• Trump’s Big Bill to be signed Friday after marathon vote and marathon speech by Dem leader Hakeem Jeffries;
• Democratic and labor leaders say Big Budget Bill will hurt workers and destroy the middle class;
• SF sues Trump over EPA termination of Environment Climate Justice grants;
• Advocates fear state cannabis tax proposals could unravel and hurt programs for children
• MALDEF planning million dollar lawsuit over US citizen arrested for filming ICE raid

The post Trump’s Big Bill to be signed Friday after marathon vote; Advocates fear state cannabis tax bills could unravel funding and hurt programs for children – July 3, 2025 appeared first on KPFA.

This content originally appeared on KPFA - The Pacifica Evening News, Weekdays and was authored by KPFA.

Despite committing to tackling mass incarceration during his presidential campaign, President Joe Biden has rarely used the presidential pardon to commute sentences during his time in office. As his term draws to a close and amid outrage over the pardon of his son Hunter, advocates are pressuring Biden — who has pardoned thousands who had been convicted of federal drug charges but were not incarcerated at the time of their pardons — to grant clemency to thousands more who are still in prison over cannabis offenses. The president has a chance to atone for his past support of “tough on crime” measures, says the Last Prisoner Project’s Jason Ortiz. He says Biden has an opportunity of “correcting the injustices that were done over the past 20 or 30 years” and should “extend the same grace and compassion” he showed his son Hunter “to all the folks that he helped put in prison to begin with.”

This content originally appeared on Democracy Now! and was authored by Democracy Now!.

Vanuatu is leaning on Aotearoa’s medicinal cannabis production expertise in an effort to prop up its own market.

While the Melanesian nation has topped the Happy Planet Index list twice, as the happiest place in the world, it remains one of the most climate vulnerable states in the world.

Its topsy-turvy political landscape in the recent past has kept its citizens on the edge with prime ministers coming and going non-stop in 2023.

• LISTEN TO RNZ PACIFIC WAVES: Vanuatu PM backs New Cal independence process

Prime Minister Charlot Salwai, who was elected as prime minister for the second time in October last year after his predecessor was voted out in a no-confidence vote, was in New Zealand for an official visit this week.

He stopped at Puro’s state-of-the-art cannabis cultivation facility in Kēkerengū on Tuesday, as part of his itinerary.

It has taken a while to kick Vanuatu’s 2018 medicinal cannabis legislation into motion, but Salwai is optimistic to get things moving for the economy.

New Zealand has a well-established medical cannabis industry with 40 companies in business since it was legalised in 2020.

Salwai said marijuana grew “easily” across Vanuatu.

‘Grows everywhere’
“[It] grows everywhere in the villages, but we don’t want to grow the wrong one, because it’s against the legislations.”

He said he found the visit to the cannabis farm “interesting”.

“They know about the benefits of this particular kind of marijuana,” he said.

“We need to invite the people who know about it, and the purpose of growing this marijuana is what is interesting to see.

“We invite them to come to Vanuatu and do a small-scale test to see and compare the quality of what we are producing here in Vanuatu, because here [New Zealand] it is seasonal while in Vanuatu it grows the whole year.

“It is good to compare the quality.”

He said Vanuatu is interested in granting medicinal cannabis production licences to those who know “the purpose of growing”.

Vanuatu PM Charlot Saiwai talks New Caledonia. Video: RNZ

Seasonal worker pits and peaks
In June, Luxon said he wanted to double — from 19,000 up to about 38,000 — the number of seasonal workers from its RSE programme participating countries, which include Vanuatu, Fiji, Solomon Islands, Papua New Guinea, Samoa, Tonga, Kiribati, Tuvalu, and Nauru.

There were approximately 47,800 Pacific Islanders that travelled to New Zealand or Australia for seasonal work in 2022-2023, under various labour mobility schemes, according to analysis by Australian academics Professor Paresh Narayan and Dr Bernard Njindan Iyke for 360info.

Vanuatu share of seasonal workers in New Zeeland was more than 5000 in 2022.

The Labour Commissioner Murielle Meltenoven warned at the time that the domestic labour market was concerned about “brain drain”.

Salwai has hinted at a possible internal review of Vanuatu’s seasonal worker programmes with Australia and New Zealand.

He wrapped up his tour of New Zealand with RSE workers, a focal point of discussions Luxon.

Responding to questions around whether his counterpart’s plans to double RSE numbers are realistic, he said: “We need to discuss it, not with New Zealand, but internally in Vanuatu.”

Small population
He said Vanuatu has a small population of only about 300,000 people, and doubling RSE workers to New Zealand would also affect the labour in his own country.

However, her acknowledged that the regional labour schemes were bringing in much needed remittance and assisting many families.

“[The RSE] provides access to their kids to go to school, have access to development, build new houses or doing business.

“What we [are] afraid of is what is happening even in the Pacific . . . even those who are well-educated are taking the same opportunity to look for jobs outside.”

New Zealand welcomes Vanuatu leader.     Video: RNZ

Deep sea mining
Meanwhile, Vanuatu has been a vocal advocate against deep sea mining, has legislation which allow licences to be granted for deep sea mining exploration.

Salawai said Vanuatu sits on the rim of fire and there are environmental risks under the water.

“As a country, we need to know what is under and inside our waters” as well as “opportunity on our airspace”.

“We can allow license to do [deep sea] explorations, but to operate, it is another issue,” he said, adding “we don’t get what we [are] supposed to get on our airspace”.

‘We lose all the beauties of our islands’
More than a year on from twin cyclone disaster Judy and Kevin, Vanuatu is building back but not necessarily better.

Salwai said people whose homes were destroyed have been in limbo for what feels like a lifetime.

He said something that cannot be replaced is the land.

He said waves generated by the cyclones and sea level rise have destroyed beaches across Vanuatu:

“I am afraid that we lose all the beauties of our islands, but our kids, our children for tomorrow, won’t see it.

“Maybe, we will see it in the picture, but not in reality.”

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by APR editor.

Janine Jackson interviewed Thomas Jefferson University’s Tauhid Chappell about cannabis equity for the June 28, 2024 episode of CounterSpin. This is a lightly edited transcript.

Extra! (2/13)

Janine Jackson: Marijuana use in this country has always been racialized. The first commissioner of the Federal Bureau of Narcotics, Harry Anslinger, ran an anti-marijuana crusade in the 1930s, including the message that “reefer makes darkies think they’re as good as white men.” So concerns were justified about what the legalization and profitizing of marijuana would mean for the people and communities most harmed by its criminalization.

Tauhid Chappell has worked on these issues for years now. He teaches, at Thomas Jefferson University, the country’s first graduate-level course studying the impact and outcomes of equity movements in the cannabis industry. And he joins us now by phone from Maine. Welcome back to CounterSpin, Tauhid Chappell.

Tauhid Chappell: Always a pleasure.

JJ: When we spoke with you last year, you helped debunk a lot of Reefer Madness–style fear-mongering around supposed social harm stemming from the legalization of marijuana. There was old-school “gateway drug” language, marijuana was going to on-ramp folks to opioid use. It was going to lead to traffic accidents, and use among teenagers was supposedly going to skyrocket. We are further along now; what more have we learned about those kinds of concerns?

TC: I can happily report that as far as the ongoing reports that are coming out of what we call “mature markets”—states like Colorado, Washington, Oregon, even California—teen use has not been severely impacted. In fact, I believe that there’s a Colorado study that says that teen use has actually declined with legalization.

Opioid use has not suddenly gone up because of marijuana legalization. In fact, many states, in their medical marijuana programs, have used opioid reduction as a reason why patients should be using cannabis, to actually get them off of opioid addiction, until we are actually seeing a reverse, of people who get on cannabis actually now starting to lessen the amount of opioids they use in their regimen.

