Tag: the war on (some) drugs

California Marijuana Tax Cut Officially Takes Effect, With Planned Increase Delayed Through At Least 2028

Three months into a major marijuana tax hike in California, a new law putting a pause on the increase has officially taken effect.

Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) signed the tax relief legislation from Assemblymember Matt Haney (D) late last month. Now, as of Wednesday, consumers will not be paying the increased excise tax—at least until October 2028.

“We’re rolling back this cannabis tax hike so the legal market can continue to grow, consumers can access safe products, and our local communities see the benefits,” Newsom said at the time of the bill signing.

Haney said that “California’s cannabis economy can bring enormous benefits to our state, but only if our legal industry is given a fair chance to compete against the untaxed and unregulated illegal market.”

“AB 564 helps level the playing field,” he said. “It protects California jobs, keeps small businesses open, and ensures that our legal cannabis market can grow and thrive the way voters intended.”

State officials announced in June that the cannabis excise tax rate would increase from 15 percent to 19 percent on July 1, prompting concern from industry stakeholders and consumer advocates.

Newsom previously supported including a tax freeze in a budget trailer bill, but that didn’t come to fruition. Assembly Speaker Robert Rivas (D) also backed the delay, but Senate President Pro Tempore Mike McGuire (D) reportedly blocked it from the budget legislation.

Before being amended in committee, the newly enacted legislation’s pause of the cannabis tax increase would have been in effect until June 30, 2030. After that, on a biennial basis, regulators would adjust the tax rate “by a percentage that will generate an amount of revenue that would have been collected pursuant to the cultivation tax imposed prior to its discontinuation, as specified, not to exceed 19 percent,” according to a summary.

The Senate Appropriations Committee, however, moved to shorten the period that the reduction will be in effect, to October 2028.

The new law will make it so the California Department of Tax and Fee Administration (CDTFA), working with the Department of Finance, will be required to “adjust the cannabis excise tax rate upon purchasers of cannabis or cannabis products” based on the “additional percentage of the gross receipts of any retail sale by a cannabis retailer that the department estimates will generate an amount of revenue equivalent to the amount that would have been collected in the previous fiscal year,” the text says.

The department will need to “estimate the amount of revenue that would have been collected in the previous fiscal year pursuant to the weight-based cultivation tax” and “estimate this amount by projecting the revenue from weight-based cultivation taxes that would have been collected in the previous calendar year based on information available to the department.”

Keep reading

Nebraska Officials Miss Medical Marijuana Licensing Deadline As Regulators Resign

Supporters have questioned for months whether the voter-authorized Nebraska Medical Cannabis Commission would meet its October 1 deadline to grant its first licenses.

The answer is no: The commission will miss that deadline by at least one week, in the wake of two resignations sought and received by Gov. Jim Pillen (R) of liquor regulators who jointly served on the medical cannabis board.

The Medical Cannabis Commission confirmed the new timeline Tuesday at a meeting originally meant to approve the first cultivator licenses and move toward the first steps of a medical cannabis supply chain in the state. However, two of the five cannabis commissioners resigned Monday, both of whom served on a three-member team evaluating and scoring cultivator applications received by September 23.

Now, the remaining commissioners will independently review applications by next Tuesday, when commissioners will meet to decide whether to award up to four cultivator licenses.

“We would just ask for your understanding that this is a situation that none of us created in this, where we’re at right here,” Commissioner Lorelle Mueting of Gretna said Tuesday. “We would just hope you understand that we’re working through this the best that we can to make sure that we get the licenses issued in a timely manner and evaluated and issued in time.”

Keep reading

Feds Call Marijuana A ‘Deadly’ Drug And Say Even Medical Cannabis Has ‘Serious Consequences’

Federal officials are calling marijuana a “deadly” drug—touting their efforts to seize it and other illegal substances—while also warning that possessing cannabis, even for medical use, carries “serious consequences.”

As President Donald Trump considers a cannabis rescheduling proposal—and after he posted a video on the health benefits of CBD—the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and Customs and Border Protection (CBP) are sending a conflicting message about cannabis.

