Mahatma Gandhi was once asked: “What do you think of Western civilization?” He replied, “I think it would be a good idea.”
Today, we might have to say the same thing about medical marijuana. Even though ninety percent of the American people support it, the Johnstown Tribune-Democrat reports that last week the Pennsylvania Medical Marijuana Advisory Board rejected petitions to allow medical cannabis to be used to treat traumatic brain injury, hepatitis, hepatitis C, chronic insomnia, and major depressive disorder that is unresponsive to other treatments.”
The Tribune-Democrat explains, “Pennsylvania’s 367,925 active medical marijuana patients have all been diagnosed as having one or more of 23 serious medical conditions, including amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, anxiety disorder, cancer, Crohn’s disease, multiple sclerosis, post-traumatic stress disorder and opioid use disorder and chronic pain.
Physician General Dr. Denise Johnson said board members were concerned the applications for traumatic brain injury, hepatitis and Hepatitis C were overly broad and would have allowed people to qualify for medical marijuana cards in cases that would be inappropriate. The board was concerned that juveniles could qualify for medical marijuana if they suffered acute traumatic brain injuries. Johnson said there is evidence that medical marijuana could benefit patients suffering from chronic hepatitis and chronic Hepatitis C, but that board members felt it would be inappropriate to allow medical marijuana for people who’d had acute cases of hepatitis….”
One of the Prohibitionists’ most disingenuous arguments against medical marijuana initiatives was that “We don’t vote on medicines.”
Of course, that is literally true. The FDA supposedly evaluates proposed pharmaceutical industry products to determine if they are safe and effective. It is a hugely expensive process that only works because the pharmaceutical companies have patents on the prospective medicines.
There is a major debate about the loss of Afghanistan, but for the most part it has followed the Prime Directive: “Don’t Mention the Drug War!”
Nonetheless, it seems relevant that Afghanistan is still the world’s largest opium poppy producer.
According to Reuters, “Despite the threats posed by Afghanistan’s illicit drug business, experts noted, the United States and other nations rarely mention in public the need to address the trade – estimated by the UNODC at more than 80% of global opium and heroin supplies.”
So, we controlled the country? And our Drug War was subsidizing the Taliban?
Well, as the Post headline suggests, American, especially Californian, marijuana has a cachet, like “French Champagne.” Mexican growers have to worry about the violence of the gangs more than the quality of the weed. On the other hand, smuggling weed south is relatively low risk, with excellent profits.
It is important to note that this story is about LEGAL weed, bought at retail, not from the huge illegal market that is much cheaper, and exists because of high taxes and excessive regulations.
Of course, while they are not likely to have a major impact on the Mexican market, they may embarrass the Mexican government into complying with their Supreme Court ruling and finally legalize it.
There is an alliance between the Trump insurrectionists, the police unions, and the Prohibitionist Deep State.
Disclaimer:The views expressed in this article solely belong to the author and do not necessarily represent those of The Fresh Toast.
One of the most famous Sherlock Holmes mysteries was solved by the fact that a dog didn’t bark. Sometimes silence tells more than we want to know, and that is certainly the case with the January 6 insurrection.
On August 2, two more members of the Capitol Police committed suicide. It is not hard to understand their depression, especially as most of the Republicans in both chambers have defended their attackers and attacked their defenders.
The former President who cheered the mobs that attacked the police even slurred the officers who testified about the insurrection, calling them the vulgar term for the part of the female anatomy that he has bragged about liking to grab.
“I can tell you that marijuana, undoubtedly, is connected to violent crimes that we’re seeing in our community,” said Robert Contee.
Disclaimer:The views expressed in this article solely belong to the author and do not necessarily represent those of The Fresh Toast.
During a press conference July 23, Washington D. C. Police Chief Robert Contee said that: “I can tell you that marijuana, undoubtedly, is connected to violent crimes that we’re seeing in our community… When you have something where people get high reward—they can make a lot of money by selling illegal marijuana—and the risk is low, the risk for accountability is very low, that creates a very, very, very, very, very bad situation because those individuals get robbed, those individuals that shot at, those individuals get involved in disputes all across our city.
It is easy to understand why everyone is desperate for anything that will help with Alzheimer’s Disease. Patients and their families dread its relentless onslaught. Consequently, there was tremendous pressure for the FDA to approve Aduhelm (aducanumab), by Biogen and Eisai.
However, it’s approval was met with widespread criticism because it is both expensive, with an expected annual price tag of $56,000, but of limited effectiveness.
Aducanumab is taken as an infusion administered in a doctor’s office for one hour every four weeks. That might be difficult for a patients suffering from agitation who might not understand why they are there.
The high cost of Biogen’s newly approved and controversial treatment will be compounded by a misguided Medicare policy that incentivizes doctors to prescribe the priciest medicines.
A few hundred years ago my Cowan ancestor got on a boat in Scotland and headed west. I have been to Edinburgh in the winter, so I am grateful to him for many reasons.
“Scotland’s first medical cannabis clinic has begun prescribing to patients suffering from chronic pain conditions… The Sapphire Medical Clinic in Stirling was approved by regulators in March and… provides unlicensed cannabis-based medicines for people with conditions that do not meet the criteria for NHS-prescribed cannabis products… Medical cannabis was legalised in the UK in November 2018 and doctors are allowed to prescribe it in certain situations.”
“The 2018 law change moved cannabis from schedule 1 under the Misuse of Drugs Regulations 2001 – meaning it had no therapeutic value – to schedule 2. It now means doctors can prescribe the drug in certain situations… Many other cannabis products are unlicensed but can still be prescribed privately.”
