Tag: the war on (some) drugs

Florida Bill Would Let Medical Marijuana Patients Grow At Home And Crack Down On Hemp-Derived Cannabinoids

A Florida lawmaker has introduced legislation that would allow medical marijuana patients in the state to grow up to two cannabis plants at home while also outlawing certain hemp-derived cannabinoids.

SB 334, sponsored by Sen. Joe Gruters (R)—who endorsed last year’s ultimately unsuccessful ballot measure that would have legalized marijuana for adults 21 and older—would require that homegrown cannabis be cultivated out of public view, “including a view from another private property,” and in an “enclosed, locked space to prevent access by unauthorized persons and persons younger than 21.”

The two-plant limit would apply to a household regardless of how many qualified patients live in the residence. Violations would be a first degree criminal misdemeanor, punishable by up to a year in jail and a $1,000 fine.

The proposal would expand the rights of medical marijuana patients in Florida while at the same time trying to rein in the state’s largely unregulated hemp-derived cannabinoid market. Specifically, it would ban from hemp products the cannabinoids delta-8 THC, delta-10 THC, tetrahydrocannabinol acetate (THCA), tetrahydrocannabivarin (THCV), tetrahydrocannabiphorol (THCP) and hexahydrocannabinol (HHC).

Delta-9 THC, meanwhile—the chief psychoactive component in marijuana—would be capped at 2 milligrams per serving and 20 mg per package. Further, the bill clarifies that a product’s delta-9 THC content would be determined through a combination of delta-9 itself and THCA, which converts into delta-9 THC when heated.

The new bill would also impose certain additional restrictions on the sale and advertising of hemp extracts, for example banning street retail stalls, sales at festivals and businesses within 500 feet of a school, day care facility or other hemp business. Public advertisements would also be generally prohibited.

Gruters, a former chair of the Florida Republican Party, was a proponent of the backed legalization measure Amendment 3 last November, appearing in an ad alongside Sen. Shevrin Jones (D) to argue that the reform would be “good for Florida” despite strong pushback from Gov. Ron DeSantis (R).

Gruters and Kim Rivers—the CEO of Trulieve, a medical marijuana company that provided the bulk of funding for Amendment 3—also met with Trump ahead of his endorsement of the constitutional amendment, as well as federal rescheduling and industry banking access.

Notably, Amendment 3 would not have legalized home cultivation of marijuana—a detail seized on by some critics of the industry-backed proposal.

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Cannabis Compound Discovered Inside Totally Different Plant

Scientists have discovered cannabidiol, a compound in cannabis known as CBD, in a common Brazilian plant, opening potential new avenues to produce the increasingly popular substance.

The team found CBD in the fruits and flowers of a plant known as Trema micrantha blume, a shrub which grows across much of the South American country and is often considered a weed, molecular biologist Rodrigo Moura Neto of the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro told AFP in 2023.

CBD, increasingly used by some to treat conditions including epilepsy, chronic pain and anxiety, is one of the main active compounds in cannabis, along with tetrahydrocannabinol, or THC – the substance that makes users feel high.

The compound’s effectiveness as a medical treatment is still under research.

Neto said chemical analysis had found “Trema” contains CBD but not THC, raising the possibility of an abundant new source of the former – one that would not face the legal and regulatory hurdles of cannabis, which continues to be outlawed in many places, including Brazil.

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In 2024, 11 states surpassed $1 billion in legal marijuana sales.

Collectively, these states accounted for a large majority of the $23.2 billion sold across the 21 states with operational recreational markets.

California led the pack with $4.2 billion in sales, followed by Michigan, which brought in $3.1 billion. Illinois ($1.8 billion) and Massachusetts ($1.75 billion) also contributed significantly to the billion-dollar club. Other high-performing states included Colorado ($1.35 billion), Missouri ($1.36 billion), and Arizona ($1.21 billion).

Maryland, Washington, and New Jersey each reported $1.1 billion in revenue. Meanwhile, New York, in its first full year of sales, reached $1 billion, demonstrating its potential to eventually become one of the largest marijuana markets in the nation.

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NY coffers hit new high from marijuana tax receipts: ‘It’s extraordinary’

New York’s coffers are starting to get a financial high from marijuana sales after a slow start.

The Empire State is expected to generate $161.8 million in tax revenues from its legal weed business for the fiscal year ending March 31 — or four times what it raked in last year.

Gov. Kathy Hochul’s budget released last week also projects generating $248 million in revenue from the state-licensed cannabis industry for the next fiscal year running from April 1 to March 31, 2026.

That’s a lot of green — up from $43.3 million raised in 2022-2023 amid a fitful rollout of the program.

State budget officials predict the revenues will then grow to $339 million in FY 2027, $363 million in 2028 and $374 million by 2029, based on expansion of the legal market.

