Tag: the war on (some) drugs

Federal Lawmakers Are Preparing To Reintroduce Legislation To Regulate Kratom Amid Pushback To FDA-Proposed Ban

As federal lawmakers prepare to reintroduce a bill to regulate kratom, a former Trump administration drug czar stressed the need to beat back “misinformation” from the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), which has attempted to ban the substance in the U.S. and abroad.

Members of the American Kratom Association (AKA) said during a webinar Tuesday that they expect federal legislation to regulate the drug “will be filed shortly” in Congress and could be taken up later this session.

The text of the forthcoming bill “will be word-for-word the same” as congressional legislation introduced last session, said Mac Haddow, a senior fellow at AKA. The title, however, will be updated to the Kratom Consumer Protection Act, a nod to model legislation that AKA has been lobbying for at the state and federal levels.

Sponsors will include, on the Senate side, Sens. Mike Lee (R-UT) and Cory Booker (D-NJ), who also sponsored last session’s bill, the Federal Clarity for Kratom Consumers Act. In the House, lead sponsors will be Reps. Mark Pocan (D-WI) and Jack Bergman (R-MI). Pocan sponsored last year’s bill in the House, while Bergman is a new addition.

The forthcoming legislation’s bipartisan sponsorship in each chamber—specifically pairing a “very liberal” elected official with a “very conservative” one—is designed to highlight “that this is not a partisan issue,” Haddow said. “This is about good policy.”

If the bill becomes law, it would require FDA to take further steps to evaluate the health and safety of kratom and would also prohibit the agency from regulating kratom products in a way that’s more restrictive than regulations for food or dietary supplements.

Neither chamber took action on the proposal last session, but AKA expects more traction—and more sponsors—on this year’s bill.

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IT’S LONG PAST TIME TO BAN PRETEXTUAL STOPS—TAKE IT FROM A PUBLIC DEFENDER

Dante, a man I represented as a public defender, didn’t expect to be pulled over as he and his friend, Kris, drove through Pittsburgh to play basketball at a park a handful of years ago. But as Kris rounded a bend, four undercover detectives jumped out from the side of the road and ordered Kris to stop. Kris kept two pistols in his car, which he legally purchased and had a license to carry.

While the detectives claimed that they stopped Kris’s car due to an expired inspection sticker, this was no ordinary traffic stop. In truth, these detectives wanted an excuse to pull over two young Black men, search them, and rifle through their car. Once the detectives noticed the pistols – one of which had slipped to the passenger’s side floorboard when Kris stopped short – they ordered both men out of the car at gunpoint.

The detectives searched Kris and Dante before handcuffing them and forcing them to sit on the curb. Although the officers confirmed that Kris legally owned both pistols and had no evidence—besides proximity—that Dante possessed the gun, the police arrested Dante anyway. Dante couldn’t legally possess a firearm due to the juvenile equivalent of a criminal conviction years earlier—and the detectives claimed that simply being near two legally purchased firearms was enough evidence to arrest him. Dante was charged with felony gun possession, jeopardizing his job, education, and livelihood.

This type of ugly scenario plays out thousands of times nationwide every day. This policing tactic is commonly known as a “pretextual” traffic stop, in which officers stop motorists for minor traffic violations in the hopes of turning up evidence of other potential crimes. According to multiple studies, these stops rarely turn up anything illegal and often fail to reduce crime Instead, they mostly inflict trauma and violence, both physical and emotional.

Despite these facts, the Supreme Court has ruled that pretextual stops are legal, provided an officer identifies an actual traffic violation.

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California Attorney General Calls For ‘Lowering Taxes’ On Marijuana To Combat The Illicit Market

California’s attorney general says the cost of doing business in the state’s legal marijuana marketplace is too steep, pointing to high taxes and compliance hurdles that can create incentives for entrepreneurs to remain in the illicit market.

“The barriers to entry are too high,” state Attorney General Rob Bonta (D) said at an event in Fresno on Tuesday. “The costs to stay in operation are too high. And we should be lowering taxes at least temporarily.”

For operators trying to comply with state law, he continued, “We should make the regulatory burden less than what it is while we target the illicit market that is undercutting them.”

