Tag: the war on (some) drugs

South Dakota Law Banning Intoxicating Hemp Products Takes Effect After Judge Declines To Block It

A new law barring the production or sale of high-inducing, hemp-derived cannabis products will take effect Monday after a judge declined to block it.

Hemp Quarters 605, a Pierre-based shop that sells those products, filed a lawsuit earlier this month in U.S. District Court in South Dakota. The business claims the new law’s provisions are unconstitutional and in conflict with federal law.

The 2018 federal Farm Bill legalized the production and sale of industrial hemp and hemp-derived products, provided they contain less than 0.3 percent of the intoxicating compound delta-9 tetrahydrocannabinol, known as THC, by dry weight.

House Bill 1125, signed into law in March by Gov. Kristi Noem (R), targets five types of chemicals that appear at low levels in hemp plants. The chemicals can be synthesized and added in amounts large enough for hemp products to ape the intoxicating effects of the delta-9 THC found in marijuana.

Marijuana remains illegal at the federal level, even though it’s legal in some states and medical marijuana is legal in South Dakota.

A violation of the new law will be a class 2 misdemeanor, the state’s lowest-level criminal offense. Like most laws adopted by the Legislature, its effective date is July 1.

Products like gummies, vape pens and smokable hemp containing the chemicals targeted by the new law are widely available across South Dakota. They’re sold in gas stations, grocery and liquor stores and in specialty smoke shops like Hemp Quarters 605.

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Oakland Corruption Scandal: Democrat Oakland Mayor Sheng Thao and Government Officials Allegedly Funded by Sex Trafficking Drug Ring

An FBI raid has exposed a complex web of alleged illicit activities involving high-ranking government officials and a notorious local business in Oakland, California.

Andy Duong, a key member of the Duong family and the self-proclaimed proprietor of the now-defunct Music Cafe, is accused of using the cafe as a front for a sex trafficking and drug operation. This establishment, which also functioned as a karaoke lounge, was linked by state authorities to drug dealing, pimping, and human trafficking before its closure in early 2019, the Mercury News reported.

The recent FBI operations on June 20 encompassed searches at several locations, including the residences of Andy Duong, his father David Duong, Mayor Thao, and the offices of CWS. These raids have brought to light alleged financial dealings and contributions made to various political campaigns in the Oakland and South Bay areas.

The Gateway Pundit previously reported that FBI agents raided a home owned by Democrat Oakland Mayor Sheng Thao. An FBI spokesperson told the press that agents were conducting “court-authorized law enforcement” at Thao’s property.

The focus of the investigation is on David Duong, CEO of California Waste Solutions, and his son, Andy Duong. Both have deep-seated ties to Democratic politicians and businesses, NBC Bay Area reported.

Their business dealings and political connections are under intense scrutiny following evidence that suggests they orchestrated a complex scheme to circumvent campaign finance laws and funnel illegal donations to various Democratic candidates.

A quick look at Andy Duong’s Instagram page reveals frequent posts with high-profile figures in the political world – including President Joe Biden, Vice President Kamala Harris, Governor Gavin Newsom, Attorney General Rob Bonta, and Health and Human Services Secretary and former state Attorney General Xavier Becerra. The list also includes elected leaders from other states such as Nevada Attorney General Aaron Ford, according to abc7 News.

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Does Weed Cause Strokes and Heart Attacks?

Thirty years ago, the sociologist Craig Reinarman observed that there’s something “woven into the very fabric of American culture” that makes us susceptible to believing that a “chemical boogeyman” is to blame for “society’s ills.” He added that every moral panic about drugs since the 19th century has been fueled by “media magnification” in which the danger of a particular substance is dramatized and distorted.

Now that recreational marijuana is legal in about half of U.S. states, and more Americans are consuming weed than ever before, the chemical bogeyman is back, and he’s armed with a new paper in the Journal of the American Heart Association by researchers from Harvard and the University of California, San Francisco.

