Tag: the war on (some) drugs

President Trump Says “Either Joe or Hunter” Left Cocaine at The White House, “I Think I’ll Look Into That”

President Trump, in his latest sit-down interview with The Spectator’s Ben Domenech, revealed either Joe or Hunter Biden left the cocaine that was discovered inside a bin at the White House’s West Wing.

As The Gateway Pundit previously reported, a bag of cocaine was discovered at the West Wing of the White House in July 2023.

Investigators had a partial DNA hit at the time.

The Biden Administration ended their investigation without finding the culprit.

The topic of the cocaine at the White House was brought up by Domenech, The Spectator’s editor at large when he asked President Trump, “Who actually left the cocaine in the White House?”

Trump, without any hesitation, responded, “Well, either Joe or Hunter. Could be Joe, too.”

The 47th President added, “OK, so that was such a terrible thing because, you know, those bins are very loaded up with… they’re not clean, and they have hundreds and even thousands of fingerprints.”

Domenech then followed up Trump’s remarks by sharing, “I was briefly a Bush speechwriter. And so I knew exactly what they were talking about. And I was like, ‘Those things are filthy.’ They’re filthy.”

Trump responded, “And there were fingerprints…. Everybody in there would leave a fingerprint when they went in and that thing was wiped out with, with the strongest form of alcohol.”

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Texas Judge Rejects Attorney General’s Attempt To Reverse Dallas Marijuana Decriminalization Law Approved By Voters

A Texas judge has shot down the Republican state attorney general’s attempt to block a local marijuana decriminalization law that voters approved at the ballot last November.

On Friday, 134th Civil District Court Judge Dale Tillery denied a motion for temporary injunction from Attorney General Ken Paxton (R) that sought to undermine the local law by allowing continued enforcement of cannabis criminalization in the state’s third most populous city.

The one-page order from the judge states: “Upon consideration of the pleadings, the application, responses, evidence, and oral arguments presented, if any, the Court finds that the application is hereby DENIED.”

This comes about a month after the Dallas Police Department instructed officers to stop arresting or citing people for possession of up to four ounces of marijuana, in accordance with the voter-approved ballot initiative.

Paxton had filed a lawsuit with the intent to invalidate the law just weeks after the November vote. It’s one of several examples of the state official attempting to leverage the court system to reverse local cannabis reform efforts.

Numerous Texas cities have enacted local decriminalization laws in recent years, and, last January, the attorney general similarly sought to block the reform in Austin, San Marcos, Killeen, Elgin and Denton.

State district judges dismissed two of the lawsuits—which argue that state law prohibiting marijuana preempts the local policies—in Austin and San Marcos. The city of Elgin reached a settlement, with the local government pointing out that decriminalization was never implemented there despite voter approval of the initiative.

Dallas lawmakers formally put the marijuana decriminalization initiative on the ballot in August after activists turned in sufficient petitions for the reform. Cannabis icon and music legend Willie Nelson had urged Dallas voters to pass the marijuana measure.

Prior to last August’s vote on ballot placement, some members of the Dallas City Council had expressed interest in streamlining the process of decriminalizing cannabis by acting legislatively, but plans to introduce the proposal at a hearing in June did not materialize, leaving the matter to voters.

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California State Fair Will Again Feature On-Site Marijuana Sales And Consumption, With New Award Categories For Blunts, Hash And Chocolates

The California State Fair will once again feature a cannabis exhibit and competition at this year’s event, with expanded award categories meant to showcase the diversity of the state’s market.

This is the fourth year that California’s annual event has invited marijuana entrepreneurs and consumers to join the festivities—and, for the second year in a row, on-site sales and consumption will be permitted during the 17-day fair.

“Last year, we made history by integrating cannabis sales and consumption into the State Fair, and we are thrilled to return in 2025,” Lauren Carpenter, co-founder of Embarc, which is facilitating the sales component, said. “Through an immersive educational experience, we’re shining a light on the cannabis brands reflecting and shaping cannabis culture in California and beyond.”

As for the competition, there are 150 medals available this year. Submissions will open on March 1 and close on May 4. The winners will be announced at the start of the fair on July 11.

