Tag: the war on (some) drugs

Liberals battle ICE over an illegal busted with 57 pounds of meth…

At some point, you have to ask what exactly the left is fighting for.

Because when a man is caught with 57 pounds of meth, this probably isn’t the hill you should die on. Clearly, something has gone very wrong in the Democrat Party. America is drowning in drugs, and families are being ripped apart by addiction. US cities are buckling under fentanyl and meth epidemics, and yet in Minneapolis, left-wing activists showed up to physically try to block ICE from arresting an illegal caught with enough meth to poison entire communities.

This is what the left-wing “resistance” has become… fighting tooth and nail for the rights of illegal drug smugglers.

How will that look on a campaign poster?

American voters reelected President Trump on a promise to restore order, secure the border, and remove Biden’s dangerous illegals from our communities. That mandate was crystal clear. But in Minneapolis, activists decided the will of the voters doesn’t matter. Apparently, “democracy” now includes saving drug smugglers from arrest.

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Virginia House Passes Bill To Protect Rights Of Parents Who Use Marijuana

The Virginia House of Delegates has approved a bill to protect the rights of parents who use marijuana in compliance with state law.

The legislation from Del. Nadarius Clark (D) is consistent with a measure he sponsored last session that advanced through the legislature, only to be vetoed by then-Gov. Glenn Youngkin (R). The latest version passed the House in a 62-37 vote on Tuesday.

Under the proposal, possession of use of cannabis by a parent or guardian on its own “shall not serve as a basis to deem a child abused or neglected unless other facts establish that such possession or consumption causes or creates a risk of physical or mental injury to the child.”

“A person’s legal possession or consumption of substances authorized under [the state’s marijuana law] alone shall not serve as a basis to restrict custody or visitation unless other facts establish that such possession or consumption is not in the best interest of the child,” the text of the bill, HB 942, states.

When the bill was on the floor for second reading on Monday, Clark said that the measure “fully preserves judicial discretion requiring a court to act when a child is in danger, but grounding those decisions in individualized evidence-based findings instead of presumptions tied to lawful conduct.”

Youngkin claimed in his veto message last year that the prior measure introduced “unnecessary complications and risks exposing children to harm.”

“The bill disregards clear evidence linking substance use to child endangerment, particularly in the wake of increased incidents of children ingesting cannabis-infused substances following the legalization of marijuana,” he argued. “By broadly prohibiting courts from considering parental marijuana use in custody and visitation determinations, [the bill] risks prioritizing drug use over the health and well being of children.”

The then-governor also vetoed an even earlier version of the bill in 2024.

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Gustavo Petro Claims Saboteurs Tried to Plant Drugs in His Vehicle Before Trump Meeting

Far-left President of Colombia Gustavo Petro on Tuesday claimed that there was an alleged plot to sabotage his recent meeting with President Donald Trump by planting “psychoactive substances” in the Colombian presidential vehicle.

Petro levied his claims during a four-hour, thirty-minute-long broadcasted meeting of his council of ministers in the northern city of Monteria, Córdoba. He did not present any evidence to substantiate his claim during the broadcast.

“There is a general who I ordered to be removed from the police force. Someone gave him the order to put psychoactive substances in my car, and his mission was to destroy the meeting with Trump in one way or another,” Petro claimed.

Petro traveled to Washington last week and met with President Trump at the White House. The encounter was widely described as amiable and a stark contrast from the highly hostile stance that Petro adopted against Trump throughout 2025.

“A path is born where different powers can meet. We didn’t hit or scratch each other; we look for solutions,” Petro reportedly said to the press after meeting with Trump.

Although Petro did not disclose the name of the official allegedly behind the purported drug plant plot, military sources claimed to Caracol Radio on Wednesday the man Petro referred to is General Edwin Urrego Pedraza, who until recently served as commander of the Cali City Police force. Urrego occupied other high-ranking Colombian police positions in the past such as head of the Directorate of Criminal Investigation and Interpol, and Commander of the Barranquilla Metropolitan Police.

Speaking to Blu Radio on Wednesday morning, Urrego denied any participation in any purported plot to plant drugs in Petro’s presidential vehicle prior to his meeting with Trump, describing the allegations as “madness” and as “misinformation” from the Colombian President.

The official emphasized to the radio station that he has never attempted to commit any dishonest act that would affect his ethics or the honor of the Colombian law enforcement institutions and assured that he has never even been physically close to the presidential vehicle.