Bonta’s comments came as he announced a new program to aid cities and counties in addressing illegal marijuana activity through administrative enforcement and nuisance abatement. For too long, he said, fly-by-night operators in the state have gotten away with it.

“Some folks believe they can avoid the tax burden or regulatory burden and just operate and make a profit without being legal,” Bonta said at the event. “And they’ve been doing it. They haven’t been shut down. They haven’t had an administrative action taken against them. And that’s what is necessary, and that’s why this will be an important tool.”

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We Need to Chill Out About Categorizing ‘Medical’ Versus ‘Recreational’

I used to wake up in the middle of the night, every night, with a nightmare. In it, my body was frozen, and trigger warning: In the nightmare, I was fading in and out of unconscious, but someone was raping me. They were textbook PTSD nightmares, and I had no idea what to do about them.

I was raised in the Caribbean, in the U.S. Virgin Islands, surrounded by ganja culture. While millennial “statesiders” my age I’d meet later when I moved to the South for school and then New York for my forever home, I realized that my childhood was different. Far from the “Just Say No” and D.A.R.E rhetoric my contemporaries experienced, many of my friend’s parents were Rastafarians. I grew up understanding that cannabis was a sacrament. So I spent high school, during the Bush era, on the debate team arguing for its legalization, and college majoring in journalism, reporting on cannabis. I’ve always been vehemently pro-legalization. But the reason cannabis didn’t become a big part of my personal life until a decade ago, in 2013, was because I was a total boozehound. 

But alcohol made my PTSD stemming from my assault worse. Sometimes, back in the day, to be perfectly honest, it made me downright nasty or even suicidal. So my ambition kicked in, having seen what alcoholism can do to others (it runs in my family), and I quit. I haven’t had a drink in 10 years. I’ve been Cali Sober since before the term existed, baby. 

So, a few years into sobriety, when a stoner close to my heart told me that people used cannabis to treat anxiety, PTSD and that THC could even suppress nightmares, at first, I was skeptical. Sure, it should be legal, just like alcohol, and the government is full of shit, but would it affect me like liquor did? Personally, 12-Step programs did more harm than good. I’m a big believer that a one-size-fits-all model is not suitable for recovery, something society finally seems ready to talk about.

Especially in the first few years after my assault, I needed to be shaken and reminded of my power — which had been robbed from me — instead of admitting I was powerless, which is, in so many words, the first step of AA. I’m glad the program works for many, including people I love, and I won’t even get into the fact that its founder, Bill W., fully embraced psychedelics at the end of his life, adamant that they could treat alcoholism. Because this story is about why recreational use and medical use have more overlap than the establishment makes them out to.

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Study: Cannabis Exposure Not Associated with Increased Psychosis Risk Among High-Risk Youth

The use of cannabis doesn’t raise one’s risk of psychosis or other adverse health outcomes, even among adolescents who are at high risk for the disorder, according to longitudinal data published in the journal Psychiatry Research.

A team of researchers affiliated with Hofstra University in New York and with Stanford University in California assessed the relationship between cannabis use and health outcomes in a cohort of adolescents at clinical high risk for psychosis. Study participants were tracked for two years. 

Investigators reported that those subjects who consumed cannabis were no more likely than non-users to become psychotic. 

Authors concluded: [C]ontinuous cannabis use over 2-years of follow-up was not associated with an increased psychosis transition rate, and did not worsen clinical symptoms, functioning levels, or overall neurocognition …  indicating that CHR [clinical high risk] youngsters are not negatively impacted by cannabis. … These findings should be confirmed in future clinical trials with larger samples of cannabis using individuals.”

The findings are similar to those published in April in the journal Psychiatry and Clinical Neurosciences. That study also failed to identify cannabis use as a risk factor for psychosis in clinically at-risk subjects. The study’s authors concluded: “Our primary hypothesis was that cannabis use in CHR [clinically high risk] subjects would be associated with an increased rate of later transition to psychosis. However, there was no significant association with any measure of cannabis use. … These findings are not consistent with epidemiological data linking cannabis use to an increased risk of developing psychosis.” 