In a press release about an August “surge” in drug seizures that was sent out on Tuesday, DHS said that CBP, as part of its “mission to stop harmful drugs from entering the United States,” was announcing that “seizures of deadly drugs—including fentanyl, cocaine, heroin, methamphetamine, and marijuana—increased substantially from July to August.”

That rhetoric as it concerns marijuana departs from how most people view and compare the plant with the other listed substances that can be associated with overdose deaths. By the federal government’s own admission in the past, cannabis has not on its own caused a fatal overdose.

“Cartels are increasingly desperate to keep doing business, but the Trump Administration is stopping their deadly operations,” CBP said.

While looping together marijuana and drugs like fentanyl might raise eyebrows, cartel-related crime associated with cannabis has been a consistent talking point in Congress. In fact, it was the subject of a House Homeland Security Subcommittee on Oversight, Investigations, & Accountability hearing last month that focused on a so-called “invasion” of Chinese and Mexican cartels via illicit cannabis operations.

“Secretary Noem and the Department of Homeland Security are fulfilling President Trump’s promise to make America safe again by dismantling drug cartels and stopping the flow of deadly drugs into American communities,” DHS Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin said. “Thanks to President Trump, fewer American families will be torn apart by addiction, fewer lives will be lost to overdoses, and fewer profits will go to violent cartels.”

Separately, CBP posted a reminder on social media on Tuesday that cautioned travelers against bringing cannabis across the border.

“Attention, travelers! Did you know that marijuana is still a controlled substance under U.S. federal law?” it said. “This means that selling, possessing, producing, or distributing both medical and recreational cannabis is illegal!”

Keep reading

Top Trump Officials Intensify Push for Regime Change in Venezuela

Senior Trump administration officials have intensified their push to remove Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro from power and are discussing steps to escalate the military pressure, The New York Times reported on Monday.

The report said the effort is being led by Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who also serves as President Trump’s national security advisor. Other top officials on board for regime change in Venezuela include CIA Director John Ratcliffe and Stephen Miller, Trump’s chief domestic policy advisor.

The report cited Venezuelan opposition figures who say their movement has been planning what to do if Maduro is ousted, and that Rubio had met with five opposition figures who fled to the US back in May. During the first Trump administration, the US backed a failed coup attempt against Maduro led by opposition figure Juan Guaido.

Other Trump officials, most notably special envoy Ric Grennel, are pushing for diplomacy with Venezuela, and Maduro has sent a letter to Trump seeking talks, although it was dismissed by the White House.

Venezuelan Foreign Minister Yvan Gil pointed to the fact that his country continues to accept twice-weekly deportation flights from the US as a sign that Caracas is serious about diplomacy. He also said that a war would lead to “excessive migration” and economic collapse that would “destabilize the entire region.”

Officials told the Times that the administration is considering launching direct strikes inside Venezuela against alleged drug cartels, something that’s been reported by several other media outlets.

Keep reading

German Government Report Shows Marijuana Legalization Hasn’t Increased Youth Use Or Traffic Accidents

German officials have released a report on the impact of the nation’s marijuana legalization law, finding that fears from opponents about youth use, traffic safety and more have so far proved largely unfounded. However, the illicit market has not meaningfully diminished under the limited legal regulatory model that has been rolled out in the country to date.

The interim report, which was required under the cannabis law enacted last year, assessed a series of health, public safety and economic factors associated with the end of prohibition.

Among the most notable findings in the document published on Monday is the fact that youth marijuana use has continued to decline, even after possession and home cultivation were legalized for adults and social clubs offering access to members opened.

Further, “no clear changes in the previous trend in cannabis consumption among adults could be observed,” the report, conducted on behalf of the federal Ministry of Health, says, according to a translation.

“The percentage increase in adults who have consumed cannabis in the last 12 months, which has been observed since approximately 2011, is likely to continue…without any drastic changes,” it says.

A separate recent study conducted by German federal health officials also found that rates of marijuana use declined among youth after the country legalized adult-use cannabis, contradicting one of the more common prohibitionist arguments against the reform.

