Tag: the war on (some) drugs

The United States of Weed

IF IT SEEMS like a new state is legalizing cannabis nearly every week, don’t worry, you’re not high — states are indeed allowing adult-use of the drug at an unprecedented pace. If the wave of green legislation is slowing to some degree now, that’s only because so many states have already taken action. That doesn’t mean the wave will stop. Since our last update two years ago, numerous states have passed recreational or medical laws. At the same time, setbacks have come as ballot initiatives have been rejected. In other instances, lawmakers and certain governors remain steadfast in their opposition to pot. 

It’s now a question of when, not if, politicians in Washington, D.C., will get with the program and decide to do what the majority of Americans support by passing legislation to end federal prohibition once and for all. In 2022, Politico reported that over 155 million Americans lived in a legal cannabis state after the November 2022 Election Day results — inching closer to 50 percent of the population. In the meantime, states are continuing to prime themselves to legalize the drug, either for medicinal use, recreational use, or both. Here’s where things stand is all 50 of them.

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Florida to investigate whether taxpayer dollars were used to purchase crack pipes for drug addicts – AG sues Biden admin for ignoring public records requests

Florida Attorney General Ashley Moody announced a lawsuit on Thursday against the Biden administration after it ignored Freedom of Information Act requests seeking proof that taxpayer dollars were not used to purchase crack pipes for safe smoking kits provided to drug addicts.

A $30 million federal grant program, announced by President Biden in February 2022, was used to reimburse local governments that provided addicts with safe smoking kits. The program was touted as a harm reduction effort that advanced safer drug use and racial equity.

Some of the smoking kits found in Baltimore, Boston, New York, Richmond, and Washington, D.C., reportedly contained crack pipes and other drug-related paraphernalia; however, the Biden administration has maintained that crack pipes were not provided to drug addicts in taxpayer-funded kits.

A press release this week by Moody stated that Florida plans to investigate the controversy after Biden’s Department of Justice and Department of Health and Human Services ignored a February 2022 FOIA request.

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NEVADA COMMITTEE TO VOTE ON BILL FOR RESEARCH, DECRIMINALIZATION OF PSILOCYBIN

Greg Rea had his first experience with psychedelics when he was 56 years old. Up until then, he’d been a Reno police officer on SWAT for 12 years before retiring from the force to become a pastor and then a real estate investor.

“I retired a couple years ago, but I still was a pretty tightly wound guy,” Rea tells the Weekly in a phone interview. “And I had a seven-days-a-week drinking problem.”

Rea says that despite having a “pretty good life,” like many first responders, alcohol use was adversely affecting him—until about three years ago, when a friend invited him to a group psychedelic experience.

During that experience, which comprised several sessions, a combination of psilocybin [the drug in “magic” mushrooms] and MDMA [aka ecstasy or Molly]took Rea back to two “fairly violent, critical incidents” in which he was involved as a SWAT officer. The intense, emotional trip led to a breakthrough, he says.

“I realized I had some form of PTSD connected to those things,” Rea says. “And I had no idea I’d carried it for almost 20 years.”

After group sessions with other first responders, he began to find a community to talk about mental health—“inner world things” that the wider community might misunderstand. “First responders are exposed to an inordinate amount of human suffering [that] the typical citizen isn’t. So, we said, why don’t we start our own group?”

In the group, firefighters, first responders and current and former military service members are opening up and “finding their healing with psychedelic medicine,” he says. “And I’m free from my seven-days-a-week alcohol habit. My life is just inordinately better. And my relationships are better.”

Rea was one of many who gave public comment during a March 23 hearing for Senate Bill 242 (SB242).

In his testimony, Assemblyman Max Carter said that his therapy with ketamine, the only drug currently legal for psychedelic therapy, has been “transformational” in his mental health and struggle with chronic depression.

“Psilocybin, studies show, is much more powerful. Where I’ve gone through eight or nine ketamine sessions, [it] probably would have been one or two [sessions], if psilocybin was legal,” Carter said, adding that, based on studies, the effects of psilocybin appear to be longer lasting than ketamine.