A Healthcare Improvement Scotland spokesperson said unlicensed cannabis-based medical products should be prescribed by specialist clinicians “where there is clear published evidence of benefit” and where there is a “clinical need which cannot be met by licensed medicines and where established medicines have been exhausted.”
In other words, when the patients have suffered enough, they may be allowed to try cannabinoids.
I would cheer, “Scotland Forever!”… if this had not taken forever.
There are millions of Americans like me whose ancestors came from that island and are essentially “bio-identical” to the otherwise free Scottish people who have had to suffer for years before the politicians and bureaucrats decided that they are worthy of a loophole.
The statement added: “Independent clinics must ensure that appropriate consultations take place, that clinicians make informed assessments, that informed patient consent is obtained in accordance with the law and professional guidelines, and that patients understand the risk and benefits of a treatment or medication. Moreover, clinicians should make it clear to patients if there is only limited evidence of the effectiveness of the chosen treatment.”
The United Nations serves a number of useful roles, but it is always important to remember that its founding members included Stalin’s Soviet Union, succeeded by Putin’s Russia, which, along with Communist China, holds a permanent seat on it’s “Security Council”. In fact, the UN members include virtually all of the world’s nastiest dictatorships and kleptocracies.
I bring up these unpleasant facts for context because this moral sewer is now telling us that the free countries of the world should ban cannabis advertising.
Well, they have “evolved”. It still opposes medical cannabis, but right now they are just desperately trying to ban retail advertising. And it still has its American supporters.
Vice President Kamala Harris’ first international trip to Mexico via Guatemala was delayed for a few hours because her plane was forced to return to Joint Base Andrews due to technical problems about 30 minutes after it took off. Maybe that was an omen…
A little history…
This August 13 will be the 500th anniversary of the Spanish conquest of the Aztec capital of Tenochtitlan, now Mexico City. The Aztecs had conquered central Mexico in the 1300s and had established one of the (literally) bloodiest regimes in human history. Human sacrifice was essentially the state religion.
The drive to legalize marijuana seems unstoppable. Arrests are falling (but still over 400,000 annually), and the various cannabis industries (plural) are booming. Hooray for our side!
If present trends continue… In a few years, people will have forgotten that marijuana was ever illegal. The memory hole really works.
So how did a hundred years of maximum government and medical and media industry propaganda fail? Or did it?
We owe it all to medical marijuana. It wasn’t just that cannabis was medically useful. It worked when nothing else did, and so the medical establishment, the American Medical Association, etc, the Quackocracy, simply lied about it, and, outrageously, they continue to do so.
Then “People With AIDS” got uppity. In San Francisco, my late, great friend, Dennis Peron, a gay rights activist and a remarkably brave human being, took a stand.
“In 1991, Peron organized for the passage of San Francisco’s Proposition P, a resolution calling on the state government to permit medical cannabis, which received 79% of the vote.”
Five years later, Peron backed Proposition 215 which won 55.6% of the vote and demonstrated that the people could bypass the politicians and the medical establishment… in States that allow the people to vote on issues.
Last September, an NYPOST.com op-od by retired New York Prosecutor Jim Quinn argued that “Crime, not cops, is by far the largest threat to black lives.” (He was the senior executive assistant district attorney in the Queens County District Attorney’s Office. He retired in December 2019, after 42 years as a prosecutor.)
Quinn explained:
“In New York City in 2019, 319 people were murdered. Fully 88 percent of them — 280 people — were black or Hispanic. And 93.2 of them were murdered by other people of color.
Almost 96 percent of all shooters and shooting victims in the Big Apple in 2019 were people of color. People of color also accounted for 73.8 percent of rape victims and 81.3 percent of the rape suspects; 69 percent of robbery victims and 93.3 percent of the robbery suspects; and 79.5 percent of felony assault victims and 86 percent of the assault suspects.
People of color, in other words, are disproportionately both victims and perpetrators of violent crime in New York City. That is a cold fact. These proportions have remained remarkably consistent over the past 12 years.
Murders in New York are up 30 percent so far this year (2020) — 60 more people killed so far than last year. Close to 90 percent of the victims were people of color. There have been 1,095 shooting victims in Gotham so far this year — 514 more than last year. And 95 percent of these additional shooting victims were people of color.”
It has gotten even worse this year. “In 2021 alone, 299 people have been shot, a 54% increase over the same time last year, and the most the city has seen since 2012.”
that will penalize professional sports teams if they do not play the national anthem before games. Unfortunately, they could not change lyrics so that they still say something about “the land of the free and the home of the brave.” That could give people the wrong idea.
For example, the same group just decided that Texans can’t be trusted to possess any quantity of marijuana, although the penalties may be reduced for a small amount.
A 2021 University of Texas/Texas Tribune Poll found that 60% of Texas voters believe possession of small or large amounts of marijuana should be legal for whatever purpose, but the majority of the legislature don’t trust the voters who voted for them.
In 2019, there were more than 45,000 arrests in Texas for possession of marijuana, but that was a decrease from the nearly 63,000 reported arrests in 2018, the most in America. (Out of a total of half a million nationally.)
Ironically, in July of 2019, the Texas Department of Public Safety issued a memo instructing DPS officers to issue citations, rather than make arrests, for possession of less than 4 ounces of marijuana. The Texas police are more enlightened than the legislature! (Faint praise)
Previously, the legislature voted to make it legal for Texans to carry handguns without a license or training. A solid majority of Texas voters don’t think permitless carry should be allowed, according to the latest University of Texas/Texas Tribune Poll.
The Texas legislature also passed a number of other laws that restrict voting, supposedly to “protect democracy”. But why bother?
