Tag: the war on (some) drugs

Texas Crime Labs Say They Don’t Have Enough Resources To Test Hemp Products For THC As Lawmakers Consider Ban

As Texas lawmakers debate whether to regulate or ban THC products, officials with the state’s crime labs say they don’t have the resources currently to enforce whatever law is passed.

“From a crime lab perspective, mercifully, we don’t have a dog in that fight. I really don’t care. Just tell me what I need to test, and then I need resources to be able to provide that result,” Peter Stout, president and chief executive officer for the Houston Forensic Science Center, told The Texas Tribune after he testified before the House Public Health Committee on Wednesday. “Otherwise, I become the reason the wheel falls off this wagon, which has basically been the last six years now.”

Wednesday’s committee hearing centered on House Bill 5, which would create a blanket ban on products containing any “detectable amount of any cannabinoid” other than cannabidiol and cannabigerol, better known as CBD and CBG, non-intoxicating components of cannabis. This bill would eliminate the majority of hemp products, including those that are legal under the federal definition.

”There’s been countless reports of artificial and synthetic cannabinoids and their effects on the consumer, and these products have become readily available,” said Rep. Gary VanDeaver, R-New Boston, the committee’s chair and HB 5’s author. “Some of these products are marketed in a way that is attractive to children, for example common food products, like candy.”

The Senate’s version of the bill also calls for a ban, but since Gov. Greg Abbott (R) earlier this year vetoed similar legislation that would have banned THC, some lawmakers have signaled they’d support more regulations over a ban.

Kim Carmichael, spokesperson for House Speaker Dustin Burrows, R-Lubbock, told The Texas Tribune that the House hasn’t committed to a ban.

“HB 5 was filed as a similar bill to what the House passed in the regular session, because that’s the most logical starting point for negotiations,” Carmichael said. “Since it passed in that form, members believed they should resume debate where it ended up. It would still go through the process of a public hearing and floor debate, so where it ends up is unknown at this time.”

Experts invited by lawmakers on Wednesday to talk about THC largely focused on the health dangers of THC, the possible criminal networks that underlie the industry, and the impossible task of enforcement.

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The Top 200 Cannabis-Related Studies Published in 2025

Hundreds of peer-reviewed studies on marijuana and its components have been published in the first seven months of 2025, marking a surge in new research. In this article, we break down the 200 most important of these studies.

These studies cover a wide spectrum of conditions, from autoimmune disorders and mental health issues to gastrointestinal diseases and metabolic dysfunction. In addition, researchers are increasingly turning their attention to cannabinoids beyond THC and CBD, such as CBG, THCV, and CBC. Many studies also focus on novel delivery systems—like oral dissolvable films, skin patches, and advanced emulsions—while investigating how marijuana may affect pain regulation, sleep quality, immune response, and emotional health.

What follows is a detailed roundup of more than 200 marijuana-related studies released so far this year.

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Medical Marijuana ‘Significantly’ Decreases Use Of Opioids By Chronic Pain Patients, New Study Finds

A new study is offering more evidence that marijuana can serve as an effective substitute for opioids in pain management treatment.

Researchers in Australia at Murdoch University and the Perth Pain Management Centre set out to investigate how the integration of cannabinoids into treatment for people with chronic non-cancer pain would impact opioid use.

The study, published in the journal Pain Management on Monday, determined that “co-prescription of cannabinoids may enable patients to reduce their opioid consumption prescribed for chronic benign pain.”

To assess the relationship between cannabis and opioids in treatment, researchers followed two cohorts of patients over the course of a year: One group of 102 patients at a pain clinic who were already taking opioids and were co-prescribed cannabis and another group of 53 patients at a different clinic who were only receiving opioids, without marijuana.

At the baseline, the median patient was taking about 40 mg of opioids per day. After a year, the group that received a median dose of medical cannabis containing 15 mg delta-9 THC and 15 mg of CBD “significantly” decreased their opioid dose to 2.7 mg per day. The opioid-only cohort after one year was taking a median 42.3 mg per day.

“The introduction of cannabinoids can produce useful reductions in opioid consumption in real-world settings, with additional benefits for disability and insomnia,” the study authors said. “However, this treatment is tolerated by only a subgroup of patients.”

Among the cohort that incorporated cannabis into their treatment regiment, “opioid consumption decreased significantly after both 6 and 12 months.”

“Physical activity and sleep also improved. These findings indicate that medicinal cannabis can help patients to reduce their opioid consumption and improve their physical activity and sleep,” the study concluded.

The findings are also consistent with a growing body of scientific literature exploring the association between cannabis and opioid use.

For example, a study published earlier this year in the journal Drug and Alcohol Review found that, among drug users who experience chronic pain, daily cannabis use was linked to a higher likelihood of quitting the use of opioids—especially among men.

