-old Virginia woman whose 6-year-old son used her pistol to shoot a teacher last January, to 21 months in prison for owning a gun while using marijuana. In June, Taylor pleaded guilty to violating 18 USC 922(g)(3), which makes it a felony, punishable by up to 15 years in prison, for an “unlawful user” of a “controlled substance” to possess a firearm. She also admitted that she falsely denied drug use on the form she filled out when she bought the pistol, a felony punishable by up to 10 years in prison.

“This case is not a marijuana case,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Lisa McKeel wrote in the government’s sentencing memorandum. “It is a case that underscores the inherently dangerous nature [of] and [the] circumstances that arise from the caustic cocktail of mixing consistent and prolonged controlled substance use with a lethal firearm.”

McKeel is partly right: Strictly speaking, this is a firearm case, not a marijuana case. Yet there would be no firearm case without federal marijuana prohibition. And while the evidence indicates that Taylor was neither a model gun owner nor a model cannabis consumer, her federal firearm offenses do not hinge on the details of her behavior. Survey data suggest that millions of Americans are gun-owning cannabis consumers, meaning they are guilty of the same felony that earned Taylor a prison sentence, even if they pose no danger to anyone. As a federal appeals court recently noted, that situation is hard to reconcile with “the right of the people to keep and bear arms.”

According to the National Survey on Drug Use and Health, over 60 million Americans used illegal drugs (mainly marijuana) in 2021. Based on surveys indicating that roughly one-third of American adults own guns, we can surmise that something like 20 million people violated Section 922(g)(3) that year. Yet on average, federal prosecutors file just 120 charges under that provision each year. In other words, only a minuscule percentage of the potential defendants will ever become actual defendants.

It is no mystery why Taylor ended up being part of that tiny minority. First, her marijuana use attracted official attention as a result of the investigation that followed her son’s January 6 assault on Abigail Zwerner, a teacher at Richneck Elementary School in Newport News, who underwent five surgeries to repair the damage that the bullet he fired did to her hand and lung. Second, that investigation also revealed a pattern of irresponsible conduct, which was not legally necessary to prosecute Taylor’s firearm offenses but surely played a role in the decision to pursue a federal case.

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Marijuana Helps People Quit Using Prescription Sleep Aids And Allows Them To Wake Up More Focused And Refreshed, Study Indicates

A new survey of cannabis consumers with sleep issues found that most preferred to use marijuana instead of other sleep aids to help get to bed, reporting better outcomes the next morning and fewer side effects. Smoking joints or vaping products that contained THC, CBD and the terpene myrcene were especially popular.

Compared to using conventional sleep aids or no sleep aids at all, respondents reported that cannabis made them feel more refreshed, focused and better able to function the morning after, with fewer headaches and less nausea. But they also reported some side effects from marijuana use, including waking up feeling sleepy, anxious and irritable.

The study, conducted by a pair of psychology researchers at Washington State University (WSU), was published late last month in the journal Exploration of Medicine. Authors say they believe it’s the first research comparing cannabis to prescription sleep aids (PSAs) and over-the-counter (OTC) sleep aids.

“In general, the use of cannabis for sleep-related issues was perceived as more advantageous than over-the-counter medications or prescription sleeps aids,” Carrie Cuttler, a WSU professor and one of the study co-authors, said in a press release on Monday. “Unlike long-acting sedatives and alcohol, cannabis was not associated with a ‘hangover’ effect, although individuals reported some lingering effects such as sleepiness and changes in mood.”

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Smoking cannabis can make you more empathetic, according to a new study

Stoners are better at empathising than those who don’t use the drug, a new study has found.

People who regularly enjoy a joint are better at recognising other people’s feelings and putting themselves in someone else’s shoes. 

Researchers from the Universidad Nacional Autónoma in Mexico asked 81 cannabis users and 51 people who didn’t use the psychoactive drug to complete a 33-item questionnaire that measured empathetic skills.

It looked at perspective taking – the capacity to place oneself in the shoes of another – and emotional comprehension, which is spotting and understanding other people’s emotions.

The scientists also analysed whether or not volunteers could tune in to positive or negative feelings, and behave accordingly.

Roughly half of the week smokers and two thirds of the non-users then underwent brain scans to look for differences in activity in areas associated with sensing the emotions in others.

Results published in the Journal of Neuroscience Research showed that cannabis users scored higher on the empathy test, and had greater connectivity in areas involved with emotion, such as the anterior cingulate near the front of the brain.

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 House Speaker Mike Johnson’s ‘adopted’ 40-year-old son Michael Tirrell James in court on charges of running illegal cannabis business and possession of brass knuckles – as it’s revealed rap sheet goes back to 2003

The ‘adopted’ black son of new House Speaker Mike Johnson has spoken out for the first time in an exclusive interview with DailyMail.com.

Michael Tirrell James said he would ‘probably be in prison’ were it not for Johnson – after he appeared in a Los Angeles court Wednesday on charges of running an illegal cannabis business and possessing brass knuckles.

James has never taken part in publicity for Johnson’s political campaigns, and little has been known about the 40-year-old father of four.

But now DailyMail.com can reveal how the top GOP lawmaker and his wife Kelly informally adopted James after meeting him while doing charitable community work in Louisiana in the 1990s.

James went on to have a string of conflicts with law enforcement, beginning just a few years after the Johnsons took him in, and continuing to this day.

His rap sheet extends back to 2003 and includes a long list of drug-related and other petty crimes, some of which landed him in jail, DailyMail.com can reveal.

