Topic: DRUGS - on August 18, 2016 at 5:45:00 PM CEST
The DEA Says Weed Should Stay Illegal Because If You Smoke It You'll Get Arrested
What’s so bad about weed that we should continue to keep it illegal in this country? The DEA is glad you asked. We should keep weed illegal because it is illegal, they say. One of the dangers of weed is that if you smoke it, you might get arrested is an impressive bit of tautological reasoning, which comes from The DEA Position on Marijuana, a 2011 document recently obtained by MuckRock in response to a FOIA request. The document puts forth the agency’s arguments for why we should continue weed prohibition at the federal level. The whole thing is worth a read—it also includes an anecdote about using pot to treat an ecstasy overdose as supposed evidence that it has no medical value—but one bullet point sticks out in particular. Under the heading DANGERS OF MARIJUANA, it reads:
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Topic: DRUGS - on August 18, 2016 at 5:40:00 PM CEST
Where does all that Colorado pot tax go?
Colorado is pulling in a significant amount of money by taxing recreational marijuana, but it’s not enough to pave the streets in gold. In part because supporters of legal pot hyped the potential to raise millions, some Coloradans have been left to wonder why all that money hasn’t revolutionized life in our state.
$30.00 – 1/8 oz marijuana $3.00 – 10% special state sales tax $0.87 – 2.9% regular state sales tax $1.43 – 4.75% regular Denver sales tax (including RTD/SCFD tax) $1.05 – 3.5% special Denver sales tax
$36.35 – GRAND TOTAL
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Topic: DRUGS - on August 14, 2016 at 4:40:00 PM CEST
How Nitrous Oxide Inspired Early Psychedelic Literature
I love jotting down nonsensical snippets of conversation I overhear at music festivals, parties, and other drug-friendly gatherings. I've catalogued trustafarian musings like "At our core, we're interstellar beings," "Dog feet are a good idea," and most spectacularly, "I feel like a deer that for some reason has the ability to travel in and out of heaven." Imagine for a second that these quotes came from respected members of Victorian society—powdered wigs and all—and you've got the focus of Oh Excellent Air Bag: Under the Influence of Nitrous Oxide 1799-1920. This anthology of original accounts from the earliest days of laughing gas (out now via The Public Domain Review) features poets, scientists, and philosophers offering such musings as "I felt like the sound of a harp," "He seemed... to be bathed all over with a bucket full of good humour," and "It would require a pen, made of a quill, plucked from an angel's wing, to describe half the pleasures arising from this source."
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Topic: DRUGS - on August 14, 2016 at 4:38:00 PM CEST
Portugal’s Example: What Happened After It Decriminalized All Drugs, From Weed to Heroin
As diplomats gather at the United Nations in New York this week to consider the future of global drug policy, one Portuguese official, João Goulão, will likely command attention that far outstrips his country's influence in practically any other area. That's because 16 years ago, Portugal took a leap and decriminalized the possession of all drugs — everything from marijuana to heroin. By most measures, the move has paid off. Today, Portuguese authorities don't arrest anyone found holding what's considered less than a 10-day supply of an illicit drug — a gram of heroin, ecstasy, or amphetamine, two grams of cocaine, or 25 grams of cannabis. Instead, drug offenders receive a citation and are ordered to appear before so- called "dissuasion panels" made up of legal, social, and psychological experts. Most cases are simply suspended. Individuals who repeatedly come before the panels may be prescribed treatment, ranging from motivational counseling to opiate substitution therapy.
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Topic: DRUGS - on August 13, 2016 at 12:27:00 PM CEST
HIKEA: Möbel-Zusammenbau auf LSD und Pilzen
Ich habe heute gelernt, dass es einen Youtube-Kanal namens „Hikea Productions“ gibt, auf dem Videos veröffentlicht werden, in denen Menschen Ikea-Möbel zusammenbauen (naja, oder zusammenzubauen versuchen), die sich davor Drogen reingepfiffen haben.
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Topic: DRUGS - on August 13, 2016 at 12:18:00 PM CEST
Dixie-Klo voller Marijuana
Then this happened: Portable toilet discovered full of pot in Rogue River park. (Die Pflanzen sind offensichtlich männliche Cannabis-Pflanzen mit sehr viel weniger THC, da hat wohl jemand seinen unbrauchbaren Ganja im Klo entsorgt.)
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Topic: DRUGS - on August 13, 2016 at 12:15:00 PM CEST
Malia Obama Spotted Inhaling Devil Drugs, Don’t Tell Her Mom And Dad!
