Tag: the war on (some) drugs

Ohio Activists Submit Signatures For Referendum To Block Lawmakers’ Move To Roll Back Marijuana Legalization And Restrict Hemp

Ohio activists announced on Monday that they’ve met an initial signature requirement to launch a campaign aimed at repealing key components of a bill the governor recently signed to scale back the state’s voter-approved marijuana law and ban the sale of consumable hemp products outside of licensed cannabis dispensaries.

Ohioans for Cannabis Choice said they’ve submitted a batch of 1,000 signatures to get the referendum process started. If the signatures are certified by the secretary of state, the campaign will then need to submit a total of about 250,000 signatures to make the ballot.

The proposed referendum would repeal the first three core sections of SB 56, a controversial bill that Gov. Mike DeWine (R) signed into law earlier this month that he says is intended to crack down on the unregulated intoxicating hemp market. But the legislation would do more than restrict the sale of cannabinoid products to dispensaries.

The law also recriminalizes certain marijuana activity that was legalized under the ballot initiative voters approved in 2023, and it’d additionally remove anti-discrimination protections for cannabis consumers that were enacted under that law.

The governor additionally used his line-item veto powers to cancel a section of the bill that would have delayed the implementation of the ban on hemp beverages.

“We’re saying no to SB 56 because it recriminalizes the cannabis industry,” Wesley Bryant, a petitioner with the referendum campaign who owns the cannabis company 420 Craft Beverages, said. “SB 56 is a slap in the face to voters who overwhelmingly voted to legalize cannabis in 2023.”

Advocates and stakeholders strongly protested the now-enacted legislation, arguing that it undermines the will of voters who approved cannabis legalization and would effectively eradicate the state’s hemp industry, as there are low expectations that adults will opt for hemp-based products over marijuana when they visit a dispensary.

The pushback inspired the newly filed referendum—but the path to successfully blocking the law is narrow.

If activists reach the signature threshold by the deadline three months from now, which coincides with the same day the restrictive law is to take effect, SB 56 would not be implemented until voters got a chance to decide on the issue at the ballot.

“In filing our petitions today, we are taking a stand for Ohioans against politicians in Columbus and saying no to the government overreach of SB 56,” Bryant said.

A summary of the referendum states that “Sections 1, 2, and 3 of Am. Sub. S. B. No. 56 enact new provisions and amend and repeal existing provisions of the Ohio Revised Code that relate to the regulation, criminalization, and taxation of cannabis products, such as the sale, use, possession, cultivation, license, classification, transport, and manufacture of marijuana and certain hemp products.”

“If a majority of the voters vote to not approve Sections 1, 2, and 3 of the Act, then the enacted changes will not take effect and the prior version of the affected laws will remain in effect,” it says.

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Arizona Ballot Measure Seeks To Roll Back Marijuana Legalization

A newly filed ballot initiative in Arizona would repeal of key provisions of the state’s voter-approved marijuana legalization law by eliminating commercial sales, while still permitting possession and personal cultivation.

The “Sensible Marijuana Policy Act for Arizona” is being spearheaded by Sean Noble, president of the political strategy firm American Encore. Paperwork to register the initiative was filed with the secretary of state’s office this month.

This year has seen a series of attempts to roll back adult-use legalization laws, with anti-cannabis activists in Maine recently approved for signature gathering for a similar ballot initiative and a Massachusetts campaign clearing an initial signature threshold for their version that will first put the issue to lawmakers before it potentially heads to the ballot.

The Arizona measure is distinct from those proposals in at least one significant policy area: It would not take away the rights of adults to grow up to six cannabis plants for personal use.

Also, it explicitly preserves components of the law aimed at expunging prior marijuana records.

Like the anti-cannabis proposals in other states, possession would remain lawful if voters chose to enact the initiative—and Arizona’s medical marijuana program would remain intact—but the commercial market for recreational cannabis that’s evolved since voters approved an adult-use legalization measure in 2020 would be quashed.

“For adults that want to consume cannabis, they will be able to do that,” Noble told the Arizona Daily Star.

