Tag: police state

When 7‑OH Fears Drive Policy by Anecdote

For generations, communities in Southeast Asia have used the leaves of Mitragyna speciosa — kratom — brewed as a drink to relieve pain and steady mood. Its principal alkaloids, mitragynine and the more potent 7‑hydroxymitragynine, act on opioid receptors and produce analgesic effects.

Kratom has since gained a significant presence in the United States, where consumers often use it as an alternative to prescription opioids or as a self-directed aid in managing withdrawal. It is sold in teas, capsules, powders, and concentrated extracts, with purified 7‑OH products increasingly appearing in vape shops, convenience stores, and online markets.

Regulators are now moving toward prohibition. Last July, Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Marty Makary and Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. announced plans to urge the Drug Enforcement Administration to place 7‑OH in Schedule I — the same legal category as heroin.

Supporters of these efforts argue that kratom — especially high-potency 7‑OH — could fuel the next wave of overdose deaths. But the data tell a different story.

Fatal overdoses in which 7‑OH has been implicated are exceedingly rare, and deaths linked to kratom more broadly are rarer still. In the limited cases where coroners listed kratom or 7‑OH as contributing factors, polysubstance use was the norm. Roughly two-thirds of decedents had fentanyl in their systems. About one-third had heroin present, and just under one-fifth had prescription opioids or cocaine. Around 80% had documented histories of substance misuse, and about 90% were not receiving clinical care for pain.

Each of these deaths is tragic, and any loss of life linked to psychoactive substances deserves careful scrutiny.

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This Small-Town Couple Sells Affordable Caskets – the State Wants to Shut Them Down

Todd Collard and his wife, Candi Mentink have owned and operated Caskets of Honor for years, providing high-quality custom designs at an affordable price for grieving families. But their dream of helping people honor their loved ones slammed into a roadblock when Oklahoma’s regulators stepped in.

The business started in 2016 soon after Todd decided to build a casket for fun. It didn’t take long for this project to become a business idea — one that would set them on their journey to manufacture affordable caskets with custom designs for those who lost loved ones. “I just always thought it’d be really neat,” Todd told Townhall. “We’ve all been to funerals and seeing just the same old caskets over and over.”

He continued, saying he “just thought it’d be really cool to be able to create a tribute to somebody or a theme or anything that they like—hunting, fishing, golf, whatever,” and that he wanted to “just create something that is memorable.”

From their shop in Calvin, Oklahoma, Caskets of Honor the couple worked together to create these caskets. Todd handles the building and outside design of the box while Candi uses her sewing skills to create the interior of the casket. “I tell people I’m a perfect example of why they should put Home Economics back in school,” Candi said.

Buying a casket direct from the company benefits consumers because if they were to purchase one at a funeral home, they would be paying exorbitant prices due to markups. Caskets of Honor sells to its customers directly so they don’t have to deal with inflated prices.

At first, the couple sold to funeral homes. But they wished to sell to families, so they took their products to the Tulsa State Fair in 2021. Todd said their caskets were “the hit of the fair,” with many coming by their booth to see their caskets. They gave away over 2,000 business cards at the event.

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Spain JAILS Seven Citizens For Calling Migrants ‘SCUM’ On Facebook

Spain’s Supreme Court has upheld prison sentences for seven individuals over Facebook comments criticizing unaccompanied foreign minors in the border enclave of Melilla, marking a chilling escalation in the far-left government’s war on free speech amid skyrocketing migrant-related crime.

The ruling, which imposes terms ranging from eight months to one year and ten months, stems from posts that prosecutors deemed as promoting hostility toward the group of mostly North African migrants. 

Charges were initially dropped, but an appeal led to convictions under Spain’s hate crime laws.

This case exemplifies the inverted priorities under Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez’s Socialist-led government, which has faced mounting criticism for prioritizing mass migration over native safety and free expression.

Just months ago, Alex Soros heaped praise on Sánchez for granting amnesty to up to 500,000 illegal migrants via royal decree, bypassing parliament entirely. Soros called it “real leadership,” urging more nations to follow suit in flooding their borders.

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Britain is Trying to Censor Americans – But America is Fighting Back

Ofcom has confirmed it is referring 4chan to a final enforcement decision under the Online Safety Act. The target is a Delaware company that runs an entirely anonymous imageboard from the United States, with no offices, staff, servers or assets in Britain. The demand: install age-verification systems and content filters so that British children cannot access the site or face daily fines levied from London on an American platform. This case is not an outlier. It is the clearest real-world demonstration of what the new generation of “online safety” laws requires: private companies must build automated filters that decide, in advance, which legal speech is too harmful for minors to see. The question the regulators never quite answer is simple: what exactly does the filter catch?

