Drug War Chronicle #1200 - December 14, 2023

The Top Ten Domestic Drug Policy Stories of 2023 [FEATURE]

Read Phil's top ten international drug policy stories here.

Another Year Where Marijuana Legalization or Even Banking Reform Couldn't Get Through Congress

A Congress with a narrowly divided Senate and a House barely controlled by Republican radicals is no place to get substantive marijuana reforms done -- at least it wasn't in the first 11 1/2 months of 2023. While there was plenty of sound and fury, as the year's final days tick down, federal marijuana legalization has failed to advance and even the reformers' backstop bill, the Secure and Fair Enforcement Regulation (SAFER) Banking Act appears to again be stuck.

After it was clear that legalization was dead in the Senate despite the best efforts of Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) -- 60 votes would be needed in the Senate and pro-legalization Republican votes were not sufficient to get there -- the SAFER Banking Act looked like the last, best hope for significant marijuana reform legislation.

Schumer said in September he intended to "bring it to the floor with all due speed," but in October, Republican cosponsor Sen. Steve Daines (R-MT) said the bill was on hold until he was sure it could pass in the House.

It's still on hold, and last month, Schumer said he still needs more Republican support. He needs "10 or 11 Republican" senators, he said. The bill currently has four Republican cosponsors.

Marijuana Is on the Cusp of Being Rescheduled

Responding to a request from the Biden administration, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) announced on August 30 that it was recommending that marijuana be removed from Schedule I of the Controlled Substances Act and instead be placed in Schedule III.

The issue is now before the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), which will make the final decision. "As part of this process, HHS conducted a scientific and medical evaluation for consideration by DEA. DEA has the final authority to schedule or reschedule a drug under the Controlled Substances Act. DEA will now initiate its review," a DEA spokesperson said.

Schedule I is for drugs that have a high potential for abuse and no accepted medical use, such as heroin and LSD, while Schedule III is for drugs that have a moderate to low potential for dependence and a lower abuse potential, such as ketamine and testosterone.

Reclassification could have important ramifications for the state-legal marijuana industry, such as allowing stock exchanges to list businesses in the trade and allowing the industry to take advantage of business tax write-offs that are currently blocked by IRS Revenue Code 280E. In the current situation, cannabusinesses pay taxes based on most of their gross revenues, rather than on the profits left after paying employees, rent and most other expenses.

Potentially it could also allow stock exchanges to list businesses in the trade, allow foreign companies to begin selling their products in the United States, and allow for interstate commerce within the US. Just how far the business or medical environment would progress, however, would depend on whether or when cannabis gets approved by the FDA, and perhaps on other steps.

HHS's recommendation to DEA is not binding, but it is very persuasive. DEA has yet to contradict an HHS recommendation on matters of health and science. But DEA has previously argued that the federal statutory requirements governing controlled substances only meet the requirements of current UN scheduling of cannabis for US Schedules I and II, a requirement in the Controlled Substances Act. With Schedule III, DEA would have to adopt additional rules to plug those regulatory gaps, and courts would have to allow that if it's challenged. It's not known when DEA will issue its decision.

Oregon's Pioneering Drug Decriminalization is Under Attack

In November 2020, voters in Oregon made history by becoming the first in the country to break with a century of drug war by approving the decriminalization of drug possession. Measure 110 not only put an end to thousands of low-level drug arrests, it also provided hundreds of millions of dollars for drug treatment, prevention, and related services by tapping into marijuana tax revenues -- $300 million so far.

But the treatment and prevention side of things has been slow rolling out, fentanyl has been coming in (fentanyl overdose deaths more than doubled between 2020 and 2023), and public drug use amidst a massive homeless problem has irked many, and not just those wielding a conservative critique that paints state and Portland leaders as wacky liberals blighting the state -- never mind that it was the voters and not political leaders who chose decriminalization.

And now, an effort is underway to roll back the clock. In September, a group of political operatives and deep-pocketed donors calling themselves the Coalition to Fix and Improve Measure 110 filed a pair of proposed ballot initiatives, Fix and Improve Measure 110-Measure A and Fix and Improve Measure 110-Measure B, would once again make drug possession a crime, as well as making changes on the treatment side of the ledger.

The possession of drugs such as cocaine, fentanyl, heroin, and methamphetamine would be a misdemeanor, and there would be a new misdemeanor of public consumption of illicit drugs. Version "B" of the initiative would also increase penalties for some drug offenses, such as where drug use causes death or when the offender is a repeat offender. That version would also make possession of pill-making machines a felony offense.

Those initiatives are not on the ballot yet. They must first come up with 120,000 valid voter signatures by July. But even if the initiatives fail to qualify for the ballot or lose at the ballot box in 2024, state political leaders are already taking aim at Measure 110, with both Gov. Tina Kotek (D) and legislative leaders on board.

In October, the legislature created the Joint Interim Committee on Addiction and Community Safety to review drug policy, especially Measure 110, make addiction services more accessible and ensure law enforcement has the tools it needs to keep communities safe. That committee held hearings and traveled to Portugal to investigate drug decriminalization there.

In December, Gov. Kotek announced a plan among state and Portland officials to criminalize public drug use and give police more resources to fight drug distribution. The Portland city council has already approved an ordinance criminalizing public drug use, but it would only go into effect if it criminalized at the state level.

As 2023 draws to a close, proponents of Measure 110 and drug decriminalization are going to have their work cut out for them. Whether it is from local leaders, the legislature, the governor, or deep-pocketed initiative backers, the cannons are pointed squarely at drug users, thousands of whom have been kept free of the tender mercies of the criminal justice system since Measure 110 went into effect.

Republicans Compete to See Who Can Be Most Warlike When It Comes to Mexican Drug Cartels

Whether it's the hard right version of virtue-signaling, a belated recognition that white people are dying of drug overdoses, or just another opportunity to bash the Biden administration over the border, Republican politicians and presidential candidates were in a heated competition this year to see who could be the most bellicose when it comes to confronting the Mexican drug trafficking organizations that supply our insatiable demand for cocaine, fentanyl, heroin, and meth.

Whether in the halls of Congress or on the campaign trail, attacking the cartels proved much more appealing to those beating the war drums than coming up with policies that would actually ameliorate some of the harms of the illicit drug marketplace -- up to and including turning it into a licit, regulated drug marketplace.

They got off to an early in start. In March, Reps. Dan Crenshaw (R-TX) and Tim Walz (R-FL) filed a resolution, HJ Res. 18 "to authorize the use of United States Armed Forces against those responsible for trafficking fentanyl or a fentanyl-related substance into the United States or carrying out other related activities that cause regional destabilization in the Western Hemisphere."

That same month, House rightists led by Rep. Chip Roy (R-TX) filed a bill designating the cartels as foreign terrorist organizations. Sens. John Kennedy (R-LA) and Lindsey Graham (R-SC) filed companion legislation, the cutely named Ending the Notorious, Aggressive and Remorseless Criminal Organizations and Syndicates (NARCOS) Act of 2023 in April.

