Tag: police state

Tennessee House votes to ban kratom, bill now moves to Senate

The State of Tennessee is another step closer to becoming Kratom free.

State representatives voted Wednesday to approve legislation that would outlaw all forms of the substance, including a more potent derivative known as 7-OH.

The proposal now heads to the Senate.

Kratom is a plant-based substance from a Southeast Asian tree, often sold in gas stations and smoke shops. It has been at the center of a growing debate in Tennessee.

Supporters of the bill say the ban is needed to address safety concerns.

“This bill addresses the growing public concern and safety surrounding kratom,” Rep. Esther Helton-Haynes said during earlier hearings.

The legislation is named after a Chattanooga man whose family says he died after using kratom with other substances.

Lawmakers have pointed to risks, including possible links to overdose deaths and concerns about how the substance is marketed.

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Automatic registration for US military draft to begin in December

Eligible men will automatically be registered into the military draft pool by December as part of an effort to streamline the previous process of self-registration and save money.

The Selective Service System (SSS) — the government agency that maintains a database of men to be called up to serve in the case of a national emergency — submitted a proposed rule to the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs on March 30, according to the office’s website.

Most men between the ages of 18 and 25 are already required to register with the Selective Service, but automatic registration was mandated in December 2025 as part of the fiscal 2026 National Defense Authorization Act.

The change, which was meant to save money, “transfers responsibility for registration from individual men to SSS through integration with federal data sources,” according to the website.

The proposed rule is currently under review by the regulatory affairs office and awaiting finalization.

The U.S. has not had a draft since the Vietnam War, with military service being voluntary since 1973. 

But former President Jimmy Carter in 1980 reinstated the Selective Service in the event of a “national emergency,” where the registry could be used to “provide personnel to the Department of War and alternative service for conscientious objectors, if authorized by the President and Congress.”

Many have questioned whether a U.S. military draft could take place amid the war in Iran, which is currently in a tenuous two-week ceasefire. 

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt in March said that while a draft is “not part of the current plan right now,” President Trump “wisely keeps his options on the table.”

Trump alone cannot bring back the draft through executive action, as Congress would need to pass legislation to amend the Military Selective Service Act to authorize the president to induct personnel into the military.

Still, failure to register in the draft is considered a crime and can prevent people from receiving state-funded financial aid and employment in numerous states, cause ineligibility for many federal employment opportunities and job training under the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act, and can carry a fine of up to $250,000 and jail time for up to five years.

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Voters Gave Ohio Legal Cannabis. Then Lawmakers Took Away the Part That Helped Me.

I’m Tobey MacCachran – a senior journalism and English student at Denison University– and an intern with NORML since December. I came to cannabis advocacy the way most people arrive at anything that matters: it stopped being abstract. 

I’ve had a birthmark on my right wrist my whole life. Other kids would notice it, point at it, and make jokes, but I never minded. It was a part of me that was as ordinary as my hands or my name. I was born with it, and I was comfortable. 

Eczema was different. 

It showed up in my early teens, uninvited and impossible to ignore. Red, cracking patches spread across my skin during dry winters, causing my hands, wrists, and neck to resemble the surface of Mars. The birthmark was mine. The eczema felt like an invasion. And somewhere in the space between those two things, my relationship with my own body quietly changed. 

By high school, my life was dictated by small adjustments. Long sleeves on some days. Certain seats. Situations I’d remove myself from before anyone noticed. Shirt always on at the beach. And then at 17, I tried a cannabis topical for the first time. 

Something actually worked. And last Friday, Ohio made it a crime to access the product that helped me most. 

SB56 was sold as consumer protection. For people who depend on cannabis topicals for chronic pain and skin conditions, it landed like a punishment.

A cannabis topical isn’t recreational. It’s a cream or balm infused with cannabinoids applied directly to the skin. No high. No altered state. For millions of people managing chronic pain, inflammation, and skin conditions, it’s simply the thing that works when nothing else does. It was that for me – the first treatment in years that gave back some ordinary comfort in my own body. The kind of comfort I hadn’t realized I’d lost until I had it again. 

