Tag: marijuana

Marijuana Prohibition Is And Always Has Been A Sham

Since its inception, efforts to criminalize the marijuana plant and stigmatize those who consume it have been predicated almost entirely upon gross exaggerations, racial stereotypes, and outright lies.

The initial push for cannabis criminalization, which began in earnest more than a century ago, had little to do with promoting public health or safety. Instead, the decision to target and prosecute cannabis users was fueled by xenophobia and media sensationalism.

For instance, a July 6, 1927 story in the New York Times, headlined “Mexican Family Goes Insane,” farcically claimed: “A widow and her four children have been driven insane by eating the marihuana plant, according to doctors, who say there is no hope of saving the children’s lives and that the mother will be insane for the rest of her life.”

An academic paper titled “Marijuana,” published in 1933 in The Journal of Law and Criminology, similarly made over-the-top allegations about the plant’s supposed dangers. The authors wrote, “The inevitable result [of consuming cannabis] is insanity, which those familiar with it describe as absolutely incurable, and, without exception, ending in death.”

In 1937, Harry J. Anslinger — America’s first ‘Drug Czar’ — successfully lobbied Congress to ban cannabis nationwide. He did so through the continuous use of racist rhetoric. “There are 100,000 total marijuana smokers in the U.S., and most are Negroes, Hispanics, Filipinos, and entertainers. Their Satanic music, jazz and swing, result from marijuana use,” he asserted. “This marijuana causes white women to seek sexual relations with Negroes, entertainers, and any others.”

Fast-forward to 1971. That’s when the Nixon administration declared drug abuse to be “public enemy number one.” The lynchpin of this campaign was stamping out the use of marijuana, which Congress had just classified as a Schedule I controlled substance — the strictest federal category available. Yet, privately, Nixon acknowledged that he did not think cannabis was “particularly dangerous,” and he lamented the “ridiculous” penalties faced by those arrested for possessing it.

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Pew Poll: Few Americans Support Feds’ Blanket Prohibition of Marijuana

Eight-seven percent of Americans say that marijuana ought to be legal for either medical or adult use, according to nationwide polling compiled by the Pew Research Center.

The results are consistent with those of prior Pew polls finding that only about ten percent of US adults support a blanket policy of cannabis criminalization.

“The federal government’s ‘Flat Earth’ position on marijuana policy is remarkably out of step with both scientific and public consensus,” NORML’s Deputy Director Paul Armentano said. “Federally elected officials who refuse to take action to end cannabis criminalization do so at their own political peril.”

Fifty-four percent of respondents said that cannabis should be legal for both medical and adult use, while 33 percent of those surveyed supported medical marijuana legalization only. Consistent with prior polls, support for legalizing cannabis is strongest among liberal-leaning and younger voters (those ages 18 to 29), and it is weakest among more politically conservative-leaning voters and those over the age of 75.

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Anti-Marijuana Physician Who Criticized Rescheduling Proposal Joins Trump White House’s Drug Office

The White House Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP) is adding to its team a medical professional who has linked marijuana use to suicide, advocated against a Florida legalization measure and criticized health agencies’ move to reschedule cannabis.

She has also said it is an “insult” to refer to cannabis as “medical.”

Roneet Lev—an emergency medicine and addition physician who previously served as chief medical officer at ONDCP under the first Trump administration—announced on Monday that she’ll be rejoining the office for the chance to “save lives on a much bigger scale.”

While she didn’t mention marijuana in the announcement on her podcast “High Truths on Drugs and Addiction,” Lev has previously spoken extensively about her issues with cannabis—describing it as an understated public health risk and arguing that commercial interests are the driving force behind the legalization movement.

In one episode of her podcast from June 2024, she dedicated over an hour to a discussion with prohibitionist advocates about the marijuana rescheduling process that was initiated under the Biden administration, making clear she strongly disagrees with the top federal health agency’s recommendation to move cannabis from Schedule I to Schedule III of the Controlled Substances Act (CSA).

She said that people who are accepting the scientific findings that led to the recommendation,”including some in the medical community,” are “drinking that same Kool Aid again” with marijuana as they did with prescription opioids. And she claimed that the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) produced a flawed report on cannabis, with mistakes in “like every single sentence.”