JJ: Well, the worry of many of us was that marijuana becoming legal would just blow past the fact that there are people in prison, mainly Black and brown people, for what now some other folks stand to profit from, that legalization would not include acknowledgement, much less reparation, for the decades in which whole communities were critically harmed. And then we just kind of say, “Hey, we’ve moved on, and now everybody loves weed.” What can you tell us about efforts to center those harmed by illegality in this new landscape of legal cannabis?

Tauhid Chappell: “How can we broaden our pardons and broaden our expungements, and expedite and automatically create these opportunities for people to move past these convictions?”

TC: There is still much work to be done in the social and racial justice that would bring a reparative nature to the people, to the individuals, and their families and their communities, that have been impacted by cannabis prohibition and the war on drugs. Some states are trying to really focus on justice-impacted people to participate in the cannabis industry. Others are focusing on just trying to expunge records, pardon people, and that’s that. And then other states are not even contemplating or really moving to center people who have been impacted by incarceration, or are still incarcerated for marijuana, and other related offenses, too.

So you have a patchwork of states that are doing well and can be doing better, and then other states who really need to prioritize and focus on individuals and families and communities who’ve been impacted by the war on drugs.

Most recently in the news, Maryland’s governor has just pardoned 175,000 people for simple possession of marijuana, a typical charge that has impacted so many people in the past. That is something that I encourage other states to look at as advocates for more healing and repairing to happen for those that have been previously and currently impacted from their incarceration due to cannabis prohibition.

And then the one thing that I’ll also mention, too, in terms of focus on those that have been impacted by the war on drugs, I encourage other states to look at Illinois’ R3 Program, which I believe is the Repair, Reinvest and Restore program, that specifically designates cannabis tax revenue to be utilized as grants, not loans, as grants that different organizations can apply for to help expand their programming that goes into communities that have been disproportionately impacted by the war on drugs.

You don’t have a whole lot of states that are utilizing cannabis tax revenue to go back into communities that have been disproportionately harmed. And you don’t have a lot of states that are trying to figure out: How can we broaden our pardons and broaden our expungements, and expedite and automatically create these opportunities for people to move past these convictions and get back into society as a normal, average citizen?

So there is more work to be done. I don’t think it’s ever going to be over, in terms of people asking, calling for repair from the harms of the war on drugs. But if we can continuously see more governors, more legislatures expand the definition and criteria of who can get a pardon, who can get an expungement for marijuana-related arrest, that’s going to help a lot more people out.

CounterSpin (12/18/18)

JJ: Let me ask you, finally, about journalism. When I was talking on this subject back in 2018, with Art Way from Drug Policy Alliance, we were talking about Attorney General Jeff Sessions, at that point, saying “good people don’t smoke marijuana.” That was the level of the conversation. I know it might sound clownish to some people, but you’d be wrong to imagine that those attitudes are not still in the mix somewhere. You have worked in news media, you know the pushes and pulls on reporters. What would you like to see in terms of media coverage of this issue?

TC: I would like to have a lot more reporters be serious about the ongoing, what I believe is nefarious behavior by a lot of these large, well-capitalized—I’m talking tens of millions of dollars, hundreds of millions of dollars—capitalized multi-state operators that are really scheming to try to have a monopoly in different states. You have different large companies that have started early in other states like California, Oregon and Washington, realize that there’s too much competition and now are actually shutting down their operations on the West Coast and focusing on strongholds that they may have in other states, that may not have as much of a mature or expansive market.

There are companies like GTI that are really trying to capture Massachusetts’ market, for example. We have other major companies, like Trulieve, that are trying to really own their monopoly in Florida, right? You have other companies that exist in states like Pennsylvania, where it’s only medical, where the only dispensaries and processors, the majority of cultivators, are all out-of-state operators, people who don’t even live in Pennsylvania. You have companies like Curaleaf—Curaleaf is one of the largest cannabis companies in the country—really trying to double down their efforts in Pennsylvania, in New Jersey and other states, and make sure that no one else can really participate in the market.

I would really love more investigative journalism done to see how are these businesses forming? How are they collaborating and working with each other, even as competitors, and what are they doing at the policy and law level to change regulations that make it more favorable to them, and cut out small-business operators, justice-involved operators, equity operators? What are these large companies doing to lobby? Because, as cannabis legalization continues to be expansive, and now we’re talking about potential rescheduling of marijuana, to Schedule 3, at the federal level, you’re going to see these bigger companies come in and try to capture the market share and push everybody out.

We understand that people who have been directly impacted by a marijuana arrest, if they want to get into the business of marijuana and get a cannabis license, it makes sense for them to be supported and to be educated and to be nurtured for success, because that’s what they deserve after everything that they’ve been through.

Not everyone believes or cares about or shares that same sentiment. You have people who only look at marijuana legalization as another way to make money, and that’s all they want.

And so many of these bigger companies are doing all this shadow work behind the scenes. I would really love more journalists to really look at that, really connect the dots. This isn’t just a state-by-state level. These are companies that are working collectively together in multiple states to make sure that they’re the only players in the market. I would love more investigations behind these bigger companies.

JJ: All right, then; we’ll end on that note for now.

We’ve been speaking with Tauhid Chappell of Thomas Jefferson University. Tauhid Chappell, thank you so much for joining us this week on CounterSpin.

TC: Thank you for having me.

This content originally appeared on FAIR and was authored by Janine Jackson.

Common Dreams (6/10/24)

This week on CounterSpin: Headlined “The Cash Monster Was Insatiable,” a 2022 New York Times piece reported insurance companies gaming Medicare Advantage, presented as a “low-cost” alternative to traditional Medicare. One company pressed doctors to add additional illnesses to the records of patients they hadn’t seen for weeks: Dig up enough new diagnoses, and you could win a bottle of champagne. Some companies cherry-picked healthier seniors for enrollment with cynical tricks like locating their offices up flights of stairs.

Such maneuvers don’t lead to good health outcomes, but they serve the real goal: netting private insurers more money. There is now new research on the problem, and the response. We hear from David Himmelstein, co-founder of Physicians for a National Health Program and co-author of this new analysis of Medicare Advantage.

(CC photo: Jim Naureckas)

Also on the show: You may get the impression from media that marijuana is legal everywhere now, that it’s moved from blight to business, if you will. It’s not as simple as that, and many people harmed by decades of criminalization have yet to see any benefit from decriminalization. Tauhid Chappell has tracked the issue for years now; he teaches the country’s first graduate-level course on equity movements in the cannabis industry, at Thomas Jefferson University. We’ll get an update from him.

Plus Janine Jackson takes a quick look at recent press coverage of Julian Assange.

This content originally appeared on FAIR and was authored by CounterSpin.

Photograph by Nathaniel St. Clair

The United States government is likely to end the designation of marijuana as a dangerous narcotic sometime this year, potentially marking one of the biggest federal decisions on the classification of the drug in decades. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration determined that marijuana is less harmful than, say, opioids and other substances, prompting the Biden administration to announce it would “reschedule” cannabis from a Schedule I—which is what the most dangerous drugs are classified as—to a Schedule III drug, commensurate with anabolic steroids and ketamine.

The move is long overdue, especially in light of the disproportionate criminalization of Black and Brown users and sellers of the drug. According to the ACLU, “Marijuana use is roughly equal among Blacks and whites, yet Blacks are 3.73 times as likely to be arrested for marijuana possession.” While there have been many benefits stemming from legalization, there has been one negative impact: the enrichment of those who were privileged to begin with, rather than those who were most impacted. This is less the result of legalization than of ongoing inaction on righting racial inequities in our justice, legal, and economic systems.

