Biography/Memoir

End the war on marijuana

“We are calling on [The President] to end the war on drugs by taking the first step: deschedule cannabis.” Support veterans risking arrest! They will lead a mass die-in calling for an end to the war on drugs. US Official Harry Anslinger lead the charge to ban cannabis in 1937. His racist, xenophobic justifications for…

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Politics

US DEA backs off banning popular herb, Kratom

“We didn’t get into this business for Kratom. Kratom found us,” said owner Ethan Franc. Franc said customers swear the powdered leaves, used for hundreds of years in Asia, are the answer to their physical and emotional ailments. “Pain relief or getting off opioid addiction,” said Franc. “We’ve had customers use it to get off…

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Anthropology

Medical marijuana: What happens next in Pa.?

“The process itself of creating regulations and dispensing licenses is probably going to take; we’re estimating a best case 12 to 13 months and probably 18 months before licenses are issued.” Under the law, anyone seeking a prescription for medical marijuana must be suffering from a “serious medical condition” defined as cancer, HIV or AIDS,…

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Politics

Nationwide marijuana legalization could produce up to $28 billion in yearly tax revenue

A mature marijuana industry could generate up to $28 billion in tax revenues for federal, state, and local governments, including $7 billion in federal revenue: $5.5 billion from business taxes and $1.5 billion from income and payroll taxes…estimated marijuana prohibition costs $3.6 billion. The debate over marijuana legalization is just one of the many ways…

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Politics

How Russia became the new global leader in the war on drugs

“Central to Russia’s interventions was an insistence that the words “harm reduction” not be included in the document.” “Russian approaches to drug dependence are in contradiction to virtually all international scientific standards,” said Daniel Wolfe, director of the International Harm Reduction Development Program at the Open Society Foundations. “Russian narcologists — their version of drug…

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The ‘war on drugs’ in numbers: a systematic failure of policy

“However, where long-term data is available, it does point to systematic failures in drug policies”. Those risks [to drug use] include punishment by the justice system. However, there too the efficacy of policy is highly questionable. The Brookings Institution published an overview of global counter-narcotics policy in 2008 which compared three different approaches: “the punishment…

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Psychedelic Advocates take their case for freedom of consciousness to the United Nations (UNGASS 2016)

Led by Psymposia and the Psychedelic Society of Brooklyn (one of at least 50 city-based such societies around the world), they took on the question of why use, support, or call for the legalization of the consciousness-changing drugs by providing their own answers under the format of “Psychedelics Because…” Earlier this month, scientists examined the…

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