Dear Stoner: I'll be visiting Colorado this summer, and everyone is telling me I can only buy a quarter-ounce. Is that true? If so, is that for every shop, or can I buy more at another? Dear Based: It used to be that way, but not any longer! In June, Governor John Hickenlooper signed a law bumping up the out-of-stater limit to an ounce, so you don't have to limit yourself to a quarter-ounce at each shop you visit. Not that I've met many people who go through a quarter in a day - but they're out there. [continues 363 words]
Measures set to reduce pot-impaired driving Canadians suspected of driving while high could be required to submit to a roadside saliva test that identifies the use of marijuana, cocaine and opioids. An oral fluid test is one of the suggestions from a discussion paper released on June 30 by the Task Force on Marijuana Legalization and Regulation. "We'll scream blue bloody murder if it's not in place before legalization," MADD Canada CEO Andrew Murie said. While the task force is looking at the oral fluid test - a roadside saliva swab - for the detection of marijuana use, the test can also reveal the presence of other drugs such as cocaine, ecstasy, opioids and amphetamine. [continues 339 words]
Canadians suspected of driving while high could be required to submit to a roadside saliva test that identifies the use of marijuana, cocaine and opioids. An oral fluid test is one of the suggestions from a discussion paper released on June 30 by the Task Force on Marijuana Legalization and Regulation. "We'll scream blue bloody murder if it's not in place before legalization," MADD Canada CEO Andrew Murie said. "Because we already have a problem," he added. "It's well acknowledged we have a problem with young people, so we really need this to be in place before legalization." [continues 547 words]
Groups work to reduce drug overdoses, sex assaults during summer festivals With the summer festival season in full blast, there's a dark side to the fun in the sun. One local service agency is helping festival-goers who use drugs avoid the deadly mistakes that have killed people in Ottawa and across Canada by offering low-tech checking kits. Another is training Ottawa festival volunteers - more than 4,500 of them last year alone at events like Escapade, RBC Bluesfest and CityFolk - to intervene when they see sexual violence, which spikes at mass gatherings. [continues 542 words]
Canadians suspected of driving while high could be required to submit to a roadside saliva test that identifies the use of marijuana, cocaine and opioids. An oral fluid test is one of the suggestions from a discussion paper released on June 30 by the Task Force on Marijuana Legalization and Regulation. "We'll scream blue bloody murder if it's not in place before legalization," MADD Canada CEO Andrew Murie said. "Because we already have a problem," he added. "It's well acknowledged we have a problem with young people, so we really need this to be in place before legalization." [continues 548 words]
To have an enjoyable time, we want to build people's safety ... and a community where people are willing to step in. With the summer festival season in full blast, there's a dark side to the fun in the sun.. One local service agency is helping festivalgoers who use drugs avoid the deadly mistakes that have killed people in Ottawa and across Canada by offering low-tech checking kits. Another is training Ottawa festival volunteers - more than 4,500 of them last year alone at events like Escapade, RBC Bluesfest and CityFolk - to intervene when they see sexual violence, which spikes at mass gatherings. [continues 771 words]
Hold Your Horses, Rescheduling Weed Isn't Happening Just Yet HEY, YOU GUYS, did you hear? The federal government is about to make weed legal. No, for reals, I saw it on Facebook, the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) is going to totally make it so doctors have to give it to you, for free! Thanks Obama! I'm gonna make my doctor give me an ounce next week! Before you start demanding that your podiatrist procure you some shatter, maybe we should do what Americans sort of suck at-taking a pause and examining what's really up. [continues 634 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]
EASTON - U.S. Rep. Andy Harris, Rmd.-1st, is part of a group of bipartisan congressmen who want to loosen the federal barriers to medical marijuana research. Harris, a physician who has also conducted National Institute of Health-sponsored research, and several other federal lawmakers plan to introduce bills in both houses of Congress. According to Harris' office, the House version of the bill would address two major barriers faced by those who want to conduct legitimate medical marijuana research. It allows for the private manufacturing and distribution of marijuana solely for research purposes, in order for the researchers to get the pot they need for their studies. It also aims to reduce approval wait times for studies. [continues 544 words]
One out of every five Colorado teens admits having used marijuana in the past month, but that rate has not increased since pot was legalized in the state and is in line with the national average, according to a new report from the state Health Department. Among the other findings of the 2015 Healthy Kids Colorado Survey, released Monday: The large majority of Colorado middle and high school students - 62 percent - say they have never used marijuana. Alcohol is the drug of choice among Colorado teens, with 30 percent of kids surveyed saying they drank within the previous month. [continues 593 words]
This is in response to the June 9 opinion piece in The Union by Jonathan Collier, spokesman for the California (Marijuana) Grower Association. Mr. Collier first comments on the sheriff's "inability to eradicate growing related challenges." He later says that marijuana has been here for decades and you just can't get rid of it. He acknowledges "a rising criminal element" and says that the county has had a "laissez-faire attitude toward land use." I take that to mean that the county has not tried to eradicate illegal marijuana growing, which isn't true. [continues 514 words]