There are steps that the government could take to remedy such inequities—if it wanted to. The trouble is that those in power have instead sought to demonize marijuana, its users, and its impacts, resisting the dissemination of justice at every step.

When California voters approved the legalization of recreational marijuana in 2016, the federal Drug Enforcement Agency under then-President Barack Obama denied a petition to reschedule marijuana at the federal level, saying the drug “lacks an acceptable level of safety for use even under medical supervision.” Still, states were already responding to a seachange in public opinion and were slowly legalizing cannabis.

But naysayers, seeing the writing on the wall, made unfounded fear-basedclaims akin to a modern-day version of “reefer madness,” drawing deceptive parallels to already legal but harmful substances such as tobacco and alcohol. It isn’t surprising that such scare tactics can be traced back to racist beliefs.

With 40 states and the District of Columbia having legalized cannabis use, in a trend that seemed unthinkable a decade or so ago, the panic-driven predictions about the drug’s dire impacts on individual health and behavior have proven to be false. It wasn’t cannabis that ruined people’s lives. It was the criminalization of cannabis that did so.

Now, many of those who were arrested and convicted of marijuana-related state-level offenses are slowly seeing their records being expunged as states enact laws in line with legalization. The Last Prisoner Projectreports that “24 states have enacted cannabis-specific record clearance laws, and 10 states have enacted cannabis-specific resentencing laws.” In California, a majority of those impacted have seen their records cleared.

Cannabis taxes are also boosting state revenues. But that hasn’t stopped the naysayers from casting a negative light on legalization. While California now rakes in about $1 billion per year from marijuana sales, headlines about falling revenues resulting from lower prices and reduced use are increasingly common. In other words, there were initially fears that too many people would start using marijuana if it were legalized. And now there are worries that too few are using it.

Colorado, the first state in the nation to have legalized marijuana for recreational use, is seeing a similar sort of disappointment such as this local CBS story headlined, “Shortfall in marijuana sales tax revenue in Colorado will impact Aurora homeless”—as if cannabis taxes were responsible for creating and sustaining a homelessness crisis rather than predatory capitalism. (According to the Common Sense Institute, there is increased homelessness in Aurora because “[h]ousing affordability in Colorado has plummeted, overall price levels are at record highs due to inflation, and the state’s housing inventory is dangerously low.”)

What is critical to examine in terms of a disappointing result of legalization is the disproportionate enrichment of the privileged few, instead of those who were historically harmed by prohibition. The vast majority of cannabis sellers are white—the same demographic that was spared the worst impacts of cannabis criminalization.

This is unsurprising given the persistence of a racist criminal justice system and racial wealth gap in the U.S. Without intentional intervention to ensure that those most harmed by prohibition would benefit the most from legalization, the chips fell where they always do when it comes to American capitalism—in the laps of the already privileged.

Even in states like Illinois, where legalization was enacted with an eye toward righting racial wrongs, cannabis sales have not substantially helped to erase the racial wealth gap. According to Jocelyn Martínez-Rosales writing in the South Side Weekly, “legalization… has not led to substantial gains for the Black and Brown communities most affected by its criminalization.”

Just as homelessness in Colorado is the result of predatory capitalism and an unwillingness by elected officials to financially intervene in order to house people, the financial benefits of cannabis legalization can, and will, remain inequitable without concerted intervention.

One model for effective intervention is the Illinois city of Evanston, famous for being the first in the nation to enact a program of reparations for its Black residents in the form of cash for homeownership, and eventually for the development of Black-led businesses.

Those reparations, introduced by then-Alderwoman Robin Rue Simmonsin 2019, were specifically aimed at undoing historical harm. Rue Simmons said, “We all know that the road to repair and justice in the Black community is going to be a generation of work. It’s going to be many programs and initiatives, and more funding.” Evanston’s reparations are funded in large part by marijuana sales taxes, because, according to the city council, “[T]here is no more appropriate place to use the sales tax from that industry.”

When cannabis tax revenues weren’t enough to fully fund Evanston’s intended reparations, instead of throwing their hands up in the air and accepting this as inevitable, city officials simply added a second dispensary’s tax revenues to make up the shortfall.

Imagine if we applied such an approach to all social ills. For example, Aurora, Colorado could simply decide not to tolerate the fact that so many people remain unhoused and find other sources of revenue to make up for the shortfall in cannabis taxes.

Taking that approach to its logical conclusion, local, state, and federal officials could intervene wherever predatory capitalism and racist criminal justice systems devastate communities of color and others.

There are many lessons to be learned from our collective evolution on the issue of marijuana, the most important being that social and economic inequities are not hard to tackle if there is political will. The problem is not (and never was) marijuana. It is (and always was) racial capitalism. That’s something the Biden administration would do well to keep in mind as it takes the next step toward easing federal restrictions on marijuana.

The post Lessons From Legalization: The Problem Isn’t Cannabis, It’s Capitalism appeared first on CounterPunch.org.

This content originally appeared on CounterPunch.org and was authored by Sonali Kolhatkar.

Photo by Jeff W

Hundreds of pages of recently released documents provided by the Department of Health and Services affirm what the overwhelming majority of the public has known for decades: Marijuana is therapeutically useful. And its harms are not on par with those of heroin — which federal regulations currently consider it akin to — or even alcohol.

Those were the explicit conclusions of the nation’s top federal health agency, along with the Food and Drug Administration and the National Institute on Drug Abuse, in a letter calling on the Drug Enforcement Administration to remove “botanical cannabis” from its Schedule I prohibitive status in the federal Controlled Substances Act.

By definition, Schedule I substances are federally criminalized because they possess “no currently accepted medical use in the United States,” a “high potential for abuse,” and “lack accepted safety under medical supervision.” Since 1970, Congress and other federal bureaucracies have insisted cannabis remain in this strict category. But now the nation’s top federal health agencies are changing their tune.

Health and Human Services, which was tasked by the Biden administration in 2022 to review the federal designation of cannabis, based its conclusions in part on the real-world experiences of over “30,000 health care practitioners authorized to recommend marijuana” under state law and the more than 6 million state-registered cannabis patients they serve.

“The vast majority of individuals who use marijuana are doing so in a manner that does not lead to dangerous outcomes to themselves or others,” the agency concluded. “No safety concerns were identified in our review that would indicate that the medical use of marijuana poses unacceptably high safety risks for the indications where there is some credible scientific evidence supporting its therapeutic use.”

Department officials added, “The risks to the public health posed by marijuana are low compared to other drugs of abuse,” such as benzodiazepines — a Schedule IV drug — or alcohol, which isn’t scheduled at all.

Of course, the public has long been aware of this reality. Thirty-eight states regulate medical cannabis access and 24 states — home to 53 percent of the U.S. population — have legalized adult-use marijuana markets. Most of these statewide policy changes were enacted by voters at the ballot box.

Nationally, 70 percent of Americans say that cannabis ought to be legal for those age 21 or older. And the majority agree that “alcohol is more harmful to a person’s health than marijuana.”

Nonetheless, for more than five decades, the federal government and its  agencies have steadfastly refused to budge on this issue. As recently as 2016, the DEA — which has the final say on cannabis’s federal drug designation — said that there’s no compelling reason to remove marijuana from its Schedule I prohibitive status.

Now, the ball is in the DEA’s court once again. Will the agency continue to cling to its long-held “flat Earth” position? Or will it finally take steps to move marijuana policy into the 21st century?

Time will tell. But regardless of the outcome, it’s clear the American public has already made up its mind.

The post Is the Government Finally Abandoning Its Flat Earth Cannabis Policies? appeared first on CounterPunch.org.