But the GOP operative—who has worked with Republican legislators on efforts to repeal the Affordable Care Act and played a role opposing a failed attempt to legalize for adult use in 2016—said declining revenue and advertising rules he perceives as insufficient to deterring youth use puts the campaign at an advantage among voters.

A findings section on the latest initiative states that “the proliferation of marijuana establishments and recreational marijuana sales in this state have produced unintended consequences and negative effects relating to the public health, safety, and welfare of Arizonans, including increased marijuana use among children, environmental concerns, increased demands for water resources, public nuisances, market instability, and illicit market activities.”

“Arizona’s legal marijuana sales have declined for two consecutive years, resulting in less tax revenue for this state, while some patients have relied on recreational use of marijuana instead of utilizing the benefits of this state’s medical marijuana program,” it says.

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Did US Land Strikes On Venezuela Begin Last Week & No One Knew It?

President Trump on Friday in a radio interview disclosed something which missed the attention of the US and global media. He let slip that a large land site had been knocked out by a strike from US forces in the Caribbean – however without specifying which country was hit (whether Venezuela or perhaps Colombia).

Trump may have actually assumed the attack which he disclosed publicly for the first time was already being reported on, but it had not. He was being interviewed by John Catsimatidis, the Republican billionaire who owns the WABC radio station in New York on his The Cats & Cosby Show, and the two were talking about the Venezuela campaign. 

The United States had knocked out “a big facility” last week, Trump described somewhat vaguely, in apparent reference to a drug facility on the Latin American coast. 

“They have a big plant or a big facility where the ships come from,” Trump said, though he did not explicitly identify the exact location or even country attacked. “Two nights ago we knocked that out.”

According to the full remarks in context, the president said:

“But every time I knock out a boat, we save 25,000 American lives. It’s very simple. And what’s happening is they’re having a hard time employment-wise, they can’t get anybody.

And we just talked out, I don’t know if you read or you saw, they [Venezuela] have a big plant or a big facility where the ships come from. Two nights ago, we knocked that out. So we hit them very hard. But drugs are down over 97 percent. Can you believe it?”

Some unnamed American officials suggested to the New York Times that the Commander-in-Chief was referring to a drug facility in Venezuela: 

Trump did not name the location of the facility, though American officials told the New York Times that the president was referring to a drug facility in Venezuela that was eliminated. The president’s comment is the only report of such an attack. No other Latin American government, including Venezuela, has disclosed a strike of this sort.

But information or confirmation other than that disclosure remains a mystery, as neither the CIA nor Pentagon have commented, as the NY Times notes:

If Mr. Trump’s suggestion that the United States had struck a site in the region proves accurate, it would be the first known attack on land since he began his military campaign against Venezuela. U.S. officials declined to specify anything about the site the president said was hit, where it was located, how the attack was carried out or what role the facility played in drug trafficking. There has been no public report of an attack from the Venezuelan government or any other authorities in the region.

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Teen Marijuana Use ‘Remained Stable’ As Legalization Expands, Federal Health Officials Acknowledge

Teen marijuana use “remained stable” this year even as more states have enacted legalization, according to an annual federally funded survey

The Monitoring the Future (MTF) survey—supported by the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) and conducted every year for decades by the University of Michigan—examines substance use trends among 8th, 10th and 12th grade students. And the latest results add to a large body of evidence contradicting prohibitionist claims that state-level legalization would drive increases in underage cannabis usage.

The rate of past-year marijuana use for 12th graders was 25.7 percent, which is relatively consistent with recent years but at its lowest level since 1992. It was the same case with 10th graders, 15.6 percent of whom used marijuana in the last year. Among 8th grade students, 7.6 percent reported past-year cannabis consumption.

For past-month cannabis use, that rate was 17.1 percent for 12th graders, a slight uptick from the prior year but significantly lower than its record high of 37.1 percent in 1978 before any state had legalized cannabis for adult or medical use. For 10th grade students, the rate this past year was 9.4 percent, and for 8th grade it was 4 percent—consistent with recent years.

“We are encouraged that adolescent drug use remains relatively low and that so many teens choose not to use drugs at all,” NIDA Director Nora Volkow said in a press release. “It is critical to continue to monitor these trends closely to understand how we can continue to support teens in making healthy choices and target interventions where and when they are needed.”

