Tag: the war on (some) drugs

Kentucky Governor Says Hemp Is An ‘Important Industry’ That Should Be Regulated At The State Level, Not Federally Banned

The Democratic governor of Kentucky says the hemp industry is an “important” part of the economy that deserves to be regulated at the state level—rather than federally prohibited, as Congress has moved to do under a spending bill President Donald Trump signed on Wednesday.

During a press briefing on Thursday, Gov. Andy Beshear (D) was asked whether he agrees with Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) that the hemp language that advanced through the appropriations legislation poses an existential threat to the cannabis market that’s emerged since the crop was federally legalized under the 2018 Farm Bill.

“I haven’t had a chance to review the language on hemp, but hemp is an important industry in Kentucky,” Beshear said. “We should have appropriate safety regulations around it, but we should make those regulations here in Kentucky—talking to the industry and making sure that we get that balance right.”

“I think that we can protect our kids. I think that we can do the right thing to protect all of our people while not handicapping an industry that supports a lot of people,” the governor said.

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House Armed Services Chair Urges Trump Admin to Publicly Disclose Legal Basis for Boat Strikes

Congressman Mike Rogers (R-Ala.) offered his ringing endorsement of a recent closed-door briefing on the ongoing campaign of U.S. strikes on suspected drug boats from Latin America, and urged the Trump administration to go public with its legal rationale for the operations.

Rogers was among a handful of lawmakers briefed on the strikes on Nov. 5, in a closed-door sensitive compartmented information facility, commonly referred to as a “SCIF.” Such facilities are used to control access to information that the U.S. government has classified.

“There was nothing that we should have been in a SCIF talking about,” Rogers, who chairs the House Armed Services Committee, told The Epoch Times on Nov. 12. “They should be talking to all y’all, because it was very well done, completely legal what they’re doing, and they should be more transparent about it, in my view.”

Alongside a U.S. military build-up in the Caribbean Sea and a campaign of pressure against Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro that have been growing since the summer, U.S. forces have been bombing suspected drug boats in the region since September. In that time, U.S. forces have conducted at least seven strikes in the Caribbean Sea, nine in the eastern Pacific, and three more in unspecified locations throughout the U.S. Southern Command area of responsibility, which covers Central America and South America.

“I’m fine with what they’re doing down there, and I think that the lawyers that did that, talked about the legal basis, should do it publicly,” Rogers said.

The ongoing U.S. military campaign, which the Trump administration has described as a “non-international armed conflict,” has met with skepticism from lawmakers on both sides of the aisle.

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Inside the CIA’s secret mission to sabotage Afghanistan’s opium

In 20 years of grinding war in Afghanistan, the United States dropped a multitude of weapons from the skies: Millions of tons of ordnance. Hellfire missiles launched from Predator drones. Even the “Mother of All Bombs,” the most powerful nonnuclear bomb in existence. And, amid the more conventional projectiles, tiny poppy seeds. By the billions.

On and off for over a decade, the Central Intelligence Agency conducted an audacious highly classified program to covertly manipulate Afghanistan’s lucrative poppy crop, blanketing Afghan farmers’ fields with specially modified seeds that germinated plants containing almost none of the chemicals that are refined into heroin, The Washington Post has learned.

The covert program, which has not previously been disclosed, is an unreported chapter in the 2001-2021 U.S. war in Afghanistan and in the long checkered history of American efforts to combat narcotics globally, from Latin America to Asia. Its existence was confirmed by 14 people familiar with aspects of the secret operation, all of whom spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe a classified project.

The program’s disclosure comes as the war on narcotics is again dominating the security agenda. President Donald Trump has declared war on drug cartels in the Western Hemisphere, ordering more than a dozen lethal strikes on alleged drug boats in the Caribbean and the eastern Pacific, designating cartels as terrorist groups, and moving a vast naval and air force to the region. He has also authorized the CIA to take aggressive covert action against drug traffickers and their supporters.

