Tag: the war on (some) drugs

DC journos are taking shrooms for ‘performance-enhancing brain boost,’ report says

Many journalists in Washington, D.C. are taking small doses of psychedelic mushrooms to improve their performance, according to Politico.

A 2020 D.C. ballot initiative made enforcement of bans on the purchase and distribution of psychedelic mushrooms the lowest priority of law enforcement, making the substance “basically legal,” according to Politico. The substance is used recreationally in full doses as well as in smaller “microdoses,” which some believe can improve brain function.

“Microdosing mushrooms as a kind of performance-enhancing brain boost — already wildly popular among the California tech set — is now fairly common in Washington, especially in media circles,” the Politico article said.

Additionally, many journalists are “macrodosing,” or taking large quantities of mushrooms to experience a psychedelic trip, as well.

Some journalists questioned the author’s claim that microdosing was common is Washington media circles.

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Chuck Schumer Learned Nothing From the Failure of Pot Legalization in California

During the next year, California officials said last week, the state expects to seize “more than $1 billion worth of illegal cannabis products.” That announcement came a few weeks after the U.S. Justice Department bragged about guilty pleas by 11 unlicensed California marijuana merchants who had been nabbed with help from state and local law enforcement agencies.

The continuing war on weed in California, which supposedly legalized marijuana in 2016, reflects the striking failure to replace black-market dealers with state-licensed vendors, a plan that has been doomed by high taxes, local bans, and overregulation. Judging from the marijuana legalization bill he introduced last week, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D‒N.Y.) has learned nothing from that experience.

Six years after California voters approved recreational marijuana, unauthorized suppliers still account for somewhere between two-thirds and three-quarters of sales. A recent report from Reason Foundation, which publishes this website, highlights one major reason why licensed businesses have had so much trouble competing with illegal suppliers: Taxes are too high.

Geoff Lawrence, Reason Foundation’s managing director of drug policy, found that California’s effective tax rate ranged from $42 to $92 per ounce, depending on the jurisdiction, compared to an estimated wholesale production cost of $35 per ounce. The corresponding rates in Colorado and Oregon, both of which have been more successful at displacing the black market, are about $33 and $21, respectively.

Despite modest tax relief approved this year, legal marijuana remains overpriced in California. It is also inconvenient to buy in much of the state, Lawrence notes, thanks to local sales bans that have created “massive cannabis deserts” where “consumers have no access to a legal retailer within a reasonable distance of their home.”

Legal sellers also must contend with burdensome licensing requirements and regulations. Dale Gieringer, California director of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws, says those rules help explain why legal marijuana prices are much higher than he anticipated.

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Senate Democrats introduce bill to federally decriminalize and tax marijuana after Biden said no one should go to jail for using cannabis

Sen. Majority Leader Chuck Schumer on Thursday introduced a bill that would federally decriminalize marijuana and allows states to set up their own regulations on the cannabis industry. 

The bill came at long last to cannabis advocates and days after Biden proclaimed at a July 16 press briefing: ‘I don’t think anyone should be in prison for the use of marijuana. We’re working on the crime bill now.’ 

Biden was asked if he would be ‘honoring his campaign pledge’ to release all of those locked up for pot convictions from prison. The president has repeatedly says he does not support full legalization. 

Sens. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., and Schumer first proposed a pot bill over a year ago but did not release text until Thursday. The legislation, called the Cannabis Administration and Opportunity Act, has a slim chance of passing the Senate, but portions of the bill could find their way into other packages that have a shot at passing before the end of the year. 

The Senate Judiciary Committee has set up a hearing titled: ‘Decriminalizing Cannabis at the Federal Level: Necessary Steps to Address Past Harms’ for next week. 

The legislation includes priorities sought by Democrats and Republicans: it expunges federal cannabis-related records and sets up funding for law enforcement to fight illegal cannabis production. 

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Brits could lose passports for using drugs

Recreational drug users in the UK could soon be stripped of their passports or driving licenses under a series of new laws proposed by the Home Office on Monday.

In the document titled ‘SWIFT, CERTAIN, TOUGH New consequences for drug possession,’ the Home Office proposes introducing three tiers of punishments for possession of illegal drugs such as cocaine and cannabis. 

The penalties vary from being forced to pay for a drug awareness course to being issued with a hefty fine, and could even result in the loss of an offender’s passport and driving license.