A study published late last year also found that legalizing medical cannabis appeared to significantly reduce monetary payments from opioid manufacturers to doctors who specialize in pain, with authors finding “evidence that this decrease is due to medical marijuana becoming available as a substitute” for prescription painkillers.

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Marijuana prohibition has been a fraud

Since its inception, efforts to criminalize marijuana and to stigmatize those who consume it have been based upon hyperbole, stereotypes and outright lies.

The initial push for cannabis criminalization, which began in earnest more than a century ago, had little to do with preserving public health or safety. Instead, the move to prosecute cannabis users was based primarily on sensationalism and xenophobia.

For instance, a July 6, 1927, story in the New York Times, headlined “Mexican Family Goes Insane,” farcically claimed: “A widow and her four children have been driven insane by eating the marihuana plant, according to doctors, who say there is no hope of saving the children’s lives and that the mother will be insane for the rest of her life.”

An academic paper titled “Marijuana,” published in 1933 in The Journal of Law and Criminology, similarly made over-the-top allegations about marijuana’s supposed dangers. The authors wrote, “The inevitable result is insanity, which those familiar with it describe as absolutely incurable, and, without exception ending in death.”

By 1937, Harry J. Anslinger — America’s first “Drug Czar” — had successfully lobbied Congress to ban cannabis nationwide. He did so through the continuous use of racist rhetoric. “There are 100,000 total marijuana smokers in the U.S., and most are Negroes, Hispanics, Filipinos and entertainers. Their Satanic music, jazz and swing, result from marijuana use,” he asserted. “This marijuana causes white women to seek sexual relations with Negroes, entertainers and any others.”

Fast-forward to 1971. That’s when the Richard Nixon administration declared drug abuse to be “public enemy number one.” The lynchpin of this campaign was marijuana, which Congress had just classified as a Schedule I controlled substance — the strictest federal category available. Yet, privately, Nixon acknowledged that he did not think cannabis was “particularly dangerous,” and he lamented the “ridiculous” penalties faced by those arrested for possessing it.

Nonetheless, he and those in his administration publicly doubled down on the supposed marijuana threat for reasons that were almost entirely political. As his domestic policy chief, John Ehrlichman, later acknowledged, “We couldn’t make it illegal to be either against the (Vietnam) war or Black,” but we could get “the public to associate the hippies with marijuana and Blacks with heroin.”

By “criminalizing both heavily,” Ehrlichman explained, “we could disrupt those communities. We could arrest their leaders, raid their homes, break up their meetings, and vilify them night after night on the evening news.”

“Did we know we were lying about the drugs?” he asked. “Of course we did.”

Now, 50-plus years later, marijuana remains categorized as a Schedule I controlled substance — the same classification as heroin — and various politicians still reiterate many of these same myths and mistruths. Slowly but surely, the public is turning the page. 

According to Gallup, 70% of U.S. adults think “the use of marijuana should be legal.”

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RFK Jr. Takes A Page From The Prohibitionist Playbook By Endorsing Criminalization Of Kratom Compound 7-OH

At a recent press conference, secretary of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Robert F. Kennedy Jr. endorsed the Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) recommendation to classify 7-hydroxymitragynine (7-OH) as a federally controlled substance. Despite political promises to forge a different path, the same tired Drug War tactics were on full display.

What Is 7-Hydroxymitragynine?

7-OH is one of many naturally occurring alkaloids found in the leaves of kratom trees. These leaves have been used for centuries as an herbal remedy. They contain a complex blend of alkaloids that interact with opioid, serotonin and alpha-adrenergic receptors. Around the world, people use kratom to help manage discomfort, enhance focus or relax.

In raw, dried kratom leaf, 7-OH exists only in trace amounts (typically less than 0.1 mg per gram of leaf). It’s formed when a more abundant alkaloid, mitragynine, degrades in the leaves.

But in recent years, manufacturers have begun converting large amounts of mitragynine into 7-OH to create extremely potent products. Some capsules and tablets contain 15–50 mg of 7-OH, hundreds of times more than what you’d find in a standard 2–5 gram serving of kratom leaves. 7-OH products produce stronger pain-killing effects than leaf kratom or kratom extract.

Yet potency, on its own, isn’t a problem. The problem is how these products are being manufactured, marketed and sold—with little to no safety testing, evidence for medical claims or manufacturing oversight.

7-OH manufacturing practices are often substandard, resulting in tablets that contain a range of unknown byproducts and impurities with substantial differences between batches. Oftentimes, manufacturers label them with kratom leaf imagery and terminology (such as “advanced kratom alkaloids,” “superior kratom alkaloids,” “premium kratom alkaloids” or “organic kratom extract full-spectrum 7-hydroxymitragynine”) with the clear intention to mislead consumers into thinking isolated 7-OH is similar to kratom.