“I am willing to undergo polygraph tests, whatever is required to clarify this matter,” Urrego said, highlighting his 32-year career and past successful confidence tests, including processes with U.S. agencies such as HSI and ICE.

Urrego delivered similar statements to Caracol Radio shortly afterwards and stated that he had not received any formal notification of the accusations, describing allegations linking him to an attempted conspiracy plot against Petro as “madness.” He explained that he only found out about the situation from a video sent to him via the WhatsApp messaging platform and that, up to that point, no Colombian authority has shown any evidence against him.

“The information the President has received is completely inaccurate. It does not reflect reality. To even consider taking such action would be contrary to democracy itself,” he said, expressing his willingness to provide information to any authority, including international authorities, should the situation require a formal investigation.

“No one has given me the opportunity to defend myself, nor have they presented me with any evidence. And I don’t think there is any, because it didn’t happen,” he added.

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Florida spent $4 million in opiate settlement to defeat marijuana legalization

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ administration spent $4 million in cash from a national opiate crisis settlement to defeat a 2024 adult-use marijuana legalization initiative.

DeSantis officials never told the statewide advisory board – set up to determine how to spend that money – that it would go toward an anti-cannabis political campaign, the Orlando Sentinel reported on Sunday.

In all, Florida spent $35 million on television ads and other campaign efforts to defeat Amendment 3, an adult-use legalization constitutional amendment that also had an endorsement from Donald Trump, then the Republican presidential nominee, the Sentinel reported.

The measure had 56% voter support but needed 60% to pass.

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Oregon Lawmakers Consider Banning Marijuana Edibles With More Than 10 Milligrams Of THC

Oregon lawmakers are considering a bill to prohibit the sale of individual edibles that have more than 10 milligrams of THC.

The proposal, Senate Bill 1548, comes as lawmakers grapple with responding to increasing reports of children seeking medical attention after consuming edibles resembling cookies, brownies and gummies. In 2023, children aged 0 to five made up one-third of all cannabis-related cases reported to the Oregon Poison Center.

And in May, experts recommended lawmakers implement a THC cap to cannabis products, similar to alcohol and tobacco, as data shows most Oregon youth believe there’s little to no risk in smoking marijuana once a month.

“We need to reckon with this a little bit,” said Sen. Lisa Reynolds, a Portland Democrat and pediatrician who chairs the Senate Early Childhood and Behavioral Health Committee. The committee met Tuesday morning for a public hearing on the bill.

Reynolds said the topic is of particular interest to her because she believes her brother’s habitual marijuana use in the ’70s contributed to his admission into psychiatric hospitals nearly 50 times throughout his life. He now lives in a nursing home with severe schizophrenia, she said.

Four doctors testified in favor of the bill, including Dr. Rob Hendrickson, the medical director of the Oregon Poison Center. Hendrickson shared an example of a toddler he cared for recently who consumed two muffins that contained 50 milligrams of THC each. Within an hour, the child turned blue and unconscious. She had a seizure and was put on life support for 36 hours.

There’s strong evidence that the policy would reduce child poisonings, according to Dr. Julia Dilley, a Multnomah County epidemiologist who has been leading research on the public health effects of cannabis legalization in Oregon and Washington.

Oregon’s bill is similar to a 2017 Washington law requiring that single servings of edibles don’t exceed 10 milligrams. That law was associated with 75 percent fewer hospitalizations and half as many poisonings reported to poison centers, Dilley told the committee.

Four people in the cannabis industry testified in opposition to the bill, including business owners and cannabis manufacturers who said many products already have child-resistant packaging, as well as meet marketing and advertising standards to make sure products aren’t attractive to children.

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State Cannabis Legalization and Psychosis-Related Health Care Utilization

This study included 63 680 589 beneficiaries followed for 2 015 189 706 person-months. Women accounted for 51.8% of follow-up time with the majority of person-months recorded for those aged 65 years and older (77.3%) and among White beneficiaries (64.6%). Results from fully-adjusted models showed that, compared with no legalization policy, states with legalization policies experienced no statistically significant increase in rates of psychosis-related diagnoses (medical, no retail outlets: rate ratio [RR], 1.13; 95% CI, 0.97-1.36; medical, retail outlets: RR, 1.24; 95% CI, 0.96-1.61; recreational, no retail outlets: RR, 1.38; 95% CI, 0.93-2.04; recreational, retail outlets: RR, 1.39; 95% CI, 0.98-1.97) or prescribed antipsychotics (medical, no retail outlets RR, 1.00; 95% CI, 0.88-1.13; medical, retail outlets: RR, 1.01; 95% CI, 0.87-1.19; recreational, no retail outlets: RR, 1.13; 95% CI, 0.84-1.51; recreational, retail outlets: RR, 1.14; 95% CI, 0.89-1.45). In exploratory secondary analyses, rates of psychosis-related diagnoses increased significantly among men, people aged 55 to 64 years, and Asian beneficiaries in states with recreational policies compared with no policy.