The contrast between the enforcement of the marijuana laws and gun laws nationally can be seen in an article published by The Trace, a nonprofit “Investigating gun violence in America.”
It seems a bit odd when news about scientific research tells us more about the past than about the future. However, that is certainly the case with the DEA’s announcement that it will finally allow easier access to marijuana for medical research.
The DEA’s press release does not explain the history of the decades of the suppression of scientific research by the agency with the complicity of NIDA and the scientific establishment.
Heretofore, the DEA maintained monopoly on all of the marijuana that could be used for research, allowing only the use of marijuana grown at the University of Mississippi under a contract with the National Institute on Drug Abuse, the bureaucracy in charge of subverting science to serve the Drug War.
Alexander Woollcott quipped that “All the things I really like to do are either immoral, illegal, or fattening.” He died in 1943 so he missed so many other hazards that modern science would discover.
For example, The Guardian reports that a new study says, “Any amount of alcohol consumption harmful to the brain.
A senior clinical lecturer at the University of Oxford said that a “UK study of 25,000 people finds even moderate drinking is linked to lower grey matter density.”
The Guardian explains, “The associations of wine-drinking with higher educational attainment and socioeconomic status may explain the perceived health benefits, the authors suggested.
“If you look at who is moderately drinking, at least in this country, they are better educated, wealthier people that would do much better on a memory test … just because of who they are, than people that are less educated,” said lead author, Anya Topiwala, a senior clinical lecturer at the University of Oxford.
In other words, smart people, everyone from Jesus to Bill Buckley, have been drinking wine and giving it a good name, but now we know they would have been even smarter, if only…
One of the standard arguments against marijuana legalization is based on the view that the human brain isn’t fully developed until we are 25, so cannabis should not be legalized for people who aren’t at least that old.
It was a total coincidence, but in 1993 two books were published about the same time. One, Listening to Prozac by psychiatrist Peter D. Kramer, got national publicity and was widely reviewed. Kramer graduated from Harvard University with a bachelor of arts degree in 1970 and an MD in 1976.
The other book, Marihuana, the Forbidden Medicine, by James Bakalar, and my old friend, the late great Dr. Lester Grinspoon, was aggressively ignored, even though he “was associate professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School. He concurrently served as a senior psychiatrist at the Massachusetts Mental Health Center in Boston, Massachusetts for 40 years. Grinspoon was a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and the American Psychiatric Association. He was founding editor of The American Psychiatric Association Annual Review and Harvard Mental Health Letter. Grinspoon was editor of Harvard Mental Health Letter for fifteen years.”
The book was actually published by Yale University Press because the quackocracy at Harvard did not have the intellectual integrity to acknowledge its importance. To get some idea of how intellectually and morally corrupt one of the world’s leading medical schools had become, four years later, Harvard Medical School actually gave the U.S. Drug Czar, General Barry McCaffrey, an award named for the deceased Dr. Norman Zinberg, who was a friend and colleague of Grinspoon’s, and who had been on the NORML Board of Directors!
I remember a letter to the editor in a California newspaper circa 1973 during Nixon’s gasoline “shortage” from a man who told of sitting in his car waiting in line at what was ironically called a “filling station.” He said that when he looked in his rearview mirror he saw the driver behind him was smoking a joint. He quipped that we could solve two problems if we just legalized marijuana and outlawed gasoline.
Fifty years later, we have almost solved the marijuana “problem” by almost legalizing it. I say we have almost solved that problem, not just because the Feds and a few states are lagging, but because most of the states have made a mess of it by over-regulating and over-taxing it, so the black market persists. Good intentions are not enough.
I have cited what I call the Iron Law of Prohibition demonstrating how the economics of contraband actually makes “drugs” stronger and more dangerous. Actually, I’m certain that this is not always “unintended.”
Obviously, the frustrated motorist was joking about banning gasoline, but there really wasn’t an actual gas shortage. Nixon had panicked and slammed price controls on it which kept the market from functioning. In a free market, there are never long-term shortages because the prices will rise, angering consumers (voters), but eliminating lines, pleasing voters. Unintended?
If the Mexican military is deeply corrupt and now effectively controls the national government under its incompetent President, we are in a new phase of our Latin American disaster.
Disclaimer:The views expressed in this article solely belong to the author and do not necessarily represent those of The Fresh Toast.
In 2018, the Mexican Supreme Court found the country’s marijuana laws unconstitutional and ordered Congress to draft new laws. Congress has had to request several extensions, but now it has failed to meet another deadline, just as it seemed close to agreement on new laws.
Of course, the pandemic has hit Mexico much harder than the U.S. At one point they reportedly ran out of death certificates. But in a country where thousands of people are killed every year in the Drug War, and thousands more simply disappear, it is just another tragedy.
It seems to be generally accepted that the human brain does not fully mature until we are at least 25. (85 in my case) That would have the effect of making marijuana legalization unworkable. But that does not stop the medical profession from giving children psychiatric drugs.
“Children under state protection in California group and foster homes are being drugged with potent, dangerous psychiatric medications, at times just to keep them obedient and docile for their overburdened caretakers.
A review of hundreds of confidential court files and prescription records, observations at group homes as well as interviews with judges, attorneys, child welfare workers and doctors across the state, revealed that youngsters are being drugged in combinations and dosages that experts in psychiatric medication say are risky–and can cause irreversible harm.
In part because of a lack of oversight, officials responsible for the children’s welfare say they don’t know how many of the state’s 100,000 foster children are being given mood-altering medications, many of which have never been tested for use on children.
In Los Angeles County–which has nearly half the state’s foster children–dependency court judges last year approved requests to medicate about 4,500 kids. That doesn’t include those drugged with parental consent or those drugged with no consent at all, which experts believe is a significant problem. In addition, a county grand jury found in 1997 that nearly half the group home children it examined were drugged without court or parental consent.