“When it comes to marijuana, the harms are right in front of our eyes—but we ignore the data and follow the industry talking points just like we did in the oxycontin days,” Lev said during the segment, which featured prominent prohibitionists such as Bertha Madras, who also previously served as an ONDCP official.

The revised review process that HHS relied on to reach its Schedule III determination for marijuana posts a “threat to the entire way of approving medications and to the medical community at large,” Lev said, adding that her primary contention is the idea that cannabis possesses medical value.

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7 Chinese nationals charged in MASSIVE money laundering, human smuggling, drug trafficking operation

Seven Chinese nationals have been charged in connection to a conspiracy to cultivate as well as distribute marijuana in the Northeastern United States. They undertook this operation by using a network of single-family houses in Massachusetts as well as Maine, according to the Department of Justice (DOJ).  

A press release from the DOJ on the charges stated that Jianxiong Chen, 39; Yuxiong Wu, 36; Dinghui Li, 38; Dechao Ma, 35; Peng Lian Zhu, 35; Hongbin Wu, 35; and Yanrong Zhu, 47 were all charged in connection to the network distributing the drugs around the Northeast. Six of the defendants were taken into custody earlier this week, with Yanrong Zhu still on the run as a fugitive.  

Most of the Chinese nationals have been charged with money laundering as well as conspiracy, and some were also charged with bringing assisting with bringing foreign nationals to the US illegally.

US Attorney Leah B. Foley said of the charges, “This case pulls back the curtain on a sprawling criminal enterprise that exploited our immigration system and our communities for personal gain. These defendants allegedly turned quiet homes across the Northeast into hubs for a criminal enterprise – building a multi-million-dollar black-market operation off the backs of an illegal workforce and using our neighborhoods as cover. That ends today.” 

The DOJ further stated, “According to the charging documents, from in or about January 2020, the defendants allegedly owned, operated or partnered with a network of interconnected grow houses in Massachusetts and Maine to cultivate and distribute kilogram-sized quantities of marijuana in bulk. Specifically, the enterprise allegedly operated grow houses in Braintree, Mass.; Melrose, Mass.; and Greenfield, Mass., among other locations in Massachusetts, Maine and elsewhere.” 

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Newsom Protests ICE Raid on Marijuana Farm Allegedly Found Using Child Labor

California Gov. Gavin Newsom protested against an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) raid on a marijuana farm in his state this week that was allegedly found to have been using child labor.

Newsom reposted a video of the raid, calling President Donald Trump the “real scum” for enforcing the law.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection Commissioner Rodney Scott alleged that the farm had been found employing not only illegal aliens, but also “juveniles.”

Newsom was, in effect, trying to protect child labor.

The governor returned Thursday from a two-day swing to South Carolina, where he is testing the waters for a presidential run in three years’ time by introducing himself to voters in rural counties.

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Study: CBD Inhibits Osteosarcoma by Targeting Tumor-Driving Inflammation

“Osteosarcoma remains a therapeutic challenge due to its aggressive behavior and high metastatic potential, necessitating exploration of novel treatment modalities”, states the study’s abstract. “Cannabidiol (CBD), a non-psychoactive phytocannabinoid with emerging anticancer properties, has shown promise in preclinical cancer models. However, its mechanisms of action in osteosarcoma remain incompletely understood.”

With that in mind, “This study systematically investigates the antitumor effects of CBD on osteosarcoma and elucidates its molecular targets within the TNF-α/NF-κB/CCL5 signaling axis.”

Conducted by researchers at Shandong University and Harbin Medical University, researchers used cell-based assays and a mouse model, finding that CBD suppressed osteosarcoma cell proliferation, migration, and invasion, while also reducing tumor growth in vivo.

The team identified that CBD binds directly to the NF-κB subunit p65, blocking its ability to activate transcription of the chemokine CCL5. This disruption also interfered with a previously unrecognized positive feedback loop between p65 and CCL5, which helps sustain inflammatory signaling in osteosarcoma cells. By targeting this loop, CBD not only inhibited tumor-promoting inflammation but also weakened the cancer’s ability to proliferate and spread.

The researchers used a combination of molecular docking, protein-binding assays, and gene expression analysis to confirm CBD’s direct interaction with the p65 protein and its downstream effects.

