Tag: moral panics

GOP Senator Introduces Bill to Make All Porn a Federal Crime, Following Project 2025 Playbook

Last year, the rightwing think-tank the Heritage Foundation launched Project 2025, which laid out much of the policy blueprint for the current Trump administration. One of the project’s espoused goals was to permanently criminalize all pornography. Now, a Republican senator with kind words for Trump has introduced a bill that would do just that.

Senator Mike Lee (R-Utah) recently introduced the Interstate Obscenity Definition Act (IODA), which would effectively criminalize all pornography nationwide by legally redefining what it means to be obscene. For years, “obscenity” has been all but a defunct legal category that narrowly defines speech that remains unprotected by the First Amendment. Lee would explode this legal category, expanding it to encompass virtually all visual representations of sex.

According to the bill text, “a picture, image, graphic image file, film, videotape, or other visual depiction” of any media that “appeals to the prurient interest in nudity, sex, or excretion” would be considered criminal. In other words, if you have an old VHS tape of some Cinemax-style smut stashed away in your garage, you could, under this law, be considered to be harboring deeply illicit materials. Some critics have suggested that Lee’s definition of obscenity is so ridiculously broad that it could effectively criminalize Game of Thrones. That said, the punishments for merely possessing porn under the proposed law seem unclear at this point, as the legislation seems more focused on punishing the creators and distributors of racy material.

The law would “pave the way for the prosecution of obscene content disseminated across state lines or from foreign countries and open the door to federal restrictions or bans regarding online porn,” The Daily Caller writes.

“Obscenity isn’t protected by the First Amendment, but hazy and unenforceable legal definitions have allowed extreme pornography to saturate American society and reach countless children,” said Lee, in a press release about the bill. “Our bill updates the legal definition of obscenity for the internet age so this content can be taken down and its peddlers prosecuted.”

Lee’s view of pornography hews closely to that of the Heritage Foundation, which has similarly sought to crush the smut industry. In its Mandate for Leadership, Project 2025 defines pornography as the “omnipresent propagation of transgender ideology and sexualization of children” and argues that the “people who produce and distribute it should be imprisoned” and that “telecommunications and technology firms that facilitate its spread should be shuttered.”

It should be noted that porn has always been a hot-button issue and that critics have long tried to criminalize it. The history of the anti-pornography movement in the U.S. is a long and complicated one, littered with differing ideological justifications and strange bedfellows. In recent years, however, the anti-porn crusade has largely been led by the MAGA right.

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New GOP Bill Seeks To Take Sledgehammer To Online Porn Industry

Congressional Republicans will introduce legislation Thursday that would severely crack down on internet pornography and potentially deal a major blow to the online porn industry.

Republican Utah Sen. Mike Lee and Republican Illinois Rep. Mary Miller’s Interstate Obscenity Definition Act would create a national definition of obscenity under the Communications Act of 1934 and amend the Supreme Court’s 1973 “Miller Test” for determining what qualifies as obscene, according to background on the bill exclusively obtained by the Daily Caller News Foundation. The bill would pave the way for the prosecution of obscene content disseminated across state lines or from foreign countries and open the door to federal restrictions or bans regarding online porn.

“Obscenity isn’t protected by the First Amendment, but hazy and unenforceable legal definitions have allowed extreme pornography to saturate American society and reach countless children,” Lee told the DCNF. “Our bill updates the legal definition of obscenity for the internet age so this content can be taken down and its peddlers prosecuted.”

Lee and Miller have been leading advocates in Congress to take on internet pornography at the federal level and protect children from exposure to online porn.

The lawmakers’ bill would make obscenity easier to prosecute by altering the three-pronged approach known as the Miller Test from the 1973 Supreme Court ruling in Miller v. California, according to the background on the bill. The Miller Test determined content to be obscene if it appeals to “prurient interests,” describes sexual conduct “in a patently obscene way” and lacks “serious literary, artistic, political or scientific value.”

Lee and Miller are seeking to update that definition in part by changing the second prong about portraying sexual conduct “in a patently offensive way … specifically defined by the applicable state law.” Instead, their bill would determine content to be obscene if it depicts or describes “actual or simulated sexual acts with the objective intent to arouse, titillate or gratify the sexual desires of a person.”

Lee has justified the legislation in part by arguing that the Supreme Court’s “Miller Test” is no longer applicable in an era where porn is primarily viewed online and easy for children to access.

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The Media Playbook for Measles Looks a Lot Like Its COVID Playbook — This Time, Kids Are the Pawns

There are moments in the history of a movement that test its resolve. For the medical freedom movement, this is one of those moments.

