Tag: the war on (some) drugs

Federal Judge Blocks Voter-Approved Oregon Law Requiring Marijuana Businesses To Have Labor Peace Agreements With Workers

A federal judge has struck down a voter-approved Oregon law that required licensed marijuana businesses enter into labor peace agreements with workers and mandated that employers remain neutral in discussions around unionization.

About three months after two marijuana businesses—Bubble’s Hash and Ascend Dispensary—filed a lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the District of Oregon challenging the implementation of Measure 119, Judge Michael Simon on Tuesday ruled in favor of the plaintiffs, agreeing that the law unconstitutionally restricts free speech and violates the federal National Labor Relations Act (NLRA).

Under the now defunct law, a marijuana businesses that was unable to provide proof of a labor peace agreement could have been subject a denial or revocation of their license.

The lawsuit named Gov. Tina Kotek (D), Attorney General Dan Rayfield (D) and Oregon Liquor and Cannabis Commission’s (OLCC) Dennis Doherty and Craig Prins as defendants.

In the order on Tuesday, the judge walked through various components of the legal arguments from both sides and ultimately agreed that the Oregon law is preempted by the NLRA, which is meant to provide protections for workers who want to unionize—but specifically preserves the right for “uninhibited, robust, and wide-open debate in labor disputes.”

By mandating neutrality from employers in labor discussions, that constitutes a violation of the NLRA, the judge ruled.

“Measure 119 does not distinguish between permissible employer speech and threatening or coercive speech,” Simon said. “Measure 119 is not limited to restricting only threatening, coercive, false, or misleading speech, but instead prohibits all speech by employers that is not ‘neutral’ toward unionization.”

On the question of whether the law violates First Amendment protections under the U.S. Constitution, the cannabis companies argued that “Measure 119 is a content-based restriction on speech that is subject to strict scrutiny, and that Defendants fail to provide a compelling government interest requiring this restriction.”

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One Out Of Four Indian Tribes In The U.S. Is Now Involved In Marijuana Or Hemp Programs, New Map Shows

A new infographic from an advocacy group representing Native American tribes in the legal cannabis industry shows that more than a fourth of Indigenous communities in the continental United States are now involved with marijuana or hemp programs.

The map, created by the Indigenous Cannabis Industry Association (ICIA) in collaboration with the law firm Vicente, shows the locations of more than 100 tribal marijuana and hemp programs across the country.

Overall, approximately 26 percent of the 358 federally recognized Indigenous communities in the continental U.S. are now involved in some sort of cannabis program, the groups said.

The data, they said in a press release, “shows that the Indigenous cannabis industry is trending upward in terms of jobs, community development, and overall industry growth, with many Tribes currently scaling to meet demands for global cannabis distribution.”

“Since the first regulated Indigenous cannabis storefront opened almost 10 years ago in Washington State,” the groups said, “dozens of sovereign Indigenous communities have created their own unique regulatory systems to govern cannabis cultivation, production and sales.”

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DEA Approves Church’s Petition To Use Psychedelics In Religious Ceremonies Without The Need For A Lawsuit

A Washington State church says the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) has approved its application for an exception under federal drug laws to use the psychedelic ayahuasca in religious ceremonies—and, for the first time, the agency granted the unique exemption without legal challenges.

The Church of Gaia on Friday said DEA approved a petition for congregants to use ayahuasca under the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA), which was enacted in 2009 to create a pathway for religious organizations to request a carve-out under the Controlled Substances Act (CSA).

There have been relatively few examples of DEA approving such petitions in the years since—and churches that have sought the exemption have had to engage in litigation against the federal government over their requests. Uniquely, approval for this latest petition was granted without the need for lawsuits, as Mason Marks of Psychedelic Week first reported.

“As the sacrament for the Church of Gaia, Ayahuasca serves as a profound ceremonial tool for accessing spiritual connection and abundance,” Connor Mize, founder of the church, said in a press release. “In pursuing the religious exemption, we aimed to ensure the safety of the church’s members, Indigenous elders, and leaders while protecting the right to practice our sacred ceremonies without persecution. This exemption means the church can fully embrace its religious offerings, including the Ayahuasca ceremonies we’ve long prayed for.”

