Tag: the war on (some) drugs

Tennessee Officials Will Pay $735,000 To Settle Lawsuit Over Seizure Of Legal Hemp Products

The state of Tennessee and the city of Spring Hill will jointly pay two businesses $735,000 to settle a lawsuit alleging state and local law enforcement wrongfully seized 231 pounds of legal hemp products earlier this year, according to a statement from an attorney representing the businesses.

The settlement follows the Spring Hill police department’s seizure of legal hemp products from Old School Vapor and SAK Wholesale in Columbia, Tennessee last May.

Days later, the businesses filed a federal suit seeking the return of products they said were valued at $1.35 million. The lawsuit named Spring Hill Police Chief Don Brit and 11 other officers and employees of the local district attorney’s office, including District Attorney Brent Cooper, whom—the lawsuit claims—articulated the position that legal hemp was “the same damn thing” as marijuana.

Hemp is distinguished from marijuana under federal and state law based on the concentration of a compound known as delta-9 THC. Hemp products with a concentration of less than .3 percent delta-9 THC are legal to sell, buy and consume in Tennessee—and federally. Cannabis with concentrations greater than .3 percent is classified as marijuana and is illegal in Tennessee.

The appearance of hemp flowers and marijuana are virtually indistinguishable, requiring laboratory testing to differentiate legal from illegal substances.

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Migrant Charged with Murder for Lighting Sleeping Woman on Fire Chain Smoked Synthetic Drug, Shelter Roommate Claims

The Guatemalan migrant who shocked the world by lighting a sleeping woman on fire in a New York City subway chained smoked the synthetic drug K2, according to his homeless shelter roommate.

Sebastian Zapeta, 33, was arrested on Sunday after being spotted by high school students on the subway. He has been charged with first and second-degree murder, as well as arson.

Raymond Robinson, who slept next to Zapeta at the shelter, told the New York Post that the migrant was a heavy drinker who “bugged out” when smoking the K2.

“He said, ‘I’m going out to make my normal run,’ then the next thing I hear what he did on the news,” said Robinson.

Robinson said the accused murderer smoked about $30 worth of the drug per day.

“He smoked K2, drank and bugged out,” Robinson said. “He would bug out and talk to himself when he was high, but he never harmed nobody or himself. When he wasn’t high he’d talk like we’re talking regular.”

Zapeta told police that he was so drunk that he does not remember lighting the woman on fire.

“The migrants mainly get up in the morning, leave and come back drunk,” Robinson said. “He would come back drunk most days.”

The woman was asleep on the train as she was lit on fire by the suspect at the Coney Island-Stillwell Avenue subway station around 7:30 a.m. on Sunday.

As she was engulfed in flames, Zapeta sat calmly on a bench and watched as she died.

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Legalizing Marijuana Led To ‘Immediate Decline’ In Opioid Overdose Deaths In U.S. States, New Research Concludes

A newly published paper examining the effects of adult-use marijuana legalization on opioid overdose deaths says there’s a “consistent negative relationship” between legalization and fatal overdoses, with more significant effects in states that legalized cannabis earlier in the opioid crisis.

Authors of the new analysis, published to the preprint repository Social Science Research Network (SSRN), estimated that recreational marijuana legalization (RML) “is associated with a decrease of approximately 3.5 deaths per 100,000 individuals.”

“Our findings suggest that broadening recreational marijuana access could help address the opioid epidemic,” the report says. “Previous research largely indicates that marijuana (primarily for medical use) can reduce opioid prescriptions, and we find it may also successfully reduce overdose deaths.”

“Further, this effect increases with earlier implementation of RML,” authors wrote, “indicating this relationship is relatively consistent over time.”

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Trump-Era Official Blasts Canada Over Fentanyl Super Labs & Transnational Crime Gangs 

President-elect Donald Trump’s threat to impose a sweeping 25% tariff on all goods and services from Canada, aimed at pressuring the neighbors to the north to curb cross-border fentanyl and human smuggling, has thrown Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s government into a state of turmoil. 

