Tag: the war on (some) drugs

Advocates In Hawaii Pull Support For Medical Marijuana Expansion Bill Due To Changes By Conference Committee

Lawmakers in Hawaii have agreed on medical marijuana legislation that would, among other changes, allow healthcare providers to recommend cannabis to treat any condition they believe it would benefit.

But the latest version of the bill, HB 302—approved Friday by a conference committee consisting of members of both legislative chambers—offers a narrower path to medical marijuana for patients with conditions not already listed in the program. For those patients, a recommendation would need to come from their “primary treating medical provider” rather than a provider who specializes in cannabis.

“It is making changes to the medical medical cannabis law by expanding access,” Rep. Gregg Takayama (D) said at the committee hearing, “by allowing treating physicians and nurses to go beyond the specified medical conditions if they feel it’s appropriate.”

After briefly describing the bill, Takayama quipped: “I’ve been waiting all session to say this has been a tremendous joint effort.”

Advocates, however, say the change mandating that only “primary treating medical providers” could recommend marijuana—combined with others made in the conference committee that would establish a new felony charge for unlicensed dispensary operation and give the state Department of Health sweeping authority to review patients’ medical records—has led them to reconsider their stance on the bill.

The group Marijuana Policy Project (MPP), for example, now opposes HB 302 after previously submitting testimony in support of earlier versions. Karen O’Keefe, director of state policies for MPP, noted that data suggest that only a small subset of Hawaii doctors are currently willing to recommend cannabis.

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Trump-Appointed U.S. Attorney Says His ‘Instinct’ Is Medical Marijuana Dispensary Shouldn’t Be ‘In The Community’ As He Warns Of Federal Prosecution

While shutting down licensed marijuana dispensaries doesn’t “rise to the top” of his priorities, a U.S. attorney who recently warned a Washington, D.C. cannabis shop about potential federal law violations says his “instinct is that it shouldn’t be in the community.”

In an interview with NBC4 that was released on Friday, Interim U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia Ed Martin—who is currently going through a Senate confirmation process for the job—talked about his decision to send a letter to the owners of a dispensary that suggested they could face prosecution by the Trump administration’s Justice Department.

“Your dispensary appears to be operating in violation of federal law, and the Department of Justice has the authority to enforce federal law even when such activities may be permitted under state or local law,” the letter from Martin to Green Theory said.

“Persons and entities owning, operating, or facilitating such dispensaries (as well as premises grow centers),” it added, “may be subject to criminal prosecution and civil enforcement actions under federal law.”

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Montana Lawmakers Pass Bill Allowing Cannabis Compacts Between Indian Tribes And The Governor

Though House Bill 952 is only two pages long, it has the potential to have major impacts on Montana tribes, according to those who advocated for its passage.

Sponsored by Rep. Frank Smith, D-Poplar, Sioux, the bill was requested by the State-Tribal Relations Interim Committee to help tribes navigate barriers in entering and engaging in the cannabis industry. It cleared the Legislature earlier this month, getting support from most Democratic legislators and enough majority Republicans to pass.

This is Smith’s last year as a legislator before retirement. He was first elected in 1999 and is one of the longest-serving current members. During a recent Montana American Indian Caucus meeting, Smith was wished a happy retirement and congratulated for ending with what members called such an impactful bill.

Many of the challenges tribes face in growing and selling marijuana stem from past legislation. House Bill 701, a 153-page bill that became law in 2021, established laws to regulate newly legalized recreational cannabis. The bill placed major constrictions on tribes in regards to cannabis regulations.

HB 701 created three major hurdles for tribes when it was enacted.

First, it only allowed for one combined-use marijuana licence per tribe, meaning each tribe could only have one location for growing, packaging, distributing and selling cannabis.

Second, it restricted tribes to a single-tier canopy licence, meaning a tribe’s dispensary and the growing operation must consist in a maximum of a single 1,000-square-foot building.

