Tag: the war on (some) drugs

New Mexico Governor Signs Bill To Create Psilocybin Therapy Program, Legalizing Medical Use Of The Psychedelic

New Mexico’s governor has signed a bill into law to establish a therapeutic psilocybin program in the state.

Weeks after the proposal from Sen. Jeff Steinborn (D) advanced through the legislature, Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham (D) gave it final approval on Monday.

The Medical Psilocybin Act will allow patients with certain qualifying conditions to access the psychedelic and use it under the guidance of a licensed healthcare provider.

The measure says the purpose “is to allow the beneficial use of psilocybin in a regulated system for alleviating qualified medical conditions,” including major treatment-resistant depression, PTSD, substance use disorders and end-of-life care. The state Department of Health would be able to approve additional conditions.

Under the newly signed legislation, psilocybin therapy will consist of a preparation session, an administration session and a follow-up integration session.

The state health department will be responsible for establishing guidelines around training for clinicians and producers, including dosage, approved settings for administration, production and storage protocols and other best practices. State officials will also license producers to grow mushrooms and process psilocybin.

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Psychiatric Abuse & Experimentation with Cocktail of Psych Drugs Fueled TN Covenant School Massacre

Just believe us. Nobody but the shooter is responsible. Informed consent means nothing in Tennessee, and the Nashville Metropolitan Police Department (NMPD) takes its orders from the parents of the shooter.

That is what the public is left with from the final report on the March 27, 2023, Covenant Presbyterian Church and School shooting.

Frankly, the two years in the making NMPD report appears to be a pathetic and insulting attempt to cover up the true reason behind the deadly attack.

After reading the 48-page report on Audrey Hale’s murderous assault on the school it is impossible to believe that the NMPD was unable to obtain mental health evidence because “Hale’s parents no longer had confidence in the ability of the NMPD to safeguard this information.”

Apparently, Hale’s parents only gave up the mental health records to the NMDP on the strict condition that the NMDP keep the records confidential and never make them public.

Really? Six innocent people are dead, and the parents of the killer are dictating to law enforcement what evidence will and will not be made available? How does that work? Seriously. When did the parents of killers become the arbiters of evidence?

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North Dakota Senate Committee Rejects Bill To Expand Marijuana Decriminalization That Had Already Passed House

A North Dakota Senate committee has defeated a House-passed bill that sought to reduce the state penalty for low-level marijuana possession to a $150 civil fine.

The Senate Judiciary Committee on Monday voted 5–2 to reject the bill, HB 1596, from Rep. Liz Conmy (D). While the proposal had support from county prosecutors and defense attorneys in the state, police and sheriffs departments were broadly opposed.

“The voters have spoken on this issue,” Stephanie Ingebretsen, who testified on behalf of the Chiefs of Police Association of North Dakota. “They’re not interested in legalization and would like it to stay a criminal offense.”

While North Dakota in 2019 enacted what advocacy groups refer to as a marijuana decriminalization law that removed the risk of jail time for possessing under a half-ounce of cannabis, possession nevertheless remains a criminal infraction and carries a fine of up to $1,000.

While voters have not weighed in on decriminalization itself, last year they rejected an adult-use legalization ballot initiative that would have created a commercial cannabis market. Voters also rejected an earlier legalization proposal at the ballot box in 2022.

The newly rejected bill, HB 1596, would have made simple possession of up to half an ounce of marijuana a civil citation. That change would remove the need for courtroom appearances, which proponents said would help decongest the state’s clogged court system and free up prosecutorial resources for more pressing concerns.

“To give you an idea of the magnitude of time, energy and resources extended,” sponsor Conmy told colleagues, “between January 1, 2021 and December 31, 2024—four years in North Dakota—there were 8,676 marijuana charges, 7,365 cases opened, 17,000 hearings, 2,357 cases with a public defender appointed. And all of these cases were handled by our state’s attorneys.”

More than 90 percent of cases involved possession of less than half an ounce of marijuana, she said.

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Pennsylvania Lawmakers File Bill To Help Small Farmers Enter Marijuana Industry If The State Enacts Legalization

Pennsylvania Democratic lawmakers have introduced a bill that would allow farmers and other small agriculture operators to sell marijuana they cultivate to existing growers and and processors if the state moves to legalize adult-use cannabis.

As the legislature once again takes up the issue of marijuana legalization, Rep, Melissa Shusterman (D) and five colleagues filed the legislation on Thursday in a bid to ensure that the industry is inclusive to small farmers, creating a permitting process so they’re able to make inroads with larger operators.

“As more and more states legalize adult-use cannabis, it is only a matter of time before Pennsylvania does the same,” Shusterman said in a cosponsorship memo. “When adult-use cannabis is finally legalized in Pennsylvania, it is my belief that everyone should have accessible and equitable entry into the adult-use cannabis industry, including farmers and small enterprises.”

