Thailand removes cannabis from its schedule of controlled substances (but marijuana legalization is still down the road a bit), a Washington state drug decriminalization initiative is cleared to begin signature gathering, and more.

A broken crack pipe. Bowing to noise from the right, the Biden administration won't fund harm reduction kits with them. (CC)

Colorado Bill Would Protect Workers from Being Fired for Off-Job Marijuana Use. Rep. Brianna Titone (D-Arvada) has filed a bill, House Bill 1152, that would bar employers from either refusing to hire or firing workers because of their off-duty marijuana use. The measure also includes a provision requiring employers to consumer medical marijuana at work, with some exemptions for safety-sensitive positions. "Marijuana is legal in Colorado," said state Rep. Titone. "And what people do in their spare time that doesn't impact their work shouldn't really be a problem for them. They should be able to enjoy the legal things that we have here in Colorado and not be penalized for it." The state Supreme Court has previously ruled on the side of employers on the issue, particularly in the 2015 case of Brandon Coats v. Dish Network.

Drug Policy

Washington Drug Decriminalization, Treatment Initiative Ready to Begin Signature Gathering. A drug decriminalization and treatment funding initiative that was filed last month by the group Commit to Change WA, which is backed by the state ACLU, is ready to begin signature gathering in a bid to qualify for the November ballot. The move comes after a Monday deadline for challenges to its ballot title passed without any challenges. The initiative would remove the state's existing penalties for drug use and possession, expunge past drug use and possession convictions, and appropriate more than $100 million a year for drug prevention, treatment, outreach, and recovery, including at least $10 million a year for harm reduction. The campaign now has until July 8 to come up with 324,516 valid voter signatures to make the ballot.

Harm Reduction

Cowed by Criticism from the Right, Biden Administration Drops Funding for Safer Crack Pipes. Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP -- the drug czar's office) head Dr. Rahul Gupta announced that a harm reduction grant program for drug users will not fund safer pipes for crack or meth smokers. "No federal funding will be used directly or through subsequent reimbursement of grantees to put pipes in safe smoking kits," Gupta and Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra said in a statement.

There is $30 million in federal funding for harm reduction, and the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration had listed "safe smoking kits/supplies" among the items that could be purchased with taxpayer money. Other items included included overdose prevention drugs, medication lockboxes, test kits for infectious diseases, and syringe disposal containers. The tender did not actually mention pipes, but it did trigger online reports that the Biden administration was using taxpayer dollars to buy "crack pipes."

International

Thailand Officially Drops Cannabis from List of Controlled Substances. As of today, cannabis is no longer a Category 5 controlled substance. Public Health Minister Anutin Charnvirakul signed a ministerial announcement officially removing it on Tuesday. The delisting means that all parts of the plant can be legally consumed, but THC extracts above 0.2 THC will remain illegal. The change will go into effect in 120 days. This means that production of hemp and hemp-based CBD products can commence, but it will still be against the law to grow and consume marijuana until a bill is submitted to parliament in order to establish a regulatory framework for production and sales.

The Ohio Senate approves a medical marijuana expansion bill, Baltimore will end pre-employment drug and alcohol screening for potential city government hires, and more.

Horacio Estrada-Elias with family, 2014

90-Year-Old Federal Prisoner Serving Life for Marijuana Offense Wins Compassionate Release. A seriously ill federal prison doing life in prison for a nonviolent marijuana trafficking offense has been freed after a judge granted him compassionate relief on Tuesday -- overruling his own previous order denying the release. Horacio Estrada-Ellis, 90, had served more than a dozen years in prison and suffers from congestive heart failure, atrial fibrillation and chronic kidney disease, and also contracted the coronavirus while in prison. His warden had recommended compassionate release but federal District Court Judge Danny Reeves denied the motion in July, saying a life sentence is "the only sentence that would be appropriate." But a three-judge panel of the 6th US Circuit Court that Reeves had "abused (his) discretion" by ignoring the fact that Estrada-Ellis was unlikely to reoffend and by "overly emphasizing" his nonviolent crimes, and Reeves then issued a new opinion approving his compassionate release. Estrada-Ellis left prison on Friday.