Trade between Canada and the US is the largest of any two nations, with cross-border trade totaling $926 billion in 2023—roughly $2.5 billion daily. This dark tariff reality for Trudeau of not responding adequately to Trump’s border security demand risks pushing Canada into an economic crisis. 

In response, the Canadian government unveiled a new border security plan on Wednseday, costing about a billion dollars to strengthen border security with the US. 

“President Trump is securing the border and he hasn’t even taken office yet,” Trump’s transition team wrote in a news release, adding, “Facing an uproar among his own citizens … embattled Prime Minister Justin Trudeau just announced a billion-dollar plan for major border security improvements and increased border patrols.” 

The new border proposal outlines the deployment of drones, helicopters, and other advanced technologies along the 5,525-mile northern border.

Despite Wednesday’s announcement, calls for Trudeau’s resignation continue to mount, while his approval ratings implode. The longer far-left Trudeau remains in power, the more his popularity will erode, with citizens frustrated by his years of incompetence.  

David Asher, who previously led a Trump-era task force on fentanyl, commented on the border proposal. He appeared on CBC News Network earlier this week to share his insights.

Asher told the CBC News host that the new border proposal “looks rather unimpressive” and is a “drop in the bucket compared to what we actually need.” 

Asher then segued the conversation, stating that his “concerns go well beyond the border,” highlighting the expansion of fentanyl superlab production across Canada—much of which is destined for the US.

“US law enforcement has a lot of sources telling us – that not only the Mexican cartels are setting up operations in Canada – but also Chinese organized crime – and even Iranian organized crime…” 

He stated that all three organizations were tied into a massive bust in Vancouver of drugs and chemicals equal to more than 95 million pills. 

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Top Indiana GOP Lawmakers Oppose Medical Marijuana Even As Incoming Republican Governor Says It’s Time To Legalize

On the heels of a survey showing nearly 9 in 10 Indiana adults support legalizing medical marijuana—and comments from Gov.-elect Michael Braun (R) that “it’s probably time” to allow access to therapeutic cannabis—Republican leaders in the state legislature are pushing back on the idea.

“It’s no secret that I am not for this,” Senate President Pro Tem Rodric Bray (R) said during a panel at a law firm event in Indianapolis on Wednesday. “I don’t have people coming to me with really compelling medical cases as to why it’s so beneficial. And any state that I’ve seen pass medical marijuana is essentially passing recreational marijuana.”

House Speaker Todd Huston (R), meanwhile, doubted any medical benefits associated with marijuana, calling the substance “a deterrent to mental health.” He and others suggested that lawmakers supportive of the reform merely want to boost state revenue.

“I don’t believe public policy should ever be built based off revenue,” Huston said. “On any public policy, I don’t think you should chase revenue.”

Bray, who said he has yet to hear a compelling case where medical marijuana has been beneficial, said that “the idea of passing a policy simply because of the revenue that it would generate is something that I inherently, completely disagree with.”

“If it’s a good policy, then do it,” he added, “and revenue may come from that. But the idea of doing it because of the amount of revenue [it would generate] is really, really bad policy in my perspective.”

One Democrat on the panel, Senate Minority Leader Greg Taylor, said that he believes Indiana is falling behind other nearby states that have already legalized medical marijuana. Republican panelists disagreed.

“I’m not sure we’re behind,” Huston shot back. “If we are behind on having fewer people using an addictive substance, I don’t know, I’m OK with that.”

The comments, made at the annual Dentons Legislative Conference, were first reported by State Affairs.

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States Collected More Than $9.7 Billion In Marijuana Tax Revenue Since Mid-2021, Federal Census Bureau Reports

U.S. states where cannabis is legal have raked in more than $9.7 billion in marijuana tax revenue since the middle of 2021, according to newly updated federal data from the Census Bureau—that’s up nearly $1 billion since the agency last updated its cannabis revenue tracker in September.

