Tag: the war on (some) drugs

Texas Bills To Ban Consumable Hemp Products With THC Stall Out During Special Session

After several months of fiery debate and tearful testimonies over the prospect of banning THC statewide, proposed measures to do so have stalled in the Texas House.

Senate Bill 6, which would have created 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, hasn’t been heard in a House committee after the Senate passed it August 19. The House’s version of the bill hasn’t been heard in its chamber’s committee either.

Ten days might not be long for a bill to sit dormant during a regular legislative session, but with state leadership suggesting that the current special legislative session could wind down in the coming days, lawmakers would have to move fast on THC upon reconvening after Monday’s holiday.

Without further regulations or a ban being discussed by lawmakers in the House, the most likely scenario is that hemp-derived THC remains legal in Texas, but with more enforcement of current laws restricting the drug.

“It seems like a lot of people don’t want anything to do with it,” said Lukas Gilkey, chief executive of Hometown Hero, an Austin-based manufacturer of hemp-derived THC products. “It’s a hot potato.”

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Democratic Lawmakers File Bill To Federally Legalize Marijuana As Trump Weighs Rescheduling

As the Trump administration considers rescheduling marijuana, Congressional Democrats have filed a bill to federally legalize cannabis by descheduling it altogether.

In addition to removing the drug from the Controlled Substances Act (CSA), the new legislation also contains a variety of provisions meant to promote equity and address the collateral consequences of prohibition.

On Friday, Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-NY), reintroduced the Marijuana Opportunity, Reinvestment and Expungement (MORE) Act, alongside three dozen cosponsors.

This is the fourth session in a row that Nadler has put forward the proposal. It passed the House twice under Democratic control while the sponsor served as chairman of the Judiciary Committee, but it did not advance last session with Republicans in the majority.

“As more states continue to legalize marijuana and public support increases, federal laws must catch up and reverse failed policies criminalizing marijuana,” Nadler said in a press release. “It is long past time to decriminalize marijuana at the federal level, expunge marijuana convictions, and facilitate resentencing, while reinvesting in the communities most adversely impacted by the War on Drugs.”

Despite uncertainty about its prospects of advancing this Congress—especially at a time when President Donald Trump is actively considering a more modest proposal to simply reschedule cannabis—advocates are again touting the MORE Act as an example of the type of wide-ranging cannabis reform legislation would take necessary steps to right the wrongs of prohibition and promote social equity.

The latest version of the legislation is largely consistent with past iterations, with certain technical changes including updated data in its findings section, for example.

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526 Members of Congress Decline to Join Anti-Marijuana Rescheduling Letter to AG Bondi, Just 9 Sign On, Down From 25 in 2024

The signatories include Representatives Pete Sessions (TX), Andy Harris (MD), Robert Aderholt (AL), Paul Gosar (AZ), Chip Roy (TX), Blake Moore (UT), Gary Palmer (AL), David Rouzer (NC), and Mary Miller (IL). No senators signed the letter.

The contrast with last year is stark. In 2024, Smart Approaches to Marijuana (SAM) circulated a similar letter opposing rescheduling that drew the support of 25 lawmakers, including several U.S. senators. This year’s version secured less than half as many backers, with support confined entirely to a small bloc of House Republicans.

The letter, led by Congressman Pete Sessions, warns that rescheduling would provide tax benefits to marijuana businesses and drug cartels, while citing concerns about addiction, mental health impacts, and links to foreign crime organizations. Despite these claims, the limited number of signatures—despite the letter being heavily circulated among lawmakers—underscores the declining influence of marijuana reform opponents in Congress.

With public opinion polls consistently showing majority support for legalization and more states moving to regulate marijuana, the shrinking list of congressional voices against reform highlights how rapidly the political landscape is shifting. Opposition to rescheduling, once much broader, is now increasingly isolated to a small group of lawmakers.

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$312 Billion in Chinese Money Laundering Networks Is Driving the Drug Crisis and Human Trafficking in the US

The Treasury Department has confirmed a national security and public safety disaster: Chinese money-laundering networks have pushed more than $312 billion in illicit transactions through U.S. financial institutions in recent years. 

That money financed Mexican drug cartels, enabled human traffickers, and supported organized criminal networks that have left tens of thousands of Americans dead from fentanyl overdoses and other cartel-driven violence.