Another finding of the new legalization evaluation concerns traffic safety, with researchers determining that there’s been no meaningful change in incidents on the roadways associated with the policy change.

“In the area of ​​road safety, partial legalization has so far shown no significant changes in self-reported driving under the influence of cannabis or in the number of people killed or injured in road traffic,” the report states.

Early data on the impact of legalization on the illicit market indicates that the law has “not yet made a significant contribution to the displacement of the black market intended by the legislature,” the report found.

One reason for the continued presence of the illegal market could be related to how Germany’s legalization law is being rolled out, with a limited number of social clubs that grow cannabis for members to consume—but without a comprehensive commercial industry that could provide wider access to adults. And even if broad retail launches, it may take time to substantially transition consumers to the legal market, which has been the case in Canada and U.S. states that have enacted the reform.

Keep reading

Mount Sinai: Prenatal Acetaminophen Exposure Increases Risks of Autism and ADHD in Children, According to Analysis of 46 Global Studies

Amid growing concern over neurodevelopmental disorders, a recent study from Mount Sinai Hospital has reignited the debate surrounding acetaminophen, commonly known as paracetamol or Tylenol.

This analgesic, used by over 50% of pregnant women worldwide to relieve pain and fever, maybe linked to an increased risk of autism and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) in their children.

The report, published in August 2025 in the journal Environmental Health, analyzed 46 previous studies from international groups.

It applied the Navigation Guide methodology, a rigorous framework for evaluating environmental evidence. The findings show a consistent association: prenatal acetaminophen exposure increases the risk of autism by 19% (odds ratio 1.19) and ADHD by 26% (odds ratio 1.26).

Diddier Prada, MD, PhD, lead researcher at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, emphasized: “Our findings indicate that higher-quality studies are more likely to show a link between prenatal acetaminophen exposure and elevated risks of autism and ADHD.”

The analysis included 20 studies on ADHD, eight on autism, and 18 on other neurodevelopmental disorders. This is not an isolated finding. A 2019 Johns Hopkins study, based on umbilical cord blood samples from 996 children, found that high acetaminophen levels tripled the risk of autism (up to 3.62 times) and doubled the risk of ADHD (up to 2.86 times).

Researchers measured metabolites in blood at birth and followed the children for an average of 8.9 years. Another study, funded by the NIH in 2025, confirmed similar patterns: the middle third of exposure increased the risk of ADHD by 2.26 times and autism by 2.14 times.

These data come from cohorts such as the Boston Birth Cohort and the Nurses’ Health Study II. The underlying biology points to concerning mechanisms. Acetaminophen crosses the placental barrier and can induce oxidative stress, disrupt hormones, and cause epigenetic changes that interfere with fetal brain development. The risk appears heightened in the third trimester, when the brain develops rapidly.

In September 2025, the U.S. FDA responded with a letter to clinicians, initiating changes to product labels like Tylenol’s. It cited “accumulated evidence” of an association with autism and ADHD, recommending minimal doses and short-term use.

Keep reading

How Weed Surveillance Drones Destroyed the Lives of These Californians

The drone hovered low, whirring like a giant bug above the lush, green northern California fields. Its camera was trained on the curved roof of an aging dome home. Inside, Keni Meyer, a petite, ponytailed 54-year-old, didn’t know her property was under surveillance again. But the Sonoma County authorities were taking another step in a harassment campaign, ostensibly aimed at unpermitted cannabis grows.

Drone photos of the property spurred the county to allege a series of building code violations. Those citations drew Meyer into a doomed six-year fight to save her property, as Sonoma’s covert cannabis surveillance operation warped into an attack on less affluent residents. For dozens if not hundreds of people, a crackdown on unlicensed cannabis crops has led to six-figure fines, foreclosures, and evictions. The result has been tears and devastation—even for folks, such as Meyer, who did not grow cannabis at all.

In June, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) filed a lawsuit on behalf of three other Sonoma County residents. The suit says the authorities’ “runaway spying operation” violates constitutional protections against unlawful searches. Officials, the lawsuit charges, deployed a fleet of high-powered drones that could hover at 50 feet and capture high-quality video footage with precision zoom cameras, all while concealing the surveillance from residents, the media, and local oversight bodies.