Experts from around the state said widespread drugging, both with and without legal approval, occurs in other California counties as well.
“We sometimes don’t know who put kids on drugs and why,” said Nathan Nishimoto, an Orange County Department of Children and Family Services official who, until recently, was in charge of tracking children in the county’s care.
There’s the 5-year-old boy in a Tustin group home who was not only being given an antipsychotic, but massive doses of Ritalin and clonidine–though researchers from UCI and UCLA have published articles reporting that that combination has caused sudden death and heart problems in some children.
There’s the 8-year-old foster child in San Francisco County on Cylert for his hyperactivity, despite warnings from the drug’s manufacturer that its use can lead to liver failure and death in children. The boy did not receive the requisite blood checks to monitor the drug in his system.
At the Orangewood Children’s Home in Orange County, kids as young as 3 skip up to the drug cart several times a day, to take the “meds” that control their “depression” and “rage.” To say nothing of the scores of California teenagers prescribed pills to battle manias and psychoses with little explanation of why or by whom.”
It begins with an anecdote, that now would have an added layer of irony.
“Andrew Rios’s seizures began when he was 5 months old and only got worse. At 18 months, when an epilepsy medication resulted in violent behavior, he was prescribed the antipsychotic Risperdal, a drug typically used to treat schizophrenia and bipolar disorder in adults, and rarely used for children as young as 5 years.
When Andrew screamed in his sleep and seemed to interact with people and objects that were not there, his frightened mother researched Risperdal and discovered that the drug was not approved, and had never even been studied, in children anywhere near as young as Andrew.”
Today, Andrew would be given CBD, either bought over the counter or as Epiodelex, a prescription drug. Well, maybe.
His situation was not unique. The Times reported that “Almost 20,000 prescriptions for risperidone (commonly known as Risperdal), quetiapine (Seroquel) and other antipsychotic medications were written in 2014 for children 2 and younger, a 50 percent jump from 13,000 just one year before, according to the prescription data company IMS Health. Prescriptions for the antidepressant fluoxetine (Prozac) rose 23 percent in one year for that age group, to about 83,000.”
In 2015 Directscience.com published a study, “Preliminary findings demonstrating latent effects of early adolescent marijuana use onset on cortical architecture”
“The research team analyzed MRI scans of 42 heavy marijuana users; twenty participants were categorized as early onset users with a mean age of 13.18and 22 were labeled as late onset users with a mean age of 16.9. According to self-reports, all participants, ages 21-50, began using marijuana during adolescence and continued throughout adulthood, using cannabis at least one time per week.”
Findings show study participants who began using marijuana at the age of 16 or younger demonstrated brain variations that indicate arrested brain development in the prefrontal cortex, the part of the brain responsible for judgment, reasoning and complex thinking. Individuals who started using marijuana after age 16 showed the opposite effect and demonstrated signs of accelerated brain aging.”
Of course, this does not necessarily mean that using marijuana at sixteen will make your brain more mature. However, considering that children are being given psychiatric drugs at a very early age by the doctors who are telling us that marijuana is bad for them…
Starting back in the 1960s, Acapulco was one of the first international resorts for the “Jet Set.” In 1963 Elvis even made a movie Fun In Acapulco. No more.
Unfortunately, Acapulco now is too violent for international tourists (Americans), but on the other side of the coastal mountains, the state of Guerrero is even more violent.
Recently, El País, the center/right Madrid newspaper carried a horrific story “The child soldiers of Guerrero cry out against the narco armed and with shots in the air”
(Google translation)
‘The youngest of the firearms-wielding group is six years old”
The comparison between the war in Afghanistan and the Drug War is particularly appropriate. They even overlap.
Disclaimer:The views expressed in this article solely belong to the author and do not necessarily represent those of The Fresh Toast.
President Biden has announced that the U.S. and our allies will be out of Afghanistan no later than September 11, the 20th anniversary of the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. Finally, we are seeing the end of what is being called our “longest war.”
But it is no such thing. Of course, the “Prime Directive” of U.S. public policy, journalism, and politics, religion, and pet care, is “Don’t Mention The Drug War” (see: America’s Longest Ongoing War: The War on Drugs).
Ironically, it was signed at The Hague, the Netherlands. on January 23, 1912, during the First International Opium Conference. “It was the first international drug control treaty. The United States was unsuccessful in its attempts to have cannabis included in the 1912 Convention.”
In 1937, the notorious Harry Anslinger got Congress to pass the Marihuana Tax Act (see: Harry Anslinger: The Godfather Of Cannabis Prohibition). It was signed into law by Franklin Roosevelt, and almost every President since has contributed to an escalation in the violence.
The comparison between the war in Afghanistan and the Drug War is particularly appropriate. They even overlap. Afghanistan is still a major source of heroin, but the once famous Afghani hash is impossible to find. Surprise, surprise!
The most important point is that the War on Drugs was never just a figure of speech, like the War on Cancer or the War on Poverty. It was and is real violence by the users and sellers of some drugs against the users and sellers of other drugs.
First, the United States was never officially at war with Afghanistan. In fact, after easily overthrowing the Taliban terrorists who had seized control, the war was very much like the Drug War in the U.S. and Latin America.
Mexico, Guatemala, Honduras, Colombia, Peru, and other countries that are barely functioning have been destabilized by both the violence and corruption of the Drug War. It has also spread to Africa to supply Europe with cocaine.
There are three major steps in the legalization of marijuana.
Stop arresting people for possession of marijuana, even if they are not white.