Also in March, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-SC) added some unintentional levity to the mix when she told her two million Twitter followers that the cartels had planted bombs on US soil at the border to terrorize Americans and kill or injure Border Patrol agents and posted a photo of what she claimed was a "bomb." "This changes everything!" she hyperventilated as she called on the US military to "take action" and "end this Cartel led war against America!" But her bomb was only a bag of sand.

In April came reports that Donald Trump was seeking a plan to wage war on the cartels and had been briefed on options that include US troop deployments on Mexican territory and unilateral military strikes.

Trump's would-be challengers for the GOP presidential nomination were ready to one-up him, though, with Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis especially eager to get to shooting people. In June, he called for executing drug smugglers at the border.

Being tough on the border is a theme DeSantis has returned to repeatedly. In August, he doubled down on his vow of deadly force against the cartels. "Day one, we're declaring it to be a national emergency," DeSantis said. "I'm going to do what no president has been willing to do. We are going to lean in against the cartels directly, and we are going to use deadly force against them." And then he tripled down: "We're authorizing deadly force. They try to break into our country? They will end up stone-cold dead," he said.

Not to be outdone, former South Carolina governor Nikki Haley called for siccing US special forces on the cartels. "When it comes to the cartels, we should treat them like the terrorists that they are," Haley said. "I would send special operations in there and eliminate them just like we eliminated ISIS and make sure that they know there's no place for them. If Mexico won't deal with it, I'll make sure I deal with it," she added.

As for the Republican frontrunner, former president and current defendant in numerous criminal and civil cases Donald Trump has his own plans to deploy the US military against the cartels. As part of a broader strategy to crack down on immigration and the border that includes vetting migrants to ensure that no "Marxists" are let in, Trump plans at least two policies that take direct military aim at Mexican drug cartels. The first policy would deploy Coast Guard and US Navy ships to stop drug smuggling boats and the second would designate drug cartels as "unlawful enemy combatants," which would allow the US military to target them in Mexico. That is the same designation used to detain 9/11 suspects for decades at Guantanamo.

Drug Overdose Deaths Plateau at Level Way Too High

Ever since April 2021, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has estimated that more than 100,000 people died of drug overdoses in the preceding 12-month period. While there is necessarily in a lag in reporting the numbers, so we do not have data for all of this year, the CDC reported that as of June 2023, the provisional estimate of drug overdose deaths in the preceding 12-months was 111,877. That is down slightly from the 112,436 past-year deaths estimated the previous month, but that figure was an all-time high and the June 2023 figure is still devastatingly high.

The tiny bit of good news is that the number seems to have reached a plateaus, with the number of deaths declining very slightly in the latest data after hovering around 108-110,000 dead for each of the previous two years of previous year deaths. That is in sharp contrast to the sudden and massive rise in overdose deaths beginning as the coronavirus pandemic hit in early 2020. In February 2020, the previous 12-month overdose death number was under 75,000. By February 2021, the figure was 97,000.

There is yet no data on which drugs were killing people this year, but earlier CDC data found that opioids were implicated in 75 percent of overdose deaths and synthetic opioids (i.e., fentanyl and its derivatives) were involved in nearly 90 percent of those deaths. Deaths from stimulants such as cocaine and methamphetamine, with or without the presence of synthetic opioids, were on the increase, with cocaine involved in 23 percent of all overdose deaths. There is no evidence that this trend has altered this year.

Regulated markets allow for the sale of substances that are manufactured according to exacting standards, tested for adulterants, and packaged with relevant information on potency and dosage, all of which could reduce accidental drug overdoses. But we don't have that.

Move Over, Fentanyl, Here Come Xylazine and the Nitazenes

One of the more insidious features of prohibitionist drug markets is the constant pressure to innovate with new, more potent drug formulations. We have seen it in spades in recent years with fentanyl and its analogs, and this year, we saw two new "drug threats" enter the spotlight: xylazine and the nitazenes.

Xylazine is an animal tranquilizer known by the street name "tranq," not an opioid, and thus does not respond to opioid overdose reversal drugs such as naloxone. It also has other serious potential health effects, including wounds that may eventually require amputations, as well as breathing difficulties. It is often found mixed with fentanyl.

Now, xylazine has been detected in nearly every state in the country, and xylazine-involved overdose deaths are skyrocketing, albeit from very low initial levels. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reported in June that the monthly percentage of fentanyl deaths with xylazine detected jumped from 2.9 percent in January 2019 to 10.9 percent in June 2022. CDC also found that the death rate from xylazine overdoses jumped 35-fold from 2018 to 2021.

In April, the Biden administration designated fentanyl combined with xylazine as an emerging drug threat, citing impact of xylazine on the opioid crisis, including its growing role in overdose deaths in every region of the United States. And in July, the administration rolled out a National Response Plan to confront the xylazine-fentanyl phenomenon. The plan calls for a public health campaign of increased testing and treatment and more data collection to see how the drug combo spreads and contributes to overdose numbers. But it also calls for looking into whether to schedule xylazine and includes the reflex resort to law enforcement to try to suppress supply.

Congress, for its part, has also gotten in on the action. Both chambers have approved the TRANQ Research Act, which directs the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) to take steps to enhance understanding of the dangerous animal tranquilizer xylazine, or tranq, and other novel synthetic drugs; develop new tests for detection; and establish partnerships with front-line entities that are often the first points of contact with new street drugs. Differences between the House and Senate versions of the bill remain to be hammered out in conference committee.

The nitazenes are a group of new synthetic opioids that are emerging in illicit drug markets and may be more powerful than fentanyl, a thousand times more potent that morphine, and may require even greater doses of opioid overdose reversal drugs to reverse overdoses, according to a study published in August in the journal JAMA Network Open.

They were developed by researchers at a Swiss pharmaceutical company in the 1950s as pain relievers but never won approval for wider use. While considered opioids, the nitazenes have a different chemical structure from fentanyl. They began showing up in the US around 2019 -- after China restricted fentanyl-like substances under from the Trump administration. And now they are beginning to show up in overdose death reports.

California's Progressive Governor Vetoes Progressive Drug Reform Measures

Last year, Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) stifled an important harm reduction advance when he vetoed a bill that would have allowed a safe injection site pilot program to get underway. This year, Newsom was at it again: In October, he vetoed Senate Bill 58, which would have decriminalized the use and possession of several natural psychedelics, including psilocybin (found in magic mushrooms), mescaline, and dimethyltryptamine (DMT -- found in ayahuasca).

In his veto message, Newsom said he was open to exploring the therapeutic benefits of natural psychedelics, but that guiderails needed to put in place first -- and he appeared to give short shrift to any uses other than medicalized therapeutic use.

"Both peer-reviewed science and powerful personal anecdotes lead me to support new opportunities to address mental health through psychedelic medicines like those addressed in this bill," Newsom wrote. "Psychedelics have proven to relieve people suffering from certain conditions such as depression, PTSD, traumatic brain injury, and other addictive personality traits. This is an exciting frontier and California will be on the front-end of leading it. California should immediately begin work to set up regulated treatment guidelines -- replete with dosing information, therapeutic guidelines, rules to prevent against exploitation during guided treatments, and medical clearance of no underlying psychoses. Unfortunately, this bill would decriminalize possession prior to these guidelines going into place, and I cannot sign it."

