Tag: the war on (some) drugs

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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Major Coalition Of Marijuana Groups Announces Week-Long Push In DC For Legalization And Clemency Under Trump Admin

Marijuana advocacy groups and industry stakeholders will be staging another demonstration in Washington, D.C. this spring to show support for federal legalization at a time of significant uncertainty about what might be achievable under the GOP-controlled Congress and White House.

Led by the Last Prisoner Project (LPP), the Cannabis Unity Week of Action will take place from April 28-May 1, bringing together a diverse coalition to “unite advocates, impacted individuals, and industry leaders to pressure Congress and the Trump administration to fully legalize cannabis and implement retroactive relief measures for those affected by prohibition-era policies.”

The week-long event will involve educational outreach, press conferences featuring congressional allies in the reform movement and “an action outside the White House to honor those still incarcerated for cannabis and demand their freedom via presidential clemency.”

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Military Veterans Groups Push Congress To Expedite Psychedelics Research And Support Medical Marijuana Access

The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) should continue to explore psychedelics and medical marijuana therapy and expedite access to such alternative treatments if they’re proven to be efficacious, representatives of leading veterans service organizations (VSOs) told members of Congress this week.

One key group testified that the scheduling of substances like cannabis, psilocybin and MDMA as Schedule I drugs is a “major barrier” to therapeutic access.

At joint hearings before the House and Senate Veterans’ Affairs Committees on Tuesday and Wednesday, lawmakers took testimony from the VSOs—and one theme that emerged was the need to support research and access for marijuana and psychedelics, particularly as it concerns VA.

Rep. Jack Bergman (R-MI), co-chair of the Congressional Psychedelics Advancing Therapies (PATH) Caucus, asked Disabled American Veterans (DAV) National Commander Daniel Contreras what role he felt VA should play in “advancing the promising field in that area of [psychedelic] medicine through research.”

Contreras said it’s DAV’s position that “we should look at alternatives.” He added that he’s personally familiar with the issue in part because psilocybin has been incorporated into his own wife’s therapy, which underscores for him that “there needs to be some alternative choices.”

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Missouri Lawmakers Consider Psychedelic-Assisted Therapy To Aid Military Veterans With PTSD

In hopes of helping veterans facing mental health issues, Missouri lawmakers are once again pushing legislation that would require the state to conduct a study on using psilocybin—also known as “magic mushrooms”—to treat depression, substance use or as part end-of-life care.

Similar legislation has been filed for the last three years, and in 2023 the House voted overwhelmingly in support of the idea. But it’s never made its way to the Senate.

On Monday, several members of the House Veterans Committee said they were staunchly against the proposal when they first heard about it. However, research the committee has explored over the years has changed their minds.

That includes studies done by psychiatry researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, who were the first in Missouri to give a legal dose of psilocybin in 2019.

They have been using a brain-imaging technique to learn how psilocybin affects certain networks in the brain.

The bill’s sponsor, Republican state Rep. Richard West of Wentzville, said he was skeptical at first, as a former police officer.

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New Jersey Governor Proposes Marijuana Tax Hike

New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy (D) wants to hike a special tax on cannabis from $2.50 to $15 an ounce to fund social service and violence intervention programs with tens of millions of dollars in new revenue.

“In just five years, cannabis has gone from destroying lives—in the form of excessive criminal sentences—to helping save lives,” Murphy said in his budget address Tuesday.

Murphy’s plan comes about two months after the state Cannabis Regulatory Commission hiked the tax from $1.24 to $2.50 an ounce in December.

The tax, known as the social equity excise fee, is paid by cannabis cultivators. The money goes to a dedicated fund for social equity programs and investing in communities hurt by marijuana prohibition, and another portion is allocated to programs to divert youth from cannabis.

As of August 2024, the tax has brought in more than $6 million, which is all sitting unspent, according to the cannabis agency. That money must be allocated by the Legislature and governor under the state’s cannabis legalization law.

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Ohio Senators Approve Bill To Scale Back Voter-Approved Marijuana Legalization Law By Reducing Home Grow And Adding New Penalties

An Ohio Senate committee has approved a bill to make significant changes to the state’s voter-approved marijuana law—by halving the number of plants adults could grow, adding certain criminal penalties and removing select social equity provisions, among other revisions.

On Wednesday, the Senate General Government Committee passed the legislation from Sen. Steve Huffman (R) in a 5-2 vote, sending it to the Rules and Reference Committee to prepare it for a full Senate vote that come come as early as Wednesday afternoon.

This comes about a week after the panel held a hearing on the proposal, taking testimony and adopting a substitute version. On Wednesday, the panel adopted an additional substitute that would clarify that THC limits per package don’t apply to products intended for combustion, prevent people with felony convictions from obtaining a marijuana license and restore the ability of level two cultivators to expand their operations to 15,000 square feet.

In its initial form, the bill would have raised the state’s excise tax on marijuana products from 10 percent to 15 percent and also changed how taxes are redistributed to local governments. But those tax provisions were removed at the previous hearing in light of separate plans to adjust the tax rate in broader budget legislation.

Democratic members of the committee offered a series of amendments, several of which sought to dial back some of the proposed changes to the voter-approved law. All were defeated by the panel’s Republican majority, however.

For example, the substitute approved in committee would lower the maximum household plant limit for home cultivation from 12 to six. An amendment was offered to “compromise” by raising that to nine.

