Tag: the war on (some) drugs

American Medical Association Promotes Psychedelics Research, Opposes Kratom Criminalization And Affirms Support For Marijuana Drug Testing

The American Medical Association (AMA) has adopted a series of new drug policy positions, including advocating for psychedelics research, opposing the criminalization of kratom, calling for an end to the sentencing disparity between crack and powder cocaine and supporting the continued inclusion of marijuana metabolites in employment-based drug tests.

The organization’s House of Delegates, which met last month to consider numerous resolutions, also declined to approve an additional measure to revise its stance on marijuana in a way that would have maintained its opposition to legalization while implicitly recognizing the benefits of regulating cannabis products—instead opting to continuing its advocacy for prohibition without the newly proposed regulatory language.

This comes about a year after AMA delegates voted to amend its policy position to support the expungement of past marijuana convictions in states that have legalized the plant.

At the most recent meeting, the body tackled several different areas of drug policy.

The American Kratom Association (AKA) cheered the adoption of a new resolution that says people “who are using kratom only for personal use should not face criminal consequences”—though the measure also says that the substance should be “evaluated by the relevant regulatory entities for its appropriateness for sale and potential oversight via the Controlled Substances Act, before it can be marketed, purchased, or prescribed.”

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Florida Supreme Court Gives Attorney General More Time To Argue Why Marijuana Legalization Should Be Blocked From 2024 Ballot

The Florida Supreme Court on Monday granted the state attorney general’s request for more time to file a brief arguing why voters should not get a chance to decide on a marijuana legalization initiative on the 2024 ballot.

On the same day that Attorney General Ashely Moody (R)—whose office is seeking to invalidate the cannabis measure—filed a motion seeking the one-week extension, the court agreed to the delay.

The attorney general—as well as the Florida Chamber of Commerce and the Drug Free America Foundation—told the court that they had “numerous other responsibilities during the relevant period.” The official also previously requested a two-week deadline extension for initial briefs that the court granted.

Moody’s latest request noted that her office is tied up with fundamental administrative tasks, as well as filing briefs in two other unrelated court cases. Also, it pointed out that the court allowed ACLU of Florida to file its own brief two days after the last response deadline for supporters of the legalization measure.

“As a result, the current deadline gives the opponents just three business days to respond to the arguments in that brief,” the motion said.

Overall, Moody is arguing that the way the initiative’s ballot summary is written is affirmatively misleading to voters on several grounds, which she says is grounds to invalidate the proposal

The attorney general’s office said that they discussed the deadline extension request with the Smart & Safe Florida campaign, which opposed a one-week extension but would accept a shorter two-day delay. Instead, the court granted the full request, making the deadline for a reply brief August 2.

“Multiple extensions of time for the same filing are discouraged,” the court said on Monday. “Absent extenuating circumstances, subsequent requests may be denied.”

State officials have already affirmed that the campaign collected enough valid signatures to secure ballot placement.

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Colombian Lawmakers Introduce New Marijuana Legalization Bill One Month After Prior Version Stalled

Colombian lawmakers have reintroduced a bill to legalize marijuana nationwide for the upcoming legislative session.

Just one month after the previous version stalled out in the Senate at the final stage of an eight-step legislative process, Rep. Juan Carlos Losada and Sen. María José Pizarro announced on Monday that they’re trying again to enact the reform.

The legislation was previously approved in the both chambers last year as part of the two-year process that constitutional amendments must undergo. It then passed the Chamber of Deputies again in May and advanced through a Senate committee last month. But while it received a majority of the votes on the floor, it came up short of the 54-vote threshold it needs for passage.

Losada recently told CNN that he faults President Gustavo Petro’s administration for not doing more to advocate for the bill, but “we will come back to it.”

“We have a crucial month ahead of us to understand who we can count on and who can help us achieve our goal,” he said.

In a Twitter post last week, he added that reform supporters “continue the fight to advance in the change of the failed prohibitionist policy against drugs, to advance in a policy guided by the guidelines of public health, the prevention of consumption and the guarantee of consumer care.”

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VA And Defense Department Oppose Medical Marijuana For PTSD, But Take Neutral Position On Psychedelics As Research Continues

The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) and Department of Defense (DOD) are strongly against the use of marijuana for the treatment of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD)—but they’re taking a neutral position on psychedelics like psilocybin and LSD, simply saying that more research should be done.

In an update to their joint clinical practice guidelines, the departments provided recommendations on a variety of therapeutics used to treat PTSD and acute stress disorder that commonly afflict military veterans. And while many veterans use marijuana, often to treat symptoms of the conditions, the VA/DOD Management of Posttraumatic Stress Disorder and Acute Stress Disorder Work Group said it is fully against the alternative treatment option.