This content originally appeared on CounterPunch.org and was authored by Paul Armentano.

Just two years ago, conservative justices appointed to the Florida Supreme Court by Gov. Ron DeSantis repeatedly quashed efforts to move toward legalized recreational cannabis.

The court, which DeSantis has stacked with allies, issued three rulings in as many months that blocked the expansion of access in the state’s medical cannabis industry, one case relating to regulations and two to ballot initiatives. The rulings were in line with conservatives in Florida, including DeSantis and Republican Attorney General Ashley Moody, who broadly oppose pot legalization.

The current battle at hand is a ballot initiative that would legalize recreational cannabis — a newer version of the initiatives that were struck down two years ago by the judges of the state Supreme Court, including DeSantis loyalists.

This time, however, things might be different: Earlier this week, just days before dropping out of the Republican presidential primary, DeSantis conceded that the court was likely to approve the measure.

What’s different? Not DeSantis. Under the governor’s direction, Moody is fighting to keep the measure off the 2024 ballot.

Instead, what has shifted in the last two years is the appearance of new players who stand to benefit the most from the impact of legalization — especially the major GOP donors now invested in the state’s burgeoning legal cannabis industry. Several major Republican donors are invested in the tightly regulated medical cannabis companies that stand to reap windfall profits if recreational weed is legalized and they expand their businesses.

“Clearly there are economic motives here, including for Republican donors, to maintain the current system of vertical integration.”

Democratic state Rep. Anna Eskamani, who has helped lead the push to legalize weed, said Republicans are changing their tune for financial reasons.

“We should absolutely legalize recreational cannabis — my preference is for the system to be more open to everyday people and allow folks to grow their own cannabis versus have to purchase it from a distributor,” Eskamani told The Intercept. “Clearly there are economic motives here, including for Republican donors, to maintain the current system of vertical integration and legalize cannabis for recreational use.”

With GOP donors coming around to legal weed, Republican apparatchiks and even judges have shifted their stances. At least two justices close to DeSantis have signaled that they might rule against the governor’s position.

Florida Chief Justice Carlos Muñiz swears in a member of the House of Representatives in Tallahassee, Fla., on Jan. 9, 2024.

Chief Justice Carlos Muñiz, a DeSantis appointee, and Justice Charles Canady, whose wife is DeSantis’s pick to be the next Florida state House speaker, suggested in oral arguments in November that they disagreed with the state’s position.

Lawyers for the state had said the ballot language was misleading because it didn’t clarify that even if Florida legalized cannabis, it would still be illegal under federal law. The judges questioned the idea. Canady said he did not understand how a voter could be confused by the ballot language as proposed. “I’m baffled by the argument,” he said. “Maybe it’s just me.”

Grand Old Pot Industry

The owners of several of the state’s biggest medical cannabis companies have contributed to myriad of Republican causes. They have given to DeSantis’s campaigns, including his state PAC, before his presidential campaign converted it to a federal committee. And they have spread their money around the party, giving to state Republicans, including the state Republican Party, state legislative campaigns, and related committees.

Among the companies whose top officials are major GOP donors is Trulieve. One of Florida’s biggest cannabis companies and one of the first to receive a coveted medical license, Trulieve is also bankrolling the ballot initiative to legalize recreational weed.

Trulieve company officials have given at least $41 million to Republicans and Democrats in Florida since 2017 and at least $25,000 to DeSantis’s state PAC in 2020. They also donated $450,000 to the state Republican Party since 2019, including $125,000 five months before DeSantis’s 2022 reelection and another $100,000 in November.

According to disclosures, Trulieve is responsible for 97 percent — $38 million — of the total funding to the political action committee sponsoring the recreational ballot initiative, Smart & Safe Florida. The PAC is run by David Bellamy, a musician and half of the country-pop duo the Bellamy Brothers.

Like all the 22 tightly regulated medical cannabis companies licensed by the state, Trulieve is already expanding production to prepare should voters approve the ballot measure.

Surterra Wellness, another of the state’s biggest medical cannabis firms, has given at least $63,000 to DeSantis state PACs since his 2018 campaign. Surterra’s former chief executive officer, William Wrigley Jr. II, of the Wrigley candy empire, gave $100,000 to the pro-DeSantis super PAC Never Back Down in June, according to filings with the Federal Election Commission. His firm, Palm Beach Enterprises, gave another $100,000 on the same day. (Surterra became part of Parallel, another cannabis firm, in 2019. Wrigley left Surterra in 2021.)

Hackney Nursery, another major cannabis company in the state, gave $10,000 to DeSantis’s state PAC in 2021. Other cannabis companies including Planet 13 Holdings, Curaleaf, Cresco Labs, and its subsidiary VidaCann have also given more than $112,000 to state Republicans and GOP committees since 2018.

In oral arguments last month, the state and the Florida Chamber of Commerce argued that Canady and other justices had ruled against similar cases. During the court’s last reviews of ballot language on the issue in 2021, Canady and Muñiz were among five justices who ruled to prohibit voters from considering a ballot measure on legal cannabis. They concluded that two previous measures included misleading language and should not appear on the ballot because they failed to comply with state law. Both justices said the language currently before the court was different.

The court will decide by April whether voters can consider the measure, which would decriminalize personal cannabis use for adults and allow the state to expand licensing beyond medical facilities to allow recreational companies to produce, distribute, and sell cannabis. If approved, it would go into effect in May 2025.

For now, medical sales are exempt from Florida’s sales tax, but the levy would apply if the state were to legalize recreational. According to a financial impact analysis published in July by the Financial Impact Estimating Conference, comprised of economists from DeSantis’s office and the state legislature, legalization would boost state sales tax revenue at least $200 million a year.

This content originally appeared on The Intercept and was authored by Akela Lacy.

In June 2022, Thailand became the first country in Southeast Asia to decriminalize marijuana, prompting a proliferation of related shops across the nation where the drug has always been easy to access, but with the risk of stiff penalties.

Among the more popular products being offered for sale in Thailand are so-called “happy drinks,” or juice and carbonated beverages that under the new law may contain a relatively low dose of up to 0.2% tetrahydrocannabinol, or THC – the main psychoactive ingredient in cannabis. 

The drug, which can produce a sense of relaxation and euphoria, was previously only available for medical use to alleviate a variety of conditions, including stress and depression.

But the new market that has sprung up in Thailand is an exception in Southeast Asia where, in most other countries, the use of cannabis and other drugs is illegal and punishable with lengthy jail terms. Some nations, such as Indonesia and Singapore, execute criminals convicted of sale, possession or consumption.

In neighboring Laos, laws prohibit the production, trade and use of cannabis for recreational purposes.

A police officer in the capital Vientiane, separated by the Mekong River from Thailand’s Nong Khai province, confirmed to RFA that only cannabis products “authorized by the Lao Ministry of Health to be used for medical purposes” are permitted for sale in the country.

“The sale of cannabis is prohibited,” said the officer who, like others interviewed for this report, spoke on condition of anonymity due to security concerns. “We regularly inspect shops and stores, and if we see it, we’ll confiscate it.”

But residents told RFA that has not stopped happy drinks produced in Thailand from finding their way across the border and onto the shelves of stores in the capital.

One resident of Vientiane told RFA Lao that happy drinks are now on offer at minimarts along the Mekong River – if one knows where to look.

“In Laos, the sale of this kind of drink is not legal yet,” he said. “Some individuals sell the drink secretly and if they’re caught, they’ll be arrested.”

Another resident of Vientiane, who researches how cannabis can be used for medical purposes, confirmed the availability of the drinks in the city.

“This is a new drink and consumers must be careful,” he said. “It’s available but prohibited by law.”