Huffman made the motion to table that amendment, saying that “this bill is all about being reasonable and appropriate,” and the legislation “initially started with two plants, and we compromised up to six and I believe that continuing as six is reasonable and appropriate.”

Under current law as approved by voters in 2023, adults can grow up to 12 cannabis plants at home.

Reform advocates oppose the legislation because, in addition to halving the home cultivation limit, they say it would recriminalize the sharing of cannabis between adults, smoking or vaping in someone’s own back yard and transporting unopened edibles in a vehicle. It also would eliminate non-discrimination protections to ensure cannabis consumers aren’t denied child custody, access to medical care and public benefits.

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Marijuana Possession Would Be Decriminalized In Texas Under Lawmaker’s New Bill

Low-level marijuana possession would be decriminalized in Texas if a new bill filed this week by a key House leader is enacted.

The measure, HB 3242, from Rep. Joe Moody (D), would make simple possession of up to an ounce of cannabis flower a Class C misdemeanor—explicitly removing the risk of arrest and incarceration.

Class C misdemeanors are punishable by a fine of up to $500, with no possibility of jail time. Currently simple possession of cannabis is a Class B misdemeanor, which carries penalties of up to 180 days in jail and a $2,000 fine.

Moody’s proposal, introduced on Monday, is the latest of nearly two dozen cannabis-related bills filed so far in Texas for the current legislative session. Various other measures would legalize adult-use marijuana, prohibit certain hemp-derived products, remove criminal penalties for cannabis possession and adjust the state’s existing medical marijuana laws, among others.

Heather Fazio, director of the Texas Cannabis Policy Center, has been tracking legislation in the state and applauded the introduction of HB 3242 by Moody, who was tapped by House Speaker Dustin Burrows (R) to serve as House speaker pro tempore.

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Idaho Governor Signs Bill Setting Mandatory Minimum Fine For Marijuana Possession

Idaho’s governor has signed a bill creating a new mandatory minimum fine for possession of marijuana.

Under the legislation approved by Gov. Brad Little (R) on Monday, adults caught with less than three ounces of cannabis will face a mandatory minimum fine of $300.

Sponsor Rep. Bruce Skaug (R), the sponsor of the measure, told a House committee last month that “we do not want this to become a marijuana state.”

On the House floor, the representative asked colleagues: “Tell me what state—anybody who debates against this bill—what state is a better place because of the passage of marijuana legalization? I submit none.”

He later told a Senate committee that “a $300 fine is not too much if you can afford to buy this marijuana and concentrate.”

“Every dollar spent on pot by someone is not spent on food, clothing, school supplies, real medicine or housing,” he said.

The new law is set to take effect on July 1.

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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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Using The Marijuana Components THC-V And CBD Every Day Helps People Lose Weight, Study Finds

Research on the use of marijuana components to aid weight loss found that use of a combined product containing the cannabinoids THCV and CBD “was associated with statistically significant weight loss” as well as a slimmer waistline, lower blood pressure and decreased cholesterol.

The study, published late last month in the journal Cannabis, analyzed outcomes among 44 people who were administered either oral strips containing a mixture of the two cannabinoids or a placebo. Participants took one strip daily for 90 says and were evaluated for weight loss and certain metabolic markers.

“Use of the THCV/CBD strip was associated with statistically significant weight loss, decreases in abdominal girth, systolic blood pressure, and total and LDL cholesterol,” says the report, authored by Dr. Gregory Smith, the founder and CEO of plant-based medicine company NeX Therapeutics, based in Florida.

Participants—31 of whom were female and 13 of whom were male, with a combined average age of about 52 years—were given either a placebo or one of two different mucoadhesive oral strips. A lower-dose version contained 8 milligrams of THCV and 10 mg CBD, while a higher-dose version had 16 mg THCV and 20 mg CBD. Subjects received a reminder to take a dose each day on an empty stomach and report any side effects, and they agreed to refrain from using cannabis or other cannabinoid-based products.

Participants were not asked to make any changes to their diet or exercise routines.

Of 24 people who received the lower-potency oral strips, 16 (66.7 percent) demonstrated weight loss over the course of the 90-day period—on average losing 2.6 kilograms (5.7 pounds). Among the 10 who received the higher-dose strips, seven (70 percent) lost weight—an average of 4.1 kg (9.0 lbs).

The 10 subjects who received the placebo, meanwhile, lost an average of just 0.1 kg (0.2 lbs).

Nearly all (95.8 percent) in the lower-dose group also saw reductions in abdominal girth, as did 70 percent of the higher-dose subjects.

“It is interesting to note that there was a barely statistically significant decrease in the control/placebo group,” Smith wrote, “however, it is also worth noting that abdominal girth is probably the least accurate of all the biometric measures taken for the purposes of this study.”

The THCV/CBD groups also showed reductions in systolic blood pressure as well as total and LDL cholesterol, the research found.

“In summary, 90 day use of once-daily THCV and CBD-infused mucoadhesive strips was associated with clinically significant weight loss, decreases in abdominal girth, systolic blood pressure, and total and LDL cholesterol,” the report concludes, adding that stronger dosage appeared to perform better: “The 16mg/20mg daily dose in Group B was superior for weight loss compared to the 8mg/10mg daily dose in Group A.”

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