Tag: the war on (some) drugs

Psychedelics: How They Act On The Brain To Relieve Depression

Up to 30% of people with depression don’t respond to treatment with antidepressants. This may be down to differences in biology between patients and the fact that it often takes a long time to respond to the drugs – with some people giving up after a while. So there is an urgent need to expand the repertoire of drugs available to people with depression.

In recent years, attention has turned to psychedelics such as psilocybin, the active compound in “magic mushrooms”. Despite a number of clinical trials showing that psilocybin can rapidly treat depression, including for cancer-related anxiety and depression, little is known about how psilocybin actually works to relieve depression in the brain.

Now two recent studies, published in The New England Journal of Medicine and Nature Medicine, have shed some light on this mysterious process.

Psilocybin is a hallucinogen that changes the brain’s response to a chemical called serotonin. When broken down by the liver (into “psilocin”), it causes an altered state of consciousness and perception in users.

Previous studies, using functional MRI (fMRI) brain scanning, have shown that psilocybin seems to reduce activity in the medial prefrontal cortex, an area of the brain that helps regulate a number of cognitive functions, including attention, inhibitory control, habits and memory. The compound also decreases connections between this area and the posterior cingulate cortex, an area that may play a role in regulating memory and emotions.

An active connection between these two brain areas is normally a feature of the brain’s “default mode network”. This network is active when we rest and focus internally, perhaps reminiscing about the past, envisioning the future or thinking about ourselves or others. By reducing the activity of the network, psilocybin may well be removing the constraints of the internal “self” – with users reporting an “opened mind” with increased perception of the world around them.

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Scientists Expose “Laughable” CDC Misinformation Video Currently Up On Their Website

Within the CDC there is a smaller department known as the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH). NIOSH claims to promote productive workplaces through safety and health research. But as the following video on their website shows, the last thing they appear to be interested in is research.

According to the CDC, this video helps “emergency responders understand the risks and communicate what they can do to protect themselves from exposure to illicit drugs.”

But it does nothing of the sort and actually does the opposite.

To save 13 minutes of boredom, there is no need to watch the video. It simply shows multiple cops enter a hotel room in which there is a tiny bit of fentanyl on the dresser. Within minutes of being in the room — and while wearing a respirator — one of the officers falls out. According to the video, the CDC, and the experts who conducted their “research,” this was due to fentanyl exposure — for merely being in the same room with the powder — and despite toxicology results showing negative for fentanyl.

Amanda D’Ambrosio, an Enterprise & Investigative Writer for MedPage Today interviewed several experts in the field about the CDC’s use of this video and their misinformed messaging on fentanyl exposure. She is warning that the CDC’s guidance is actually misleading law enforcement.

“No one has explained exactly what’s happened in that video, it’s all conjecture,” Brandon del Pozo, PhD, a drug policy and public health researcher at Brown University and former police chief told the outlet. “It is surprising to see something with such a basis in conjecture being presented by an agency that has a commitment to science.”

The NIOSH video provides little evidence confirming how these officers were exposed to the drugs, and no real explanation of the health effects that it aims to prevent, experts told MedPage Today. Drug researchers and scientists say that the video inflates law enforcement officers’ risk of overdose, incites fear within the police force, and ultimately, causes harm to people who use drugs.

As TFTP reported this week, overdose deaths in the U.S. have hit record numbers and of the more than 100,000 people who have died, roughly 70 percent of them involved fentanyl. Make no mistake, fentanyl is deadly but only when it is ingested.

You cannot overdose by merely being exposed to fentanyl.

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Marijuana violations have taken over 10,000 truck drivers off the road this year, adding more supply chain disruptions

Delayed packages, bare grocery store shelves, and inflated prices have become the norm for American consumers over the past two years. While the COVID-19 pandemic has been the catalyst, there are other challenges causing supply chain issues, including a lack of truck drivers to transport goods from one place to another. In late 2021, the American Trucking Associations reported that the driver shortage had risen to an all-time high of 80,000, partly due to the aging population and shrinking wages.

In response, the Biden administration vowed in December to get more truck drivers on the road by boosting recruitment efforts and expediting the issuing of commercial licenses. However, that won’t have an effect on another hurdle: disparate marijuana laws across the U.S. that are contributing to an increase in violations. In 2022, a growing number of truckers are being taken off the job, which could soon worsen the already suffering supply chain.

As more states legalize recreational marijuana—four of which did so in the past year and three more are expected to by the end of 2022—more truck drivers have tested positive for the substance. As of April 1, 2022, 10,276 commercial vehicle drivers have tested positive for marijuana use. By the same time in 2021, there had been 7,750 violations. That’s a 32.6% increase year over year.

Truck drivers who travel cross-country face inconsistent state regulations as 19 states have legalized recreational marijuana and 37 states permit it for medicinal purposes. But even if a driver used marijuana or hemp-based products like CBD while off duty in a state where those substances are legal, they could still be faced with a violation due to the Department of Transportation’s (DOT) zero-tolerance policy at the federal level.

“While states may allow medical use of marijuana, federal laws and policy do not recognize any legitimate medical use of marijuana,” a DOT handbook for commercial vehicle drivers reads. “Even if a state allows the use of marijuana, DOT regulations treat its use as the same as the use of any other illicit drug.”

Stacker looked at what’s causing thousands of truckers to be removed from their jobs, and the looming domino effect of the continued supply chain disruptions.

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US Hits Highest Number of Overdose Deaths in History as White House Adds Billions to Drug War Budget

In March, the Biden administration announced a historic and massive increase in funding for National Drug Control Program agencies. For FY 2023, the US plans on spending $42.5 billion to continue fighting the failed war on drugs. This month, the Centers for Disease Control also released some historic numbers — as the US spends more on the drug war than ever in history, more people have died from drug overdoses than any recorded time in American history.