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A Senate-Approved Bill Would Ban the Hemp-Derived THC Products That Congress Legalized in 2018

Forty states now allow medical use of marijuana, while 24, accounting for most of the U.S. population, also allow recreational use. Yet the federal ban on marijuana, first enacted in 1937, remains in place, which means state-licensed cannabis suppliers still face legal risks and financial burdens stemming from a policy that a large majority of Americans reject. But instead of addressing that increasingly untenable situation by repealing federal marijuana prohibition, the U.S. Senate is bent on expanding the ban to cover psychoactive hemp products.

An appropriations bill that was part of the Senate deal to end the federal shutdown aims to close a loophole opened by the 2018 farm bill, which legalized hemp. That law defined hemp to include any part of the cannabis plant containing less than 0.3 percent delta-9 tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), the main psychoactive ingredient in marijuana. The definition also includes “all [hemp] derivatives, extracts, cannabinoids, isomers, acids, salts, and salts of isomers,” as long as their delta-9 THC content is less than 0.3 percent.

The farm bill opened the door to a wide range of hemp-derived products, including edibles, beverages, flower, and vape cartridges containing delta-8 THC, an isomer that has effects similar to those of delta-9 THC, or tetrahydrocannabinolic acid (THCA), which converts to delta-9 THC when heated. That explains all those seemingly illegal THC products you may have seen online or in vape shops, pharmacies, or liquor stores, which offer alternatives for cannabis consumers who live in states that still prohibit recreational use of marijuana.

Pot prohibitionists unsurprisingly view that situation as intolerable. The Senate appropriations bill, which would fund agricultural programs, rural development, and the Food and Drug Administration through fiscal year 2026, addresses their concerns by redefining hemp to exclude psychoactive products derived from hemp. According to a summary from the Senate Appropriations Committee, the bill will prevent “intoxicating hemp-based or hemp-derived products, including Delta-8, from being sold online, in gas stations, and corner stores, while preserving non-intoxicating CBD and industrial hemp products.”

The narrower hemp definition, which amounts to a broader definition of marijuana, excludes “any intermediate hemp-derived cannabinoid products” containing “cannabinoids that are not capable of being naturally produced” by the cannabis plant or that “were synthesized or manufactured outside the plant.” It also prohibits intermediate products containing more than a 0.3 percent “combined total” of “tetrahydrocannabinols (including tetrahydrocannabinolic acid)” or “any other cannabinoids that have similar effects (or are marketed to have similar effects) on humans or animals.” And it bans final hemp products that contain either synthesized cannabinoids or more than “0.4 milligrams combined total per container” of “tetrahydrocannabinols” (including THCA) or “any other cannabinoids” with “similar effects.”

Given those limits, Cannabis Business Times notes, “companies that manufacture and sell intoxicating hemp products in today’s market would have to overhaul or abandon their business plans.” The U.S. Hemp Roundtable (USHR), a trade group that represents those companies, is understandably alarmed, “arguing that [the bill] would recriminalize hemp products and threaten to eliminate a $28 billion industry that provides 300,000 American jobs.”

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Report: Trump Presented With Options To Bomb Venezuela, No Final Decision Made

Senior military officials on Wednesday presented President Trump with options for potential military operations in Venezuela, including strikes on land, CBS News reported on Thursday.

The report, which cited White House officials familiar with the meeting, said that Secretary of War Pete Hegseth and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Dan Caine were involved in the briefing that presented potential options for the “coming days,” though no final decision was made.

The report comes after signs that the president was cooling on the idea of launching a war with Venezuela, though a US aircraft carrier, the USS Gerald Ford, and three US Navy destroyers, just arrived in the region, significantly bolstering US forces in the Caribbean.

The leaks to CBS about the briefing could be part of the psychological operation against Maduro aimed at pressuring him to voluntarily step down from power, though that’s unlikely to happen. The Wall Street Journal reported on November 5 that the president expressed reservations about attacking Venezuela and that he was content with slowly building up US forces in the region and continuing the illegal bombing campaign against alleged drug-running boats in the region.

The push toward a regime change war in Venezuela is being driven by Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who also serves as Trump’s national security advisor. Reports have said that Stephen Miller, the president’s senior domestic policy advisor, also favors war, but there are concerns within the administration that taking out Maduro could plunge Venezuela into chaos and lead to another migrant crisis, akin to what happened in Libya after Muammar Gaddafi was brutally killed during a US and NATO bombing campaign.

