There are still more than 40,000 marijuana offenders behind bars in the US, Oregon's governor names the members of the state's Psilocybin Advisory Board, Australia moves toward clinical trials of psychedelics, and more.

Marijuana Policy

More Than 40,000 Pot Prisoners in the USA. The Last Prisoner Project, which seeks to free incarcerated marijuana offenders, has been using a figure of 40,000 marijuana prisoners. That's decidedly an approximation -- the numbers readily available are 31,901 in state and federal prisons. But that doesn't include people in jails, juvenile facilities, or immigration detention centers, among others.

New Mexico Legislature Has Only Three Days to Legalize Marijuana. With the legislative session set to end on Saturday, Senate Judiciary Committee Chair Joseph Cervantes (D-Dona Ana County) said he's been told by the Senate leadership that one legalization bill, House Bill12, is undergoing changes before it's ready for committee; while another, Senate Bill 288, awaits its committee hearing. Cervantes said he will schedule a hearing as soon as committee members can analyze HB 12, and that even with a hearing as late as Friday, a bill could still pass.

Medical Marijuana

New Mexico Senate Votes to Tighten Rules on Medical Marijuana. The state Senate has approved Senate Bill 340, which would prohibit sales to out-of-state residents who do not have a medical marijuana card issued in New Mexico. But first, it rejected an amendment that would have increased the daily sales limit for medical cannabis patients from three grams to two ounces. The bill now goes to the House Judiciary Committee, but the clock is ticking -- the legislative session ends on Saturday.

Psychedelics

Oregon Governor Announces Membership of Oregon Psilocybin Advisory Board. Gov. Kate Brown (D) has named the people she wants to sit on the voter-approved Psilocybin Advisory Board, which is charged with developing rules and regulations to govern the practice of psilocybin therapeutics. Members include doctors, psychologists, harm reductionists, mycologists, and public health experts. The board's timeline includes making recommendations on regulations by June 2022 and beginning the issuance of licenses by January 2023.

International

Australian Federal Government to Fund Psychedelic Drug Trials to Treat Mental Illness. The Australian government will fund clinical trials using magic mushrooms, ecstasy and other psychedelic drugs to treat mental illness, Assistant Minister for Mental Health David Coleman said Wednesday. Although final approval must come from the Therapeutic Goods Administration (the equivalent to the US FDA), the government is allocating $15 million to get moving. "It's still at an early stage of clinical trials, but the US administration is accelerating their trials, so let's do some trials and further investigate this area because they show some promise," he said.

A bipartisan marijuana legalization bill gets filed in Pennsylvania, a medical marijuana bill wins approval in the Alabama Senate, and more.

Marijuana Policy

New Mexico Marijuana Legalization Bill Heads for House Floor Vote. A marijuana legalization bill, HB 12, is now headed for a House floor vote after passing the House Taxation and Revenue Committee on an 8-4 vote. The bill has been amended to remove some specific tax revenue designations for medical marijuana patients and for communities disparately affected by drug prohibition. The amended bill also removes fines for juveniles, adjusts tax rates on marijuana sales, strengthens employers' rights to have a drug-free environment, and delays the start date for a legal marijuana market.

Pennsylvania Marijuana Legalization Bill Filed with Bipartisan Support. State Senators Dan Laughlin (R-Erie) and Sharif Street (D-Philadelphia) filed a marijuana legalization bill Wednesday. In a statement Senator Laughlin wrote, "While my colleague Senator Street and I come from different political parties, we see a bipartisan way forward on marijuana legalization that is premised on safety and social equity, said Senator Laughlin. As the marijuana movement reaches Pennsylvania, legalization must be done the right way. This bill ensures a legalized market in the Commonwealth is implemented safely and responsibly, with a thoughtful approach that provides opportunities to medical and recreational consumers, farmers, and small, medium and minority-owned businesses." The bill is not yet available on the legislative web site.

Medical Marijuana

Alabama Senate Approves Medical Marijuana Bill. The state Senate approved a medical marijuana bill, SB 46, Wednesday and sent it to the House for approval there. The bill would allow patients with specified medical conditions to receive marijuana with a physician's approval.

Missouri Bill Would Protect Patients' Privacy, Gun Rights. Rep. Nick Schroer (R-O'Fallon) has filed HB 501, which would make disclosing patient information to the federal government a criminal offense. "I just want to make sure that we're protecting our Second Amendment rights and law abiding citizens who may have medical marijuana, but then they also have a weapon in their house to defend their family when necessary, Schroer said during his testimony on the bill in committee Wednesday. While the measure won support on the committee, no vote was taken.