During the third quarter of 2024—the most recent period for which data is available—states reported about $734.8 million in total marijuana tax revenue to the federal agency.

The new data, however, also revises upward figures from other recent quarters, adding up to a billion-dollar growth in reported state revenue in the last three months. The second quarter of this year, for example, saw an update from $609.9 million to $840.4 million—a new quarterly record, according to the agency’s tracking.

Individual states reporting the highest dollar amounts during Q3 of 2024 were adult-use jurisdictions with more established markets and larger populations: California ($159.6 million), Michigan ($79.3 million), Washington State ($77.3 million) and Illinois ($72.8 million).

Among the lowest were more restrictive states like Louisiana ($284,000) and Mississippi ($385,000) as well as Washington, D.C., where marijuana is legal for adults but sales of non-medical cannabis remain illegal.

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The Day the Pope Met a Psychedelic Evangelist

The pope met an emissary from the psychedelic world at a “holy meeting” at the Vatican, where a Jesuit lawyer named Brian Muraresku presented Pope Francis with a manifesto for a psychedelic “New Reformation.”

Popes and reformations do not historically get along, but Francis accepted a copy of Muraresku’s 2020 book The Immortality Key at the meeting, which took place in late 2021 or early 2022. The book argues that psychedelics might rescue a “dying faith” and save Western civilization.

Though the science journalist Michael Pollan has called it “groundbreaking,” The Immortality Key is largely a rehash of others’ work shaped into a dubious Da Vinci Code–style thriller. Trade publishers would otherwise have little interest in a 400-page goose chase for what intoxicants the oracles and prophets might have been smoking or sipping, and so the book begins with a message for today. Western civilization, Muraresku argues, is in the grip of a cataclysmic “spiritual crisis” that can be remedied only through a “popular outbreak of mysticism,” the result of retrieving what he says are the Eucharist’s ancient, and until now secret, pharmacological roots.

And what are those roots? Muraresku is convinced that Christianity evolved from pagan mystery cults whose most sacred ritual involved the ingestion of a psychedelic fungus—and that this sacrament, the kykeon, eventually became the Holy Eucharist.

A protégé of Graham Hancock (an Economist reporter turned conspiracy theorist who has made a fortune writing speculative bestsellers about purported lost civilizations), Muraresku has written that “about seventy-five percent would leave the FDA-approved house church permanently transformed. And ready to begin a lifelong spiritual journey that could, once again, make life livable on this planet. This should begin happening by 2030, if not sooner.”

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First Patient Dosed In Historic Study On Whether LSD Effectively Treats Anxiety

For the first time ever, researchers are administering LSD to patients in a Phase 3 clinical trial. The new study focuses on whether the psychedelic can be used to effectively treat generalized anxiety disorder (GAD).

Drugmaker MindMed says that the trial, dubbed Voyage, is eventually expected to enroll about 200 people in the U.S. and will compare the effects of its proprietary LSD product to a placebo. A second Phase 3 trial, called Panorama, will also be conducted in both the U.S. and Europe and is expected to kick off in the first half of next year.

“Today marks a pivotal moment in our journey towards advancing a novel treatment option for the 20 million people in the U.S. living with GAD,” MindMed’s chief medical officer, Daniel R. Karlin, said in a statement released on Monday. “Building on our scientifically rigorous Phase 2b study, which demonstrated efficacy that far exceeds today’s standard of care and a favorable tolerability profile, our Phase 3 studies are designed to adhere to the highest clinical and ethical standards and are in alignment with guidance from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.”

In March of this year, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) granted MindMed’s LSD product “breakthrough therapy” status as a treatment for GAD. That followed a Phase 2 trial showing that a single oral dose of LSD led to “clinically and statistically significant” reductions in anxiety scores 12 weeks after administration, with 65 percent of participants showing a clinical response and 48 percent in clinical remission following the treatment.

Breakthrough drug status is meant to recognize the therapeutic promise of an emerging substance or therapy as well as speed the research and development of treatments that fill an unmet need. MDMA and psilocybin have also previously been awarded the designation.

