Regarding legalizing it…
Tag: the war on (some) drugs
Biden spends over $150 million to hire cops
President Joe Biden’s Justice Department plans on providing $156.5 million in grants to hire police officers as part of a $320 million package, despite the fact many members of his own party have called to defund the police.
The recruitment grant will go to the COPS Hiring Program, described by the DOJ as “a competitive award program intended to reduce crime and advance public safety through community policing by providing direct funding for the hiring of career law enforcement officers.”
Law enforcement agencies across the United States are encouraged to apply.
The Biden administration expects the funding to help with the “implementation of projects that focus on prioritized crime issues impacting communities [and the] implementation of changes to personnel and agency management in support of community policing,” among other things.
The remainder of the funding will go toward school safety programs and combating illegal drug distribution.
Lawmakers strike the word ‘marijuana’ from all state laws, calling term racist
“Pot,” “weed,” “grass,” “Mary Jane,” “flower” — there is no shortage of terms to describe cannabis. However, Washington state is taking one word officially off the table: “marijuana.”
Legislators recently passed a law that changes every Revised Code of Washington with the word “marijuana.” The change gets rid of the term, swapping it out for the word “cannabis.”
Supporters say the word “marijuana” has a long history of racism.
“The term ‘marijuana’ itself is pejorative and racist,” said Washington state Rep. Melanie Morgan during testimony in 2021. Morgan is a Democrat representing the 29th Legislative District and sponsored the bill — House Bill 1210. Morgan discussed the history of the word, which originates from Spanish.
“As recreational marijuana use became more popular, it was negatively associated with Mexican immigrants,” Morgan said.
Governor Jay Inslee signed the bill that passed unanimously into law March 11. The changes will take effect in June.
Brave Entrepreneurs Openly Defy Licensing Laws and are Selling Cannabis Even Though it’s “Illegal”
So far, New Yorkers in 2022 have seen a massive increase in crime across the city. For the month of February 2022, New York City saw a 58.7% increase in overall index crime compared to February 2021. Every major index crime category saw an increase for the month of February 2022. Robbery increased by 56 percent, grand larceny increased by a whopping 79.2 percent, and grand larceny auto more than doubled, jumping up a massive 104.7 percent.
So, what are the politicians doing about it? Drafting legislation to shut down family-owned businesses for selling a plant. That’s right, currently, politicians in New York are moving through legislation to shut down honest mom and pop operations who would dare to sell a plant to a willing customer — without first paying the state for the privilege of doing so.
In March of 2021, New York legalized recreational marijuana and that’s where the progress stopped. Despite legalization, the state of New York requires businesses to obtain a license from the government before they can legally sell the plant. There’s only one problem… for an entire year, the state didn’t issue any licenses.
In the land of the free, attempting to earn money in certain professions without first paying the state for the privilege of doing so can and will get you kidnapped and extorted. These laws are applied to children behind lemonade stands as well as adults selling flowers. The state callously and with extreme prejudice has been documented arresting people, or even beating up women to enforce these licensing laws.
Instead of focusing on their rampant crime problem, legislators in New York are using their authority to continue this disturbing cycle. They are now going after unlicensed cannabis companies who dared to earn a living without first obtaining a license that didn’t exist.
The good news is that many folks aren’t waiting for the state to give them permission and are openly defying the licensing requirement — and they’re doing so successfully.
Things that make you go hmm…
FDA Takes Only Months to Approve Pfizer Jab Yet Cannabis Remains Schedule 1 Despite Centuries of Data
Since Dec. 11, 2020, the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 Vaccine has been available under the Food and Drug Administration’s Emergency Use Authorization in individuals 16 years of age and older, and the authorization was expanded to include those 12 through 15 years of age on May 10, 2021. On August 23, 2021, it was granted full approval by the FDA.
The Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 Vaccine now become the fastest created, deployed, and subsequently approved vaccination in history. Previously, the fastest vaccine to go from development to deployment was the mumps vaccine in the 1960s, which took about four years.