According to FINCEN.gov, financial institutions filed 1,675 BSA reports in the dataset indicating suspicious activity potentially involving human trafficking or human smuggling.

FINCEN.gov also discovered funds potentially associated with healthcare fraud, elder abuse, and suspicious gaming activity.

What makes these Chinese Money Laundering Networks (CMLNs) especially dangerous is their coordination with Mexico’s most violent cartels, including the Sinaloa and Jalisco New Generation organizations. 

Mexico’s strict limits on U.S. dollar deposits force cartels to look abroad, while China’s own capital controls make moving money out of the country nearly impossible through legal channels. 

Criminals found the perfect solution: CMLNs convert cartel drug profits in dollars into Chinese renminbi and then cycle those funds back into the U.S. banking system. 

The cartels get clean money. China’s elites get access to American assets. And Americans pay the price in drug overdoses, gang violence, and financial corruption.

Treasury’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) documented 137,153 suspicious activity reports between 2020 and 2024 linked directly to CMLNs. 

These reports describe methods ranging from mirror transactions and trade-based laundering to the use of so-called “money mules.” 

Students, retirees, and homemakers with little or no income were recruited to make large deposits that far exceeded their financial profiles. This layering of ordinary citizens into billion-dollar schemes makes detection more difficult and gives cartels longer lifelines.

FinCEN also found $53.7 billion in suspicious real estate transactions, much of it in major cities where foreign buyers already distort housing markets. 

Another $766 million was tied to adult day-care centers in New York, which investigators believe could be linked to healthcare fraud, elder abuse, and even human trafficking. 

More than 1,600 cases pointed to human smuggling and trafficking operations, while another 108 cases were tied directly to elder abuse and Medicare fraud. 

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Wealthy Island Community’s Sewage Has a Cocaine Problem

The picturesque island of Nantucket off Cape Cod is producing sewage with high levels of cocaine, possibly revealing the illegal drug of choice in the exclusive upscale New England community.

As part of a program initiated this year, Nantucket, Massachusetts, has been using its sewage “surveillance program” to get a handle on the amount and types of drug use on the island, where population quadruples to 80,000 in the summer months with tourists and seasonal residents.

Conducted at the island’s Surfside wastewater treatment facility, the testing found cocaine levels about 50 percent higher than the national average, according to the town and county’s website.

Labeled the “High Risk Substances Summary for Nantucket Sewer Department,” the testing revealed below-average levels of fentanyl, the powerful opioid that has caused thousands of overdoses in the United States.

The surveillance program tests for a range of substances besides cocaine, including nicotine, methamphetamine, and other prescription and illicit opioids. The idea and technology of testing the sewage was developed during the COVID-19 pandemic to test for the virus.

According to the program’s official description:

While the goal is not to estimate exact numbers of users, the data will help identify concerning patterns, such as sustained increases in certain drug markers, that can guide timely, evidence-based interventions. For example, if a prolonged spike in stimulant use is observed, the Town can coordinate educational outreach, screening efforts, or peer-led recovery support tailored to that substance.

While nicotine use was typical of regional and U.S. averages, other noteworthy findings were the levels of crystal meth and xylazine, an animal tranquilizer that authorities say is often mixed in with other drugs. Both those drugs showed very low levels.

“What’s shocking is that there is a low level of trace items,” Randolph Rice, a legal analyst, told Fox News Digital. “For example, there is very little fentanyl or xylazine…Oftentimes, these substances are added to [drugs] to make them more potent, but they also make them deadly. So what it’s telling us in Nantucket, is they’re getting the pure stuff.”

Back in May, a local news outlet reported what it called the largest cocaine bust in the island’s history when more than five pounds of the drug were seized during the arrest of a suspect from the Dominican Republic who has a green card allowing him to live legally in the United States.

One activity that could distort drug use trends determined from sewage is the pressure of law enforcement.

David Katz, a former DEA special agent, told Fox News Digital that cocaine concentrations could also come from a dealer flushing a large stash to avoid being busted during a raid.

“We used to shut the water off before we did search warrants because of that same thing,” he said.

The other cause, he said, would be the toilet flushes from cocaine users as the drug leaves their system.