RFA’s own investigations found happy drinks openly sold at several markets in the capital, including a brand produced by Thai beverage company Srinanaporn Marketing PLC that is marketed as “fruit juice with cannabis water.” It comes in flavors such as mixed berry, pineapple, lychee and lime.

Growing demand among youth

But while the beverages are increasingly available in Laos, several business owners told RFA that smuggling them into the country isn’t worth the trouble, citing tough laws and a clientele largely uninterested in such products.

“I don’t know whether other stores have cannabis juice, but we don’t,” said one store owner in Vientiane. “We don’t import it because it’s against the law.”

A bartender at a nightclub in the capital told RFA that his establishment “serves only beer.”

“Unlike Thailand, Laos still bans cannabis,” he said. “Besides, the fruit drink containing cannabis juice is not popular among Laotians yet.”

They appear to be gaining fashion among members of the country’s younger generation, however.

An officer with Vientiane’s Saysettha District Police Department told RFA that happy drinks containing cannabis and other banned ingredients “are popular among youngsters,” who drink them to “have fun and dance.”

One such drink contains kratom – an herbal substance that can produce stimulant-like effects and is also legal in Thailand.

Oulayvanh Phonesavanh, the deputy head of the emergency department at Vientiane’s Friendship Hospital, recently told local media that around five patients are admitted to her ward each day due to kratom juice poisoning – most of whom are between the ages of 16 and 35.

A young man from Vientiane’s Pak Gneum district said that, despite the risks, happy drinks aren’t going away any time soon.

“As their name implies, happy drinks are often drunk at parties,” he said. “Those who drink them can expect to be happy, excited and having fun all night.”

Translated by Max Avary. Edited by Joshua Lipes and Malcolm Foster.

This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By RFA Lao.

Independent journalist Grant Smith-Ellis was barred on Aug. 4, 2023, from attending future press scrums or otherwise engaging in a professional capacity with the Massachusetts Cannabis Control Commission, after the state body decided he was not a member of the press.

Smith-Ellis told the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker via email that he has reported on the commission for more than four years, broadcasting its monthly public meeting and publishing articles about it on his personal website and with outlets such as DigBoston. But at the beginning of August, the commission emailed to notify him that he would only be permitted to interact with the commission and seek information through the same channels available to the general public.

The email, which Smith-Ellis provided to the Tracker, claimed that Smith-Ellis had voiced his personal opinions during legislative hearings and it questioned his “general code of conduct as a purported member of the press.”

“On multiple occasions in recent months, the information you have disseminated as journalism on your social media channels has not been conveyed accurately or fairly, and blended rumor and conjecture with fact,” the commission wrote. “[The] information you rush to post is often riddled with inaccuracies and unsubstantiated claims.”

When asked about the commission’s characterization of him as an advocate rather than a journalist, Smith-Ellis rejected the idea that reporters must maintain objectivity.

“Journalists are not dispassionate robots, nor should our government ever be in a position to demand such a thing from those in the Fourth Estate,” he said. “Journalists are human beings who tell human stories through human mediums.”

Smith-Ellis maintains that the target of the ban was his watchdog reporting and was an “attempt to silence critical coverage about internal agency dynamics.”

Smith-Ellis said he had asked the commission to review the decision, as it has no policy dictating press behavior or stipulations for inclusion on press lists. He was told on Aug. 7 that no review would be provided. A subsequent petition to the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court, the state’s highest appellate court, was denied without a hearing, Smith-Ellis added.

“As things stand, I am no longer permitted to send press inquiries to [Cannabis Control Commission] press staff or attend press conferences after each monthly public CCC hearing,” Smith-Ellis told the Tracker. “Over the past month, this punitive ban has prevented me from being able to ask the CCC questions on a number of pressing issues in the public interest.”

When asked via email about the commission’s media policies, a spokesperson said that the commission's public meetings are open to reporters, in person or online, and that journalists can question commissioners afterwards during a staff-led media availability. The spokesperson did not offer a further statement on why Smith-Ellis’ access was restricted.

Smith-Ellis told the Tracker he is considering next steps to address what he characterizes as a chilling overreach by a government agency.

“The government has a right to dislike my reporting. The government has a right to seek corrections (which I have always issued when asked). The government does not have a right to silence critical journalism, without even basic due process, on the basis of its content,” Smith-Ellis said.

This content originally appeared on U.S. Press Freedom Tracker: Incident Database and was authored by U.S. Press Freedom Tracker: Incident Database.

In an interview with UN News, Professor Jallal Toufiq also raised the alarm over the continuing proliferation of synthetic opioids on the black market, describing it as the International Narcotics Board’s number one issue - stating the INCB was doing all it can to tackle the scourge.

Khaled Mohamed of our Arabic news service, began by asking him to sum up the impact of cannabis on public health, and the push to legalize it recreationally.

This content originally appeared on UN News - Global perspective Human stories and was authored by Khaled Mohamed.

Janine Jackson interviewed the Philadelphia CannaBusiness Association’s Tauhid Chappell about cannabis justice for the June 9, 2023, episode of CounterSpin. This is a lightly edited transcript.

Janine Jackson: As media critics, we encourage people to write letters to the editor, noting that even if your letter doesn’t run, it may help another letter with a similar point get in. Because a paper that gets one letter may not feel obliged to represent that view, but if they get 20, they may figure they should run one.

New York Times (5/17/23)

All of which is to say, the New York Times must have got a boatload of letters scoffing at columnist Ross Douthat’s sad sack May 17 piece about how legalizing marijuana is a big mistake, not least because his opposition to it is making people call him a “square.”

Unsurprisingly, Douthat isn’t being a principled contrarian, just obfuscating. As noted by Paul from Washington and Jeff from Queens and Peter from Boston, he sidesteps comparative mention of legal drugs like alcohol or tobacco, and dismisses decades of society-wide harms of racist enforcement of anti-marijuana legislation by saying cops who used weed as a pretense to stop and frisk Black people will just find other reasons, so: so much for that.

For the Times columnist, it all comes down to the wicked weed as “personal degradation,” which, in 2023, sails like a lead balloon.

There is an informed, good-faith conversation to be had about the impacts of marijuana legalization, and especially the effort to see some of the benefits of this newly legal market, in some places, go to those most harmed by its illegality.

Our guest works on precisely these intersections. Tauhid Chappell is a founder of the Philadelphia CannaBusiness Association, and also a project manager for Free Press’s News Voices project, focusing on that program’s Philadelphia initiative to reimagine how local newsrooms approach coverage of crime, violence, and the criminal justice and carceral systems.

He joins us now by phone. Welcome to CounterSpin, Tauhid Chappell.

Tauhid Chappell: Thanks for having me.

JJ: So Douthat’s column was headlined “Call Me Square, but Facts Show the Error of Legalizing Weed,” which, OK, the invocation of “facts” is a rhetorical device: You all are vibing, but I’m a grownup who only traffics in facts. It’s a frankly boring tactic that people use to discount the humanity of others and think they’re doing something.

But I love a good fact as much as the next guy. So, in terms of public opinion, in terms of reported social harms, in terms of the information that we do have, would an observer say that marijuana legalization, where it has happened, has been a big, dangerous mistake?

TC: No, in fact. I am happy to say that, because legalization, for both medical and adult use, has been around, especially on the West Coast, in places like Colorado, Washington, Oregon and California, we are now starting to see the long-term studies of the impact of legalization.

CNN (7/8/19)

There has been a fear that teen use is going to go up. That’s been debunked by the studies on these various states over the last decade of legalization. There’s been fear about higher road rage, or higher traffic accidents, due to being “under the influence of cannabis.” That’s also been debunked. There’s been ongoing fear about marijuana use being some sort of gateway into harder drugs. That has been debunked, and we’ve also seen a decrease in opioid use in states that have legalized cannabis for medical use as well.

