Tag: the war on (some) drugs

Trump Suggests Airstrikes On Cartels In Mexico, Colombia: ‘Okay With Me’

President Donald Trump told reporters gathered in the Oval Office on Monday that potential military strikes in Mexico to disrupt the drug trade would be “okay with me”.

He expressed rare openness to direct Pentagon action inside America’s neighbor to the immediate south, at a moment of ongoing deadly drone strikes on alleged drug boats off the coast of Venezuela. This is sure to turn US-Mexico relations in a more negative direction, but Trump doesn’t seem overly concerned with this as he ramps up the pressure, also on Colombia.

He said he’d be willing to do this to prevent drugs from entering the United States, and further he’d be proud to “knock out” cocaine factories in Colombia.

On Colombia, where the president, his family and top officials have recently been hit with US sanctions, Trump said as follows:

“Colombia has cocaine factories where they make cocaine. Would I knock out those factories? I would be proud to do it personally. I didn’t say I’m doing it, but I would be proud to do it because we’re going to save millions of lives by doing it.”

This renewed war on drugs rhetoric has been met with immense controversy, including among some US Congress members who demand a Congressional vote before war is declared on Venezuela or any other sovereign Latin American country.

But the administration has also been utilizing ‘terrorism’ labels to justify strikes, which up to now has included targeting over twenty alleged drug boats and killing some 80 people.

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Trump Administration Sees Marijuana As A ‘Hazard,’ Federal Prosecutor Says, Drawing Criticism From Lawmakers And Advocates

Lawmakers and advocates are pushing back after a U.S. attorney announced his office will be aggressively prosecuting cannabis possession and use offenses on federal lands, stating that it’s the administration’s position that “marijuana use is a public safety hazard.”

U.S. Attorney for the District of Wyoming Darin Smith caught some by surprise on Thursday after his office said it would be “rigorously” prosecuting cannabis cases, while citing a recent reversal of previously unpublicized Biden-era marijuana enforcement guidance that deprioritized such action.

“Marijuana possession remains a federal crime in the United States, irrespective of varying state laws,” Smith said. “The detrimental effects of drugs on our society are undeniable, and I am committed to using every prosecutorial tool available to hold offenders accountable.”

He doubled down on that position in comments to WyoFile, telling the local outlet: “This administration thinks that marijuana use is a public safety hazard and this office is going to uphold the law and ensure safety and security of the public within our jurisdiction.”

Marijuana Moment reached out to the White House for clarification on President Donald Trump’s position on cannabis, but a representative did not provide comment by the time of publication.

While questions remain as to the specifics of both the Biden- and Trump-related marijuana prosecutorial guidance actions, the federal attorney’s message has added to the uncertainty around how the current administration views its enforcement role as federal and state cannabis laws continue to conflict.

U.S. Rep. Dina Titus (D-NV), co-chair of the Congressional Cannabis Caucus, told Marijuana Moment that simple cannabis possession “is not a threat to public safety, and it is ridiculous to justify the prosecution of individuals with an outdated law that does not reflect the current use of cannabis in the United States”

“The federal government needs to catch up to the states, recognize the legitimate industry that has emerged, dismantle the stigma surrounding the plant, and reform its outdated scheduling of marijuana as a dangerous drug,” she said.

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US Takes Out Drug Boat in Caribbean Sea Under Newly Unveiled “Operation Southern Spear” as White House Plans to Continue Strikes

The US military on Saturday executed another strike on a drug trafficking vessel operated by narcoterrorists under the new Operation Southern Spear program, the US Southern Command announced on Sunday. 

On Nov. 15, at the direction of Secretary of War Pete Hegseth, Joint Task Force Southern Spear conducted a lethal kinetic strike on a vessel operated by a Designated Terrorist Organization. Intelligence confirmed that the vessel was involved in illicit narcotics smuggling, transiting along a known narco-trafficking route, and carrying narcotics. Three male narco-terrorists aboard the vessel were killed. The vessel was trafficking narcotics in the Eastern Pacific and was struck in international waters,” US South Com said in an X post.

Secretary of War Pete Hegseth announced Operation Southern Spear at the direction of President Donald Trump on Thursday.

