.50 caliber sniper rifles can take down a chopper, penetrate armor, and hit a target from a mile away. For $9,000 one can be yours. The Mexican cartels say "yes, please."
Trying to deal with car culture kids in the post-World War II Los Angeles suburbs laid the groundwork for the war on drugs.
Amitav Ghosh creates a rich, provocative, and eye-opening portrait of the rise of the opium trade.
An Arkansas cop gets caught slinging dope in uniform and a West Virginia federal prison guard breaks bad.
The DEA releases its annual drug threat assessment, a new poll finds Texans are ready to legalize weed even if their political leaders are not, and more.
South Korea threatens to arrest its citizens if they smoke pot in countries where it is legal, Ireland wields harm reduction services as summer festival season arrives, and more.
The UN Office on Drugs and Crime issues a new report on East and Southeast Asian drug trafficking, California psychedelic reform proponents ponder a 2026 initiative, and more.
A dangerous new substance is entering the nation's illicit powder drug supply, the New Hampshire marijuana legalization bill is now going to conference committee, and more.
A new Tennessee poll has a strong majority for marijuana legalization, a Japanese three-year-old is honored for spotting an opium poppy, and more.
Customs and Border Patrol has cut the period of acceptable last marijuana use for recruits from two years to 90 days, the federal defense bill is the locus of several drug policy-related amendments, and more.
.50 caliber rifles are among the most powerful weapons civilians can buy in the United States. The anti-armor sniper rifles were designed for military use and can strike a target from more than a mile away, penetrate light armor, down a helicopter, destroy commercial aircraft, and blow through rail cars and storage tanks filled with chemicals.
A .50 caliber rifle seized at the Port of Nogales. (CBP)
They are used by militaries around the world because of their ability to blow through armor and favored by some gun enthusiasts here but also by less savory actors, including Mexican drug trafficking organizations, the so-called cartels.
Grown obscenely wealthy thanks to the profits of drug prohibition, the cartels have no problem with the $9,000 price tag for the high-powered weapons. In one case alone, more than $600,000 worth of .50 calibers and other military-grade firearms were purchased for the Cartel Jalisco Nueva Generacion (CJNG) in Racine, Wisconsin, in the spring of 2018.
That case was made after a CJNG hit squad attempted to assassinate a prosecutor in Jalisco and a subsequent raid in Guadalajara turned up 36 weapons including a Barrett .50 caliber traced back to a Racine firearms dealer. The defendants in that case are on trial in federal court right now.
.50 calibers have also been used by the CJNG to kill 13 policemen in an ambush, in a failed assassination attempt against Mexico City's top cop, and to shoot down a police helicopter.
It's not just the CJNG. When authorities in Culiacan, Sinaloa, arrested Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman's son in 2019, Sinaloa Cartel gunmen used .50 calibers to battle government forces on the streets of the city, leading to the decision to release him. Those battles produced videos that went viral.
It is a peculiarity of American law and history that such weapons are available for sale to the general public. But there is support in Congress for changing that, at least on the Democratic side of the aisle. This week, nearly two dozen Democratic US representatives cosponsored the Stop Arming Cartels Act, which would restrict access to such weaponry in the name of preventing it from ending up in the hands of people like the CJNG and the Sinaloa Cartel.
The Stop Arming Cartels Act would prohibit the further sale of .50 caliber rifles and regulate existing .50 caliber rifles, applying the same reporting requirements for handguns to rifles, and establishing new avenues for the victims of gun violence to seek justice from manufacturers and dealers who violate US laws.
"When I speak to leaders in Latin America and the Caribbean, their number-one request is for Congress to stop American weapons of war from falling into the hands of the gangs that are destabilizing their countries," said bill sponsor Rep. Joaquin Castro (D-TX). "Especially in Mexico, access to .50 caliber rifles has fundamentally altered the balance of power between criminal organizations and the government and allowed cartels to become virtually untouchable" he continued.
Cosponsor Rep. Veronica Escobar (D-TX) said that "[t]he gun laws championed by Republican legislators in this country make Americans less safe. The consequences don't just impact our communities but they also impact our neighbors in Latin America and around the world," arguing that "a refusal to act would mean continuing to arm transnational criminal organizations and cartels that purchase these weapons for illicit acts."
Anything that touches on the 2nd Amendment is bound to stir up an angry reaction. And most congressional legislation needs the votes of 60 Senators, in order to overcome the filibuster that is certain to be initiated by legislators on the right. On the other hand, legislation passed last year took some steps including licensing, purchase limits and increased backround checks, the first federal gun regulation measure to get enacted in many years.
In the meanwhile, there aren't many members of either party in Congress who are ready to fully confront the role of drug prohibition in driving the prevalence of these and other weapons.
The Stop Arming Cartels Act has been endorsed by Global Exchange/Stop U.S. Arms to Mexico, Gun Violence Prevention, Newtown Action Alliance, March for Our Lives, Everytown, Washington Office on Latin America (WOLA), Center for American Progress, Brady: United Against Gun Violence, Latin America Working Group (LAWG), Amnesty International, Win Without War, and Global Action on Gun Violence.
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The Suburban Crisis: White America and the War on Drugs by Matthew Lassiter (2023, Princeton University Press, 659 pp., $39.95 HB)
In post-World War II Los Angeles, change was afoot. Boosted by wartime industrialization, the entire Southern California region was booming, with orange groves transformed into endless suburban tracts, and the advent of automobile culture ushering in a new age of freedom -- especially for teenagers, who could now hop in their buggies and cruise.
But utopia was on the verge of becoming dystopia. A sensationalistic press led by the Los Angeles Times was breathlessly reporting on "wolf packs" of Mexican-American juvenile delinquents accosting the stolid white denizens of suburbia on the one hand and hyping tropes around innocent white teen girls being led down the path to dope and degradation by dark-skinned inner city pushers on the other. The Times' journalism was so lurid and reactionary it was if it were Fox News reporting on crime when Democrats are in power.