And so there has been a lot of reefer madness that continues to point at unscientific, non-peer-reviewed data that does not actually support the ongoing fears that people continue to fearmonger across the country. We have a plethora of data, a plethora of government-backed studies as well, to show that the legalization of marijuana has been nothing but a net positive overall.

JJ: Let me ask you another side of information: Are people still being arrested for marijuana possession? Because media would tell me that it’s all the Wild West, and that’s why we might think about putting the genie back in the bottle, but it’s not exactly the case.

Tauhid Chappell: “Incarceration, especially for Black Americans, still has not significantly decreased, despite legalization of marijuana.”

TC: Yeah. In states such as New Jersey—and we’re pulling from data from the West Coast, because they’ve legalized longer, as well—we have seen an overall decrease in arrests for cannabis possession. But that does not mean that Black people are not still being disproportionately targeted for cannabis. We are still seeing that across the country.

In fact, the ACLU did a wonderful report that shows that incarceration, especially for Black Americans, still has not significantly decreased, despite legalization of marijuana.

And an example of this is in Pennsylvania, where medical marijuana is legal. However, if you are not a medical marijuana–registered patient in the state, and you are not in a city like Philadelphia or Harrisburg or Pittsburgh which has decriminalized cannabis possession—if you are caught with marijuana with you, and you’re not a medical marijuana patient, you still could be criminalized and potentially incarcerated from police if you step out of those decriminalization areas.

So that’s to say, yes, overall we are seeing a positive decrease in arrest, but that does not mean that Black people are still not being disproportionately targeted for marijuana use or possession.

JJ: I know that you have a Philadelphia focus. Are there things that are happening right there that are emblematic, that you think point to larger issues? What’s going on in Philadelphia that you think is useful to think about?

TC: We’ve noticed that municipalities, ultimately…. When it comes to cannabis legalization, the state will create, usually, sometimes broad categories of how the cannabis markets should be rolled out.

But municipalities, at the very local level, determine what types of cannabis businesses they can allow in their cities, right? They have zoning ordinances, they have permits, they have specific locations that businesses can and can’t operate.

And so something that I encourage everybody, especially those that are interested in getting into the industry, is to start educating your council members, your county commissioners, because this is something that’s completely new to them.

Many of them have never been exposed to marijuana as a legal business. Many of us have gone through decades and generations of marijuana as a harmful drug, it’s a narcotic….

And so to see this become legalized, where there are actual business and economic considerations? Many people, especially lawmakers and politicians, still don’t have enough information to make the best decisions on how to make an accessible and equitable and friendly cannabis market, where people can be participants without the fear of any sort of retribution or incarceration.

So education, education, education. Philadelphia, specifically, we had just a big primary where we are going to have a new mayor coming up this year. That means more education for them, because they may be the mayor that has to oversee legalization in their city. They’re going to have to figure out what types of cannabis businesses they’re going to want to allow in Philadelphia, who should have those licenses to operate, and where should they be able to operate, and what types of support should they be receiving.

So municipality to municipality, you have varying levels of education. Some mayors embrace legalization. They’re excited for it. They want to see the financial returns of these new businesses.

Others are very much NIMBY, not in my backyard. They’re still afraid of it. They still think it’s going to create a drug market in their backyard.

And so we have a lot of level-setting to do at the local level.

Washington Post (11/18/16)

JJ: Let me ask you, finally, about journalism. A million years ago, except it was actually January 2018, I talked with Art Way from Drug Policy Alliance, and this is at a moment where Jeff Sessions, the attorney general, was saying, “Good people don’t smoke marijuana.”

And we had a Kansas State representative, Steve Alford, who said—in 2018, not 1918—that we need to remember why marijuana was outlawed, which was because

African Americans, they were basically users, and they basically responded the worst off to those drugs just because of their character makeup, their genetics and that.

So there’s obviously an opinion shift, a culture shift happening, but in terms of media, what would you like to see, new questions asked, new ways of approach? What would you like to see in terms of media coverage of the issue?

TC: There are three people that I like to point to as really good examples of good reporters asking tough questions, holding politicians accountable, calling out agencies that are supposed to be doing the job of rolling out legalization, but have not.

One of them is the former Boston Globe journalist Dan Adams, who covered the Massachusetts legalization for years. Great reporter.

NJ.com (10/11/22)

Jelani Gibson, who is the first Black reporter in a traditional newspaper to cover cannabis. He works for NJ.com. He holds the state accountable, asking a lot of politicians, asking a lot of regulators questions about expectations, realities, what the law has said and what has actually happened pertaining to the law.

And then, from a national perspective, Mona Zhang from Politico does a great job in analyzing how different governments are trying to address the ongoing inequities that we see in cannabis legalization.

And I think that continues to be a point that we need to emphasize, is that despite legalization, the people who have been harmed the most are either still locked up, or being released but not being supported into the reentry of society, and they’re not able to benefit from the true legalization, which is being able to legally run their own cannabis operation and be supported in that too.

So I would love to see more media reporting on the ongoing inequities, and the solutions that other municipalities and states are trying to do to rectify the situation. I think more awareness of that is going to lead to a lot more, I guess, inspiration for cannabis advocates and stakeholders to bring these solutions to their lawmakers and politicians in the respective localities.

JJ: All right. I suspect we’ll speak with you more in the future. Tauhid Chappell is founder of the Philadelphia CannaBusiness Association, as well as a project manager for Free Press. Thank you so much, Tauhid Chappell, for joining us this week on CounterSpin.

TC: Thanks for having me. Appreciate everything that you do. Truly an honor to be included in this interview.

The post ‘Despite Legalization, the People Harmed the Most Are Not Able to Benefit’ appeared first on FAIR.

This content originally appeared on FAIR and was authored by Janine Jackson.

(image: PCBA)

This week on CounterSpin: This country has a long history of weaponizing drug laws against Black and brown communities. Harry Anslinger, the first commissioner of the Federal Bureau of Narcotics, ran an anti-marijuana crusade in the 1930s, saying, “Reefer makes darkies think they’re as good as white men.” Concerns are justified about what the legalization, and profitizing, of marijuana means for the people and communities most harmed by its criminalization. We hear about that from Tauhid Chappell, founder of the Philadelphia CannaBusiness Association and project manager for Free Press’s News Voices project.

(CC photo: Janine Jackson)

Also on the show: Lots of people are concerned about what’s called the “digital well-being” of children—their safety and privacy online. So why did more than 90 human rights and LGBTQ groups sign a letter opposing the “Kids Online Safety Act”? Evan Greer is director of the group Fight for the Future. She tells us what’s going on there.

The post Tauhid Chappell on Cannabis Justice, Evan Greer on Kids Online Safety Act appeared first on FAIR.

This content originally appeared on FAIR and was authored by CounterSpin.

In a letter to the president and key administration officials, the groups—led by the Drug Policy Alliance—acknowledged Biden's October 2022 pardon of all U.S. citizens and legal residents convicted of simple federal marijuana possession—less than 100 people in total—and other moves like encouraging state governors to forgive cannabis offenses and launching an administrative review of the plant's listing in the most severe category on the Controlled Substances Act (CSA).

"Nonetheless, these actions alone will neither fully end future harms of marijuana criminalization nor repair past harms," the letter states. "Accordingly, we urge you and your administration to take the steps necessary to deschedule marijuana in conjunction with other administrative actions that center Black, Indigenous, and people of color (BIPOC) communities."

"Additionally," the groups wrote, "we implore your administration to support comprehensive marijuana reform legislation in Congress, such as the Cannabis Administration and Opportunity Act (CAOA), a bill that deschedules marijuana, repairs the past harms of prohibition, and provides a regulatory framework for marijuana markets."