We are in the midst of another full-on attack by the pharmaceutical-industrial complex, aided and abetted by a beholden mainstream media united around its allegiance to a $69 billion vaccine industry.

Five years ago, we fought back as our government, Big Media and Big Pharma orchestrated and executed a COVID-19 fear campaign — a campaign built on lies, deception and censorship — and then parlayed the public’s fear into dangerous and deadly medical mandates and hospital protocols that continue to cause profound harm.

The upside to COVID-19 global disaster?

It opened the eyes of millions more people to the dangers of shoddily tested vaccines, regulatory agency hubris and one-size-fits-all “medicine.”

As our movement has grown exponentially, so has our threat to Big Pharma.

In response, we’re seeing the same tactics rolled out again. This time, it’s measles. This time, children are the pawns in pharma’s playbook.

Children’s Health Defense (CHD) stood strong and stayed true to our mission during COVID. We’re standing just as strong now. We remain just as committed now to the truth, informed consent and medical freedom as we were during the pandemic.

As pharma ramps up its measles playbook, our No. 1 job is to dismantle the vaccine industry’s lies — broadcast far and wide through the industry’s most reliable and faithful megaphone: mainstream media.

The media would have you believe that measles is a “deadly” disease. But any suggestion that MMR (measles-mumps-rubella) vaccines are safer than measles infection isn’t supported by facts.

In fact, between 2000 and 2024, nine measles-related deaths were reported to the CDC. During the same period, 141 deaths following MMR or MMRV vaccination were reported in the U.S. to the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS) — suggesting the MMR vaccine can be deadlier than measles.

The media echo the same familiar refrain: The MMR vaccine is “overwhelmingly safe.”

In fact, the MMR vaccine is associated with serious health risks. The package insert for Merck’s MMRII says, “M-M-R II vaccine has not been evaluated for carcinogenic or mutagenic potential or impairment of fertility.”

Research also shows the MMR vaccine causes febrile seizures, anaphylaxis, meningitis, encephalitis, thrombocytopenia, arthralgia and vasculitis. In 2004, researchers at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found that boys vaccinated with their first MMR vaccine on time were 67% more likely to be diagnosed with autism compared to boys who got their first vaccine after their 3rd birthday.

The media insist there’s no viable treatment for measles — hence prevention, with the MMR vaccine, is the sole solution.

In fact, as CHD reported, doctors in West Texas are successfully treating measles with budesonide and vitamin A. Even the World Health Organization recommends vitamin A.

Yet some hospitals and doctors are refusing to treat measles patients with budesonide. Texas health officials rejected pleas by a treating physician to endorse the treatment and get the word out to hospitals about its effectiveness.

Sound familiar?

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Canada’s Retail Marijuana Expansion Came With Only Modest Increases To Use, New Study Shows

Ever since recreational cannabis was legalized across Canada in 2018, researchers have been studying what that decision changed for Canadians.

We’ve learned, for example, that some patients immediately left the medical cannabis system, presumably to use recreational products instead. Conversely, legalization appeared to have no effect on Canadian alcohol sales.

We’ve similarly seen how cannabis retailing has evolved since it became legal.

Retailers suffered from product shortages during legalization’s first six months, but steadily expanded soon after. Canada went from having some 210 stores in April 2019 to 3,500 in April 2023. The ensuing competition pushed prices down 28 percent during that period.

Meanwhile, provincial governments have tried various regulatory approaches. Some initially restricted the number of stores to avoid tempting non-users. Québec still has 10 times fewer stores per capita than Ontario does as a result. Other provinces have set minimum prices to discourage people from overindulging. For example, Ontario won’t let wholesale prices drop below $2.28 per gram.

These developments in business and government policy prompted my latest research. I wanted to understand what effect retail expansion had on cannabis use. To do this, I analyzed consumer responses on government surveys collected between 2019 to 2023. I then compared these responses to the recreational cannabis consumer price index and the numbers of licensed stores in each province.

Did Canadians consume cannabis more widely, more frequently and at younger ages as it became more accessible and affordable? The answer was mostly no.

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GOP Senator Paints Dire Picture Of Medical Marijuana Legalization In His State, Saying Voters Didn’t Understand ‘Consequences’

U.S. Sen. James Lankford (R-OK) said at an event on Friday that voters in his home state didn’t understand what they were doing when they legalized medical marijuana in 2018.

Pointing to a new report from the Texoma High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area (HIDTA) program, which covers north Texas and Oklahoma, Lankford said the state has been overrun by growers and dispensaries and has “seen rising crime, human trafficking [and] illegal migration coming into our state” since the law took effect.