The bill would establish a framework for research of psilocybin in the state and, if passed as amended, decriminalize possession of the substance, currently listed as a Schedule 1 drug.

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Colorado steps off into the world of ‘magic mushrooms’

It is being hailed as everything from the beginning of a journey to the coming of a new industry, but for sure it’s a step toward legal consumption of “magic mushrooms” in Colorado. The involved event is merely a bureaucratic exercise — today’s first advisory board meeting will, over the next couple of years, move “magic mushrooms” into a legal and regulated space.

The mushrooms are usually eaten and are therefore considered a food safety issue by some. 

Psilocybin mushrooms are classified as an illegal Schedule I drug under federal law. Schedule I drugs include substances that are not recognized for medical use and that the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) defines as having a high potential for abuse and dependence.

The 15-member advisory board appointed by Colorado Gov. Jared Polis is supposed to make an exception for Colorado. The Natural Medicine Advisory Board will advise Colorado’s Department of Regulatory Agencies (DORA) on the manufacturing, testing, and use of psilocybin and psilocin — the psychoactive compounds in “magic mushrooms.”

In November 2022, Colorado became the second state to legalize psilocybin by passage of a ballot measure. Oregon was the first in 2020. The City and County of Denver in 2021 also approved Ordinance 301 to decriminalize the use and possession in Denver of magic mushrooms.

The Denver ordinance deprioritizes, to the greatest extent possible, the imposition of criminal penalties on anyone 21 years of age and older for the personal use and personal possession of psilocybin mushrooms; and prohibits the city and county of Denver from spending resources on imposing criminal penalties on people 21 years of age and older for the personal use and personal possession of psilocybin mushroom.

Just as it did with recreational marijuana after the 2012 voter initiative, Colorado is clearing the path to make the use of “magic mushrooms” legal. The current schedule calls for the advisory board to make its first recommendations to DORA by Sept. 30, 2023, and DORA is supposed to adopt rules and begin licensing for the centers where mushroom use will be administered one year later by Sept. 30, 2024.

Also by Jan. 1, 2024, individuals who’ve gone through required training will become eligible for licenses.

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How ‘equity’ ruined cannabis legalization in New York

New York’s legal weed experiment is going about as poorly as possible.

Earlier this week, the state finally signed off on a handful of new dispensary licenses, a full two years after legalization.

Illegal pot shops, meanwhile, have gotten so common — and so attractive to criminals — that Gov. Hochul has asked Albany to approve five-figure fines and tough enforcement powers to help shut them down.

It remains to be seen whether any state can legalize marijuana without serious downsides.

But New York’s attempt has been particularly disastrous.

This is in large part because rather than prioritizing tax revenue or public health in the legalization process, Albany put progressive-tinged “social justice” strategies front and center in its policy design.

They admit as much.

Hochul has emphasized that New York State’s marijuana industry will benefit those who committed crimes under prohibition.

The state’s Office of Cannabis Management has said that “social and economic equity” is a “major focus” of legalization.

And the New York City Mayor’s Office promised to put equity “at the center” of the budding industry. You get the idea.

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Another Federal Judge Rejects the DOJ’s Argument That Cannabis Consumers Have No Second Amendment Rights

A federal judge in Texas recently agreed with a federal judge in Oklahoma that the national ban on gun possession by cannabis consumers violates the Second Amendment. Kathleen Cardone, a judge on the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Texas, also concluded that the federal ban on transferring firearms to an “unlawful user” of a “controlled substance,” first imposed by the Gun Control Act of 1968, is unconstitutional.

The case involves Paola Connelly, who was charged with illegal possession of firearms under 18 USC 922(g)(3) after El Paso police found marijuana and guns in her home while responding to a domestic disturbance in December 2021. Connelly, who said she used marijuana “to sleep at night and to help her with anxiety,” also was charged with violating 18 USC 922(d)(3) by transferring guns to her husband, a cocaine and psilocybin user. Both gun offenses are punishable by up to 15 years in prison.

As a preliminary matter, Cardone held that Connelly’s Second Amendment claims were not precluded by prior decisions in which the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit, which includes Texas, upheld Section 922(g)(3). Those decisions, she noted, preceded the Supreme Court’s June 2022 ruling in New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen, which said gun control laws must be “consistent with the Nation’s historical tradition of firearm regulation.”