"Marijuana must be fully removed from the CSA and descheduled," the letter argues. "Rescheduling marijuana to a less restrictive schedule in the CSA would do little to address the harms of federal criminalization. As long as marijuana remains anywhere in the CSA, the majority of the problems associated with its criminalization will persist."

Acknowledging that Biden cannot unilaterally end federal cannabis prohibition, the letter's signers urged the president to "take whatever steps are necessary to make sure marijuana is descheduled and encourage Congress to pass comprehensive legislation that includes criminal justice reform, repairing and centering communities most harmed by prohibition and criminalization, and a regulatory framework that is rooted in equity, justice, and public health."

Over a year after the then-Democratic-controlled House of Representatives passed the Marijuana Opportunity Reinvestment and Expungement (MORE) Act—which would decriminalize marijuana nationwide and expunge federal cannabis convictions—numerous members of Congress also called for an end to cannabis criminalization.

U.S. Sen. John Fetterman posted this photo with the caption "It's 4:20 on 4/20. That's the tweet" on his Twitter page on April 20, 2023.

"We need to legalize marijuana AND make the industry more accessible to those who have been unjustly criminalized at its hands so that Black and Brown communities aren't being incarcerated while others are making millions," Rep. Jamaal Bowman (D-N.Y.) tweeted.

Noting that Black people are around five times more likely than whites people to be arrested in Pennsylvania for marijuana possession, Rep. Summer Lee (D-Pa.) asserted that "it's time to legalize cannabis, expunge all marijuana convictions, and release everyone incarcerated on nonviolent marijuana-related charges."

On Tuesday, Reps. Dave Joyce (R-Ohio) and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) reintroduced bipartisan legislation—the Harnessing Opportunities by Pursuing Expungement (HOPE) Act—that, if passed, would incentivize states to offer people with nonviolent marijuana convictions federal grants.

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Brett Wilkins.

As always there’s both good news and bad news to the story. In the world of weed, the good news is that this year small farmers have harvested some of their best crop ever in terms of quality. The bad news is that they’re on the ropes and taking an awful beating. Jason Gellman, an Emerald Triangle farmer, tells it like it is. In the 2022 Cannabis Harvest Report from Leafy, the most reliable source in the industry, Gellman is quoted as saying, “Prices this year are at an all time low and honestly pretty tragic for all the craft farmers. Lots of people will not be able to afford to keep their farms going. Our community as a whole is in a bad financial place.”

Notice please that he uses the word “honestly.” He doesn’t just give honesty lip service, though it’s challenging to speak honestly in an industry that’s like many others in which hardworking, dedicated individuals want to put a smile on their own faces and offer good news to a public that’s eager for positive, hopeful stories.

In 2022 in the world of cannabis those stories are hard to come by, though more Americans than ever before believe that cannabis ought to be legalized by the federal government and that cannabis can be good medicine.

I have been writing about cannabis for 46 years, going all the way back to the late 1970s. I also grew marijuana and sold marijuana and transported marijuana. Some of my closest friends grow and sell marijuana now, both legally and illegally. The outlaw growers in California are doing better financially than legal growers like Jason Gellman.

Mike Benziger told me the other day that 2022 was “one of his very best vintages.” He has been growing and harvesting marijuana for 45 years. Before 2015, he was in his own words, “under the table.” Before he turned to cannabis as a cash crop he grew grapes biodynamically and made excellent wine. The story that he tells about marijuana is the same in its essentials as the story that Gellman tells, though they’re separated by hundreds of miles and by climate geography and topography, which have often worked for the benefit of growers since the 1960s.

“In 2022, there’s an oversupply,” Benziger told me. “Prices took a tumble. Not long ago farmers were able to get $2000 a pound. Now, they’re lucky if they get $300 a pound.” He added, “Some will have good pot but no one will buy it. There aren’t enough outlets. We need more dispensaries.” Benziger is able to survive in part because Solful, a popular dispensary in the well-healed town of Sebastopol, buys a big chunk of his crop at a price that’s decent and that “keeps the lights on.” If you have read so far and you still want to get into the cannabiz, Benziger has advice for you. “Don’t have a mortgage or overhead,” he says. “Love what you do and have experience.”

Early in November, Benziger played host at his farm in Glen Ellen to a small group of farmers and reporters who cover cannabis. There were more reporters than there were farmers. Cannabis continues to be a hot topic and a compelling story. Editors and readers want to know which way the wind will blow: toward more legalization and normalization of the industry; the removal of cannabis from Schedule I as a drug with no known medical benefits; and the end of the nearly 80 years of the federal cannabis prohibition. Time will tell.

At Benziger’s farm, the growers, who came from Humboldt, Mendocino and Sonoma, talked about their best practices, their collaboration with the plant itself, their small is beautiful philosophy, and their commitment to “craft cannabis” or what others might call “boutique weed.”

According to Leafy, and to David Downs, Leaf’s star reporter and savvy editor who attended Benziger’s confab, more growers in more states in the U.S, grew more marijuana in 2022 than ever before. A glut on the market, and bottlenecks, too. Many of the new growers are far closer to big city markets in LA, NY, Chicago and elsewhere than the growers in the Emerald Triangle. Once, remoteness from law enforcement helped them; now it’s a hindrance.

One of the growers at Benziger’s remembered the days when he and others had to deal with helicopters and cops; now they have to deal with bureaucrats and bureaucracy. Take your pick. One could sometimes negotiate with a cop; now there’s no wiggle room to negotiate with a man or a woman behind a desk with a computer that knows the rules and regulations and doesn’t understand negotiation. The Emerald Triangle, where I once grew, was the Wild West; now it’s Kafka territory and can be crazy making. I’m glad I got out when I did.  I’m not going back. But I sure would like to smoke some of Benziger’s 2022 buds. I’m not looking for a freebee. I’ll pay the market price.

This content originally appeared on CounterPunch.org and was authored by Jonah Raskin.

President Joe Biden announced Thursday that he is pardoning everyone convicted of simple marijuana possession under federal law, and said the classification of the drug would undergo review. The move will remove many legal barriers for thousands of people to gain jobs, housing, college admission and federal benefits, and fulfills a campaign pledge made by Biden. However, the pardons will only affect about 6,500 people, as the vast majority of drug charges are at the state level and are disproportionately affecting communities of color. “We are demanding that the president actually deschedule and decriminalize cannabis,” says Kassandra Frederique, executive director of the Drug Policy Alliance.

This content originally appeared on Democracy Now! and was authored by Democracy Now!.

The post More Young Americans are Using Cannabis and Hallucinogens. That’s Good News. appeared first on CounterPunch.org.

This content originally appeared on CounterPunch.org and was authored by Thomas Knapp.

The Cook Islands Party has gained two more seats following the final count of the general election, edging it closer to power.

The party, which is led by caretaker Prime Minister Mark Brown, now has 12 seats — with 13 required for a clear majority.

The results, issued by the Chief Electoral Officer, show that Kaka Ama of the Cook Islands Party (CIP) has claimed the Ngatangiia seat.

• READ MORE: Cook Islands: Navigating the rise of third party politics and a new era
• Other Cook Islands election reports

The seat initially ended in a tie with the United Party candidate following the preliminary count on August 1.

In Titikaveka, Sonny Williams from the CIP has claimed the seat, beating United Party’s Margaret Matenga who finished six votes ahead of Williams on election night.

Earlier this month, Prime Minister Brown said he was confident of continuing the coalition arrangement with two independents to form a new government.

The Democrats have six seats — down from 11, United has three, and there are three independents.