Third, it required tribes to build dispensaries at least 150 miles outside of reservation boundaries and in a “green county” that allows the sale of cannabis, essentially restricting tribes to operate in highly saturated markets, an issue raised by Patrick Yawakie, co-founder of Red Medicine, LLC, an organization that provides professional civic engagement and lobbying services to tribes.

Yawakie said this year’s HB 952 will address many of those barriers. He helped draft the bill and said its language was mainly pulled from the Washington state-tribal cannabis compact, which allows Washington tribes and the state enter into agreements to regulate and define cannabis operations within their reservations. Twenty-two out of the 29 federally recognized tribes in Washington have compacts with the state and more are in the process.

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Florida Bill To Make Medical Marijuana Cards Free For Military Veterans Passes House Unanimously

The Florida House of Representatives has unanimously approved a bill that would exempt military veterans from state registration fees for medical marijuana cards, allowing them to obtain the certifications for free.

After moving through committee earlier this month, the full chamber passed the legislation from Rep. Alex Andrade (R) in a 110-0 vote on Friday.

As originally filed, the measure would have made more significant changes to the state’s existing medical cannabis program, for example allowing home cultivation as well as reciprocity for out-of-state patients. But the House Health Professions and Programs Subcommittee replaced its language with a two-page substitute that instead would make only small changes to the medical program.

First, it would change how often patients need to renew their medical marijuana cards, from the current annual process to once every two years.

Second, it would waive the $75 registration and renewal fees for veterans, specifying that the state “may not charge a fee for the issuance, replacement, or renewal of an identification card for a qualified patient who is a veteran.”

On the floor, Rep. Daryl Campbell (D) thanked the sponsor for introducing the reform measure, saying “our veterans need medical marijuana cards often at rates higher than the general population, and it’s great that you are helping to ease the financial burden for them on this bill.”

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19th Judicial Circuit Court Judge Brett Waronicki arrested in Martin County

A Treasure Coast judge is facing charges after he was arrested Wednesday night in Martin County.

The Martin County Sheriff’s Office said that 19th Judicial Circuit Court of Florida Judge Brett Waronicki was one of the three people arrested in a traffic stop in Jensen Beach.

Waronicki, 46, faces charges of possession of paraphernalia and DUI refusal, the sheriff’s office said.

The county’s public information officer said Waronicki was the driver of the vehicle when it was pulled over at 10:41 p.m. at Northwest Jensen Beach Boulevard and Northwest Royal Oak Drive.

A probable cause affidavit said law enforcement pulled over Waronicki after the Ford F-150 he was driving failed “to maintain a single lane and was striking the fog line multiple times.”

The arrest report also said the pickup was spotted going through the roundabout with no lights on, and also striking the bike lane.

“When speaking with Waronicki, (a detective) observed him to have bloodshot watery eyes, slurred speech, and the odor of an unknown alcoholic beverage emitting from his breath,” according to the affidavit.

The judge told law enforcement that he had two Vodka drinks but had not had a drink since 6:30 p.m.

The report said Waronicki refused both a field sobriety test and a breathalyzer, claiming he “did nothing wrong.”

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China: Fentanyl Is Not Our Problem

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Guo Jiakun insisted on Friday that “fentanyl is the U.S.’s problem, not China’s.”

“The U.S. and the U.S. alone has the responsibility to solve it,” Guo said at a press briefing.

“Despite the goodwill China has shown, the U.S. slapped tariffs on Chinese imports and blames it on fentanyl. This is bullying through and through, and highly damaging to dialogue and cooperation on counter-narcotics,” he complained.

“The U.S. should know that vilifying others will not hide its failed responsibility, to punish those who try to help will not solve any problem, and intimidation or threats are certainly not the right way to engage with China,” he said.

Guo was responding to reports about slow progress in talks between U.S. and Chinese officials about curtailing China’s supply of precursor chemicals for the deadly fentanyl drug. U.S. officials told Reuters on Wednesday that the Chinese “are failing to negotiate in good faith.”