Throwing a sop to the bill's supporters, Newsom urged them to send him a bill next year that includes therapeutic guidelines and added that he was "committed to working with the legislature and sponsors of this bill to craft legislation that would authorize permissible uses and consider a framework for potential broader decriminalization in the future, once the impacts, dosing, best practice, and safety guardrails are thoroughly contemplated and put in place."

That was not the only drug reform veto Newsom wielded this year. That same month, he vetoed a bill that would have allowed localities to give marijuana retailers the ability to prepare and serve non-marijuana food and beverages, Assembly Bill 374.

In his veto message, Newsom said he was concerned the bill could undermine the state's smoke-free workplace protections. He said he "appreciated" that struggling pot shops needed more revenue streams, but that was not enough for him to sign the bill.

As Newsom increases his national political profile, the question becomes: Is he sacrificing important drug reforms on the altar of his national political ambition?

Delaware Becomes 22^nd State to Legalize Cannabis

In April, legalization-opposing Gov. John Carney (D) bowed to political reality and allowed a pair of marijuana legalization bills passed with a veto-proof majority to become law without his signature. House Bill 1, sponsored by Rep. Ed Osienski (D), legalized the possession of a limited amount of marijuana legal for adults 21 and older. A separate measure, House Bill 2, will legalize and regulate cultivation and sales.

While legalization is in effect now, having a working system of legal marijuana commerce in place is still months down the road. The state will issue up to 30 retail marijuana licenses, 30 manufacturing licenses, 60 commercial cultivation licenses, and five testing licenses, but none of them before August 2024. Between now and then, state officials will be adopting regulations for the nascent industry and evaluating applications.

The new law contains social equity provisions with social equity licenses going to people who have lived at least five of the last 10 years in "a disproportionately impacted area" or who have or have family members who have previous marijuana convictions (except for delivery to a minor or possession of very large quantities). In another bid to promote equity in the industry, it also includes provisions for "microbusiness" licenses.

There is no provision for home cultivation.

Minnesota Becomes 23^rd State to Legalize Cannabis

In May, the House and Senate approved the House File 100 marijuana legalization bill and Gov. Tim Walz (DFL) quickly signed it into law. As of August 1, people 21 and over can possess up to two ounces in public. They can also grow up to eight plants at home, four of which can be in flowering, and they can possess up to two pounds of the fruits of their harvest at home. People can also transfer up to two ounces without remuneration to other adults.

Also beginning August 1, certain misdemeanor marijuana records were automatically expunged. A new bureaucratic entity, the Cannabis Expungement Board, will also consider some marijuana felonies for relief, including potential sentence cuts for those still behind bars.

The legal marijuana commerce is expected to take between a year and 18 months to get up and running with licenses issued and sales underway by then. Existing medical marijuana dispensaries will be able to get combination licenses to compete in the adult use market as of March 1, 2025.

Cities and counties cannot ban legal marijuana businesses, but they can impose "reasonable" regulations. They can also chose to operate their own dispensaries, like a state liquor store.

Retail marijuana sales will be taxed at 16.875 percent, which adds a 10 percent pot tax to the state's 6.875 percent sales tax. Four-fifths of marijuana tax and fee revenue will go to the state's general fund, with some funds earmarked for grants to marijuana businesses and drug treatment efforts. The other 20 percent will go to local governments.

The law will also allow onsite consumption for special events, as well as marijuana delivery services.

The new law will attempt to address equity concerns by scoring applicants higher if they live in low-income neighborhoods, have marijuana convictions or family members with them, or are military veterans with less than an honorable discharge because of a marijuana-related offense.

Ohio Becomes 24^th State to Legalize Cannabis

In November, Ohio voters decisively embraced the Issue 2 marijuana legalization initiative, approving it with 56.8 percent of the vote as of early Wednesday morning. Under Issue 2, people 21 and over will be able to lawfully possess up to 2 ½ ounces of marijuana and 15 grams of extracts. The initiative also included a home grow provision allowing for up to six plants, with a limit of 12 per household, but landlords will be allowed to bar home grows in their properties.

As of mid-December, efforts by Republicans in the state legislature to substantially alter the will of the voters had not borne fruit. The GOP-led Senate passed a bill that ended up making only minor changes to the new marijuana law, including reducing the household plant limit to six (the GOP had originally sought to kill home grows) and altering the allocation of tax revenues, but also okayed the immediate purchasing of marijuana from existing medical marijuana dispensaries. House Republicans, meanwhile, have are considering modifications that would keep home grows but add a residency requirement, but have yet to pass it.

Marijuana became legal on December 7, once the elections were certified, but there is, as yet no legal means of purchasing it.

(This article was prepared by StoptheDrugWar.org's 501(c)(4) lobbying nonprofit, the Drug Reform Coordination Network, which also pays the cost of maintaining this website. DRCNet Foundation takes no positions on candidates for public office, in compliance with section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code and does not pay for reporting that could be interpreted or misinterpreted as doing so.)

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New Report Finds Global Drug War Failing By Its Own Standards [FEATURE]

This coming March, the United Nations will meet in Vienna to conduct a Midterm Review of the 2019 Ministerial Declaration on drugs -- the current, prohibitionist global strategy on drug policy. Between now and then, there will be a series of UN meetings and negotiations occurring to discuss the progress being made and to lay the groundwork for the next five years of global drug policy.

But in a report released Tuesday, the International Drug Policy Consortium (IDPC) calls into question any claims of progress, especially around the current wishful-thinking of "a drug-free world" and the devastating war on drugs that underpins that goal. IDPC sees the report as underlining the need for "the international community to call for urgent reform."

The global drug strategy is "off-track" in attempting to meet its various goals, ranging from curbing demand to addressing organized crime, violence, and insecurity to protecting the health and human rights of drug users to ensuring access to controlled substances for pain relief and palliative care, the report finds.

The report, Off track: Shadow report for the mid-term review of the 2019 Ministerial Declaration on drugs, details the abject global failure to achieve any of the core objectives of the current UN strategy -- the 2019 Ministerial Declaration on drugs. Instead, drug control efforts have resulted in devastating consequences for the security, health and human rights of millions, the report finds.

"We are at the halfway mark of the current 10-year global drug strategy, yet there has been no effort by governments to conduct a serious evaluation. When governments convene at the UN in March 2024, they are likely to once again rubber stamp a continuation of the catastrophic 'war on drugs' that nobody believes will succeed," said Ann Fordham, Executive Director of IDPC. "Our report steps into the vacuum and brings the evidence to bear on the UN drugs debate. Governments cannot continue to shy away from decades of failure and must urgently correct course. Their continued dereliction of duty will be bitterly borne by communities worldwide."