Conclusions and Relevance  In this retrospective cohort study of commercial and Medicare Advantage claims data, state medical and recreational cannabis policies were not associated with a statistically significant increase in rates of psychosis-related health outcomes. As states continue to introduce new cannabis policies, continued evaluation of psychosis as a potential consequence of state cannabis legalization may be informative.

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The Heavy Pot Taxes Favored by The New York Times Would Undermine Legalization

The New York Times embraced legalization of recreational marijuana in 2014, two years after Colorado and Washington became the first states to take that step. By that point, most Americans opposed pot prohibition, and that majority has grown since then.

Although the Times does not regret endorsing legalization, its editorial board now says stricter regulation and heavier taxation are necessary to curtail the costs associated with marijuana abuse. Those recommendations elide two inconvenient facts: Cannabis is still federally prohibited, and states are still struggling to replace unauthorized pot peddlers with government-licensed marijuana merchants.

The Times emphasizes that “occasional marijuana use is no more a problem than drinking a glass of wine with dinner or smoking a celebratory cigar.” But while marijuana “is safer than alcohol and tobacco in some ways,” the Times says, “it is not harmless.”

Frequent cannabis consumption has increased substantially in recent years, the Times notes, and roughly one in 10 marijuana users “develops an addiction.” Even nonaddicted cannabis consumers “can still use it too much,” it says, since “people who are frequently stoned can struggle to hold a job or take care of their families.”

The Times also mentions cannabinoid hyperemesis syndrome, “marijuana-linked paranoia,” and the danger posed by stoned drivers. “Any product that brings both pleasures and problems requires a balancing act,” the Times says, which means “personal freedom” must be curtailed to protect “public health.”

That formulation is inherently paternalistic, since the “public health” burden to which the Times refers is borne mainly by cannabis consumers themselves. And the moral logic of the hefty marijuana taxes that the Times favors is questionable.

Those taxes would add to the difficulties that some heavy consumers face while punishing the occasional use that the paper says is no big deal. Although “adults should have the freedom to use” marijuana, the Times says, they must pay the government for that privilege.

A tax-based “balancing act” also raises practical difficulties. “The first step in a strategy to reduce marijuana abuse should be a federal tax on pot,” the Times says, gliding over the point that Congress cannot impose an excise tax on marijuana products unless it is prepared to legalize them.

The editorial does not explicitly acknowledge the need for that step. To the contrary, it implicitly criticizes President Donald Trump’s decision to reclassify marijuana under federal law, which falls far short of legalization.

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Florida Officials Miss Counting 54,000+ Signatures for Cannabis Legalization Petition

Florida election officials appear to have short-changed an adult-use cannabis legalization campaign by more than 54,000 valid signatures.

Local election officials from roughly half of Florida’s 67 counties validated more signatures for Smart & Safe Florida’s initiative petition than what state officials gave those counties credit for, according to a Cannabis Business Times analysis of Florida’s county supervisors of elections’ websites.

The state-versus-county discrepancies for valid signature tallies come after Florida Secretary of State Cord Byrd’s office announced Feb. 1 that Smart & Safe Florida’s proposed constitutional amendment to allow those 21 and older to access cannabis failed to meet the signature requirements for placement on the 2026 General Election ballot.

According to the Florida Division of Elections’ website, Smart & Safe Florida filed 783,592 valid signatures ahead of the Feb. 1 deadline, coming 96,470 signatures short of the 880,062 needed to qualify for the ballot.

However, with the extra 54,000-plus signatures reported by local election officials and another 70,646 disqualified signatures being contested in court, Smart & Safe Florida could overcome that shortfall (more on the lawsuit below).

Smart & Safe Florida organizers challenged the state’s valid signature tally on Feb. 1, with a campaign spokesperson telling Florida Politics that the Division of Elections’ website doesn’t match what the 67 county supervisors of elections verified at the local level.

