Tag: the war on (some) drugs

Former Minnesota Governor Jesse Ventura Calls On Marijuana Consumers To Boycott State Fair For Banning Cannabis But Allowing Alcohol And Tobacco

Minnesota’s former governor is calling on people to boycott this year’s State Fair for prohibiting marijuana use at the venue while at the same time allowing attendees to consume alcohol and tobacco—even though the state enacted a cannabis legalization law last year. But while Jesse Venture is fired up about the fair’s policy, he’s also optimistic about the prospects of federal marijuana reform under a Harris-Walz administration.

In an interview with Marijuana Moment on Thursday, Ventura said he does hope that Vice President Harris Kamala Harris, the 2024 Democratic nominee, and her running mate, current Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz (D), advocate for an end to federal cannabis prohibition on the campaign trail, saying it would be “smart for them to do so” given the popularity of the issue.

“If they would come out and say they would lift the federal ban on cannabis, marijuana, I think that could help ensure their victory,” he said. “There is a tremendous amount of cannabis users out there who would vote accordingly so that they would not feel, federally, like they’re still criminals in any way, shape or form.”

During her time in the Senate, Harris sponsored a comprehensive marijuana legalization bill, and she’s called for major reform as recently as March during a roundtable with presidential pardon recipients. Walz signed cannabis legalization into law in Minnesota last year—and he invited Ventura, a longstanding champion of reform, to attend the signing ceremony.

Despite Minnesota enacting legalization, however, Ventura says the State Fair is not allowing cannabis use, even as it makes accommodations for tobacco use in specific areas and will have alcohol available for purchase on-site at beer gardens and other vendors.

“It’s supposed to be legal in the state of Minnesota. How can they outlaw it at the State Fair when they allow tobacco and alcohol? And my point being is this: All we ask in the cannabis world is to treat us equally,” he said. “Treat us fairly. Treat us the same as you do tobacco and alcohol. And unfortunately, that’s not happening. We’re being discriminated against, even though it is now legal.”

“All cannabis smokers ought to boycott the State Fair,” Ventura, a former wrestler and actor, said. “Don’t go there until we’re given our equal rights and we’re treated equally to tobacco and alcohol.”

A spokesperson for the Minnesota State Fair confirmed in an email to Marijuana Moment that “the smoking and vaping of cannabis is prohibited on the Minnesota State Fairgrounds” during the 2024 event.

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Intoxicating Hemp Products Are Undercutting South Dakota Medical Marijuana Sales, Businesses Tell Lawmakers

South Dakota’s legislative oversight committee on medical marijuana was thrust into the world of synthetic THC on Monday as members heard complaints about how loosely regulated, hemp-derived products are affecting the state’s medical marijuana industry.

The Medical Marijuana Oversight Committee heard from business owners and the State Public Health Laboratory director during a meeting in Pierre. They’re concerned about the growth in synthetically altered, hemp-derived products, sold under terms including delta-8 THC and delta-10 THC, which are compounds that can produce a high similar to marijuana. The compound that gives marijuana its high is delta-9 THC.

As with marijuana, the synthetic products take the form of smokable flower, pre-rolled joints, vape oil and edibles. Unlike marijuana, the companies that produce them aren’t subject to the testing, security and labeling requirements attached to the state’s legal medical cannabis market.

Alternatives not only pose a health risk, the witnesses told the oversight committee, but can cut into demand for medical marijuana since the products can be purchased without a medical marijuana patient card and can be loaded with large enough quantities of THC variants to act as a stand-in for marijuana.

Congress authorized hemp growing with the 2018 Farm Bill, and South Dakota has become the largest producer of hemp in the country after legalizing it four years ago. In that time period, the availability and variety of hemp-derived marijuana alternatives has exploded.

The Legislature passed House Bill 1125 last winter to address the “diet weed” market. The law, which went into effect in July but is being challenged in court, bans the creation or sale of some products created through chemical modification of hemp. Possession of the products is still legal.

The new law bans four THC variants, State Public Health Laboratory Director Tim Southern told the committee, but several others remain available. THC-A products, for example, remain widely available in smoke shops that had previously sold other products that are now illegal to sell.

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GOP Senators Claim Marijuana Is A ‘Gateway Drug’ As They Oppose Rescheduling And Legalization

Two GOP senators said recently that they remain opposed to marijuana reform—in part, because they believe cannabis is a “gateway drug,” perpetuating the dubious claim as other Republican lawmakers members raise concerns about the Biden administration’s push to enact rescheduling.

In an interview with St. Louis Public Radio that aired on Monday, Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO) was asked about his views on various cannabis reform proposals, including comprehensive legalization and bipartisan legislation to protect banks that work with state-licensed marijuana businesses.

“I just think that marijuana is still a gateway drug,” Hawley said. “We have medicinal marijuana, which I did support in Missouri. So if you want to get the medicinal benefits, there’s a way to capture that.” He did caveat, however, that he thinks “the medicinal benefits of it are limited.”

But while he knows the state’s voters have since approved adult-use legalization and would “abide by” the law, he said he didn’t vote for it and “wouldn’t support extending it.”

