Tag: the war on (some) drugs

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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Marijuana Possession Would Be Decriminalized In Texas Under Lawmaker’s New Bill

Low-level marijuana possession would be decriminalized in Texas if a new bill filed this week by a key House leader is enacted.

The measure, HB 3242, from Rep. Joe Moody (D), would make simple possession of up to an ounce of cannabis flower a Class C misdemeanor—explicitly removing the risk of arrest and incarceration.

Class C misdemeanors are punishable by a fine of up to $500, with no possibility of jail time. Currently simple possession of cannabis is a Class B misdemeanor, which carries penalties of up to 180 days in jail and a $2,000 fine.

Moody’s proposal, introduced on Monday, is the latest of nearly two dozen cannabis-related bills filed so far in Texas for the current legislative session. Various other measures would legalize adult-use marijuana, prohibit certain hemp-derived products, remove criminal penalties for cannabis possession and adjust the state’s existing medical marijuana laws, among others.

Heather Fazio, director of the Texas Cannabis Policy Center, has been tracking legislation in the state and applauded the introduction of HB 3242 by Moody, who was tapped by House Speaker Dustin Burrows (R) to serve as House speaker pro tempore.

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Idaho Governor Signs Bill Setting Mandatory Minimum Fine For Marijuana Possession

Idaho’s governor has signed a bill creating a new mandatory minimum fine for possession of marijuana.

Under the legislation approved by Gov. Brad Little (R) on Monday, adults caught with less than three ounces of cannabis will face a mandatory minimum fine of $300.

Sponsor Rep. Bruce Skaug (R), the sponsor of the measure, told a House committee last month that “we do not want this to become a marijuana state.”

On the House floor, the representative asked colleagues: “Tell me what state—anybody who debates against this bill—what state is a better place because of the passage of marijuana legalization? I submit none.”

He later told a Senate committee that “a $300 fine is not too much if you can afford to buy this marijuana and concentrate.”

“Every dollar spent on pot by someone is not spent on food, clothing, school supplies, real medicine or housing,” he said.

The new law is set to take effect on July 1.

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Trump Says He’s ‘Ready’ To Impose Death Penalty On People Who Sell Illicit Drugs, Calling Policy ‘Very Humane’

President Donald Trump is again promoting his support for executing people who sell currently illicit drugs, calling it a “very humane” policy to prevent overdose deaths that he’s “ready” to implement.

He also ambitiously projected that his administration will cut drug use in the U.S. by 50 percent during his new term by launching an aggressive advertising campaign to warn Americans about the harms of substance misuse.

During a White House event with governors from across the U.S. on Friday, South Carolina Gov. Henry McMaster (R) told Trump about his concerns with fentanyl trafficking, to which the president responded by offering his extreme capital punishment proposal of following the lead of countries like China that impose the death penalty on people involved in selling illegal drugs.

While he said he’s unsure whether the U.S. as a whole is similarly “ready” to move forward with the policy, Trump encouraged governors to push for it at the state-level.

“If you notice that every country that has the death penalty has no drug problem. They execute drug dealers,” Trump said. “And when you think about it, it’s very humane, because every drug dealer, on average they say, kills at least 500 people—not to mention the damage they do so many others. But they kill large numbers of people.”

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Using The Marijuana Components THC-V And CBD Every Day Helps People Lose Weight, Study Finds

Research on the use of marijuana components to aid weight loss found that use of a combined product containing the cannabinoids THCV and CBD “was associated with statistically significant weight loss” as well as a slimmer waistline, lower blood pressure and decreased cholesterol.

The study, published late last month in the journal Cannabis, analyzed outcomes among 44 people who were administered either oral strips containing a mixture of the two cannabinoids or a placebo. Participants took one strip daily for 90 says and were evaluated for weight loss and certain metabolic markers.

“Use of the THCV/CBD strip was associated with statistically significant weight loss, decreases in abdominal girth, systolic blood pressure, and total and LDL cholesterol,” says the report, authored by Dr. Gregory Smith, the founder and CEO of plant-based medicine company NeX Therapeutics, based in Florida.

Participants—31 of whom were female and 13 of whom were male, with a combined average age of about 52 years—were given either a placebo or one of two different mucoadhesive oral strips. A lower-dose version contained 8 milligrams of THCV and 10 mg CBD, while a higher-dose version had 16 mg THCV and 20 mg CBD. Subjects received a reminder to take a dose each day on an empty stomach and report any side effects, and they agreed to refrain from using cannabis or other cannabinoid-based products.