Take marijuana sales out of the black market with hard drugs.
The establishment of venues where marijuana can be consumed in the presence of other actual human beings to see if the Universe will implode.
On 4/20 the Mayor of Denver signed an ordinance that would legalize places where customers could bring their own weed to smoke, as well as clubs that could sell small amounts of weed to be smoked there. But no one seems certain about when it will go into effect. Well… As the saying goes, if the people will lead, the leaders will follow. There are already a number of “smoke-easies” where patrons can BYO their weed in Denver.
Similarly, Nevada’s legislature seems likely to authorize “consumption lounges”. New York’s new marijuana law leaves that issue to the local authorities, so New York City can and will almost certainly allow it. In any case, it seems likely that both cities will have venues where patrons can legally consume their legal cannabis.
Of course, the Dutch did all that in the 1970s, but apparently they live on another planet, because no one in any other country on Earth has even considered copying their model where people can buy small quantities of cannabis and smoke it there or take it home.
But wait until they hear about Barcelona!
Barcelona has taken maximum advantage of a loophole in Spanish law. There are a large number of “Cannabis Social Clubs” that really are “Clubs”, but they are very friendly for strangers. Some of them are really lavish. It remains to be seen how many will survive the pandemic, which has devastated Spanish tourism.
The death of G. Gordon Liddy, the most famous of the Watergate burglars, brought back some funny memories.
Liddy and I crossed paths twice, although we didn’t actually meet the first time. I come from a long line of Republicans and I was even briefly the President of the Yale Young Republicans, circa 1960, so even though I didn’t even like Richard Nixon, I somehow ended up in Washington a few days after the Watergate burglary in June of 1972.
I even had an appointment at the Republican National Committee and when I arrived they were changing the locks on the front door. I was told that it was a precaution because there had been a minor burglary at the DNC… Yep. One cannot be too cautious.
I had actually been smoking what we called “Grass” for almost five years, so when I found out that NORML was located a few blocks away I went by to give them a few dollars. But then found out what was really going on, and, as I like to put it, I went to work for a better class of criminals.
Last year, The Times of Israel reported that the Knesset, Israel’s Parliament, voted to “legalize” cannabis in 2021. It still seems on course to act soon.
The Times said, “According to the new law being promoted, people age 21 and up will be allowed to purchase cannabis at specialized stores. They will be required to show identification.
The drug will not be allowed to be taken into or out of the country. The stores will be allowed to make deliveries but will be barred from selling cannabis edibles that resemble candy.
The state will “ensure the prices are reasonable” to avoid encouraging customers to go to the black market, according to the interministerial team’s recommendations.
However, the law will likely include a blanket ban on smoking cannabis in public spaces. It will not allow home growing of the plant without a license, though the team recommended that the matter be weighed at a later stage.
I have been very critical of most state legalization policies because of their excessive taxes and “regulations” that raise costs and barriers to entry, making legal products more expensive than black market products.
After real decriminalization that stops arresting marijuana users, even if they aren’t white, the primary objective of legalization should be to take marijuana out of the black market with hard drugs. The Dutch call this the “Separation of the Markets.” If someone in The Netherlands wants cannabis, they don’t have to go to a poly-drug street dealer. They just go to the nearest “Coffeeshop.”
Unfortunately, as the Forbes article points out, the new laws that legalize marijuana growing and sales leave small growers in the black market. That is great for them, until it is a disaster.
Aside from the fact that I have lots of friends who are growers, it is counterproductive to leave these good people behind in the black market. First and foremost, these people are not a social or public health and safety problem. On the contrary.
Of course, small growers cannot supply the mass market, just as homebrewers cannot replace the other Bud. The solution is to create a category for “small” growers who would pay a small licensing fee and comply with reasonable standards for public health and safety. They could create grower cooperatives with their own “brands” that could be sold at “farmers markets.” They might then be able to broaden their markets. They would be subject to the same income taxes as lettuce growers.
These people have played an important role in the cannabis world, especially as an alternative to the Mexican gangs, and they have useful skills… and sometimes excellent genetics. They would be the perfect “bespoke” providers for the luxury market.
President Biden has suffered two avoidable embarrassments. First, he somehow managed to fall three times trying to run up the ramp stairs for Airforce One. I’m even older than he is, so I’m sympathetic. Oops. It happens.
Don’t worry if you missed it. It will run forever on the Trump cult networks to demonstrate how inferior he is to the godlike athleticism of the Apollo of Mar-a-Swampo.
Someone immediately pointed out that this would have kept former President Barack (“Lock My People Up”) Obama from being appointed to anything. To which I say, Hooray.
Any history of the Drug War, and especially Marijuana Prohibition, must begin with Harry Anslinger.
It is surprising how much harm an obscure bureaucrat can do. We all know about Hitler and Stalin and their henchmen like Himmler and Beria, but Harry Anslinger was instrumental in starting the ongoing global Drug War, and especially marijuana prohibition. It has resulted in tens of millions of arrests in the US alone, and countless deaths from the global suppression of the medical use of cannabis. He even managed to outlaw hemp (in the US) which had been an agricultural staple for millennia, grown by America’s “Founding Fathers”.
He is a perfect manifestation of Hannah Arendt’s famous phrase: The Banality of Evil.
President Trump and Attorney General Bill Barr have denied that there is “systemic racism” in American law enforcement. However, the racist origins of marijuana prohibition are explicit in Anslinger’s work.
Actually, Anslinger was a vicious racist. The Wikipedia article offers a few quotes:
“Colored students at the Univ. of Minn. partying with (white) female students, smoking [marijuana] and getting their sympathy with stories of racial persecution. Result: pregnancy.”