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Feds take down Chinese-operated grow home network in Massachusetts, Maine

An alleged network of interconnected grow houses in Massachusetts and Maine that Chinese nationals operated to cultivate and distribute marijuana is no more after authorities arrested the men behind the “sprawling criminal enterprise.”

Seven Chinese nationals have been indicted in connection with what the feds describe as a “multi-million-dollar conspiracy to cultivate and distribute marijuana across the Northeast.”

The group is accused of smuggling other Chinese nationals into the U.S. to work in the grow homes, found inside single-family properties in Massachusetts and Maine. The workers didn’t have access to their passports until they repaid their smuggling debts, according to a release from the office of Massachusetts US Attorney Leah Foley.

Authorities arrested six of the defendants Tuesday morning, while the seventh, Yanrong Zhu, 47, of Greenfield, Mass. and Brooklyn, N.Y., remains a fugitive.

The group allegedly used a Braintree home as the “base” for the enterprise to cultivate and distribute kilogram-sized quantities of marijuana in bulk. The network of interconnected grow houses also included properties in Melrose and Greenfield, among other locations in the Bay State, Maine and elsewhere, according to authorities.

“This case pulls back the curtain on a sprawling criminal enterprise that exploited our immigration system and our communities for personal gain,” Foley said in a statement. “These defendants allegedly turned quiet homes across the Northeast into hubs for a criminal enterprise – building a multi-million-dollar black-market operation off the backs of an illegal workforce and using our neighborhoods as cover.”

“That ends today,” she added.

Grow house operators allegedly communicated with one another through a list of marijuana cultivators and distributors from or with ties to China in the region, dubbed the “East Coast Contact List.”

Charging documents allege that the network began operating in or around January 2020.

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Oregon Police Improperly Used Aerial Camera To Bust Marijuana Grow, State Appeals Court Says

Oregon’s Court of Appeals chided the state’s police force on Wednesday for using warrantless “technologically-enhanced surveillance” to bust an illegal marijuana operation, sending the court’s clearest message yet about how law enforcement may use the increasingly popular, but controversial technology.

The case, captured in an eight-page ruling from a three-judge panel, centers on a June 2021 multi-county investigation involving the Polk County Sheriff’s Office and Oregon State Police. The defendant, 54-year-old Sengdara Nakhiengchahn, was not the target of the investigation, but Oregon State Police Sergeant Tyler Bechtel, a leading officer on the case, noticed “what looked to be a massive agricultural operation” that “was likely a marijuana grow,” while flying in a surveillance plane nearly 5,000 feet in the air, according to the ruling.

The defendant was charged in August 2021 with two felonies for possession and manufacturing of marijuana. She pled guilty in a conditional deal that allowed her to get the possession charge dropped by serving two years of probation, court records show. But she maintained her right to appeal the charges, arguing the evidence gathered from aerial surveillance constitutes a warrantless and unlawful search and should not have been admissible.

The appeals court agreed with Nakhiengchahn, returning the case back to the trial court where she can withdraw her guilty plea. Bechtel did not respond to an email seeking comment.

“While the trial court didn’t agree with us, we’re grateful the appellate court did,” said Luke Miller, Nakhiengchahn’s trial attorney, in a statement. “It’s important for Oregonians to maintain the right to privacy, and be free from government intrusion absent legal justification for such intrusion.”

Jenny Hansson, a spokeswoman for the Oregon Department of Justice, said officials were still reviewing the decision and could decide to appeal the court’s ruling in the coming weeks.

Jolene Kelly, a spokeswoman for the Oregon State Police, declined to comment on the ruling or its findings, but said in an email the agency “remains committed to following applicable laws and court directives.”

The ruling was lauded by civil rights advocates and privacy watchdogs who were fresh off of a fight in the Oregon Legislature over Senate Bill 238, which would have extended unprecedented power to police to use unmanned aerial surveillance devices like drones when responding to 911 calls, executing a warrant or responding to “exigent circumstances.” The bill ultimately died in the House Rules Committee without a vote.

The ACLU of Oregon opposed the bill, warning in a news release that it was unnecessary and “undermines basic rights including privacy and free speech.”

Kelly Simon, legal director of the ACLU of Oregon, said Wednesday’s ruling marks an “important decision to ensure that as police technology advances, we are maintaining the integrity of our warrant requirements under the Oregon Constitution.”