This year’s award categories have been expanded to include cannabis blunts, hash and chocolates.

“For more than 170 years the California State Fair has had a long-standing tradition of celebrating the best of the Golden State, especially those who epitomize the state’s agricultural excellence,” Tom Martinez, CEO of the California State Fair, said. “Since welcoming cannabis to the Fair, we’ve witnessed firsthand the pride and dedication of California’s cannabis cultivators, who are crafting some of the best products, not just in the state, but in the entire industry.”

Other categories up for awards include indoor, outdoor and mixed-light flower, beverages, cartridges, concentrates, edibles, pre-rolls and wellness.

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Medical Marijuana Is A ‘Safe And Effective Treatment’ For Pain And Sleep Issues In Older People, Study Shows

A new study on the use of medical marijuana by older patients—age 50 and above—concludes that “cannabis seemed to be a safe and effective treatment” for pain and other conditions.

“Most patients experienced clinically significant improvements in pain, sleep, and quality of life and reductions in co-medication,” the paper says.

Published late last month in the journal Cannabis, the study evaluated 229 participants in British Columbia and Ontario, Canada, with an average age of 66.7 years. The bulk of participants—around 90 percent—used medical marijuana to treat pain-related conditions, including chronic pain and arthritis. About two thirds (66.2 percent) were female.

Nearly all patients used products consumed orally, such as edibles and extracts, as opposed to smoked or vaporized cannabis, and most preferred products high in CBD and relatively low in THC.

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GOP Congressman Tells Welfare Recipients To ‘Stop Buying The Medical Marijuana’ And Eating Cheetos

A GOP congressman is peddling a stigmatizing message to justify a new bill on adding work requirements for certain federal benefits, implying that it’s necessary to prevent people from buying marijuana with taxpayer dollars and lazing around on the couch while eating Cheetos.

During an appearance on Fox Business on Wednesday, Rep. Pat Fallon (R-TX) was asked about recently filed Republican legislation that would impose restrictions on access to Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits—specifically mandating that able-bodied people under 65 work at least 20 hours per week in order to receive the assistance.

That’s already part of federal law, but lead bill sponsor from Rep. Dusty Johnson (R-SD) claims his America Works Act would close “loopholes” that have been exploited in certain states.

Fallon, for his part, decided to justify the legislation by playing into cannabis stereotypes and arguing that federal dollars are going toward medical cannabis purchases by welfare recipients.

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Major Coalition Of Marijuana Groups Announces Week-Long Push In DC For Legalization And Clemency Under Trump Admin

Marijuana advocacy groups and industry stakeholders will be staging another demonstration in Washington, D.C. this spring to show support for federal legalization at a time of significant uncertainty about what might be achievable under the GOP-controlled Congress and White House.

Led by the Last Prisoner Project (LPP), the Cannabis Unity Week of Action will take place from April 28-May 1, bringing together a diverse coalition to “unite advocates, impacted individuals, and industry leaders to pressure Congress and the Trump administration to fully legalize cannabis and implement retroactive relief measures for those affected by prohibition-era policies.”

The week-long event will involve educational outreach, press conferences featuring congressional allies in the reform movement and “an action outside the White House to honor those still incarcerated for cannabis and demand their freedom via presidential clemency.”

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Military Veterans Groups Push Congress To Expedite Psychedelics Research And Support Medical Marijuana Access

The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) should continue to explore psychedelics and medical marijuana therapy and expedite access to such alternative treatments if they’re proven to be efficacious, representatives of leading veterans service organizations (VSOs) told members of Congress this week.

One key group testified that the scheduling of substances like cannabis, psilocybin and MDMA as Schedule I drugs is a “major barrier” to therapeutic access.

At joint hearings before the House and Senate Veterans’ Affairs Committees on Tuesday and Wednesday, lawmakers took testimony from the VSOs—and one theme that emerged was the need to support research and access for marijuana and psychedelics, particularly as it concerns VA.

Rep. Jack Bergman (R-MI), co-chair of the Congressional Psychedelics Advancing Therapies (PATH) Caucus, asked Disabled American Veterans (DAV) National Commander Daniel Contreras what role he felt VA should play in “advancing the promising field in that area of [psychedelic] medicine through research.”