Uh oh, there is terrible news to report about the 18-year-old daughter of the president of the United States. Did you hear Malia Obama, upon graduating from Sidwell Friends School in Washington, is taking a GAP YEAR? I know right, how lucky is she, we are so jealous, ugh, we wish OUR DAD was president of America! Just kidding, that was not the bad news, the REAL bad news is that Malia, the 18-year-old who is 18, went to Lollapalooza, and instead of gently swaying side to side and enjoying the musical stylings of the gathered troubadours, she put a reefer in her mouth, lit it on fire, and swallowed it.
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Topic: DRUGS - on August 13, 2016 at 12:05:00 PM CEST
Definitive guide to marijuana on the 2016 ballot: Recreational & medical initiatives
Legal cannabis has been a hot topic in the march to Election Night 2016.
Dozens of petitions have circulated across the United States. Some have successfully cleared the necessary regulatory hurdles to secure a spot at the ballot box. Others have fallen short.
Come November, voters in at least nine states will decide on whether to legalize either the recreational use or the medical use of marijuana. As it stands now, those states include: Arizona, Arkansas, California, Florida, Maine, Massachusetts, Montana, Nevada and North Dakota.
More states could join that list in the coming months. Several proposals — including an unprecedented one that could strip a state of its medical marijuana program — remain in the wings, awaiting official confirmation.
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Topic: DRUGS - on August 13, 2016 at 12:00:00 PM CEST
DEA ends its monopoly on marijuana growing for medical research
The federal government is ending its decades-old monopoly on marijuana production for medical research as the Drug Enforcement Administration announced Thursday that it was bowing to changing times. The agency said it would begin allowing researchers and drug companies to use pot grown in places other than its well-secured facility at the University of Mississippi. But the agency did not make the bigger plunge toward marijuana legalization that many lawmakers have been advocating. It passed on a proposal to remove cannabis from the federal government’s most dangerous category of narcotics. The drug continues to be classified as more dangerous than cocaine.
latimes.com DEA Announces Marijuana Will Stay Schedule 1, ‘No Medical Use Or Purpose’ 'Politics Above Science': Obama Administration Keeps Marijuana Restrictions Why the DEA just said ‘no’ to loosening marijuana restrictions
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Topic: DRUGS - on August 11, 2016 at 5:54:00 PM CEST
El Chapo and the Secret History of the Heroin Crisis
If you wonder why America is in the grips of a heroin epidemic that kills two hundred people a week, take a hard look at the legalization of pot, which destroyed the profits of the Mexican cartels. How did they respond to a major loss in revenue? Like any company, they created an irresistible new product and flooded the market. The scariest part: this might not have happened with El Chapo in charge.
The phone rang. It was July 2014, and I was in a motel room in Tucumcari, New Mexico, about to step into the shower. My wife and I were two days into a cross-country drive from our home in California, and I wanted to clean up before we went to a sports bar across the parking lot to grab something to eat. Looking at the phone, I recognized the number and felt my heart drop. The woman was a close friend. Her twenty-three-year-old son had struggled with heroin addiction for several years. I knew the young man. He was smart, talented, funny—and charming when he wasn't high or jonesing. He was supposed to have called me that day to discuss getting back into school. I didn't get that call. It was his mother on the phone, sobbing, barely able to stammer out the words that I already knew she was going to say. "He's gone." That afternoon, she told me, he was walking to a treatment center that finally had a bed for him, but he stopped for one last "get well" fix. He died on the sidewalk.
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Topic: DRUGS - on August 11, 2016 at 5:01:00 PM CEST
DEA Rejects Attempt to Loosen Federal Restrictions on Marijuana
The Obama administration has denied a bid by two Democratic governors to reconsider how it treats marijuana under federal drug control laws, keeping the drug for now, at least, in the most restrictive category for U.S. law enforcement purposes. Drug Enforcement Administration chief Chuck Rosenberg says the decision is rooted in science. Rosenberg gave "enormous weight" to conclusions by the Food and Drug Administration that marijuana has "no currently accepted medical use in treatment in the United States" and by some measures, it remains highly vulnerable to abuse as the most commonly used illicit drug across the nation.
npr.org DEA Reaffirms ‘Flat Earth’ Position With Regard To Marijuana Scheduling DEA decision keeps major restrictions in place on marijuana research
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Topic: DRUGS - on August 11, 2016 at 4:57:00 PM CEST
The Party Drug With The Power To Ease Anxiety, Depression, And PTSD
When New Yorker Stacy Berman was young, she would take MDMA (otherwise known as “molly” or “ecstacy”) once in awhile for recreational reasons. It just made her feel good, she says. So when she discovered as an adult that she’d been suffering from Complex Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (CPTSD)—often found in victims of child abuse and Holocaust survivors—she thought she’d give MDMA another try. At the time, Berman was working to complete a doctoral program in mind/body medicine. She couldn’t believe how much MDMA helped. “The idea behind CPTSD is that in a situation where a person is not able to fight or flee, they tend to freeze up… MDMA allowed me to start feeling again,” she says.
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