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Delaware’s Beach Towns, Known For Boozy Parties, Are Banning Marijuana Businesses

Three of Delaware’s six most prominent beach towns have now voted to ban cannabis dispensaries, while the other three are in discussions to do the same. All are located in Sussex County, the state’s Republican stronghold.

The first town, Dewey Beach, passed its ordinance in June. On August 18, Rehoboth Beach and Bethany Beach followed suit. Fenwick Island began drafting an ordinance in July. South Bethany is expected to be reviewing one of its own in September or October. Lewes is in similar discussions.

The slightly inland town of Ocean View, also part of Sussex County, introduced a proposed ordinance in July. Its town council does not meet in August and so the ban will not be voted on until at least September.

“It’s almost laughable,’’ Mark Jacobs, a member of the state’s Marijuana Control Act Oversight Committee, told WHYY. “I mean, Dewey Beach, which encourages excessive drinking, whose clubs are fined yearly for violating the state’s alcohol laws. It’s hypocritical that a town that has the well-earned reputation of being a party town is first to jump on the old, debunked reefer madness attitude that it’s somehow perfectly acceptable to get sloshed drunk, but it’s not acceptable to get a little stoned.”

In April, Delaware passed legislation that legalized cannabis for adult use and then regulated its commercial sale. But it also permits jurisdictions to ban cannabis businesses at the local level. Only jurisdictions within Sussex County, the southernmost of Delaware’s three counties, have so far taken steps to do so, with legislators warning that dispensaries would attract “unsavory” people and residents stating that cannabis use is incompatible with a beach being family-friendly.

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States That Legalized Medical Marijuana Saw Nearly 20 Percent Drop In Foster Care Cases For Parental Drug Misuse, Study Finds

States that legalized medical marijuana saw a nearly 20 percent drop in the number of children entering foster care due to parental drug misuse after three years of the reform, a new study found. Legalizing for adult use, meanwhile, was not associated with any statistically significant change in foster care entries.

Researchers at Georgia College and State University set out to learn whether legalization would “lessen stigma, permit proper use, and reduce the chance that a child will be removed” or, conversely, if foster care cases would increase due to expanded access to legal cannabis.

The study looked at national data involving 3.4 million foster care cases from 2007 to 2019. Using difference-in-differences analyses, researchers examined rate changes in foster case placements related to drug misuse, comparing states that enacted legalization to those that maintained prohibition. They controlled for factors such as state unemployment rate and per capita income.

“Our estimates suggest that when states permitted recreational marijuana use, there was no corresponding change in the number of foster care entries related to parental or teenage drug abuse relative to control states,” the study says.

But for states that legalize medical cannabis, there was a discernible shift. In the first two years of implementation, states saw an average eight percent to 10 percent decrease in foster care cases connected to drug misuse. By the third year, cases dropped 18 percent, which amounted to “approximately 700 fewer entries to foster care [that] were related to parental drug abuse when a state legalized medical marijuana.”

That’s an especially important finding given that 90 percent of foster case entries due to drug misuse happen in states where medical cannabis is legal, says the study, which is pending peer review. Drug misuse is the second most common reason that a child is placed into foster care.

The study also compared states that have restrictive versus comprehensive medical cannabis programs, but researchers said they are “hesitant to draw conclusions” about the differences because of conflicting data using two analytic models.

For limited medical marijuana states, there was a “sizable decrease” in foster care drug misuse cases in the third and fourth year after implementation based on one difference-in-difference model, but that effect was less pronounced in the other model.

States with less restrictive medical cannabis legalization laws, in contrast, showed a “statistically and economically significant decrease in the number of entries” in one model, but data from the other model was less clear.

“Our findings suggest that states which legalized medical marijuana experienced a decrease in parental drug abuse-related entries into foster care in the initial years following the legalization compared to states that did not legalize medical marijuana,” the study says. “Estimates exploiting variation in state-level limitations on medical marijuana are mixed.”

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DeSantis Doubles Down On Opposition To Marijuana Legalization, Claiming Colorado’s Illicit Market Is ‘Bigger And More Lucrative’ After Reform

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R), a 2024 Republican presidential candidate, has reaffirmed that he would not legalize marijuana if elected to the White House—arguing contrary to evidence that the reform has actually increased the size of the illicit market in Colorado.