The survey also found that students who reported past-month abstention from marijuana , alcohol and nicotine were “stable for all grades” (66 percent for 12th grade, 82 percent for 10th grade and 91 percent for 8th grade).

The survey also asked about the use of hemp-based cannabinoid products, including intoxicating compounds such as delta-8 THC. It found that 9 percent of 12th graders, 6 percent of 10th graders and 2 percent of 8th graders used products in that category in the past year.

This year’s MTF survey was based on data from 23,726 student surveys submitted from 270 public and private schools from February-June 2025.

To reform advocates, the results of the survey reinforce the idea that creating a regulatory framework for cannabis where licensed retailers must check IDs and implement other security mechanisms to prevent unlawful diversion is a far more effective policy than prohibition, with illicit suppliers whose products may be untested and where age-gating isn’t a strictly enforced regulation.

To that point, a separate federally funded study out of Canada that was released last month found that that youth marijuana use rates actually declined after the country legalized cannabis.

The study was released about three months after German officials released a separate report on their country’s experience with legalizing marijuana nationwide.

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Trump’s Expanded Drug War Will Make Overdose Crisis Worse, Experts Say

As President Donald Trump exploits fear about fentanyl to justify military aggression in Latin America, experts warn that his administration’s choice to slash federal support for public health programs threatens to erode progress in reducing fatal overdoses linked to synthetic opioids.

Trump issued an executive order on Monday declaring fentanyl a “weapon of mass destruction” that could be weaponized for “concentrated, large-scale terror attacks by organized adversaries.” Experts say fentanyl is not used as a weapon and dismissed the order as a public relations ploy as the administration struggles to explain its legal justification for waging a deadly international drug war without approval from Congress.

The order is the latest line in a series of massive escalations in Trump’s drug war. Trump and his “Secretary of War” Pete Hegseth are engaged military adventurism in the Caribbean Sea and Pacific Ocean, building up significant U.S. naval forces near Venezuela and blowing up boats the administration accuses of ferrying drugs in a campaign experts have classified as extrajudicial killings. Trump has ordered a naval blockade around Venezuela while threatening to oust President Nicolas Maduro.

The administration has spent months attempting to tie Maduro, and Venezuelans more broadly, to drug crimes in the U.S. while labeling such crimes as terrorism. After taking office, Trump declared the Venezuelan prison gang Tren de Aragua a “foreign terrorist organization” and called Maduro a “narco-terrorist” while rounding up Venezuelan immigrants and removing them to a notorious El Salvadoran prison. Most had no criminal convictions.

U.S. airstrikes have sunk at least 28 boats and killed more than 100 people since September, according to reports and to Zeteo’s strike tracker. The administration claims the boats are engaged in “narco-terrorist” activity, but the White House and Pentagon have not publicly released evidence that the victims are drug traffickers. The family of one man killed in a September 15 strike has said that the U.S. illegally murdered a law-abiding fisherman from Colombia, not a drug smuggler.

If any of the boats destroyed from the sky were ferrying drugs, it would most likely be cocaine, which is primarily produced in northwestern South America. Overdoses often involve multiple substances, but the overdose crisis is generally fueled by powerful synthetic stimulants, opioids, and tranquilizers — not cocaine, which is derived from the coca plant and is used by only a fragment of the population. Cocaine is typically more expensive than synthetics.

Maritza Perez Medina, director of federal affairs at the Drug Policy Alliance, said bullying Venezuela and attacking small boats will do nothing to prevent people from using fentanyl in the U.S. and could make the overdose crisis worse.

“This administration is not thinking in terms of solutions,” Medina said in an interview. “They are clearly using people’s fear of fentanyl as a pretext for implementing the president’s agenda, which includes taking away our civil liberties and actually putting us in more danger by potentially creating conflicts in other parts of the world.”

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Kansas Attorney General And Law Enforcement Sued Over Raids On Hemp Businesses

A McPherson County lawsuit filed by a Kansas business owner challenges “unconstitutionally vague” enforcement operations leading to seizure of cash and hemp-derived products at direction of the state’s attorney general and director of the Kansas Bureau of Investigation.