The 51-year-old House Speaker, elected October 25 after three weeks of confusion following the ousting of previous Speaker Kevin McCarthy, has revealed he informally adopted James, a Baton Rouge then-teenager, and raised him during the first few years of his marriage.

James told DailyMail.com: ‘If the Johnsons hadn’t taken me in as a teenager, my life would look very different today. I would probably be in prison or I might not have made it at all.’

The Louisiana Republican congressman first met James in 1996 while volunteering with Young Life, a Christian ministry catering to middle and high school teens.

The future speaker, then a 24-year-old law school student, became a mentor for the 14-year-old boy, a source close to the Speaker’s office said.

When James became homeless in 1999 age 16, newlyweds Mike and Kelly Johnson took him in, filing papers with the local Baton Rouge district court to become his legal guardians.

His life appears to have gotten back on track after the informal adoption. He earned his G.E.D. and graduated from a Job Corps program in 2002, and even ‘began to refer to the Johnsons as his parents, and they regarded him as a son,’ the source said.

The Johnsons later had four biological children: Jack, Will, Hannah, and Abigail.

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Nevada Commission Seeks Comment On Plan To Let People With Marijuana Convictions Become Police Officers

A Nevada commission will hear public comment this week on a proposal that would amend hiring standards for police officers to allow job candidates who were previously disqualified for certain marijuana-related offenses to be eligible for law enforcement positions.

The change being considered by the state Commission on Peace Officer Standards and Training (POST) at Thursday meeting would amend regulations around hiring that currently prevent a person from becoming a peace officer if they have been convicted of an offense involving the unlawful use, sale or possession of a controlled substance.

The new language would state that the restriction doesn’t apply “to a person who has been convicted of an offense involving the unlawful use, sale, or possession of marijuana if the offense is not unlawful at the time the person submits an application for certification as a police officer.”

A notice of intent says the change would expand the pool of eligible candidates for law enforcement positions and “aid agencies in the ability to fill much needed positions.” There would be no adverse effects from the change, it says, nor additional costs to regulators.

Members of the public wishing to comment on the proposal can either appear in person at the October 26 meeting, held at 8 a.m. in Napa Room B of the Southpoint Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas.

Approval of the change would not mean that officers could use cannabis once employed, but it would represent a significant policy change, especially given that the current rules are written in a way that explicitly emphasizes the no-tolerance policy for marijuana.

“As with any psychoactive drug, POST strongly believes there is no room for marijuana usage in the policing profession,” the current administration manual says. “POST strongly encourages law enforcement agencies across the state to adopted [sic] policies prohibiting the on or off duty recreational or medical use of marijuana.”

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New York Officials Debunk ‘Misinformation’ About Fentanyl-Laced Marijuana

New York marijuana regulators are working to debunk what they say is the “false” narrative that cannabis is commonly contaminated with fentanyl—a “misconception” that remains “widespread” despite a lack of evidence.

The state Office of Cannabis Management (OCM) recently put out a factsheet on the issue, acknowledging that while fentanyl has been found in drugs like MDMA and heroin, anecdotal claims about marijuana laced with the potent opioid are so far unfounded.

OCM published the two-page document—titled “Cannabis and Fentanyl: Facts and Unknowns”—to “address misconceptions about cannabis being mixed with fentanyl,” it said. “The goal of this fact sheet is to provide evidence where it is available, to share information about what is currently known and unknown, and to provide safety tips to help alleviate some of these misconceptions, often spread through misinformed media coverage and anecdotal reporting.”

“Misinformation related to the danger of accidental overdose due to cannabis ‘contaminated’ with fentanyl remains widespread,” the office said. “Anecdotal reports of fentanyl ‘contaminated’ cannabis continue to be found to be false, as of the date of this publication” last week.

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FBI Report Says 3 In 10 Drug Arrests Are For Marijuana, But Agency’s Inconsistent Data Hinders Policy Analysis

Arrests for marijuana made up nearly a third of all drug arrests in the United States in 2022, according to a newly released report from the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). As with last year’s report, however, inconsistencies in the data and recent changes to the agency’s methodology make it difficult to draw year-to-year comparisons or meaningful conclusions about cannabis and broader drug enforcement trends.

The data, according to FBI, comes from more than 11 million criminal offenses reported to the Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program, which is submitted by 13,293 law enforcement agencies and 2,431 other agencies whose jurisdictions comprise more than 90 percent of the country’s population.

“Of the 18,884 state, county, city, university and college, and tribal agencies eligible to participate in the UCR Program, 15,724 agencies submitted data in 2022,” the bureau said in a press release about its annual 2022 Crime in the Nation statistics.

Because not all agencies provide data for the complete reporting periods, FBI explains in a methodology section of its website, the bureau calculates estimated crime numbers, essentially extrapolating “by following a standard estimation procedure using the data provided.” In terms of total reported arrests for “drug abuse violations,” for example, FBI said there were 766,595 arrests. The estimated number of arrests for drug abuse violations, by contrast, is 907,958.

Those numbers, however, aren’t consistent throughout the FBI report. In a section on arrests by region, FBI said there were 726,746 total drug arrests in 2022—nearly 40,000 fewer than its top-level number. In an analysis of  historical trends, meanwhile, FBI reported just 633,576 drug arrests in 2022. A section on racial breakdowns says there were 714,442 drug abuse violations.

Other sections list “drug/narcotic offenses” for the year at 1,459,460, the number of arrestees for drug/narcotic offenses at 787,347 and the total number of drug/narcotics offenders at 1,755,788. The agency further said there were 902,482 crimes involving a person’s suspected use of drugs other than alcohol in 2022.

FBI’s press office did not immediately respond to an email from Marijuana Moment requesting clarification on the conflicting numbers.

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