Participants were not asked to make any changes to their diet or exercise routines.

Of 24 people who received the lower-potency oral strips, 16 (66.7 percent) demonstrated weight loss over the course of the 90-day period—on average losing 2.6 kilograms (5.7 pounds). Among the 10 who received the higher-dose strips, seven (70 percent) lost weight—an average of 4.1 kg (9.0 lbs).

The 10 subjects who received the placebo, meanwhile, lost an average of just 0.1 kg (0.2 lbs).

Nearly all (95.8 percent) in the lower-dose group also saw reductions in abdominal girth, as did 70 percent of the higher-dose subjects.

“It is interesting to note that there was a barely statistically significant decrease in the control/placebo group,” Smith wrote, “however, it is also worth noting that abdominal girth is probably the least accurate of all the biometric measures taken for the purposes of this study.”

The THCV/CBD groups also showed reductions in systolic blood pressure as well as total and LDL cholesterol, the research found.

“In summary, 90 day use of once-daily THCV and CBD-infused mucoadhesive strips was associated with clinically significant weight loss, decreases in abdominal girth, systolic blood pressure, and total and LDL cholesterol,” the report concludes, adding that stronger dosage appeared to perform better: “The 16mg/20mg daily dose in Group B was superior for weight loss compared to the 8mg/10mg daily dose in Group A.”

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Dozens Of New Jersey Marijuana Businesses Push To Legalize Home Cultivation, Despite Resistance From Governor And Legislative Leaders

Dozens of New Jersey small marijuana businesses and advocacy groups are calling on the state legislature to allow adults to cultivate their own cannabis at home—seemingly contradicting repeated claims from the governor and legislative leaders that the reform could undermine the evolving legal marketplace.

And as Gov. Phil Murphy (D) is set to term out at the end of the year, activists are drawing attention where his potential successors stand on the issue as well.

The more than 50 businesses and advocates, which formed a collective known as the New Jersey Home Grow Coalition last year, signed an open letter to Senate President Nicholas Scutari (D), rejecting the idea that the market needs more time to mature before people can be permitted to grow their own plants for personal use.

Unlike most other states that have enacted cannabis legalization, New Jersey continues to prohibit home cultivation for adults or medical marijuana patients.

“Even with our growing industry there’s no hope of access to the clean, consistent, strain-specific medicine that I need for my epilepsy,” Andrea Raible, co-founder of the NJ Homegrow Coalition, said in a press release. “Politicians are concerned with adult use profits while we are concerned with life threatening health conditions and facing prison for plants.”

In the open letter to Scutari, who has broadly championed cannabis reform but has recently resisted calls for home cultivation, the members of the New Jersey marijuana community said “discussions on home cultivation in New Jersey have stalled, attributed to allowing the industry ‘time to mature.’”

“As licensed cannabis operators, stakeholders in the industry, and relevant organizations, we respectfully disagree with this statement. The legalization of medical home cultivation will not negatively impact the legal state cannabis industry,” they said. “We firmly support the immediate legalization of medical home cultivation for patients and caregivers. We also endorse additional legislation to be introduced that allows for the legalization of personal use home cultivation safely and equitably.”

The advocates and stakeholders are voicing support for an amendment to expand a pair of bills seeking to provide for medical cannabis home cultivation, making it so the plant limit would be replaced with an allowance to “allow up to 100 square feet of mature cannabis plant grow canopy area.”

“This would allow patients and caretakers to have the ability to properly pheno-hunt and cultivate an amount that meets individual needs,” they said. “Additionally, this change would mitigate the potential for exploiting the law through the cultivation of massive cannabis plants.”

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The DEA’s Official Museum Is An ‘Embarrassment Of Reefer Madness Misinformation’

Why would anyone visit the DEA Museum? My excuse was to see all the lies and misinformation in one place. And I wanted to understand how the curators sold and sanitized the war on drugs. I was not disappointed.

On the museum website, I got a preview of how brazen it would be. An online exhibition about Harry Anslinger is called, “A Life of Service.”  For three decades, Anslinger was the commissioner of the Federal Bureau of Narcotics, the forerunner of the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA). It would be hard to overstate the destructive influence the diehard prohibitionist had on national and international drug policy. He was the father of the drug war.

The exhibition introduces him as a son of immigrants who made good in America. Then we learn about his fight to stop drug use and trafficking through the Roaring ‘20s, 1940s Hollywood and the Cold War. Anslinger unleashed his agents against bootleggers, cannabis smokers, cocaine sniffers, heroin injectors and even trainers who “doped” their horses. He’s described as a fiscally responsible, no-nonsense boss who just wanted a safe, drug-free world.