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The 10th Circuit Agrees That Prosecuting Cannabis Consumers for Gun Possession May Be Unconstitutional

On a Friday in May 2022, Jared Harrison was on his way to work at an Oklahoma medical marijuana dispensary when a police officer stopped him for running a red light. When Harrison rolled down his window, the officer smelled marijuana. A search of the car discovered a loaded revolver, a pill bottle containing a few partially smoked joints, another joint in a console tray, and a backpack containing marijuana, THC gummies, and two THC vape cartridges.

Because Harrison did not have a state-issued medical marijuana card, he was charged with illegal possession of cannabis under state law, a misdemeanor. But he also faced a felony charge under 18 USC 922(g)(3), the federal law that bars illegal drug users from possessing firearms. That charge, he argued, violated the Second Amendment. A federal judge agreed, ruling in February 2023 that the government had failed to show Harrison’s prosecution was “consistent with this Nation’s historical tradition of firearm regulation”—the constitutional test that the U.S. Supreme Court established in the 2022 case New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen.

This week the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 10th Circuit reversed that ruling and remanded the case for further consideration. The 10th Circuit’s decision in United States v. Harrison, because it endorsed U.S. District Judge Patrick Wyrick’s reasoning in nearly all respects, nevertheless represents another in a series of blows to a policy that affects millions of peaceful Americans, depriving them of the constitutional right to armed self-defense for no good reason.

As it has in other Section 922(g)(3) cases, the government argued that cannabis consumers are not part of “the people” whose “right to keep and bear arms” is guaranteed by the Second Amendment because they are not “law-abiding.” Wyrick made short work of that claim, noting that the Supreme Court has said “the people,” as used in the Bill of Rights, “unambiguously refers to all members of the political community, not an unspecified subset.”

The government’s argument amounted to “an outright declaration of the federal government’s belief that it can deprive practically anyone of their Second Amendment right,” Wyrick added. “Who among us, after all, isn’t a ‘lawbreaker’? For sure, there
may well exist some adult[s] who [have] never exceeded the speed limit, changed lanes without signaling, or failed to come to a complete stop at a stop sign, but they are few and far between.”

The three-judge 10th Circuit panel unanimously agreed with Wyrick on this point. “A contrary conclusion would defy law and logic,” Judge Veronica Rossman, a Joe Biden appointee, writes in the majority opinion, which was joined in full by Judge Michael R. Murphy, who was nominated by Bill Clinton, and in part by Judge Paul J. Kelly Jr., who was appointed by George H.W. Bush. “The First and Fourth Amendments also refer to the ‘people,’ and nobody contends only ‘law-abiding citizens’ enjoy the rights protected by these constitutional guarantees….Restricting the Second Amendment to ‘law-abiding’ citizens—as the government urges us to do—would make it harder to administer and would risk turning it into ‘a second-class right.'”

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Latin American Countries Align With US as Navy Ships Arrive in the Caribbean Sea off the Venezuelan Coast

The board is set, the pieces are moving.

As Latin American countries start taking sides, the US’ largest military contingent in 25 years has been sent to Latin America.

Over 4,000 Marines and sailors have been deployed to the waters of the Caribbean as part of a ‘counter-cartel mission’.

This deployment includes the Iwo Jima Amphibious Ready Group (comprising the USS Iwo Jima, USS Fort Lauderdale, and USS San Antonio), a nuclear-powered attack submarine, three destroyers (USS Gravely, USS Jason Duhan, and USS Sampson) a guided-missile cruiser, and additional P-8 Poseidon reconnaissance aircraft.

In the meantime, many Latin American countries are starting to position themselves regarding the upcoming operations.

  • Argentina declares the Cartel de los Soles an international terrorist organization, joining the diplomatic offensive against the criminal network linked to Nicolás Maduro’s regime.
  • Paraguay President Santiago Peña signed a decree classifying the Cartel of the Suns, allegedly led by Venezuelan dictator Nicolás Maduro, as an international terrorist organization, and urged their citizens to leave the country immediately.
  • The Republic of Guyana expressed ‘support for a collaborative and integrated approach to tackle transnational organized crime’.
  • Even unprompted, Trinidad & Tobago’s Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar formally backed the deployment of US Navy Vessels against drug cartels, and even in the event of a Venezuelan invasion of Guyana over the Essequibo Region, allowing USN access.