“Enabling local cultivation would allow Pennsylvania farmers and their communities to benefit from the legalization of adult-use cannabis. Moreover, this legislation would protect participation in the industry by farmers in the Commonwealth,” she said. “The legalization process must ensure PA’s farmers have fair access to this new market so that sales revenue and profits remain in PA.”

Whether the Pennsylvania legislature does legalize marijuana this session remains to be seen, with mixed opinions among Democratic and Republican leadership about the prospects of reform. Gov. Josh Shapiro (D) also included the policy change in his latest budget request.

But if prohibition is ended, the new bill would take a number of steps to provide for equitable access to industry participation.

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Canada’s Retail Marijuana Expansion Came With Only Modest Increases To Use, New Study Shows

Ever since recreational cannabis was legalized across Canada in 2018, researchers have been studying what that decision changed for Canadians.

We’ve learned, for example, that some patients immediately left the medical cannabis system, presumably to use recreational products instead. Conversely, legalization appeared to have no effect on Canadian alcohol sales.

We’ve similarly seen how cannabis retailing has evolved since it became legal.

Retailers suffered from product shortages during legalization’s first six months, but steadily expanded soon after. Canada went from having some 210 stores in April 2019 to 3,500 in April 2023. The ensuing competition pushed prices down 28 percent during that period.

Meanwhile, provincial governments have tried various regulatory approaches. Some initially restricted the number of stores to avoid tempting non-users. Québec still has 10 times fewer stores per capita than Ontario does as a result. Other provinces have set minimum prices to discourage people from overindulging. For example, Ontario won’t let wholesale prices drop below $2.28 per gram.

These developments in business and government policy prompted my latest research. I wanted to understand what effect retail expansion had on cannabis use. To do this, I analyzed consumer responses on government surveys collected between 2019 to 2023. I then compared these responses to the recreational cannabis consumer price index and the numbers of licensed stores in each province.

Did Canadians consume cannabis more widely, more frequently and at younger ages as it became more accessible and affordable? The answer was mostly no.

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Zelensky’s Troops Injected With Various Party Drugs to ‘Promote Battle Readiness’

Facing a shortage of soldiers and the ravages of war, Ukraine has turned to the animal tranquilizer-turned party drug ketamine, the rave-scene classic MDMA and the lesser known hippy hallucinogen ibogaine to ‘promote battle readiness’. Perhaps more importantly however, by keeping its population comfortably drugged, the soldiers and citizens of Ukraine would, assumably, be less apt to protest the continuation of the war. Instead, they are likely to be satiated by the chemical-induced “Valhalla,” as one drugged Ukrainian solider recently described it.

Fascinatingly, during the Joe Biden administration, the United States Department of Defense (formerly Department of War) funded a study which allowed for the injection of ketamine or fentanyl into non-consenting Americans following a traumatic accident, like a car crash. It enrolled unconscious Americans into forced medical experiments regardless of their willingness to participate. The goal was to further develop treatment modalities for battlefield medical operations, specifically the practice of drugging soldiers and finding out if they develop a drug addiction later. The direct link between the U.S. and Ukrainian militaries became deeply intertwined during the Biden-era, as was exposed by Alex Jones in 2022 and eventually The New York Times in 2025.

The proposal to use wartime Ukraine as a testbed for psychedelic drug abuse was made by Dmytro Gurin, a member of the parliament in Kiev. Gurin is a member of the Servant of the People political party, the same party that the country’s Dictator Vladimir Zelensky is part of. Gurin is also a member of the country’s health committee. Gurin wanted MDMA (the primary drug within ecstasy, a mainstay of the electronic dance music scene) to be administered as a first-line treatment for war-related issues, not as a last-ditch effort to treat soldiers woes.

“He’d like E.U. financial support for Ukraine to develop a nationwide clinical trial to test MDMA-assisted therapy as a first treatment for trauma, rather than as a last resort, as is normally recommended,” Politico said in 2023.

While a drugged military may be a happy military, it may also be a productive military. By reducing trauma from the war via drug abuse, Kiev’s armed forces can make the most out of what manpower they have remaining. Ukraine’s military has been facing staffing shortages since soon after the war began. Conscription teams scour the country abducting young men.

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Congressional Committee Invites Hemp Industry Expert To Testify At Hearing On How FDA ‘Failed’ To Regulate Products

A congressional committee has scheduled a hearing for next week focused on the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), inviting a hemp industry representative to testify on how the agency “failed” to approve certain products such as CBD.

The House Oversight Committee hearing—titled “Restoring Trust in FDA: Rooting Out Illicit Products”—is set to take place on Wednesday.

FDA “failed to approve products and take necessary enforcement actions resulting in a flood of illicit and counterfeit products entering the country,” a memo on the hearing says.

The meeting won’t exclusively focus on cannabis issues. But among the four listed witnesses selected to testify is Jonathan Miller of the U.S. Hemp Roundtable, an organization that has long criticized FDA’s inaction on CBD and other cannabinoid regulations since the crop was federally legalized under the 2018 Farm Bill.

Miller told Marijuana Moment on Friday that he expects the hearing to be “wide-ranging,” but his testimony will concentrate on “all the challenges the hemp industry has been having by the FDA’s failure to regulate our products.”

