Houston will vote on making pot possession the lowest law enforcement priority, a group of GOP senators warn of Chinese criminal organizations infiltrating the marijuana and hemp industries, and more. 

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Marijuana Policy 

Houston Voters to Decide Whether Pot Possession Should Be Lowest Law Enforcement Priority. Voters in the nation's fourth-largest city will decide in November whether misdemeanor marijuana possession will be the Houston Police Department's lowest law enforcement priority.

The city council approved the initiative, Proposition A, earlier this year. In addition to making Class A and Class B pot possession the lowest law enforcement priority, the measure would also bar the police from participating in or executing no-knock search warrants. 

Ground Game Texas, which has organized similar initiatives across the Lone Star State, says the initiative is needed because of rising pot possession arrests in the city.

"We have noted under his administration, a 1200% increase in low-level marijuana arrests," said the group's lead organizer, Jack Nieto. "This bill does not legalize marijuana because Houston can’t legislate for Texas. But what Houston can do is set the priorities of how it uses its resources to enforce those laws."

Hemp

GOP Senators Call on Justice Department to Investigate Chinese Criminal Networks in Marijuana and Hemp Markets. In a Wednesday letter to Attorney General Todd Blanche, four Republican senators—Tom Cotton of Arkansas, Pete Ricketts of Nebraska, Susan Collins of Maine, and Ted Budd of North Carolina—called on the Justice Department to look into the role of Chinese criminal networks in American legal marijuana and intoxicating hemp products markets. 

They want to know if Chinese criminal networks "are exploiting vulnerabilities in federal law to operate expansive illicit drug enterprises that threaten our communities and national security." 

They cited the 2025 DEA National Threat Assessment, which asserted that Chinese transnational crime groups dominate marijuana cultivation and distribution in the US. 

"These organizations purchase and lease American land for illegal grow operations, traffic foreign workers, and use toxic pesticides and fertilizers shipped from China, including chemicals banned in the United States," they added. 

All four senators also oppose efforts to avoid closing the "hemp loophole," which refers to lacunae in the 2018 farm bill legalizing hemp that allowed for the emergence of a market for intoxicating hemp-derived cannabinoids and the swift growth of an industry devoted to serving that market. The "loophole" is set to be shut down next month unless the industry and other stakeholders can persuade Congress to undo the ban it imposed last year. They said closing the "loophole" would help the fight against Chinese criminal infiltration of the market. 

"Leaving the loophole unaddressed would give these networks additional time to flood American commerce with synthetic products," the Republican lawmakers wrote. "This would also further entrench their operations on American soil, fund their enterprises with illicit revenue, and expose consumers to unregulated, dangerous synthetic products masquerading as legal hemp."

Psychedelics

Congressional Psychedelic Caucus Releases Report on Integrating Prescription Psychedelics into Healthcare System. The Congressional Psychedelics Advancing Therapies (PATH) Caucus has released a report capturing responses to a 2024 Request for Information into how psychedelic-assisted therapy (PAT) could be safely and ethically integrated into the United States healthcare system. 

The report found broad consensus among clinicians, researchers, veteran advocates, Tribal leaders, payors, regulators, and patients that PAT could offer safe, equitable, and evidence-based treatment for a wide array of treatment-resistant conditions – including generalized anxiety disorder, depression, PTSD, and substance use disorder. It also offered several federal policy recommendations for the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and Congress to consider as they aim to improve health outcomes for patients across the country.

According to a press release from caucus co-chair Rep. Lou Correa (D-CA), key findings include:

• Respondents agree that the U.S. faces a severe mental and behavioral health crisis – including treatment-resistant depression, PTSD, suicidality, substance use disorder, and high unmet needs among veterans, terminally ill patients, minorities, low-income families, seniors, and rural communities – requiring novel and efficacious treatments.
• Respondents highlight clinical trial evidence suggesting that PAT can produce meaningful and sometimes transformative improvements in PTSD, depression, end-of-life distress, addiction, and overall functioning and quality of life, though it is not considered a single solution and is seen as appropriate only in structured, supervised medical settings.
• Respondents encourage national guidance and credential verification systems to be developed before the first FDA approvals of prescription psychedelic medicines.
• Respondents highlight the need for evidence-based, standardized adverse event monitoring and robust ethical guidelines to protect patients and ensure trust.
• Respondents recommend federal guidance that supports multidisciplinary, culturally competent care teams.

The report also makes policy recommendations, suggesting that the FDA, US National Institutes of Health, Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, Department of Homeland Security, Department of Veterans Affairs, Department of Defense, Drug Enforcement Administration, and Office of National Drug Control Policy should work with state regulators and Tribal Nations/Territories to develop national guidelines for safe and ethical delivery of prescription psychedelic medicines

The report recommends that federal agencies establish flexible, tiered credentialing pathways to balance safety with accessibility, and to standardize consent and screening protocols nationally.

Ad it proposes a hybrid policy framework to guide Congress, federal agencies, Tribal Nations/Territories, states, and communities in a balanced, pragmatic rollout of PAT, supported by coordinated leadership, flexible regulation, investment in workforce and infrastructure, and robust long-term data systems.

International

Colombia Government Presents Aerial Glyphosate Pilot to Eradicate Illicit Crops. The rightist government of President Abelardo de la Espriella has presented to the Colombian Congress its proposal for a pilot plan to use aerial spraying of the herbicide glyphosate to eradicate coca crops in southern Putumayo province. A court order has blocked such spraying for more than a decade over environmental and health concerns. 

The government said the pilot program did not mark the return of a nationwide spraying campaign but was meant as a limited intervention to determine how effective spraying the herbicide would be. 

Justice Minister Ivan Cancino explained the proposal at an oversight hearing before the House of Representatives' Fifth Committee, which handles agricultural and environmental issues. 

"This program is not designed to see what happens to humans when they are sprayed; it is about protecting them, making sure they are not present, keeping them away, and seeing what it does to the plant," Cancino told lawmakers. 

But Putumayo Gov. John Gabriel Molina said communities in his province had bad past experiences with aerial spraying and called for alternatives to reducing illegal crops without resorting to spraying. He said the spraying proposal was causing "anxiety and fear" among residents there.