“We believe the declaration by the secretary of state is premature, as the final and complete county-by-county totals for validated petitions are not yet reported,” the spokesperson said. “We submitted over 1.4 million signatures and believe when they are all counted, we will have more than enough to make the ballot.”

The 67 county supervisors of elections’ websites now show that local officials validated more than 833,000 signatures and deemed roughly 900,000 invalid, meaning they reviewed more than 1.7 million signatures from Smart & Safe Florida.

At the time of Byrd’s Feb. 1 declaration that the campaign failed, some county supervisors of elections had yet to post signature tallies from their final week’s reporting periods.

Under Florida Statute Section 100.371(15), Byrd is responsible for “the purely ministerial duty of calculating the total number of verified signatures,” based on valid counts from the 67 supervisors of elections, Leon County Judge Jonathan E. Sjostrom ruled last month.

This prompted CBT’s 67-county analysis.

Nearly 48,000 of the 54,000 valid signatures from county websites that were not reflected in the state’s tally came from five counties: Broward, Seminole, Pinellas, Polk and Alachua.

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Arkansas Supreme Court Ruling Could Let Lawmakers Roll Back Medical Marijuana Access

Emily Williams struggled to find medication that alleviated chemotherapy side effects like nausea and loss of appetite following her 2010 cancer diagnosis. Eventually, she tried marijuana and it provided relief.

“I was just grateful,” she said. “I just felt grateful.”

The experience prompted the Fayetteville retiree to advocate for a citizen-led constitutional amendment voters approved in 2016 to create Arkansas’ medical marijuana program.

That program has since grown into a billion-dollar industry, with more than 115,000 patients using marijuana to treat conditions from Crohn’s disease to post-traumatic stress disorder. But an obscure legal fight over who can change citizen-led amendments to Arkansas’ Constitution casts uncertainty on the program’s future.

The court ruling is part of a nationwide battle playing out in states like Missouri and Nebraska over citizen-led ballot measures. Arkansas is one of 24 states that allows citizens to propose state laws, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures.

Since the state’s first dispensary opened in 2019, thousands of Arkansans have accessed the program, including Christopher Duffy, a 35-year-old Fayetteville resident who said medical marijuana helped his anxiety and sobriety. Duffy said he’d remain committed to sobriety if marijuana becomes less accessible, but he worries about others.

“I’m lucky to have such a support system where were things to get tough or I started struggling, I could reach out,” he said. “There are those that don’t have that and I fear for them.”

Williams, 69, is afraid of losing access to medical marijuana, which she uses to manage ongoing complications from her illness.

“If I am not able to use this, my life would be completely, negatively impacted,” she said.

These concerns were sparked by the Arkansas Supreme Court upending 74 years of precedent in December with a ruling that declared lawmakers can amend citizen-led constitutional amendments with a two-thirds vote — 67 votes in the House and 24 votes in the Senate.

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Researchers ‘surprised’ by the brain benefits of cannabis usage in adults over 40

Pass the pot to Grandma — her brain might thank you.

A new study is challenging long-held assumptions about cannabis, finding that middle-aged and older adults who use the drug may actually see some brain and cognitive benefits.

The twist comes as cannabis use is climbing among older Americans. Research shows that nearly 1 in 5 people ages 50 to 64 reported using marijuana in the past year, along with 5.9% of those 65 and older.

That’s notable because research on cannabis and the brain has historically zeroed in on adolescents, not aging adults.

“More older adults are using cannabis. It’s more widely available and is being used for different reasons than in younger folks — such as for sleep and chronic pain,” Dr. Anika Guha, a clinical psychologist at the University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus and lead author of the study, said in a statement.

“Plus, people are living longer. We have to ask, ‘What are the long-term effects of cannabis use as we continue to age?’”

To dig deeper, Guha and her colleagues analyzed data from 26,362 adults ages 40 to 77, with an average age of 55, all living in the UK.

Participants answered detailed questions about their cannabis use, underwent MRI scans to assess their brain structure and completed a series of cognitive tests.

The researchers zeroed in on brain regions packed with CB1 — a cannabinoid receptor they theorized would be especially affected by cannabis.

One key focus was the hippocampus, which contains a high concentration of these receptors and plays a critical role in memory as we age. It’s also a brain region closely linked to dementia.

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