He said that his testimony will serve as an “update” on issues he outlined during a 2023 hearing before a subcommittee of the full panel, where lawmakers raised concerns about FDA’s refusal to establish rules allowing for the marketing of federally legal hemp as a food item or dietary supplement.

In the two years since that initial meeting, the hemp market has faced repeated regulatory challenges—with a growing number of states moving to enact bans on certain hemp products due to the lack of regulations around intoxicating cannabinoids such as delta-8 THC that have become widely available.

“Nothing has happened at the FDA” to resolve the issue, Miller said. “And we think these ban efforts have a lot to do with the fact that we’re not regulated. So if we can get regulated, hopefully people will drop the efforts to ban our products.”

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New Delaware Marijuana Bill Addresses Dispute With FBI That Has Threatened To Delay State’s Recreational Market

Delaware lawmakers have filed legislation meant to fix an issue with the state’s marijuana legalization law that led FBI to reject its request to create a fingerprint background check system for would-be cannabis industry workers.

Rep. Ed Osienski (D) and Sen. Trey Paradee (D), who championed the legalization bills that were enacted into law in 2023, said on Thursday that FBI’s decision to deny the state’s request for a background check service code is a “disappointing setback,” but they’re hopeful that their new proposal will address the problem.

While state regulators have been planning to license the first recreational cannabis businesses in April, the enacted statute requires the background checks to be in place first. Without a legislative fix, the market launch will likely be delayed.

“I know this is a disappointing setback, especially for the entrepreneurs who have invested so much and the consumers who have been anxiously waiting for legal access,” Osienski said in a press release. “But I’m optimistic that this bill will provide the necessary fix to get Delaware’s adult-use cannabis market back on track.”

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Florida Lawmakers Vote To Exempt Military Veterans From Medical Marijuana Registration Fees

A newly amended Florida bill would allow military veterans to skip the state registration fee for medical marijuana cards and obtain the certifications for free.

The bill, HB 555, was filed in February by Rep. Alex Andrade (R) and originally would have made more significant changes to the state’s existing medical cannabis program, for example allowing home cultivation as well as reciprocity for out-of-state patients. But on Thursday, the House Health Professions and Programs Subcommittee advanced a two-page substitute bill that instead would make only small changes to the program.

First, the measure would change how often patients need to renew their medical marijuana cards, from the current annual process to once every two years.

Second, it would also waive the $75 registration and renewal fees for veterans, specifying that the state “may not charge a fee for the issuance, replacement, or renewal of an identification card for a qualified patient who is a veteran.”

Veterans would need to include their discharge form (DD 214) along with their applications.

“It certainly does help in the medical marijuana space, and it certainly helps veterans,” Rep. Michelle Salzman (R) said at Thursday’s hearing, according to a report by Action News Jax.

Jodi James, with the Florida Cannabis Action Network, told the publication that the group is “really excited about making medicine more available to people on a fixed income, and particularly our veterans.”

Rep. Lavon Bracy Davis (D) told Florida Politics: “I love this bill.”

If HB 555 becomes law, the changes would take effect July 1.

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CIA Flying Drones Over Mexico – Where Are The Spies?

Multiple news outlets are reporting that the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) is flying drones over Mexico to collect intelligence on drug cartels and fentanyl labs. Leaving aside for a moment the question of why the much bigger Department of Defense is not doing this, here are my questions. Where are our spies? Why are we reduced to taking pictures from the air to attempt to acquire intelligence on transnational terrorist organizations operating inside Mexico and, in fact, in our largest cities? Why don’t we have the cartels penetrated at every level by human sources?

It is the job of the CIA to crawl into the belly of the beast and obtain critical intelligence on the most serious threats facing this nation. It does not exist to produce lukewarm assessments saying that we have moderate confidence that North Korea remains to the north of South Korea. It exists to steal the crown jewels, to put on the desk of the President of the United States every day intelligence no one else on the planet has, and which gives the President a decisive advantage over our adversaries.

In its current incarnation, the CIA does not do that. It does not come close. It has superb personnel in most cases. Relative to its competitors it is awash in money and technical gear. It has however calcified over the years into a timid, risk-averse, bureaucracy run by people who rarely leave Northern Virginia and never met a PowerPoint presentation they didn’t like.

We were blindsided on 9/11 by a group that had been telling us about every five minutes for at least a decade they intended to attack us on our own soil. It took us ten years thereafter to track down Bin Laden principally because he had the good sense to stay off the internet and his cellphone, and we didn’t have any sources worthy of the name inside his organization.

In 2020 we were hit by a pandemic that almost certainly originated inside a Chinese bio lab that should have been at the very top of our list of collection requirements. We had no advance warning. Five years later we apparently still don’t have the intel we need to figure out what happened or if it is about to happen again.

Is DEI part of the problem? Yes, but the problem goes much deeper than that. We are attempting to conduct espionage using a bureaucracy that increasingly resembles the Social Security Administration.

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