“Two Negros took a girl fourteen years old and kept her for two days under the influence of hemp. Upon recovery she was found to be suffering from syphilis.”
“Reefer makes d…. think they’re as good as white men.”
If you are offended by these quotes, complain to the DEA.
And don’t think this was simply a bureaucratic game.
His crowning achievement was the United Nations Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs which locked the U.S. into the Drug War, especially marijuana prohibition, by a treaty, which is still being used to justify banning cannabis around the world.
This year there will be over 600,000 arrests for marijuana possession just in the US. More than for all the violent crimes combined, and African Americans will be arrested in numbers that are far out of proportion to their percentage of the population.
“Specifically, a 2020 analysis by the American Civil Liberties Union, concluded, “Black people are 3.64 times more likely than white people to be arrested for marijuana possession, notwithstanding comparable usage rates.” Authors reported, “In every single state, Black people were more likely to be arrested for marijuana possession, and in some states, Black people were up to six, eight, or almost ten times more likely to be arrested. In 31 states, racial disparities were actually larger in 2018 than they were in 2010.”
During Trump’s first Presidential campaign he claimed that he was going to save America by building a “big beautiful wall” and that Mexico would pay for. He knew that that was a lie, but that meant he could continue to talk about it as an “issue.” After he was elected, the Republicans controlled both Houses of Congress, but he did not push for Federal funding for it. It was too useful as an issue.
And it still is, and he is still lying about it, but so is the Biden Administration, because- to paraphrase one of Jack Nicholson’s great lines, neither of them can handle the truth.
It all seemed so absurd. Could this really be happening? Surely it was just a part of the general craziness of the pandemic. Deranged people of all races were attacking people of all races. However, the statistics are astonishing. According to NBCNews.com, “There were 3,800 anti-Asian racist incidents, mostly against women, in past year.”
It is a real thing, but I simply could not and still cannot imagine that anyone who might read anything that I might write would be inclined even to be rude, much less violent towards Asians.
Besides I am writing this from one of the safest cities in America, Irvine, California, and it is not entirely coincidental that its population is over 40% “Asian.” The “quotes” around Asian remind us how wide a net that really is.
The National Consumers League is America’s original consumer advocacy organization. Here are their 4 suggested solutions to their perceived problems with CBD.
Disclaimer:The views expressed in this article solely belong to the author and do not necessarily represent those of The Fresh Toast.
Let me begin by acknowledging that I have “conflicts of interest” on this topic (explained below). But did you know that cannabis is a “substance in marijuana”?? Yep. There it is on the first line of a new report How Safe Is CBD? from the National Center for Health Research.
I am desperately trying to find out if cannabis is also present in ganja, weed, or grass. Pardon the sarcasm, but here we go again.
Photo by Christin Hume via Unsplash
There is a new group, Consumers for Safe CBD, which is “a program of the National Consumers League. The National Consumers League (NCL) is America’s original consumer advocacy organization.”
That means they have been around long enough to know better.
In order to understand how the politics of marijuana prohibition actually works, remember that anti-prohibitionist websites almost always have links to prohibitionist propaganda sites, but prohibitionists almost never link to our sites.
This is a real advantage for us in a live debate, because the prohibitionists often seem surprised. The reason for this difference is fairly simple. We want you to know and understand the lies they are telling, but they don’t want you to know the truth we are telling. As I liked to say, freedom has nothing to fear from the truth.
Whenever I critique a study that purports to show some danger related to marijuana, I always make it clear that the arguments against marijuana prohibition are not based on the assumption that marijuana is harmless. Nothing is harmless for everyone under all circumstances, and harmlessness cannot be a criterion for anything to be legal.
The first problem is simply that the teens were not vaping “pot.” They were vaping some unknown liquids that supposedly contained THC and perhaps other cannabinoids.
Second, the sample for the study was based on national data, which would normally be a good thing, but in much of the country, marijuana was, and still is, illegal, so the vaping devices and their content may well have been contraband.
Third, the data was based on sampling from “between December 2016 and January 2018 – prior to the wave of lung injuries among young people that occurred in 2019. It was given the name EVALI, or e-cigarette or vaping use-associated lung injury.”
But now I have the same questions about the conservative movement going forward, and America always needs a healthy opposition, so it should be of concern for everyone, whatever their politics.
Unfortunately, it would seem that leading conservative think tanks have already been captured by the Drug Warriors. The Heritage Foundation, one of the oldest voices on the right, is actually headed by a former Associate Director of the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy, under President George H. W. Bush, Kay C. James.
However, Heritage has been lying about marijuana, and about little old me, for a long time.
Not to be outdone, the Hudson Institute, one of Heritage’s leading competitors, is actually headed by James’ former boss, John Walters, who was the Czar himself under Bush. And Walters was certainly one of the worst.
Walters actually said, “(Marijuana) is by far the single largest factor in illegal drug addiction in the country. … The conventional view out there today is that marijuana is a soft drug, that marijuana is harmless and that it is not addictive, and there is no withdrawal. It’s not just a gateway drug. … If you are not talking about marijuana, you are not talking about the central part of the problem.” Yep. He really said that.
Another major conservative think tank, the American Enterprise Institute, is more moderate, relying primarily on Sally Satel. She is what I would call a “moderate prohibitionist,” but unlike her counterparts, she is intellectually honest. Nonetheless, AEI is really out of touch with the American people on this issue.
In real-world politics these think tanks exist to give cover to politicians, and there are a few politicians who actually care about ideas. For those who do, the Cato Institute, Washington’s leading Libertarian think tank, and Reason in California are excellent.
Then there is Fox News and Tucker Carlson and … Wow!
