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fftimes.com Should the town allow marijuana stores to open here? (Wed Aug 29 02:11:53 2018 PDT)

fftimes.com Should the town allow marijuana stores to open here? (Wed Aug 29 02:11:53 2018 PDT) [$drug_related(100%), $drugwar_propaganda(70%), $propaganda_theme2(70%), $propaganda_theme3(50%), $propaganda_theme5(70%), $illegal_drugs(100%), $plants(100%), $intoxicant(100%), $cannabis(100%), $youth(70%), $school(100%)]

www2.philly.com (US) Bulldozer crushing of marijuana grower was an accident. (Wed Aug 29 14:04:55 2018 PDT)

www2.philly.com (US) Other sick children for whom traditional medications have not worked. This Pa. dispensary was selling medical marijuana for $1 Public faith in marijuana outpaces medical research. Medical marijuana programs in Pennsylvania and New Jersey have opened up a new realm of possible treatment for patients with chronic pain. (Wed Aug 29 14:04:55 2018 PDT)

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TOP: New Jersey Marijuana - NJ.com (US) N.J. towns will ban the sale of legal weed. (Wed Aug 29 14:03:57 2018 PDT)

TOP: Caught with weed? Prosecutions are back on, but it depends where you live. - NJ.com (US) N.J. to tell prosecutors they are free to drop some weed charges. (Wed Aug 29 14:03:57 2018 PDT)

dailymail.co.uk (US) TV and radio star Glenn Wheeler is hospitalised with pneumonia four years after woman high on cannabis slammed into his scooter b as his son demands harsher sentences for drug drivers Deborah Levy hit the presenter's scooter in Sydney's Woolooware in January 2015 having smoked cannabis the night before the crash - leaving Mr Wheeler brain damaged. (Wed Aug 29 10:03:08 2018 PDT)

chicagotribune.com (US) Jennifer Molitor used heroin for more than 10 years and had been in and out of prison. The program offers drug-addicted offenders a treatment option as an alternative to incarceration. With an ongoing opioid epidemic across America and 13 overdose deaths in Kendall County from Dec. 1, 2016, to Nov. 30, 2017, Molitor thinks drug court programs could help peopl... (Wed Aug 29 14:01:32 2018 PDT)

The Boston Globe
State marijuana panel is getting a lot of criticism after a recent ruling
The Boston Globe
The Massachusetts Cannabis Control Commission is facing a growing backlash over its recent decision not to crack down on excessive payments from marijuana companies to municipalities — but with state legislators unlikely to force the commission's hand ...

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The practice is "bad law and bad criminal justice policy," the author concludes.

As the nation grapples with the deadliest drug crisis in its history—more than 72,000 people died of drug overdoses last year, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention—prosecutors across the country have rushed to embrace the use of "drug-induced homicide" charges as a means of combating the problem. That means charging the people who sold the fatal dose—or sometimes just the people who shared it—with murder or manslaughter and sending them away to prison for lengthy terms.

Faced with a public clamor to "do something," prosecutors are resorting to this facile, politically popular tactic in order to "send a message" of toughness to dealers in a bid to break the back of the epidemic. But a new study, “America’s Favorite Antidote: Drug-Induced Homicide in the Age of the Overdose Crisis,” concludes that the practice is worse than ineffective—it's actually counterproductive.

Such prosecutions are "bad law and bad criminal justice policy" that have only worsened the opioid crisis that has taken tens of thousands of American lives, writes Leo Beletsky, associate professor of law and health sciences of the Northeastern University School of Law.

Beletsky notes that while the strategy dates back to 1986, in an atmosphere of moral panic set off by the death of NBA player Len Bias of an overdose from cocaine given to him by a friend, it has really taken off in recent years as the country lives through what he calls the "worst drug crisis in U.S. history." Now, more than half the states have some form of drug-induced homicide law, while others are considering amending them to include fentanyl.

But the prosecutions amount to little more than "policy theater" rooted in the punitive approach long favored in the country's war on drugs, Beletsky argues. That is an unsuccessful approach that has largely failed to reduce drug use or stem the flow of drugs into the country, he notes.

Beletsky's study looked at data from 263 drug-induced homicide prosecutions between 2000 and 2016. One of the most striking findings was that, while such prosecutions are supposedly aimed at drug dealers, at least half of those charged were family members or partners.

"In many jurisdictions, it is enough to have simply shared a small amount of your drugs with the deceased to be prosecuted for homicide," he notes.

Another striking—yet completely unsurprising—finding is that when he applied his data to what he called "existing racially disparate patterns of drug law enforcement," he found evidence of racial differences in the application of drug-induced homicide laws as well. Such selective enforcement resulted in "gaping disparities between whites and people of color."

But the most bitter irony can be found in the impact of such laws on actual overdose deaths. Even though opioid overdose reversal drugs such as naloxone are now in wide use, many friends, fellow users, and family members are reluctant to call for emergency help because they fear the legal repercussions, even if they didn't provide the lethal drugs.

