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Marijuana Policy

Texas U.S. Senate Candidate Talarico Says He Would Work With Trump on Marijuana Legalization. Marijuana Moment's Tom Angell reports that Texas Democratic U.S. Senate candidate James Talarico sees an opportunity to work with President Trump on federal marijuana legalization and expunging past marijuana convictions. Talarico characterized Trump as supporting legalization. Trump endorsed Florida's state legalization initiative in 2024, but his administration is pursuing federal rescheduling and is not pushing broad federal legalization, the outlet notes.

New Hampshire Governor and Challenger Clash Over Marijuana Legalization. Marijuana Moment's Tom Angell reports that an October 22 gubernatorial debate between Republican Governor Kelly Ayotte and Democratic challenger Cinde Warmington saw the two contenders clash over their positions on marijuana legalization in the only New England state that has yet to legalize adult recreational use. Citing concerns about road safety and youth mental health, Ayotte defended prohibition. Warmington cited tax revenue and said a regulated market would provide protections unavailable in the black market.

New Jersey Senate Advances Extension of Hemp-Beverage Sales Deadline. The state Senate voted 37-0 on October 22 to approve S4635, which would align state restrictions on hemp products and intoxicating hemp-derived drinks with federal law, Dan Ulloa of Heady NJ reports. The Assembly Appropriations Committee approved companion bill A5604 the same day; it remains at second reading in the Assembly. The Senate committee's analysis explains that Congress partially delayed the federal changes until December 11: products containing cannabinoids the cannabis plant cannot naturally produce still face the November 13 restriction, while other covered products have the later deadline. The state bill would let authorized alcohol and cannabis licensees continue sales until the relevant federal changes take effect, including any further federal delay. New Jersey Cannabis Trade Association executive director Todd Johnson criticized lawmakers for moving quickly to provide relief to hemp and alcohol businesses while licensed marijuana businesses continued to face costly regulatory burdens.

Extrajudicial Killings

ICC Prosecutors Seek Admission of Seven More Witnesses' Recorded Evidence in Duterte Case. In three separate filings on October 21 and 23, International Criminal Court (ICC) prosecutors asked judges in the case against former Philippine president Rodrigo Duterte to admit previously recorded evidence from seven witnesses, VERA Files' Janna Millenas reported October 24. Six of the witnesses have evidence related to alleged police killings during barangay (neighborhood administrative unit) clearance operations, while the seventh is an expert whose report prosecutors want admitted. Under the requests, the witnesses would still appear for live questioning by the defense, judges and victims' legal representatives. The expert is one of five witnesses prosecutors said they intend to present this year. The trial is set to begin on November 30, with the first phase going through December 18.

Dahas Finds Cebu Drug-War Deaths Extend Beyond Police Operations Count. An analysis from the Dahas Project of the Third World Studies Center of the University of the Philippines Diliman published by VERA Files identifies 31 drug-related killings in Cebu in the southern Philippines from January 1 through October 15, including 17 attributed to non-state actors. Fourteen of the 31 deaths took place in Cebu City. Researcher Arrianne Louisse B. Fajardo contrasts the Cebu Provincial Police Office's report of one death in its anti-drug operations with six police killings counted by Dahas. The latter includes incidents involving Cebu City police and the Criminal Investigation and Detection Group, as well as firearms-related encounters and people with reported drug connections. The figures therefore cover different operational and police-unit scopes; the comparison alone does not establish that the provincial police omitted five deaths from their own anti-drug operations tally. The killings described in the analysis are not all necessarily extrajudicial executions.

Dahas, Filipino for "violence," is a University of the Philippines Diliman research project that tracks reported drug-related killings using news reports and, occasionally, official social-media posts. It grew out of a joint research initiative with Ghent University in Belgium. The program provides a rare voice focusing on the continuing problem of extrajudicial drug war killings during the Marcos administration, now in its 5th year.

Harm Reduction

New Jersey Harm Reduction Workers Demand Oversight of Opioid Settlement Spending. New Jersey Monitor's Dana DiFilippo reports that harm reduction advocates at an October 22 legislative hearing criticized spending opioid settlement money on concerts and police surveillance, saying that naloxone, housing, and other services remain underfunded. They demanded stronger oversight of the settlement funds, which will bring about $1.1 billion to New Jersey and its local governments through 2038. They said pending bill A5588 would not do enough to ensure the money went where it should. The committee heard testimony but did not vote on the bill.

Under the introduced text, recipients would generally have 18 months from receipt to spend the funds, with approved timelines for multiyear projects and an option to seek extensions before returning unspent money for redistribution. Funds determined to have been misused would have to be repaid within 60 days of notification, also subject to extensions. The bill would require training and public reporting links as well. The New Jersey Harm Reduction Coalition separately filed a rulemaking petition asking the Department of Human Services for clearer spending standards and accountability.

Maryland Citizen Workgroup Urges Paraphernalia Reform and Overdose Prevention Centers. WYPR's Scott Maucione reported October 22 that the Citizen Advisory Workgroup of the Maryland Overdose Response Advisory Council recommended decriminalizing drug paraphernalia and authorizing overdose prevention centers in a September report. Its 14 members include people with lived experience of substance use, family members and care providers. The workgroup unanimously approved the recommendations, which would allow wider access to safer-use supplies and supervised settings where staff can respond to overdoses. The report explicitly says its recommendations do not necessarily represent the positions of the full advisory council or the Maryland Office of Overdose Response. They are proposals, not adopted state policy.

Research

THC Dosing, Hemp-Beverage Restrictions, Psilocybin and Parkinson's Disease

THC dose and intoxication. A meta-analysis of 41 studies involving 1,020 people who used cannabis less than weekly found that subjective intoxication increased with THC dose, but not proportionately. Writing in The Conversation, researchers Isabella Goodwin and Amir Englund explain that the modeled increase in feeling "high" on a 100-point scale rose from 34 points above placebo at 5mg inhaled THC to 39 points at 10mg. The analysis pooled studies with different participants, products, dosing methods, and settings; it does not establish that higher doses are harmless or that frequent users respond the same way. The authors call for direct controlled comparisons of commonly used doses.

Hemp-beverage restrictions. A study in the Journal of Wine Economics by Aaron Staples, Valerie Kilders and Vincenzina Caputo estimates that removing hemp-derived THC beverages would reduce consumers' welfare by about $3.32 per person per choice occasion in its choice-experiment model. The authors' annual scenarios put the aggregate loss at $112 million to $146 million. These are modeled valuations of lost consumer choice, not observed sales losses, tax-revenue estimates, or a complete social cost-benefit assessment. The estimates do not incorporate all possible health and other effects of regulation.

Psilocybin and Parkinson's disease. An exploratory analysis of 12 participants found reductions in inflammatory blood markers after two psilocybin sessions, with the changes persisting a month after the final dose, NPR's Will Stone reports. The October 21 research letter in JAMA Psychiatry also examined a mitochondrial-stress marker, whose initial improvement did not persist at later follow-up. The study had no control group, and participants knew they received psilocybin. The findings are a preliminary biological signal, not evidence that psilocybin slows Parkinson's disease or an established treatment recommendation.

Events

Americans for Safe Access will hold "Cannabis Safety: Fears & Facts", an online discussion of product safety, young people, and impaired driving, on October 29 from 1pm to 2pm Eastern. The event page provides registration information.

(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.)