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"Prohibiting these products doesn't eliminate consumers’ demand for them. Rather, it encourages consumers to seek them out from the unregulated market -- thereby undermining the primary goal of legalization, which is to provide consumers with safe, above-ground access to lab-tested products of known purity, potency, and quality."

The post Colorado: Lawmakers Shelve Proposal To Impose Ten Percent THC Potency Cap on Adult-Use Cannabis Products appeared first on NORML.

By a nearly 3 to 1 margin, survey respondents agreed that regular alcohol use is “more harmful to a person’s health” than the regular use of cannabis.

The post Survey: Adults Say Alcohol Poses Greater Risks to Health Than Marijuana appeared first on NORML.

"State lawmakers are well aware that their 'reefer madness' views are out of step with most Idahoans. That is why they are seeking to remove voters from the equation."

The post Idaho: Lawmakers Advance Resolution Eliminating Voters’ Ability To Legalize Marijuana by Ballot Initiative appeared first on NORML.

WARNING: Legal cannabis is under attack across the US!

The post It’s Time for Cannabis Consumers To Stand Up appeared first on NORML.

"The individuals who are continuing to be opposed are absolutely disregarding the fact that 71 percent of people in this state support safe and regulated medical cannabis."

The post Nebraska: Attorney General, Former Governor Urge Lawmakers to Ignore Medical Marijuana Legalization Vote appeared first on NORML.

"Once again, the lesson is clear: Legalizing and regulating marijuana markets is preferable to prohibiting them. Placing marijuana products behind the counter keeps cannabis out of the hands of young people and it reduces the public's appetite for these unregulated novel intoxicants."

The post Analysis: Young Adults More Likely To Consume Unregulated Delta-8 THC Products in Jurisdictions Where Cannabis Is Illegal appeared first on NORML.

"I have had the privilege of working alongside trailblazing advocates who have fought for policy reforms and those who remind us every day that too many Americans remain behind bars, still waiting for justice."

The post A Message from NORML’s New Board Chair appeared first on NORML.

"The ongoing criminalization of marijuana is a terribly destructive policy that adversely impacts thousands of North Dakotans annually. Minor marijuana possession offenders should not be saddled with an arrest, a criminal record, and with the lifelong penalties and stigma associated with it."

The post North Dakota: House Members Advance Measure Reducing Marijuana Possession Penalties appeared first on NORML.

"This bill is a slap in the face to the millions of Ohioans who voted in favor of Issue 2. Once again, politicians are arrogantly trying to claim that the public didn't know what they were voting for."

The post Ohio: Senate Lawmakers Advance Bill Amending Voter-Approved Marijuana Legalization Law appeared first on NORML.

Marijuana consumers across the nation are under siege. Here's how NORML is fighting back.

The post Cannabis Freedoms Are Under Attack appeared first on NORML.

"The results of this study indicate that cannabis may be a relatively safe and effective treatment for chronic pain, sleep disturbances, and other conditions associated with aging, leading to subsequent reductions in prescription drug use and healthcare costs, as well as significant improvements in quality of life."

The post Study: Cannabis Use in Older Patients Associated With Improved Quality of Life, Lower Demand for Prescription Drugs appeared first on NORML.

Seventy percent of voters approved the law in 2020; the program currently serves more than 13,000 South Dakota patients.

The post South Dakota: Lawmakers Narrowly Reject Effort to Repeal Voter-Approved Medical Cannabis Access appeared first on NORML.

"House Bill 7 is mean-spirited and its one-size-fits-all approach is inconsistent with our longstanding principles of justice and fairness."

The post Idaho: Lawmakers Advance Legislation to Governor’s Desk Imposing Mandatory Minimum Penalties for Low-Level Marijuana Possession appeared first on NORML.

Politicians proclaim that 'elections have consequences.' Increasingly, however, when it comes to elections deciding marijuana policies, Republican lawmakers are seeking to ensure that they don’t.

The post NORML Op-Ed: Don’t Let Politicians Cancel Ohio’s Voter-Approved Marijuana Legalization Law appeared first on NORML.

If you have HBO, I highly recommend watching the latest episode of Last Week Tonight with John Oliver (Season 9, Episode 5). It may be available on other platforms.

In this episode, Oliver takes on the misguided drug war approaches that have led to the massive number of overdoses due to fentanyl and advocates some serious harm reduction approaches.

Update: here is it on Youtube:

A protection racket is an organized crime in which racketeers threaten and scare people to force them to pay a monetary tribute to the racketeers to avoid future harm. A racketeer can be a criminal, politician, corrupt government, or any one of their organized accomplices.

Few differences exist between protection racketeers and prohibitionists. Prohibitionists promise American taxpayers reliable public safety from illegal drugs at a bargain-basement price. Then they direct massive and expensive drug arrests by law enforcement that ruin millions of lives with fines and other criminal sanctions. Protection rackets don’t always protect.

Part of a prohibitionist’s tribute is called forfeiture, otherwise known as confiscation of the type that emerged as one of the triggers of the American Revolution against the British. Forfeiture might involve the confiscation of a person’s automobile once drugs are found or planted in the vehicle. Exclusion from voting rights, public office, and employment by the FBIare part of a wide portfolio of authoritarian sanctions. No detail is left untouched. Harm prevention is scorned. Fines are still levied in some states for possessing marijuana while not purchasing a state marijuana tax stamp to accompany it. Homes can be raided with no-knock warrants using conventional law enforcement or SWAT teams armed with military hardware, all for some trivial amount of drug cash believed stored in someone’s hallway closet. Evidence tends to come from some informant under legal duress who says it’s there. A drug cash raid for a non-recovered $8000 resulted in the police shooting death of Breonna Taylor. Police officers have been injured or killed in similar military-style confrontations.