And it worked. Spurred by ginned-up fears of the drug- and crime-ridden inner city life leaking into suburbia and those "otherwise law-abiding" (read: white and middle class) youth being seduced into a life of addiction, Southern California parents demanded and politicians passed the nation's first mandatory minimum drug law in 1951. And with that move, they laid the foundations for the modern war on drugs.
This is just the beginning of the story historian and director of the Carceral State Project Matthew Lassiter tells in The Suburban Crisis, his magisterial history of the roots of the drug war. Using a vast array of archival materials, including fascinating troves of letters written to politicians, as well as the records of legislative and congressional hearings, decades of arrest and prosecution data, and the correspondence of various parents' groups, among other sources, Lassiter makes a very persuasive case that protecting our precious white youth has always been central to public policies that have led to the arrest and incarceration of millions while failing to reduce drug use.
He guides the reader not only through legislative histories, both state-level and federal that show decades of bipartisan consensus around ever more repressive drug policy, but also takes great pains to explicate the power of certain imagery and tropes. Among the most powerful and enduring was the "marijuana as a gateway to heroin" trope, endlessly and baselessly repeated by the press and the politicians and given a cherry on top by sordid tales of young white women he started smoking pot and ended up strung out on junk and turning tricks for black pimps. (Never mind, as Lassiter shows, that many of these "victims" actually had very different takes on their experiences and the drug laws from those attempting to use them as political fodder.)
What becomes clear from Lassiter's narrative is the political potency of protecting white youth from drugs and, increasingly, protecting them from serious consequences for their blithe flouting of the drug laws. Once white kids started getting arrested in huge numbers for pot by the mid-1960s, with Southern California leading the way, lawmakers began crafting a response that could punish deserving evil-doers (black or brown pushers, criminal addicts, drug smugglers) while providing deserving innocents (white kids from middle or upper class families) a break for their violations of the criminal law. At every stage of the process, programs were created to divert white pot-smokers out of the criminal justice system, although they typically involved the application of coerced drug treatment or counseling.
In a sense, The Suburban Crisis is the inverse of Michelle Alexander's The New Jim Crow, which argued that drug prohibition was and is a means of controlling and repressing the black population. Lassiter has no bone to pick with Alexander, but his work represents the other half of the story. In it, the centrality of protecting white youth as a basis both for repressive drug laws and for creating escape valves for the deserving becomes crystal clear.
This is a major contribution to the political and social history of America's great crusade. Lassiter provides fine-grained historical detail (such as arrest records for various high schools) as well as a sweeping vision of the "discretionary, discriminatory" enforcement of the drug laws based on "racial and spatial" categories. To understand where we are today and how we got here, you need to read this book.
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Smoke and Ashes: Opium's Hidden Histories by Amitav Ghosh (2023, Farrar Strauss Giroux, 397 pp., $32 HB)
Long before the Sackler family gained a fortune -- and later, infamy -- by creatively marketing new synthetic opioids and helping to spark the current wave of opioid addiction, other American fortunes were being made in the opium business by well-connected young men who, after just a few years in the China trade, could return home and plow their newfound wealth into banking, railroads, and other sectors of a young national economy their opium wealth made even more dynamic.
The Lowell and Forbes family fortunes are among those founded by early 19th-century dope dealers, and notably, so were the Delano riches. Young Warren Delano came back wealthy from a handful of years in the opium business and married into another well-off family. His daughter from that union later gave birth to a son, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, who would become the 32nd president of the United States.
This is one of the "hidden histories" of world-class fiction and non-fiction writer Amitav Ghosh's Smoke and Ashes. But like much of the literature on opium, the story of the American opium traders is centered on the West, and Ghosh's latest work wants to recenter the opium story on the East, especially on India and China, but to a lesser degree to the kingdoms of Southeast Asia.
An Indian with long experience in both China and the West, Ghosh is superbly situated to tell the tale of how the British East India Company's need to come up with a commodity to counter the draining impact of Chinese tea imports created a system of massive opium production in India to be exported to China -- even though the Chinese government did not want it.
The economic engine that was opium not only fattened the purses of the Company and the crown, it also made the British colonial enterprise sustainable, shaped the Indian economy down to the present day, and created massive opium addiction problems in China. The British increased opium production by 2000 percent over the course of a century, employing a million Indian peasant families in coerced poppy growing under a strict, race- and caste-based bureaucratic hierarchy that benefited the Company, not the peasants.
Ghosh shows how the structuring of the British opium plantations in Bengal and the Gangetic Plain, while a money-making machine for the Company, created social and political patterns and monopolistic practices that have retarded social and economic growth to this day. He is particularly illuminating when comparing the situation in Bengal with that in western India, where the princely states were able to resist British imperialism much longer. There, local principalities controlled (and profited from) the poppy crop, and a thriving merchant class thrived even more from the opium trade.
But this is not straight economic and social history. Smoke and Ashes is also a very personal tale, with Ghosh telling the story of his family in the trade, where they were essentially bookkeepers for opium-related businesses. It is a deft touch that makes the opium story that much more concrete.
Ghosh is especially fascinating as he untangles the multiple threads of Western, Indian, and Chinese culture woven together in the opium trade. From tchotchkes sitting on family shelves to bureaucratic innovations such as the British adoption of the Chinese civil service examination system, the poppy's pull is revealed. There are many "hidden histories" here, indeed.
Ghosh writes that opium has its own agency -- that it can persuade humans to propagate it widely -- but at heart, Smoke and Ashes is not about opium; it is about colonialism, imperialism, and racial capitalism. If opium does have its own agency, certain groups of humans have certainly benefited from it, even at the expense of other humans. And that's an all too human story.
This is an important and fascinating account of a critical development in world history. And because the author is an artist of the written word, it is a pleasure to read.
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An Arkansas cop gets caught slinging dope in uniform and a West Virginia federal prison guard breaks bad. Let's get to it:
In Jonesboro, Arkansas,
a Hoxie police officer was arrested May 10 for allegedly selling drugs while in uniform and armed with his service weapon. Officer Joshua Lynn Barber went down after the 2nd Judicial Drug Task Force received information that Barber was slinging dope and then conducted a controlled buy from him while he was armed and in uniform. Task force members then arrested him as he showed up for work at the Hoxie Police Department, where he is a part-time officer. He is charged with delivery of a controlled substance and simultaneous possession of drugs and firearms.