Using wide-ranging data from UN, government, academic and civil society sources, the report represents the only comprehensive evaluation of global drug policy and illustrates its system-wide collapse. According to the IDPC report:

• Despite billions spent every year to curb drug markets and availability, the number of people who use drugs increased from 271 to 296 million in four years, reaching a historic record.
• The latest global estimates on drug use-related deaths reached 494,000 in 2019 alone (the latest global data available), with a surge in overdose deaths.
• The number of people executed for drug offenses, in flagrant violation of international law, rose by 213 percent between 2019 and 2022.
• Fueled by punitive drug laws, the number of people incarcerated worldwide rose from 10.74 million to 11.5 million between 2018 and 2023 -- with more than 2 million imprisoned for drug offenses.
• Globally, only one in five people with drug dependence have access to treatment.
• The shocking disparity in access to controlled medicines continues, with over 82 percent of the global population having access to less than 17 percent of the world's morphine.

The report notes that while all this is going on, the consensus around global drug prohibition is "fracturing." Since the Ministerial Declaration was authored five years ago, the number of people who can legally use internationally controlled drugs for non-medical use has more than doubled and is now closing in on 300 million.

Marijuana is now legal in Canada, Jamaica, Luxemburg, Malta, Thailand, and Uruguay, as well as 24 American states, three US territories, and Washington, DC. Mexico and South Africa are under court mandates to join this group, and Germany is just a few legislative steps away. Bolivia has established a regulated market for coca. And this year, the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights became the first UN entity to call for legal regulation to protect the health and security of communities.

"Throughout my career as a lawyer, judge, and minister, I have seen first-hand how drug laws have driven violence and mass incarceration, especially for women, racial and ethnic minorities, and people living in poverty," said Diego García Sayán, former Minister of Justice and Minister of Foreign Affairs of Peru. "This report should lay the ground for a process of deep reform that sheds the global punitive paradigm and protects the health, welfare, and human rights of people everywhere."

It is certainly something for the global drug bureaucracy and the national delegations to chew on between now and March.

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Chronicle Book Review: Among the Bros -- A Fraternity Crime Story

Among the Bros: A Fraternity Crime Story by Max Marshall (2023, HarperCollins, 290 pp. $30 HB)

Among the strange cultures of North America, Southern frat boy culture ranks right up there, and in Among the Bros, writer and journalist Max Marshall takes the reader deep into Southern frat world in an engaging work of reporting that employs ethnography as much as it follows the strictures of the true crime genre.

With their feathered bang haircuts, their pink button-down shirts, and their light-colored slacks, the Greeks examined here were stereotypical frat boys, well-tanned from days at the beach or on the links and ready to party hearty at the drop of a hat. The center of Greek social life, at least on the College of Charleston campus, were the different frats' massive blowout parties, truly drunken (and drugged) debaucheries that involved crazed behavior, property damage, and consequences that seemingly evaporated into thin air.

The book is centered on Little Mikey Schmidt, one of a trio of College of Charleston frat boys who dominated the on-campus and downtown party drug scene in the middle of the 2010s. Between them, Little Mikey and his fellow campus kingpins, Rob and Zack, provided an ungodly amount of Xanax for the gaping maws of frat boys and sorority girls, as well as campus GDIs ("God damned independents") and the denizens of King Street's bar row.

These College of Charleston frats were, in every sense, privileged people. Some of them were ultra-rich, such as the students with last names like Rockefeller and Rothschild, who arrived for the fall semester sailing their yachts down from Connecticut. Those guys were the extreme, though; most of the C of C frat boys were merely sons of the Southern upper-middle class, with parents who were professionals or successful entrepreneurs.

And if those parents wanted to imbue their sons with traditional Southern values, where better than Kappa Alpha, the center of C of C dope dealing at the time, and an order founded as a brother organization to the Ku Klux Klan. The Klan would fight to protect Southern white womanhood, while KA would make it its mission to refurbish Southern white manhood. KA also holds Robert E. Lee in special esteem as a sort of spiritual icon. KA didn't have any Black members, and KA at C of C had never had any Black members. (One campus informant, a Black frat, told Marshall he didn't even bother considering pledging to KA because he had heard it was "predominantly Southern," which is a nice turn of phrase.

Marshall notes that since 1984, when the minimum drinking age rose from 18 to 21, "US law had baked criminality into the lives of fraternity kids." Because, yes, of course, they were going to drink, which theoretically exposed them to a range of misdemeanor charges, and they were going to need fake IDs to get into the King Street bars, which they acquired. In fact, Little Mikey got his start as a criminal by supplying fake IDs for fun and profit so his peers could flout the law and get plastered downtown. But after hearing that the FBI had kicked in the door of an Atlanta ID counterfeiter and qualified him as a national security threat, Little Mikey got out of that business and into the weed business.

A frat in a pot prohibition state like South Caroline was a virtually goldmine for willing dealers, Marshall found: There are lots of kids with excess funds who like to smoke, they live in groups, which facilitates bulk sales; through a combination of naivete and deep pockets, they are unlikely to quibble about the street price of an eighth, they like to stick to fellow frat boy dealers, and if they get caught smoking weed, they have access to good lawyers who can make charges vanish.

Mikey and other campus dealers made good bank from the weed trade, but they made even more when they switched to Xanax, which at the time was becoming exceedingly popular in the campus scene. The generic name for Xanax is alprazolam, a benzodiazepine used to treat anxiety attacks and panic disorders. It is the kind of drug a frat boy's mom might take before a long plane flight.

At C of C, though, Xanax use evolved, first being used as a way to take the edge off Sunday morning hangovers and nerves after a weekend of partying and with academic responsibilities looming. But then, people started taking Xannies before the parties started, having discovered that eating a Xanax and drinking a couple of beers gave them the same effect as drinking eight beers. It was a cheap and efficient way to get way messed up.

And it was hugely popular. Before the death of a frat boy Xanax dealer in an armed robbery blew up the C of C scene, various dealers were taking delivery of 10,000 pills a week. And as use evolved and expanded, so did the means of procuring the drug. At first, black market Xanax came from inside-job rip-offs of pharmaceutical companies and distributors, but as demand outstripped supply, campus dealers turned to the Dark Web, procuring supplies from a Pakistani chemical company. The Pakistani pills were not as high quality as the pharmaceutical ones, but they did the job.

Later yet, the Kappa Alpha guys got their own pill press, found a Chinese supplier for alprazolam, and started cranking out pills at a rate of hundreds of thousand per week. Those pills went all over the South, with the KA dealers sending pledge drivers on routes that covered the major concentrations of fraternities in places like Old Miss, Clemson, and the University of South Carolina, among others.

It all came to an end the way most of these dope dealing tales do: When the frat boy dealer got shot and died surrounded by spilled Xanax, local cops were finally moved to look into things, which led to interest from the DEA, and ultimately to multiple busts. But a funny thing happened on the way to court. Just about everybody skated -- they had daddies who could pay for good lawyers and they were willing, when push came to shove, to rat out their best buddies. (As one campus informant told Marshall, "You can't spell frat without rat.") Little Mike, though, took a principled stance against cooperating with the feds, explainable in part by his fear of having to reveal the cartel sources of the cocaine he was scoring in large quantities in Atlanta. He's in prison now, the only one to get significant time in a major, multi-state drug ring.