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Ohio Marijuana Retailers Bring In More Than $11.5 Million During First Four Days Of Legal Recreational Sales

Ohio legal weed sales topped $11.5 million in less than a week.

The state’s total recreational marijuana sales was $11,530,708 as of August 10, according to the Ohio Department of Commerce Division of Cannabis Control. Recreational sales started August 6—eight months after 57 percent of Ohioans voted to legalize recreational marijuana. The average of price of an ounce of flower was $266 last week, according to the division.

There were 173,043 units of manufacturer product sold and 1,285 pounds of plant material, according to the division.

Ohio currently has 120 dual-use dispensaries as of Wednesday, meaning they can sell both medical and non-medical marijuana, according to the division. Ohio had 98 dual-use dispensaries when recreational sales started.

More than 70 Ohio cities have local moratoriums prohibiting adult-use cannabis business, according to Ohio State University’s Moritz College of Law.

Under Ohio’s ballot measure to legalize marijuana, there is a 10 percent tax at the point of sales for each non-medical marijuana transaction.

The ballot measure created five funds in the state treasury—the adult use tax fund, the cannabis social equity and jobs fund, the host community cannabis fund, the substance abuse and addiction fund and the division of cannabis control and tax commissioner fund.

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Why Psychedelic Drugs May Become a Key Treatment for PTSD and Depression

While it has been referenced throughout history, notably in World War I, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) as we know it today was first described as a distinct diagnosis after World War II among individuals who had survived Nazi concentration camps. The patients came home experiencing anxiety, depression and nightmares. They were frequently startled. In a paper synthesizing some of these early observations in 1963, psychiatrist Paul Chodoff wrote, “Perhaps the most nearly universal and most characteristic symptom was an obsessive rumination state in which the patient was more or less constantly preoccupied with recollections of, and ruminations about, his experiences during persecution, and about family who had died or been killed.” Psychiatrists tested a variety of treatments from drugs to exposure therapy for what Chodoff referred to as “concentration camp syndrome.”

More than 70 years after the initial observations, patients diagnosed with PTSD today still have few treatment options; most likely they will be prescribed a combination of therapy and antidepressant drugs. For some patients, these treatments make a positive difference in their quality of life, but many others continue for years without relief from nightmares, flashbacks, severe guilt and anxiety that can come with the condition. According to the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, about 6 percent of Americans will be diagnosed with PTSD at some point in their lives, whether they served in the military or not. While PTSD is often associated with traumas from war, it can also refer to symptoms after other traumatic experiences such as being involved in a serious accident, witnessing death or injury or being a victim of sexual assault.

Patients and scientists have longed for more options. “How many drugs are registered [in the U.S. and Europe] for PTSD?” asks Eric Vermetten, a psychiatrist at the University of Leiden in the Netherlands and a military veteran himself. “The answer is two. And when were they registered? 21 years ago. That’s 21 years, we haven’t had any new drugs registered for PTSD.”

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JD Vance Claims There’s ‘Fentanyl In Our Marijuana Bags That Our Teenagers Are Using’

Former President Donald Trump’s vice presidential running mate, Sen. JD Vance (R-OH), is claiming that “marijuana bags” are being laced with fentanyl, and he says the Biden administration’s border policies are making it so that youth, including his own kids, can’t experiment with cannabis or other drugs without risking fatal overdoses.

During a campaign event with the Milwaukee Police Association in Wisconsin on Friday, Vance said he spoke to a police officer who told him that “we’ve got fentanyl in our marijuana bags that our teenagers are using,” echoing a claim about laced cannabis that’s been routinely contested by advocates and certain state regulators.

“Look, I’m the parent of three young kids… A seven-year-old, a four-year-old and a two-year-old,” he said. “We don’t have to worry about this yet, but I’m certain—because kids are kids—that one day, one of my kids is going to take something or do something that I don’t want them to take. But I don’t want that mistake to ruin their life.”

“I want them to learn from it. I want their parents to be able to punish them. I don’t want our kids to make mistakes on American streets and have it take their lives away from them,” he said, suggesting that he recognizes when his children grow up they may experiment with certain substances such as marijuana, but he’s more concerned with potentially lethal contamination.

Advocates would argue that’s a key reason to enact a regulatory framework for marijuana or other drugs that includes testing requirements and other safeguards to mitigate the risk of dangerous contaminants, but the GOP candidate did not draw that connection and continues to maintain an opposition to cannabis legalization.

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California Senators Approve Bill To Let Marijuana Growers Sell Directly To Consumers At Farmers Markets

California senators have advanced an Assembly-passed bill that would allow regulators to issue a new license allowing small marijuana growers to sell their products directly to consumers at state-organized farmers markets and other temporary events.

The legislation from Assemblymember Gail Pellerin (D) was unanimously approved in the Senate Appropriations Committee in a 4-0 vote on Thursday. Adults would also be able to consume cannabis on-site at approved events.

The bill cleared the Assembly in late May with nearly unanimous support before moving to the Senate, where it passed through two committees. It now heads to the floor.

