Tag: the war on (some) drugs

Two Border Patrol Agents Arrested, Accused Of Working With Unnamed Drug Cartel

Two officers with the U.S. Customs and Border Protection’s Office of Field Operations have been working with an unnamed drug cartel for a number of years, federal prosecutors have alleged.

According to court documents, the officers allegedly allowed the organization to move large amounts of fentanyl, methamphetamines, cocaine, and heroin through their inspection lanes on the southern border.

Jesse Clark Garcia and Diego Bonillo have been named as the two CBP officers referenced in an indictment filed by the U.S. Southern District of California. The two agents are accused of drug trafficking and drug trafficking conspiracy, and both men have been in custody since May.

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Nebraska Attorney General Announces Crackdown On Illegal THC Product Sales

Saying he was stepping up Nebraska’s fight against “mislabeled” and “dangerous” delta-8 products, Attorney General Mike Hilgers (R) on Wednesday announced the start of citywide crackdowns on retailers who sell the items.

He said that while his escalated effort started in Norfolk, other cities should expect similar blanket investigations.

“We are ramping up our efforts to clean up Nebraska,” Hilgers said. “For the first time, we have sued every store in a community. The stores are misleading Nebraskans.”

Four new lawsuits

Flanked at a media event by U.S. Rep. Mike Flood (R-NE) of Norfolk, Hilgers told reporters of four new lawsuits covering five Norfolk stores. Filed Wednesday in Madison County District Court, they allege violations of the Consumer Protection Act, Uniform Deceptive Trade Practices Act and Nebraska’s Pure Food Act.

The latest suits joined legal actions filed since last year against a dozen other vape shops and businesses across the state. Some cases have been settled, with retailers agreeing not to sell prohibited hemp products that contain or have been modified with synthetic THC.

THC is the compound in the cannabis plant most commonly associated with getting a person high. Some of the THC-containing products in question were packaged and made to look like candy and snacks.

A spokesperson for two of the Norfolk stores said, however, they were unaware there was any problem with the products they buy from a wholesaler distributor.

Tiffany Colsden, general manager of NP Mart stores in Norfolk, said her team learned of the investigation Wednesday, when a reporter came knocking.

By noon, she said, the two stores had pulled the items in question off the shelves.

“All they had to do was tell us,” Colsden said. “If Nebraska doesn’t want us to sell it, we won’t. It’s that simple.”

She described NP Mart, which has two locations in Norfolk, as a convenience store that sells gas.

Lawsuits also were filed against Smokin’ Deals, Smokes R. Less and Vapor Hutt.

A person at Smokes R. Less hung up the phone when a reporter called.

Vapor Hutt officials could not be reached.

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California Governor Unveils Emergency Rules To Ban Hemp Products With Any ‘Detectable Amount’ Of THC

Six years after Congress passed the 2018 Farm Bill, which legalized hemp at the federal level, California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) is attempting to rein in the proliferation of products that contain intoxicating hemp-derived cannabinoids. While many support the aims of the proposal, some stakeholders contend it could ultimately limit access to federally legal CBD products.

Newsom announced new emergency regulations on Friday that would outlaw hemp products with any “detectable amount of total THC.” Hemp products that don’t have THC would be further limited to five servings per package, and sales would be restricted to adults 21 and older.

The proposal comes less than a month after the state legislature effectively killed a governor-backed bill that would have imposed somewhat similar restrictions on intoxicating hemp-derived cannabinoids.

Newsom said in a press conference that he expects the new rules to take effect after a “very short” administrative process.

Standing next to a table piled with largely unregulated products containing hemp-derived cannabinoids, including beverages and gummies, Newsom expressed disgust that they’re now widely sold at grocery stores, gas stations and convenience stores. Hemp-derived THC-infused sparkling water, he lamented, can be found—including by minors—alongside more benign products like La Croix.

“It’s a disgrace and it’s a shame,” the governor said, “and the industry bears full responsibility for not policing itself, for the proliferation of these intoxicating products that are hurting our children.”

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Marijuana Legalization Is A ‘Significant Threat’ To Alcohol Industry Because People Substitute Cannabis For Beer And Wine, Analysis Finds

Financial analysts say they expect the expansion of the marijuana legalization movement will continue to post a “significant threat” to the alcohol industry, citing survey data that suggests more people are using cannabis as a substitute for alcoholic beverages such a beer and wine.

A report from Bloomberg Intelligence (BI) projects that slumping sales of wine and spirits “may extend indefinitely,” which will “stem largely” from the increased consumer access to “legal cannabis,” as well as rising popularity of made-to-go drinks, for example.