The swift approval of the vaccine illustrates just how fast the government can react if it wants to do so. On the contrary, however, there have been hundreds if not thousands of studies on the benefits of cannabis to safely treat multiple ailments and diseases, spanning the course of centuries, yet the FDA has failed to approve its use for anything.
To be clear, the FDA has approved patentable pharmaceutical synthetic compounds such as dronabinol. The pharmaceutical patented drugs Marinol and Syndros both use dronabinol which is nothing more than a chemical synthetic equivalent to delta-9- tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) — but the plant-based version you can grow in your own home remains off the list.
Drug War Crumbles as 14 Cities Have Now Decriminalized Mushrooms, Other Psychedelics—Despite Prohibition
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, last year, the state of Oregon decriminalized all drugs.
Now, another spark has erupted, and this time it is in Michigan. In March, Hazel Park City Council voted to decriminalize psilocybin and other naturally occurring psychedelics — following the lead of municipalities across the country.
Hazel Park is the third city in Michigan to pass a resolution to decriminalize psilocybin and the fourteenth in the nation.
Police Seized Almost $10,000 From Him. A Court Ruled He Had No Right to an Attorney.
In April 2015, police in Indiana seized almost $10,000 from Terry Abbott after he was arrested for selling drugs to a confidential informant.
Cops used a process known as civil forfeiture, allowing them to proceed with pocketing those funds prior to securing a criminal conviction. Naturally, Abbott attempted to challenge that action in court. But he lost his attorney—as the money he would use to pay for that counsel had been taken by the state.
So for years he had to represent himself.
The Indiana Supreme Court on Tuesday decided that’s in keeping with the law—ruling that defendants have no right to use their seized funds to finance legal representation.
“We do not find the legislature intended this language to give the court equitable authority to order the seized property released to the defendant to defend the forfeiture action,” wrote Justice Steven H. David, noting that the court’s hands were tied by the relevant statute on the books.
Central to the American criminal justice system is that every defendant is innocent until proven guilty. But civil forfeiture isn’t a criminal action; it’s a civil one, occurring in civil court, where defendants are not necessarily entitled to a lawyer. Only in certain extraordinary circumstances, the court ruled, is the state required to provide one.
Abbott didn’t qualify. This means that, in cases like his, the government is able to put defendants in a chokehold by seizing the very assets that they would use to defend themselves against such a seizure. Fighting to get your cash back is a bit difficult when the government has taken all of your cash.
Researchers Discover Cannabis-Mushroom Combination that ‘Kills Over 90% of Colon Cancer Cells’
For years, when it comes to cannabis research, Israeli scientists have been pioneers. Thanks to the tyrannical schedule one rating in the United States, Israel is years ahead of American research, and the latest information out of Herzliya, Israel, is proof.
Though breast cancer is more diagnosed in the United States, colorectal cancer kills far more people, coming in as the second most deadly cancer in the world, just under lung cancer. For the last several years, scientists with Cannabotech, a biomedical company developing oncological products using cannabis, have been developing an “Integrative-Colon” product they say kills over 90% of colon cancer cells.
According to Cannabotech, the have concluded a study using not only cannabis, but a unique combination of cannabinoids and mushroom extracts, which they tested on various colon cancer subtypes, representing different molecular changes common in these colon cancer subtypes. Their results of the cell model study were astounding, showing that its “Integrative-Colon” products killed over 90% of colon cancer cells — and they attribute this to to the mushroom and cannabis combination.
Results showed that Cannabotech’s Integrative-Colon products composition is significantly more effective than each cannabinoid individually, and there is a strong synergy between the active ingredients. These results reinforce Cannabotech’s claim that to achieve effective treatment in the oncology field, it is necessary to build a defined, accurate and science-based formula, which cannot be obtained in any cannabis strain that exists in nature.
Given the fact that the survival rate for colorectal cancer is just 65%, the idea that an easily grown plant and fungus could be used to save hundreds of thousands of lives, is inspiring to say the least.
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.
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