In Beckley, West Virginia, a former federal prison guard was sentenced last Thursday to 18 months in federal prison for providing contraband to an inmate. Cody Adam Bays, 32, admitted smuggling various controlled substances including suboxone, marijuana, synthetic marijuana, and tobacco. Bays also attempted to smuggle fentanyl into FCI Beckley but sampled the substance, which led to a serious overdose. He also admitted receiving payments totaling $20,800 for his drug deliveries. He pleaded guilty to providing contraband to a federal inmate.
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The DEA releases its annual drug threat assessment, a new poll finds Texans are ready to legalize weed even if their political leaders are not, and more.
Harvesting opium poppies. There is not a lot of that going on in Afghanistan anymore. (UNODC)
Minnesota Lawmakers Approve Legal Marijuana Business Rules, Including Strong Social Equity Provisions. The legislature has given final approval to a bill that sets out new rules for the state's soon-to-be recreational marijuana industry, House File 4757. Gov. Tim Walz (D) is expected to sign it into law.
The bill clarifies who will qualify as a social equity applicant. They will include not only residents of high-poverty areas, but also military veterans who are "emerging farmers."
It also sets a date for the opening of the social equity licensing window on July 24 and the closing of that window on August 12. For the first round of social equity licenses, winners will be chosen by lottery. Other windows for applications could open at later dates.
People who get those licenses will have to use them or lose them. They will have 18 months to get up and running, although they could seek a single six-month extension.
There will be limits on the number of licenses for cultivators, manufacturers, retailers, and vertically integrated "mezzobusinesses," but not for microbusinesses. And if local governments want to open their own retail stores, they can do so without seeking a state license.
Texas Poll Has Strong Majority for Marijuana Legalization. A new poll from the Texas Lyceum has three out of five Texans, including a plurality of Republicans, favoring marijuana legalization. The poll had support overall at 60 percent, up 14 points over the Lyceum's 2015 survey on the issue.
Of the three out of 10 Texans who oppose legalization, 42 percent of them said they could support decriminalization, but 47 percent were against even that modest reform.
"Taken together, 73 percent of Texans support either full legalization or decriminalization of marijuana in Texas according to 2024 polling," Lyceum said.
Support for legalization was strongest among Democrats (72 percent) and people aged 30-44 (71 percent), but weakest among those aged 65+ (49 percent), Republicans (49 percent) and self-described conservatives (46 percent).
Despite public opinion in the state, marijuana reform remains stifled in Austin, where conservative Republicans control the legislature and the governorship.
Drug Policy
DEA Releases 2024 National Drug Threat Assessment. The DEA has released its annual report on drug threats, which it calls a "comprehensive strategic assessment of illicit drug threats and trafficking trends endangering the United States." The assessment does not mention alternative approaches to prohibition. The assessment focuses squarely on Mexican drug trafficking organizations and the cocaine, fentanyl, heroin, and methamphetamine they import into the US. Two of those groups, the Cartel Jalisco Nueva Generacion and the Sinaloa Cartel are "responsible for the vast majority of drug trafficking in the United States."
"The shift from plant-based drugs, like heroin and cocaine, to synthetic, chemical-based drugs, like fentanyl and methamphetamine, has resulted in the most dangerous and deadly drug crisis the United States has ever faced," said DEA Administrator Anne Milgram. "At the heart of the synthetic drug crisis are the Sinaloa and Jalisco cartels and their associates, who DEA is tracking worldwide. The suppliers, manufacturers, distributors, and money launderers all play a role in the web of deliberate and calculated treachery orchestrated by these cartels. DEA will continue to use all available resources to target these networks and save American lives."
Noting more than 107,000 drug overdose deaths in 2022 and fentanyl's involvement in roughly two-thirds of them, DEA called the synthetic opioid "the nation's greatest and most urgent drug threat."
International
Afghans Eradicate More Than 27 Square Miles of Opium Crops. Provincial police in Badakshan province, the scene of deadly clashes between farmers and eradicators in recent weeks, said anti-drug officers had destroyed more than 17,500 acres -- or more than 27 square miles -- of opium poppies in the past month.
Eradication operations took place Baharak, Darayem, Teshkan, Yamgan, Yeftal Payan, Kashm, Juram, and Argo districts, as well as provincial capital, Faizabad City.
Afghanistan has long been the world's leading opium producer, but the UN Office on Drugs and Crime reports that cultivation has been slashed by 95 percent since the Taliban decreed a ban in April 22. Myanmar now holds the poppy production crown.
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South Korea threatens to arrest its citizens if they smoke pot in countries where it is legal, Ireland wields harm reduction services as summer festival season arrives, and more.
The abortion drug mifeprestone. It is now a controlled substance in Louisiana. (Genbiopro)
Delaware Bill to Allow Medical Marijuana Dispensaries to Start Selling for Adult Use Market Advances. Amidst skepticism and concern from industry advocates, the House Economic Committee last Friday approved a bill to allow medical marijuana dispensaries to enter the adult-use market before any competitors are licensed, House Bill 408. The measure now heads for a House floor vote.
The state legalized marijuana last year but currently sees no legal sales for the adult market until the first licenses are issued beginning in November 2024. This bill, sponsored by the state's leading pro-marijuana lawmaker, Rep. Ed Osienski (D-Newark), would allow the state's six dispensaries to seek conversion licenses to sell to the adult-use market as early as August.
The conversion licenses would cost $100,000 with the proceeds going to fund capital needs for social equity license holders. The dispensaries would have 12 months to pay for the license.
"These licenses will provide a chance for the industry to have enough supply of cannabis to meet the April 2025 targeted date with the beginning of the recreational market," Osienski said.
But marijuana advocates worry that the experience of other states suggests that dispensaries eventually fail to meet the needs of their patients after entering the adult-use market.