Medical Marijuana

Ohio Senate Approves Medical Marijuana Expansion. The state Senate on Wednesday approved a bill that would allow more dispensaries to sell medical marijuana, growers to grow more of it, and more patients to qualify for it by expanding the list of qualifying conditions to include any conditions for which a patients might "reasonably be expected" to find benefit or relief. The bill would also shift regulation of dispensaries from the pharmacy board to a new Division of Marijuana Control in the Commerce Department. The bill now heads to the House.

Opioids

Federal Judge Throws Out Purdue Pharma Opioid Settlement, Leaving Sackler Family Vulnerable to Civil Lawsuits. US District Court Judge Coleen McMahon on Thursday blew up a carefully negotiated settlement between Purdue Pharma and thousands of state, local, and tribal governments that had sued the company, which manufactured OxyContin, for its role in the rapid rise of opioid addiction beginning in the late 1990s. The agreement had shielded the Sackler family, which owned Purdue Pharma, from more civil lawsuits in return for a $4.5 billion payment. But McMahon ruled that the bankruptcy code does not allow such an agreement. Purdue has already said it will appeal, but lawyers for some government entities that had appealed the originally settlement were quite pleased: "This is a seismic victory for justice and accountability that will re-open the deeply flawed Purdue bankruptcy and force the Sackler family to confront the pain and devastation they have caused," said William Tong, the attorney general of Connecticut. The explosion of opioid use that began with OxyContin eventually resulted in a backlash, leading to restrictions on the availability of prescription opioid that left chronic pain patients in the lurch and prompted many opioid users to move to the black market, fueling a large increase in opioid overdose deaths in recent years.

Drug Testing

Baltimore to No Longer Require Pre-Employment Drug, Alcohol Screening for City Jobs. Mayor Brandon Scott announced Wednesday that the city government will no longer require pre-employment drug and alcohol screening for new hires. The new policy has exceptions for safety-sensitive positions, such as law enforcement, and positions that require driving or operating heavy equipment.

"We want the best and brightest candidates to help us provide efficient and effective City services to our residents," the mayor said. "Frankly, the outdated and costly pre-employment drug and alcohol screenings only served to block qualified and passionate residents from obtaining employment with the City. This policy disproportionately harmed the prospects of talented Black and Brown job candidates. I am grateful that we are making this change now so that we can continue to improve local government operations and better serve the people of Baltimore."

No more pre-employment marijuana testing in Philly starting next month, Malta is set to become the first country is Europe to legalize weed this week, and more.

assassinated Haitian President Jovunel Moïse

Philadelphia Ban on Pre-Hire Marijuana Testing Takes Effect on January 1. An ordinance passed by the city council in April and signed into law by Mayor Jim Kenney (D) that bars employers from requiring potential hires to submit to pre-employment testing for marijuana will go into effect on January 1. The ban does not address testing of current employees, nor does it stop employers from firing people for being high on the job or having marijuana at the workplace. There are some exceptions to the ban: law enforcement positions, jobs requiring a commercial drivers license, and child care and health care workers.

St. Louis Mayor Signs Bill Repealing Marijuana Laws. Mayor Tishaura Jones (D) has singed Board Bill 132, which repeals the city's laws related to the possession of small amounts of marijuana and paraphernalia. "We are seeing a major shift in the way our country sees not just marijuana, but how it connects to public safety, incarceration, and economic opportunity in our communities," said Mayor Jones. "This law will help reduce racial disparities in our policing, make our city safer, and make St. Louis more competitive in hiring for city positions." Of 600 people arrested on marijuana charges in the city in the last three years, nearly 500 were black, the mayor's office said.

International

Haiti's Leader Kept a List of Drug Traffickers; His Assassins Came for It. Assassinated Haitian President Jovenal Moïse was moving against drug and arms smugglers, and that may be what is behind his murder, The New York Times reports: "Before being assassinated in July, he had been working on a list of powerful politicians and businesspeople involved in Haiti's drug trade, with the intention of handing over the dossier to the American government, according to four senior Haitian advisers and officials tasked with drafting the document.

The president had ordered the officials to spare no one, not even the power brokers who had helped propel him into office, they said -- one of several moves against suspected drug traffickers that could explain a motive for the assassination." When the gunmen who killed him burst into his residence, they stayed long enough to search through his files for his list of suspected drug traffickers, which one of the captured gunmen said was a key target.