Rubio has previously directly compared ousting Maduro with the killing of Gaddafi. Back in 2019, when the first Trump administration attempted to unseat Maduro, Rubio posted a photo on Twitter of Gaddafi in the moments before he was killed as a threat to the Venezuelan leader.

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US Attorney Will Begin ‘Rigorously’ Prosecuting People For Marijuana On Federal Land After Trump DOJ Rescinds Biden-Era Guidance

A U.S. attorney’s office says it will now begin “rigorously” prosecuting people over simple possession or use of marijuana on federal lands after the Trump administration rescinded Biden-era guidance that advised against taking such legal actions.

The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Wyoming said in a press release on Thursday that the Justice Department “rescinded previous guidance concerning the prosecution of simple marijuana possession” in a memo to prosecutors on September 29.

“This comes after President Biden pardoned certain U.S. citizens and lawful permanent residents for offenses related to simple possession, attempted possession, or use of marijuana and directed U.S. Attorney’s [sic] not to prosecute those offenses,” it said. “This significantly curtailed federal prosecutions of misdemeanor marijuana offenses.”

While Biden granted two rounds of mass pardons for people who’ve committed federal cannabis possession offenses during his term—specifically including those prosecuted for possession on federal lands during the second round—the administration didn’t publicize that any prosecutorial guidance directive had been issued, and none has previously been reported.

As far as the September 29 DOJ rescission action referenced by the U.S. attorney’s office is concerned, that memo also does not appear to be publicly available. Marijuana Moment reached out to the Justice Department for clarification, but a representative did not immediately provide the document or details about it.

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The government is open, but a hemp industry shutdown has just begun

The funding bill to end the longest government shutdown in American history was not simply a “yes” or “no” to reopen the government. Tucked away in the bill, on page 163, in Title VII of Division B, was a provision to shut down the hemp industry. It wipes out the regulatory frameworks adopted by several states, takes away consumer choice and destroys the livelihoods of hemp farmers.

This could not come at a worse time for our farmers. Costs have increased while prices for crops have declined. Farm bankruptcies are rising. For many farmers, planting hemp offered them a lifeline. Hemp can be used for textiles, rope, insulation, composite wood, paper, grain and in CBD products, and growing hemp helped farmers to mitigate the loses they’ve endured during this season of hardship.

But that lifeline is about to be extinguished.

Nearly 100% of hemp products currently sold will be illegal

The justification for this hemp ban, we are told, is that some bad actors are skirting the legal limits by enhancing the concentrations of THC in their products. The hemp industry and I had already come to the negotiating table, in good faith, to discuss reforms that prevent “juicing up” hemp products with purely synthetic cannabinoids of unknown origin.

Dozens of states have already instituted age limits and set THC levels for such products. I have no objection to many of these reforms. In fact, during negotiations, I expressly stated I would accept a federal ban on synthetic THC, as well as reasonable per serving limits. All along, my objective was to find an agreement that would protect consumers from bad actors while still allowing the hemp industry to thrive.

But the provision that was inserted into the government funding bill makes illegal any hemp product that contains more than 0.4 milligrams of THC per container. That would be nearly 100% of hemp products currently sold. This is so low that it takes away any of the benefit of the current products intended to manage pain or other conditions.

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Federal THC ban sends hemp companies scrambling

The Senate late Monday passed a funding package that would reopen the government and fund the Department of Agriculture and the Food and Drug Administration. Tucked into the funding bill is a provision that would re-criminalize many of the intoxicating hemp-derived products that were legalized by the 2018 Farm Bill.   

Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) waged a last-minute fight to try to keep the provision out, threatening to drag out the process of debating the underlying bill until he got a vote on an amendment to strip the language.  

He got the vote on Monday; Paul and Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) were the only Republicans who voted in favor. 

“The bill, as it now stands, overrides the regulatory frameworks of several states, cancels the collective decisions of hemp consumers and destroys the livelihoods of hemp farmers,” Paul said on the floor ahead of the vote. “And it couldn’t come at a worse time for America’s farmers. Times are tough for our farmers.” 