In truth, Anslinger was a racist monster responsible for incalculable suffering, deaths and imprisonment. His legacy is one of targeting Black and Brown communities for draconian prison sentences over unjust drug laws. Anslinger had a perverse hatred for jazz music, and harassed the great jazz vocalist Billie Holiday to her death.

His bald-faced falsehoods are legendary. “Marijuana is an addictive drug which produces in its users insanity, criminality and death,” he once said. Of course, none of this made it into the exhibition.

The DEA Museum is in Arlington, Virginia, on Army Navy Drive. The location is odd; it’s at the end of a desolate pedestrian walkway on the first floor of a nondescript federal building.

Visitors are greeted by guards and a security checkpoint. I put my bag and coat through the metal detector and showed ID—a perfect way to enter a museum that celebrates drug enforcement.

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Mexico’s President Plans to Change Constitution to Protect Drug Cartels From U.S. Military Strikes

Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum is seeking to alter the country’s constitution to protect drug cartels from the U.S. military.

Under the terms of the proposals filed by Sheinbaum, Articles 19 and 40 of country’s constitution would be changed to block any investigation or military action by foreign entities without permission from the Mexican government.

The first amendment would prohibit any “act from abroad that is harmful to the integrity, independence and sovereignty of the Nation.”

The Second amendment mandates automatic pretrial detention and the highest possible penalties for any citizen or foreigner engaged in illegal arms trafficking, as well as any foreigner violating Mexico’s s sovereignty.

“What we want to make clear in the face of this designation is that we do not negotiate sovereignty,” Sheinbaum said.

“This cannot be an opportunity on the part of the United States to invade our sovereignty.”

”So, they can name it whatever they want, but with Mexico, it is collaboration and coordination, never subordination, not interference, and much less invasion.”

The decision comes after the U.S. State Department on Thursday upgraded the designation of cartels, including Mexico’s Sinaloa and Jalisco Nueva Generación.

Together, those two cartels control the majority of Mexico’s fentanyl production and are responsible for importing thousands of kilograms of fentanyl across the southern border.

The designation enables the State Department to impose targeted sanctions, enhances the U.S. government’s authority to prosecute individuals aiding these groups, and strengthens intelligence-gathering for military operations.

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Pennsylvania GOP Senator Calls Marijuana Prohibition A ‘Disaster,’ Signaling Support For Treating Cannabis Like Alcohol And Tobacco

Amid growing calls for marijuana legalization in Pennsylvania, a GOP state senator says prohibition has been a “disaster,” and a regulated sales model for cannabis—similar to how alcohol and tobacco are handled—could serve as an effective alternative.

Sen. Gene Yaw (R) said both alcohol and tobacco have been “used for thousands of years,” just like marijuana. Yet only cannabis continues to be strictly criminalized.

“I don’t think marijuana is any different than these other things,” Yaw told The Standard-Journal. “We’ve regulated it and taxed it.”

The senator noted that Pennsylvania lawmakers have introduced numerous cannabis reform bills over recent sessions. And while, years ago, “I never thought I would support medical marijuana,” he said he came around on the issue and voted for it because “it has its place for some people.”

Yaw didn’t explicitly endorse any specific recreational marijuana legalization proposals that have been filed for the 2025 session, but his description of prohibition as a “disaster” indicates a willingness to advance the reform at a key time in the Pennsylvania legislature.

Voters are ready to see that policy change, according to a poll released this week.

The survey found that nearly 7 in 10 voters in the state support the reform—including a majority of Republicans. And 63 percent want to see the legislature enact the reform this year, rather than delaying it.

While Gov. Josh Shapiro (D) once again included a proposal to enact cannabis legalization in his latest budget request, there’s been mixed feedback from legislators—some of whom want to see the governor more proactively come to the table to discuss possible pathways for reform and others skeptical about the possibility of advancing the issue this session.

Senate Appropriations Committee Chair Scott Martin (R), for example, said this week that he doesn’t “see any path whatsoever” to enacting legalization in line with the governor’s plan.

At the same time, the state secretary for the Department of Revenue has predicted that Shapiro’s proposal could be passed during the current budget cycle, indicating that he feels reform could start to be implemented within months.

House Majority Leader Matt Bradford (D), meanwhile, said following the governor’s budget speech that “there is real diversity of opinions among our members,” likely referencing split perspectives on regulatory models, with some lawmakers pushing for a state-run cannabis program.

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