Kappha Alpha's C of C chapter was disbanded (it has since returned), the students keep partying, and a new generation of dealers has replaced Little Mikey and his buddies. And the main lesson learned:

"As long as you're one of the boys, you can usually go as hard as you want without having to learn anything. If someone tries to stop your fun, you'll find good lawyers and reasonable judges, and if the outside world sees you as the villain, you can always play the heel."

This isn't a book about drug policy but about power and privilege, and it is great as both true crime and ethnography of a strange North American culture. Read it and weep.

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This Week's Corrupt Cops Stories

Another CBP officer falls prey to temptation, and more. Let's get to it:

In Huntsville, Alabama, a former Madison County sheriff's deputy was arrested November 17 for allegedly stealing drug evidence. Former deputy Alex Huddleston had been placed on administrative leave on October 23 pending the results of an investigation, then resigned before the investigation could be completed. The internal investigation continued and so did a separate investigation into the possible mishandling of drug evidence. He was then arrested on 12 charges connected to the theft of drug evidence.

In Laredo, Texas, a Customs and Border Patrol officer was arrested November 28 for taking bribes to ignore what he thought were cocaine shipments coming through the Port of Entry in Laredo. Officer Emanuel Celedon, 35, went down in a sting after twice accepting cash money to let what he believed were multi-kilogram shipments of cocaine pass through Customs without inspection. He is charged with two counts of bribery and witnesses and two counts of attempted importation of cocaine. He is looking at up to 15 years in federal prison.

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Military Psychedelic Studies in Defense Bill, Another Federal Marijuana Reform Bill Filed, More... (12/8/23)

A South Dakota marijuana legalization initiative can begin signature-gathering, Wyoming's high court rules cops can seize cash from legal marijuana operations in other states, and more.

Marijuana Policy

Federal Marijuana Reform Bill Filed. A bipartisan group of lawmakers including Rep. Earl Blumenauer (D-OR) filed a marijuana reform bill Thursday, the Strengthening the Tenth Amendment Through Entrusting States (STATES) Act. The bill would remove marijuana from the Controlled Substances Act and open the door for interstate commerce in weed and eliminate the 280E tax barrier for the industry.

The bill would allow states to set their own marijuana policies but would not allow them to unilaterally permit or restrict interstate marijuana commerce.

The bill also says that state-legal marijuana businesses "shall not be subject to" section 280E of the Internal Revenue Code, which would allow them to deduct business expenses like any other business entity.

"In the absence of federal movement, the illicit interstate trade in cannabis has persisted even in the face of significant state policy changes," the bill's text states. "The federal government should be responsible for regulating and tracking this interstate trade to ensure cannabis does not end up where it does not belong."

South Dakota Marijuana Legalization Initiative Can Begin Signature-Gathering. The final ballot explanation for a draft initiated measure, proposed by Emmett Reistroffer of Rapid City, that would legalize recreational marijuana and create dual-use licenses for medical marijuana dispensaries has been released filed with the Secretary of State by the South Dakota Attorney General's Office.

The proposed initiated measure would allow individuals 21 years old or older to possess, grow, sell, ingest, and distribute marijuana or marijuana paraphernalia. The initiated measure does not affect laws dealing with hemp. The measure also authorizes the South Dakota Department of Health to issue dual-use licenses to medical marijuana dispensaries. A dual-use license allows dispensaries to sell marijuana to persons 21 years or older.

If the required 17,509 valid signatures are gathered and approved by the South Dakota Secretary of State's Office, the proposed initiated measure will be placed on the 2024 general ballot. A majority of the votes cast in the general election will be needed to pass the measure.

Psychedelics

House and Senate Reach Deal to Require Psychedelics Clinical Trials for Active for Active-Duty Military Service Members. Lawmakers have reached agreement on a massive defense bill containing language to fund studies into the therapeutic use of psychedelics for military service members. The language on psychedelic studies came from the House GOP.

The language is part of the 2024 National Defense Authorization Act and appeared in a final conference report Wednesday evening.

The psychedelics provisions that have been adopted would require the Department of Defense (DOD) to establish a process by which service members with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) or traumatic brain injury could participate in clinical trials involving psilocybin, MDMA, ibogaine and 5-MeO-DMT. The list of covered psychedelics was also expanded to broadly include "qualified plant-based alternative therapies."

"I am thrilled to see my amendment to fund clinical research into emerging therapies to treat combat-related injuries included in NDAA," said Rep. Morgan Luttrell (R-TX), a veteran who has disclosed details of his own experience undergoing ibogaine and 5-MEO-DMT treatment in another country. "This is a huge win that will give us the chance to save the lives of those that have bravely served our country, while moving away from problematic opioids," he said. "I'm confident support for these innovative solutions will continue to gain momentum."

Asset Forfeiture

Wyoming's Top Court Says It's OK For Cops to Steal Money Obtained from Legal Drug Sales. A courier was delivering cash from a legal Illinois marijuana business to its California offices when he was stopped by police in Wyoming. Police found $75,000 in cash, which they seized, along with small quantities of marijuana and MDMA. The driver sued for the return of the money, noting that it came from legal business activities in states where marijuana is legal, and a lower court agreed. But the state appealed, and on Thursday the state Supreme Court ruled that the money was lawfully seized.

And it relied on some novel reasoning to do so, with Chief Justice Keith Kautz writing in the opinion that the state can keep the money because it was linked to drug transactions that would be illegal if committed in Wyoming. The drug transactions were legal and they were not committed in Wyoming.

The lower court had ruled that the courier had not violated the state's Controlled Substances Act because he did not do business in Wyoming but merely "passed through" with the currency.

But that did not matter to the state Supreme Court.

Harm Reduction

Biden-Harris Administration Calls on Housing Community to Help Expand Access to Life-Saving Opioid Overdose Reversal Medications Like Naloxone. On Thursday, the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP), the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), and the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) issued a joint letter to public health departments and health care systems to partner with housing providers, community development organizations, and other housing agencies to help expand access to naloxone and other life-saving overdose reversal medications in the communities they serve.

"With his Unity Agenda, President Biden set a clear directive: we must all come together to address the nation's overdose epidemic," said ONDCP Deputy Director Adam Cohen. "Not only are we working closely across federal agencies, but with partners at the state, local, and community levels to save lives and ensure everyone has the resources they need to stay healthy and thrive. Expanding access to overdose reversal medication is a key priority of this Administration, and we will continue doing all we can to get this lifesaving tool in communities throughout the country."

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Colombia Reinstates Drug Decrim, PA Pot Decrim Bill Seeks Cosponsors, More... (12/11/23)

A pair of Missouri lawmakers are pushing a psilocybin therapy bill for next session, a clash between a drug gang and villagers in Mexico leaves 14 dead, and more.