107,000 — that is the number of people who overdosed on drugs in 2021. Overdoses involving fentanyl and other synthetic opioids surpassed 71,000, up 23% from the year before. There also was a 23% increase in deaths involving cocaine and a 34% increase in deaths involving meth and other stimulants, according to the CDC.

Upon releasing these numbers, the White House called the sharp increase in overdose deaths “unacceptable” and promised to spend more money fighting an already failed drug war. While some of that budget will go toward treatment, most of it will go toward enforcement — because it has worked so well in the past.

“The net effect is that we have many more people, including those who use drugs occasionally and even adolescents, exposed to these potent substances that can cause someone to overdose even with a relatively small exposure,” Dr. Nora Volkow, director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse said in a statement, calling this latest increase “staggering.”

It is indeed staggering. Most people in this country now know someone who has died from an overdose and despite this massive increase in deaths, the United States government is going to attack it with more of the same — and it is costing taxpayers dearly. In the last 4 years, enforcement has gone up — at a rate of 5,000 percent — clearly illustrating that it is having no effect at all.

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Gov. Newsom Proposes Eliminating One of California’s Many Marijuana Taxes

The latest California budget submitted by Gov. Gavin Newsom could go a long way in fixing the state’s ailing recreational marijuana industry by fully eliminating an oppressive cultivation tax.

Newsom’s May revisions to the 2022–23 fiscal year budget call for some significant statutory changes to the state’s cannabis tax system. The biggest change would be zeroing out the cultivation taxes beginning in July. The excise tax of 15 percent would remain intact.

When Californians voted to legalize recreational marijuana cultivation and sales back in 2016, the industry ended up saddled with state and local taxes that make it inordinately costly to attempt to sell or buy cannabis legally. As a result, the black market for marijuana still dominates sales in a state where it’s legal to buy it. Industry analysts estimate about $8 billion in black market marijuana sales annually in California—double the amount of marijuana purchased through licensed dispensaries.

The cultivation tax has been consistently eyed by industry analysts as a problem. This particular tax is unique among agricultural products in California, and due to the legislation passed in 2017 to establish tax authorities, it’s regularly adjusted for inflation. As a result, cultivation tax rates actually increased at the start of 2022 despite this big black market problem.

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Police Chief Arrested, Jailed for Running a Meth Distribution Ring

If we were to declare a winner in the War on Drugs today, there would be no question that drugs won. Despite tens of billions of dollars wasted, hundreds of thousands of innocent lives ruined or ended, and the construction of the largest prison population on the planet, the American drug problem is worse off now than it ever was before.

Nothing highlights this epic failure of the war on drugs quite like cops getting busted selling or using drugs. When the ones who are tasked with fighting this senseless war, choose the other side, this should be a red flag that it’s not working. And this happens all the time.

As the following example illustrates, even top cops have jumped ship and are choosing the side of drugs — shamelessly betraying the trust of the public they serve to use their badge to profit in this corrupt game.

A police chief in Oklahoma was arrested over the weekend for using his position to run a meth distribution operation. Oklahoma Bureau of Narcotics officials said law enforcement arrested Calvin Police Chief Joe Don Chitwood at his home after an investigation began in April.

“This investigation began in mid-April after receiving information that Chitwood was both using and selling methamphetamine in Hughes County,” Oklahoma Bureau of Narcotics spokesperson Mark Woodward said in the news release. “OBN and DEA worked a joint investigation that resulted in Chitwood’s arrest.”

Though police didn’t go into detail on the amount of meth found at Chitwood’s home, he was charged with multiple counts of distribution, meaning it wasn’t just a personal amount.

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‘Fact checkers’ claimed that the Biden regime was not distributing crack pipes… They were wrong once again

In February, news broke that the Biden administration was distributing free crack pipes as part of a program to distribute ‘safe smoking kits’ to cities across the country.  Hilariously, the grant used to fund the kits were part of a program aimed at advancing ‘racial equity’.

Fact-checkers pounced on the story immediately, labeling it false.  100PercentFedUp was fact-checked on Facebook for writing about the story.  Fact checks on major social media websites such as Facebook can lead to ‘shadow bans’, where a page’s reach is significantly reduced.

The fact-checkers claimed that the story, which originated from the Free Beacon, was inaccurate because the White House released a statement saying that the safe smoking kits they were funding would not contain crack pipes.  Despite the White House’s denials, they refused to discuss who applied for the grants or who would be receiving them, citing confidentiality.

Prominent Conservative activist Greg Price was kind enough to provide a compilation of these ‘fact checks’ on Twitter.

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Rochester woman fights to get back $8K seized in raid; she was not charged, no drugs found

In October 2020, Rochester police raided the West Main Street apartment of Cristal Starling and her then-boyfriend, who was suspected of dealing drugs.

No drugs were found, but police seized $8,040 in currency that Starling says was hers. Her boyfriend was arrested based on drugs found at another home, but he was later acquitted of the charges.

Starling has been trying to get her money back since the acquittal. She’s still trying.

The nonprofit Institute for Justice, a public interest law firm, plans an appeal to a federal court, seeking to reverse a judge’s decision that federal and local police can keep Starling’s money. Starling’s case, Institute attorneys say, is typical of many forfeiture cases in the country: The money is not an overwhelming amount and the administrative process so convoluted that people who lose their money simply give up.

“This is very common where it’s a small amount of money,” said Institute attorney Seth Young.  “You don’t hire a lawyer and the maze of forfeiture procedures trips up a person who represents themselves and the person ends up losing their money.”

Starling tried, without the aid of a lawyer, to chase down her seized money. She also lost use of two cars, which were also taken then later returned. She had to pay for a rental car during those weeks, she said.

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