Tag: the war on (some) drugs

50 Bizarre Side Effects of Common Medicines

Medicine saves lives every day, combating everything from infections to chronic pain. But the little-discussed reality is that adverse drug reactions are the third leading cause of death in the US, claiming over 250,000 lives annually.

Even more insidious, side effects can emerge months or years after starting—or stopping—a medication, long after you’ve forgotten about it, as seen with delayed tendon damage from antibiotics or bone issues from osteoporosis drugs.

These delayed reactions highlight how drugs can ripple through the body in unexpected ways, affecting organs and systems far beyond their intended target.

From hormonal havoc to bizarre behavioral shifts, here are 50 peculiar side effects that remind us: while medicine helps, it can also unleash chaos we never saw coming.

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Texas Democrats’ Walkout Over Redistricting Endangers Hemp Ban Legislation

Texas Democratic House lawmakers are leaving the state to prevent a vote on redrawing the state’s congressional district map in Republicans’ favor—a move that could lead to a stalemate on a Senate-passed bill to ban hemp products containing any THC.

The cannabis legislation moved through the Senate on Friday and is now in the House’s court. But without a quorum, the chamber won’t be able to conduct legislative business as Democratic lawmakers flock to other states such as Illinois and New York—a strategy that’s produced mixed results in the past.

Gov. Greg Abbott (R) has threatened to remove those legislators from the House if they fail to show back up, and he also said members who received any financial support to leave the state could be subject to prosecution for felony bribery violations.

But in any case, time is running short in the special session the governor convened to address a series of outstanding issues, including legislation related to hemp cannabinoid products. Abbott vetoed an earlier version of the controversial ban, and he recently outlined what he’d like to see in a revised version of the bill.

The special session started on July 21. Under the state constitution, special sessions cannot last longer than 30 days, meaning a quorum would need to be reestablished before August 20 if any bills are to move. Of course, nothing prevents the governor from calling another special session once that deadline passes.

“The path forward for legislation during this special session is unclear, including whether or not a THC ban could advance,” Heather Fazio, director of the advocacy group Texas Cannabis Policy Center, told Marijuana Moment on Monday.

“The status quo is certainly better than THC being banned outright, but we hope the legislature can sort through their differences and find a way to pass common sense regulations that restrict youth access, at minimum,” she said. “We are continuing our advocacy and working with those remain in the building to ensure they understand, the issue can make good decisions when the time comes. That could be later during this first special session or during the next one.”

Austin Zamhariri, executive director of Texas Cannabis Collective (TCC) said that “Texans have been fighting a total hemp consumable ban since it was announced by Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick (R) in December of last year.”

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China, Fentanyl, and the Biden Administration’s Failure, Covered by Misleading Data

One of the many reasons for the U.S.-China trade war is President Trump holding Xi Jinping accountable for the fentanyl precursor chemicals that are flowing from China to Mexican drug cartels.

The cartels then manufacture fentanyl and distribute it in the U.S., killing over 100,000 Americans per year. This was an issue during Trump’s first term, when China agreed to crack down on these exports, and here we are nine years later, and the chemicals are still flowing.

China is a totalitarian state that runs a full digital surveillance system where literally every minute of every citizen’s life is being filmed and analyzed with AI.

The state can achieve a 100% conviction rate against criminals while also cracking down on even the slightest dissent. With his massive AI and data databases, secret police, and spies, Xi Jinping can control virtually every aspect of life in China, yet he claims to be unaware that Chinese chemical companies are selling fentanyl precursors to Mexican drug cartels.

President Trump has accused China of “actively sustaining and expanding the business of poisoning our citizens” and stated that “PRC officials have failed to follow through with the decisive actions needed to stem the flow of” fentanyl and precursor chemicals. In early February 2025, he imposed a 10 percent tariff on all Chinese goods, accusing Beijing of allowing fentanyl and its precursors to be shipped to the United States.

The tariffs have since escalated, reaching 127.2 percent in early May 2025. The White House has been explicit that Chinese officials have “failed” to stop the flow of precursor chemicals, used to make fentanyl, to criminal cartels.

Law enforcement agencies and government officials in the U.S. agree most of the precursor chemicals used to make street fentanyl flow from industrial companies in China to drug gangs in Mexico.