Ohio Senate Bill 56 went into effect on March 20th. Governor DeWine signed it in December, framing it as consumer protection – a crackdown on unregulated intoxicating hemp products that flooded gas stations and corner stores. And there’s a real conversation to be had there. But buried inside the bill are provisions that go far beyond protecting anyone. 

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Police Destroyed Innocent People’s Property—and Left Them With the Bill. Will the Supreme Court Step In?

2022 was a big year for both Carlos Pena and Amy Hadley. Separated by several states, SWAT teams left their properties in ruins while attempting to capture two suspects. In August, officers threw dozens of tear gas canisters into Pena’s Los Angeles printing business; two months prior, law enforcement had done the same to Hadley’s Indiana home before also destroying security cameras, punching holes in the walls, and ransacking the house.

Neither was suspected of a crime. They were, to put it mildly, unlucky. Which raises an unfortunate question: What is an innocent person owed when police wreck their property?

The Supreme Court will once again decide if it will address that question and offer legal clarity in a debate that has seen governments refuse to reimburse people when their property becomes major collateral damage in a law enforcement operation.

The circumstances leading up to Pena and Hadley’s property damage differ slightly. A SWAT team from the city of Los Angeles blew up Pena’s shop, NoHo Printing & Graphics, after a suspect ejected Pena from the business and barricaded himself inside while attempting to evade capture. (Police would later find that the man had escaped.) Over in Indiana, law enforcement arrived at Hadley’s house after an officer posited that a suspect was accessing the internet from her IP address, which wasn’t true.

The basic end result, however, was the same. Local government officials ignored their pleas for help and declined to compensate them for mutilating their respective properties, despite the fact that no party disputes their innocence. Pena has sued for over $60,000, alleging the raid destroyed his shop and the equipment inside, forcing him to relocate to a garage with one printer and a reduced capacity that has cost him significant revenue, according to his lawsuit. Hadley, meanwhile, says she incurred about $16,000 in losses, which insurance only partially covered. That it helped at all is not the norm. Pena’s insurance denied assistance, as most policies stipulate that they are not liable for government-induced damage.

Common sense may dictate that innocent people should not individually shoulder the financial burden of public safety (or, in Hadley’s case, a flawed police investigation). Yet both were denied relief because of how the property met its demise.

Is that constitutional? The Fifth Amendment’s Takings Clause promises “just compensation” when private property is taken for public use. But some courts have ruled that it does not always apply when police are involved.

The courts are not in agreement on what exactly the exception is or how far it goes. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit said that Pena could not sue for damages because “law enforcement officers destroy[ed]” his shop “while acting reasonably in the necessary defense of public safety.” In other words, the judges declined to say if a categorical “police power” exception applies in such cases; that law enforcement acted reasonably and out of necessity was enough to kill his claim.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 7th Circuit, however, did find a categorical exemption. “The Fifth Amendment does not require the state to compensate for property damage resulting from police executing a lawful search warrant,” wrote Judge Joshua Kolar, rejecting Hadley’s claim.

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Apple Removes Bitchat from China App Store at Cyberspace Administration Order

Apple deleted Bitchat from the China App Store, acting on a direct order from the Cyberspace Administration of China. Jack Dorsey, who created the app, posted a screenshot of Apple’s removal notice to X with a short caption: “bitchat pulled from the china app store.”

The notice Apple sent to Dorsey is almost a copy-paste of the one it sent to Damus three years earlier. The language is identical. The accusation is identical. The CAC determined that Bitchat violates Articles 3 of the Provisions on the Security Assessment of Internet-based Information Services with Attribute of Public Opinions or Capable of Social Mobilization.

That regulation, enacted in 2018, requires any online service capable of influencing public opinion or organizing collective action to undergo a government security assessment before going live. If a service hasn’t submitted to that assessment, the CAC can order it pulled.