Marijuana Policy

Pennsylvania Push for Decriminalization Bill Seeks Cosponsors. State Sens. Sharif Street (D) and Camera Bartolotta (R) are planning to reintroduce a marijuana decriminalization bill from the last session for next session and are looking to garner support ahead of time. They began circulating a cosponsorship memo last week.

Last session's Senate Bill 107 would remove the possibility of jail time for the use or possession of pot and replace it with a $25 fine for possession and a $100 fine for public use. Under current state law, possession of small amounts is a third-degree misdemeanor punishable by up to 30 days in jail and a $500 -- and you lose your drivers' license for six months.

"Each year in Pennsylvania, thousands of people are charged with minor possessory offenses," the senators wrote in the memo. "These charges permanently stain records and hinder an individual's ability to obtain work, housing, and childcare. This legislation would ensure that the lives ordinary Pennsylvanians are not burdened by these insignificant charges. Medical marijuana has provided many patients with relief from their respective ailments and has aided them in their ability to cope effectively," the memo says. "Yet, we still criminalize recreational cannabis and incarcerate those who possess small amounts of it. This seems injudicious and, frankly, inappropriate."

Psychedelics

Missouri Lawmakers Pre-File Bills to Legalize Psilocybin Therapy, Fund Clinical Trials. Sen. Holly Thompson Rehder (R) and Rep. Aaron McMullen (R) have pre-filed a pair of bills that would legalize the medical use of psilocybin and mandate clinical trails to explore psilocybin's therapeutic potential. The bills will be considered in the 2024 legislative session.

The two bills both call for adults 21 or older who are diagnosed with a qualifying condition such as post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) or substance misuse disorder to be able to legally access laboratory-tested psilocybin -- if they are enrolled or sought enrollment in a Department of Health and Senior Services (DHSS) clinical trial involving the psychedelic.

The bills lay out numerous requirements, including patients providing the department with information on their diagnosis, the person administering the psilocybin, and details of the place and time of treatment sessions. The amount of psilocybin used per treatment episode would be capped at 150 milligrams, and psilocybin could only be used during a one-year period, although patients could be approved for subsequent one-year periods.

Similar legislation could not pass out of the House last year.

International

Colombian President Reinstates Drug Decriminalization. With the issuance of an executive order last Thursday, leftist President Gustavo Petro reinstated drug decriminalization in the country. The decree applies to up to 30 grams of marijuana and five grams of cocaine. In doing so, Petro nullified an earlier decree from his predecessor, rightist Ivan Duque, that allowed police to pursue people for both consumption and possession of small quantities of drugs.

Back in 1994, the Colombian Constitutional Court decriminalized the use and possession of "minimum doses" of drugs, arguing that drug use was included in the "free development of personality," which is included in the country's constitution. But conservatives have never accepted that ruling and sought in 2009 and 2011 to reintroduce the criminalization of small-time possession. The Constitutional Court in 2012 reaffirmed the decriminalization of minimum doses, but that didn't stop Duque from attempting to role it back through an executive order.

Now, both Duque and his political godfather, former rightist President Alvaro Uribe, are criticizing the move and worrying aloud about the "societal impact, particularly on youth and families," but Petro is undeterred.

The current president said that rules against the drug trade and drug trafficking remain intact, and that by removing fines and police crackdowns, confrontations with police and abusive practices, especially toward women, would cease. He added that the move marks a shift away from the "senseless persecution" of young people.

Mexico Clash Between Drug Gang, Villagers Leaves 14 Dead. Gunmen from a notoriously violent drug cartel, the Familia Michoacana, ran into a buzzsaw of resistance last week when they attempted to extort money from villagers in Texcaltitlan in the state of Mexico, about 80 miles southeast of Mexico City.

Fourteen people were killed, including 10 gang members and four villagers. Videos posted last Friday showed villagers wearing cowboy hats and armed with sickles and hunting rifles chasing down suspected gang members as bursts of automatic gunfire sounded.

Among the dead was the leader of the Familia Michoacana, Rigoberto de Sancha Santillan, also known as "El Payaso" or "The Clown."

The gang has been dominant in the area for many years, and in addition to drug trafficking activities, it engages in extortion from any licit or illicit business it can. It has been known to burn ranches, farms, and businesses that failed to pay protection money.

Mexico State Gov. Delfina Gómez assured locals that maintaining order was among her top priorities. "These events do not paralyze us, on the contrary, they reaffirm our determination to improve security conditions in our beloved state, rest assured that we will continue working so that events like this are not repeated," she said in a press conference on Saturday. "You are not alone, we are with you."

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Senate Committee Okays Bill to Ease Methadone Restrictions, Dutch Legal Weed Experiment, More... (12/12/23)

More than 100,000 Show Me State residents have seen their pot bust records erased, a pair of conservative rural California counties move to end needle exchanges, and more.

Marijuana Policy

Missouri Has Expunged More Than 100,000 Marijuana Arrests, More to Come. State officials have expunged more than 100,000 marijuana cases from court records ahead of a deadline last Friday, but some courts missed that deadline as clerks worked to review decades of cases.

"The courts are going to need more time to finish the job, and in fact, it might be years before all the cases from the past century are expunged," said lawyer Dan Viets, a Missouri NORML coordinator and coauthor of Missouri's 2022 constitutional amendment legalizing marijuana. "We've had more than 100 years of marijuana prohibition in Missouri. Many of the older cases have never been put on a database. So, it's going to take a lot of physical work to locate those paper records in boxes and attics and go through them."

The automatic expungement is "one of the most significant parts" of the state's voter-approved marijuana legalization law, Viets said. "In addition to stopping approximately 20,000 marijuana arrests each year," he said, "the law now requires state government to undo much of the damage which was inflicted on hundreds of thousands of Missourians during the past 100 years."

Drug Treatment

Senate Committee Advances Bill to Loosen Restrictions on Methadone. the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions, chaired by Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) voted Tuesday to approve a bill that would make the opioid-assisted treatment methadone more widely accessible. For decades, people using methadone as a treatment for opioid addiction have had to report to clinics and be observed taking the medication.

Methadone is a type of medication treatment for Opiate Use Disorder (OUD) that is effective in helping people maintain recovery and avoid diversion. While physicians can prescribe, and pharmacies can dispense, methadone for chronic pain, methadone for opioid use disorder is only available at Opioid Treatment Programs (OTPs). OTPs can be difficult to access for many people, particularly those in rural regions, for individuals with limited access to transportation, and for patients in regions with few or no programs. Currently, there are no OTPs in Wyoming, Guam, North Marianas, the Federated States of Micronesia, and America Samoa; there is only one in South Dakota and the U.S. Virgin Islands; there are three in Nebraska; and four in Mississippi and Hawaii.

But under S. 644, the Modernizing Opioid Treatment Access Act (MOTAA), the measure approved by the committee, certified addiction medicine and addiction psychiatry doctors registered with the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) will be able to prescribe methadone that patients could pick up at a pharmacy. The bipartisan legislation would represent the first major reform to methadone in half a century and is supported by hundreds of clinicians and medical organizations.