“The Work Group recommends against the use of cannabis or cannabis derivatives in treating patients with PTSD because of the lack of well-designed [randomized control trials] evaluating the efficacy of cannabis derivatives in large samples of individuals with PTSD and the serious side effects associated with their use,” it says.

“Evidence from the 2017 VA/DoD PTSD [clinical practice guidelines] indicates significant harm associated with cannabis use,” it said, arguing that research suggests that marijuana is linked to issues with attention, memory, IQ and driving.

While medical marijuana came with a “strong against” recommendation from the departments, they said that the work group’s confidence in the existing evidence is “very low” due to a “lack of randomized, controlled, methodologically sound clinical trials; small sample sizes, and selection bias.”

“The benefits of cannabis were outweighed by the potential serious adverse effects,” the document, published last month, says. “Patient values and preferences varied largely because some patients seek new, novel treatments although others might be unwilling to use cannabis or cannabis derivatives. Thus, the Work Group made the following recommendation: We recommend against cannabis or cannabis derivatives for the treatment of PTSD.”

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Federal Judge Orders Kansas Cops To Stop ‘War’ On Drivers Coming From Legal Marijuana States

The Kansas Highway Patrol has been ordered to stop its infamous “two-step” technique by a federal judge, in what the American Civil Liberties Union of Kansas calls a “huge win” for all motorists using state highways.

The U.S. district court ruled KHP’s policies and practices violate the Fourth Amendment, releasing a Friday opinion that the KHP “has waged war on motorists—especially out-of-state residents traveling between Colorado and Missouri on federal highway I-70 in Kansas.”

The trial challenged the constitutionality of the KHP’s policy of targeting out-of-staters and other “suspicious” people for vehicle searches by drug-sniffing dogs, along with the “Kansas two-step” maneuver. The “ two-step” is a technique taught to KHP personnel, in which they end a routine traffic stop and begin a separate effort to dig for information and gain entry to a vehicle to search for contraband.

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States With Legal Weed See Drop in Mental Health Treatment

States that have legalized recreational marijuana use for adults have also seen a drop in mental health treatment admissions, according to newly published research.

The findings, which came in a study published last month in the journal Health Economics, were based on data from ten states that have legalized adult-use cannabis. 

“Recreational marijuana laws (RMLs) continue to grow in popularity, but the effects on mental health treatment are unclear,” wrote Alberto Ortega, a professor at O’Neill School of Public Health at Indiana University and the author of the study.

In the abstract, Ortega said that the study “uses an event-study within a difference-in-differences framework to study the short-run impact of state RMLs on admissions into mental health treatment facilities.” 

“The results indicate that shortly after a state adopts an RML, they experience a decrease in the average number of mental health treatment admissions,” Ortega wrote. “The findings are driven by white, Black, and Medicaid-funded admissions and are consistent for both male and female admissions. The results are robust to alternative specifications and sensitivity analysis.”

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Traumas of the War on Drugs: Bring Back the Pyschedelics

I am a survivor of domestic abuse. 

I haven’t written about this before. It’s not in my memoir Good Cop Bad War. But it occurs to me that I now have a duty to be publicly honest about this because it is becoming clearer that as a society we could deal with the causes and harms of domestic violence better. As a police officer, I knew so many—way too many—survivors who deserve the very best help that science can provide.

My relationship with my wife had its difficult moments right from the start. Sam, as I named her in my memoir, had a difficult childhood. This played out with a powerful temper with an attention-grabbing sense of drama. Later in our relationship, this turned into psychological abuse. 

Her father was someone who used alcohol very problematically. His descent into mental illness was plain to see. On a holiday with her whole family, he became abusive to everyone and this manifested itself in really dark ways. And he tried to start a fight with me, swaying, fists raised, calling me names. 

Growing up with addiction in the family can cause trauma in childhood. This is widely understood. As I got to know Sam and heard tales of her childhood, and teenage years, I instinctively understood the trauma. And as such I later understood the origins of her abuse towards me. 

Sam rarely physically assaulted me. And when she did it actually was a relief because I knew then that her temper would immediately subside and she would become apologetic and tearful; and I can take a few punches. The behavior that was my nightmare was when she deliberately stopped me sleeping. This became such an issue that my fear of it happening when I was working long hours at times dominated my thoughts. It was horrible. If I complained when she did it, she  would descend into the worst petty abuse. “Man up, Neil”. I was pathetic, worthless. 

I forgave her, of course I did. I loved her. But most importantly I understood where it was coming from. So, I empathized and treated her as gently as I could. Until I couldn’t anymore. 