Few come with clear dosage instructions, warnings about potential interactions or disclosures about dependency risks. And most are sold at gas stations and smoke shops, where employees typically have no education on the products or their potential risks.

What the Media and Government Get Wrong About 7OH

With growing popularity has come growing scrutiny. But government agencies and major media outlets aren’t focusing on the issues laid out above. Instead, the FDA, the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) and HHS are leaning on a familiar narrative predicated on fear: opioid = bad, synthetic = dangerous and availability = addiction.

None of these equations hold up under scrutiny. First, opioids have saved far more lives than they’ve taken—through pain management, trauma care and palliative medicine. The vast majority of opioid-related deaths involve combinations with other sedatives, not opioids alone.

Second, the natural vs. synthetic distinction tells us nothing meaningful about a drug’s safety. Consider nicotine (natural, widely available, highly addictive) versus naloxone (synthetic, life-saving, non-addictive).

And finally, while availability may shape patterns of use, it’s not what drives addiction. We don’t attribute alcoholism to the mere existence of alcohol—especially when younger generations are drinking less despite liquor stores on every corner. Nor do we assume that junk food availability is the sole cause of disordered eating. Addiction is about context, not presence.

So far, there is little evidence to support the HHS’s narrative that 7-OH is ruining lives. Many people do report issues with dependency and withdrawal, as well as financial issues from spending a lot of money on 7-OH products. But reports of severe 7-OH-related harms (like overdoses) are sparse. There’s currently no public record of a single verified death caused solely by 7-OH. At the same time, many individuals report success using 7-OH to manage conditions that they haven’t found any other viable treatment for.

Despite the lack of research into 7-OH and evidence of significant harm (and the nascent state of medical research), the FDA has formally recommended that 7-OH be added to Schedule I of the Controlled Substances Act. If approved, possession or production of 7-OH above a certain concentration would be a felony offense.

But placing a compound in Schedule I has historically done nothing to eliminate risk. In fact, we’ve often seen this categorization increase harm by pushing substances into the shadows, where they become harder to monitor, regulate, or use safely.

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Mexico, under pressure from Trump, transfers 26 more cartel members to US

Mexico sent more than two dozen suspected cartel members to the U.S. on Tuesday, amid rising pressure from President Donald Trump on Mexico to dismantle the country’s powerful drug organizations.

Authorities shipped 26 prisoners wanted in the U.S. for ties to drug-trafficking groups, Mexico’s attorney general’s office and security ministry said in a joint statement.

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Mexico said the U.S. Department of Justice had requested their extradition and that it would not seek the death penalty for the accused cartel members.

The transfer is the second of its kind this year. In February, Mexican authorities sent 29 alleged cartel leaders to the U.S., sparking a debate about the political and legal grounds for such a move.

That Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum permitted yet another large-scale extradition of Mexican nationals underscores the balancing act she faces as she seeks to appease Trump while also avoiding unilateral U.S. military action in Mexico.

In a statement, the U.S. Embassy said among those extradited were key figures in the Jalisco New Generation Cartel and the Sinaloa Cartel, which are Mexico’s two dominant organized crime groups.

“This transfer is yet another example of what is possible when two governments unite against violence and impunity,” U.S. Ambassador to Mexico Ronald Johnson said in a statement. “These fugitives will now face justice in American courts, and the citizens of both our nations will be safer.”

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Marijuana Users Have ‘Enhanced Cognitive Abilities,’ Large Federally Funded Study Shows

Marijuana users have “superior performance across multiple cognitive domains,” according to a new large-scale study funded by the U.S. federal government, with the effects of cannabis on cognition “presented concurrently across a range of brain systems.”

The research, published this month as a preprint by Nature Portfolio, analyzed brain imaging and cognitive data from 37,929 participants in the United Kingdom aged between 44 and 81 years old. The team found that cannabis consumers consistently outperformed non-users on a range of cognitive tests—suggesting that marijuana use may be linked to brain network patterns typically observed in younger individuals.

“These findings suggest that cannabis use may be associated with a deceleration of neural aging processes and the preservation of cognitive function in older adults,” the paper says.

“We speculate that cannabinoids and endocannabinoids may exert neuroprotective effects during aging by preserving an optimal balance between functional segregation and integration—an essential feature for maintaining specialized processing and efficient information transfer across brain networks,” wrote the researchers, who are from the Georgia Institute of Technology, Emory University, Georgia State University, University of Colorado, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences and Tri-Institutional Center for Translational Research in Neuroimaging and Data Science.

The authors of the study, which was supported by National Science Foundation and National Institutes of Health grants, noted that as marijuana laws evolve and societal attitudes shift, researchers are uncovering a more complex picture of the drug’s effects, particularly among older adults.

Legalization, increased permissiveness, and recognition of therapeutic potential have contributed to a marked rise in marijuana consumption among the study population, the authors said. They pointed out that older adults now represent the fastest-growing group of cannabis users, increasingly using it to manage chronic physical and mental health conditions.