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Marijuana And Alcohol Businesses Should Join The Hemp Industry In The Fight For Regulation Instead Of Prohibition

In recent months, leading organizations and companies in the alcohol and marijuana space have jumped into the hemp sector, offering their support for clear federal legalization and robust oversight of hemp products.

The U.S. Hemp Roundtable, the hemp industry’s national advocacy organization, welcomes them—but asks them to join us in a framework that rejects prohibition, embraces regulation, prevents access by minors and protects retail and e-commerce for all elements of the diverse hemp industry.

Since the 2018 Farm Bill federally legalized hemp, it’s been a rollercoaster ride. After a brief gold rush, the Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) refusal to regulate CBD led to a crash in prices and widespread disruption. But with a hemp industry as resilient as its stalk, innovators pioneered direct-to-consumer (DTC) sales and developed a new market for adult health and wellness products–including a hemp beverage boom which now meets growing demand for non-alcoholic options.

Today, the hemp extract market has surged to $28.4 billion, creating 328,000 agriculture and retail jobs, with a $13.2 billion employment impact and $1.5 billion generated in state tax revenues. Its popularity is not surprising—hemp products are made in the USA, harvested from crops grown by American farmers, manufactured by innovative U.S. entrepreneurs and sold by small businesses dotting the nation.

Competing interests have taken note of hemp’s success. A few marijuana multi-state operators (MSOs) have led efforts at the state and federal level to ban hemp products, and/or seek monopoly control over distribution. But the majority of marijuana advocates support regulation, not prohibition. In fact, many cannabis companies have found new life via hemp. We’re excited to join an emerging new effort to bring the entire cannabis family together in a united policy-making venture.

More recently, the alcohol industry is weighing in as hemp beverages have gained space on shelves previously reserved for liquor. Leading organizations such as the Wine & Spirits Wholesalers of America and the American Beverage Licensees have called for Congress and state legislators to explicitly legalize and regulate hemp beverages, which in 2024 boasted $380 million in revenues.

But warning clouds loom. In some states, efforts to regulate beverages include bans on other types of hemp products, such as edibles or CBD tinctures fully 85 percent of the hemp product marketplace). In others, there is a rush to ban DTC sales—a lifeline to hundreds of thousands of adult consumers.

Texas has emerged as a key battleground. In response to Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick’s (R) crusade to criminalize all hemp products, HB 28 was introduced as a hemp beverage carveout. Unfortunately, that bill would ban nearly all non-beverage hemp products, criminalize DTC and dramatically reduce the number of retailers who can sell these products.

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Marijuana Rescheduling Blocked By Opposition ‘From Within’ DEA, Biden’s Drug Czar Says

Former President Joe Biden’s drug czar says the process to reschedule marijuana as initiated under the last administration may have been compromised by officials with the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), which was supposed to be defending the proposed policy change.

At the same time, a pro-legalization former  OP congressman allied with President Donald Trump is raising questions about the sincerity of the current president’s endorsement of rescheduling on the campaign trail.

About four months into Trump’s second term, there has still been no movement on the pending plan to move cannabis from Schedule I to Schedule III of the Controlled Substances Act (CSA), leaving advocates and stakeholders frustrated both by the current inaction but also the Biden administration’s failure to get the job done before the transition.

According to former White House Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP) Director Rahul Gupta, that may have been due to deliberate resistance from within DEA—a suspicion shared widely among supporters of the reform, including those involved in an administrative hearing that’s been stalled for months, with no clear indication it will proceed any time soon.

“We got stuck moving at the slow speed of government, which was also marred, potentially, by some opposing it from within,” Gupta told The New York Times as part of a broader story examining the rescheduling effort.