"I was there for this very same process in New Jersey just a few years ago, and these large corporate players promised to keep up a medical marijuana program, promised to lower prices, promised to have special hours, and they ended up getting fined and criticized for providing none of those things and breaking every one of those promises so far," Chris Goldstein, a regional organizer for the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws in Delaware, New Jersey and Pennsylvania, testified.
Louisiana Senate Passes Bill to Decriminalize Pot Paraphernalia. The state decriminalized the possession of up to a half ounce of marijuana three years ago, and now lawmakers are on the verge of getting around to decriminalizing pot paraphernalia. The Senate last week approved a bill that would do that, House Bill 165.
Under the bill, first offenders for pot paraphernalia would face a fine of no more than $100. Under current law, the penalty is a fine of up to $300 and up to 15 days in jail. With decriminalization in effect, people caught with small amounts of pot face no jail time.
"Currently, the possession of marijuana is less of a penalty than marijuana paraphernalia," said Sen. Royce Duplessis (D-New Orleans), who sponsored the bill in the Senate. Passing the bill is just "common sense," he added.
The bill has already passed the House but because it was amended in the Senate, it must return to the House for a concurrence vote Tuesday.
New Hampshire Senate Approves Marijuana Legalization Bill, But Prospects Are Cloudy in the House. In a historic first, the Senate has given its final approval to a marijuana legalization bill, House Bill 1633, which now heads back to the House for a concurrence vote before potentially going to the governor's desk. Currently, New Hampshire is the only New England state where marijuana prohibition still endures.
But prospects in the House are cloudy after the Senate made major amendments to the version passed in the lower chamber. Some House members are saying they will reject the bill in its current form.
Significant changes came out of the Senate Finance Committee, where legalization opponent Senate President Jeb Bradley (R) sponsored amendments that slashed the legal possession limit in half -- from four ounces to two -- created a misdemeanor penalty for smoking pot in a vehicle, and increased penalties for selling marijuana to minors. The Senate rejected an amendment that would have legalized pot possession immediately upon the bill's passage.
The Senate also substantially amended the House bill's scheme for licensing marijuana retailers, replacing it instead with a state franchise model favored by Gov. Chris Sununu (R).
With the bill now heading back to the House, members can either approve it despite the changes, reject it, or send it to a conference committee to seek a compromise. As of now, it is not certain that the votes are there to pass it as is.
Drug Policy
Louisiana Becomes First State to Label Abortion Drugs as Controlled Substances. With the signature of Gov. Jeff Landry on Senate Bill 276 last Friday, the state has become the first in the nation to make it a criminal offense to possess two abortion drugs without a prescription.
The two drugs are mifepristone and misoprostol, often used together to terminate a pregnancy, but also used for other medical reasons. The bill would criminalize their possession without a prescription by adding them to the state's list of "controlled dangerous substances."
Supporters said the bill was necessary to prevent someone from dosing a woman with the pills without her knowledge, and at least two members of the legislature claimed it had happened to someone they knew.
But more than 200 doctors signed a letter to lawmakers saying the measure could produce a "barrier to physicians’ ease of prescribing appropriate treatment" and cause unnecessary fear and confusion among patients and doctors.
Because the bill was amended in the House, it must now go back to the Senate for final concurrence.
"Requiring an abortion-inducing drug to be obtained with a prescription and criminalizing the use of an abortion drug on an unsuspecting mother is nothing short of common sense. This bill protects women across Louisiana and I was proud to sign this bill into law today," Landry said in his signing statement.
International
Irish Health Service Will Provide Drug Checking Services at Summer Music Festivals. The country's public health department, the Health Services Executive (HSE), will provide "back of the house" drug checking at four music festivals this summer to reduce drug-related harms.
The HSE said it is concerned about the use of cannabinoids, particularly the newly emerged substance HHC, for which there is limited information. HSE's Safer Nightlife Program will also provide harm reduction outreach teams at the festivals.
"Through our ‘back of house’ drug checking, pills, powders, crystals, and some other substances can be analyzed in real time, in collaboration between the HSE, Gardaí, and festival organizers with an aim to identify trends of concern to inform the public at events," said Nicki Killeen, HSE Project Manager Emerging Drug Trends. "Surrender bins will be available in health-led settings in the Drugs.ie tent and medical tents. We want to remind people that the drugs.ie tent offers a safe space for people to discuss their drug use, get information, and surrender drugs for analysis. If a trend of concern is identified, we will issue alerts via drugs.ie social media, our volunteers and at the event through the festival promoters. Last summer, we found MDMA pills ranging from 50mg to 246mg (twice the average dose), highlighting significant variability in strength and purity despite similar appearances."
"This year, the HSE Safer Nightlife Program is also expanding and joining forces with agencies from Portugal, Luxembourg, Italy, and Spain to address the intersection of a number of issues such as gender, safety, and substance use in nightlife settings. The Crisscross initiative aims to promote safer and more inclusive nightlife. So far, we have conducted focus groups with professionals and young people who socialize in Dublin nightlife and will begin our training program for professionals later this week. Through the Safer Nightlife Program, we are launching the Crisscross campaign which will include new resources for our outreach on topics such as being a good bystander in nightlife."
South Korea Says It Will Arrest Citizens Who Smoke Pot in Countries Where It Is Legal. In a stunning example of extraterritoriality, the Ministry of Justice on Monday warned citizens who travel to or reside in countries where marijuana is legal that they would face criminal charges back home if they partook while abroad. It said Koreans could face up to five years in prison for expatriate pot-smoking.
"There have been cases in which Korean citizens mistakenly believe that smoking marijuana is alright in countries where it has been legalized," the ministry said in a statement. "Korean citizens, however, could face a heavy penalty under our domestic laws for using illicit drug in those countries after they return."
While the penalty for marijuana use seems draconian, the penalties for distribution are even more so: a mandatory minimum of five years and up to life in prison.
The South Korean government is responding to the increasing move toward marijuana legalization around the world. In Europe, Germany, Luxembourg, and Malta have all legalized it, as have Canada, Uruguay, and 24 American states.