Contreras said it’s DAV’s position that “we should look at alternatives.” He added that he’s personally familiar with the issue in part because psilocybin has been incorporated into his own wife’s therapy, which underscores for him that “there needs to be some alternative choices.”

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Missouri Lawmakers Consider Psychedelic-Assisted Therapy To Aid Military Veterans With PTSD

In hopes of helping veterans facing mental health issues, Missouri lawmakers are once again pushing legislation that would require the state to conduct a study on using psilocybin—also known as “magic mushrooms”—to treat depression, substance use or as part end-of-life care.

Similar legislation has been filed for the last three years, and in 2023 the House voted overwhelmingly in support of the idea. But it’s never made its way to the Senate.

On Monday, several members of the House Veterans Committee said they were staunchly against the proposal when they first heard about it. However, research the committee has explored over the years has changed their minds.

That includes studies done by psychiatry researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, who were the first in Missouri to give a legal dose of psilocybin in 2019.

They have been using a brain-imaging technique to learn how psilocybin affects certain networks in the brain.

The bill’s sponsor, Republican state Rep. Richard West of Wentzville, said he was skeptical at first, as a former police officer.

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New Jersey Governor Proposes Marijuana Tax Hike

New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy (D) wants to hike a special tax on cannabis from $2.50 to $15 an ounce to fund social service and violence intervention programs with tens of millions of dollars in new revenue.

“In just five years, cannabis has gone from destroying lives—in the form of excessive criminal sentences—to helping save lives,” Murphy said in his budget address Tuesday.

Murphy’s plan comes about two months after the state Cannabis Regulatory Commission hiked the tax from $1.24 to $2.50 an ounce in December.

The tax, known as the social equity excise fee, is paid by cannabis cultivators. The money goes to a dedicated fund for social equity programs and investing in communities hurt by marijuana prohibition, and another portion is allocated to programs to divert youth from cannabis.

As of August 2024, the tax has brought in more than $6 million, which is all sitting unspent, according to the cannabis agency. That money must be allocated by the Legislature and governor under the state’s cannabis legalization law.

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Ohio Senators Approve Bill To Scale Back Voter-Approved Marijuana Legalization Law By Reducing Home Grow And Adding New Penalties

An Ohio Senate committee has approved a bill to make significant changes to the state’s voter-approved marijuana law—by halving the number of plants adults could grow, adding certain criminal penalties and removing select social equity provisions, among other revisions.

On Wednesday, the Senate General Government Committee passed the legislation from Sen. Steve Huffman (R) in a 5-2 vote, sending it to the Rules and Reference Committee to prepare it for a full Senate vote that come come as early as Wednesday afternoon.

This comes about a week after the panel held a hearing on the proposal, taking testimony and adopting a substitute version. On Wednesday, the panel adopted an additional substitute that would clarify that THC limits per package don’t apply to products intended for combustion, prevent people with felony convictions from obtaining a marijuana license and restore the ability of level two cultivators to expand their operations to 15,000 square feet.

In its initial form, the bill would have raised the state’s excise tax on marijuana products from 10 percent to 15 percent and also changed how taxes are redistributed to local governments. But those tax provisions were removed at the previous hearing in light of separate plans to adjust the tax rate in broader budget legislation.

Democratic members of the committee offered a series of amendments, several of which sought to dial back some of the proposed changes to the voter-approved law. All were defeated by the panel’s Republican majority, however.

For example, the substitute approved in committee would lower the maximum household plant limit for home cultivation from 12 to six. An amendment was offered to “compromise” by raising that to nine.

Huffman made the motion to table that amendment, saying that “this bill is all about being reasonable and appropriate,” and the legislation “initially started with two plants, and we compromised up to six and I believe that continuing as six is reasonable and appropriate.”

Under current law as approved by voters in 2023, adults can grow up to 12 cannabis plants at home.

Reform advocates oppose the legislation because, in addition to halving the home cultivation limit, they say it would recriminalize the sharing of cannabis between adults, smoking or vaping in someone’s own back yard and transporting unopened edibles in a vehicle. It also would eliminate non-discrimination protections to ensure cannabis consumers aren’t denied child custody, access to medical care and public benefits.

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