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Texas DA known for naked stunts faces five years in prison after posting video of herself smoking weed in her garden

Best known for a viral video in which she straddled an oil pumping jack while topless and bottomless, a Texas elected official now faces jail time after smoking a joint on TikTok.

District Attorney Sarah Stogner, 41, could be incarceration after she posted a social media video of herself smoking weed in protest of a state ban on THC, the active ingredient in marijuana. 

The Republican made headlines in 2022 when she posted the viral clip of her riding the oil pump jack at the time she was running to be the state’s railroad commissioner.

Stogner, now the DA of Texas’s 143rd judicial district near Pecos, hopes her latest stunt might shame Texas into legalizing weed – especially if she is arrested and made a martyr for the cause. 

‘I did this to raise attention,’ she told Newsweek. 

‘Its silly that our elected officials want to completely ban THC when that’s not what our constituents want.’

Medical marijuana is legal in Texas, but recreational use of the drug is not. 

And in recent weeks, Lone Star State lawmakers passed a bill banning any products containing any ‘detectable amount of any cannabinoid.’

If signed into law, the bill would outlaw the majority of hemp products, including those that are legal under the federal definition in Texas. 

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Trump DOJ Asks Supreme Court To Uphold Ban On Marijuana Users Owning Guns

Amid a series of legal challenges, the Trump administration is asking the U.S. Supreme Court to take up a case on the federal government’s ban on users of marijuana and other illegal drugs from owning firearms and uphold the prohibition, saying it is consistent with the 2nd Amendment.

To that end, the DOJ solicitor general is urging SCOTUS to hear one of five relevant cases to resolve conflicting lower court decisions on gun rights for cannabis consumers.

With the multiple competing legal cases resulting in differing rulings in federal appeals courts across the country, DOJ last week requested that SCOTUS review one in particular that it described as “archetypal” of the issue related to federal code 922(g)(3), which precludes users of unlawful drugs from having guns or ammo.

The case “presents an important Second Amendment issue that affects hundreds of prosecutions every year: whether the government may disarm individuals who habitually use unlawful drugs but are not necessarily under the influence while possessing a firearm,” U.S. Solicitor General D. John Sauer, an appointee of President Donald Trump, said.

The solicitor general reiterated his position that, despite recent appeals court decisions calling into question the constitutionality of the firearms ban for people who use cannabis—even in compliance with state law—the restriction is nevertheless lawful.

Some lower courts have said the government’s blanket ban on gun and ammunition possession infringes on the Second Amendment—at least as applied to certain individual cases—because there’s no historical justification for such a broad restriction on an entire category of people.

But over recent years, various federal district and appeals courts have take differing approaches to the issue. As DOJ argued in its latest filing in the case, “the question presented is the subject of a multi-sided and growing circuit conflict.”

“The petition for a writ of certiorari [filed by Sauer in June] identified three sides of that conflict: The Seventh Circuit has upheld Section 922(g)(3); the Eighth Circuit has held it violates the Second Amendment unless the government can make a case-by-case showing justifying the drug user’s disarmament; and the Fifth Circuit has held that it generally violates the Second Amendment unless the drug user was intoxicated while possessing the firearm.”

“Since then, the conflict has deepened,” it said, referring to several other cases on the issue that are pending before the high court. And DOJ wants SCOTUS to focus on one case in particular to resolve what it called a “four-way circuit conflict”: U.S. v. Hemani.

One reason DOJ could be focused on the justices taking up Hemani in particular is that the defendant in that case is not only a cannabis user but also a user of cocaine who’s sold drugs in the past, according to court findings, which could make him less sympathetic in the eyes of the court. Defendants in the other cases were merely found in possession of both a firearm and marijuana.

Lawyers for the defendant in Hemani argued in a brief last month that the high court should decline the case.

But in its reply brief submitted to SCOTUS this week, the Justice Department said that “this case is the best vehicle available.”

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New Mexico Environment Department bans production of synthetic hemp in the state

The New Mexico Environment Department is doing what it can to regulate deceptive hemp products sold in stores by issuing an emergency ruling to ban the manufacturing of synthetic cannabinoids in New Mexico. “They’re putting something in their body without knowing what it is and without understanding what the effects may be. We believe that puts people at a significant health risk,” said John Rhoderick, Deputy Cabinet Secretary of Administration, New Mexico Environment Department.

Synthetic cannabinoids are products chemically altered to give similar effects to THC and are often sold at convenience stores with little regulation. This issue was at the center of a Larry Barker investigation, exposing the problem of cannabis products being identified as hemp, allowing them to be sold anywhere. A bill from last legislative session aimed to make it illegal for synthetic cannabinoids to be made or sold in New Mexico, but that bill failed.

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