As my years of undercover work went by, I was increasingly finding myself seeing  work as an escape from home. It was a relief for me but also being away seemed to take the pressure away from our relationship. Less time together seemed to translate to less abuse. 

I was unaware, however, that my mental health was declining. The beginnings of what would later become CPTSD (complex post-traumatic stress disorder) was changing me. I became emotionally numb, even while I kept going back to the dangerous work I was involved in. Feeling lost, I anesthetized  myself with alcohol, I had affairs. At home I no longer was able to find that gentle understanding. The empathy. I must have appeared colder and more distant. And so, the abuse increased and got worse. My descent into mental illness accelerated and it was an extraordinarily difficult time hiding what was going on from our children. 

In our divorce papers, Sam denied ever physically assaulting me. But she did formally admit to the intentional sleep deprivation. Interesting that the physical assault was a taboo too far for her. But the emotional abuse was something easier to admit. (We learn as children.) 

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New York Republicans want to ban cannabis use in public

Republicans in the state Legislature are calling for a ban on smoking and consuming cannabis in public places in New York as the legal marketplace is taking hold. 

The measure, backed by state Sen. George Borrello and Assemblyman Michael Novakhov, would allow local governments to put local laws in place to ban the public consuming of marijuana. 

“State residents, including children, are now regularly assailed with the pungent odor of marijuana on public sidewalks, in parking lots and other public spaces,” Borrello said. “Many New Yorkers don’t want to be exposed to either the effects of marijuana smoke or its smell and don’t want their children subjected to it.”

New York first legalized cannabis in 2021, though the marketplace for legal retail sales has been slow to build. Lawmakers who supported legalization have framed it around the need to reverse the enforcement of previously harsh marijuana laws that were previously in place. 

State lawmakers and Gov. Kathy Hochul earlier this year moved to address the sale of cannabis without a license through civil fines and the potential closure of businesses. 

Regulators are also trying to encourage further legal cannabis sales, including allowing sales at public events.

Republicans want fines of up to $125 for consuming marijuana in a public space. The Clean Air Act, as well as local bans on smoking, already place limits on marijuana smoking in public. 

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New Congressional Amendments Would End Marijuana Tests For Federal Job Applicants And Encourage Psychedelic Research

New marijuana and psychedelics amendments have been filed by bipartisan congressional lawmakers as part of large-scale spending bills—including proposals that would end the practice of drug testing job applicants at certain federal agencies for marijuana.

Rep. Robert Garcia (D-CA) introduced two versions of the same cannabis measure for separate appropriations bills, one covering Military Construction, Veterans Affairs and Related Agencies (MilCon/VA) and another on Agriculture, Rural Development, Food and Drug Administration and Related Agencies. It would prevent the use of funds to drug test most applicants for cannabis at the agencies covered by the legislation.

There’s also an amendment to the MilCon/VA bill from Reps. Jack Bergman (R-MI) and Lou Correa (D-CA) that’s meant to encourage the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) to carry out “large-scale studies” into drugs like psilocybin and MDMA that have been designated as “breakthrough therapies” by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). The sponsors are also the founding co-chairs of a congressional psychedelics caucus that promotes research into entheogenic substances.

The cannabis measures from Garcia would prevent THC drug testing for job applicants in the relevant federal agencies, except for “positions listed as Presumptive Testing Designated Positions by the Selection of Testing Designated Positions Guidance under Federal Drug-Free Workplace Program.”

The proposals also curiously only cover select states, including some such as Tennessee and Texas that have extremely limited low-THC medical cannabis programs while excluding others such as Ohio and Pennsylvania that have more comprehensive medical marijuana laws.

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Thanks for nothing, DEA. Fifty years later, drugs are deadlier and more abundant than ever

As of this week, the United States has “enjoyed” half a century under the thumb of the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), a wing of the Department of Justice established in 1973 by former President Richard Nixon. Instead of truly addressing the deepening drug problem in the U.S., the DEA has worsened public health outcomes related to drug use, promoted racially stigmatizing policies, stomped on civil liberties and burned stacks of cash in a vain effort to control the uncontrollable.

There’s no denying the drug situation in the U.S. is dire. Approximately 1 million people have died of overdoses since 1999, many of these deaths driven by powerful opioids like illicit fentanyl and its many analogs. Nonetheless, polydrug use — the mixing of multiple substances — is a far more lethal combination than any drug on its own, as well as the true underbelly of this drug crisis disaster.

Despite decades of increased funding, more seizures and more policing, the DEA cannot seem to make a dent in this crisis. The body count from overdoses continues to rise, and there’s no end to the flow of drugs into the U.S.

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