During a campaign event in Iowa on Saturday, an attendee told DeSantis that she knows people whose children developed “cannabis-induced psychosis” and asked about whether he would move to legalize or reschedule cannabis under federal law if he became president. In response, the GOP contender made clear that he “would not legalize,” echoing anti-marijuana arguments he previously made in June.

“I think what’s happened is this stuff is very potent now. I think when young people get it, I think it’s a real, real problem, and I think it’s a lot different than stuff that people were using 30, 40 years ago,” DeSantis said. “I think when kids get on that, I think it causes a lot of problems and then, of course, you know, they can throw fentanyl in any of this stuff now.”

The candidate then pivoted to a broader discussion about the harms of substance misuse, stating that there’s an “open air market” for illicit drugs in San Francisco, and that society has “totally decayed” under policies that “really help these folks use drugs.”

DeSantis did acknowledge that Floridians have access to medical cannabis under a constitutional amendment that voters approved, saying that “we abide by that” but noting that “states have handled cannabis differently” and he would not “take action now to make it even more available.”

Florida voters may have the choice to expand access regardless of the governor’s position, as the state Supreme Court is currently considering whether a marijuana legalization initiative will appear on the state’s 2024 ballot.

“I would not do that,” DeSantis said on Saturday. “And the places that legalized it like Colorado and California, you know, the argument was—and honestly it wasn’t a crazy argument—’Look, we know people are going to use marijuana. It is a drug. If you legalize it, then you can tax it, regulate it, and it’s going to end up being safer for people.’”

“But what’s happened in Colorado, the black market for marijuana is bigger and more lucrative than it was before they did the legalization,” the governor said. “So the legalization I don’t think has worked.”

DeSantis didn’t provide data or cite any sourcing to support that argument. But private and government analyses have suggested that Colorado has in fact significantly reduced the influence of the illicit market in the decade since enacting legalization.

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Missouri Foster Parents May Now Legally Possess And Grow Marijuana In Their Homes Under New Emergency Rule

Foster parents in Missouri can now legally possess and grow marijuana in their homes under an emergency rule filed last week by the state Department of Social Services. Consuming cannabis in a manner that emits smoke or vapor, however, is still not allowed inside the house.

Missouri voters in November 2022 passed a ballot initiative, Amendment 3, to legalize and regulate marijuana for adults 21 and older, allowing the purchase and possession of up to three ounces of cannabis and, after registering, the growth of up to six mature plants for personal use. But until Monday, the foster parents of roughly 14,000 children in the state were prohibited from exercising those rights.

The changes to the state rule addressing “physical and environmental standards” for foster care in Missouri were adopted on an emergency basis because the existing policy was in conflict with the voter-approved constitutional amendment, according to a statement attached to the rule’s text.

“Rule 13 CSR 35-60.040 presently provides that foster parents shall not use or possess marijuana or marijuana-infused products,” it says. “A regulation that conflicts with the Missouri Constitution is invalid.”

As an emergency rule, the change is set to expire February 23 of next year.

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Cannabis Doesn’t Increase Heart Attack Risk

Middle-aged adults with a history of cannabis use over the previous year did not have a higher risk of suffering a heart attack, according to the results of a recent study by researchers at the University of California in San Diego.

The new study, “Associations Between Monthly Cannabis Use and Myocardial Infarction in Middle-Aged Adults: NHANES 2009 to 2018,” was published on August 7 in the peer-reviewed American Journal of Cardiology, found that a history of cannabis use over the previous year was not associated with an elevated risk of myocardial infarction (MI) among a nationally representative study of nearly 10,000 adults aged 35 to 59. Additionally, study participants who reported using cannabis in the month before experiencing an MI, also commonly known as a heart attack, showed a lower risk compared to participants who had not used cannabis recently.

“In a representative sample of middle-aged US adults, a history of monthly cannabis use for more than a year before a myocardial infarction was not linked to a subsequent physician-diagnosed MI, after accounting for cardiovascular risk factors,” the authors of the study wrote. “However, when considering recent use, the odds were three times greater if no use was reported in the past month.”

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