“Led by Joint Task Force Southern Spear and @SOUTHCOM, this mission defends our Homeland, removes narco-terrorists from our Hemisphere, and secures our Homeland from the drugs that are killing our people. The Western Hemisphere is America’s neighborhood – and we will protect it,” he said on X.

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Rhode Island’s US Senators Defend Vote To Ban Hemp Despite Concerns It Will Kill A Growing State Industry

Mike Simpson is one of Rhode Island’s biggest cheerleaders for hemp cultivation and the plant’s derivative products—remedies, he believes, that may help where pharmaceutical medicines cannot.

It’s that very reason Simpson helped co-found Rhode Island’s only outdoor hemp farm, where he says many of the business’ products ship all across the country.

But Lovewell Farms may cease operations now that Congress has approved reopening the federal government under legislation that would effectively ban hemp products containing more than 0.4 milligrams of THC. Now that it has been signed by President Donald Trump, the ban will go into effect in a year.

“This might be the final straw,” Simpson said in an interview Wednesday. “I may have to shut my whole company down.”

Simpson doesn’t sell intoxicating products, but said crops grown at his Hopkinton farm can contain up to 1 milligram of THC in it, as is allowed under existing Rhode Island hemp regulations.

“I have 700 to 800 pounds of flower that I grew this year that under that law would not be legal,” he said.

Simpson said he would grow crops with lower concentrations, but as a USDA-certified organic farm, there aren’t that many seed suppliers he can buy from.

“We’re really at the whim of what those folks are providing,” he said.

The provision in the shutdown-ending appropriations bill was championed by GOP Sen. Mitch McConnell of Kentucky in order to close a loophole in the 2018 Farm Bill that legalized hemp but inadvertently paved the way for the proliferation of hemp-derived THC products like infused drinks—products which states have since scrambled to either regulate or ban.

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Hemp Provision in Spending Bill Could Kill Legit Industry

The hemp industry is gearing up for a lobbying effort following a provision in the recent government funding package meant to stop the sale of intoxicating hemp products but could inadvertently destroy a legitimate $28 billion industry and kill 300,000 American jobs.

The provision in the bill bans hemp products like gummies, drinks, vapes, and topical pain relief applications that contain low doses of THC — the part of the cannabis plant that can create intoxication in users at higher levels.

Hemp was legalized in the 2018 Farm Bill. It “required the FDA to establish a regulatory framework for hemp products, but it never did, allowing intoxicating hemp products to be introduced in the marketplace without oversight or standardization,” the Hill reported.

The new ban tucked into the spending bill prohibits products containing more than 0.4 milligrams of THC per container and is aimed at stopping the sale of intoxicating products often sold in gas stations and convenience stores.

However, the trade group U.S. Hemp Roundtable estimates the move would wipe out 95 percent of CBD products used to treat pain and other health issues, shut down small businesses and farms nationwide, and cost states $1.5 billion in tax revenue.

According to the trade group’s statement:

Despite misleading claims this language protects non-intoxicating CBD products, the reality is that more than 90% of non-intoxicating hemp-derived products contain levels of THC that are greater than the proposed cap of .4 mg per container. As a result, seniors, veterans, and many other consumers who depend on hemp for their health and well-being would be violating federal law to purchase these products, disrupting their care and leaving them scrambling for potentially harmful alternatives.

In Texas, for example, voters overwhelmingly supported the sale of legal hemp-derived products when properly regulated, according to Breitbart News’s reporting of a statewide poll in July. In June, Gov. Greg Abbott (R-TX) vetoed a THC ban bill that had passed the Texas Legislature.

While the spending bill was still in the Senate, Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) unsuccessfully offered an amendment to remove the language, but the Senate voted overwhelmingly to table it. Paul warned on the Senate floor that the measure would “eradicate the hemp industry” and “couldn’t come at a worse time for America’s farmers.”

Supporters of the provision in the bill argued it was long overdue.

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Illinois Will Revisit Hemp Regulation Debate Amid New Federal Ban On THC Products, Governor Says

Tucked into the spending legislation approved by Congress this week was a provision banning the sale of intoxicating hemp products—a move that could upend an industry with annual sales now into the billions.