KBI director Tony Mattivi and Attorney General Kris Kobach said in October law enforcement officers raided CBD and vape shops to serve more than a dozen search warrants on businesses suspected of not complying with state drug law.

In a statement, Mattivi said targeted stores were “nothing but weed dealers” and the state must “enforce our controlled-substance laws when we have these substances causing bad effects on Kansas kids.”

Barry Grissom and Jake Miller, of a law firm based in Kansas City, Missouri, responded Monday by seeking on behalf of Mike Ballinger, owner of the McPherson CBD store Hanging Leaf, a court injunction to stop comparable raids and to compel return of seized property.

“The pleadings speak for themselves,” said Grissom, a former U.S. attorney for the District of Kansas and advocate for legalizing marijuana sales and consumption in Kansas.

Both Mattivi and Kobach, in their official capacity, were named in the filing requesting injunctive relief from “recent enforcement actions involving hemp products legally permitted under Kansas law.”

On October 1, Mattivi and Kobach disclosed their statewide “marijuana enforcement operation” focused on vape shops and CBD dispensaries. This law enforcement effort resulted in execution of at least 15 search warrants across Kansas.

The lawsuit said authorities seized $7,000 in inventory as well as cash from Hanging Leaf. A portion of cash taken into custody at Hanging Leaf was property of an unrelated business operated by the plaintiff, the suit said.

Attorneys for the plaintiff said Kansas law permitted hemp products with no more than 0.3 percent Delta-9 THC or tetrahydrocannabinol. The plaintiff alleged KBI testing with gas chromatography was capable of detecting “only the presence of THC and cannot determine the origin” of the substance. The suit says the KBI testing regimen improperly resulted in seizure of compliant goods.

In addition, the plaintiff asserted unconstitutional vagueness of Kansas law fostered “arbitrary enforcement that chills protected business activities.” The filing requested raids to be forbidden until the state adopted legal protection for products under 0.3 percent hemp derived from Delta-9 THC.

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WMDs for a MIC in Need

In the closing days of 2025, the White House turned an opioid crisis into a national security drama. Standing in the Oval Office during a Mexican Border Defense Medal ceremony on December 15, President Donald Trump declared that he would sign an executive order to classify fentanyl as a “weapon of mass destruction,” calling the announcement “historic.” Treating a synthetic painkiller like a nuclear bomb says more about Washington’s mindset than about the drug. Though drug overdose deaths declined in 2024, 80,391 people still died and 54,743 of those deaths were from opioids. Those numbers mark a public‑health emergency. Rather than tackle fentanyl abuse as a medical or social problem, the administration reframed it as an existential threat requiring military tools. Labeling a narcotic a WMD creates a pretext for war and sidesteps due process. This move grows out of a political culture that uses fear of invisible enemies—terrorists, microbes, drugs—to justify extraordinary power.

Past and present administrations have blurred the line between law enforcement and warfare. Since September 2025 the United States has launched more than twenty strikes on boats in the Caribbean and Pacific suspected of carrying narcotics, killing over eighty people. Experts note that little proof has been made public that the vessels contained drugs or that blowing them out of the water was necessary. Yet the assaults continued, and on December 10 the U.S. Navy seized a sanctioned Venezuelan oil tanker off Venezuela’s coast, sending oil prices higher. Trump boasted it was the largest tanker ever seized and said, when asked about the cargo, “We keep it, I guess.” Caracas denounced the action as “blatant theft.” The administration justified the operation as part of its anti‑drug campaign, but the target was not an unmarked speedboat; it was a carrier of crude oil, the sanctioned state’s main revenue source. Calling fentanyl a WMD makes such seizures look like acts of defense and blurs war and policing.

For students of recent history, this conflation of domestic threats with existential danger is hauntingly familiar. After September 11, 2001, President George W. Bush and his advisers claimed Iraq was developing anthrax, nerve gas and nuclear weapons. Vice President Dick Cheney insisted there was “no doubt” Saddam Hussein possessed WMD and was amassing them for use against America and its allies. Those arguments resonated with a populace still traumatized by the attacks. Fear allowed hawks to portray preemptive war as the only way to prevent a “mushroom cloud,” and in March 2003 the United States invaded Iraq. Investigations later found no factual basis for the claims that Iraq possessed WMD or collaborated with al‑Qaida. The smoking gun was a phantom, but by the time the truth emerged, Baghdad had been captured and the region destabilized for a generation.