Funding for drug war racketeers will continue as long as prohibitionists can manufacture consent by making civilians believe that fire and brimstone await those who smoke marijuana or take forbidden drugs. Decades of relentless public training in the popular detestation of illegal drugs and their consumers has been a steady windfall for various bureaucrats, politicians, and the dominionist religious groups whose members dominate the ranks of drug enforcement. Giving up a drug war is like beating an addiction. Drug war addicts may well need interventional drug treatment to educate them about their destructive habit.

Updates to WordPress weren’t working properly with the theme that I was using for DrugWarrant, and we were losing some functionality (along with images, etc.). So I have switched to another theme. It will take a bit of getting used to, and I’m sure there will be glitches that need to be addressed. Please let me know of any problems you see. Thanks for your patience.

A poll conducted by C. S. Mott’s Children’s Hospital, University of Michigan Health—”Parent perspectives on CBD use in children”, reveals that some parents hesitate giving CBD to their kids because they lack information about its effects. Some think it’s no different from psychoactives like THC or the full spectrum cannabis flower:

Most parents say they either don’t know much about CBD use in children (46%) or they never heard of it prior to this poll (34%); 17% report knowing some, and only 3% say they know a lot about CBD use in children. Most parents (71%) have never used a CBD product themselves, while 24% have tried CBD and 5% use a CBD product regularly.

Parents say the factors that would be very important in deciding whether to give their child a CBD product are side effects (83%), if it was tested for safety in children (78%), how well it works in children (72%), recommendation of their child’s doctor (63%), approval of the US Food and Drug Administration (58%), and product reviews (41%).

Three-quarters of parents (73%) think CBD may be a good option for children when other medications don’t work. Most parents (83%) think CBD products should be regulated by the FDA, and three-quarters (74%) say CBD for children should require a doctor’s prescription. One-third of parents (35%) think taking CBD is basically the same as using marijuana.

Over 90% of parents have never given or considered giving their child a CBD product. Only 2% have given their child a CBD product, while 4% have considered CBD for their child; 1% say their child has used CBD without their permission.

Among parents who have given or considered giving CBD for their child, only 29% say they talked with their child’s healthcare provider about CBD use. Parents’ most common reasons for giving or considering CBD for their child include anxiety (51%), sleep problems (40%), ADHD (33%), muscle pain (20%), autism (19%), and to make their child feel better in general (13%). […]

Parents also demonstrated some inconsistencies in their attitudes about CBD products for children, including the regulation of these products. For example, 83% indicated CBD products should be regulated by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA), yet only 58% rated FDA approval as very important to their decision about using CBD for their child. Currently, only one CBD product has received FDA approval for use in children, as a treatment for a rare form of epilepsy. It’s unclear if parents recognize that none of the CBD products they see in stores are regulated by the FDA. […]

One-third of parents in this Mott Poll believe that taking CBD is basically the same as using marijuana, which is consistent with parents’ overall limited knowledge about CBD products. […]

Ignorance about medicines can affect a child’s health. CBD continues to prove itself a side-effect-free treatment for a wide variety of unusually different health problems. Given Congress’s traditional rejection of science that doesn’t suit its own political or moralizing intent, federally funded research establishing the benefits of cannabinoids will continue to receive little or no initiative or enthusiasm.

A decades long government quest to prove that mental, physical, or social harm emerges directly from cannabis consumption has consistently failed. Doing the same thing over and over again expecting a different result provides governments with a convenient excuse for perpetual war of the sort described by George Orwell in his book 1984, in which he illustrates how socially devastating wars get equated with peace.

Federally funded research proposals still trend toward proving something or anything wrong with cannabinoids. Providing the NIDA with a useful Congressional directive to fund scientific research to expose the benefits of CBD and marijuana’s other amazing constituents is necessary to make it happen at the federal level. The move would represent a gigantic step toward eliminating a dimwitted Middle Ages mindset that promotes ignorance and hysteria over the medicinal effects of simple herbs. Medical necessity could emerge and create a critical historical benchmark. Children might finally have the complete right of access to all available medicines and medical interventions they need and deserve.

Two emergency public health programs, one in New York, the other in San Francisco, highlight problems certain nations, governments and communities face in overcoming their drug war problem.

San Francisco’s latest answer to drug wars is called a linkage center. It allows for onsite opioid injections in sterile conditions overseen by medical assistants who monitor users for overdose. The linkage center also informs its clients on options for readily available medical treatments for addictions. To date, the center is credited with saving the lives of five people from opioid ODs. Yet, a limited number of reactionaries speaking as concerned parents still push an inflexible and absolutist prohibition policy, even though their emotional dismissals of harm reduction or prevention might someday put a tragic end to their own children’s lives. Their kids (in actuality adults) have an opioid use disorder. In San Francisco, the group is protesting the sale and use of opioids within a securely fenced and visually blocked area.

Anyone searching for reasons that entice troubled people to seek out and consume alternative medications that lead to addiction need look no further than helicopter parents flaunting their ignorance about drugs and harm prevention:

Demonstrators in SF accuse city’s linkage center of allowing open drug use

According to several articles, the current frontrunner for President Biden to nominate to the Supreme Court to replace Breyer is Ketanji Brown Jackson, a former federal public defender.

Biden’s Likeliest Supreme Court Pick

Brian Fallon, the executive director of Demand Justice, a progressive group advocating for court reform, told me. “It would signal a new era and a shift away from the decades-long default to former prosecutors and corporate lawyers.”

It’s not going to change the overall makeup of the court, but having the voice of someone who has been a defender would be refreshing.