Psychedelics

Missouri Bill Would Add Some Psychedelics to State's Right to Try Law. Rep. Michael Davis (R-Kansas City) has filed a bill, HB 1176 that would allow state residents with debilitating, life-threatening or terminal illnesses to use drugs such as MDMA, psilocybin, LSD, and DMT. The bill would build on a 2014 state right to try law that lets patients with terminal illnesses have access to investigational drugs not yet approved by the Food and Drug Administration.

Foreign Policy

Honduran President Warns US That Allegations He Is Involved with Drug Trafficking Could Hurt Anti-Drug Ties with Washington. Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernandez said Wednesday that US prosecutors' allegations that he is involved with drug trafficking could affect his country's cooperation with Washington to fight drug trafficking. In a federal court filing February 4, prosecutors in New York City accused Hernandez of using Honduran law enforcement and military officials to protect traffickers, and that he took a million-dollar bribe from former Mexican Sinaloa Cartel head Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman.

Drug Use for Grown-Ups: Chasing Liberty in the Land of Fear, by Carl Hart (2021, Penguin Press, 290 pp., $28.00 HB)

Dr. Carl Hart is a one-man drug and drug user destigmatization machine. In his new book, Drug Use for Grown-Ups, the Columbia University psychology professor blasts drug prohibition as both an affront to the American dream of the pursuit of happiness and as a tool of racial oppression. And he makes a strong, informed argument that recreational drug use can be, and usually is, a good thing.

You could hardly find someone more qualified to make the case. Hart has spent years in the trenches of neuropsychopharmacology research, handed out drugs (or placebos) to thousands of research subjects, published numerous scientific papers and popular articles in the field, and risen to the top of his profession along the way. And here is his bottom line:

"[O]ver my more than 25-year career, I have discovered that most drug-use scenarios cause little or no harm and that some responsible drug-scenarios are actually beneficial for human health and functioning. Even 'recreational' drugs can and do improve day-to-day living... From my own experience -- the combination of my scientific work and my personal drug use, I have learned that recreational drugs can be used safely to enhance many vital human activities."

Hart is refreshingly -- and deliberately -- open about his own recreational drug use. Given the stigmatization and persecution of people identified as "drug users," he feels that justice demands privileged partakers come out of the closet and give voice to their own, non-destructive drug use histories as a necessary remedy for that demonization. He certainly does so himself, revealing a disciplined yet curious mind most definitely not averse to sampling various substances.

Those substances include heroin, which he describes as his current favorite drug, one that he's been using episodically for years now: "There aren't many things in life that I enjoy more than a few lines by the fireplace at the end of the day... Heroin allows me to suspend the perpetual preparation for battle that goes on in my head... The world is alright with me. I'm good. I'm refreshed. I'm prepared to face another day, another faculty meeting, another obligatory function. All parties benefit."

But Hart is not quite so mellow when it comes to people and institutions he sees as helping to perpetuate overly negative depictions of various drugs or the persecution of drug users. He rips into Dr. Nora Volkow, head of the National Institutes on Drug Abuse (NIDA) over her "addiction is a brain disease" mantra and the rigid ideological control she has over research funding. He rips into journalists for uncritically and sensationally reporting salacious scientific findings about the evils of drugs that he argues are not supported by the evidence they are supposedly based on. He even calls Bernie Sanders "ignorant" (that word shows up more than a few times) for complaining that marijuana shouldn't be in the same drug schedule as "killer drugs like heroin."

Hart doesn't deny the potential dangers of drug use but makes the case that they are dramatically overstated. In that sense, Drug Use for Grown-Ups is a corrective to more than a century of anti-drug propaganda. In a deep dive into opioids, for instance, he notes that most opioid overdose deaths are actually opioid/benzodiazepines/alcohol deaths, and that a large number of them are due to ignorance (there's that word again) -- in that, in the black market that currently exists, drug users do not and cannot know what exactly is in that pill or powder they purchased.

As long as we are in a prohibition regime, the least we can do is widespread drug testing for quality control, as is done at some European music festivals, Hart argues. But that's the only kind of drug testing he's down with; he calls the urine drug testing industry "parasitic," a sobriquet he also applies to the drug treatment industry.

But hang on, he's not done yet. Although he is an advocate for harm reduction practices, he has a bone to pick with the term itself: It's too damned negative! Drug use doesn't typically involve harm, he argues, but pleasure-seeking. As I pondered this, I came up with "benefit enhancement" as an upbeat alternative to harm reduction, but Hart went with "health and happiness."