In the early 2020s, a political consensus formed on both sides of the Atlantic: social media is harming children and something must be done. The result in Washington was the Kids’ Online Safety Act (KOSA); in Westminster, the Online Safety Act (OSA), which received Royal Assent in October 2023 and began enforcement in 2025. The political appeal of both measures is genuine. Adolescent mental health deteriorated in the 2010s, parents are alarmed and platforms have appeared indifferent. But good intentions do not make good law, and the form these interventions took is constitutionally and morally indefensible. Both KOSA and the OSA rest on a duty-of-care model: platforms must take “reasonable measures” or implement “proportionate systems” to prevent minors from encountering content associated with depression, anxiety, eating disorders, self-harm and suicide. This is not a regulation of conduct. It is a mandate to suppress speech based on its topic and its predicted emotional effect on a reader: the very definition of content-based regulation.

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) stated the constitutional problem plainly in its July 2023 letter opposing KOSA: the bill “is a content-based regulation of constitutionally protected speech” that “will silence important conversations, limit minors’ access to potentially vital resources and violate the First Amendment”.  Under Reed v. Town of Gilbert, a law is content-based if it “applies to particular speech because of the topic discussed or the idea or message expressed”. Content-based regulations are “presumptively unconstitutional”.

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Europe Is Building a Digital Identity System for 450 Million People

The European Union is quietly constructing what may become one of the most sweeping digital identity systems ever attempted. Under new legislation, every EU member state must provide citizens with a government-approved “European Digital Identity Wallet” by 2026. This system will allow people to store official documents, verify identity, access government services, sign legal contracts, and potentially interact with financial institutions through a single digital platform. It is being marketed as a modernization effort designed to make life easier for citizens navigating an increasingly digital economy.

Supporters claim the digital wallet will simply replace physical paperwork. Instead of carrying passports, driver’s licenses, or other credentials, individuals will be able to verify their identity online with a government-issued digital key. The European Commission argues that this will streamline bureaucracy and allow citizens to interact with both public and private services more efficiently across all 27 member states.

Yet the implications extend far beyond administrative convenience. Once identity becomes centralized within a digital framework controlled or approved by government authorities, participation in everyday life increasingly depends on that system. Access to banking, employment verification, healthcare services, travel documentation, and legal contracts can all be integrated into the same identity infrastructure. What begins as a convenience quickly becomes a gateway through which access to modern society is managed.

Governments have always maintained population registries in one form or another. What makes digital identity systems fundamentally different is the speed and scale at which they operate. When identification becomes digitized and interconnected across borders, the ability to monitor economic and social activity expands dramatically. Identity verification can occur instantly, records can be updated in real time, and information can be shared between institutions with unprecedented efficiency.

This development becomes even more significant when viewed alongside other technological initiatives currently underway in Europe. The European Central Bank continues to explore the creation of a digital euro, a central bank digital currency that would exist entirely within electronic financial systems. If digital identity platforms and digital currency systems eventually intersect, financial activity and identity verification could become closely linked within the same infrastructure.

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UK Consults on Social Media Age Verification While Directing Parents to Report “Hate Speech” to Big Tech

The British government launched a consultation this week that could require age verification for anyone using social media, gaming sites, or AI chatbots.

The consultation, titled “Growing up in the online world,” opened on March 2nd and closes May 26, 2026. It asks the public whether the government should ban under-16s from social media entirely, impose mandatory overnight curfews on platform access, restrict AI chatbot features for minors, and require platforms to disable “addictive design features” like infinite scrolling and autoplay.

The government says it will respond in summer 2026, and Parliament has already handed ministers new legal powers to act on the findings without waiting for fresh primary legislation.

The Prime Minister announced those powers on February 16, weeks before the consultation even opened. The government can now move faster once it decides what it wants. What the public thinks determines the packaging, not the destination.

Technology Secretary Liz Kendall framed it this way: “The path to a good life is a great childhood, one full of love, learning, and play. That applies just as much to the online world as it does to the real one.”

The actual policy tools being considered are a different matter.

Age verification, as a mechanism, works by proving identity. Every user proves who they are.

A social media platform that must exclude under-16s must verify the age of its over-16s. That means collecting identity documents, linking browsing activity to real identities, or building infrastructure that a government can later compel to serve other purposes.

The surveillance architecture required to enforce a children’s safety law is the same architecture required to surveil adults. It gets built for one reason. It gets used for others.

Then there’s the “Help your child stay safe online” campaign site, the government launched alongside the consultation. The site includes a page directing parents to report “bullying, threats, harassment, hate speech, and content promoting self-harm or suicide” directly to platforms, with links to the reporting tools of Instagram, Snapchat, Facebook, WhatsApp, TikTok, Discord, YouTube, and Twitch.