"Police involvement at overdose scenes may result in arrests on drug, parole violation, weapons, and other charges," wrote Beletsky. "It may also lead to loss of child custody, violation of community supervision conditions, and other legal consequences rooted in the pervasive stigmatization of substance use, but not directly linked to criminal law. Research suggests that fear of police contact and legal detriment is actually the single most important reason why people who witnessed overdoses do not seek timely emergency medical help," he concludes. "Aside from crowding out evidence-based interventions and investments, these prosecutions run at complete cross-purposes to efforts that encourage witnesses to summon lifesaving help during overdose events."

Rather than "tougher" policy responses to drug use such as the resort to drug-induced homicide charges, policymakers should be subjecting failed punishment-oriented policies to rigorous scrutiny while instead developing a "population-based" health policy emphasizing treatment and diversion from the criminal justice system, he suggested.

"A system that relies on the instrument of punishment to regulate the behavior of people affected by severe SUD (Substance Use Disorder) fundamentally misconstrues the nature of addiction," Beletsky writes. "The established scientific consensus predicts that individuals affected by addiction will substantially discount—or totally disregard—legal risks and threats of punishment as a matter of course. This scientific construct has yet to be translated into U.S. jurisprudence, however."

“Drug-induced homicide prosecutions and other similar punitive approaches to the opioid crisis, such as curbing prescriptions and subjecting patients to drug testing regimes, have crowded out public health strategies that have been proven to work in limiting the deleterious impacts of widespread opioid use," he writes.

"The bottom line," Beletsky writes, "is that, when it comes to policies that hold the most empirical promise for addressing the overdose crisis, we know what to do; we just are not doing it."

This article was produced by Drug Reporter, a project of the Independent Media Institute.

 

 

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• We Can Save Lives and Fight the Opioid Epidemic — But the Trump Administration's Strategies Make the Problem Worse

Legal marijuana industry tries to shake 'stoner' stereotypes
The Seattle Times
But with a multibillion-dollar industry beginning to flower — marijuana is now legal in some form in 30 states — cannabis advocates are pushing to dispel the idea that people who toke up still live on the couches in their parents' basements and spend ...

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Forbes
Some Canadian Universities Will Allow Marijuana On Campus
Forbes
Accomplishing this goal, however, takes conviction, a tremendous amount of focus and, depending on the student's extracurricular interests and disposition towards inebriating substances, enough mind-ripping marijuana to choke an inbred Russian ...

Forbes
Time For Colleges To Give Cannabis A Try?
Forbes
From dorm rooms to classrooms, cannabis in college has come a long way. As both medical and recreational marijuana markets have soared, so too have career opportunities. In the 38 states with some form of legal marijuana, patients (and those who just ...

Business Insider
California's recreational cannabis industry is booming — but regulations are posing a unique threat
Business Insider
Recreational cannabis has become a major industry in California. The price of cannabis in California has become an immediate hiccup that has initially angered consumers, reducing expected demand and state revenues. The effective sales tax on a gram of ...
California Cannabis: A Golden Opportunity With Unique ChallengesVisual Capitalist (blog)
Meet the leader of LA's cannabis revolutionFast Company
Central State medical pot lab will require more police, armored truckDayton Daily News
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Toronto Star
Cannabis company stopped from building oversized Hamilton greenhouse says it will now grow potted plants instead
Toronto Star
City council denied an application in July from federally licensed grower The Green Organic Dutchman to build a 130,000-square-foot greenhouse for medical marijuana on Jerseyville Road. City planners had recommended the project despite a bylaw size ...

The Globe and Mail
Beverage makers explore entries to Canadian cannabis sector
The Globe and Mail
The rise of a legal cannabis market has stoked fears among brewers and soft-drink makers that marijuana will dent already declining or stagnating sales. On the eve of legalization in Canada, some of these companies are trying to understand the ...
Top cannabis exec: Expect to see more strategic investment coming to cannabisCNBC
Marijuana Users Being Turned Away From Cannabis Industry JobsForbes
Marijuana Stocks Just Keep Going Higher: 'This Is Like Bitcoin Levels'Barron's
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CNBC
Tilray CEO on first earnings report and growing cannabis industry
CNBC
Tilray CEO on first earnings report and growing cannabis industry. 8 Hours Ago. Tilray CEO Brendan Kennedy discusses his company's growth alongside the expansion of the medical pot industry as a whole. Watch CNBC Live TV ...

Ars Technica
Researchers ID genes that could make you more likely to try cannabis
Ars Technica
Laws regarding marijuana use are changing even as scientists are still trying to understand why people use it and the overall effects of using it. Now, a study is wading in by examining how genetics influences people's tendency to try pot. But the ...
We Now Have An Even Better Idea Of How Schizophrenia and Marijuana Use Are LinkedIFLScience
Cannabis is not a cause of schizophrenia, says biggest study yetThe Times
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ABC News
Pediatricians put it bluntly: Motherhood and marijuana don't mix
ABC News
A recent study in the journal Obstetrics and Gynecology, for example, found that 70 percent of cannabis dispensaries in Colorado recommended marijuana to treat morning sickness during the first trimester. No evidence suggests that marijuana use is safe ...
Marijuana Can Stay in Breast Milk for Up to 6 Days, Warn PediatriciansPEOPLE.com
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