China is still the principal supplier of these precursors for fentanyl after Chinese trafficking networks switched from supplying finished fentanyl to precursor chemicals.

China has pushed back strongly, with officials saying “The fentanyl issue is a flimsy excuse to raise U.S. tariffs on Chinese imports” and that “We stand ready for practical cooperation with the US based on equality and mutual respect. That said, we firmly oppose the US pressuring, threatening and blackmailing China under the pretext of the fentanyl issue”.

Under Biden, Xi Jinping made limited concessions, including the implementation of new regulations allegedly targeting money laundering by drug organizations and scheduling three fentanyl precursor chemicals.

The Biden administration called this a “valuable step forward,” pointing to a 21% national drop in fatal overdoses from fentanyl since June 2023.

Both the Biden administration and Beijing claimed that this cooperation was already yielding results even before Trump took office. But these claims are misleading.

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“Not As Safe As We Think”: Lidocaine Deaths Nearly Triple Over Past Decade

Poisonings and deaths linked to the common local anesthetic lidocaine have nearly tripled in the United States over the past decade, with fatal overdoses increasingly occurring outside hospitals, where untrained staff administer the supposedly “safe” anesthetic, a new analysis shows.

Over-the-counter topical lidocaine products, which typically contain up to 4 percent to 5 percent lidocaine, are primarily used for temporary relief of pain, itching, and burning sensations. The pain reliever is available in various forms, including creams, ointments, gels, sprays, patches, and foaming soaps. However, in medical settings, it can pose risks that many people may not be aware of.

“Lidocaine is not as safe as we think,” Dr. Michael Fettiplace, study author and assistant professor at the University of Illinois Chicago College of Medicine, told The Epoch Times.

Increase Seen from 2011 to 2022

A recent study, published in Regional Anesthesia & Pain Medicine, reveals a trend hidden within America’s medical system. While overall poisonings from local anesthetics dropped 23 percent after 2010—when medical organizations issued new safety guidelines—lidocaine cases bucked the trend.

Among the risks associated with the drug, lidocaine can cause systemic toxicity when introduced into the bloodstream at high levels. This condition, known as local anesthetic systemic toxicity, primarily affects the central nervous system and cardiovascular system, potentially leading to seizures, arrhythmias, and even cardiac arrest.

Fettiplace’s team had documented increasing toxicity cases in medical literature, but underestimated how often those cases proved fatal. “We identified a rise in mortality events associated with lidocaine, which was unexpected,” he said. “In retrospect, it is not surprising.”

The study analyzed more than 200,000 poisoning cases reported to U.S. poison control centers between 1983 and 2022, including 74 deaths from local anesthetics.

While deaths from other anesthetics declined, the proportion of fatalities linked to lidocaine rose from 67 percent in 2010 to 82 percent in recent years. Overall, 0.1 percent of lidocaine poisoning cases resulted in death, compared with 0.01 percent for other local anesthetics.

In absolute numbers, reports of lidocaine poisoning jumped more than 50 percent, from 1,600 cases in 2016 to 2,500 in 2021.

Many of the deaths occurred after the patient overdosed on lidocaine themselves or received an overdose in outpatient settings.

One case described a 70-year-old man going into cardiac arrest and dying after being administered a 2 percent lidocaine solution. He had undergone an outpatient cardiac magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scan, and instead of having the MRI dye flushed with normal saline, he was given lidocaine instead.

While poisonings occurred across all age and gender demographics, cases occurred most frequently at home, Fettiplace noted.

The study described one case in which a man inhaled imported lidocaine powder from China to treat his gastroesophageal reflux disease and became unconscious.

“Undoubtedly, there is underreporting,” Fettiplace said. “I cannot predict an upper limit of the increase.”

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Why Parents Are Suing Snapchat Over Fentanyl Deaths

Over and over, Amy Neville forces herself to tell people what happened to her 14-year-old son.

“I relive it. … I’m out there sharing the hardest thing that’s ever happened in my life,” she said. “It’s worth it, because I know we’re saving lives.”

Neville, 52, wiped away tears as she spoke those words during an interview with The Epoch Times on June 23. That day marked five years since her son, Alexander Neville, unknowingly ingested fentanyl and died—a tragedy that could easily befall any family, she said.