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The UN Office on Drugs and Crime issues a new report on East and Southeast Asian drug trafficking, California psychedelic reform proponents ponder a 2026 initiative, and more.
Methamphetamine. The UN reports that production and trafficking is rampant in East and Southeast Asia. (Creative Commons)
Delaware Governor Signs Medical Marijuana Expansion Bill. Gov. Jay Carney (D) on Tuesday signed into law a bill vastly expanding the state's medical marijuana program, House Bill 285.
Under the bill, anyone who has "a diagnosed medical condition" and would "receive therapeutic or palliative benefit" from medical marijuana is now eligible for a state medical marijuana card. Additionally, anyone 65 or older can now "self-certify" for a card without a doctor's recommendation.
Previously, the state's medical marijuana law limited it to people suffering from a specified list of "debilitating medical conditions."
The expansion of the medical marijuana program is unrelated to adult-use legalization, which was signed into law last year. Adult-use sales are not expected to begin until March 2025. Until then, medical marijuana is the only path through which to access marijuana.
Psychedelics
California Activists Ponder 2026 Psychedelic Ballot Measure. After being stymied in the state legislature for the past two years, psychedelic reform activists are considering a ballot initiative to legalize some psychedelic drugs, including psilocybin and MDMA.
The potential move comes after lawmakers last year approved a natural psychedelic legalization bill from Sen. Scott Wiener (D-San Francisco) only to see it vetoed by Gov. Gavin Newsom (D). Newsom called on lawmakers to instead concentrate on the therapeutic uses of psychedelics. This year, Wiener did just, but his bill died in committee in the Senate.
Now, after being blocked in Sacramento, psychedelic advocates including Wiener are pondering whether to go ahead with a ballot initiative.
"We are not giving up, whether that means introducing a new bill or ballot measure, this issue is not going away," Wiener said. "We know these substances are helping people turn their lives around."
Wiener added that both a ballot initiative and another legislative effort could happen simultaneously. One issue for activists to decide is how broad an initiative should be. It could be limited to therapeutic purposes or a straightforward legalization measure.
"Californians will continue to seek out psychedelics for all sorts of reasons, including to help alleviate mental health challenges like PTSD, depression, and anxiety. Many will do so without guided support and use psychedelics on their own, which increases risks," said Jared Moffat, Campaign Director for the Alliance for Safer Use of Psychedelics, in a statement. "We're not backing down, and will keep pushing to ensure facilitated access to psychedelics becomes a reality in California and that Californians are protected from harm."
International
UN Report Documents Massive Drug Trade in East and Southeast Asia. In a Tuesday press release, the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) announced a new report on the drug trafficking situation in East and Southeast Asia:
"The synthetic drug market in East and Southeast Asia continues to grow at concerning levels, as organized crime groups leverage gaps in law enforcement and governance challenges to traffic large volumes of drugs and expand their production... The report, titled 'Synthetic Drugs in East and Southeast Asia: latest developments and challenges 2024', confirms that 190 tons of methamphetamine were seized in East and Southeast Asia in 2023 -- a record level. After dropping slightly in 2022, seizures of methamphetamine rebounded in 2023 to the highest amount ever recorded for the region."
"The drug trafficking and production situation has become increasingly complex," said Masood Karimipour, UNODC Regional Representative for Southeast Asia and the Pacific. "Organized crime groups are lowering the production costs and scaling up production by using non-controlled chemicals. With scaled-up production, shipments involving over one ton of drugs have become more frequent, which in turn leads to further price drops as availability and affordability increase."
"Taking advantage of the region's extensive trade infrastructure, organized crime groups are increasingly linking land-based trafficking corridors and maritime routes to escalate maritime trafficking of high-volume shipments, such as the route to the Gulf of Thailand, which crosses several land borders in the lower Mekong region. Throughout 2023 and into early 2024, large shipments of over one ton of methamphetamine, often alongside ketamine, have been seized en route to or on maritime routes."
"Organized crime groups are increasingly using the Gulf of Thailand to transport substantial quantities. However, despite the large volumes of seizures and high inflation observed since the COVID-19 pandemic, prices of methamphetamine and ketamine have continued to drop. The wholesale price of methamphetamine is now reaching as low as US$ 400 per kilogram in production areas, pointing to growth in production and strong supply in the regional synthetic drug market."
"Shan State in Myanmar continues to be the predominant source of synthetic drugs in the region, but the illicit manufacture of synthetic drugs is expanding to neighboring countries. It also highlights the sophistication of organized crime groups operating in the region, which are increasingly using a variation of non-controlled chemicals available to expand production while minimizing disruptions to their supply chain."
"At the same time, new synthetic drug products have emerged in the market to appeal to young users. 'Happy water' in sachet form emerged a few years ago and can now be found in multiple countries in the region. More recently, another synthetic drug product has entered the market, called 'party lollipops'. These lollipops have been found to contain multiple substances, such as ketamine, MDMA, and benzodiazepines, which can pose irreparable harm to users. Some are even packaged in well-known product brands, increasing the danger to the public."
South Africa Legalizes Marijuana. President Cyril Ramaphosa on Tuesday signed into law a bill legalizing marijuana possession and cultivation by adults. The Cannabis for Private Purposes Act (CfPPA) was approved by the National Assembly last November and the National Council of Provinces in February.
Lawmakers were responding to a 2018 Constitutional Court ruling that found the prohibition on the possession of cultivation of marijuana unlawful. The high court gave lawmakers two years to rectify the situation, but it took until now anyway.
"The consequent regulatory reform enabled by the CfPPA will, amongst others, entirely remove cannabis from the Drugs and Drug Trafficking Act," the president's office said in a press release on Tuesday. "This will further enable amendment of the Schedules to the Medicines and Related Substances Act and provide for targeted regulatory reform of the Plant Breeders Rights Act and the Plant Improvement Act, as well as other pieces of legislation that require amendment to allow for the industrialization of the cannabis sector."