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UK COUNTER-TERROR Police Ad Warns Teens Sharing ‘Funny’ Content Could Be TERRORISM

The UK’s Counter Terrorism Police have released a disturbing advertisement depicting a white teenager facing police seizure of devices and a potential criminal record simply for sharing a link he found “funny”—content, we are told, was later deemed terrorist material.

This move, part of the broader Prevent anti-radicalization strategy, underscores the UK regime’s push to police online activity among youth, framing it as a gateway to extremism while ignoring surging real-world dangers from mass migration.

In the ad, a teen laments: “I just got all my device taken away by the police… My mom couldn’t believe it. I might get a criminal record and not be able to go to college.” He then explains: “I only shared a link. I just thought it was funny, but it was terrorist content.”

Counter Terrorism Policing describes itself as “a collaboration of UK police forces working with the UK intelligence community to help protect the public and our national security by preventing, deterring, and investigating terrorist activity.”

A recent academic analysis in the Journal of Policing, Intelligence and Counter Terrorism highlights the escalating involvement of family courts and Prevent in childhood radicalization cases, noting “the number of children referred to Prevent and Channel due to concerns that they might be at risk of, or from, radicalisation has been steadily increasing since 2015.”

It adds that professionals like teachers are “legally obligated to refer that child to the police under the auspices of Prevent” if suspecting risk.

Government guidance on Prevent duty in schools urges communication with parents to spot signs, but also empowers referrals if family members show vulnerability. As one factsheet states, referrals can come from “a family member, friend, colleague, or a professional.”

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Florida Legislators Advance a Bill Authorizing Government Surveillance Based on ‘Views’ or ‘Opinions’

A bill that is advancing in the Florida Legislature would authorize government surveillance of people whose “views” or “opinions” are deemed “a threat” to state or national “interests.” What could possibly go wrong?

“This outrageous claim of authority would be a profound betrayal of Americans’ First Amendment rights,” Carolyn Iodice, legislative and policy director at the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, warns in a press release. “Imagine being arrested or having your home raided because the government has decided that your opinions are a ‘threat’ or simply don’t align with its interests. This puts everyone’s free speech rights at risk. Even if your views aren’t in the state’s crosshairs today, they could be tomorrow. Free societies do not investigate or arrest their own citizens for their opinions.”

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Florida also has “grave concerns” about the bill. It “could easily be used to silence dissenting voices under the guise of security,” ACLU of Florida strategist Abdelilah Skhir told Florida Politics last month. “The vague and overbroad language could easily be weaponized against everyday Floridians engaged in First Amendment protected activity.”

State Rep. Danny Alvarez (R–Riverview), who filed the bill on December 30, does not understand what all the fuss is about. He says he is simply trying to combat threats such as “drug cartels,” “terrorist organizations,” and foreign “intelligence entities.” Last week, the Florida Phoenix reported that “Alvarez said it’s only been in the past week that he’s become aware of First Amendment concerns.”

Alvarez’s bill, H.B. 945, would create a Statewide Counterintelligence and Counterterrorism Unit within the Florida Department of Law Enforcement, consisting of “at least seven” 10-member teams. The unit would be charged with “identify[ing] threats by analyzing patterns of life, gathering actionable intelligence, and formulating effective plans of action, and by executing arrests or by revealing its intent to compel a response using all counterintelligence and counterterrorism tradecraft necessary to protect the state from adversary intelligence entities.”

What is an “adversary intelligence entity”? The bill’s definition goes far beyond spies employed by foreign governments. It says the term “includes, but is not limited to, any national, foreign, multinational, friendly, competitor, opponent, adversary, or recognized enemy government or nongovernmental organization, company, business, corporation, consortium, group, agency, cell, terrorist, insurgent, guerrilla entity, or person whose demonstrated actions, views, or opinions are a threat or are inimical to the interests of this state and the United States of America.”

On its face, the bill would empower the Statewide Counterintelligence and Counterterrorism Unit to investigate organizations and individuals based on the “views” or “opinions” they express. Alvarez insists that is not his intent. But by his own account, he did not recognize the obvious First Amendment implications of that broad mandate until a month and a half after he introduced the bill.

When some of his colleagues alerted him to those civil liberties concerns, Alvarez promised to address them. “We are very, very aware of the questions regarding [the] First Amendment,” he told Florida Politics last week. “We’re going to address that in an amendment that comes to the next committee.” He told reporters he was willing to excise the language referring to any “person whose demonstrated actions, views, or opinions are a threat or are inimical to the interests of this state and the United States of America.”

