Tag: police state

14 GOP Congressional Lawmakers Tell DEA To Keep Marijuana In Schedule I And ‘Reject’ Top Health Agency’s Recommendation

A coalition of 14 Republican congressional lawmakers is urging the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) to “reject” the top federal health agency’s recommendation to reschedule marijuana and instead keep it in the most restrictive category under the Controlled Substances Act (CSA).

In a letter sent to DEA Administrator Anne Milgram on Monday, Sen. James Lankford (R-OK) and Rep. Pete Sessions (R-TX) led a dozen other colleagues in both chambers in arguing that any decision to reschedule cannabis “should be based on proven facts and science—not popular opinion, changes in state laws, or the preferred policy of an administration.”

Of course, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) has repeatedly emphasized that its review into marijuana scheduling, directed by President Joe Biden late last year, was science-based. And after 11 months of investigation, it has recommended that marijuana be placed in Schedule III. Milgram has also made clear that DEA’s review will follow the science.

The eight GOP senators and six House members evidently distrust the motives behind the HHS recommendation, however, and they argued in the letter, first reported by The Washington Stand, that the current “research, science, and trends support the case that marijuana should remain a Schedule I drug.”

They pointed to National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) data on rates of cannabis use disorder and raised concerns about increased THC potency of marijuana products, stating that these “facts indicate that marijuana has a high potential for abuse and that the risk is only increasing.”  For what it’s worth, NIDA also reportedly signed off the HHS rescheduling recommendation before it was sent to DEA.

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Colorado deputies fired over tasing grandfather 35 times: “the most clear cut case of police negligence, brutality and abuse”

Two Las Animas County sheriff’s deputies were recently fired over an incident where they allegedly tased an unarmed man 35 times.

The sheriff’s office fired Deputy Mikhail Noel and Lt. Henry Trujillo over a November 2022 incident in Trinidad, about 200 miles south of Denver, where they pulled over Nate Espinoza. He and his father Kenneth Espinoza were driving in separate vehicles.

Attorneys representing 70-year-old Kenneth Espinoza say he was asked to move his truck from behind deputies’ cars during the traffic stop. He started to move his car but deputies detained him and allegedly tased him 35 times in front of his son while handcuffed in the back of a police car.

Attorneys representing Kenneth Espinoza released bodycam footage of the incident in May when they filed a federal lawsuit against the deputies. They characterized it as “assault” and “unjustified, excessive force.”

“This is the most clear cut case of police negligence, brutality and abuse of power that I’ve ever seen,” Keven Mehr, the attorney representing Kenneth Espinoza, said in a statement Monday. “The videos show it, the third-party investigation confirms it and Undersheriff Santistevan admits it.”

“Let’s be clear,” he continued. “Firing Noel and Trujillo is an important step in this journey towards justice. But it’s far from the last one.”

Attorneys representing the deputies asked Judge Daniel D. Domenico, who’s overseeing the case, to dismiss the lawsuit on Aug. 25, which he denied. The same day, those deputies were fired, Las Animas County Sheriff’s Office Lt. Phil Martin Jr. confirmed Monday. He said he couldn’t comment further, citing the ongoing lawsuit.

Also named as defendants in that lawsuit are the Las Animas Board of County Commissioners, Sheriff Derek Navarette and Undersheriff Rey Santistevan.

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My doctors insist it’s time I died – but I will fight them: Extraordinary case of 19-year-old woman suffering from Charlie Gard condition battling medics’ attempts to ‘condemn her to death’

‘By the time you read this, I could be dead. That’s according to my doctors who, for the last year, have repeatedly told me that I have had only days to live. But I am a fighter and will continue to fight.’

These are the devastating words of a seriously ill — yet inspiringly defiant — 19-year-old girl who argues that she will be condemned to almost certain death if NHS doctors are successful in their bid to withdraw her life-preserving treatment.

Painstakingly dictating her thoughts to me from an intensive care unit, it’s clear her will is utterly undimmed by the many obstacles she faces in her battle for survival.

For she is now not just fighting her extremely rare degenerative disorder, but also the medical and legal establishment, which she feels has marshalled against her.