"Methadone for opioid use disorder is locked behind arcane laws that criminalize and stigmatize people in recovery," said bill cosponsors Sens. Ed Markey (D-MA) and Rand Paul (R-KY). "The experts and evidence are clear: this outdated system is costing lives, and we should no longer stand by as outdated federal law keeps people from treatment they need no matter where they live. We are pleased that my colleagues are joining with me in passing the Modernizing Opioid Treatment Access Act. Together, we took an essential step toward reducing stigma, expanding access, and saving lives in communities all across the country. We will keep fighting until the Modernizing Opioid Treatment Access Act is signed into law."

The House version of the bill, HR 1359, was filed in March and referred to the House Judiciary and House Energy and Commerce committees. The latter committee in turn referred it to the Subcommittee on Health, where it has sat ever since.

Harm Reduction

California Counties Move to Halt Needle Exchanges. A pair of conservative counties in the state's Sierra Nevada mountains are moving to end needle exchange programs. Placer County has already done so, and the El Dorado County board of supervisors is set to take a second vote today on an urgency ordinance to eliminate the programs.

The state Department of Public Health authorized the Sierra Harm Reduction Coalition to undertake needle exchanges in 2019, an action that county supervisors, the county sheriff, and the District Attorney all disapproved of.

The county leaders say they are concerned with rising drug overdoses, improper used needle collection and public health risks. There is little evidence the program is slowing the spread of blood-borne diseases, such as AIDS and hepatitis C, they claimed.

"The Board of Supervisors recognizes that the establishment and operation of a syringe exchange program will increase improperly disposed needles which pose a serious risk to the public health, safety and welfare, given the potential for personal bodily injury, property damage and contaminated waterways," the draft ordinance reads. "It is the purpose and intent of this section to prohibit the establishment, operation, use and/or participation in a syringe exchange program within the unincorporated areas of the county to protect the public health, safety and general welfare of its residents."

CDPH data shows eight people were diagnosed with an HIV infection in 2021, while six were diagnosed in 2020; there were 145 reported cases of hepatitis C in the county in 2021, a decrease from 181 in 2019 and 152 in 2020. CDPH also said that 15 percent of people living with HIV in El Dorado County reported injection drug use as a risk for transmission. The statewide average is 12 percent, CDPH said.

"These programs may work in other parts of California and the United States, although I have my doubts," Sheriff Jeff Leikauf said. "What I do know is that El Dorado County does not want or need these types of programs. We need to exercise local control and decision making."

Sierra Harm Reduction Coalition Director Tom Ewing disagrees with the county's position. "Who could argue that it is better to let people die than help them be healthier and stay alive?" Ewing asked. "Our street support program focuses on safer use, medical care, behavioral care, transportation, housing and addiction treatment, or just giving a compassionate ear to what our clients have to share. Our clients are real human beings."

"Addiction is always a highly charged emotional issue. Hatred and fear of drug users is not new in the United States, and it's far from unique to EDC," Ewing said. "For some who have had loved ones struggle with addiction, this topic can be very hard; I even know many people who are in recovery themselves who seem to resent the fact that we are offering people the kind of support that they themselves did not receive when they needed it most."

International

Dutch Legal Marijuana Supply Pilot Program Begins This Week. The preparatory phase of pilot project in supplying the country's famous cannabis coffeeshops with legally obtained marijuana will get underway Thursday. Two sanctioned growers are ready to supply coffeeshops in Breda and Tilburg.

The coffeeshops will be able to sell both legally produced and black market weed, and two more legal suppliers will begin supplying coffeeshops in the two cities with more in February 2024.

It is part of the Dutch government's "experiment with a legalized production and sales chain" and is aimed at solving the longstanding "back door problem," wherein marijuana possession and sales are tolerated but there is no legal supply source, leaving coffeeshops to rely on the black market.

This preparatory phase should be over in six months, and coffeeshops will begin the transition phase at the end of the first quarter of next year. During this phase, participating coffeeshops will be able to sell both legally grown and black market product. Six weeks after the transitional phase begins, the experimental phase will begin. Then participating coffeeshops will from then on be able to sell only cannabis from regulated crops.

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OH GOP Moves to Kill Home Grows, 4th Circuit Restricts Equitable Sharing, More... (12/5/23)

Germany's marijuana legalization gets delayed until next year, Vancouver activist Dana Larsen opens up a second drug-checking operation in the Downtown Eastside, and more.

Marijuana Policy

Ohio Senate Committee Advances Bill to Kill Home Grows, Shrink Possession Limits, Raise Pot Taxes Two Days Before Legalization Takes Effect. The GOP-led state Senate is moving ahead with efforts to rejigger the state's new voter-approved marijuana legalization law as legalization looms on Thursday. On Monday, the Senate General Government Committee voted 4-1 to attach the marijuana legislation to an unrelated bill on alcohol regulations that has already passed the House.

The changes to the successful marijuana initiative include eliminating home grows, criminalizing the possession of marijuana not obtained from a licensed retailer, reducing the possession limit from 2.5 ounces to 1 ounce, raising the sales tax on marijuana, and diverting funding away from social equity concerns and toward law enforcement.

Senate President Matt Huffman (R) said he hopes to get the bill to a floor vote by Wednesday before potentially sending it back to the House for a concurrence vote before the legalization of possession and home cultivation goes into effect.

Although Republican control both houses of the legislature, the fate of the bill remains in doubt because it contains an emergency clause requiring a two-thirds vote instead of a simple majority to pass.

The home grow provision is especially contentious, but alarms are also being raised about the provision criminalizing the possession of pot not obtained from a licensed retailer. There are not likely to be any licensed retailers for a year or so as the state crafts rules and regulations.

Asset Forfeiture

Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals Puts Limits on Equitable Sharing. In a ruling last week in a case where North Carolina authorities seized money from a man and then turned the case over to the federal government to get around state laws limiting asset forfeiture, the appeals court found that "the Government must demonstrate by a preponderance of the evidence that the property sought is subject to forfeiture" with a direct link to criminal activity.

"The 4th Circuit reversed" a district court ruling "and said the government needs to prove its case… that the money is actually connected to illegal activity," said John Thorpe, an attorney for the Goldwater Institute, which litigated the case. "It needs to have a substantial connection to criminal activity, not that there's trace amounts of marijuana somewhere nearby."

With its decision, the appeals court vacated an initial District Court judgment and sent the case back to District Court for trial. No trial date is yet set.

"What we're really excited about is the precedent this sets," Thorpe said, "that the burden is on the government if it seizes your money."

The unpublished opinion is not binding precedent, but it can now be cited in similar cases. "We think it's highly persuasive and the reasoning is rock solid," Thorpe said of the appeals court ruling.

International

Vancouver Sees Second Dana Larsen Drug Testing Site Open. Drug legalization activist Dana Larsen has opened his second drug testing site in Vancouver. Larsen says the new site is legally approved to operate by Vancouver Coastal Health.

"We'll test anything people bring in, any kind of substance. That can be anything from heroin, cocaine to other substances. We test psychedelics like MDMA, any street drug or pill, we can analyze it and give you a very good idea of what's in there and make an informed decision on what you're taking," said Larsen at the grand opening event.

