Tag: the war on (some) drugs

VP Kamala Harris Touts Marijuana Pardons In Pitch To Black And Young Voters, Saying ‘Nobody’ Should Be Jailed For ‘Smoking Weed’

Vice President Kamala Harris says the administration’s move to pardon people for federal marijuana possession offenses is an example of how it is delivering for Americans, particularly young and Black voters who could be key to President Joe Biden’s reelection bid this year.

The White House also cited the cannabis clemency move in a new fact sheet on efforts to “advance racial justice and equity and ensure the promise of America for all communities.”

Speaking with Gray DC in South Carolina ahead of the state’s primary election last weekend, Harris was asked about the significance of the Black youth vote for the Biden-Harris campaign. She stressed the importance of reaching that demographic and said cannabis clemency is one action that should be uniquely appealing.

“Another issue [is] what we have done to pardon tens of thousands of people for simple marijuana possession under the federal law—because, frankly, nobody should have to go to jail for smoking weed,” Harris said.

“So these are some of the things that we have done that I think really do resonate with young people, with Black voters and young Black voters, with young Black men,” she said, also citing efforts to increase access to high-speed internet and fund historically Black colleges and universities. “And there’s more to do.”

While Harris said “tens of thousands” have been pardoned under President Joe Biden’s October 2022 and December 2023 clemency proclamations, the Justice Department estimates that roughly 13,000 people have been granted relief under the executive action.

But inflated rhetoric around the pardons has been a consistent theme, with Biden himself frequently exaggerating the impact by falsely suggesting that people were released from prison over marijuana and that criminal records were expunged. A pardon simply constitutes formal forgiveness, and nobody who received a pardon was actively incarcerated in federal prison over simple possession.

As advocates have also pointed out, there are still people in federal prison over other non-violent marijuana offenses. They’ve pushed the Biden administration to do more, including keeping his key cannabis campaign pledge to decriminalize marijuana.

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A New Pain Medication Could Reinforce the Disastrous Crackdown on Prescription Opioids

Vertex Pharmaceuticals is trumpeting the results of clinical trials indicating that VX-548, its new, non-opioid analgesic, is effective at relieving post-surgical pain. While there is nothing wrong with offering patients and doctors another option for treating acute pain, the Phase 3 trials found that VX-548 was no more effective than a combination of hydrocodone and acetaminophen in relieving pain after tummy tucks and less effective for patients who had bunions removed.

As a new drug under patent, VX-548 is bound to be much more expensive than generic versions of Vicodin, and its main selling point seems to be based on a gross exaggeration of that familiar drug’s addictive potential. The introduction of VX-548 therefore could reinforce myths about the risks of prescription opioids and encourage the government’s misguided and heavy-handed crackdown on those medications.

“People who are suffering from severe pain but don’t want to risk addiction to an opioid are closer to a new option for treatment,” The Wall Street Journal reports. The Journal claims “opioids are highly addictive,” which is not true by any reasonable measure.

A 2018 BMJ study of 568,612 patients who took prescription opioids following surgery found that 5,906, or 1 percent, showed documented signs of “opioid misuse” during the course of the study, which included data from 2008 through 2016. The outcome measure that the researchers used, “opioid dependence, abuse, or overdose,” is a broad category that includes patterns of use falling short of what most people would recognize as addiction. That suggests the actual addiction rate in this study probably was less than 1 percent, although it’s not clear how much less. The authors noted that “overall rates of misuse were low.”

Estimates of addiction rates among patients who take opioids for longer periods of time tend to be higher but still lower than the phrase “highly addictive” suggests. A 2010 analysis in the Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews found that less than 1 percent of patients taking opioids for chronic pain experienced addiction. A 2012 review in the journal Addiction likewise concluded that “opioid analgesics for chronic pain conditions are not associated with a major risk for developing dependence.”

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Maryland Senators Take Up Bills To Let Police Search Vehicles Based On Marijuana Odor And Protect Gun Rights For Cannabis Patients

Maryland senators took up two GOP-led marijuana bills on Friday: one that would let police search vehicles based on the smell of cannabis and another that’s meant to protect gun rights for medical marijuana patients.

Members of the Senate Judicial Proceedings Committee discussed the legislation during a hearing, listening to testimony in support and opposition, but did not vote on the proposals.

Sen. William Folden (R) is sponsoring the bill to authorize law enforcement searches based on marijuana odor, a measure he said attempts to “correct a wrong, an error, that the legislature made” when it passed reform legislation that was enacted last year to specifically prevent such searches given that the state has legalized marijuana.

If the smell of cannabis is emitted from a car, that’s a “strong indicator that person is in violation of law and potentially impaired at the time,” Folden said, adding that “this strong odor is definitely discernible by law enforcement and those in the community.”