The article also features interviews with a former senior DEA agent and former Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL), who notably suggested that Trump’s endorsement of a Schedule III reclassification on the campaign trail was essentially an attempt to shore up support among young voters rather than a sincere reflection of his personal views about cannabis.

As far as speculation about DEA’s role in the protracted process goes, there are several factors that have led many to conclude the agency’s leadership internally opposed the proposal, including the fact that there was a break in precedent when then-Attorney General Merrick Garland signed off on it after the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) made the recommendation. Historically, the DEA administrator approves drug scheduling proposals.

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Carlos Lehder reveals: Fidel and Raúl Castro facilitated Medellín Cartel drug trafficking from Cuba in the 1980s.

Carlos Lehder, co-founder of the Medellín Cartel and former ally of Pablo Escobar, has dropped a bombshell that the left and progressives don’t want to hear: the Cuban regime, led by Fidel and Raúl Castro, was a key ally in trafficking cocaine to the United States in the 1980s.

This truth, revealed exclusively by Martí Noticias, shatters the image of Cuba as a supposed revolutionary model and exposes the corruption and cynicism of a government that conservatives have always denounced.

While progressives in the U.S. and Europe were busy praising Castro, this regime was helping flood the streets with drugs, lining their pockets and betraying their own people.

Lehder is direct in pointing out the culprits. In his memoirs and interviews, he states:

I met with Raúl Castro and Colonel Antonio de la Guardia to negotiate the logistics of these operations.

He details how Cuba opened its doors to the Medellín Cartel, setting up airstrips in Cayo Largo and charging for every kilo of cocaine that passed through the island. And he leaves no doubt about who was in charge:

Fidel Castro had to know; he was the orchestra conductor.

This isn’t gossip; it’s the testimony of a drug trafficker who lived the business from the inside and now exposes the hypocrisy of the Castros.

For Republicans, this comes as no surprise. We’ve always seen the Cuban regime as a nest of opportunists who crush their people while engaging in dirty business. While the left romanticizes Fidel and Raúl, Lehder reveals the reality:

I was allowed to use facilities in Cayo Largo, where airstrips were set up and a payment was agreed upon for each kilo of cocaine transported.

That drug made its way to the streets, killing young people, all under a government that progressives defended as a «victim» of imperialism. What irony.

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New York Officials Take Steps To Expand Marijuana Farmers Market Program

New York marijuana regulators are moving forward with new proposed regulations around the state’s so-called “cannabis showcase” program, which allows licensed businesses to sell to consumers at pop-up, farmers market-like events.

Members of the Cannabis Control Board (CCB), which oversees the state’s Office of Cannabis Management (OCM), voted without opposition at a meeting on Tuesday to advance the 23-page showcase expansion plan, which next proceeds to a public comment stage.

The new rules follow the enactment of legislation signed by Gov. Kathy Hochul (D) in March that built on the existing showcase program, which was first created in 2023.

In a presentation to the board on Tuesday, John Kagia, OCM’s director of policy, said the program has “proved to be a particularly compelling way for the new, fast-growing, regulated cannabis market to get out in the community, to build relationships with consumers and to begin the process of normalizing cannabis in the state of New York.”

Between summer 2023 and the end of that year, he noted, New York saw over 60 showcase events that together brought in more than $10 million in revenue for participating businesses.

“It really established that there was real interest, both from the licensees and from the communities where these events were being hosted, to allow cannabis to exist out of the four walls of our retail dispensaries,” Kagia said.

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Connecticut House Passes Psilocybin Decriminalization Bill To Remove Threat Of Jail For Possessing The Psychedelic

The Connecticut House of Representatives has approved a bill to decriminalize psilocybin for adults—despite lingering questions about whether the state’s Democratic governor would support it after he rejected an earlier version of the reform measure.

One month after the measure cleared the legislature’s Joint Judiciary Committee, it cleared the full chamber in a 74-65 vote on Monday. It now heads to the Senate for consideration.

If enacted into law, the legislation would make possession of up to one-half an ounce of psilocybin punishable by a $150 fine, without the threat of jail time.