It targets the capacity for “public opinions” and “social mobilization.” The Chinese government has decided that the ability to communicate outside state-approved channels is itself a security threat, and Apple consistently treats that determination as sufficient grounds for deletion.

Bitchat is a peer-to-peer messaging app that operates over Bluetooth mesh networks. It requires no internet connection, no phone number, no email address, and no user account.

Messages are end-to-end encrypted and stored only on the devices involved. There are no central servers to subpoena, no user databases to hand over, and no content moderation pipeline for the CAC to plug into.

Dorsey built the initial version over a single weekend in July 2025, coding it with Goose, Block’s open-source AI assistant. He published a white paper on GitHub and opened a TestFlight beta that hit its 10,000-user cap within hours.

That design is precisely the problem from Beijing’s perspective. China’s internet censorship apparatus depends on having a chokepoint.

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Meta To Comply With Florida Age Verification Digital ID Law

Meta agreed to comply with Florida’s age verification law, HB 3, and will begin purging accounts belonging to children under 14 starting in May. 

The company’s capitulation comes ahead of an April 8 deadline set by Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier, who threatened litigation against any platform still refusing to verify the ages and identities of its users. Uthmeier is now pressuring Snapchat, Roblox, Discord, and TikTok to do the same.

What Florida calls child protection is also the construction of a statewide identity verification system for the internet. Meta is one of the biggest companies lobbying for age verification checks on the app store level.

HB 3 bans under-14s from social media entirely and requires parental consent for 14- and 15-year-olds. But to block minors, platforms first need to determine who is and isn’t a minor. That means age-checking everyone, adults included. The surveillance burden falls on millions of people who have every legal right to use these services without proving who they are.

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Idaho Lawmakers Approve Resolution Asking Voters To Reject Medical Cannabis Ballot Measure

The Idaho House of Representatives has joined the Senate in approving a resolution urging voters to “reject” an effort to place an initiative to legalize medical marijuana on the state’s November ballot.

The measure, sponsored by the Senate State Affairs Committee, claims that cannabis legalization in other states has led to a host of harms, including “increased cartel activity, development of black market marijuana production, human trafficking, and increased crime rates” as well as “increased rates of serious health issues,” environmental harms and “safety concerns on job sites.”

After passing the Senate in a voice vote earlier last week, SCR 127 cleared the House on Wednesday in a 58-9 vote. It argues that the marijuana initiative would not only increase costs to the state but that its list of approved medical conditions is “so broad that almost anyone could qualify.”

“The Idaho Medical Cannabis Act lacks safeguards to such an extent that it would effectively legalize widespread recreational use of marijuana,” the resolution claims. “The legalization of marijuana would have devastating impacts on Idaho children and their families… The Legislature urges the citizens of Idaho to reject any effort to bring the Idaho Medical Cannabis Act to the ballot.”

A statement of purpose filed with the legislation says it “addresses the devastating impact that legalizing marijuana has had on other states” and “identifies the significant problems” with the ballot initiative.

The Natural Medicine Alliance of Idaho (NMAI), which is leading the effort to place the legalization measure before voters this November, has pushed back against the resolution.

“Idahoans deserve to vote on this issue, and we are confident we will be able to get it in front of them this November to do just that,” Amanda Watson, a spokesperson for the group, said in a press release last month when the resolution was filed. “There are thousands of people across Idaho with stories like Dr. Tunney’s and they deserve dignified care and the option to choose an alternative to opioids. NMAI has operating field offices in every corner of the state and we are actively recruiting more team members in Coeur d’Alene, Meridian, Boise, Twin Falls, Pocatello and Idaho Falls. We are not taking our foot off the gas until the final bell rings.”

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Missouri Governor Says Restricting Hemp THC Products Is ‘Something We Need To Get Done’ As Ban Bill Heads To His Desk

Missouri’s governor says the state needs to take steps to restrict the availability of intoxicating hemp-derived THC products in line with legislation that lawmakers recently sent to his desk.