"I would be a fool to think that narco-trafficking and arms trafficking didn't play a role in the assassination," said Daniel Foote, who served as the US special envoy to Haiti before stepping down last month. "Anyone who understands Haiti's politics or economics understands this." Some of the traffickers are linked to former President Michel Martelly, and his brother-in-law, Haitian businessman Charles Saint-Remy, at whom many fingers are being pointed, has been named by the DEA as a suspected drug trafficker.

Malta Set to Legalize Marijuana This Week, Would Be First in Europe. The Maltese parliament is set to approve a marijuana legalization bill Tuesday that the president has already promised to sign into law. People 18 and up could possess up to seven grams (a quarter ounce) and grow up to four plants. Home growers could possess up to 50 grams of their harvest at home. The bill does not envision commercial sales, but instead would allow for non-profit cooperatives to grow and distribute marijuana to members.

A Malaysian man set to be hanged in Singapore over 43 grams of heroin has won a temporary reprieve, our supply chain woes include 72,000 truckers felled by drug testing, and more.

Drug testing---especially for marijuana--is costing the economy tens of thousands fo truck drivers. (Creative Commons)

Republican Federal Marijuana Legalization Bill Coming. US Rep. Nancy Mace (R-NC) has drafted a "compromise" marijuana legalization bill that aims for a happy middle between merely rescheduling marijuana, as proposed by some other Republican lawmakers, and the comprehensive bill that Democrats are championing. The proposed bill, known as the States Reform Act, now in preliminary draft form, would deschedule marijuana, impose a 3.75 percent excise tax on weed sales, limit the FDAs regulatory authority to medical marijuana, make the Treasury Department's Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau the lead regulatory agency, and make certain marijuana convictions expungable. The bill has dim prospects in the current Democratically-controlled Congress, but could open the way for similar legislation if Republicans take control after next year's elections.

Drug Testing

Supply Chain Woes Include 72,000 Truckers Taken Off the Road by Failed Drug Tests, Mostly for Marijuana. The American Trucking Association says the industry has a driver shortfall of 80,000, which is contributing to the economy's supply chain woes, but at the same time, some 72,000 truckers have been forced off the roads in the past two years by tough federal drug testing restrictions. The Drug & Alcohol Clearinghouse, a registry designed to increase safety on the highways, went into effect in January 2020. "It’s a staggering number of drivers we have lost" because of the new drug-testing rules, said Jeremy Reymer, chief executive of industry recruiter DriverReach. The majority (56 percent were sidelined because of testing positive for marijuana. "There needs to be the ability to test for real-time impairment and not just recent or long-term past use of marijuana," said Scott Duvall, director of safety and compliance for TransForce Group, which runs truck driving schools and rents out drivers.

Foreign Policy

Mexico Calls on US Government, Courts for Help Stemming Flow of American Guns to Drug Cartels. Mexican officials say illegal guns are flowing into the country from the US and are contributing to rising homicide rates and empowering the drug cartels responsible for most of the killings. "We estimate that half a million weapons are trafficked from the U.S. to Mexico every year. The problem is that all this weaponry is getting to the criminal organizations, giving them very strong firepower to commit all kinds of crimes," said Mauricio Ibarra Ponce de Leon, Mexico’s consul general in El Paso. The Mexican government has now filed a lawsuit to try to block the flow. We have never meddled with the Second Amendment. This is not against the rights of the people of the United States to buy and own a gun," Ibarra said. "We (sued) gun manufacturers and distributors we believe are engaging in negligent commercial practices because they know the weaponry they produce is being trafficked to Mexico and is being used in criminal activity."

International

Singapore Temporarily Halts Execution of Malaysian Man Over 1 ½ Ounces of Heroin. Malaysian citizen Nagaenthran K.Dharmalingam, sentenced to death for smuggling 43 grams of heroin into the country, has won at least a temporary reprieve an international human rights campaign to spare the man, who supporters say is intellectually disabled. The execution is now halted until the constitutional appeal is heard on Tuesday, alongside a separate appeal for psychiatrists to assess Dharmalingam. If both appeals are unsuccessful, he will be hanged as scheduled on Wednesday.