They estimated that the combined influence of cannabis access and shifts in consumer demand for certain alcoholic product types accounts for a 16 percent share valuation discount offered by the beverage company Constellation Brands, which owns major brands including Corona, Modelo, Pacifico and Casa Nobel Tequila.

“The use of cannabis among consumers is on the rise, and we believe it’s being substituted for alcoholic beverages” based on an August 21 survey from BI involving 1,000 adults, it said. “We also anticipate that increasing US consumer access to recreational marijuana will be a significant threat to all alcoholic drinks, particularly beer and wine, given their lower price points relative to liquor.”

According to the survey, nearly half of respondents reported using cannabis as an alcohol substitute at least once per week. Additionally, 22 percent said they use marijuana more often than alcohol.

Meanwhile, a multinational investment bank similarly said in a report late last year that marijuana has become a “formidable competitor” to alcohol, projecting that nearly 20 million more people will regularly consume cannabis over the next five years as booze loses a couple million drinkers. It also says marijuana sales are estimated to reach $37 billion in 2027 in the U.S. as more state markets come online.

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Illegal Weed Growing Operation Found In House Owned By Oakland Police Officer

A illegal weed growing operation was found – of all places – in a home owned by an Oakland police officer this spring. 

State Department of Cannabis Control officers discovered about $1 million worth of illegal marijuana in a Bay Area neighborhood in Antioch. One of the three raided houses was owned by Oakland Police Officer Samson Liu, 38, who was placed on administrative leave on April 30.

The Oakland Police Department, citing an ongoing investigation, did not disclose the officer’s name, but CNN identified him. Records show Liu bought a 2,800-square-foot house in Antioch in 2020 for $608,000.

The department said it “is aware of the allegations made against one of our members and is cooperating with outside law enforcement agencies on the case”, according to the LA Times.

The LA Times report says that the raid underscores the scale of illegal marijuana operations in California and the involvement of Chinese organized crime since legalization in 2016, according to the cannabis control agency.

Law enforcement described these operations as sophisticated and linked to “Chinese criminal syndicates” but provided no further details due to ongoing investigations. 

A Los Angeles Times investigation recently revealed that contraband pesticide use has spread across California’s cannabis farms, both illegal and licensed, over the past three years.

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THC-O Qualifies As Legal Hemp Under Federal Law, Appeals Court Says, Rejecting DEA’s Restrictive Stance

A U.S. appeals court has ruled that the hemp-derived cannabinoid THC-O-acetate is federally legal under the 2018 Farm Bill, rejecting the position of the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) that the chemical is a Schedule I controlled substance.

The opinion, published on Wednesday by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, comes in an employment case that rests in part on the federal legality of the cannabinoid. In it, the majority of a three-judge panel ruled that DEA’s interpretation of what qualifies as illegal marijuana is overbroad and does not apply to THC-O, which can be synthesized from other cannabinoids found in legal hemp.

In rejecting DEA’s 2023 interpretation of the law, the Fourth Circuit panel sided with an earlier opinion out of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals that ruled the Farm Bill’s legalization of hemp removed restrictions on a wide range of cannabinoids, for example delta-8 THC.

“Because the statute is subject to this other reasonable (and, we think, better,) interpretation,” says the new Fourth Circuit opinion, “we reject [the employer’s] contention that the DEA’s interim final rule or letter mandates a finding that THC-O is illegal.”

“Between the DEA’s February 2023 letter and [the Ninth Circuit opinion], we think the Ninth Circuit’s interpretation of the 2018 Farm Act is the better of the two,” judges wrote. “And we’re free to make that determination ourselves, despite a contrary interpretation from the DEA, because we agree with the Ninth Circuit that [the federal definition of hemp] is unambiguous.”

Specifically, the opinion says, “The Ninth Circuit held that it didn’t need to consider the DEA’s position on synthetically derived substances because the definition of ‘hemp’ under the 2018 Farm Act was unambiguous in its application to all products derived from the cannabis plant, ‘so long as they do not cross the 0.3 percent delta-9 THC threshold.’”

To further justify its reasoning, the court cited a Supreme Court decision from this year that overturned the so-called Chevron doctrine of providing deference to federal agencies’ interpretations of ambiguous statutes, writing that it means judges need not defer to DEA’s own interpretation of the law.

The opinion says of the federal hemp definition: “Even if it were ambiguous, we needn’t defer to the agency’s interpretation, see Loper Bright Enters. v. Raimondo.”

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People Who Use Marijuana Are Less Likely To Have Severe COVID Infections, Study Shows

A new study shows that cannabis users have lower rates of severe COVID-19 infections and experience fewer serious consequences such as death or lengthy hospital stays when they get the virus.

