Chronicle AM: CDC Says Drug ODs Declined Last Year, El Chapo Gets Life in Prison, More... (7/18/19)

The CDC reports that the overdose crisis may have peaked in 2017, El Chapo is sentenced to life in prison for exporting tons of cocaine and other drugs to the US, North Carolina lawmakers want to ban smokable hemp, and more.

Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman gets life in prison, but somebody has already replaced him. (SEDENA}

More Than 100 Marijuana Businesses Urge Congress to Include Social Equity in Legalization. A coalition representing more than a hundred marijuana businesses and industry associations sent a letter to the congressional leadership Thursday, urging them to ensure that provisions promoting social equity are part of any marijuana reform legislation. The signatories said they feared people from communities that suffered a disproportionate impact from the drug war would be "left behind because a previous [cannabis] conviction often is a disqualifying factor to become an owner or employee in the new legal 'green-rush'' and also because "they are unable to come up with the capital necessary to break into the industry."

West Hollywood Okays First Cannabis Cafe. The city of West Hollywood, California, has approved a space for what would be the first cannabis café in the city. The council Tuesday approved a business license for Lowell Farms, which promises cannabis cuisine and a smoking area. Since state law forbids the consumption of alcohol and marijuana on the same site, alcohol will not be served. The doors could open within months.

Medical Marijuana

Bipartisan Lawmakers File Federal Bill to Break Medical Marijuana Research Logjam. A bipartisan group of lawmakers led by Rep. Earl Blumenauer (D-OR) has filed the Medical Marijuana Research Act, which aims to accelerate medical marijuana research by creating a less cumbersome registration process, reforming production and distribution regulations, and allowing for private manufacturing and distribution of marijuana for research purposes. "Forty-seven states have legalized some form of cannabis, yet the federal government is still getting in the way of further progress on the potential for research," said Blumenauer.

Hemp

North Carolina House Committee Votes to Define Smokable Hemp as Marijuana. Acting at the behest of law enforcement, the House Judiciary Committee on Wednesday amended SB 352 to classify smokable hemp as a controlled substance like marijuana. The move came after police complained that allowing smokable hemp would make enforcing laws against marijuana smoking unenforceable and that it would cause police to lose probable cause for vehicle searches based on the smell of marijuana smoke or a drug dog's alert. "If this bill passes without the ban, we will put 800 of our law enforcement dogs and their handlers out of business," said Rep. Jimmy Dixon (R-Duplin).

Ohio House Votes to Approve Hemp Bill. The House on Wednesday voted 88-3 to approve SB 57, which clears the way for legal hemp production in the state. The Senate had already approved the bill, but because the House amended it, the Senate voted later Wednesday to concur in those amendments. The bill now goes to the desk of Gov. Mike DeWine (R).

Drug Overdoses

CDC Says Drug Overdoses Fell Last Year for First Time in Decades. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reported Wednesday that preliminary data showed nearly 68,000 drug overdose deaths last year, a 5% decline over 201, which saw a record of more than 70,000 deaths, and the first decline since the beginning of the current opioid use wave beginning in 1995. But the rate is still about seven times higher than it was then.

Law Enforcement

El Chapo Sentenced to Life in Prison. Mexican drug lord Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman was sentenced Wednesday to life in prison plus 30 years in federal court in Manhattan. He had been convicted in February of smuggling tons of cocaine and other drugs into the US. He is headed for the federal maximum security prison in Florence, Colorado.