So far, however, the original version of the bill is the only one listed on the Florida Legislature’s website. And despite his avowed willingness to amend the bill, Alvarez does not seem to think it is actually necessary to do so.

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Arizona Senators Scale Back Bills To Punish Marijuana Users Over Excess Smoke Or Odor Complaints

Arizona senators have dialed back a pair of measures that would penalize people who create “excessive” amounts of marijuana smoke or odor, with members advancing revised versions of the legislation following criticism that, as introduced, they would have added criminalization provisions back into the state’s cannabis use laws.

The latest bill and companion resolution, sponsored by Sen. J.D. Mesnard (R), were amended by the Senate Committee of the Whole on Wednesday, with a floor vote on third reading now imminent. While the bill would on its own enact a statutory policy change, the separate resolution would put the issue before voters to decide.

As the original proposals moved through the legislative process, advocates and certain lawmakers voiced concerns about undermining the will of voters who passed legalization at the ballot, as well as the ambiguity around enforceability and what constitutes “excessive” marijuana smoke.

The legislation was previously amended in committee last month in an attempt to provide a clearer definition of “excessive” smoke and remove a reference to making the offense a “crime.”

The latest revised definition of excessive cannabis smoke or odor describes it as “airborne emissions resulting from the burning, heating or vaporizing of marijuana or marijuana products,” according to a summary of the adopted floor amendment.

Such emissions must also be “detectable by a reasonable person of ordinary sensibilities on other private property” and “occur for more than 30 consecutive minutes on a single occasion or on three or more separate days within a 30-day period.”

Members further revised the legislation in response to criticism that the committee-passed versions continued to lack clarity and would pose the threat of criminalization by making the offense a class 3 misdemeanor, punishable by up to 30 days in jail, a maximum $500 fine and up to one year of probation.

That, too, was ultimately changed in the bill (SB 1725) and resolution (SCR 1048) that are teed up to advance through the full Senate.

Specifically, the legislation stipulates that “excessive marijuana smoke or odor is a public nuisance if the person’s conduct is intentional or the person knowingly and substantially interferes with the comfortable enjoyment of life or property,” a summary of the amendment says.

The proposals also now specify that “lawful possession or use of marijuana does not preclude a finding of nuisance, except that a court may consider possession of a valid registry identification card as a mitigating factor,” and they provide that “a person is not liable for committing a private nuisance unless the person has received notice of the interference and fails to abate it within five days.”

Under the revised legislation, the affected party would first have to file a compliant with local officials before they pursue action with the state, but only if the municipality has already adopted an ordinance regulating excessive cannabis smoke or odor.

A person would be deemed in violation of the law if a local court has issued a written order directing them to “abate excessive marijuana smoke or odor that constitutes a nuance” and that person “knowingly violates or refuses to comply with the order.”

Each day of non-compliance after failing to adhere to the order would be consider a separate offense, and failure to comply would be a petty offense, rather than a criminal violation.

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Congress Is Considering Abolishing Your Right to Be Anonymous Online

In August 2024, the Biden administration hosted hundreds of influencers at the White House for the first-ever Creator Economy Conference. Neera Tanden, a senior Biden adviser, took to the stage and bemoaned anonymity online. The influencers alongside her agreed, pushing the idea that anonymous speech on the internet is harmful, and regulation is needed to force the use of real names on social media. The audience whispered excitedly as those on stage spoke about how proposed laws like the Kids Online Safety Act, or KOSA, could unmask every troll. 

This narrative of online safety, particularly in relation to children, has become central to the bipartisan effort to censor and deanonymize the internet for everyone. Today, a package of a dozen “child online safety” bills is moving forward in the House of Representatives with bipartisan support. The laws, framed as a way to crack down on harmful content and make the internet safer, would force social media companies to enact invasive identity verification measures in order to keep children from accessing online spaces.

The problem is that there’s no way to reliably verify someone’s age without verifying who they are. A platform cannot magically discern that a user is 16 without collecting identifying information, whether through government documents such as a passport, payment information like a credit card, or other identity-disclosing data. Whether that data is stored by the platform itself or outsourced to a vendor, the result is always the same: A user’s offline identity is forever linked with their online behavior.

Stripping anonymity from the internet would constitute one of the most sweeping rollbacks of civil rights in recent history. It would allow for unprecedented levels of mass surveillance and censorship, endangering the most marginalized members of society. Whistleblowers exposing corporate wrongdoing could be tracked and fired, government employees speaking out about illegal behavior or bad policies could face prosecution, and activists organizing protests could be identified and surveilled before ever setting foot on the street.

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