“Cannabis users had better outcomes and mortality compared with non-users,” says the report, authored by researchers at Northwell Health in New York. “The beneficial effect of cannabis use,” it adds, “may be attributed to its immunomodulatory effects.”

The study, published in the journal Cannabis and Cannabinoid Research, looked at data from the National Inpatient Sample Database, which tracks hospital admissions. Patients admitted for a COVID diagnosis were divided into cannabis user and non-user groups, and they were also matched in an effort to account for differences in age, race, gender and other comorbidities.

“On initial analysis, cannabis users had significantly lower rates of severe COVID-19 infection, intubation, ARDS [acute respiratory distress syndrome], acute respiratory failure, severe sepsis with multiorgan failure, mortality, and shorter length of hospital stay,” the paper says. “After 1:1 matching, cannabis use was associated with lower rates of severe COVID-19 infection, intubation, ARDS, acute respiratory failure, severe sepsis with multiorgan failure, mortality, and shorter length of hospital stay.”

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Rhode Island Officials Consider Letting Marijuana Packages Have More Color—And Requiring More Info About The Product

Drive along the highway and you’ll see plenty of big, attention-grabbing billboards with bright colors advertising Rhode Island’s few licensed cannabis retailers. But go inside one of those stores and you’ll be met with a sea of neutral colors: white, gray or black. Occasionally, there’s navy blue.

Those neutral colors are by design, mostly to ensure products are not attractive to children who might accidentally ingest them. But state regulators may allow for some color in the future as the Rhode Island Cannabis Control Commission ponders changes to its packaging regulations.

Commissioners were presented with the idea during their July 30 meeting, where the three-member panel decided to add the language to its ongoing draft regulations that will govern the state’s fledgling cannabis sector. Other proposals include placing the name of the lab that tested the cannabis, the use of a QR code (with commission approval), and a list of cannabinoids that make up the product.

Allowing color “provides for more branding freedom for licensees” and came at the recommendation of the commission’s 18-member Cannabis Advisory Board, according to the July presentation.

“We’re trying to give the people the ability to brand the product, which gives them the ability to differentiate themselves in the market,” advisory board member Stuart Procter, co-founder and lab director for cannabis testing facility PureVita Labs in West Warwick, said in an interview.

The commission was formed last June, just a little over a year after recreational cannabis was legalized. Commissioners spent last summer on a listening tour, hearing the concerns of community members and cannabis workers, which include ensuring the commission prioritizes social equity measures.

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Missouri health department to begin enforcing ban on psychoactive cannabis compounds

On Sunday, the state of Missouri will begin enforcing Gov. Mike Parson’s executive order to crack down on psychoactive cannabis products.

The governor has said the products being targeted are often packaged to look like candy and can appeal to children, and they’re sold at convenience stores and other businesses with liquor licenses. The only exceptions will be for products that come from a source approved by the Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services (DHSS).

The executive order issued August 1st also required the Division of Alcohol and Tobacco Control to file an emergency rule to forbid liquor license holders from selling psychoactive cannabis, but the rule has been blocked by Secretary of State Jay Ashcroft.

In a statement, the Department of Health and Senior Services said the rejection of the emergency rule filing “has no impact” on their enforcing the executive order.

“Executive Order 24-10 does not apply to products under the control or purview of the Division of Cannabis Regulation pursuant to Article XIV of the Missouri Constitution and sold by establishments licensed pursuant to Article XIV of the Missouri Constitution,” the statement said.

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Psychedelics Have ‘Demonstrated Potential For Treating Drug Addiction’ And Alcoholism, New Research Shows

Two new studies on psychedelics and alcoholism—including one with contributions from a top federal drug official—offer hope for new ways to treat alcohol use disorder (AUD).

One says a single dose of psilocybin “was safe and effective in reducing alcohol consumption in AUD patients,” while the other concludes that classic psychedelics like psilocybin and LSD “have demonstrated potential for treating drug addiction, especially AUD.”

The first study looked at 10 treatment-seeking adults “with severe AUD,” according to a preprint version of the research published online at Research Square. After a single 25 milligram dose of psilocybin, “alcohol consumption significantly decreased” during a 12-week period, the team found.

Coauthored by National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) Director Nora Volkow—in her role at the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism’s neuroimaging laboratory—along with 10 researchers at the University of Copenhagen, in Denmark, the open-label study found that most participants craved alcohol less and consumed fewer drinks following treatment with psilocybin.

“Participants reported a decrease from baseline to week 1 in alcohol craving,” the paper says—a decrease that was sustained four weeks and 12 weeks after the psychedelic was administered. “Further, participants reported an immediate change from baseline to week 1 in self-efficacy, i.e. confidence in the ability to abstain from alcohol.”

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