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Cannabis Use Linked to Lower Inflammation Among People With HIV or Methamphetamine Disorder

The research, published in the journal Viruses, involved 234 participants, including 86 people with HIV (PWH) and 148 without HIV (PWoH). Participants provided blood and urine samples and completed assessments covering medical, psychiatric, and substance use history. Researchers analyzed markers of immune activity and inflammation, focusing on CXCL10/IP-10, CCL2/MCP-1, ICAM-1, and VCAM-1.

Results showed that participants with HIV had higher levels of CXCL10/IP-10 compared to those without HIV, confirming heightened inflammation in this group. However, cannabis use was independently linked to lower CXCL10/IP-10 levels overall. Among people with lifetime MUD, cannabis use was also tied to reduced levels of CCL2/MCP-1, ICAM-1, and VCAM-1, suggesting cannabis may mitigate immune overactivation in this population. Interestingly, only participants without HIV displayed cannabis-associated reductions in VCAM-1.

The authors conclude that cannabis use is associated with lower concentrations of key immune and inflammatory molecules in individuals with HIV or MUD. They suggest that cannabinoid pathways could offer a promising target for treating complications tied to chronic inflammation.

This study adds to a growing body of evidence that cannabinoids may hold therapeutic value in managing immune dysfunction and inflammation, particularly among populations facing elevated risks due to substance use or chronic conditions.

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Military To Start Testing Service Members For The Psychedelic Psilocin, Memo Shows

The U.S. Department of Defense (DOD) is expanding the list of drugs that military service members will be tested for to include the psychedelic compound psilocin, one of the two main components of psilocybin mushrooms.

In a memo obtained by Marijuana Moment, a DOD employee performing the duties of the deputy under secretary of defense for personnel and readiness advised military leadership that psilocin will be added to the department’s Drug Demand Reduction Program drug testing panel effective October 1.

The memo, dated August 18, states that the policy change being made due to “the risk of impairment and subsequent deterioration of security, military fitness, readiness, good order and discipline.”

“Drug abuse by Service members is a safety and readiness issue, and the Department must adapt our detection and deterrence program to address new and emerging drug threats,” Dr. Merlynn Carson wrote.

The DOD official said that attachments to the memo lay out “cutoff concentrations” for a positive psilocin test and other drugs in the testing panel.

Marijuana Moment reached out to DOD for copies of those attachments, but representatives were not able to immediately provide the documents.

“The Department of Defense maintains a zero-tolerance policy prohibiting drug use, and we remain committed to continually expanding drug testing capabilities and enhancing our education and prevention efforts by providing effective information on drug misuse, including the use of Psilocin,” an official told Marijuana Moment in an email.

The memo says that the “first priority” for psilocin testing under the revised drug panel “will be given to specimens collected under the auspices of probable cause, consent, or command.”

“In proportion to laboratory capabilities and capacity, second priority will be given to special testing requests for other collection modes, such as routine inspection-based collections, and specimens may also be randomly tested for psilocin,” it says.

At the same time that DOD has moved to test for psilocin, it’s also carrying out a congressional mandated psychedelic therapy pilot program for active duty service members and veterans. A more recent spending bill covering DOD would require a “progress report” on that initiative.

This latest memo also comes about two months after a DOD contractor sued the federal government, alleging that questions about his past marijuana use during a security clearance process violated his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination.

While the latest DOD policy update concerned a psychedelic compound, questions about federal workers testing positive for marijuana have also ballooned in recent years, as more individual states have legalized the drug.

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Federal Appeals Court Says Government Must Prove Marijuana Users ‘Pose A Risk’ Of Danger To Justify Gun Ban

A federal appeals court has ruled that the government must prove that people who use marijuana “pose a risk of future danger” if it wants to justify applying a law banning cannabis consumers from owning firearms.

In its opinion on Tuesday, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit sided with a federal district court that dismissed an indictment against Jared Michael Harrison, who was charged in Oklahoma in 2022 after police discovered cannabis and a handgun in his vehicle during a traffic stop.

The case has now been remanded to that lower court, which determined that the current statute banning “unlawful” users of marijuana from possessing firearms, known as 922(g)(3), violates the Second Amendment of the Constitution.

The Justice Department appealed that ruling in 2023, sending it to the Tenth Circuit. That three-judge panel said they “agree with much of the district court’s analysis” of the legal considerations, including its challenge to the federal government’s claims that there is historically analogous precedent substantiating the firearm ban for cannabis consumers.

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