"The Bill further guides the medically prescribed administration of cannabis to a child while also protecting children from undue exposure to cannabis," the president's office said. "It provides for an alternative manner by which to address the issue of the prohibited use, possession of, or dealing in, cannabis by children, with due regard to the best interest of the child. It also prohibits the dealing in cannabis."
The new law does not allow for commercial marijuana cultivation or sales, but a parliamentary spokesman, Moloto Mothapo, said the government sees this bill as the starting point for eventual full-blown commercial legalization.
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A dangerous new substance is entering the nation's illicit powder drug supply, the New Hampshire marijuana legalization bill is now going to conference committee, and more.
A police bust in the Tenderloin. There have been a lot of them in the last year. (AdamChandler86)
California Cops Now Support Marijuana Legalization. Law enforcement groups have always been among the usual suspects when it comes to opposing marijuana legalization, but now, the largest police association in the state, the Peace Officers Research Association of California (PORAC), has announced it is down with legalization.
PORAC is an association of 950 police unions representing more than 80,000 law enforcement officers in the state.
"The ship has sailed," PORAC wrote in a policy position released earlier this month announcing its call for federal marijuana legalization, "and for the vast majority of Americans, cannabis is legal and accessible."
PORAC released the statement to announce its support of a bill that would force the federal government to recognize state-legal marijuana programs as valid under federal law, HR 6673, the STATES 2.0 Act. The acronym stands for Strengthening the Tenth Amendment Through Entrusting States.
"We're not making a moral judgment as to whether you should smoke it or don't smoke it, but we want to make sure [legal cannabis companies] aren't being drowned out by the illegal market," said PORAC President Brian Marvel.
This is a remarkable evolution for PORAC, which opposed the 2016 voter initiative that legalized marijuana in the state, but times have changed.
"A fair amount of officers patrolling the streets nowadays know nothing other than legalized marijuana in the state of California," Marvel said. "They are much more receptive to conversations on marijuana."
New Hampshire House Rejects Marijuana Legalization Bill with Senate Amendments; Measure Will Go to Conference Committee. The House voted Tuesday to reject the Senate's sweeping amendments to a marijuana legalization bill it had already passed, House Bill 1633. It then voted to send the bill to a bicameral conference committee to try to sort out the differences.
That dims the prospects for passage of the bill because a single member of the conference committee can kill it.
Members made winning arguments for refusing the Senate version.
"Instead of rushing to pass a bill that we all know is flawed, let's reject this amendment and insist on making better policies for our constituents," Rep. Heath Howard (D) said before the House floor vote. "We will only get one chance to create a well-regulated market for adult-use cannabis, and it's important we get it right."
"I know the vast majority of my constituents want legalized cannabis," added Republican Kevin Verville (R). "They want it in New Hampshire and they want it sooner than later. But this is not the right approach for us."
Gov. Chris Sununu (R) has said he would support the bill with the changes made by the Senate but would oppose the version passed by the House.
"I think the Senate version is okay," Sununu said." They put some other stuff in there that I wasn't necessarily looking for, but they're not deal breakers." But if House lawmakers "want to make significant changes," the governor added, "then it's not going to pass. It's that easy."
The Senate version of the bill embraces Sununu's demands for a state franchise system for retail outlets, limited to 15 stores statewide as opposed to the licensing scheme set up in the House bill. It also introduced other changes that toughened the bill's enforcement aspects. The bill contains no provision for home cultivation. Activists are divided over whether to try to get something passed this year, now that Sununu is on board or to wait until next year when a new Republican governor could once again be an obstacle.
Drug Policy
Meet the Latest New Substance to Enter the Nation's Drug Supply. Public health officials in Pennsylvania and other states are raising alarms about a new entrant into the nation's illicit drug supply, a chemical sedative called medetomidine. They say it is being mixed into fentanyl and other powder drugs and is implicated in a wave of overdoses that began in April and has accelerated this month.
"The numbers reported out of Philadelphia were 160 hospitalizations over a 3 or 4-day period," said Alex Krotulski who heads an organization called NPS Discovery that studies illicit drugs sold in the US.
The drug, which is primarily used as an animal tranquilizer but is also formulated for use among human patients, has also appeared in mass overdose outbreaks in Chicago, Pittsburgh, and Toronto. It can slow the heart rate to dangerous levels and is undetectable in standard drug screens.
"Some of our emergency medicine doctors started stopping me in the hallway," said Dr. Brendan Hart. "They said 'Something funny is going on with the overdoses.' Patients were coming in with very low heart rates. As low as in the 20s. A normal heart rate is sixty to a hundred [beats per minute] so 20s is extremely low."
Lab tests of street drug samples showed the presence of the sedative. Public health alerts have now been issued in Illinois and Pennsylvania. Medetomidine first appeared in the street drug supply in 2022, but only rarely and in tiny amounts. Now, it appears to be spreading rapidly.
This is only the latest dangerous new drug to confound health officials. Last year, it was xylazine, another animal tranquilizer known as "tranq." The fentanyl-tranq mix led to more overdoses and horrendous flesh wounds and lesions. Now, medetomidine is in the mix, too.
"Patients are being cared for as we speak in emergency rooms," Hart said. "These are very complex drug products. You’ve got fentanyl adulterated with xylazine that now also contains medetomidine."
San Francisco Marks A Year of Drug Crackdowns in SOMA and the Tenderloin. City officials on Wednesday talked up their "successes" in a year-long crackdown on public drug use and dealing in the city's Tenderloin and South of Market (SOMA) neighborhoods. The office of Mayor London Breed (D) reported that San Francisco police have seized 199 kilos of narcotics, including nearly 90 kilos of fentanyl, 48.2 kilos of methamphetamine, 15.5 kilos of cocaine and 8.39 kilos of heroin.
They also arrested 3,150 people on drug charges, of which only about 1,000 were suspected dealers. The figures only include busts and arrests in the two neighborhoods, not the rest of the city.
A year ago Wednesday marked the launch of the Drug Market Agency Coordination Center, which brought local, state, and federal agencies together to crack down on the two neighborhoods.