It’s difficult to worry too much about Royalty in the midst of a pandemic, but Prince Harry has had a bit of experience with a Commoner’s problems.
As a matter of principle, I am strongly opposed to censorship and capital punishment, but I might make an exception for the vile UK tabloids. (Of course, the “quality broadsheets” like the Telegraph weren’t much better.)
Their coverage of Prince Harry has been typically awful, but their coverage of the cannabis issue has been evil. The two combined in 2002 when the then 16-year-old prince got caught with a little weed.
Let’s go back a moment. Harry was 16. He was not arrested, so the Daily Mail had no business printing that story. But the Daily Mail is a sewer of reefer madness.
Inevitably, every year someone will complain that we should have a “White History Month.” Of course, every month is “White History”, so we just ignore that as ignorant and racist.
However, I think a lot of white “racism” is actually the result of ignorance. For example, white racists feed the fear of whites who think that non-whites are going to “take over.”
(Declaration: I am really, really white. An Aryan Delight)
Recently, Arizona Republican Congressman Paul Gosar (R-Ariz) “skipped key votes in the House of Representatives, citing the “ongoing public health emergency,” to instead attend a conference hosted by white supremacists in Orlando, Florida.
There are a number of reasons for legalizing marijuana, but in the current American debate, the most prominent argument is based on the fact that African Americans are disproportionately impacted by law enforcement. That is entirely understandable in the era of Black Lives Matter.
However, in his Senate confirmation hearing, Judge Merrick Garland, Biden’s choice for Attorney General, also pointed out that interfering with state marijuana laws is “not a useful use of limited resources.”
It is astonishing that even today we are still arresting half a million Americans annually for simple possession of marijuana. That is more than for all violent crimes combined. Is that the best use of finite criminal justice resources? Is that a Conservative value?
However, in his Senate confirmation hearing, Judge Merrick Garland, Biden’s choice for Attorney General, also pointed out that interfering with state marijuana laws is “not a useful use of limited resources.”
It is astonishing that even today we are still arresting half a million Americans annually for simple possession of marijuana. That is more than for all violent crimes combined. Is that the best use of finite criminal justice resources? Is that a Conservative value?
There are a number of reasons for legalizing marijuana, but in the current American debate, the most prominent argument is based on the fact that African Americans are disproportionately impacted by law enforcement. That is entirely understandable in the era of Black Lives Matter.
However, in his Senate confirmation hearing, Judge Merrick Garland, Biden’s choice for Attorney General, also pointed out that interfering with state marijuana laws is “not a useful use of limited resources.”
It is astonishing that even today we are still arresting half a million Americans annually for simple possession of marijuana. That is more than for all violent crimes combined. Is that the best use of finite criminal justice resources? Is that a Conservative value?
The Republican Party is badly split and it did not start with Donald Trump. However, when ideology trumps reality, the result is stupidity.
“It is the theory which decides what we can observe.”- Albert Einstein
In recent elections, Republicans considered marijuana prohibition to be a peripheral issue at best. It is not something that “serious” candidates want to spend any time discussing, or they will cease to be considered “serious.”
In fact, as long as a candidate supports prohibition, it is better that they appear as ignorant as possible on the subject. This protects them from any suspicion of having any latent “tendencies” or secret subversive ideas. In this regard, the prohibitionist ideology resembles the AIDS virus in that it shuts down the immune system by which the democratic process protects itself against anti-democratic nonsense.
The excellent anti-prohibitionist, Transform Drug Policy Foundation reports that the new head of the UK Labor Party, Sir Keir Starmer “gave an interview which briefly covered drug policy. To many reformers his comments were dispiriting: asked for his views on decriminalisation of cannabis possession, he apparently rejected the idea – arguing instead that current drug policy was ‘roughly right’. Such a view was surprising not only given the momentum for reform globally, but also the growing support for change within his own party.”
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As we used to say, back when we could still go to the movies: This is where I came in.
In 1972, the first thing I ever wrote for publication was in the late William F. Buckley Jr’s National Review on why conservatives should support the legalization of marijuana. It caused quite a stir. There it was on the cover: THE TIME HAS COME: ABOLISH THE POT LAWS
Even though he led with, “The key to any nationwide legalization is to keep the free market out of it,” and that is not something one often sees in either Bloomberg or National Review, he explains that he only wants the government to control retail sales to prevent excessive commercialization that would encourage excessive use.
The reason that our Constitution begins by saying that We, the people are creating “a More Perfect Union” is that we had a very imperfect union under the Articles of Confederation, which followed the success of the Revolution.
It just so happened that the other important thing that happened in 1776 was the publication of Adam Smith’s classic on economics, The Wealth of Nations, which argued that free trade was preferable to imposing tariffs on imports. Free trade serves the public, while tariffs and other restrictions serve special interests. (And politicians who get to decide what the tariffs should be.)
Because of that, the Commerce Clause of the U.S. Constitution gives the federal government exclusive power to regulate trade between the states, not just precluding tariffs, but also any restrictions that may serve as a restraint of trade.
Ironically, this has immediate relevance to marijuana prohibition: “The Commerce Clause is the source of federal drug prohibition laws under the Controlled Substances Act.
“In a 2005 medical marijuana case, Gonzales v. Raich, the U.S. Supreme Court rejected the argument that the ban on growing medical marijuana for personal use exceeded the powers of Congress under the Commerce Clause.”
More recently, I have written about the mess that several states are making as politicians who were ardent prohibitionists yesterday, now are experts on regulating a new industry.
The biggest news this week in the medical cannabis world has to be the acquisition of GW Pharmaceuticals by JAZZ, the Irish pharmaceutical company at a significant premium.
