NEW YORK (AP) - Marijuana use is becoming more accepted among U.S. adults as states loosen pot laws, new national survey data shows. More are using marijuana, using it more often and far fewer think it's risky, the government survey found. That's understandable, experts say, as dozens of states now allow medical marijuana and four states have recently legalized pot for recreational use. More than a half million U.S. adults participated in the survey over a dozen years, and the responses show a shift in attitude. Only a third of adults in 2014 said they thought weekly marijuana use was dangerous, down from half of adults in 2002. [continues 407 words]
As Voters Ponder Prop. 64, Experts Cite the Effects Pot Can Have on Young Users. SAN JUAN CAPISTRANO - Devan Fuentes made it all the way through San Clemente High School without drinking or using drugs. He vividly remembers the first time he smoked pot. He was visiting a friend at Occidental College, and decided the moment had come. "They brought out a giant three-foot bong," Fuentes told me the other day in a rustic coffee shop tucked into this town's historic Los Rios neighborhood. "I heard a lot of people don't get high their first time, so I held it in for a long time, one large hit. Immediately, I couldn't feel my legs." [continues 1001 words]
AFTER several failed efforts, proponents of legalizing "medical" marijuana in Oklahoma may have collected enough signatures to put the issue before voters. So it's worth looking at the actual content of this measure, even though logistical challenges may postpone a vote until after November's elections. Prior medical marijuana proposals have been laughably broad. The legal language for proposed State Question 788 is better, but problems and loopholes remain that should concern Oklahomans. Proponents like to portray the proposed system as comparable to going to the drugstore for a prescription painkiller. But the language of SQ 788 undermines that image. Under the proposal, someone with a state-issued medical marijuana license could both produce and use marijuana. That's not typical for most controlled substances. [continues 430 words]
D.C. Tenants Face Eviction As 'Drug Nuisances' Even When No One Is Charged With a Crime For eight years, Rajuawn Middleton, an assistant at a major downtown law firm, lived in a four-bedroom red-brick home she rented on a quiet tree-lined street in Northeast Washington - until she was forced out over a few cigarettes containing a "green leafy substance." In March 2014, police arrested her adult son on charges of possessing a handgun outside a nightclub. He had not lived with Middleton for years, but two weeks later, D.C. police looking for more guns raided her home. [continues 3063 words]
Many Glowing Remarks Come From the Same Ip Address, a Software Flaw Shows. Millions of consumers treat Weedmaps like the Yelp for pot, relying on the Irvine company as their definitive guide to marijuana dispensaries, varieties and doctors. But a key feature - user reviews of pot businesses - may be tainted by thousands of potentially fraudulent comments, a flaw in the company's software revealed. Reviews on the site are pseudonymous, and visitors reasonably expect that each is written by a unique customer. But data that Weedmaps mistakenly leaked suggests that a large proportion of glowing remarks come from individual users leaving multiple reviews of a single business. [continues 1094 words]
Humboldt County's proposed excise tax for medical marijuana farms has created a rift between local growers. Several farmers have come out against the tax model, calling it premature, hasty and partial to larger farms. Other cultivators say they are supportive of it and feel that the time is ripe to pay their fair share in society to bring in badly needed revenue for county schools, roads and mental health services among others. But the recently created Humboldt County Cannabis Chamber of Commerce argues the tax measure as written "misses the mark" on those funding goals. [continues 631 words]
Colorado's now years-long experiment with legal medical and recreational cannabis markets has been mostly positive and fascinating, and yet the federal government has been slow to rethink its decades-long prohibitionist position. We hope the Obama administration takes advantage of its historic opportunity to end or take steps toward dismantling the destructive war on pot. What an irony it would be if Obama, who has openly admitted to pot use in his early years, and who has shown great tolerance toward local legalization laws, left office without having moved the nation away from the antiquated reefer-madness enforcement of past presidencies. [continues 444 words]
More than ever, the powerful synthetic opioid fentanyl is claiming lives in Massachusetts, fueling an overdose death toll that continues to rise, according to data released Wednesday by the state Department of Public Health. During the first half of 2016, deaths from opioid overdoses were higher than in the same period last year. That happened despite an apparent decline in the use of heroin and prescription drugs. Prescriptions for opioid painkillers were at their lowest level since early 2015, and heroin and prescription drugs were found less frequently in the bloodstreams of overdose victims than in the past. [continues 659 words]
This is the time of year parents start worrying about back-to-school stuff. For those with college-age kids who will soon go off to live by themselves, there's an extra bit of preparation to think about. You may not realize it, but police departments across the country, especially those near colleges and universities, often "flip" students caught with even a tiny amount of marijuana and recruit them into the ranks of "confidential informant." [continues 712 words]
Oroville - Marijuana is back on the ballot. The Butte County Board of Supervisors sent an initiative by pot proponents to the November ballot with a 4-1 vote shortly after noon Tuesday. Parts of the initiative, titled the "Medical Cannabis Cultivation and Commerce Measure," were questioned by the supervisors, but ultimately, with the deadline approaching to either approve the initiative as a county ordinance or send it to the November election, District 5 Supervisor Doug Teeter made the motion to have the people of the county vote on the initiative. [continues 800 words]
EDGEWATER - This may not be the city that cannabis built, but Colorado's most famous cash crop could soon be the driving force behind construction of a $7 million, 40,000-square-foot civic center in this tiny community wedged between Lakewood and Denver. Edgewater is exploring using sales tax revenue from marijuana sales to cover more than half the cost - $4 million - of building a facility that will house a new city hall, police station, fitness center and library. It's a project that likely wouldn't move forward - - at least not for years - absent the tax remittances made by the city's halfdozen pot shops. The city expects to collect north of $1.2 million in sales tax revenues from pot in 2016. [continues 823 words]