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Elizabeth Warren Pushes Elon Musk To Cut Federal Marijuana Enforcement Through New DOGE Agency

Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) is urging Elon Musk, chair of the Trump administration’s newly formed Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), to target “unnecessary” federal enforcement against marijuana consumers and businesses as a key way to reduce spending by the federal government.

In a letter sent to Musk on Thursday, Warren laid out a series of recommendations for DOGE that she said would translate into upwards of $2 trillion in savings over the next decade. One of those recommendations concerned the federal government’s spending on cannabis enforcement.

“The United States could save hundreds of millions of dollars each year by reducing wasteful spending on unnecessary federal enforcement actions and detention,” Warren wrote. “For example, almost half of states have legalized recreational marijuana, yet federal arrests for marijuana possession account for roughly a quarter of all drug possession arrests, even though federal sentences for marijuana possession are rare.”

The senator also pointed out that “the Drug Enforcement Administration [DEA] and Customs and Border Patrol [CBP] continue to raid marijuana businesses and seize marijuana plants, including in states where marijuana is legal.”

“These arrests and seizures unnecessarily drain federal resources,” Warren said.

Warren cited reporting from Marijuana Moment and other outlets on DEA’s ongoing cannabis seizures, with the agency reporting that it eradicated more than 5.7 million marijuana plants in 2022, for example.

However, DEA has faced more recent criticism after failing to release updated annual data on marijuana-related arrests and seizures in 2024 as it has done in prior years.

With respect to CBP, the agency recently implored a federal court to dismiss a lawsuit from licensed New Mexico marijuana businesses that claimed the agencies have been unconstitutionally seizing state-regulated marijuana products and detaining industry workers at interior checkpoints.

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Trump’s New DEA Head Says Marijuana Is A ‘Gateway Drug’ That Causes Psychosis And Other Mental Health Problems

The official named to run the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) as acting administrator subscribes to the “gateway drug” theory for marijuana and believes most people living in states that have legalized cannabis will continue to obtain it from illicit sources such as cartels due to high taxes in regulated markets.

As the Trump administration takes shape, marijuana reform advocates and stakeholders are getting to learn more about the newly announced acting administrator, Derek Maltz. And so far, a review of his record has done little to assure the cannabis community that he would serve as an ally in the push for reform at DEA.

Maltz, who retired from the agency in 2014 after 28 years of service, has made a series of sensational comments about cannabis—at one point linking marijuana use to school shootings, for example. But he evidently also holds a more common prohibitionist position: He thinks cannabis is a gateway to harder drugs, despite numerous studies contradicting that theory.

“Marijuana is not the marijuana from the 70s or the 80s or the 90s. This is higher, pure-THC marijuana,” he said during an interview with NTD at a Turning Point USA event last year. “I’ve talked to doctors about this. It’s actually causing psychosis, schizophrenia, depression, anxiety—so it’s really a gateway drug for these kids that don’t know any better.”

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J&J’s ketamine-derived nasal spray approved by FDA to treat depression

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved Johnson & Johnson’s ketamine-derived nasal spray to help millions of U.S. patients suffering from severe depression.

Spravato, approved as a standalone treatment, is “the first and only monotherapy for adults living with major depressive disorder who have had an inadequate response to at least two oral antidepressants,” the pharmaceutical giant said Tuesday. 

An estimated 21 million adults in the U.S. are living with major depressive disorder, one of the most common psychiatric disorders, but one-third of them will not respond to oral antidepressants alone, hindering their quality of life, according to Johnson & Johnson. 

“Treatment-resistant depression can be very complicated, especially for patients who do not respond to oral antidepressants or cannot tolerate them. For too long, healthcare providers have had few options to offer patients much-needed symptom improvement,” Bill Martin, global therapeutic area head of Neuroscience at Johnson & Johnson Innovative Medicine, said in a statement. 

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More American Adults Use Cannabis As A Sleep Aid Than Choose Prescription Pills Or Alcohol To Fall Asleep, Poll Shows

About 16 percent of Americans aged 21 and older say they use cannabis as a sleep aid, according to a new industry-backed survey. That makes marijuana more popular for sleep than prescription sleep aids (12 percent) or alcohol (11 percent), but still not quite as common as using supplements (26 percent) or over-the-counter sleep aids (19 percent).

Overall, nearly 8 in 10 U.S. adults (79 percent) said something keeps them up at night, according to the new poll, conducted by The Harris Poll on behalf of cannabis the company Green Thumb Industries and its “incredibles” line of edibles. Fifty-eight percent, meanwhile, reported consuming at least one substance to help them sleep.

The survey included both “cannabis” and “CBD-only or CBD + melatonin products” as possible selections for participants, who could pick multiple responses. Sixteen percent said they inhale or ingest cannabis—which could refer either to marijuana or hemp products—while 10 percent said they used CBD either alone or with melatonin.

The online survey polled 2,019 U.S. adults ages 21 and older in early June 2024, and the results were released this month. It has a margin of error of ±2.5 percentage points.