“Psilocybin is a product which has been shown to be an effective therapeutic for various mental illnesses, including treating PTSD, addictions, depressions and anxiety disorders,” Rep. Steve Stafstrom (D), co-chair of the Judiciary Committee, said on the floor. “It is a substance that our state currently treats as the equivalent of cocaine, heroin or any other sort of serious Schedule I drug that, if folks are caught with possession of even a tiny little bit, Mr. Speaker, even even personal use of psilocybin, they’d be essentially subject to a class A misdemeanor and up to a year in jail.”

“What this bill seeks to do is pretty simple. It doesn’t legalize the substance. I want to be really clear: This bill does not legalize psilocybin,” he said. “If you’re dealing psilocybin, if you’re driving under the influence of psilocybin, those penalties remain the same as they are under existing law. Driving under the influence of psilocybin, it’s driving under the influence. No change in this bill. Dealing psilocybin continues to be drug dealer offense. You can be prosecuted for drug dealing—that does not change.”

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Montana Governor Signs Bill Directing Marijuana Tax Revenue Toward Environmental Conservation And Wildlife

Montana Gov. Greg Gianforte (R) announced on Friday that he had recently signed House Bill 932, a proposal that would expand uses for the conservation-dedicated tax revenues the state collects on recreational marijuana sales.

Under HB 932, the scope of wildlife habitat protection and improvement supported with marijuana taxes will broaden to include projects implemented on private land. The law is slated to take effect July 1.

Before the latest legislative reform, Habitat Montana was the sole beneficiary of the roughly $10 million of habitat-conservation-dedicated funding that marijuana revenues support. In recent years, Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks (FWP) has used Habitat Montana to purchase new Wildlife Management Areas and secure both perpetual conservation easements and 40-year conservation leases.

With HB 932 in play this summer, that $10 million of conservation funding will all go into a new account: the “habitat legacy account.”

From there, it will be further divided into three separate funding buckets.

Most of the money, 75 percent, will support Habitat Montana and state water projects. Roughly 20 percent of the remainder will be funneled into an existing program called the Wildlife Habitat Improvement Program, or WHIP, and 5 percent will be directed toward the newly established wildlife crossings account that seeks to reduce the wildlife-vehicle collisions that plague the state’s highways and interstates.

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DEA Blames Legal Marijuana States For Inadvertently Aiding Cartels While Also Admitting That Prohibition States Create Illegal Market Opportunities

The Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) says that states that have legalized marijuana are providing cover for illicit cultivation operations by foreign cartels—while at the same time implicitly acknowledging that ongoing prohibition in other states creates opportunities for that cannabis to be sold on the illegal market.

The agency’s 2025 National Drug Threat Assessment that was released on Thursday includes a section on marijuana trafficking, claiming that cartels and other organized crime groups “operate under business registrations granted by state licensing authorities in jurisdictions where marijuana cultivation and sales are ‘legal’ at the state level.”

“However, absent overt evidence such as the trafficking of marijuana across state lines or the commission of non-drug crimes such as money laundering and human trafficking, it can be difficult for law enforcement to immediately identify violations or discover an illegal grow,” the report says. “Asian [Transnational Criminal Organizations, or TSOs] defy restrictions on plant quantities, production quotas, and non-licensed sales, and hide behind state-by-state variations in laws governing plant counts, registration requirements, and accountability practices.”

DEA suggested that cartels are leveraging state cannabis markets by transporting “large amounts of marijuana directly from ‘legal’ states to states that have not legalized recreational use and those where state-level recreational approval is sufficiently recent to not yet have an established, regulated cannabis industry.”

Underlying that analysis seems to be a perhaps inadvertent acknowledgment by DEA that cartels are profiting off ongoing prohibition outside of legal states—indicating that the main demand for illicit marijuana isn’t coming from within states that provide regulated access to consumers but instead those where cannabis remains criminalized.

Implicit in that analysis is exactly what advocates have long argued: Legalization disrupts the illegal market.

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