"We have brought unprecedented levels of coordination to tackle the drug markets on our streets and we are not letting up," Breed said in a statement. "The partnerships we put in place are getting fentanyl out of our neighborhoods and with new technology being deployed and more officers joining our ranks, our efforts will only grow stronger over the coming year."
"Our officers have made tremendous progress over the last year in dismantling San Francisco's pernicious drug markets," said Chief Bill Scott. "We will continue to increase our efforts in making arrests and seizing these poisonous drugs off our streets.
And District Attorney Brooke Jenkins' office announced that 394 felony narcotics were presented this year through May 25, with 344 cases filed. There were also 101 felony narcotics convictions and 70 guilty pleas to other cases.
But while the crackdown has removed some drugs and dealers from the streets, it does not address underlying issues said Michael Diszepola, who works at the GLIDE Memorial Church in the Tenderloin to connect drug users with services.
"Incarceration by law enforcement has not been proven to be able to assist or change the conditions for people who use drugs, and the same thing applies here. Even if we're getting some substances off the streets, we still have a lot of substances on the streets. People are still able to get drugs on the streets," he said. "For us, we want to look at, what are the circumstances that people use drugs are under on the streets, or people with mental illness on the streets and how can we make access points for them available. The reality of the matter is the supply is not safe," said Diszepola.
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A new Tennessee poll has a strong majority for marijuana legalization, a Japanese three-year-old is honored for spotting an opium poppy, and more.
Rogue opium plants beware! Inspector Kawamura Yuki, 3, is on the job.
Tennessee Poll Shows Strong Majority for Marijuana Legalization. Somebody should tell the state legislature. Although the Republican-dominated legislature can't bestir itself even to pass medical marijuana, Tennesseans are ready to move on to full-bore legalization, according to a new poll from Vanderbilt University. That poll has support for legalization at 60 percent statewide.
Poll co-director John Greer said there are "strong party differences," with Republicans much more likely to oppose legalization and Democrats to favor it.
The legislature has deigned to allow Tennesseans some limited access to CBD oil and hemp products, but such half-steps are as far as lawmakers have been willing to go.
Drug Policy
A Third of American Adults Know Someone Who Died of a Drug Overdose. More than a million Americans have died of drug overdoses so far this century, leaving behind friends and relatives. Now, a new survey from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health finds that nearly one-third (32 percent) of American adults knew one of those overdose victims.
That is an estimated 82.7 million people. Nearly one-fifth of American adults (18.9 percent), or 49.8 million people reported having a close friend or immediate family member die of a drug overdose.
The survey found no difference around political party affiliation but did find that those who knew overdose victims were more likely to see addiction as a very or extremely important policy issue. Overdose losses were reported across all income groups. Forty percent of lower-income respondents (defined as annual household incomes less than $30,000) reported overdose loss. Over one-quarter -- 26 percent -- of respondents in the $100,000 and higher annual household income category reported an overdose loss.
The data suggested a high level of agreement across all groups -- greater than 60 percent, even among those reporting no overdose loss -- that addiction is an extremely or very important policy issue. Respondents who reported overdose loss had 37 percent greater odds of viewing addiction as a very or extremely important policy priority.
"The drug overdose crisis is a national tragedy," said Alene Kennedy-Hendricks, PhD, assistant professor in the Department of Health Policy and Management at the Bloomberg School, who led the analysis. "Although large numbers of UD adults are bereaved due to overdose, they may not be as visible as other groups who have lost loved ones to less stigmatized health issues. Movements to build support for policy change to overcome the devastating toll of the overdose crisis should consider the role of this community."
"This study contributes new evidence that the addiction crisis and the losses that come with it are common across Americans, but the burden is greater among those who are more economically precarious," said Catherine Ettman, PhD, an assistant professor in the Bloomberg School's Department of Health Policy and Management. "Addressing addiction can be a unifying theme in increasingly divided times."
Louisiana Bans "Gas Station Heroin." Gov. Jeff Landry (R) has signed into law Senate Bill 17, which criminalizes the sale and possession of tianeptine, a drug commonly known as "gas station heroin" for its opioid-like effects.
The bill makes the federally unregulated anti-depressant a Schedule I substance under the state's Uniform Controlled Dangerous Substances Law.
The CDC reports that tianeptine overuse and withdrawal can mimic opioid toxicity effects seen in actual opioids. The FDA began warning consumers about tianeptine in November 2023, citing reports of users suffering seizures and loss of consciousness.
The bill passed both chambers unanimously and will go into effect August 1.
International
Japanese Three-Year-Old Commended for Finding Banned Opium Poppy. Police in Tokushima City in western Japan have honored a local boy for finding a banned opium poppy in his neighborhood. Kawamura Yuki, 3, found the plant with blooming purple flowers while walking with his mother last month.
When the boy spotted the plant, his mother looked it up on her phone and found it was "atsumigeshi," or the opium poppy. She also learned the plant is banned in Japan and then notified police.
Police then held a ceremony at the local police station, where the chief asked Yuki to keep his mind strong and moral and to help maintain peace in the community. They dressed the boy in a child's police uniform and gave him a ride on a motorcycle and a police car.
Yuki said people should not touch poppy plants if they find them.
Although the plant is banned, it is prolific. Police removed more than 10,450 poppy plants in Tokushima Prefecture last year.
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Customs and Border Patrol has cut the period of acceptable last marijuana use for recruits from two years to 90 days, the federal defense bill is the locus of several drug policy-related amendments, and more.
Kratom. The state of California is moving to regulate -- not prohibit -- it. (Project CBD)
CBP Relaxes Marijuana Use Policy for Border Patrol Recruits, Republican Senator Complains. US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) has reduced the amount of time that has passed since last using marijuana for Border Patrol recruits to be eligible to be hired by the agency. The marijuana use lookback period was two years but has now been lessened to 90 days.
That is according to an April letter from Sen. James Lankford (R-OK) to Acting CBP Commissioner Troy Miller. The letter came after a briefing by CBP to the senator where the agency reported that the policy change was designed to aid the recruitment of new agents and to acknowledge the conflict between state laws legalizing marijuana and continuing federal marijuana prohibition.