To the ACLU, this isn’t ultimately about codes, or even cannabis. It’s about the right to privacy.

“We all have the right to live a private life at home without having to worry about a government drone flying overhead and watching us without a warrant or our knowledge,” says Matt Cagle, an attorney at the ACLU of Northern California. “Sonoma County’s drone program demonstrates how technology further disrupts the power balance between governments and people, making it easy for agencies to warrantlessly sift through people’s private affairs at scale and levy charges and fines that upend lives and livelihoods. At the same time, the county has hidden these unlawful searches from the people they have spied on, the community, and the media.”

The lawsuit adds: “Never before has the government been able to deploy, at its convenience, an inexpensive and unobtrusive floating camera, controlled from afar, to surreptitiously monitor and record scenes from above a person’s private property.”

Drive around Sonoma today, and you’ll see plenty of housing that’s ramshackle and almost certainly unpermitted, with many egregious apparent violations. Many residents continue to erect out-buildings without permits, partly because the process is expensive and partly because many of them resent having to deal with Permit Sonoma as a point of principle: It violates their DIY ethos and their sense of rugged frontier freedom.

Keep reading

Oklahoma Overrun With Chinese-Operated Marijuana Farms

Chinese gangs are taking advantage of loose marijuana rules in Oklahoma to grow and transport marijuana to other states for sale on the black market, authorities say.

Oklahoma narcotics officials told Congress $153 billion worth of marijuana is unaccounted for and likely leaving the state for the black market in other states.

As many as 85 percent of licensed grow sites have connections with Chinese owners or operators, according to Mark Woodward, information officer with the Oklahoma Bureau of Narcotics.

Since 2022, the state has shut down more than 6,000 illegal growing operations. Most U.S. states have made marijuana legally available, but taxes and regulations have pushed up its price, leaving an opening for black market sales.

Donnie Anderson, director of the Oklahoma Bureau of Narcotics, said at a press conference in March 2025 that his department was conducting raids on illegal marijuana operations every day.

Here’s what we know about the ongoing crisis.

Black Market Operations Flourish

Oklahoma approved medical marijuana in 2018, licensing its cultivation and sale within the state. The state then reported an explosive growth of growers as the law established no cap on the number of farms that could be licensed to grow marijuana and no limit on how many marijuana plants each farm could cultivate.

The majority of these sites are run by Chinese nationals, according to the Oklahoma Bureau of Narcotics.

By the end of 2022, Oklahoma had 8,400 farms licensed for growing marijuana. The state stopped issuing new licenses in 2022. As of mid-2025, there are under 2,000 licensed farms, which is still more than enough to meet the needs of the 325,000 patients licensed to use marijuana for medical purposes.

As the state has increased the reporting required of the licensed growers, it has come to light that an enormous amount of marijuana is not accounted for.

Between March 2024 and March 2025, medical marijuana dispensaries sold 1.7 million pounds of marijuana in Oklahoma, according to Anderson, director of the Oklahoma Bureau of Narcotics. But farms licensed to grow marijuana reported growing 87 million plants of marijuana, with a typical yield of one pound per plant.

Anderson told Congress on Sept. 18, 2025, that the marijuana produced by 85 million plants is unaccounted for. That amount is worth around $153 billion, according to state estimates. It is unknown where all the unaccounted product went.

Locals Recruited as Straw Owners

The Oklahoma law, passed in 2018, prohibits marijuana grown in the state from being transported to other states.

Enforcing that law is a challenge. Oklahoma is at the intersection of North-South and East-West interstate highways. In addition, to obtain a license, growers must have two years of residency in the state. Anderson told Congress that some out-of-state operators paid local “straw owners” to fraudulently obtain an Oklahoma license.

These operations are growing marijuana in Oklahoma and transporting the drug to other states for sale. And in one case, one Oklahoma man was registered as owning 300 farms, said Anderson.

The vast majority of these grow sites have a Chinese connection. According to Woodward, currently there are 1,995 active farms in the state, and 85 percent are Chinese-operated or owned.

