PR Governor Supports Careful Drug Decrim, Mendo Pot Farmers Catch a Break, More... (10/18/24)

The DEA is ringing the alarm bell about the synthetic drug "pink cocaine" in New York City, and more.

Pink cocaine or "tusi." The pink powder is named after the phenethylamine series 2C-B and may actually contain that substance.

California Takes Step to Keep Almost 500 Mendocino Pot Growers in the Legal Marketplace. The state Department of Cannabis Control (DCC) announced on Thursday that it had taken a long-awaited action to move Mendocino County legal marijuana growers more firmly into the legal market. The department said it had finally certified an Environmental Impact Report (EIR) for the county, which means growers there can move from provisional licensing to annual licensing.

There are 535 active licensed marijuana growers in the county, and 476 (89 percent) are listed as provisional licensees. Under state law, DCC cannot renew provisional licenses after the beginning of next year, and those provisional license holders must transfer to annual licensing by 2026 or get out of the legal market. The lack of an EIR has been a major obstacle to those growers getting annual licensing.

"Our goal has always been clear: to support those who helped build California's cannabis industry through a licensing program that is environmentally conscious and legally sound," DCC Director Nicole Elliott. "With the EIR certified, we're one step closer to keeping Mendocino's pioneering cannabis spirit alive."

Mendocino growers faced problems because local officials set up their program before state licensing was in place and did not align it with mandates for site-specific reviews under state environmental laws.

"Because the state requires a site-specific discretionary review of every single project in order to qualify for the state license and CEQA compliance, Mendocino County essentially didn't have a system to satisfy the state licensing requirements," said Genine Coleman, director of the Origins Council, a nonprofit that advocates for roughly 900 small, independent cannabis businesses and homestead farming families, primarily in the rural areas of Northern California.

Now with a certified EIR in place, the development of site-specific environment documents becomes much less onerous than it would have been otherwise, paving that pathway for Mendocino County cannabis cultivators to become compliant with state environmental regulations and obtain annual licensure.

"This project is a testament to what's possible when legal operators and local and state government work together towards addressing California Environmental Quality Act requirements and focus on meeting an important objective," said Mo Mulheren, chair of the Mendocino Board of Supervisors. "The solution developed and implemented by the Department of Cannabis Control and Mendocino County makes it possible for legacy cultivators to focus on what they do best -- growing high-quality cannabis legally by eliminating the final roadblocks," Mulheren said.

Drug Policy

Feds Warn About Pink Cocaine AKA "Tusi" in New York City. The DEA is issuing a new warning about a synthetic stimulant being peddled as "pink cocaine" or "tusi" in the city. The drug has picked up the "tusi" moniker after 2C-B, a series of psychedelic phenethylamines, even though it is not clear that any given sample of "pink cocaine" actually contains 2C-B.

"It's ketamine mixed with methamphetamine, ecstasy. It could be mixed with anything," said Bridget Brennan, New York City's special narcotics prosecutor. "It can put people into a 'k-hole' where they feel like they're in a blank space like they are disassociated from their body, they're disassociated from their brain, they don't know what's going on."

"It's being sold mostly online and through social media apps but being abused in the clubs in New York City," warned DEA New York City Special Agent in Charge Frank Tarentino.

He said that it goes for $20 to $100 a gram and he warned that it is showing up as an adulterant in other powder drugs.

"We're seeing more and more of this drug being mixed with fentanyl," Tarentino said.

The worries over "tuci" come as the city works its way through record-high drug overdose numbers, with more than 2,600 fatal overdoses in 2021, 3,026 in 2022, and 712 in the first quarter of 2003. But it is unclear if "tuci" is implicated in any of those deaths.

Puerto Rico Governor Agrees With Careful Drug Decriminalization, Not Legalization. Gov. Pedro Pierluis Urrutia said Thursday in response to a question about fentanyl deaths that he favored decriminalizing drugs but not legalizing them.

"This legalization thing is not for me," Pierluisi said. "Decriminalization could be done to a certain extent, but with great care and controls, because we do not want to encourage drug use in Puerto Rico; if anything, we want to discourage it."

But he seems willing to throw some drug users in jail anyway.

"I have always said that drug users, addicts, should not be imprisoned, except when it is a repeat offense and they are committing a series of crimes that do not provide alternatives," he continued.

The governor's comments came amid a spate of concern over fentanyl, with government officials calling on "anyone who buys any substance illegally to be aware of the risk that it may contain fentanyl." The same day the governor spoke, the island's Institute of Forensic Sciences confirmed that a series of overdose deaths in Arecibo implicated fentanyl, as well as cocaine and xylazine.