If approved, it will still need to go back to the Assembly for concurrence on Senate amendments, including one stipulating that the licensee can only sell and allow on-site consumption at “state temporary events.” The original language was broader, permitting such activity at “specified temporary events.”

The Senate Appropriations Committee also amended the legislation to delay implementation until January 1, 2026.

Under the proposal, the Department of Cannabis Control (DCC) would be authorized to issue “a state temporary event license to a licensee authorizing onsite cannabis sales to, and consumption by, persons 21 years of age or older at certain venues expressly approved by a local jurisdiction, as specified,” the bill text says.

Local jurisdictions would need to consent to allowing the events in order for a license to be granted.

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New Florida Bill Would Ban Public Smoking If Voters Approve Marijuana Legalization On The Ballot

Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) has publicly stated that one of the main reasons why Floridians should reject a measure legalizing recreational cannabis for adults in November is that the smell of people smoking the herb will make the state a less enjoyable place to live.

“This state will start to smell like marijuana in our cities and counties,” he said days after the Florida Supreme Court approved putting Amendment 3 on the ballot. “It will reduce the quality of life.”

To combat that concern, Sarasota Republican state Sen. Joe Gruters said Thursday that he’ll introduce legislation next year banning smoking in all public places in Florida.

The former Republican Party of Florida Chairman stunned some of his colleagues two weeks ago when he came out in support of the proposed constitutional amendment, but said that he wants to get ahead of the concerns that DeSantis and others have expressed about side effects.

“People don’t want to go outside and smell it,” Gruters said on a remote conference call with reporters.” They don’t want to see it in public places. And so, to me, let’s follow the Arizona law and let’s go ahead and ban public smoking in all public places. I think this is easy to do, this is well within our authority, and I think that we need to get ahead of this. And that’s the whole purpose of the bill. It’s very simple.”

In the referendum that Arizona voters passed in 2020 legalizing cannabis for recreational use, the specific text of the law says that it “does not allow any person to smoke marijuana in a public place or open space.”

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Prescription Drugs Are the Leading Cause of Death

Overtreatment with drugs kills many people, and the death rate is increasing. It is, therefore, strange that we have allowed this long-lasting drug pandemic to continue, and even more so because most of the drug deaths are easily preventable.

In 2013, I estimated that our prescription drugs are the third leading cause of death after heart disease and cancer,1 and in 2015, that psychiatric drugs alone are also the third leading cause of death.2 However, in USA, it is commonly stated that our drugs are “only” the fourth leading cause of death.3,4 This estimate was derived from a 1998 meta-analysis of 39 US studies where monitors recorded all adverse drug reactions that occurred while the patients were in hospital, or which were the reason for hospital admission.5

This methodology clearly underestimates drug deaths. Most people who are killed by their drugs die outside hospitals, and the time people spent in hospitals was only 11 days on average in the meta-analysis.5 Moreover, the meta-analysis only included patients who died from drugs that were properly prescribed, not those who died as a result of errors in drug administration, noncompliance, overdose, or drug abuse, and not deaths where the adverse drug reaction was only possible.5

Many people die because of errors, e.g., simultaneous use of contraindicated drugs, and many possible drug deaths are real. Moreover, most of the included studies are very old, the median publication year being 1973, and drug deaths have increased dramatically in the last 50 years. As an example, 37,309 drug deaths were reported to the FDA in 2006 and 123,927 ten years later, which is 3.3 times as many.6

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Nebraska Bill To Levy 30% Tax On Consumable Hemp Products Advances Out Of Committee

A legislative committee in Nebraska has advanced a sweeping tax bill that would, among other changes, impose a 30 percent sales tax on “consumable hemp” and CBD products. The proposal, broadly aimed at providing property tax relief, will now be considered by the full legislature.

On Monday, lawmakers on the Revenue Committee passed the bill, LB 34, on a 6–1 vote. The tax package combines various proposals that have been introduced during the state’s special legislative session, called by Gov. Jim Pillen (R) last month to deal with the property tax issue.

As approved by the committee, the bill would set a 30 percent sales tax on “consumable hemp products,” defined as finished products that contain hemp and that contain no more than 0.3 percent THC. Hemp products made from stalks or seed—that is, for fiber or food use—would not be included in the definition, nor would pharmaceuticals approved by the federal Food and Drug Administration (FDA).

Revenue Committee chair Sen. Lou Ann Linehan (R), who has played a central role in the tax discussion, first introduced the 30 percent hemp tax two weeks ago, in an earlier bill she sponsored. A separate proposal she introduced during the regular legislative session would have taxed consumable hemp and CBD at 100 percent, a rate that was later reduced to 25 percent before the underlying bill fizzled out.

“The 100% tax was unworkable for CBD companies in our state. They were concerned it would drive them out of business,” Sen. Anna Wishart (D), who’s backed past efforts to end marijuana prohibition in the state, told Marijuana Moment in an email at the time. “In talking with representatives from a group of CBD companies in the state, I worked with them and other senators to negotiate the tax down to 25%.”

The rate is now at 30 percent in the bill moving to the floor.

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