Although citizens voted in favor of medical marijuana legalization, he said, “I don’t think a lot of Oklahomans realized, when that vote actually occurred, what the consequences of that would be.”

The senator’s comments are in keeping with criticisms that Republican politicians in Oklahoma have levied against medical marijuana for years. In 2022, for example, Gov. Kevin Stitt (R) similarly suggested that state residents misunderstood the cannabis initiative they voted to enact.

Stitt said at the time that he was directing law enforcement to “crack down hard on the black market,” adding that “drug cartels, organized crime, foreign bad actors have no place in the state of Oklahoma.”

But in comments on Friday, Lankford—a longtime critic of legalization—painted a dire picture of what’s happening in the state.

“The findings that are coming out are stark,” he said of the new HIDTA report. “We have Chinese criminal organizations and organized crime that has moved in to Oklahoma in just the last six years, in numbers that have skyrocketed.”

That’s led to what he described as “execution-style murders in rural areas of the state” that are connected “directly to marijuana grows and what is happening here on the ground.”

“We, as a state, have to decide what we’re going to do about it,” the federal lawmaker said. “We have hard decisions to be able to make on what we’re going to do to be able to protect our kids in the days ahead… This is a very serious issue that we need to be able to take on and to be able to address.”

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DEA Promotes ‘Anti-420 Day’ Contest For Young People To ‘Flood’ Instagram With Marijuana Warnings

The Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) is promoting an “Anti-420 Day” campaign that’s recruiting students to send short videos warning their peers about marijuana use.

In a bulletin that was distributed on Tuesday, DEA’s JustThinkTwice.com site shared details about the campaign, which is being run by the anti-cannabis nonprofit organization Johnny’s Ambassadors.

“Be an Instagram Influencer for Anti-420 Day,” the message says. “Johnny’s Ambassadors is hiring teens and young adults (high school and college students) to create original videos about the harms of youth THC use for Anti-420 Day.”

The plan is to “flood” Instagram with the short-form videos that would feature students talking about “why young people should not use THC.”

Students would be eligible for a $25 Amazon gift card for a personal video, $35 for a group video and $50 for a “professionally produced educational video or skit with adult sponsor supervision.”

“Your video should either be an educational Youth THC Prevention video on why young people shouldn’t use THC products (vapes, dabs, weed, edibles, gummies) OR a personal story of how you have been impacted by THC use (yourself, a friend, a family member, or a loved one),” the organization said.

It also provided examples of potential prompts, including explainers on “why THC impacts athletic performance on a team” and busting “commonly-held but incorrect myth about THC.”

“Tell a personal story about how you’ve been negatively impacted by THC use” or perform a “skit or drama to educate other teens why using products with THC is bad for you,” the description from Johnny’s Ambassadors—which was founded the parents of a child who died by suicide after consuming high potency marijuana concentrates—says.

There are some restrictions on the content, including a ban on “swearing” in the videos. And no content is allowed that “depicts, imitates, or promotes the possession or consumption of any THC product.”

“DO NOT IMITATE THE USE OF THC/MARIJUANA OR PARAPHERNALIA OF ANY KIND, EVEN AS A JOKE,” it emphasizes.

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GOP Congressman Tells Welfare Recipients To ‘Stop Buying The Medical Marijuana’ And Eating Cheetos

A GOP congressman is peddling a stigmatizing message to justify a new bill on adding work requirements for certain federal benefits, implying that it’s necessary to prevent people from buying marijuana with taxpayer dollars and lazing around on the couch while eating Cheetos.

During an appearance on Fox Business on Wednesday, Rep. Pat Fallon (R-TX) was asked about recently filed Republican legislation that would impose restrictions on access to Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits—specifically mandating that able-bodied people under 65 work at least 20 hours per week in order to receive the assistance.

That’s already part of federal law, but lead bill sponsor from Rep. Dusty Johnson (R-SD) claims his America Works Act would close “loopholes” that have been exploited in certain states.

Fallon, for his part, decided to justify the legislation by playing into cannabis stereotypes and arguing that federal dollars are going toward medical cannabis purchases by welfare recipients.

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Trump Says He’s ‘Ready’ To Impose Death Penalty On People Who Sell Illicit Drugs, Calling Policy ‘Very Humane’

President Donald Trump is again promoting his support for executing people who sell currently illicit drugs, calling it a “very humane” policy to prevent overdose deaths that he’s “ready” to implement.

He also ambitiously projected that his administration will cut drug use in the U.S. by 50 percent during his new term by launching an aggressive advertising campaign to warn Americans about the harms of substance misuse.