I have long had serious concerns about GW Pharmaceuticals, not because they are trying to “pharmaceuticalize” cannabis (Hooray for that, if they can), but rather because they seem to have had marijuana prohibition built into their business model.
They even employed a former staffer from the Drug Czar’s office to lobby against state medical marijuana laws. I think if you have to threaten sick and dying people with arrest if they use a plant instead of your product, you must not have much confidence in your products.
As we used to say, back when we could still go to the movies: This is where I came in.
In 1972, the first thing I ever wrote for publication was in the late William F. Buckley Jr’s National Review on why Conservatives should support the legalization of marijuana. It caused quite a stir. There it was on the cover: THE TIME HAS COME: ABOLISH THE POT LAWS
Even though he led with “The key to any nationwide legalization is to keep the free market out of it”, and that is not something one often sees in either Bloomberg or National Review, he explains that he only wants the government to control retail sales to prevent excessive commercialization that would encourage excessive use.
He also writes for The American Enterprise Institute www.AEI.org , the “conservative” think tank.
He is a graduate of Princeton University and he managed to maintain his intellectual integrity during the Trump cult. In short he was smart enough to know better when he wrote his latest column for Bloomberg, calling for decriminalizing marijuana possession, but leaving the supply side to the black market:
“There’s a Responsible Way to End the Federal Marijuana Ban. The key to any nationwide legalization is to keep the free market out of it.”
Yes, there is something more than a little strange about someone with such impeccable Conservative credentials opposing the free market because it works too well.
Last month CNN carried a report, “Marijuana abuse by youth with mood disorders linked to suicide attempts, self-harm and death, study finds”
The arguments for the legalization of marijuana are not based on the assumption that marijuana is harmless, so I have never felt it necessary to defend the plant, but I do think we need to understand the relationship between science, journalism and freedom.
Let’s start with the word “Linked”. My headline that “Marijuana Abuse By Youth Linked to Bad Journalism” was making an ironic point, but obviously I did not mean that marijuana abuse by youth was caused by bad journalism, but maybe it is.
As I have written about the logical fallacies of marijuana prohibition, the so-called “Gateway Effect” is a classic. “Post hoc ergo propter hoc” or “After this therefore because of this” is that marijuana use “leads to” hard drugs, etc.
The political equivalent of that is the “Slippery Slope” that marijuana legalization will lead to the legalization of hard drugs and Lordy knows what else. Of course, the Drug Warriors accused even medical marijuana advocates of “really wanting” to legalize crack, etc.
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CBD is one of many naturally occurring compounds found in hemp and cannabis plants. It can interact directly with the human body’s endocannabinoid system to help restore balance. Utilizing a high-quality CBD product is key to reaping the potential therapeutic benefits.
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The popularity of CBD in health, wellness, beauty fields, and beyond is ever on the rise. Cannabidiol, also known as CBD, is one of many compounds naturally derived from hemp and cannabis plants. It has been found to contain vital antioxidants and strong anti-inflammatory properties that show beneficial for things from anxiety and stress relief to pain management and more. CBD produced within the United States must come from cannabis or hemp plants containing less than 0.3% THC (the psychoactive compound commonly associated with cannabis), allowing CBD to be legally sold and distributed.
There are countless products to choose from when it comes to CBD on the market these days, especially when looking to buy CBD online. When it comes to finding quality CBD products, fact-checking with third-party lab test results is the best way to ensure a legitimate CBD purchase. Real Tested CBD is a household name in the world of CBD product reviews and independent lab testing. We give you everything you need to know before buying CBD online, from pesticide and solvent test results to potency and label claim fact-checking.
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With the amount of options available, it can become tricky to navigate a market, especially if CBD is new to you. So what are the best ways to make sure you are getting the best product and bang for your buck? Here are five important things to consider when making your CBD purchase.
The Source of Hemp
CBD is sourced from hemp and cannabis plants. These plants, just like anything that is grown from seed, can be influenced by the factors around them. Plants can absorb anything they are exposed to, whether its pesticides, fertilizer or anything in the air This is why it is important to always look for a high-quality hemp source. Similarly, both the US and Canada have regulations in place for quality control and standards on the type of seeds available and legal limits of THC. In accordance with the 2018 Farm Bill, all industrial hemp grown in the US must maintain a THC threshold of less than 0.3%.
Extraction Method
There are numerous extraction methods for CBD. The most common method, and the safest, is through CO2 extraction, a process that uses supercritical carbon dioxide (at a temperature where it functions as a gas and a liquid) to extract the cannabidiol through a series of chambers. The carbon dioxide evaporates in the final stage of chambers as soon as it hits the air, leaving behind pure plant extract that can be turned into a variety of products. The final stage of extraction and processing is to remove unwanted compounds, leaving an isolate or desired potency.
The American people have not been voting on medical science, but on criminal law and individual freedom. For that, we don’t need the approval of the cowardly quacks who’ve ignored the suffering of their patients for decades.
There are some phone calls you just never forget. It was Good Friday morning in 1995. This woman called the NORML office in Washington, wanting information about medical marijuana. Her elderly father was undergoing chemotherapy and the pharmaceutical antiemetics had stopped working, as often happens, and he was vomiting uncontrollably.
One of the nurses pulled her aside and whispered to her, “This happened to my father and marijuana really helped.” My caller said she was astonished, so she asked another nurse who said, “It works for some people.”
So she naturally asked the oncologist. He snapped, “It’s illegal and I don’t want to discuss it.” And he walked away.
However, her father was suffering so much that she had to do something, so she asked around and found that marijuana was really easy to get. She gave some to her father and he stopped vomiting and could sleep.
