It is time to take a second look at reforming the opioid market, starting with the regulatory environment. [photo] Ike Brannon and Devorah Goldman of Capital Policy Analytics argue that it's time to reform the opioid market, starting with the regulatory environment. Capital Policy Analytics is a Washington, D.C., based consulting firm that provides economic analysis to businesses regarding how government policies affect markets and the broader economy.(Photo: TNS) Attorneys general from nearly every state and across the political spectrum agree that the makers of the drug Suboxone, a widely used treatment that reduces cravings for opiate addicts, violated state and federal antitrust laws. [continues 575 words]
Backers of marijuana legalization on Monday stepped up their pressure on the U.S. Senate to block the confirmation of Alabama Republican Sen. Jeff Sessions as the next attorney general. Sessions, a staunch opponent of legalization, angered proponents in April when he called pot "dangerous" and said that "good people don't smoke marijuana." Marijuana backers want the issue aired Tuesday when the Senate Judiciary Committee begins Sessions' confirmation hearing. "It's a national thing: This hearing is make or break for the marijuana folks," said Adam Eidinger, who heads a pro-legalization group in Washington, D.C., called DCMJ. [continues 796 words]
Pot's legal in California. So why are people still getting busted in Yosemite? Think pot is now legal in California? Try telling that to the National Park Service rangers ready to bust people caught with marijuana in Yosemite, Redwood, Death Valley and other federal lands across the state. The federal government says it's not backing off on citing people who are caught with marijuana in California's national parks, monuments, recreational areas and other federal lands regardless of the landslide vote that legalized recreational marijuana in the state. [continues 783 words]
I've only just started! Filipino President Duterte's bloody war on drugs has claimed 6,000 lives and seen 900,000 addicts surrender in just six months -- as he claims his country is now safer for normal people * The Philippines government has claimed it is winning the war on drugs after a brutal crackdown on dealing * 6,000 people have been killed by police or vigilantes in a six month campaign ordered by President Duterte * The Filipino government has said that thanks to the crackdown, the country is now a safer place for residents [continues 1462 words]
It took me awhile to perfect the cookie recipe. I experimented with ingredients: Blueberry, Strawberry, Sour Diesel, White Widow, Bubba Kush, AK-47 -- all strains of cannabis, which I stored, mixed with glycerin, in meticulously labeled jars on a kitchen shelf. After the cookies finished baking, I'd taste a few crumbs and annotate the effects in a notebook. Often, I felt woozy. One variation put me to sleep. When I had convinced myself that a batch was okay, I'd give a cookie to my 9-year-old son. [continues 1942 words]
The opioid epidemic ripping throughout the nation and our own backyard will not be stopped without the multi-pronged approach that is thankfully occurring on all levels of government. Local, state and national leaders have stepped up to provide assistance. Police, fire departments, ambulance crews, hospital staffs and others are on the front lines of this fight. Last month proved deadly in Erie County, with public officials reporting at least 42 suspected opioid overdose deaths, half of them since Dec. 19 and six alone on Dec. 27. [continues 451 words]
Senator Elizabeth Warren is leading a new effort to make sure vendors working with marijuana businesses don't have their banking services taken away. As marijuana shops sprout in states that have legalized the drug, they face a critical stumbling block: lack of access to the kind of routine banking services other businesses take for granted. US Senator Elizabeth Warren, a Massachusetts Democrat, is leading an effort to make sure vendors working with legal marijuana businesses, from chemists who test marijuana for harmful substances to firms that provide security, don't have their banking services taken away. [continues 568 words]
Even in a roomful of tinhorn dictators, President Rodrigo Duterte of the Philippines would stand out. He has insulted President Barack Obama and Pope Francis, admitted to killing suspected criminals, called a United Nations official an "idiot" and threatened to burn down the U.N. headquarters. He's also signaled his interest in closer ties with China, a nation with which the United States has conflicts on trade, security and other matters. Though it's unclear what kind of relationship he and President-elect Donald Trump will have, the U.S. may have a difficult balancing act ahead in holding Duterte to international standards while preserving its long-important relationship with the Philippines. It will be especially important to ensure that U.S. aid to the Philippines is not used for illicit purposes, such as an extrajudicial war on drugs. [continues 227 words]
Thomas Elias writes the syndicated California Focus column, appearing twice weekly in 93 newspapers around California, with circulation of over 2.2 million. As a United States attorney in Alabama serving under President Ronald Reagan in 1986, the 39-year-old Jefferson Beauregard Sessions III was charged with enforcing civil rights laws. But he said then that he didn't have much of a problem with what the Ku Klux Klan stood for, musing that he thought the KKK was "OK until I found out they smoked pot." [continues 640 words]
Tennessee Governor Bill Haslam, left, talks with US Secretary of Agriculture, Tom Vilsack and audience members during a town hall meeting on how to deal with the opioid addiction in Appalachia on Thursday, June 30, 2016 at the Southwest Virginia Higher Education Center on in Abingdon, VA. (SAUL YOUNG/NEWS SENTINEL) Tom Vilsack, US Secretary of Agriculture talks about opioid addiction during a town hall meeting with Tennessee Governor Bill Haslam and Virginia Governor Terry McAuliffe at the Southwest Virginia Higher Education Center on Thursday, June 30, 2016 in Abingdon, VA.(SAUL YOUNG/NEWS SENTINEL) [continues 1044 words]