During a White House event with governors from across the U.S. on Friday, South Carolina Gov. Henry McMaster (R) told Trump about his concerns with fentanyl trafficking, to which the president responded by offering his extreme capital punishment proposal of following the lead of countries like China that impose the death penalty on people involved in selling illegal drugs.

While he said he’s unsure whether the U.S. as a whole is similarly “ready” to move forward with the policy, Trump encouraged governors to push for it at the state-level.

“If you notice that every country that has the death penalty has no drug problem. They execute drug dealers,” Trump said. “And when you think about it, it’s very humane, because every drug dealer, on average they say, kills at least 500 people—not to mention the damage they do so many others. But they kill large numbers of people.”

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RFK Jr. Says Marijuana Can Have ‘Catastrophic Impacts’ On Consumers, But State-Level Legalization Can Spur Research On Its Harms And Benefits

Fresh off his Senate confirmation vote to become the secretary of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said on Thursday that he is “worried about” the normalization of high-potency marijuana and that he feels its use can have “really catastrophic impacts” on people, but that state-level legalization can facilitate research into its harms and benefits.

Kennedy, who was vocal about his support for marijuana legalization when he was running for president—as well as during his time on the Trump transition team—has been notably silent on cannabis policy issues over recent months as he worked to win over senators to secure confirmation for the country’s top health role.

Now, during his first major media interview since receiving that final vote to secure the cabinet position earlier in the day, Kennedy told Fox News’s Laura Ingraham that he believes cannabis does hold serious harm potential.

The HHS secretary, who personally struggled with drug addiction during his youth, was asked about his cannabis policy position and noted that he’s been in recovery for over 40 years and attends daily 12-step meetings.

“I hear stories all the time of the impacts of marijuana on people—and the really catastrophic impacts on them,” he said.

However, Kennedy said “that worry also has to be balanced [with] the impacts that we’ve had before” as it relates to criminalization.

“Twenty-five states [have] now legalized marijuana, but we had about a third of our prison population that was in jail because of marijuana offenses,” he said. “That’s something we don’t want either.”

“Because of the legalization of recreational marijuana in 25 states, we have now a capacity to really study it and to compare it to states,” he said. “We need to do studies. We need to figure it out, and then we need to we need to implement policies to address” any health concerns.

Of course, HHS has already completed a comprehensive scientific study into cannabis that led the agency under the Biden administration to recommend moving marijuana from Schedule I to Schedule III of the Controlled Substances Act (CSA).

The new comments come on the same day that Sen. Pete Ricketts (R-NE) said he received a commitment from Kennedy to “follow the science on the harms of marijuana.”

Ricketts had already disclosed last week that he spoke to Kennedy about the the “importance” of “preventing the expansion of marijuana.” Now he says “RFK committed to me that he would follow the science on the harms of marijuana.”

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GOP Florida Lawmaker Wonders If State’s Medical Marijuana Program Is ‘Causing More Harm Than Good’

With nearly 900,000 registered patients, Florida has the largest medical marijuana program in the country. While campaigning against a proposed constitutional amendment that would have legalized recreational cannabis last year, Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) hailed the medical program, boasting that he had legalized smokeable weed in the state in 2019.

But that doesn’t mean the Florida GOP-controlled legislature is all in with medical marijuana, and on Tuesday one House member asked a state doctor charged with analyzing the effectiveness of cannabis as medicine if its use by Floridians poses more of a risk than a benefit.

“You’ve made it very clear that there needs to be more research across the gamut of this area, but you’ve also made it clear that a lot of the research that you do have shows this program to be of questionable medical value,” said Northeast Florida Republican Dean Black to Dr. Almut Winterstein, a professor in the College of Pharmacy at the University of Florida and director of the Consortium for Medical Marijuana Outcomes Research.

“My question is, do you fear that we’re causing more harm than good?”

Winterstein replied that the question illuminated the “conundrum” that exists when it comes to the medical efficacy of cannabis, which because it is listed as a Schedule I controlled substance by the federal government has always had restrictions placed on research. (The Biden administration proposed last year to reclassify the substance as a Schedule III controlled substance).

“That is concerning,” she said in response to Black’s query. “That doesn’t mean that there are not patients who might massively benefit from this, but we haven’t defined the benefit of this.”

In her presentation to the House Professions & Programs Subcommittee, Winterstein reported rapid growth among young adults up to age 25 in Florida in listing anxiety as the medical condition motivating them to seek a medical marijuana prescription. She said that was “fairly strong evidence that marijuana attacks the developing brain negatively—specifically, cognitively.”

But she said that was very different than looking at patients suffering from chronic pain or other medical conditions. 

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