Hemp was federally legalized under the 2018 Farm Bill, which defined it as a plant with less than 0.3 percent delta-9 THC. But the law didn’t account for total THC or other cannabinoids, creating a loophole that allowed companies to use compounds like delta-8 to make products with marijuana-like intoxicating effects. As a result, hemp-derived intoxicants have proliferated in gas stations, corner stores and other places with little to no regulation.

An amendment seeking to remove the language from the larger bill, proposed by Sen. Rand Paul, R-Kentucky, was rejected in a 76-24 vote. Sens. Dick Durbin (D-IL) and Tammy Duckworth (D-IL) voted with the majority.

Durbin said the hemp language was proposed by Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Kentucky.

“Throughout my career, I’ve tried my best to protect children,” Durbin said. “He asked for further regulation of the industry to make sure their products being sold at service stations and such weren’t dangerous to kids. That’s not too much to ask. I supported his position.”

Though he opposed the bill on the whole, the hemp provision hands Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker (D) an indirect political win. The governor earlier this year pushed in vain for legislation that would have limited the sale of delta-8 and other hemp-derived intoxicants to state-licensed cannabis dispensaries. But House Speaker Chris Welch, D-Hillside, did not call it for a vote, claiming it did not have the support of 60 House Democrats.

“In the absence of action in Springfield, Governor Pritzker supports policies to protect people, including children, from being misinformed or harmed by these products,” a Pritzker spokesperson said.

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Kentucky Governor Says Hemp Is An ‘Important Industry’ That Should Be Regulated At The State Level, Not Federally Banned

The Democratic governor of Kentucky says the hemp industry is an “important” part of the economy that deserves to be regulated at the state level—rather than federally prohibited, as Congress has moved to do under a spending bill President Donald Trump signed on Wednesday.

During a press briefing on Thursday, Gov. Andy Beshear (D) was asked whether he agrees with Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) that the hemp language that advanced through the appropriations legislation poses an existential threat to the cannabis market that’s emerged since the crop was federally legalized under the 2018 Farm Bill.

“I haven’t had a chance to review the language on hemp, but hemp is an important industry in Kentucky,” Beshear said. “We should have appropriate safety regulations around it, but we should make those regulations here in Kentucky—talking to the industry and making sure that we get that balance right.”

“I think that we can protect our kids. I think that we can do the right thing to protect all of our people while not handicapping an industry that supports a lot of people,” the governor said.

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House Armed Services Chair Urges Trump Admin to Publicly Disclose Legal Basis for Boat Strikes

Congressman Mike Rogers (R-Ala.) offered his ringing endorsement of a recent closed-door briefing on the ongoing campaign of U.S. strikes on suspected drug boats from Latin America, and urged the Trump administration to go public with its legal rationale for the operations.

Rogers was among a handful of lawmakers briefed on the strikes on Nov. 5, in a closed-door sensitive compartmented information facility, commonly referred to as a “SCIF.” Such facilities are used to control access to information that the U.S. government has classified.

“There was nothing that we should have been in a SCIF talking about,” Rogers, who chairs the House Armed Services Committee, told The Epoch Times on Nov. 12. “They should be talking to all y’all, because it was very well done, completely legal what they’re doing, and they should be more transparent about it, in my view.”

Alongside a U.S. military build-up in the Caribbean Sea and a campaign of pressure against Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro that have been growing since the summer, U.S. forces have been bombing suspected drug boats in the region since September. In that time, U.S. forces have conducted at least seven strikes in the Caribbean Sea, nine in the eastern Pacific, and three more in unspecified locations throughout the U.S. Southern Command area of responsibility, which covers Central America and South America.

“I’m fine with what they’re doing down there, and I think that the lawyers that did that, talked about the legal basis, should do it publicly,” Rogers said.

The ongoing U.S. military campaign, which the Trump administration has described as a “non-international armed conflict,” has met with skepticism from lawmakers on both sides of the aisle.

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Inside the CIA’s secret mission to sabotage Afghanistan’s opium

In 20 years of grinding war in Afghanistan, the United States dropped a multitude of weapons from the skies: Millions of tons of ordnance. Hellfire missiles launched from Predator drones. Even the “Mother of All Bombs,” the most powerful nonnuclear bomb in existence. And, amid the more conventional projectiles, tiny poppy seeds. By the billions.