Through the nonprofit Alexander Neville Foundation, the grieving mother shares her personal pain with other parents. By her estimation, Amy Neville has given a couple hundred presentations in person and online; about 300,000 people have heard her warnings about the dangers that lurk on social media, leading to deaths such as Alex’s.

Neville also serves as the lead plaintiff in a groundbreaking court case that could affect the way Big Tech operates in the United States.

She believes that changes are needed to prevent many deaths among young people who, like Alex, flock to Snapchat and other online platforms.

Neville and her husband are among 63 fentanyl victims’ families suing Snapchat. They allege that the platform is a defective product and a public nuisance and that it should be held responsible for fentanyl overdose deaths, poisonings, and injuries.

Snap Inc., parent company of Snapchat, “vehemently denies” the allegations, a judge noted.

In the suit, the Social Media Victims Law Center represents dozens of families whose children “died of fentanyl poisoning from contaminated drugs purchased on Snapchat,” Matthew Bergman, the Seattle-based center’s founding attorney, told The Epoch Times.

Snap did not respond to a request for comment.

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Germany Establishes EU’s First Psilocybin Compassionate Access Program

Germany has become the first country in the European Union to allow legal access to a psychedelic, under certain conditions, prior to regulatory approval.

Through a newly established compassionate use program—which has received the blessing of the country’s drug regulator, the Federal Institute for Drugs and Medical Devices (BfArM)—two facilities are now able to offer psilocybin to adults with treatment-resistant depression (TRD).

Those two clinics, the Central Institute of Mental Health (CIMH, also known as ZI Mannheim) and the OVID Clinic Berlin, expect demand will far outpace capacity. There, psychiatrists will admit qualified patients to receive Filament Health’s botanical psilocybin candidate, PEX010, in the context of a broader psychiatric care protocol.

Psychedelic Alpha spoke with Gerhard Gründer, who submitted the successful application and will lead the roll-out of the compassionate use program, to learn more about this development.

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State Gives a Deadly Gift to Fentanyl Makers, Big Pharma, and Drug Warriors — A Ban on Kratom

This Friday, August 1, 2025, Louisiana will criminalize a leaf. Not fentanyl. Not meth. Not synthetic opioids that kill over 100,000 Americans every year. No, lawmakers have decided to outlaw kratom — a safe, natural plant in the coffee family — and those caught with it could face six months in jail and a $1,000 fine.

To understand the full weight of this insanity, you have to peel back the curtain on the drug war’s real purpose. It’s not about keeping people safe. It’s about criminalizing autonomy. It’s about corporate profits, institutional control, and punishing people for the crime of treating themselves outside of state-approved chemical dependency.

Kratom isn’t the threat. The threat is what it replaces.

The Lie That Keeps Killing

For years, scientists, doctors, and hundreds of thousands of kratom users have warned the federal government: ban this plant, and opioid deaths will rise.

In 2018, a group of scientists wrote to the DEA and White House, blasting the FDA’s push to classify kratom as a Schedule I drug. They made it clear: kratom, when used in its natural form, does not cause respiratory depression — the primary cause of death in opioid overdoses. More importantly, the plant has become a lifeline away from opioids for millions.

“Placing kratom into Schedule I will potentially increase the number of deaths of Americans caused by opioids,” the scientists warned, adding that the FDA’s data blaming kratom for dozens of deaths was riddled with inconsistencies, co-ingestions, and zero proof of causation.

In fact, many of those “kratom deaths” were linked to adulterated products, synthetic extracts, or pre-existing conditions — not the raw plant. One such alkaloid, 7-hydroxymitragynine (7-OH), has been artificially concentrated in some unregulated kratom extracts to mimic opioid-like effects, but this is not kratom. This is corporate bastardization — the same playbook used to demonize cannabis while pushing synthetic THC.

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Government-Backed Study From Japan Finds No Evidence That Marijuana Is A ‘Gateway Drug’

A new study looking into patterns of drug use in Japan casts further doubt on the notion that marijuana is a gateway drug, concluding that cannabis use in the country usually comes after people first use alcohol and tobacco, and that they rarely go on to use other substances.

Published this month in the journal Neuropsychopharmacology Reports, the research—which authors describe as “one of the largest and most significant studies on community-based cannabis users in Japan to date”—also found that nearly half of respondents who reported marijuana as their third drug “did not go on to use other substances afterward.”

