Tag: the war on (some) drugs

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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17 Drugs Most Potentially Toxic to the Liver Identified: UPenn Study

Researchers identified 17 most potentially liver-toxic drugs in a Monday study published in JAMA Internal Medicine.

The study authors said they ranked the drugs according to the rates of severe liver injury, though they could not determine if the 17 drugs caused the acute injury in every event.

According to their findings, 11 of the 17 drugs identified may have wrongly received a lower hepatotoxicity (potential to harm the liver) rank according to the current ranking system.

To establish drugs’ potential for liver toxicity, researchers have used case reports of liver toxicity listed on the National Institutes of Health LiverTox website. Case reports are detailed reports on an individual patient; they often describe a novel or unusual patient case. Doctors write case reports when encountering a unique or novel patient presentation in their clinics. Some doctors write case reports, and others do not.

This “undoubtedly leads to underreporting,” senior author Dr. Vincent Lo Re, III, associate professor of medicine and epidemiology at the University of Pennsylvania, told The Epoch Times.

Because the drug rankings are based on voluntary clinician reporting instead of large population studies, the toxicity profile of some drugs may be missed if the clinician does not publish a case report.

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Woman spent a MONTH in jail because police mistook dried SpaghettiO’s residue on a spoon for meth before crime lab tests finally realized their error

A Florida woman is free to eat pasta in her car once again after serving a month in jail because cops confused a crusty spoon in her possession with SpaghettiO’s residue as being the drug methamphetamine.

  • Ashley Gabrielle Huff, 23, was arrested on July 2 by police after they suspected her of having meth residue on a spoon that was actually sauce
  • Huff served one month in jail because she could not make court dates or pay bond and even considered admitting to a crime she did not commit
  •  The Crime Lab report showed no controlled substances on the spoon submitted for testing,’ said Judicial Circuit District Attorney Lee Darragh

Ashley Gabrielle Huff, 23, was arrested on July 2 by the Gainesville police department after they suspected her of having meth residue on a spoon in her car that she hard pressed was SpaghettiO’s residue.

She was released from Hall County Jail on Thursday after a crime lab analysis confirmed that the spoon had sauce residue instead of drugs, reports The Gainesville Times.

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Slow-release ketamine tablets help prevent depression relapses, UK trial finds

Slow-release ketamine pills have been found to prevent relapse into depression, in a trial that could pave the way for a new treatment option for patients with severe illness.

Ketamine is already used as a treatment for depression when conventional antidepressant drugs and therapy have failed. But ketamine is currently only administered intravenously, which requires supervision in a clinic, and the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence ruled that a ketamine-like nasal spray should not be available on the NHS.

If the apparent benefits are confirmed in a larger trial, ketamine tablets could be taken at home more cheaply, conveniently and potentially with fewer side-effects, the researchers said.

“We’re seeing a clinically meaningful effect,” said Prof Allan Young, of King’s College London and a co-author of findings. “This is not a definitive result, but the effect size is gratifyingly large.”

The phase 2 trial used an extended-release formulation of ketamine, designed to release the drug into the body over a 10-hour period. The hope was that this would make the treatment more effective and reduce adverse effects such as dissociation, high blood pressure, a racing heart or feelings of numbness. The “slow peak” would also reduce the drug’s abuse potential, Young said.

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D.C. Subpoena Causes Zyn to Suspend Online Sales

The tobacco company Philip Morris International, which owns the nicotine-pouch brand Zyn, announced Monday that it will be ceasing online sales for North America, following a subpoena sent by the attorney general of the District of Columbia. The subpoena follows from a 2022 decision by the district to ban flavored nicotine products.

The move to target Zyn comes amid Washington’s widespread crime problem. Violent crime increased by 40 percent in 2023, and the highest homicide rate is at its highest in over two decades. Nevertheless, more than 67 percent of arrests made are declined to be prosecuted, and D.C. is currently facing its largest police shortage in half a century. 

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