The Ministry of Mental Health and Addictions says there are 90 drug-checking services across British Columbia, and that "46 of these offer immediate point-of-care testing with FTIR spectrometer on some days of the week."

"Lifesaving supports such as drug checking, overdose prevention services, and providing harm reduction supplies keep people alive so they can access health care and treatment," reads a statement from the ministry. "People need to be alive to get help. Drug checking is a harm reduction service aimed at keeping people alive - to help reduce the risk of overdose or poisoning from the toxic street drugs being pushed on people by organized crime."

Larsen, a long-time activist who has operated marijuana and magic mushroom retail outlets, says he has tested nearly 60,000 samples since opening his first testing site on East Hastings Street in the Downtown Eastside in 2019. He said he does not get any funding from the province; instead he uses revenues from his retail shops to pay for the testing.

Germany Delays Final Vote on Marijuana Legalization Until Next Year. Marijuana legalization has hit yet another bump down what has been a very bumpy path with the announcement this week that a final vote on legalization in the Bundestag set for this week has been called off after leaders from the Social Democratic Party had last-second jitters. The delay means no vote on legalization is likely to occur until next year.

"It always has to be approved by the parliamentary groups in the end," Dirk Heidenblut, an SPD member of Germany's Bundestag who is responsible for the party's cannabis policy, said in an Instagram post. "And if a faction leader, in this case the SPD, has concerns, then it cannot be set up yet."

The bill was first delayed in October, when debate was postposed because of the conflict in Israel and Palestine, and delayed again in November, as proponents sought to make improvements in it.

SPD lawmakers did not specify their concerns, but hearing in the Bundestag provided a hint, with some suggesting that legalization would "send the wrong message" to youth and lead to increased underage consumption.Health Minister Karl Lauterbach pushed back on that claim, saying: "The fact remains that child and youth protection is carried out through education, and sales to children and young people remain prohibited," Lauterbach said. "That is the only change we have made in this area: a tightening."

But the bill is still delayed.

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FDA Asked to Review MDMA as Treatment for PTSD, Myanmar Now Leading Opium Producer, More... (12/13/23)

The World Health Organization is going to review the status of coca leaves, the Colombian Senate kills mariuana legalization, at least for now, and more.

Pychedelics

FDA Asked to Review MDMA as Treatment for PTSD. The Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies (MAPS), through its MAPS Public Benefit Corporation, has asked the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to formally review MDMA in conjunction with therapy as a treatment for Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD).

The FDA now has 60 days to decide whether the New Drug Application will be accepted for review and whether to fast-track it.

FDA granted MDMA-assisted therapy a breakthrough therapy designation in 2017, a move that accelerates the development and review of substances intended to treat serious conditions and that preliminary clinical evidence suggests may be a substantial improvement over therapies currently available.

MDMA has been found to reduce symptoms and impairment from PTSD. MAPS has now completed six late-stage clinical trials of MDMA for PTSD and pronounced itself ready to move forward.

"The filing of our NDA is the culmination of more than 30 years of clinical research, advocacy, collaboration and dedication to bring a potential new option to adults living with PTSD, a patient group that has experienced little innovation in decades," said MAPS PBC CEO Amy Emerson.

International

WHO Officially Launches Procedure for Critical Review of Coca Leaf Status. World Health Organization (WHO) Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told Bolivian Vice-President Jilata David Choquehuanca at a meeting in Geneva that the organization has initiated official procedures to carry out a critical review of the current classification of the coca leaf in Schedule 1 of the 1961 Convention on Narcotic Drugs.

"A very important meeting was held between the Vice President of Bolivia and the Director General of the WHO in which the issue of the critical review of the coca leaf was addressed and it was officially announced by the Director General that the procedures have been initiated after receiving the notification from the Secretary General of the United Nations," explained Juan Carlos Alurralde, Secretary General of the Vice Presidency.

Ghebreyesus said the WHO will soon call for the formation of a committee of international experts in different fields.

"An evaluation will be made of the coca leaf in terms of chemistry, pharmacology, toxicology, natural medicine and traditional uses, the latter areas have been proposed by Bolivia, by our Vice-President, and experts in this area will also be taken into account and sought," Alurralde noted.

At the plenary of 66^th session of the UN Commission on Narcotic Drugs in March, Vice-President Choquehuanca, called for international bodies to respect for the legitimate right of peoples to make "traditional, nutritional, therapeutic, ritual, industrial and commercial use of the coca leaf in its natural state."

Bolivia withdrew from the 1961 Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs in 2012 over its inclusion of coca leaf as a controlled substance. It rejoined the treaty the following year after winning a "reservation" where the UN recognizes as legal the traditional practice of chewing coca leaves.

Colombia's Senate Once Again Sinks Proposal to Legalize Marijuana. The Senate has once again rejected an effort to legalize marijuana. On Tuesday, just before formal debate on the measure began, a proposal to "archive" (defer) the bill from Liberal Senator Karina Espinosa received enough votes to pass.

That sparked an angry riposte from bill sponsor Senator María José Pizarro, who criticized senators who voted to kill the bill, blaming them for enabling organized crime to profit and leaving youth and consumers at the mercy of illegal traders and drug traffickers.

"The real people responsible for handing over youth to violent mafias are those who voted to file the project to regulate the commercialization of ADULT USE cannabis WITHOUT A SINGLE ARGUMENT. Shame," she wrote on X, formerly known as Twitter.

But conservative former president Alvaro Uribe, who has long opposed marijuana legalization, was pleased. "Congratulations to the 45 senators who, with their vote, prevented the legalization of recreational marijuana consumption," he said on X.

This marks the second time the Senate has killed marijuana legalization. It did so as well in June. Under Colombian law, marijuana legalization has to be taken up by the Senate in two separate years, which means that now the soonest Colombia could finish that process will be 2025.

Myanmar Dethrones Afghanistan as World's Top Opium Producer. In a report released Tuesday, the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) said that Myanmar had overtaken Afghanistan as the world's leading opium producer. Afghanistan had held first place for more than 20 years, until a Taliban ban on the poppy crop was announced last year and took hold this year.

Amidst an economic crisis caused by the ongoing civil war there, Myanmar produced an estimated 1,080 metric tons of opium this year, up 36 percent over the 790 metric tons produced last year. By contrast, Afghanistan produced only 330 metric tons of opium, down about 95 percent from previous totals.

The amount of land devoted to poppy production has expanded significantly since the military threw out the democratically elected government in 2021, with 120,000 acres now under cultivation, up 18 percent from last year.

"In the current situation, farming communities are caught between insecurity and economic hardships," said Benedikt Hofmann, UNODC Deputy Regional Representative. "Even more people will look at opium as a viable crop if there are no alternatives, especially in the absence of the rule of law."

UNODC Regional Representative Jeremy Douglas said intensifying conflict in Shan State -- where there has been vicious fighting between ethnic groups and the military -- and along border regions will likely "accelerate this trend" towards poppy cultivation.

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