These officials said China is “exchanging intelligence about traffickers,” but its proposals to resolve the fentanyl crisis have been “inadequate.”

Also, while China might be willing to share intel about traffickers, it rarely takes serious action against illicit chemical manufacturers. This is partly because fentanyl precursor chemicals also have legitimate uses, and the Chinese government is reluctant to compromise the profits of their huge chemical companies.

“Start putting big, important people behind bars as a signal to the whole industry or black market. We just haven’t seen that,” one U.S. official said.

The Trump administration wants China to aggressively prosecute those who produce and sell fentanyl chemicals, while China is merely offering to regulate the chemicals a little more tightly. Even this offer seems largely rhetorical to U.S. negotiators, who said “talk is cheap,” but China never seems to do anything meaningful to shut down the chemical pipeline.

Trump’s first round of 20 percent tariffs on China in February was presented as punishment for China failing to take the fentanyl crisis seriously enough. China responded by saying it would do nothing further to “address the fentanyl problem” until the tariffs were lifted.

American officials noted that China is a member of the U.N. Commission on Narcotic Drugs, which unanimously agreed to place tighter controls on fentanyl chemicals at a March 2024 meeting in Vienna, Austria. China’s proposals to regulate more chemicals are, therefore, a “bad faith” offer to do something it already pledged to do over a year ago.

Pressed on the issue, Chinese officials have lately been repeating Guo’s talking point that fentanyl is entirely an American problem, even though no one disputes that most of the chemicals come from China.

The biggest change in fentanyl production since the first Trump term has been that China no longer ships the precursor chemicals directly to American drug dealers – instead, it ships the chemicals to Mexican cartels, who manufacture the fentanyl and smuggle it across the U.S. border. Fentanyl users and traffickers in the United States say there has been very little reduction in the supply of the drug since China promised to crack down on chemical producers.

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Study: Medical Cannabis Improved PTSD Symptoms, Anxiety, and Quality of Life Over an 18-Month Period

The study followed 269 PTSD patients who were prescribed cannabis-based medicinal products (CBMPs) for at least 18 months. Conducted by researchers from Imperial College London, the Curaleaf Clinic, and King’s College London, the observational cohort study examined changes in PTSD-related symptoms, anxiety, sleep quality, and overall quality of life.

Patients experienced statistically significant improvements across all measured outcomes at each follow-up interval—1, 3, 6, 12, and 18 months. This included reductions in PTSD symptoms based on the Impact of Event Scale-Revised (IES-R), lower anxiety scores, better sleep quality, and enhanced health-related quality of life.

Notably, men were found to be less likely than women to report improvements in PTSD symptoms, with male gender associated with lower odds of symptom reduction.

Adverse events were reported by about one-quarter of participants. The most commonly reported side effects were insomnia (15.6%) and fatigue (14.9%).

“CBMPs [cannabis-based medicinal products] were associated with improvements in PTSD symptoms, anxiety, sleep, and HRQoL[health-related quality of life] at up to 18 months”, states the study. “Although the study’s observational nature limits causal conclusions, these findings support further assessment of medical cannabis.”

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Psychedelics May Reset Brain-Immune Link Driving Fear and Anxiety

A new study suggests that fear and the immune system are connected in previously unknown ways. Researchers at Mass General Brigham found that the immune system can influence stress and fear behaviors by changing how brain cells communicate.

The investigators further showed that psychedelic treatments could target these neuroimmune interactions and reduce stress-induced fear in preclinical models and found similar results in human tissue samples.

Results are published in Nature.

“Our study underscores how psychedelics can do more than just change perception; they can help dial down inflammation and reset brain-immune interactions,” said corresponding author Michael Wheeler, PhD, of the Gene Lay Institute of Immunology and Inflammation as well as the Ann Romney Center for Neurologic Diseases at Brigham and Women’s Hospital (BWH), a founding member of the Mass General Brigham healthcare system.