Several recent convictions of Chinese operators in Oklahoma show the connection between Oklahoma marijuana cultivation and East Coast Chinese criminal organizations.

One case from December 2024 involved Jeff Weng and Tong Lin, who were convicted of drug trafficking and sentenced to 10 years in prison. Weng operated out of Brooklyn, New York, while Tong Lin oversaw the grow operation in Wetumka, Oklahoma. According to witness testimony, they transported more than 56,000 pounds of marijuana out of Oklahoma over seven months.

Keep reading

Utah Church That Uses Marijuana, Psychedelics And Vapes As Sacraments Sues Over Police Raids

Months after Utah’s ban on flavored vapes, Blackhouse, a former Sugar House vape shop, became a sanctuary and a safe haven for those searching to get flavored cartridges—for spiritual and religious practices.

The electronic cigarettes joined other sacraments that have been at the center of religious legal challenges in the state like psychedelic mushrooms and cannabis. But, after Utah law enforcement agencies raided the Sugar House location, as well as the Salt City Sanctuary in South Salt Lake in August, all of these sacraments have been put into legal question, with the Sugarleaf Church, the institution overseeing both sanctuaries, initiating a lawsuit to keep them.

“Officers arrived using riot gear, AR-15s, pry bars, and battering rams, forcibly entered both sanctuaries, and immediately began disabling the security systems and surveillance cameras with a crow bar,” the church said in a lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court in Salt Lake City in August.

During the raids officers confiscated cannabis and psilocybin products, which the church called “sacramental property,” as well as thousands of flavored vape cartridges, blank checkbooks, waivers, clergy rosters, cash donations, tablets and membership records.

The church is asking a judge to order law enforcement to stop interfering with members’ free exercise of religion and to award compensatory damages. The institution is also asking the South Salt Lake Police Department and the Utah State Bureau of Investigation to undergo mandatory religious sensitivity training and for the immediate return of property.

At Salt City Sanctuary the agents seized “4.24 kilograms of packaged marijuana flower; over a kilogram of ‘fresh flower’ marijuana; 956 1-gram pre-rolled marijuana joints, 8 display jars of marijuana flower, 152.5 grams of psilocybin mushrooms, mushroom gummies and sample packs, numerous edibles with THC, and rolling papers,” according to a motion to dismiss filed by the Salt Lake County District Attorney’s Office.

At Blackhouse, officers confiscated “significant quantities of raw marijuana; psilocybin mushrooms; THC vapes, cookies, gummies, candies, syrups, oils, and similar products; psilocybin cookies, gummies, and similar products; and over 3,000 flavored vape cartridges and order receipts,” the district attorney’s office said in its motion.

Joshua Robers, a church reverend, was also arrested and booked into Salt Lake County Jail during the Salt City Sanctuary raid. He faces multiple charges in 3rd District Court, including possession of a controlled substance with intent to distribute, a third-degree felony.

The Salt Lake County District Attorney’s Office filed a motion to dismiss the lawsuit this month and declined to comment because the litigation is ongoing.

Keep reading

US Military Reportedly Preparing for Strikes on Drug Labs Inside Venezuela

Payback may be about to find narco-traffickers in their own turf.

The US is reported to be preparing for military strikes on drug labs inside Venezuela, and the planned actions may also include drone attacks on major drug traffickers.

The strikes within the Bolivarian socialist state could potentially begin in a matter of weeks.

BREAKING: The Trump administration is now drawing up options to launch drone strikes INSIDE VENEZUELA against the cartels, per NBC.

The strikes could occur within weeks against cartel members, leadership and drug labs.

President Trump has NOT yet approved anything.

These… pic.twitter.com/kbGY2SRlmP

— Eric Daugherty (@EricLDaugh) September 26, 2025

NBC News reported:

“Those sources are two U.S. officials familiar with the planning and two other sources familiar with the discussions. They spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the plans publicly.”

Three alleged drug boats from Venezuela reportedly carrying narco-traffickers and drugs have already been destroyed in the last weeks.

Keep reading