Tag: the war on (some) drugs

House Votes To End Federal Ban On Marijuana Possession, Distribution

The House of Representatives voted Friday to end a federal ban on the possession, growth and distribution of marijuana.

The Marijuana Opportunity Reinvestment and Expungement (MORE) Act, introduced by Democratic New York Rep. Jerry Nadler, removes the drug from a list created by the Controlled Substances Act, and creates an excise tax on marijuana and other cannabis products. Marijuana is currently listed as a Schedule I drug under the Controlled Substances Act, meaning that it has “no currently accepted medical use and a high potential for abuse.” This classification has been heavily contested by advocates, who argue that it fails to take into account reported medicinal benefits.

The legislation “is long overdue… and would reverse decades of failed federal policies based on the criminalization of marijuana. It would also take steps to address the heavy toll these policies have taken across the country, particularly among communities of color,” Nadler said in a floor speech.

Keep reading

Nearly 500-Page House Report On Marijuana Legalization Bill Previews Democratic And Republican Arguments

With a vote on a bill to federally legalize marijuana set for House floor consideration this week, lawmakers on Thursday released a report on the legislation that effectively previews the partisan debate to come, with the majority and minority leaders of a key committee making their arguments for and against the reform.

The 483-page report prepared by the House Judiciary Committee provides an extensive overview of the Marijuana Opportunity, Reinvestment and Expungement (MORE) Act, which is sponsored by the panel’s chairman, Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-NY).

Leadership announced late last week that the bill to end federal prohibition would be taken up on the floor for the second time in congressional history. It passed the House in 2020 but saw no action in the Senate. Then, in September, it again cleared the sponsor’s panel for the current session.

Before heading to the floor, there will be a House Rules Committee meeting on Wednesday, where members will decide whether any proposed amendments can be made in order. The hearing was initially scheduled for Monday but was pushed back two days over the weekend for unknown reasons.

“Enforcement of marijuana laws has been a key driver of mass criminalization in the United States,” the new report’s background and need for legislation section states. “The drug war has produced profoundly unequal outcomes across racial groups, manifested through significant racial disparities throughout the criminal justice system.”

It further describes the collateral consequences of cannabis arrests and convictions, including the possible loss of opportunities for employment, voting rights, housing, education, government assistance and more, saying that “these exclusions create an often-permanent second-class status for millions of Americans.”

“Like drug war enforcement itself, these consequences fall disproportionately on people of color,” it says. “For non-citizens, a conviction can trigger deportation, sometimes with almost no possibility of discretionary relief.”

“Today, overcriminalized communities continue to suffer the consequences of failed drug policies, even in states that have legalized marijuana, where arrests have dropped for marijuana crimes. Public support for making marijuana legal has increased over the past two decades. The resulting trend in state-level legalization of marijuana has placed states in apparent conflict with federal law and, as a result, the Justice Department has struggled with how to continue to uphold federal law in this context.”

The report also touches on other unique challenges that state-legal marijuana industries face under the status quo of federal prohibition, including barriers to accessing financial services through traditional banking services which have resulted in public safety issues for cannabis businesses that have become targets of crime because many operate on a largely cash-only basis.

Keep reading

Drug Users Are Losing Their Fingers and Toes After Shooting ‘Tranq Dope’

Bill’s hands are so disfigured that he can no longer fit gloves over them. 

About two months ago, his right ring finger was amputated. In a matter of weeks, he could lose the middle finger on his left hand, which was swollen with a large, maroon-colored sore covering the knuckle when VICE News met him on a recent morning in Philadelphia’s Kensington neighborhood. 

The lesions are markers of a drug Bill said he never intended to consume. Xylazine, an animal tranquilizer known on the street as “tranq” or “tranq dope,” has infiltrated Philly’s illicit opioid supply. The 59-year-old, who did not share his last name with VICE News, shivered as he hunted for mittens at an outreach event for drug users in Kensington. 

“Boy, this is angry,” said a nurse who volunteers with the harm reduction group Savage Sisters, while examining a wound on one of Bill’s fingers at a pop-up wound care clinic at Kensington’s McPherson Park, known locally as Needle Park because of its open-air drug use. 

Keep reading

65 Teens, Arrested, Shackled, Jailed Because Cops Found a Small Bag of Weed Outside of a Party

House parties among teenagers and young adults are a part of growing up. When kids experience freedom from their parents for the first time, they will often make poor choices and this is a part of experiencing life so one can learn. Poor choices that cause harm to others are certainly not acceptable but when young people are experimenting with substances and make choices which have no victims, they should never have to worry about their lives being ruined over it. Unfortunately, for 65 young people in Cartersville, Georgia, they had no say in the matter when cops arrested all of them — despite none of them making any poor choices.

The nightmare for these 65 teenagers and young folks started back in 2017 as they gathered at a home to celebrate the New Year. As is common on New Year’s Eve, firecrackers can be heard going off all around town. Thought none of the teens involved in this party were popping fireworks, police used it as a reason to enter the home, without a warrant, claiming they heard gun shots.

When police came to the door that night, they had no evidence of a crime being committed, nor did they have reasonable suspicion. Nevertheless, they barged into the legally rented Airbnb, paid for by 21-year-old Deja Heard, who was celebrating her 21st birthday that night.

Officers had no warrant as the shut down the entire party and searched everyone. The only evidence of a crime — which is not a crime at all — was claimed when police found a small bag of weed in the front yard.

Because no one wanted to go to jail over a plant, no one fessed up, or perhaps the person who dropped it, left the party. Regardless, the solution proposed by the officers that night was to arrest everyone and charge them all with possession of marijuana. And they did exactly that.

These teens and young adults were then hauled off to jail, booked into the Bartow County lockup and shackled — for a small bag of weed found outside on the ground.

Keep reading

At SXSW, Beto O’Rourke says legalizing weed is possible: ‘Republicans like to get high just as much as Democrats’

Democratic candidate Beto O’Rourke said Saturday that if elected governor of Texas, he would pursue legalizing marijuana — and said he anticipates that the Republican majority in the Legislature would get on board.

“I’ll let you in on a secret: Republicans like to get high just as much as Democrats,” O’Rourke said, speaking during a South by Southwest panel in Austin.

While some Republican-led states have legalized recreational marijuana, Texas has not joined the growing national legalization movement.

Keep reading

NIH spends $14 million to study reproductive effects of marijuana on macaques

This week’s Golden Horseshoe is awarded to the National Institutes of Health for a $14 million experiment last year on monkeys that included feeding them marijuana edibles and then monitoring the effects, according to the watchdog group Open The Books.

The primate marijuana experiment had two parts, according to an investigation by the White Coat Waste Project (WCWP).

In the first part, female macaques were served THC edibles daily for up to four months. They were then observed to see if any changes occurred in their menstrual cycles. 

In part two, male macaques were fed the edibles for up to seven months and then observed to see if any fertility changes occurred.

NIH awarded the two grants for the experiments. A $13.1 million grant was awarded to the Oregon Health and Science University (OHSU), and $1.1 million was awarded to the University of Missouri-Columbia.

“The White Coat Waste Project was only able to find the enormous price tag of this project by filing a complaint with the NIH,” wrote Open The Books CEO and founder Andrew Andrzejewski. “Federal law known as the Stevens Amendment requires labs to say what percent of the costs of the experiment come from taxpayer money, the dollar amount of taxpayer funds used, and the percent and amount of funding by non-governmental sources. The Oregon Health and Science University disclosed none of these figures in its reports announcing the research results.”

Andrzejewski also pointed out that since recreational marijuana is legal in Oregon, experiments could have been conducted on humans.

Keep reading