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GOP embraces a new foreign policy: Bomb Mexico to stop fentanyl

A growing number of prominent Republicans are rallying around the idea that to solve the fentanyl crisis, America must bomb it away.

In recent weeks, Donald Trump has discussed sending “special forces” and using “cyber warfare” to target cartel leaders if he’s reelected president and, per Rolling Stone, asked for “battle plans” to strike Mexico. Reps. Dan Crenshaw (R-Texas) and Mike Waltz (R-Fla.) introduced a bill seeking authorization for the use of military force to “put us at war with the cartels.” Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) said he is open to sending U.S. troops into Mexico to target drug lords even without that nation’s permission. And lawmakers in both chambers have filed legislation to label some cartels as foreign terrorist organizations, a move supported by GOP presidential aspirants.

“We need to start thinking about these groups more like ISIS than we do the mafia,” Waltz, a former Green Beret, said in a short interview.

Not all Republican leaders are behind this approach. John Bolton, Trump’s third national security adviser who’s weighing his own presidential run, said unilateral military operations “are not going to solve the problem.” And House Foreign Affairs Committee Chair Mike McCaul (R-Texas), for example, is “still evaluating” the AUMF proposal “but has concerns about the immigration implications and the bilateral relationship with Mexico,” per a Republican staff member on the panel.

But the eagerness of some Republicans to openly legislate or embrace the use of the military in Mexico suggests that the idea is taking firmer root inside the party. And it illustrates the ways in which frustration with immigration, drug overdose deaths and antipathy towards China are defining the GOP’s larger foreign policy.

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Psychedelic drugs were used by ancient man, new study shows

Researchers have found evidence of drug use during Bronze Age ceremonies.

Analysis of strands of human hair from a burial site on the Spanish island of Menorca indicates ancient human civilisations used hallucinogenic drugs derived from plants.

The findings are the first direct evidence of ancient drug use in Europe, which may have been used as part of ritualistic ceremonies, researchers say.

Researchers detected scopolamine, ephedrine and atropine in three replicated hair samples.

Atropine and scopolamine are naturally found in the nightshade plant family and can induce delirium, hallucinations and altered sensory perception.

Ephedrine is a stimulant derived from certain species of shrubs and pines which can increase excitement, alertness and physical activity.

Elisa Guerra-Doce, from the Universidad de Valladolid in Spain, and colleagues examined hair from the Es Carritx cave, which was first occupied around 3,600 years ago.

Writing in the Scientific Reports journal, the authors said: “Interestingly, the psychoactive substances detected in this study are not suitable for alleviating the pain involved in severe palaeopathological conditions attested in the population buried in the cave of Es Carritx, such as periapical abscesses, severe caries and arthropathies.

“Considering the potential toxicity of the alkaloids found in the hair, their handling, use and applications represented highly specialised knowledge. This knowledge was typically possessed by shamans, who were capable of controlling the side-effects of the plant drugs through an ecstasy that made diagnosis or divination possible.”

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NBA Takes Steps to Ease Cannabis Restrictions: This Week in Cannabis Investing

The NBA took a major step forward this week by allowing players to invest in and promote cannabis brands. 

Michele Roberts, a former executive director of the NBA Players Association and now a member of the board of directors at Cresco Labs (CRLBF(opens in new tab)), previously predicted that NBA would consider changing its policies around cannabis. 

As of the terms listed in the leagues’ new collective bargaining agreement, cannabis will also be removed from the banned substances list for players. This is a welcome change for a cannabis industry seeking additional sources of capital while it continues to erode the old-world stigmas created by previous generations. 

We’ve seen a number of professional athletes getting involved in the cannabis industry after their sports careers. They are a group that is keen on the benefits cannabis provides for pain and inflammatory management, and many are also passionate about making a difference. Former NBA veteran Al Harrington’s Viola Brands(opens in new tab) immediately comes to mind as a trailblazer here. We’re excited to welcome more athletes, especially those as passionate about building their brands and business ventures as they are about their active profession.

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