This study, which was amplified in The New York Times and The Washington Post, commits so many egregious statistical errors that it’s a poster child for junk science. The paper would be comical if it didn’t offer bad medical advice. The researchers did almost everything wrong.

Which is not to say that the authors committed fraud or misconduct. In fact, they did exactly what Ph.D. students are taught to do, what journal editors look for, what referees approve, what universities reward, and what granting agencies fund. Because the paper uses conventional methods to arrive at false conclusions, it speaks to the profound crisis in academic research.

We’ve forgotten that the point of scientific studies isn’t seeking the approval of institutions. It’s the pursuit of truth.

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Clarence Thomas appears open to making drug addiction illegal

U.S. Supreme Court justice Clarence Thomas identified a previous ruling that he would like to upend.

The conservative majority sided with an Oregon city that prohibited unhoused people from sleeping on public land, and Thomas said in his opinion in the case that he would like to “dispose” of a 1962 ruling that struck down a California law that criminalized being addicted to narcotics, reported Newsweek.

“In an appropriate case, the Court should certainly correct this error,” Thomas wrote.

The court relied on that decades-old ruling in Robinson v. California to decide that penalizing homeless people for sleeping on the streets when no other shelter was available did not violate the Eighth Amendment prohibition on cruel and unusual punishment.

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New York Dispensary Launches ‘Illegal Cannabis Buyback’ Program, Enticing Consumers To Transition To Legal Market With Discounts

A New York marijuana dispensary is taking steps to help eradicate illicit cannabis businesses that have proliferated in the state by offering discounts and benefits to people who transition to the legal market.

Housing Works, the parent company of the state’s first legal adult-use dispensary Housing Works Cannabis Co, announced the “illegal cannabis buyback” program on Thursday. As regulators continue their push to shut down unlicensed operators, the company is providing consumers with incentives to transition to the legal market.

From July 1 to September 1, any person who provides proof of membership at an illicit operator will get a free membership at Housing Works Cannabis Co’s “co-conspirator program,” which includes 25 percent off their first purchase and a 10 percent discount on all their purchases for the next year. The membership normally costs $25.

“This buyback initiative is crucial not only for the health and safety of our customers, which is always our top priority, but also for the legal business operators and those who have fought hard for a place in New York’s legal cannabis market,” Sasha Nutgent, director of retail at Housing Works Cannabis Co, told Marijuana Moment.

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UN Human Rights Experts Say Counties Should Legalize Drugs To ‘Eliminate Profits From Illegal Trafficking’

Dozens of United Nations (UN) human rights experts are championing a less-punitive approach to global drug policies, urging member nations to focus less on punishment and criminalization and more on harm reduction and public health while specifically calling for “decriminalisation of drug use and related activities, and the responsible regulation of all drugs to eliminate profits from illegal trafficking, criminality and violence.”

“The ‘war on drugs’ has resulted in a range of serious human rights violations, as documented by a number of UN human rights experts over the years,” says the statement from UN special rapporteurs, experts and working groups. “We collectively urge Member States and all UN entities to put evidence and communities at the centre of drug policies, by shifting from punishment towards support, and invest in the full array of evidence-based health interventions for people who use drugs, ranging from prevention to harm reduction, treatment and aftercare, emphasizing the need for a voluntary basis and in full respect of human rights norms and standards.”

The statement is not a defense of drug use but instead an insistence that nations’ overzealous fight against substances has failed to address health problems while creating harms of its own.

“These widespread abuses have included compulsory drug detention in the name of ‘treatment’, over incarceration and related prison overcrowding, the ongoing use of the death penalty for drug offences, killings, enforced disappearances and the ongoing lack of, and unequal access to treatment, harm reduction and essential medicines,” it says.