And he's got a bone to pick with "psychedelic exceptionalism," the notion, dear to folks like Decriminalize Nature, that psychedelics, or better yet, "plant entheogens," are somehow "better" than dirty old drugs like meth or heroin and thus deserve to be treated differently, more gently. He also snarks at the notion that taking drugs for spiritual or religious purposes is of a higher order than taking them for fun and rebels at the notion of having a shaman or guide during a tripping session: "Some people find this comforting. I find it creepy and have never done so myself."

Drug Use for Grown-Ups is bracing, informative, and provocative contribution to the literature. Even the most ardent drug reformers and defenders would benefit from reading it and reexamining their own assumptions. Maybe Carl Hart is onto something.

Another massive settlement resulting from Purdue Pharma's aggressive marketing of OxyContin, a Maryland marijuana legalization bill gets filed with support from the leadership, South Dakota lawmakers begin working to implement their marijuana legalization initiative, and more.

Marijuana Policy

Idaho Senate Passes Constitutional Amendment to Ban Marijuana Legalization.The state Senate on Wednesday approved a constitutional amendment that would make it impossible for voters or legislators to legalize marijuana -- or any other drug not approved by the federal Food and Drug Administration. The measure, Senate Joint Resolution 101, now heads to the House, where it must be approved by a two-thirds majority. If it passes the House, it would then have to be approved by a simple majority of voters in the November 2022 election.

Maryland Senate President Cosponsors Marijuana Legalization Bill. Senate Majority Leader Nancy King (D) is cosponsoring a marijuana bill, Senate Bill 708, that was introduced this week. Senate Finance Committee Vice-Chair Brian J. Feldman (D) is the lead sponsor, and he has several other powerful cosponsors, including Budget and Taxation Chair Guy J. Guzzone (D), Judicial Proceedings Committee Chair William C. Smith Jr (D), Vice-Chair Jeffrey D. Waldstreicher (D) and Senate President Bill Ferguson (D). The bill would tax and regulate marijuana sales, but also include several social equity provisions.

Oregon Marijuana Social Equity Bill Filed. A coalition of legislators has filed House Bill 3112, which is also backed by numerous marijuana companies, the NuLeaf Project, the Oregon Cannabis Association, the Oregon Retailers of Cannabis Association, the City of Portland, Urban League, and law students from Willamette University. The bill would use marijuana tax revenues to invest in communities adversely affected by decades of marijuana prohibition. The bill includes automatic expungement of past marijuana convictions, direct investment in marijuana businesses owned by minorities and people with marijuana convictions, and equity licenses with reduced fees and modified requirements for those communities.

South Dakota Lawmakers Take Up Bill to Implement Voter-Approved Marijuana Legalization. A bill designed to implement taxed and regulated marijuana commerce, House Bill 1225, was filed Wednesday. Titled "An Act to establish provisions concerning the sale of adult-use retail marijuana," the bill contains 72 separate sections addressing a wide range of rules and regulations related to recreational marijuana. Also, a bipartisan group of legislators has formed a Cannabis Caucus to study issues around managing legalization. Meanwhile, a legal challenge to the constitutionality of the voter-approved marijuana legalization initiative backed by Governor Kristi Noem (R) remains pending.

Medical Marijuana

Mississippi Medical Marijuana Bill Moves. The Senate Finance Committee has approved Senate Bill 2765, which would make medical marijuana available to people with specified debilitating and chronic diseases. Last November, voters approved a broader medical marijuana initiative, but it is being challenged in court. The bill sponsor says if the court strikes down the initiative, there will be a bill ready to replace it.

Heroin and Prescription Opioids

Big Pharma Consulting Company Agrees to Pay $573 Million for Role in "Turbocharging" Prescription Opioid Sales, McKinsey & Company, a high-end consulting firm for big corporations, including major pharmaceutical companies, has agreed to pay $573 million to settle lawsuits that charged it with "turbocharging" the sale of prescription opioids. Attorneys general in 47 states, five US territories, and the District of Columbia sued the firm, unearthing documents showing how McKinsey worked to drive up the sales of Purdue Pharma's OxyContin -- even after Purdue pleaded guilty to federal charges of misleading doctors and regulators about OxyContin's risks.

Psychedelics

Cambridge Becomes Second Massachusetts City to Move to Decriminalize Psychedelics. The Cambridge city council voted Wednesday to decriminalize a broad range of psychedelics, following in the footsteps of Somerville, which passed a similar measure last month. The Cambridge resolution called for making enforcement of laws against the use and possession the city's lowest law enforcement priority, and it calls on police to stop arresting people for possessing or using any illicit drugs.