The Oklahoma Republican was not happy about the change, expressing "[grave concerns] that this policy undermines the security and integrity of the Border Patrol workforce" and calling for it to be revoked. He also wants to know about the justification for the move, any legal review undertaken before it was enacted, and how the move has affected the rate of polygraph passage at an agency where they have been notoriously low.
But the move is part of a broader relaxation of previous marijuana use rules under the Biden administration. Personnel vetting forms government-wide now separate marijuana from other drugs and require no use for the past 90 days, not the seven-year period previously mandated in the federal government.
GOP Representatives Seek to Remove Ban on Marijuana Testing for Military Recruits from Defense Bill. The pending defense appropriations bill is becoming a locus of conflicting drug-related provisions, with some Republican members of Congress seeking to remove a ban on marijuana testing for military recruits that has already been approved, while other members are pushing several drug policy-related amendments that, among other things, would ease the rescheduling of certain psychedelics and end the denial of security clearances based on past marijuana use.
The 2025 National Defense Authorization Act has already passed out of the House Armed Services Committee and is now before the House Rules Committee, where these issues will be thrashed out ahead of a House floor vote.
The ban on marijuana testing of recruits has survived the Armed Service Committee, but now, Reps. Pete Sessions (R-TX) and Robert Aderholt (R-AL) have each filed separate amendments to remove that language.
Meanwhile, Rep. Robert Garcia (D-CA) filed another familiar amendment that would prevent military departments from denying security clearances to people based solely on their past marijuana use if it was in compliance with state law, and Reps. Tony Gonzales (R-TX), Jimmy Panetta (D-CA), and Joaquin Castro (D-TX) also filed an amendment to codify that military servicemembers can’t be penalized for using or possessing federally legal hemp products.
Yet another proposes amendment, Reps. Madeleine Dean (D-PA) and Nancy Mace (R-SC), would streamline the process for the DEA to move drugs named as "breakthrough therapies" from Schedule I to Schedule II of the Controlled Substances Act, while one more, from Reps. Glenn Ivey (D-MD), Laurel Lee (R-FL), Mikkie Sherrill (D-NJ), Barry Moore (R-AL) and Kelly Armstrong (R-ND), would expand eligibility for expungements of nonviolent drug convictions by removing an age restriction limiting relief to those who were under 21 at the time of the offense.
Kratom
California Assembly Approves Kratom Regulation Bill. The Assembly last Friday approved an industry-supported bill to regulate kratom, Assembly Bill 2356. Kratom is a substance derived from the South Asian evergreen tree Mitragyna speciosa that has both opioid-like and stimulative effects. It is not a controlled substance in the US, but the DEA has listed it as a drug of concern.
The bill is sponsored by Assemblymember Matthew Haney (D) with the backing of the industry group the Global Kratom Coalition.
"Moving out of the California Assembly for hearings in the California Senate is a major step in the march to make AB 2365 law," said Matthew Lowe, Executive Director of the Global Kratom Coalition. "The Assembly's action shows they are serious about consumer safety first through well-researched, science-backed standards that account for the ever-evolving kratom marketplace and the fact that not all kratom is equal. We urge the California Senate and kratom supporters from all circles to support this bill."
The bill contains comprehensive regulations designed to protect consumers while preserving access to leaf kratom and kratom extracts. The bill includes key provisions such as defining what constitutes leaf kratom and kratom extracts, banning synthetic kratom derivatives, setting packaging and labeling standards, enforcing age restrictions for purchases, requiring registration and strict testing protocols for kratom processors, and specifying enforcement measures for violations.
Psychedelics
Vermont Governor Signs Bill to Create Psychedelics Working Group. Gov. Phil Scott (R) has signed into law Senate Bill 114, which will create the Psychedelic Therapy Advisory Working Group. That group is charged with making recommendations on whether and how the state should regulate legal access to substances such as MDMA and psilocybin.
The law does not legalize psychedelics, but creates the task force to "review the latest research and evidence of the public health benefits and risks of clinical psychedelic-assisted treatments" and "examine the laws and programs of other states that have authorized the use of psychedelics by health care providers in a therapeutic setting."
Both MDMA and psilocybin have been granted breakthrough therapy status by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), and clinical trials with MDMA could see it approved for therapeutic use by the FDA as early as this year.
Harm Reduction
Vermont Governor Vetoes Safe Injection Site Bill. Gov. Phil Scott (R) has vetoed a bill that would have allowed a safe injection site to open in Burlington, House Bill 72. It would have been a pilot project funded by $1.1 million from the state's opioid settlement fund, with another $300,000 to study its impact.
But Scott wasn't having it.
"While these sites are well-intentioned, this costly experiment will divert financial resources from proven prevention, treatment and recovery strategies, as well as harm reduction initiatives that facilitate entry into treatment rather than continued use," the governor wrote in a veto message. "While it may consolidate the widespread drug use in Burlington into a smaller area within the city, it will come at the expense of the treatment and recovery needs of other communities, for whom such a model will not work."
Scott suggested the safe injection site was not needed because the state's overdose prevention strategies "including widespread Narcan distribution, fentanyl testing strips, needle exchanges, enhanced prevention, treatment and recovery through local coalitions" -- are already "resulting in some positive trends in relation to overdose deaths."
"Paired with increased enforcement," he continued, "and the ability to invest Opioid Settlement funds in additional strategies like drug testing, naloxone vending machines, contingency management, and expanded outreach, I’m hopeful we will continue to see fewer and fewer overdose deaths."
Scott said earlier that he was "philosophically and pragmatically opposed" to the change despite support from city leaders in Burlington.
"It may save lives, but how much are we going to lose because we didn’t get them into treatment or keep them from using in the first place with prevention?" he said at the time.
The House may try to override the governor's veto, but it is unclear if supporters can muster the votes to do so.
"We understand this is a new strategy to prevent overdose deaths and get people into treatment in Vermont, which is why it is a pilot project with one center," said House Speaker Jill Krowinski (D), who represents Burlington. "The governor's veto of this bill is a drastic response to a thoughtful and measured approach to saving lives."
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