Two county prosecutors also testified in favor of the measure. But drug policy reform advocates, including ACLU of Maryland Public Policy Director Yanet Amanuel, defended the current policy that bars police from conducting cannabis odor-based searches.

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Rhode Island House Panel Weighs Bill That Would Temporarily Legalize Psilocybin

Lawmakers on Rhode Island’s House Judiciary Committee considered a bill on Thursday that would effectively legalize psilocybin mushrooms in the state, temporarily removing penalties around possession, home cultivation and sharing of psilocybin until mid-2026.

The proposal, H. 7047, from Rep. Brandon Potter (D), would not establish a commercial retail system around the psychedelic—at least until after federal reform is enacted. Until then, it would exempt up to an ounce of psilocybin from the state’s law against controlled substances provided that it “has been securely cultivated within a person’s residence for personal use” or is possessed by “one person or shared by one person to another.”

The measure is identical to a bill passed 56–11 by the House last year, though that matter did not move forward in the Senate before the end of the session.

“I don’t think it was that long ago that if you were to put a proposal like this forward, it would be thought of as very controversial,” Potter told the panel on Thursday. “But I think it’s become much more popularized and people are well aware of it, especially when you see just like the abundance and overwhelming amount of clinical research and medical science that is promoting the effects this has had on people.”

“These are not, you know, small, low-budget operations,” he added of emerging scientific research indicating the therapeutic potential of psilocybin. “These are leading medical institutions like Johns Hopkins and Yale and Stanford and so on and so forth—NYU, Columbia.”

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DEA Slammed Over Post Commemorating Nixon’s Drug War Legacy On First Day Of Black History Month

The Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) is facing criticism over its decision to commemorate President Richard Nixon’s drug war legacy in a social media post that coincided with the beginning of Black History Month.

DEA’s Throwback Thursday (or TBT) post on X featured a picture of Nixon receiving a “certificate of special honor” from the International Narcotic Enforcement Officers’ Association in December 1970 “in recognition of the outstanding loyalty and contribution to support narcotic law enforcement.”

Advocates blasted the homage as tone-deaf, memorializing a president whose own domestic policy advisor would later disclose that his boss promoted punitive drug laws in large part to target his political “enemies,” namely “the anti-war left and Black people.”

DEA didn’t necessarily endorse or provide commentary beyond sharing the moment in history—but the TBT post quickly incited criticism given the timing in connection to Black History Month.

It was also about six months after the photo of Nixon was taken that he’d infamously declare a war on drugs, fueling a mass incarceration movement that would have racially disparate impacts lasting generations into the modern day.

As the Drug Policy Alliance (DPA) pointed out, 1970 also marked the year that Nixon signed the Controlled Substances Act (CSA), codifying broad drug criminalization in a way that has long empowered DEA and is actively being reviewed by the agency as it weighs a marijuana rescheduling recommendation from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS).

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The Very Illegal Cafe Where You Can Take Shrooms and Chew Coca

“Cops and raids can’t keep us down,” reads a sign outside of the Coca Leaf Cafe and Medicinal Mushroom Dispensary in downtown Vancouver, Canada. In November last year, the emporium – which sells not just Bolivian coca (from which cocaine derives) and hallucinogenic mushrooms, but all manner of psychedelics – was raided by the police for the first time since opening in 2020, along with two other dispensaries under the same ownership. Thousands of dollars in cash and drugs worth tens of thousands were seized.

Owner Dana Larsen was arrested and held in custody for seven hours, but he reopened the cafe the next day after being released without any immediate charges. Staff at his other two outlets greeted psychonauts, microdosers and the psychedelic-curious once more a few days later. The immediate reopening was a brazen move, even for Larsen, a 52-year-old veteran of entrepreneurial drug law reform activism, who was chewing coca leaves when we first met. His next play was even more audacious.

For Christmas, he sent festive cards to the addresses of all 87 members of the Legislative Assembly of British Columbia, and gifted each of the politicians a coca leaf and one gram of Golden Teacher magic mushrooms. In the card, he wished them “the happiest of holidays”, lauded the plants’ “beneficial therapeutic properties”, and included a membership form for the dispensary. Larsen told local media: “I encourage them to try the mushroom in a safe and responsible setting and to have that experience – it can be very beneficial.” It’s unclear whether any of them took him up on the offer; in fact, some of them called the police.

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GOP Lawmakers Team Up With Marijuana Prohibitionists On Resolution Calling For Research Into High Potency THC Products

GOP House and Senate lawmakers well-known for opposing marijuana reform have introduced a concurrent resolution calling on federal agencies to study the potential risks of high potency THC products.

