
Feature, not a bug.


Because they work on the front lines, healthcare workers are eligible to skip to the front of the line to receive the jab of the vaccine that was developed in record time. However, despite assurances from vaccine makers and their revolving door friends in the Food and Drug Administration, many of these front line workers are leery of this rushed product.
“I think I would take the vaccine later on, but right now I am a little leery of it,” nurse Yolanda Dodson, 55, who works at the Montefiore Hospital in New York City and spent the spring in the heart of the deadly fight against the virus told AFP.
“Vaccine studies so far “look promising but I don’t think there is enough data yet,” Dodson said.
“This is a vaccine that was developed in less than a year and approved under the same administration and government agencies that allowed the virus to spread like a wildfire,” Diana Torres, a nurse at a Manhattan hospital who saw several of her co-workers die of the virus this spring, said.
“They didn’t have enough time and people to study the vaccine,” she said. “This time around I will pass and watch how it unfolds.”
“They failed miserably with PPE (personal protective equipment) and testing and now they want you to be guinea pigs for the vaccine,” Torres friend added.
These are front line health care workers, experiencing the pandemic every day of their lives, and yet they remain skeptical — and rightfully so.
What’s more, the government’s selective approval process has been less than stellar given the opioid epidemic, and the millions of people harmed by FDA-approved medications. Highlighting the lapse in their judgement is the fact that as the government fast tracks this vaccine to market, cannabis — that has never killed a single person and has been around as long as we have — remains classified as follows:
a drug with no currently accepted medical use and a high potential for abuse.
Seems legit.



The House on Friday passed a landmark bill that would remove federal penalties on marijuana and erase cannabis-related criminal records.
The bill passed by a vote of 228-164, with several Republicans on board. While the MORE Act is not expected to come up in the Senate this year, and likely won’t in the next session of Congress either, its passage nevertheless marks a monumental step in marijuana policy.
Officials in San Francisco have banned all tobacco smoking inside apartments, citing concerns about secondhand smoke. Don’t worry though the ban only includes tobacco products, smoking pot in your home is still allowed.
According to the San Francisco Chronicle, the Board of Supervisors voted 10-1 Tuesday to approve the ordinance making San Francisco the largest city in the country to ban tobacco smoking inside apartments.
Apparently, the reason marijuana smoking isn’t banned is that such a ban would not provide any space for people to actually legally smoke pot, as it’s still illegal under state law to smoke pot in public places.

New Jersey lawmakers may include a so-called social equity tax in the legislation establishing a legal market for recreational marijuana, according to reports.
Bills in the state Senate and Assembly would give cannabis regulators the authority to impose the “social equity excise fee,” which would help fund programs aimed at reducing racial disparities caused by drug laws.
The influential Legislative Black Caucus has lobbied for programs aimed at helping Black communities, which have been hard-hit by marijuana prohibition. Black residents are likelier to be arrested on marijuana charges than white residents, for example.

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