“We’re beginning to see in the surveillance tech industry all sorts of high-powered enhancements,” she told the Capital Chronicle. “It is important that our courts maintain the integrity of our warrant requirements by making sure that if law enforcement wants to use those enhancements, they go to court first, they present the evidence they have against a person and they get permission to do that.”

In the ruling, Justice Scott A. Shorr wrote that state police saw “materially different information” through a camera attached to their aircraft than what could’ve been seen with a naked eye, striking down a decision by Polk County Circuit Judge Rafael A. Caso to allow evidence tied to the camera footage to be admitted at trial.

“We have never upheld as constitutionally permissible an officer’s technologically enhanced surveillance to see what was otherwise indiscernible. We decline to do so here,” Shorr said. “In this case, the officer used technology to obtain information from inside defendant’s private structures that was undetectable from his vantage point in public airspace.”

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Top police chiefs say smell of cannabis is a ‘sign of crime’ that can make even them feel ‘unsafe’… and frontline officers should ‘do something about it’

Britain’s top police chiefs today urge their officers to crack down on cannabis.

The country’s longest-serving chief constable admits the smell of the drug is a ‘sign of crime and disorder’ which makes even him ‘feel unsafe’.

Sir Andy Marsh, who leads the College of Policing, said frontline officers should ‘do something about it’.

He is backed by Greater Manchester Police Chief Sir Stephen Watson and Merseyside Chief Constable Serena Kennedy.

In a joint intervention following recent calls for decriminalisation, they tell future police leaders they must listen to their communities and be prepared to take a tougher line.

Launching a new leadership programme for policing, they acknowledged forces were in a ‘foot race for public confidence’ and officers can no longer ignore what has traditionally been perceived as the ‘little stuff’. 

Sir Andy, who is the officer in charge of police standards, said: ‘In my community, my kids are too frightened to use the bus stop because it always stinks of cannabis.’

He told the Mail ‘policing is about creating an environment that people feel safe in’ and said: ‘I’m speaking from personal experience and people I talk to, if I walk through a town, city, or even village centre and I smell cannabis, it does actually have an impact on how safe I feel.

‘One definition of what police should be doing is – [if] something [is] happening which does not feel right, someone ought to do something about it.’

He added: ‘For me, the smell of cannabis around communities, it feels like a sign of crime and disorder.’

The call for action comes after figures on Sunday revealed that three in four people caught with the drug last year were let off with an informal warning or community resolution.

In the year to September 2024, 68,513 people were found in possession of cannabis, but only 17,000 were charged, according to data released under Freedom of Information laws.

Mayor of London Sir Sadiq Khan has called for the decriminalisation of possession when it involves small amounts of the drug. 

But recently judges have warned that cannabis is ‘not a benign drug’ after a series of horrific cases, including a samurai sword rampage in Hainault, east London, where a schoolboy was killed and four others seriously injured by a drug-crazed Brazilian who had a £100-a-day habit.

The head of Merseyside Police said of cannabis: ‘The public should absolutely expect us to take positive action around those things and hold us to account over it. 

‘We have to work with our communities, it’s no longer good enough to inflict priorities on them, we have to hear their voices and make them part of the problem-solving.’

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Marijuana Users In Iowa Are Engaged And Active Citizens, Survey Shows—Smashing ‘Lazy Stoner’ Stereotypes

For many years, cannabis users were characterized as a cult of stoners: young, often unemployed, party animals. That sector still exists in some form, however, many of today’s cannabis consumers are “middle American” adults, employed, own a home, vote regularly, pay their taxes and are involved in their communities.

That is the general profile of adult cannabis consumers across the country and in Des Moines, according to a recent survey by Consumer Research Around Cannabis/The Media Audit.

The Media Audit, the parent company of Consumer Research Around Cannabis, is an international research company serving 80+ local markets in the U.S. and Canada for more than 20 years. It started gathering data about cannabis use and attitudes in 2016.

Although the sale of adult recreational cannabis is illegal in Iowa, the survey found 16.2 percent of all adults age 18+ in Des Moines said they used or bought cannabis during the past month, or the statistical equivalent of approximately 140,000 adults.

The smallest percentage in the following table, monthly usage in Des Moines, is still substantial—and suggests a pent-up market. Unleashing the recreational cannabis market in Des Moines and all of Iowa would likely generate jobs and significant taxes for the state—money now escaping across the borders.

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