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Bill Moves Forward That Will Legalize Psychedelic Drugs Like DMT & Ibogaine in the Entire State of California

Despite the overwhelming evidence showing that kidnapping and caging people for possessing illegal substances does nothing to prevent use and only leads to more crime and suffering, government is still hell bent on enforcing the war on drugs. Like a crack addict who needs to find his next fix, the state is unable to resist the temptation to kick in doors, shake down brown people, and ruin lives to enforce the drug war.

Instead of realizing the horrific nature of the enforcement of prohibition, many cities across the country double down on the drug war instead of admitting failure. As we can see from watching it unfold, this only leads to more suffering and more crime. Luckily, there are cities, and now entire states in other parts of the country that are taking steps to stop this violent war and the implications for such measures are only beneficial to all human kind.

Eight years ago, Colorado citizens—tired of the war on drugs and wise to the near-limitless benefits of cannabis—made US history by voting to legalize recreational marijuana. Then, in 2019, this state once again placed themselves on the right side of history as they voted to decriminalize magic mushrooms. But this was just the beginning and their momentum is spreading—faster and stronger, toward decriminalizing all plant-based psychedelics. Then, this year, the state of Oregon decriminalized all drugs.

Now, another state is following suit, but not just with psilocybin— a bill in California is moving forward with a legalization measure for other psychedelics like mescaline cacti, ayahuasca and ibogaine.

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Microdosing Magic Mushrooms A ‘Growing Trend’ Among Some Suburban Moms

Magic mushrooms have long been considered a serious drug — the federal government puts it in the same class as heroin — but it’s catching on in the oddest place: suburbia.

Moms in communities around San Diego are “microdosing” mushrooms, which contain the mind-altering substance psilocybin, a new report says.

“It’s so necessary for some of us to be out and forward because we need to move the needle. We need to help give permission to other mothers, to fathers and other families,” said a woman identified only as Mikaela, according to the local CBS affiliate, which published a story headlined “Micro-dosing magic mushrooms: A growing trend among San Diego moms.”

In microdosing, people take a small dose in various forms, which can be pills, gummies, and chocolate. “So a dose that would give you a classic psychedelic effect would be anywhere between a gram to five, six, seven grams and so a microdose is a fraction of a gram,” Mikaela told the station.

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Video of Hunter Biden Buying Enough Crack to Put Him in Jail for Years, Proves the Elite are Above the Law

In the ostensible land of the free, there are two sets of justice systems: one for all those within and connected to the system, and one for everyone else. A perfect example of this two tiered system is the fact that people are jailed every day in this country if they are caught with crack cocaine. Currently, over half of the entire federal prison population is doing time for cocaine. However, when the president’s son is seen on video smoking it and even trafficking large amounts of it, he faced no consequences.

Sunday night, yet another damning video of Hunter Biden was released showing him purchasing crack from an alleged prostitute. In the video, Hunter is seen filming himself smoking a cigarette before reversing the camera onto a scale with a white substance, reportedly identified as crack.

Had Hunter been caught with this much crack prior to 2002, he could have gone to jail for over 20 years. In fact, the president himself, and Hunter’s father, Joe Biden spearheaded a law while he was a senator that required crack to be penalized at a rate 100 times more than that of powder cocaine. It was called the “100-1 rule” and it was used to lock countless Black men up for decades, tearing families apart and fueling future fatherless generations for years to come.

Coincidentally, white people were caught more often with the powder form of cocaine while Black people were caught more often with crack and as Ron Paul pointed out after this law was passed, only Black people were going to jail for it despite getting caught with the same amount of cocaine.

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Did Minnesota accidentally legalize weed?

Minnesota just sorta, kinda, almost legalized weed.

A law took effect earlier this month allowing anyone at least 21 years old to purchase edibles or beverages with up to 5 milligrams of hemp-derived THC per serving. Those relatively low potency products with up to 50 milligrams per package still pack enough of a psychoactive punch to get most users plenty high.

But some key lawmakers who approved the significant change in drug policy were seemingly confused about what they’d done.

Marijuana legalization has been a divisive issue in the Minnesota Legislature for years. The Democratic-controlled House passed legislation last year that would allow anyone at least 21 years old to legally purchase and possess the drug, but the GOP-controlled Senate has remained staunchly opposed to recreational legalization. Yet a legalization provision was adopted during a marathon conference committee meeting in May without debate or objection.

“That doesn’t legalize marijuana?” Sen. Jim Abeler, the Republican chair of the Senate Human Services Reform Finance and Policy Committee, asked after it was adopted by a voice vote. “We didn’t just do that?”

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