Californians may have voted overwhelmingly on Nov. 8 to legalize marijuana, but Americans also elected Donald Trump, whose position on legalization has been a bit -- hazy. That's a potential problem because marijuana is regulated under federal law, giving Trump and his administration veto power over whether California and the seven other states that have voted to legalize cannabis can really do so. So where does the president-elect stand on pot? He has said he supports individuals' right to use medical marijuana "100%," which is good news for the 29 states that allow medicinal use of pot. As for adult recreational use, which Californians approved through Proposition 64, it's hard to say what he believes because his statements have been all over the map, shifting from audience to audience. [continues 667 words]
Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte speaks at a military ceremony in suburban Quezon city, northeast of Manila, Philippines. Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte speaks at a military ceremony in suburban Quezon city, northeast of Manila, Philippines. (Bullit Marquez / Associated Press) He has compared himself to Hitler, called President Obama a "son of a whore," and overseen a wave of extrajudicial violence that has left thousands of people dead. Rodrigo Duterte, the Philippines' 71-year-old president -- a former city mayor with a level gaze and an aura of casual dishevelment -- passed his 100th day in office Oct. 8, and despite his profanity and repeated calls to violence, he is the country's most popular leader in recent memory. [continues 1174 words]
WASHINGTON - President-elect Donald Trump's pick for attorney general is an outspoken foe of efforts to legalize marijuana for medicinal and recreational purposes - and that has some wondering what it means for the 28 states that have legalized marijuana in some form. Those states include Ohio, which is in the process of working on regulations for its own medical marijuana legalization. Aaron Marshall, a spokesman for Ohioans for Medical Marijuana, said his hope remains with Trump, who has repeatedly said he supports leaving marijuana legalization efforts to the states. [continues 772 words]
VANCOUVER - Their position on marijuana is hardly the only difference between Canada's prime minister and the president-elect of the United States. But when Justin Trudeau's government introduces legislation to legalize cannabis this spring, it could spark problems between Canada and the U.S., particularly since Donald Trump has indicated he will keep pot illegal at the federal level. Here's a look at what could change in Canada-U.S. relations once Canadians start lighting up legally. [continues 838 words]
Their position on marijuana is hardly the only difference between Canada's Prime Minister and the president-elect of the United States. But when Justin Trudeau's government introduces legislation to legalize cannabis this spring, it could spark problems between Canada and the United States, particularly since Donald Trump has indicated he will keep pot illegal at the federal level. Here's a look at what could change in Canada-U.S. relations once Canadians start lighting up legally. Border control [continues 556 words]
How Canada's legalization of marijuana could change relations with the U.S. VANCOUVER - Their position on marijuana is hardly the only difference between Canada's prime minister and the president-elect of the United States. But when Justin Trudeau's government introduces legislation to legalize cannabis this spring, it could spark problems between Canada and the U.S., particularly since Donald Trump has indicated he will keep pot illegal at the federal level. Here's a look at what could change in Canada-U.S. relations once Canadians start lighting up legally. [continues 840 words]
As the lunatic fringe has long said, allowing people to grow their own marijuana would kill the illegal drug trade as soon as the first crop was harvested. But the task force, being an arm of government, had to be stupid. Watching sanity finally seep into the country's drug laws, you have to marvel at the stubborn narrow-mindedness that kept marijuana illegal for so long, causing suffering and injustice for half a century. Once again, the lunatic fringe is proven right. We could have listened decades ago, and prevented people from being imprisoned for pot possession. The impending legalization of marijuana will be vindication for the vocal lunatic fringe who long argued the laws against it were illogical, hypocritical and indefensible. [continues 565 words]
Officials, former inmate contrast the emphasis on treatment vs. incarceration When Leola Bivins was first sent away for dealing drugs, she was a 22-year-old high school dropout with a 2-year-old daughter at home. Addiction was the center of the life she knew in East Stroudsburg, where she was born and raised, she recalled recently. Bivins' mother was a heroin addict - she eventually died of an overdose - and seemingly everyone around her was either selling drugs or abusing them, Bivins said. [continues 2766 words]
Defending the government's classification of marijuana as one of the most dangerous drugs, the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration declares on its website that pot causes mental illness and lung cancer and leads youths to heroin and cocaine. But an advocacy group says the DEA, in a legal filing in August, said it found no evidence to support any of those conclusions. The group, Americans for Safe Access, has asked the agency to remove discredited claims from its Web page. [continues 522 words]
Philippines' police have shot more than 3,000 to death Thousands of kilometres away from her hometown of Samar in the south of Philippines, Sonia Pormarca Carreon has been finding it hard to sleep. "I have four sons in that country. And the police is shooting people every day," said the Scarborough resident ,who came to Toronto more than two years ago as a live-in caregiver. "Honestly, I am very worried about their lives. I know they have not done anything wrong but the situation is so scary." [continues 215 words]