One of the most tragic figures in that saga was Secretary of State Colin Powell. On February 5, 2003, he sat before the United Nations Security Council holding a glass vial he said could contain anthrax. He described Iraq’s alleged weapons labs and insisted the case was based on “solid intelligence.” The performance helped clinch support for war. Years later it became clear the intelligence was false and cherry‑picked, and no WMD were found. Powell later admitted the presentation was wrong and had blotted his record. Using a decorated officer’s credibility to sell a war built on falsehoods shows how propaganda can override reason.

The consequences of the Iraq War were catastrophic. The Defense Department records 4,418 U.S. service members dead in Operation Iraqi Freedom, including 3,481 killed in hostile action. Brown University’s Costs of War Project estimates that the post‑9/11 wars have cost the United States around $8 trillion and killed more than 900,000 people. About $2.1 trillion of that went to the Iraq/Syria theater. These figures exclude indirect deaths and future costs for veterans’ care. Millions of Iraqis were killed, injured or displaced, fueling sectarian violence and extremism. The war enriched defense contractors and expanded the military‑industrial complex while leaving ordinary people to pay the bill.

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Alabama Regulators Approve Hemp Product Rule Despite Opposition From Key Lawmaker

The Alabama Alcohol Beverage Control (ABC) Board Thursday approved an emergency, temporary rule regulating the sale of consumable hemp products, over the opposition of a state representative who sponsored the law leading to the regulation.

The rule creates the Responsible Consumable Hemp Product Program and establishes warnings and fees for violations of the rule.

David Peacock, chief general counsel for the ABC Board, told board members that on first violation of the rule, retailers would receive a warning, and distributors would be fined $1,000 on first offense for selling a product that is not approved by the board.

“If the distributor were to purchase a product from a supplier that was violative a second time, they would no longer be able to use that supplier unless they provide to us a corrective action plan that we approve,” Peacock said.

Peacock did not say what products would be prohibited or allowed, but that there would be a list of products published on the ABC Board’s website.

Peacock said the rule is needed in accordance with HB 445, sponsored by Rep. Andy Whitt, R-Harvest, which passed the Legislature this spring. The law, which goes into effect on January 1, requires testing and labeling for all consumable hemp products and caps THC at 10 milligrams per individually wrapped product and 40 milligrams per package.

It also requires the ABC Board to license retailers of these products; restrict retail establishments selling hemp products and impose an excise tax on consumable hemp products. In October, the ABC Board passed a rule to implement the law.

The emergency rule passed 2-1 with board member John Knight, a former state representative, voting against it.

“I’m opposed to it only because I have a problem with the way it was done,” Knight said.

Whitt, who did not attend Thursday’s meeting, sent the board a letter Wednesday expressing his opposition to the emergency rule.

“In addition to my concerns about the non-compliance with statutory guidelines about emergency rules, there are other areas of the proposal that bother me,” the letter said. “Nowhere in the authorizing legislation does it provide for a Responsible Consumable Hemp Product Program, such as that legislatively authorized by Alabama Code Section 28-10-4 in connection with alcoholic beverages. Therefore, it seems that this proposed regulation goes beyond statutory authority.”

Whitt said in an interview Thursday afternoon that he had a great relationship with the board but reiterated his opposition to the rule.

“I think when it comes down to the emergency rulings, it serves a different purpose than maybe what’s transparent to begin with, maybe a self-serving group,” he said. “I want to make sure that it doesn’t and that the legislative process works.”

Curtis Stewart, the board’s administrator, explained that the rule’s intention is to protect retailers.

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Ohio Governor Signs Bill To Recriminalize Some Marijuana Activity, Vetoing Provision To Allow THC Drinks For A Year

Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine (R) signed a bill into law Friday that bans intoxicating hemp products and makes various changes to the state’s voter-passed marijuana law, including adding crimes such as making it illegal to bring legally purchased marijuana from another state back to Ohio.