Rep. Pete Sessions (R-TX) and Sen. Pete Ricketts (R-NE) filed the legislation, which they promoted alongside the leading prohibitionist group Smart Approaches to Marijuana (SAM) at a press conference on Thursday.

The whereas section of the measure says that “high-potency marijuana has become increasingly prevalent across the United States,” which it claims carries “greater health risks,” particularly for young people.

It goes on to say that “education and awareness programs are essential to inform the public about the potential risks associated with the use of high-potency marijuana,” and “bipartisan effort is necessary to develop evidence-based policies to address” the issue.

To that end, the resolution would express the sense of Congress that agencies including the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) and National Institutes of Health (NIH) should “conduct and support research on the health effects of high-potency marijuana and its impact on vulnerable populations such as youth.”

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UFC Warns Fighters To Stop Using Marijuana ‘Immediately’ So They Aren’t Punished Under California Athletics Rules

The Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) might have removed marijuana from its banned substances list for professional fighters—but a California athletics commission says they could still face penalties under state rules for testing positive for THC over a certain limit ahead of an upcoming event.

UFC, which formally amended its cannabis drug testing policy last month, reportedly advised fighters that they could be subject to a $100 fine by the California State Athletic Commission if they test over 150 nanograms of THC per milliliter ahead of the UFC 298 event that is set to take place on February 17 in Anaheim.

An email from UFC that was obtained by the trade publication MMA Fighting cautioned fighters to “discontinue use immediately to ensure you don’t exceed” the THC threshold.

The policy from the California commission, which falls under the state Department of Consumer Affairs (DCA), might seem misplaced in light of UFC’s own recent reform, as well as the fact that marijuana is legal for adults in California.

Marijuana Moment reached out to DCA for comment, but a representative was not immediately available.

UFC itself said last month that while it models its list of prohibited drugs after the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA)—which has controversially maintained cannabis as a banned substance—it decided to make amendments “based on historical findings (i.e. marijuana removed from the prohibited list).”

Professional fighters were already largely protected from being penalized over testing positive for THC under a policy change that UFC adopted in 2021, but it has since removed cannabis as a banned drug altogether. The reform took effect on December 31, 2023.

Multiple sports organizations have moved to amend their marijuana testing policies for athletes amid the state legalization movement.

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Texas AG Paxton sues cities over marijuana decriminalization

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton (R) is suing five Texas cities over their decriminalization of marijuana.

In a Wednesday press release, the office of the attorney general (OAG) said it was suing the cities for “instructing police not to enforce Texas drug laws concerning possession and distribution of marijuana.

The drug, the OAG added, is one that “psychologists have increasingly linked to psychosis and other negative consequences.”

Paxton’s suit comes amid a broader push by the conservative state government to exert authority over its left-leaning cities.

The five cities targeted in Wednesday’s suit are Austin, San Marcos, Killeen, Elgin and Denton, each of which enacted laws decriminalizing marijuana one to three years ago. Paxton did not clarify why he chose to bring the lawsuit now.

Although none of the cities has legalized the drug — which would allow it to be bought and sold openly — each has passed ordinances directing police and prosecutors to deprioritize pressing charges against people holding small amounts of cannabis.

In Austin, for example, a 2020 city council resolution directed police not to press charges against those caught with less than 4 ounces of marijuana.

In November 2022, voters in the other cities now being sued by Paxton resoundingly approved ballot measures that decriminalized up to the same limit — though these reforms have drawn resistance from local law enforcement.

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Tennessee Man’s Illegal Moonshine Operation Yielded 81 Quarts

A man in Johnson City, Tennessee, has been cited after law enforcement found an illegal moonshine operation.

Officials cited 36-year-old Jeremy Stines in the case and WCYB reported Monday that a tip led authorities to discover the operation that was apparently located inside a barn.

In a social media post, the Washington County Sheriff’s Office of Tennessee (WCSO) noted Stines was cited for manufacture of alcoholic beverages, possession of a still, and unlawful storage of liquor for sale.

The sheriff’s office continued:

Upon receiving the tip, Investigators conducted a premise check in the 200 block of Highridge Road. It was disclosed by Stines that there was in fact a still in the yard barn at the east end of the property, and verbal consent was given by Stines to search the building. The liquor manufacturing equipment, along with 81 quarts of product, were seized transported to WCSO.

According to Tennessee Code Annotated § 39-17-707, it is unlawful for any person to have possession or control of any still or other apparatus, or part of a still or other apparatus to be used for the purpose of manufacturing intoxicating liquor as prohibited by law. Possession of a Still is a Class B misdemeanor.

Manufacture of Alcoholic Beverages and Unlawful Storage of Liquor for Sale are both Class A misdemeanors.

Stines is scheduled to appear in court on March 5 regarding the case.

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