Decriminalising Drugs Is Straightforward; People Are Empowered With Choice ONE of the key traits of humanity is the ability to implement laws and change them as new evidence, facts and data become available, thus creating greater awareness. Such is the evolution of society, to build and refine knowledge due to new findings and information. In 1971, the Misuse of Drugs Act was implemented in the UK, causing a wave of punitive legislation throughout the world. Suddenly, the recreational drug culture of the 1960s had come to an end, bringing with it a darker era of obscured drug use run by crime syndicates holding a monopoly over the masses. [continues 688 words]
The Trudeau government's plans to change the legal status of marijuana may have some unintended consequences, including making more potent drugs harder to find. That's according to one former dealer in London who, like the other small-time operators who make up the bulk of the city's underground sales force, sold mostly marijuana for about a year before moving on to legitimate pursuits. "In a sense, it's more of a hobby or a supplementary income," the dealer said. [continues 283 words]
Editor's note: This is day one of a four-day series that examines the impact heroin is having on the community through the eyes of the addicts, their families, law enforcement and the groups that provide treatment. DECATUR Eric Buntain described the feeling of injecting heroin into his vein as "warm, euphoric, comfortable and relaxing: It feels great." About 30 seconds after injecting heroin, there's a surge of warmth coming from the low spinal area, a rush of sensation and an overriding sense of well-being. [continues 1448 words]
A group of men met among the tombstones of a Paso Robles cemetery sometime in 2014. Two of them were lawmen from the SLO County Narcotics Unit, a multiagency group dedicated to tackling drug crime in the county. The third was a civilian. A man with a wife and kids and a past checkered by drug use and criminal charges. They were there for different reasons. The lawmen knew drugs were flowing into the county. They wanted to root out the criminals responsible for selling them and put the dealers behind bars. The third man was just looking to stay away from the wrong side of those same bars. [continues 3166 words]
This Act Drives Users Back Towards Illegal Drugs and Alcohol, the Most Dangerous Substance of Them All With the Psychoactive Substances Act 2016, ministers last week banned the sale or procurement of any substance that has psychoactive activity, regardless of whether it is harmless or even useful. The sole exceptions are alcohol, nicotine products and caffeine. The main justification for this draconian piece of legislation is to make it easy for the police and local authorities to close down "head shops", or at least to stop them selling so-called legal highs: drugs such as nitrous oxide; some synthetic cannabinoids, salvia, and some weak stimulants known as bubbles or sparkle. The act is based on the false premise that legal highs are responsible for up to 100 deaths a year, when in fact the true number is fewer than 10. Media hysteria about the use of nitrous oxide by a few footballers and a dislike of young people doing something different from their parents has also played a part. [continues 735 words]
SALT LAKE CITY - Medical marijuana advocates, stymied in their recent efforts to legalize medical cannabis in Utah, are taking the fight to the nation's capital. They are calling on Utah's congressional delegation to support a bill that would downgrade marijuana from a schedule I controlled substance to a schedule II substance - something that state legislators urged Congress to do in a resolution sponsored by state Sen. Brian Shiozawa, R-Salt Lake City. That would open the way for more research on the substance, something both advocates and those concerned about the potential harmful impacts of marijuana support. [continues 1056 words]
Critics of Law Say Trade Will Simply Shift Underground Whipped Cream Chargers May Come Under Suspicion The blanket ban on the trade in legal highs which comes into force today is expected to end their sale through high street "head shops" and UK-based websites almost overnight, police and trading standards officers have said. But there are fears that the trade in new psychoactive substances (NPS) as they are officially known will move underground to illegal street markets and the darknet, the network of untraceable and hidden websites. [continues 886 words]
Over the years, people have been taught that marijuana was an evil drug. This drug is so evil that approximately 750,000 people are arrested every year and some of them convicted and fined for its use in the United States. So evil that every 42 seconds someone gets arrested for it. America is so convinced of marijuana's evils, that we are willing to root out this drug wherever it is used, bought, and sold, right? Wrong. in our nation's capital, before legalization, 91 percent of arrested marijuana dealers were African-American. What about the other 9 percent? Well, before Washington voters legalized its use, only 4 percent of Washington, D.C.'s arrested marijuana dealers were Caucasian. [continues 546 words]
Congress and President Obama are under pressure to reschedule marijuana. While rescheduling makes sense, it doesn't solve the state/federal conflict over marijuana (descheduling would be better). But more important, it wouldn't fix the broken scheduling system. Ideally, marijuana reform should be part of a broader bill rewriting the Controlled Substances Act. The Controlled Substances Act created a five-category scheduling system for most legal and illegal drugs (although alcohol and tobacco were notably omitted). Depending on what category a drug is in, the drug is either subject to varying degrees of regulation and control (Schedules II through V) - or prohibited, otherwise unregulated and left to criminals to manufacture and distribute (Schedule I). The scheduling of various drugs was decided largely by Congress and absent a scientific process - with some strange results. [continues 601 words]