Neither the One Cook Islands Movement nor the Progressive Party appear to have won any seats.

The newspaper said the final results showed 62 percent voted “yes”, 35 percent voted “no” and the remaining 3 percent were “informal”.

The referendum is non-binding but Prime Minister Brown said in June the question was “deliberately broad” and the referendum would allow room for wider debate on medicinal cannabis.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by APR editor.

Half a dozen U.S. senators declared Wednesday that the Biden administration's "failure to coordinate a timely review of its cannabis policy is harming thousands of Americans, slowing research, and depriving Americans of their ability to use marijuana for medical or other purposes."

"Biden committed to decriminalize the use of cannabis and automatically expunge all prior cannabis use convictions."

That assertion came in a letter to President Joe Biden, Attorney General Merrick Garland, and Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Xavier Becerra. It was signed by Sens. Cory Booker (D-N.J.), Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.), Ed Markey (D-Mass.), Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), and Ron Wyden (D-Ore.).

Booker and Warren last year called on the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) to use its existing authority to begin the process of removing cannabis from the list of Schedule I drugs.

"On April 13, the DOJ responded to our October 6 request for the administration to begin the descheduling process for cannabis. The half-page response, which took over six months, was extraordinarily disappointing," the new letter states, noting that the Justice Department used an HHS determination that "cannabis has not been proven in scientific studies to be a safe and effective treatment for any disease or condition" to justify its lack of action.

Under the Controlled Substances Act of 1970 (CSA), the DOJ has the power "to begin the descheduling process and act independently of an HHS determination," the letter emphasizes, adding that "it is obvious that cannabis has widely accepted medical benefits, affirmed by medical and scientific communities both here and across the globe."

Though such conclusions by researchers along with public support for decriminalization and even legalization have led several U.S. states and territories to allow medicinal and recreational marijuana, it is still illegal at the federal level.

While campaigning for the White House, "President Biden committed to decriminalize the use of cannabis and automatically expunge all prior cannabis use convictions, and he also acknowledged the importance of removing cannabis from its current classification under the CSA as a Schedule I substance," the letter highlights.

"We commend President Biden's recent pardons and commutations of 78 people, including nine with nonviolent cannabis-related offenses," the document continues. "However, much more has to be done to address the racist and harmful legacy of cannabis policies on Black and Brown communities. The legacy of the war on drugs is pervasive."

As Marijuana Moment reported Wednesday:

The recently appointed U.S. pardon attorney weighed in on the prospects of mass cannabis clemency last week, telling Marijuana Moment that her office handles cases independently, but it could be empowered to issue broader commutations or pardons if directed by the president.

Biden has received about a dozen letters from lawmakers, advocates, celebrities, and people impacted by criminalization to do something about the people who remain behind federal bars over cannabis.

In April, just three Republicans in the U.S. House of Representatives joined all but two Democrats to pass the Marijuana Opportunity Reinvestment and Expungement (MORE) Act, which would decriminalize cannabis nationwide, expunge federal convictions and arrests, and provide resources for communities targeted by the nation's drug war.

Although Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) has vowed to introduce similar legislation before the August recess, passage would require the support of not only all Democrats but also 10 Republicans, due to the chamber's filibuster rule.

Noting that five House Republicans introduced their own legalization bill last year, Marijuana Moment pointed out Wednesday that "high-level talks are reportedly underway for an alternative, and arguably more passable, approach, with bicameral and bipartisan lawmakers discussing the possibility of moving a package of incremental cannabis reform measures that would stop short of descheduling marijuana."

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams - Breaking News & Views for the Progressive Community and was authored by Jessica Corbett.

Legalizing recreational marijuana lowers demand for prescription drugs through state Medicaid programs, according to a new study by researchers in New York and Indiana.

"Our results suggest substitution away from prescription drugs and potential cost savings for state Medicaid programs."

Shyam Raman, a doctoral student at the Cornell Jeb E. Brooks School of Public Policy, and Indiana University doctoral student Ashley Bradford reviewed quarterly data for all Medicaid prescriptions from 2011 to 2019 to analyze the association between recreational cannabis laws and prescription drug use.

In an article published last week in the journal Health Economics, the researchers wrote that "we find significant reductions in the volume of prescriptions within the drug classes that align with the medical indications for pain, depression, anxiety, sleep, psychosis, and seizures."

"Our results suggest substitution away from prescription drugs and potential cost savings for state Medicaid programs," they added.

Previous studies have shown reductions in prescription drug use in states with medical marijuana laws. For example, a 2020 paper by researchers at Columbia University's Irving Medical Center revealed a 20% drop in certain opioid prescriptions in states where medical cannabis use was legal compared with states that prohibited it.

However, this is one of the first studies to examine the impact of legal recreational marijuana on a wide range of prescription medications, according to Cornell Chronicle.

"These results have important implications," Raman told the paper. "The reductions in drug utilization that we find could lead to significant cost savings for state Medicaid programs. The results also indicate an opportunity to reduce the harm that can come with the dangerous side effects associated with some prescription drugs."

According to the National Conference of State Legislatures, marijuana is legal for adult recreational use in 18 states plus the District of Columbia, while 37 states have legalized medical cannabis. On April 1, the U.S. House of Representatives voted to decriminalize the plant nationwide and expunge federal cannabis convictions and arrests. However, the measure faces an uphill battle in the Senate.

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams - Breaking News & Views for the Progressive Community and was authored by Brett Wilkins.

The euthanasia referendum has passed New Zealand’s public vote, with 65.2 percent voting in favour, but the cannabis question has 53.1 percent voting “no” so far, preliminary results show.

The number of voters who chose “no” in the End of Life Choice referendum reached 33.8 percent.

In the cannabis question, “yes” received 46.1 percent of the vote so far, compared to 53.1 percent of “no” votes.

But with almost half a million votes still to be counted, New Zealand will need to wait until next Friday for full and final results.

The euthanasia question gathered a total of 1,574,645 “yes” votes and 815,829 “no” votes so far.

There were a total of 1,114,485 “yes” votes for cannabis reform, 167,333 short of the 1,281,818 votes for “no”.

In a statement, Justice Minister Andrew Little said assisted dying remains illegal in New Zealand until 6 November 2021, and the Cannabis Legalisation and Control Bill will not be introduced as legislation by the Labour government this term.

The End of Life Choice – or euthanasia – referendum was based on a member’s bill put forward by ACT leader David Seymour, with the aim of legalising a form of safe euthanasia for some people experiencing a terminal illness.

The bill had already passed through Parliament, on the proviso that the referendum held at the election supports it.

The recreational cannabis referendum is a different story. The government released a draft bill for a law it would seek to pass depending on the result, but the Cannabis Legalisation and Control Bill has not yet been through Parliament so would be subject to change before it was made law.

Labour has also suggested – despite earlier promises the referendum result would be binding – that Parliament’s final vote on the bill would be a conscience vote, meaning MPs would not be required to vote along party lines.

Polling ahead of the election showed the euthanasia referendum was likely to pass, but the recreational cannabis referendum was on a knife’s edge.

Unreal that NZ has voted against Marijuana legalization! Surprisingly conservative stance in an otherwise progressive country. https://t.co/aHoh9B2h5g

— Lark Davis (@TheCryptoLark) October 30, 2020

Campaigners for cannabis legalisation were hoping the widespread support for leftist parties – Labour and the Greens – at the election will point to support.

Final results for the referendums and the election are due when the special votes are counted on November 6.

Special votes include post-in and overseas votes, and votes made by people who enrolled after 13 September. It also includes prisoners who are on remand and – for the first time in a decade – prisoners who have been sentenced to less than three years.

This article is republished by the Pacific Media Centre under a partnership agreement with RNZ.