DeWine signed Ohio Senate Bill 56, which will take effect in 90 days. He has been urging Ohio lawmakers to do something about intoxicating hemp products for the past nearly two years.

Ohio’s bill complies with recent federal changes by banning intoxicating hemp products from being sold outside of a licensed marijuana dispensary.

In November, Congress voted to ban products that contain 0.4 milligrams of total THC per container earlier this month when they voted to reopen the government.

Those who work in the intoxicating hemp industry are worried this will put thousands of people out of business.

DeWine line-item-vetoed the THC-infused beverage provision in the bill that would have allowed five milligram THC beverages to be manufactured, distributed, and sold in Ohio until December 31, 2026.

“My veto means that they cannot be sold,” DeWine said during a Friday press conference. “The simplest thing, frankly, to do is to stop it right now instead of going until the date in November set by federal law.”

DeWine said he does not think THC beverages are a good idea.

“I think they create extra problems,” DeWine said.

Ohio S.B. 56 had a provision that said if the federal government legalizes THC beverages, Ohio will consider “a more robust regulatory framework of these products,” according to the bill’s language.

“We got to this point because of poorly drafted federal legislation and people taking advantage of it,” Ohio House Speaker Matt Huffman, R-Lima, said.

“So speculating about what the federal government may do in the future and what we may do as a result, I think, adds to the same problem that has already been created.”

On the marijuana side, the bill would reduce the THC levels in adult-use marijuana extracts from a maximum of 90 percent down to a maximum of 70 percent, cap THC levels in adult-use flower to 35 percent, and prohibit smoking in most public places.

Part of the probable cause portions were removed from the bill, but some of it still remains.

The bill prohibits possessing marijuana in anything outside of its original packaging and criminalizes bringing legal marijuana from another state back to Ohio. It also requires drivers to store marijuana in the trunk of their car while driving.

Ohio S.B. 56 would give 36 percent of adult-use marijuana sale revenue to municipalities and townships that have recreational marijuana dispensaries.

The bill also maintains the 10 percent tax rate on recreational marijuana and keeps home grow the same at six plants per adult and 12 per residence. It also places a cap on 400 marijuana dispensaries in the state.

Ohioans passed a citizen-initiated law to legalize recreational marijuana in 2023 with 57 percent of the vote. Sales started in August 2024 and exceeded $702.5 million in the first year.

Ohio lawmakers can change the law since it passed as a citizen initiative not a constitutional amendment, something they have been trying to do since late 2023.

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Microdosing Cannabis Pauses Alzheimer’s Decline in Unprecedented Trial

As the world’s population ages, the number of people living with dementias such as Alzheimer’s disease increases.

Given the lack of curative treatments and the limited effectiveness of available medications, interest in new therapeutic approaches is growing. Among them are cannabinoids from the cannabis plant.

A small new Brazilian study published in the international Journal of Alzheimer’s Disease investigated the effects of microdoses of cannabis extract on patients with mild Alzheimer’s disease. The results found positive effects, without the associated “high” of cannabis.

The logic of microdoses

The study, led by Professor Francisney Nascimento and colleagues at the Federal University of Latin American Integration (UNILA), recruited 24 elderly patients (60-80 years) diagnosed with mild Alzheimer’s.

It evaluated the effects of daily use of an oil prepared from cannabis extract containing THC and CBD in similar proportions and extremely low concentrations (0.3 mg of each cannabinoid). These sub-psychoactive doses do not cause the “high” associated with recreational use of the plant.

The extract used was donated by ABRACE, Brazil’s biggest patient association, and had no contribution from cannabis companies or other funding sources.

“Microdosing” is a term usually associated with recreational use of psychedelics. Given the size of the dose, it would be easy to question whether it could have any effect at all.

Doses below 1 mg of the cannabinoid compounds are not frequently reported in the literature of clinical practice. However, the researchers’ decision to use microdosing did not come out of nowhere.

In 2017, the group led by Andreas Zimmer and Andras Bilkei-Gorzo had already demonstrated that very low doses of THC restored cognition in elderly mice, reversing gene expression patterns and brain synapse density in the hippocampus to levels similar to those of young animals.

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