Men were more likely than women to say they used cannabis (18 percent versus 15 percent, respectively) or CBD products (11 percent versus 8 percent) for sleep. Among women, people between ages 21 and 34 were most likely to use cannabis as a sleep aid, with older age groups considerably less likely. Among men, by contrast, the 35-to-44 age group was most likely to report using cannabis for sleep.

Lower-income people, with household incomes of below $50,000, were the most likely income level to report using cannabis for sleep (23 percent), with people in higher-income households reporting higher use of supplements and over-the-counter sleep aids.

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President Donald Trump Pardons Silk Road Founder Ross Ulbricht

President Donald Trump, fulfilling a promise made at the Libertarian Party’s National Convention in May, pardoned Ross Ulbricht today. Ulbricht had been serving a life sentence for his role in founding and operating the dark web marketplace Silk Road.

As Trump put it in a Truth Social post: “in honor of [his mother Lyn Ulbricht], and the Libertarian Movement, which supported me so strongly, it was my pleasure to have just signed a full and unconditional pardon of her son, Ross.” He said “the scum that worked to convict him were some of the same lunatics who were involved in the modern-day weaponization of government against me.”

As I reported on his sentencing in May 2015 (he has been in prison since his October 2013 arrest):

Ross Ulbricht was sentenced to life in prison with no parole…by Judge Katherine Forrest in U.S. District Court for the southern district of New York. Ulbricht was convicted back in February on seven charges, all related to the operation of the darkwebsite called Silk Road, which used Tor-enabled anonymity and the cryptocurrency bitcoin to allow people to buy and sell often illegal items in safety and security, with the site providing an escrow service between buyer and seller to ensure both were satisfied.

Ulbricht was a clever entrepreneur, enthralled by libertarian ideas derived from the likes of Murray Rothbard and Samuel Konkin about the richness and justice of truly free markets not hobbled by government threats.

The charges were: “narcotics trafficking; distribution of narcotics by means of the Internet; narcotics trafficking conspiracy; continuing criminal enterprise; conspiracy to aid and abet computer hacking; conspiracy to traffic in fraudulent identity documents; and money laundering conspiracy.”

None of the charges were related to either personally selling an illegal substance to anyone—Ulbricht merely ran a website that facilitated it—and none were related to causing direct harm to anyone’s life or property.

Given the amazing water-muddying the prosecution achieved by talking about, but never trying Ulbricht for or proving in court beyond a reasonable doubt, allegedly planned, but never executed, murders for hire, one wonders whether the judge allowed any thoughts of those rumors, even subconsciously, to shape her sentencing decision.

Silk Road’s innovative mail order using bitcoin, combined with user reviews of sellers, imposed some real market discipline on dealers, kept buyers from the occasional dangers of physically obtaining drugs, and allowed people not violating others’ lives and property to buy and sell drugs with less (but not zero) legal risk.

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Trump expected to commute Silk Road founder Ross Ulbricht’s life sentence

President Trump is expected to commute the lifetime prison sentence of Ross Ulbricht, founder of the notorious dark web site Silk Road, The Post has learned.

A source close to the White House said at midday Tuesday that the Ulbricht pardon was “incoming.”

Brandon Sample, Ulbricht’s clemency lawyer, told The Post in an email Tuesday: “We do expect President Trump to grant clemency.”

In response to a follow-up asking when he expected the order to come through, Sample responded: “The president, when a candidate, said that he would release Ross on his first day in office. We have no doubt the president will follow through on his commitment to release Ross. Ross, his family, and all his supporters are forever grateful to President Trump for his willingness to show mercy to Ross.”

Trump, 78, had vowed in May to reduce Ulbricht’s life sentence on charges of drug trafficking and money laundering “down to time served” if he won the 2024 election.

Ulbricht was arrested in October 2013 in San Francisco and accused of running the notorious website — which sold drugs and other illegal products while accepting bitcoin as payment — under the pseudonym “Dread Pirate Roberts.”

Now 40, Ulbricht was convicted in February 2015 on charges including drug trafficking and conspiracies to commit money laundering and computer hacking. He was sentenced that May to two life terms in prison, plus 40 years.

Ulbricht has unsuccessfully appealed his conviction and sentence up to the Supreme Court, leaving him to serve out his time at a maximum security prison in Arizona.

On Tuesday, Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) sent a letter to Trump asking him to show mercy. “I write to urge you to follow through on your stated intention to commute the sentence of Ross Ulbricht. Mr. Ulbricht is serving two life sentences plus forty years without parole for nonviolent offenses related to the website he launched in early 2011,” Paul’s letter read. 

“Like so many others, I am shocked by the harsh sentence imposed on this first-time offender.”

Paul argued that Ulbricht’s sentence is “vastly disproportionate to his crimes,” since “the worst drug sellers on the site received significantly more lenient sentences.”

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