“Cannabis use in Japan typically follows alcohol and tobacco, and rarely leads to further drug use,” concludes the report, which was supported by the Japanese Clinical Association of Cannabinoids and the government’s Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare. “These findings challenge the gateway hypothesis in the Japanese context.”

The research acknowledges that cannabis “is often labeled a ‘gateway drug,’” but it notes that “strong causal evidence for progression to other substances is limited.”

Its findings suggest that rather than cannabis use itself leading to other drug use, “shared vulnerabilities”—involving factors like age, educational background and socioeconomic status—”and strict drug policies may shape these patterns.”

The study consisted of an anonymous survey conducted in January 2021, asking 3,900 people in Japan who had used cannabis in their lifetimes about other substance use. Researchers then analyzed the data to assess the chances of people using other drugs after trying marijuana.

“Rather than implying a causal gateway effect of cannabis use,” authors wrote, “results highlight the importance of considering the broader life context in which substance use occurs. Social determinants such as age cohort, educational background, and socioeconomic position appear to shape patterns of substance progression independently of the pharmacological properties of cannabis.”

Authors’ assessment of the responses found that “Odds for subsequent use of alcohol, tobacco, methamphetamine, and other illicit drugs after cannabis use were 1.25, 0.77, 0.08, and 0.78, respectively, suggesting low probabilities of progression.”

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This Saturday Marks 88 Years of Federal Marijuana Prohibition — It’s Time To End It

Saturday, August 2nd, marks the 88th anniversary of the signing of the Marihuana Tax Act, the first federal marijuana prohibition law.

Since its inception, the criminalization of the marijuana plant and the stigmatization of those who consume it has been predicated almost entirely upon the promotion of gross exaggerations, racial stereotypes, and outright lies.

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 the plant’s supposed dangers. The authors wrote, “The inevitable result [of consuming cannabis] is insanity, which those familiar with it describe as absolutely incurable, and, without exception ending in death.”

In 1937, Harry J. Anslinger — America’s first ‘Drug Czar’ — lobbied Congress to ban cannabis nationwide. He did so over the staunch objections of the American Medical Association, which disputed the government’s false claims that cannabis use invariably induced violence, insanity, and death. Undeterred by the AMA’s opposition, Anslinger relied almost entirely upon racist rhetoric to persuade lawmakers. “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 Nixon administration declared drug abuse to be “public enemy number one.” The lynchpin of this campaign was stamping out the use 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, his administration publicly doubled down on the mythical marijuana threat for its own political gain. 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.”

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California Moves to Ban Hemp Wellness Products — And the Weed Nuns Are Fighting Back

California’s Department of Public Health is pushing a new rule — and the timing couldn’t be worse.

A proposed regulation, known as DPH-24-005, would dramatically restrict access to hemp-derived wellness products across the state. The rule aims to prohibit the sale of any hemp topical, capsule, or tincture with more than trace amounts of THC (including naturally occurring Delta-9), even if federally legal and non-intoxicating. Critics say it would wipe out entire categories of hemp products — from calming balms to sleep aids — and gut small, community-driven businesses in the process.

One of the most vocal opponents? The Sisters of the Valley — better known as the “Weed Nuns” — a group of spiritual, feminist cannabis growers based in Merced County.

A Ban That Hits Small Operators Hard

“This is the Public Health Department caving to the dispensary lobby and consolidating the market further than they already have. This is a direct hit to small farms and small operators,” the Sisters warn.

According to the Sisters, the rule would criminalize their signature offerings: non-intoxicating, CBD-rich salves and oils crafted by hand in their small-scale, women-run operation. They argue that DPH-24-005 threatens not just their livelihood, but also consumer access to safe, plant-based alternatives.

They’re not alone. Dozens of California hemp farmers, herbalists, and activists are mobilizing to oppose the measure, saying it caters to the interests of cannabis corporations looking to eliminate competition from the hemp side of the market.

A Moment to Speak Out

A public hearing on the rule will be held via Zoom on Sunday, July 28, 2025, at 10:00 AM Pacific. Anyone in California — and beyond — can participate, and written comments will be accepted until July 30.

The Sisters have launched a campaign urging Californians to show up, speak out, and submit public comments before it’s too late.

“We ask our customers and fans to stand with us,” they wrote. “Not because we need more sales. But because the people’s medicine should not be outlawed by corporate lobbying.”

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