The new research will use dissolvable oral tablets of the drug, MM120 ODT, or lysergide D-tartrate, which MindMed describes as a “proprietary and pharmaceutically optimized form of LSD.”

The first Phase 3 study, Voyage, will last a year and consist of two parts: a 12-week randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled study to see how LSD affects anxiety symptoms. That will be followed by a 40-week extension period, during which participants can access open-label treatment with the drug based on the severity of their anxiety symptoms.

LSD has a noticeable subjective effect on sensation and cognition, which means it’s likely participants will know whether they received the psychedelic or a non-psychoactive placebo.

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DEA Calls For Increased DMT Production In 2025 To Support Development Of FDA-Approved Psychedelic Drug

The Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) is increasing the 2025 quota for the legal production of DMT in the U.S., saying it agrees with requests for the adjustment to “support legitimate research and scientific efforts” to develop a Food and Drug Administration- (FDA) approved drug based on the psychedelic.

In a notice set to be published in the Federal Register on Tuesday, DEA cited “additional quota applications and comments from DEA-registered manufacturers,” justifying the increase for the psychedelic compound.

DEA released initial quotas for the production of Schedule I and Schedule II controlled substances for research purposes in September. At the time, it called for an increase in the manufacturing of the psychedelics ibogaine, psilocybin and psilocyn, while continuing to maintain stable quotas for other substances such as marijuana, THC and MDMA.

But following a public comment period, it raised the production goal for DMT from 11,000 grams to 20,000 grams.

It’s not clear how close researchers are to developing a DMT-based drug, but several companies have indicated their intent to bring the psychedelic to market, pending regulatory approval.

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Marijuana Terpenes Relieve Post-Surgery And Fibromyalgia Pain, Study Shows

New government-funded research on terpenes produced by the cannabis plant finds that some of the aromatic compounds could be promising therapeutics to help manage pain from fibromyalgia or during recovery from an operation.

The study, published this month in the journal Pharmacological Reports, involved administering four separate terpenes—geraniol, linalool, beta-caryophyllene and alpha-humulene—to mice that either underwent paw-incision surgery or had lab-induced fibromyalgia symptoms. Researchers then measured their “mechanical sensitivity” over the course of three hours to evaluate the terpenes’ possible effects on pain.

“These results demonstrate that the terpenes geraniol, linalool, β-caryophyllene, and α-humulene may be a viable medication for post-operative and fibromyalgia pain relief,” says the report, which was funded by a grant from the National Institutes of Health (NIH).

As for post-operative pain, each of the four studied terpenes “increased mechanical threshold significantly in comparison to the mice treated with the vehicle,” according to the research, referring to a solution without any terpenes that’s been previously shown not to have any pain-relieving effect. “Taken together, the data suggests that all 4 terpenes are efficacious in relieving post-surgical pain.”

All four terpenes also increased mechanical sensitivity in mice with fibromyalgia-like symptoms compared to mice treated with the vehicle alone, at least for some time points measured. Differences in mice treated with geraniol and linalool were statistically significant, while sensitivity in the mice treated with the other two terpenes was “elevated over vehicle but not statistically significant,” according to the report.

“These observations suggest that these four terpenes are also efficacious in a fibromyalgia pain model,” it says.

“This work further strengthens the case for the translational potential of Cannabis and its individual components to determine if they could be effective in relieving post-operative and fibromyalgia pain in patients while causing more tolerable side effects than current standard medications for these ailments.”

The current study, noted authors at the University of Arizona’s pharmacology department and Center for Pain and Addiction, is a continuation of their past research into the same four terpenes to treat other types of pain.

“Previously, we found the terpenes…to be effective in relieving CIPN [chemotherapy-induced peripheral neuropathy] and inflammatory pain in mice,” they wrote in the new report. “Their efficacy in other pain models, such as post-operative and fibromyalgia pain, had not yet been defined.”

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