Despite the profound importance of her case, the Mail cannot even tell you her first name, nor any details of her family, nor the hospital that treats her.

Instead, her identity has been reduced to the initials ‘ST’ by a draconian court order preventing her from putting her name to her heartbreaking account.

‘They’ve done everything they can to stop me telling this story,’ says the brave teenager of her remarkable legal battle with the NHS Trust which has tried to place her in palliative care.

‘I have found myself trapped in a medical and legal system governed by a toxic paternalism which has condemned me for wanting to live.’ Determined to expose her ordeal she has, together with her parents and brother, spoken — anonymously for now — exclusively to the Mail.

She tells me how her condition — mitochondrial depletion syndrome (MDS), a genetic disorder which limits the functioning of the body’s cells — was made worse by a bout of Covid in August last year, resulting in her being hospitalised.

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How 9/11 Bred a ‘War on Terror’ from Hell

The day after the U.S. government began routinely bombing faraway places, the lead editorial in The New York Times expressed some gratification.

Nearly four weeks had passed since 9/11, the newspaper noted, and America had finally stepped up its “counterattack against terrorism” by launching airstrikes on al-Qaeda training camps and Taliban military targets in Afghanistan. “It was a moment we have expected ever since September 11,” the editorial said. “The American people, despite their grief and anger, have been patient as they waited for action. Now that it has begun, they will support whatever efforts it takes to carry out this mission properly.”

As the United States continued to drop bombs in Afghanistan, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld’s daily briefings catapulted him into a stratosphere of national adulation. As The Washington Post’s media reporter put it: “Everyone is genuflecting before the Pentagon powerhouse… America’s new rock star.” That winter, the host of NBC’s Meet the Press, Tim Russert, told Rumsfeld: “Sixty-nine years old and you’re America’s stud.”

The televised briefings that brought such adoration included claims of deep-seated decency in what was by then already known as the Global War on Terror. “The targeting capabilities, and the care that goes into targeting, to see that the precise targets are struck, and that other targets are not struck, is as impressive as anything anyone could see,” Rumsfeld asserted. And he added, “The weapons that are being used today have a degree of precision that no one ever dreamt of.”

Whatever their degree of precision, American weapons were, in fact, killing a lot of Afghan civilians. The Project on Defense Alternatives concluded that American air strikes had killed more than 1,000 civilians during the last three months of 2001. By mid-spring 2002, The Guardian reported, “as many as 20,000 Afghans may have lost their lives as an indirect consequence of the U.S. intervention.”

Eight weeks after the intensive bombing had begun, however, Rumsfelddismissed any concerns about casualties: “We did not start this war. So understand, responsibility for every single casualty in this war, whether they’re innocent Afghans or innocent Americans, rests at the feet of al-Qaeda and the Taliban.” In the aftermath of 9/11, the process was fueling a kind of perpetual emotion machine without an off switch.

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Depressed by the War on Drugs? Magic Mushrooms May Help.

Hallucinogenic drugs like psilocybin-containing magic mushrooms are closely linked in the public imagination with hippies and pleasure-seeking. While there’s nothing inherently wrong with pleasure-seeking (we’ll see about hippies), growing evidence suggests that, properly used, these drugs may be just as effective for healing minds as they are at blowing them. A recently published study reports that, among other uses, psilocybin is a very effective treatment for depression.

“In a randomized, placebo-controlled, 6-week trial in 104 adults, a 25-mg dose of psilocybin administered with psychological support was associated with a rapid and sustained antidepressant effect, measured as change in depressive symptom scores, compared with active placebo,” according to the authors, led by Dr. Charles L. Raison of Wisconsin’s Usona Institute, of “Single-Dose Psilocybin Treatment for Major Depressive Disorder: A Randomized Clinical Trial,” published in August in the Journal of the American Medical Association. “No serious treatment-emergent adverse events occurred.”

The trial, conducted at different locations between December 2019 and June 2022, included participants between ages 21 and 65 who had been diagnosed with major depressive disorder of at least 60 days’ duration. Half of the participants were given a 25-mg dose of psilocybin and the other half were given niacin as a placebo, administered in identical capsules. The patients were assessed at eight days (the original end point of the study) and then at 43 days (the extended time frame).