The provision “prevents the unregulated sale of intoxicating hemp-based or hemp-derived products, including Delta-8, from being sold online, in gas stations, and corner stores, while preserving non-intoxicating CBD and industrial hemp products,” according to a Senate Appropriations Committee summary. 

The proposal was first included in the House’s funding bill for the Department of Agriculture, but it was removed from the Senate version over the summer following a disagreement between Paul and his fellow Kentucky Republican Sen. Mitch McConnell.  

Hemp industry representatives and lobbyists have spent months campaigning against the language. Many said they were caught by surprise when the funding bill text was unveiled on Sunday.  

McConnell was a champion of legalizing hemp in the 2018 Farm Bill. But he’s since soured on what he says is a “loophole” that companies use to take legal amounts of THC (or tetrahydrocannabinol) from hemp and turn it into intoxicating substances.  

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Women Who Use Marijuana At A ‘High Intensity’ Report Greater Romantic Relationship Satisfaction, New Study Finds

Women who frequently use marijuana report greater satisfaction in their romantic relationships, according to a new study. But for men, the opposite appears to be true for reasons that aren’t immediately clear.

The study from researchers at Ariel University and Achva Academic College in Israel was published in the journal Drug and Alcohol Dependence this month.

Researchers recruited 110 couples who completed questionnaires on “cannabis use patterns, general satisfaction with relationship quality, satisfaction with the quality of sex, and perceived partner responsiveness,” the paper says.

They found that women who used marijuana at a “high intensity” experienced greater relationship satisfaction, perceiving both their own and their partner’s fulfillment higher compared to those who consumed cannabis less frequently or not at all.

Curiously, however, the study—funded in part by the Israeli Science Foundation, which receives support from the Israeli government—concluded that “men reported the opposite” experience.

The reasons that the intensity of marijuana use seems to impact romantic relationship satisfaction differently between genders warrants further research, the study authors said.

While numerous studies have examined the intersection of cannabis consumption and romantic or sexual behavior, this latest contribution is novel in part because it looked at possible dose-response effects.

“Results indicated that discrepancy in cannabis use intensity was significantly associated with lower general relationship satisfaction and lower satisfaction with the quality of sex,” the study says. “Additionally, dyadic analyses indicated that women who used cannabis at a high intensity tended to report an increase in relationship satisfaction and exhibit an increase in their own and, to some degree, their partner’s perceived partner responsiveness.”

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Why Is Congress Moving To Ban The Hemp Products That Saved My Son’s Life?

Before my son, Austin, was even five years old, he had been prescribed a series of pharmaceuticals for his epilepsy—opioids, benzodiazepines, rufinamide and more. That continued for years. The side effects were absolutely awful. The sheer number and potency nearly killed him several times, but they never stopped his daily seizures.

By the time he was eleven, his body was shutting down from the daily pills that had hideous physical, emotional and mental repercussions. While he was on life support, the doctors told us that if the pharmaceutical damage to his organs didn’t kill him within two years, the seizures would.

“Just take him home,” the doctors said, “there’s nothing more we can do here.” It was the most terrifying, infuriating, overwhelming moment of my life. The doctors were giving up on my son because the pharmaceuticals they had been prescribing for years had done more damage than they could repair and the seizures remained, worsened.

We couldn’t just watch our son die. We refused to accept that, we had no idea what we were going to do, what we had to do, but we knew we needed to do something for Austin. Whatever it took to help him, that was our mission.

There was a lot of information on hemp, CBD, medical marijuana gaining traction in the news with doctors and scientists speaking in favor of its potential. But my husband was a fireman in our beloved hometown, and trying plant medicines could make him a felon. Our entire family would be at risk. We could lose everything, go to jail and lose Austin.

That refusal to give up, and the desperate attempt to find lawful options, led our family to uproot our lives in Oklahoma and move to Colorado—one of the only states where families could legally access hemp and cannabis as medicine in 2014.

Now after our years-long battle to give children like Austin lawful access to this medicine, to give other parents hope when there is none, Congress is poised to re-criminalize this plant and again put hundreds of thousands of patients, and the people that love them, in jeopardy.

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