On and off for over a decade, the Central Intelligence Agency conducted an audacious highly classified program to covertly manipulate Afghanistan’s lucrative poppy crop, blanketing Afghan farmers’ fields with specially modified seeds that germinated plants containing almost none of the chemicals that are refined into heroin, The Washington Post has learned.

The covert program, which has not previously been disclosed, is an unreported chapter in the 2001-2021 U.S. war in Afghanistan and in the long checkered history of American efforts to combat narcotics globally, from Latin America to Asia. Its existence was confirmed by 14 people familiar with aspects of the secret operation, all of whom spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe a classified project.

The program’s disclosure comes as the war on narcotics is again dominating the security agenda. President Donald Trump has declared war on drug cartels in the Western Hemisphere, ordering more than a dozen lethal strikes on alleged drug boats in the Caribbean and the eastern Pacific, designating cartels as terrorist groups, and moving a vast naval and air force to the region. He has also authorized the CIA to take aggressive covert action against drug traffickers and their supporters.

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A Senate-Approved Bill Would Ban the Hemp-Derived THC Products That Congress Legalized in 2018

Forty states now allow medical use of marijuana, while 24, accounting for most of the U.S. population, also allow recreational use. Yet the federal ban on marijuana, first enacted in 1937, remains in place, which means state-licensed cannabis suppliers still face legal risks and financial burdens stemming from a policy that a large majority of Americans reject. But instead of addressing that increasingly untenable situation by repealing federal marijuana prohibition, the U.S. Senate is bent on expanding the ban to cover psychoactive hemp products.

An appropriations bill that was part of the Senate deal to end the federal shutdown aims to close a loophole opened by the 2018 farm bill, which legalized hemp. That law defined hemp to include any part of the cannabis plant containing less than 0.3 percent delta-9 tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), the main psychoactive ingredient in marijuana. The definition also includes “all [hemp] derivatives, extracts, cannabinoids, isomers, acids, salts, and salts of isomers,” as long as their delta-9 THC content is less than 0.3 percent.

The farm bill opened the door to a wide range of hemp-derived products, including edibles, beverages, flower, and vape cartridges containing delta-8 THC, an isomer that has effects similar to those of delta-9 THC, or tetrahydrocannabinolic acid (THCA), which converts to delta-9 THC when heated. That explains all those seemingly illegal THC products you may have seen online or in vape shops, pharmacies, or liquor stores, which offer alternatives for cannabis consumers who live in states that still prohibit recreational use of marijuana.

Pot prohibitionists unsurprisingly view that situation as intolerable. The Senate appropriations bill, which would fund agricultural programs, rural development, and the Food and Drug Administration through fiscal year 2026, addresses their concerns by redefining hemp to exclude psychoactive products derived from hemp. According to a summary from the Senate Appropriations Committee, the bill will prevent “intoxicating hemp-based or hemp-derived products, including Delta-8, from being sold online, in gas stations, and corner stores, while preserving non-intoxicating CBD and industrial hemp products.”

The narrower hemp definition, which amounts to a broader definition of marijuana, excludes “any intermediate hemp-derived cannabinoid products” containing “cannabinoids that are not capable of being naturally produced” by the cannabis plant or that “were synthesized or manufactured outside the plant.” It also prohibits intermediate products containing more than a 0.3 percent “combined total” of “tetrahydrocannabinols (including tetrahydrocannabinolic acid)” or “any other cannabinoids that have similar effects (or are marketed to have similar effects) on humans or animals.” And it bans final hemp products that contain either synthesized cannabinoids or more than “0.4 milligrams combined total per container” of “tetrahydrocannabinols” (including THCA) or “any other cannabinoids” with “similar effects.”

Given those limits, Cannabis Business Times notes, “companies that manufacture and sell intoxicating hemp products in today’s market would have to overhaul or abandon their business plans.” The U.S. Hemp Roundtable (USHR), a trade group that represents those companies, is understandably alarmed, “arguing that [the bill] would recriminalize hemp products and threaten to eliminate a $28 billion industry that provides 300,000 American jobs.”

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