Tag: the war on (some) drugs

Hemp farmers forced to destroy crops over USDA rules

Hemp farmers across Tennessee are having to destroy their hemp crop that tested over the new federal THC limit.

The USDA made a ruling in 2021 that all hemp must have a total THC level of 0.3%. Before that decision, hemp farmers needed to keep the levels of Delta-9 THC below 0.3%. The new rules apply to numerous other compounds in the plant.

According to the Department of Agriculture, 42% of crops are being found non-compliant with the requirement.

About half the crop at Nashland Farms, a Middle Tennessee hemp operation, was found to be over the limit. The farm grows hemp for its CBD.

Seth Fuller, co-owner of Nashland Farms, said it means many thousands of dollars lost.

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Highly Decorated D.A.R.E. Cop Admits to Running Enormous Child Porn Ring That Abused Toddlers

The Drug Abuse Resistance Education (D.A.R.E.) program should better be called an egregious exercise in how not to convince kids to keep away from substances the state deems illegal. As cops hopped on their high horses and had children pledge not to do drugs, the rate of drug use skyrocketed — thrusting the country into one of the worst drug epidemics in human history. The hypocrisy by the cops who pushed the D.A.R.E. program has been well-documented over the years, explaining, at least in part, as to why the program was such a failure from the start. Now, another cop who pushed kids to ‘just say no’ has pleaded guilty to disturbing criminal activity. 

Parents whose children participated in the D.A.R.E. program in Beavercreek, Ohio now need to question their children who may have had contact with former Beavercreek police officer Kevin A. Kovacs. In April 2019, Kovacs, 60, was arrested at his home for unspeakable crimes against children. This week, he admitted to all of it and it’s utterly horrifying.

“Videos featured the sexual abuse of children as young as toddler aged,” the U.S. Department of Justice said in a statement. “One video depicted a toddler lying on a diaper whose arms and legs were bound by black tape.”

In total, as of December 2019, Kovacs possessed more than 780 images and 5,100 videos of child pornography, according to the release. He had used online messenger, social media, cloud storage and email accounts to transport and possess child pornography.

This disgusting individual will now be spending up to the next 240 months in a cage, where he belongs.

“The conduct he is alleged to have committed is both disgusting and extremely disappointing,” said former Beavercreek Police Chief Dennis Evers at the time of Kovacs arrest. “As a former D.A.R.E. officer who received departmental and community awards for his work, he, of all people, knew this criminal activity to be exploitation of children and unlawful.”

Less than two years before this cop was arrested for running a child porn ring, Officer Kovacs received the “Law Enforcement Officer of the Year” Award. When presented with the honor, the Beavercreek police department praised him for his work with young children.

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U.S. Cops To Become Brain Scanning Marijuana Detectors

If Mass General Hospital (MGH) has its way, law enforcement officers in the United States will soon be using portable functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) scanners on motorists.

A recent Boston Globearticle describes fNIRS as a “breakthrough” in detecting marijuana impairment.

“Boston researchers say they’ve developed a new, noninvasive technique for detecting marijuana highs that can reliably tell the difference between people who are truly impaired by the drug and those who merely used it recently.”

What has happened to so-called Drug Recognition Experts (DRE)? Have the courts finally realized that police officers using pupil dilation charts to determine which type of drugs a motorist is under is junk science?

Nope, because soon, DRE police officers across the country will be using pupil dilation charts and portable fNIRS brain scanners to determine if someone is under the influence of drugs.

“For so long, our model has been alcohol, so there’s been a lot of focus on breath and blood levels,” Dr. Jodi Gilman, who led the research, said. “Our thought was, ‘What about looking directly at the brain?’ “

The MGH study claims that fNIRS scanners are accurate 76 percent of the time.

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Heavy Cannabis Use by Female Adults Associated With Lower Incidence of Diabetes

A new study recently published in Cannabis and Cannabinoid Research found that women who heavily used cannabis had lower incidence of diabetes, a chronic condition that prevents the body from either making enough insulin (type 1) or being able to use insulin efficiently (type 2).

Approximately one in 10 Americans has diabetes, and the condition accounted for 87,647 deaths in the United States in 2019, making it the seventh leading cause of death for that year.

For the study, Texas A&M University School of Public Health graduate students Ayobami Ogunsola, Samuel Smith, Udeh Mercy and Olatunji Eniola, along with a colleague from Hofstra University, analyzed data from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (2013-2018). From approximately 15,000 participants. The majority of participants were female, white (non-Hispanic), over 40, and had at least a college-level education.

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