“At a high level, I’m very much in favor of taking these illegal drugs in the form of the candies and stuff off of the shelves for kids to be able to buy,” Gov. Mike Kehoe (R) said in an episode of  This Week in Missouri Politics that aired on Sunday.

While the governor said his office will “do bill review” on the specific provisions of the legislation that lawmakers passed last week, he generally agrees with its aim.

“The way the legislation is drawn up is it helps us match the federal standard that’s coming down on these issues,” Kehoe said, referring to national restrictions that President Donald Trump signed into law late last year and that are set to take effect this November.

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Ohio Judge Pauses Hemp Product Ban Enforcement, Saying It Favors Marijuana Industry

A Sandusky County court of common pleas judge has ruled that Ohio’s new law banning the sale of intoxicating hemp-derived cannabinoids except at licensed marijuana retailers is likely unconstitutional and has issued a temporary restraining order blocking the Fremont Police Department from enforcing it.

The ruling impacts only the Fremont Police Department and “all who may act in concert with them” and remains in effect only until April 28. It comes in a case brought by Seattle-based Cycling Frog, a hemp cannabinoid beverage company that sells its products throughout Ohio, including Sandusky County.

Judge Jeremiah Ray held that the new law created by the passage of Senate Bill 56 appears to violate the Dormant Commerce Clause of the U.S. Constitution. That law effectively gives the state’s licensed marijuana dispensaries a monopoly over what are federally legal hemp-derived products, Ray held. (Congress voted to radically restrict hemp-derived cannabinoids last November, but that law does not go into effect until this coming November.)

“The practical effect is to immunize Ohio’s in-state marijuana industry, which Ohio law requires to have an in-state physical presence, from out-of-state competition with respect to federally legal hemp products otherwise sold in interstate commerce,” Ray said, noting the law also discriminates against in-state businesses.

“The parallel intrastate discrimination is no defense to the interstate discrimination. Indeed, the existence of parallel intrastate discrimination makes the protectionist effect of the ordinance more acute,” he wrote. “This is because the licensed dispensaries and their attendant supply chain benefit from a lack of competition from either inside or outside Ohio. This is, thus, inherently discriminatory on its face.”

The attorney representing Cycling Frog, Andy Mayle, said he asked Ray to make the temporary restraining order a class action that would block all law enforcement agencies in the state from enforcing the law.

“That’s the next step in the case,” Mayle said. “If he does, then basically the bill—with respect to the traditional hemp industry—will not be enforceable in Ohio.”

The regulation of interstate commerce is the province of Congress, not the state of Ohio, Mayle added.

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These common drug tests lead to tens of thousands of wrongful arrests a year, experts say. One state is fighting back

Bird poop scraped off a man’s car appeared on a drug test as cocaine. A toddler’s ashes registered as methamphetamine or ecstasy.

And a great-grandmother’s medicine tested positive for cocaine – spawning a 15-month legal nightmare, forcing her to refinance her home, and spurring a new state law that could set a precedent across the country.

Colorado just enacted the nation’s first law banning arrests based solely on the results of colorimetric drug tests – a field test widely used by law enforcement across the country.

The tests are popular because they’re cheap, portable and can screen for drugs in mere minutes. It’s just not feasible to send all suspected drug samples to state laboratories, which would be far more expensive and could take days or weeks to return results.

But these inexpensive tests also lead to false positives at alarming rates, researchers from the University of Pennsylvania found.

While the actual error rate nationwide is unknown, previous studies by manufacturers have put it around 4%. But the UPenn researchers believe the actual rate is much higher, from 15% to 38%. And a study by the New York City Department of Investigation showed test error rates from 79% to 91% in some correctional settings.

From lost jobs to months in jail, innocent people “are at risk of having their lives derailed by these inaccurate tests,” said Des Walsh, founder of the Roadside Drug Test Innocence Alliance.

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