“The international community must seek to address and reverse the damage brought about by decades of a global ‘war on drugs,’” it says. “We note that states of exception and the militarization of law enforcement in the context of the ‘war on drugs’ continue to facilitate the commission of multiple and serious human rights violations… [W]e collectively call for an end to the militarisation of drug policy, overincarceration and prison overcrowding, the use of the death penalty for drug offences, and policies that disproportionately impact marginalised groups.”

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Afghan heroin shortage could lead to more overdose deaths – UN

The Taliban’s crackdown on poppy cultivation in Afghanistan  could trigger a spike in overdose deaths if the global heroin lack is filled by more potent synthetic compounds, the UN has warned.

A report released on Wednesday by the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) assessed the impact of a ban on opium cultivation, production, processing and trade which the Taliban reintroduced in April 2022. It came too late to affect the harvest that year, but the crackdown caused output to shrink 95% in 2023, it said.

The loss of this supply from Afghanistan, previously the world’s dominant producer of opium and heroin, was partially compensated by Myanmar, where there was a 36% increase in output. Nevertheless, global opium production fell by 74% last year, according to UN research.

Prices of opiates in Afghanistan skyrocketed last year, but the availability of old stockpiles meant that no real shortage was reported in destination markets until early 2024, the report said.

Preliminary field observations indicate that this year the supply may slightly increase, but Afghanistan is unlikely to “reach the very high production observed in the years before 2023.” If the crunch continues, the purity of heroin on the global market may decline, and the demand for substitute opiates will surge, UNODC has predicted.

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California Lawmakers Kill World’s Most Marginal Psychedelics Reform

The world’s most modest psychedelics reform has failed in the California Legislature once again.

Yesterday, the sponsors of a bill that would have allowed three California counties to run temporary pilot programs through which veterans and first responders could be administered psilocybin (the “magic” chemical in magic mushrooms) under medical supervision pulled their legislation, reports KQED.

The bill’s authors cited a certain “no” vote in a coming Assembly Health Committee hearing as the reason for axing their own legislation.

This is the latest failure of legislation aimed at liberalizing laws surrounding psychedelic use in the Golden State.

Last year, Gov. Gavin Newsom vetoed legislation that would have decriminalized the personal possession and use of various plant-based psychedelics, saying he might support narrower legalization of these substances for therapeutic uses.

In May, a broader measure that would have established a statewide system for licensing and regulating psychedelic use, including the use of MDMA, mescaline, and psilocybin, in private therapeutic settings stalled in the state Senate.

The bill that failed this week was narrower still. It would have authorized the public health officers of San Francisco, San Diego, and Santa Cruz to license up to five facilities where licensed medical professionals could administer psilocybin and psilocin (both psychoactive substances found in so-called magic mushrooms) to screened military veterans and first responders. The program would sunset after three years.

California’s latest, failed reform efforts were modeled off new programs set up by Oregon and Colorado that likewise legalize psychedelic use in tightly regulated, state-licensed therapy-like settings.

Some local jurisdictions, including several California cities and Washington, D.C., have passed more modest “deprioritization” policies to classify enforcement of certain psychedelic laws as the lowest law enforcement priority.

In D.C., at least, that’s created a thriving gray-black market for psychedelic mushrooms. With the modest assurance that they won’t face legal penalties, many of the city’s pre-existing, semi-legal cannabis businesses have started selling mushrooms as well.

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Shock as Vending Machines With Orwellian Name Supplied With Various Disturbing Products Aimed at Drug Users

A new device in Ontario, Canada offers people easy access to some disturbing supplies like HIV self-test kits, meth pipes, naloxone, crack kits, and condoms.

The real shocker is that all of the items are free; users just need to tap on the screen after creating an account, which is meant to better track supplies and limit abuse.

The bizarre vending machines have sparked backlash online, with some viewing it as a sign that “Canada is broken.”

CTV News reported that the jaw-dropping device is located at the office of SOAR Community Services.

It was dubbed “our Healthbox” by manager of healthy communities at the Brant County Health Unit (BCHU) DeAnna Renn.

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