“This could reshape how we think about treatment for inflammatory disorders and conditions like anxiety and depression.”

Prior research has shown immune signaling can drive the development of neuropsychiatric diseases such as major depressive disorder (MDD). However, the ways that specific immune mechanisms can also affect behaviors due to chronic stress or MDD remained unclear.

Using a mouse model of chronic stress, the researchers determined that increased crosstalk between cells in the amygdala, or the brain’s fear center, boosted fear behaviors, elevated inflammatory signaling, and activated fear-promoting amygdala neurons.

Furthermore, inflammatory immune cells called monocytes migrated from other parts of the body to the brain meninges during chronic stress. The research team demonstrated that artificially manipulating these cells impacted fear behaviors.

Treating stressed mice with psilocybin and MDMA prevented monocytes from accumulating in the brain and lowered fear behaviors.

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RFK Jr. Says He Had A ‘Wonderful Experience’ Tripping On LSD And Trying To See Dinosaurs

Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the head of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), says he had a “wonderful experience” with LSD at 15 years old, which he took because he thought he’d be able to see dinosaurs, as portrayed in a comic book he was a fan of.

Unfortunately, he said that LSD trip led him to later take methamphetamine and, ultimately, go through a decade-long battle with heroin addiction.

At the 2025 Rx and Illicit Drug Summit in Nashville on Thursday, Kennedy spoke candidly about his own journey with certain drugs, offering a window into the HHS secretary’s perspective on substance use as he assumes a critical health and drug policy role in the Trump administration.

Kennedy said he was straight-edge up until he was 15, when he went to a party that became a “melee” and met a person who offered him LSD as they hitchhiked home.

“I would never have taken it,” he said. But in his town, there was a store kids flocked to every week for comic books—and in one of his favorite series, Turok: Son of Stone, the characters took “some kind of hallucinogen” like mescaline and they saw dinosaurs.

Kennedy said he “had a deep interest in paleontology” at the time, and the person who gave him the LSD said it was possible he could see dinosaurs, too.

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California Senators Approve Bipartisan Bill To Create Psilocybin Pilot Program For Veterans And First Responders

California senators have unanimously approved a bipartisan bill to create a psilocybin pilot program for military veterans and first responders.

On Wednesday, members of the Senate Health Committee advanced the legislation from Sens. Josh Becker (D) and Brian Jones (R), with amendments, in a 7-0 vote.

The proposal would establish a pilot program under the University of California (UC) system to study and develop “psilocybin services” for eligible patients in up to five counties across the state.

The universities would be responsible for “protocol design, institutional review board approvals, training of psilocybin facilitators, data collection, and reporting” of the pilot program.

“The bill would require each local pilot program to partner with local mental health clinics, hospice programs, veterans facilities, or other community-based providers that provide services and care to the target population,” the measure, as introduced in January, says. “This bill would require the agency to report specified information about the pilot program to the Legislature by January 15, 2030.”

Under the legislation, the state would establish a “Veterans and First Responders Research Pilot Special Fund,” with continuous appropriations to fund the work.

“SB 751 responds to crisis we cannot ignore. Every day, an average of 17.6 veterans die by suicide. First responders—those who run towards dangers to protect the rest of us—are more likely to die by suicide than in the line of duty,” Becker said. “These are individuals who’ve experienced repeated trauma and, too often, existing mental health treatments simply don’t work for them.”

Many are turning to underground or unregulated sources of psilocybin, or even traveling abroad, to seek relief that only places them at risk,” he said. “It signals a serious gap in our system of care. This bill is a step towards addressing that gap responsibly and safely.”

A findings section of the legislation—which is also cosponsored by eight other lawmakers, including longtime psychedelics reform advocate Sen. Scott Wiener (D)—states that research “suggests that psilocybin and psilocyn, when used in a controlled setting, may offer significant benefits in treating mental health disorders, particularly those related to trauma and stress.”

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