Over the course of the study, “a single 25-mg dose of psilocybin administered with psychosocial support was associated with clinically and statistically significant reductions in depressive symptoms and improvement in measures of functional disability compared with a 100-mg dose of niacin placebo administered under an identical protocol.” The researchers also found a higher rate of sustained remission from depression symptoms among those who received psilocybin, “but the difference was not statistically significant.”

Adverse events potentially related to psilocybin consumption included one reported migraine, a headache, and one participant experiencing panic attack and paranoia. Nothing similar was found among the placebo group. As side effects go, that’s pretty mild and comparable to those linked to commonly used antidepressant drugs. Hence the finding that the study resulted in “no serious treatment-emergent adverse events.”

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Alabama Says Helping With Out-of-State Abortions Is ‘Criminal Conspiracy’

Alabama’s attorney general is insisting that he has the right to prosecute people who help pregnant women obtain out-of-state abortions. In a court filing earlier this week, Steve Marshall said such actions amount to criminal conspiracy.

Marshall’s filing comes as part of a case involving the Yellowhammer Fund, a nonprofit that bills itself as an “abortion advocacy and reproductive justice organization.” The group and two women’s health centers—the West Alabama Women’s Center and the
Alabama Women’s Center—sued Marshall in July over the attorney general’s suggestion he could go after groups that help pregnant Alabamans get out-of-state abortions.

Marshall first made this suggestion last summer on a local talk radio program, The Jeff Poor Show. “If someone was promoting themselves out as a funder of abortion out of state, then that is potentially criminally actionable for us,” Marshall said, according to the Yellowhammer Fund’s complaint. “And so, one thing we will do in working with local law enforcement and prosecutors is making sure that we fully implement this law.”

“There is nothing about that law that restricts any individual from driving across state lines” and seeking an abortion, Marshall continued. But an “entity or a group that is using funds…to facilitate” out-of-state abortion travel “is something we are going to look at closely.”

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Police Tore Up His Protest Sign. Now They Owe Him $50,000

Last year, Delaware police prevented 54-year-old Jonathan Guessford from holding a sign warning drivers about a speed trap and wrongfully cited him for “improper hand signal” after he flipped off the officers who seized and tore up his sign. Police have now agreed to pay Guessford $50,000 as part of a settlement reached in a lawsuit alleging that police violated his civil rights.

Following several run-ins with the police, Guessford decided to “stage protests whenever he saw police officers stopping unsuspected vehicles using a radar gun,” according to legal documents. On March 11, 2022, his protest consisted of standing by the side of the road, holding a homemade sign reading, “Radar Ahead!” Guessford was soon confronted by several Delaware State Police officers, who took his sign and tore it up.

As Guessford drove away after the encounter, he flipped off the officers, leading them to eventually cite him for “improper hand signal” under a statute governing hand signals for nonmotorized vehicles like bicycles. However, body camera footage showed that officers knew that the citation was incongruous and would likely be dropped.

“Yeah, you can’t do that. That’ll get dropped,” Officer Christopher Popp said during a phone call to another officer, who replied, referring to a third officer, “I told him that’s going to get thrown out….Eventually, [Guessford is] going to do something really stupid, and then we are going to be able to really lock him up.”

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Pennsylvania Officials Won’t Give Medical Marijuana Patients Access To Edibles—For Now

Officials tasked with monitoring the state’s medical marijuana program said this week edibles don’t belong in Pennsylvania’s marketplace.

Concerns about safety, efficacy and legal enforcement gave members of the Medical Marijuana Advisory Board pause. Six abstained from voting on the recommendation at all during its Wednesday meeting. Only two members supported the proposal, while two more rejected it.

The vote came after a discussion about the growing popularity of “troches,” an ingestible form of THC that resembles a cough drop. Dispensaries market the product alongside tinctures, which users absorb sublingually.

Supporters say some patients dislike the respiratory and digestive side effects that come from other forms of medical marijuana, including vaping cartridges, flowers, pills, and concentrates. Edibles offer a viable alternative.

Critics argue, however, that traditional edibles offered in other states come with a higher risk of poisoning, particularly in children, because of deceptive packaging and underestimated potency.

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