State Hopes to Prevent and Delay Usage by Underage People Less than two years after recreational marijuana was legalized in the state, the Oregon Healthy Authority is launching a program to dissuade young residents from using it. The message: Marijuana can affect brain development, impair abilities and jeopardize people's health and careers. The OHA is piloting the campaign in Medford and Portland using web ads, streaming radio and TV and Facebook ads. It's being funded with $4 million allocated by the Legislature in this year's session to help prevent marijuana use among youth, according to Kati Moseley, policy specialist with the OHA Public Health Division. [continues 373 words]
When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one part of the American people to affirm the political bands which connect them to the other parts, and to assume within the nation, the connected and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of their fellow citizens requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to affirm their connection. We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all people are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness, - That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among us, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, - That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and, if they choose the path of alteration, to abandon old and institute new legislation, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing the powers of government in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that legislation long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience has shown, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to repudiate the integral connection among Americans, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such legislation, and to provide new Guards for their future security. - Such has been the patient sufferance of African Americans; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to advocate the end of Prohibition. The history of the present War on Drugs is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having as a direct consequence the severing of the connection between African Americans and the rest of the American polity. [continues 755 words]
With California poised to vote on marijuana legalization in November, some may be asking, "What effect would it have on our youths?" If Colorado is any measure, youth use may not rise. The Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment surveyed teens about marijuana habits and found that marijuana use has decreased 5 percentage points since 2009. Then, 43 percent said they had used marijuana, while now that number is at 38 percent. Colorado's voters legalized marijuana for adults with a ballot measure in 2012. [continues 278 words]
The biggest single risk in legalizing marijuana in 2012 - with no other issue even close - was the effect it might have on adolescents. Would usage skyrocket among this group? Teens who use drugs are more likely than adults to end up dependent on them and to suffer other long-term consequences, such as academic failure. If it can be shown for sure that legalization pushes more kids into pot use, most arguments on behalf of legal pot would be overwhelmed. That's why the recent data from the state's Healthy Kids Colorado Survey, which shows marijuana use among high school students has not increased and is roughly the same as the national average, is so heartening. Even the most ardent opponents of legalization ought to pleased, since the prospect of repealing Amendment 64 in the near future is approximately zero. We're going to be living with the consequences of legalization for the time being, both good and bad. [continues 329 words]
When Colorado legalized marijuana for recreational use in 2012, opponents of the new law warned that more teenagers would start using the drug. But teen use of marijuana has held steady, according to a new survey of nearly 17,000 high school and middle school students by the state Department of Public Health and Environment. The study, released this week, also found that "Colorado does not significantly differ from the national average in lifetime or current marijuana use." Colorado, which has some of the most liberal marijuana laws in the country, is something of a test case for legalization, as 25 states now allow medical or recreational use of the drug to varying degrees. Legalization advocates have seized on the findings to bolster their position. [continues 454 words]
DENVER (AP) - Marijuana use among Colorado high-schoolers has not increased since legalization, the state Health Department reported Monday in a new batch of youth survey results. The 2015 Healthy Kids Colorado survey of about 17,000 middle and high school students across the state showed that 21.2 percent of high school students reported that they currently use pot. That's just a hair below the national average, which was 21.7 percent. Since voters approved recreational marijuana use for those 21 and older in 2012, Colorado has worked to keep youths off of pot. Campaigns have said the drug will keep them from achieving their full potential and reminded them their brains aren't fully developed until they reach 25. [continues 69 words]
OAKLAND - In a speech Tuesday morning, Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom urged cannabis industry members to put their best efforts into passing marijuana legalization legislation on November's ballot. Newsom addressed cannabis business leaders and activists at the Cannabis Business Summit in Oakland on Tuesday morning. Newsom criticized other Democrats holding elected offices for not publicly taking strong pro-legalization stances and touted himself as one of the few that advocate legalization. "(The campaign is) not done by any stretch of the imagination. If you think this thing is done in California, you couldn't be more wrong," Newsom said at the conference. "So don't just think because this is a universal state and pluralism is our middle name ... that this is going to be easy." [continues 368 words]
The biggest single risk in legalizing marijuana in 2012 - with no other issue even close - was the effect it might have on adolescents. Would usage skyrocket among this group? Teens who use drugs are more likely than adults to end up dependent on them and to suffer other long-term consequences, such as academic failure. If it can be shown for sure that legalization pushes more kids into pot use, most arguments on behalf of legal pot would be overwhelmed. That's why the recent data from the state's Healthy Kids Colorado Survey, which shows marijuana use among high school students has not increased and is roughly the same as the national average, is so heartening. Even the most ardent opponents of legalization ought to pleased, since the prospect of repealing Amendment 64 in the near future is approximately zero. We're going to be living with the consequences of legalization for the time being, both good and bad. [continues 318 words]
There's An Antidote for Heroin Overdose, and a Former Addict Is Among Those Working to Spread It Far and Wide Joshua Livernois woke up hazy, sick and splashed with Dr. Pepper in a hospital bed in Salinas, California. He couldn't piece together the events of the previous day or so, and he's still not even sure which year it was, probably 2005 or '06. He'd been using heroin off and on for about 10 years and almost daily for five. [continues 2388 words]
