“The alkaloids have been known for over a decade to possess some modest opioid actions but their potential benefit for patients with chronic pain and substance dependence was overlooked in the (DEA) notice of intent to place the botanical chemicals in the same class as heroin, LSD and mescaline.” Columbia associate research scientist, Andrew Kruegel,…
“Congress granted emergency scheduling authority to the DEA based on the need for law enforcement interdiction of new and previously unknown illegal synthetic street drugs that result in injuries and death. The use of this emergency authority for a natural substance is unprecedented, so it is important to determine whether the circumstances here necessitate a…
“The ban would eliminate a substantial harm-reduction option for recovering addicts of other substances… and once stockpiled supplies dry up, people will buy more on the black market without being able to hold vendors accountable for what’s in the product.” Susan Ash, founder of the American Kratom Association, estimates that 60 percent of kratom users…
“As the massive surge of support to keep kratom legal continues gaining momentum, the DEA appears to be shifting the final date to place the ancient plant’s alkaloids on the Schedule I Controlled Substances List. The original Federal Register listing was scheduled for September 30 at the earliest, but that date may change according to…
“Currently, the pharmaceutical industry is using kratom alkaloids to manufacture synthetic opioids…kratom will be illegal, but the synthetic patented and monopolized version will not.” Cannabis is a schedule one substance but the pharmaceutical industry can manufacture a synthetic version of the same active ingredient in cannabis, THC, and it magically becomes legal. As Cassius Kamarampi…
It does mean that psychedelic drug use can be explained in evolutionary terms as a “hack” that enables transcendent states to be reached quickly. If this story is true, what are its implications? One is that psychedelic drug use is no different, in principle, to practices like chanting, fasting, praying and meditating that religions typically…
“Once we tame the black market and show people a formerly illegal substance can be legalized and regulated, it becomes harder to use the same scare tactics.” Nationwide, between 21,000 and 33,000 businesses get some or all of their revenue from the marijuana industry. Legalization efforts have also proved hearty in the face of legal…
The dominoes keep falling. Ireland is the latest country to begin the process of decriminalising small amounts of drugs such as heroin, cocaine and cannabis for personal use. It joins at least 25 more countries around the world that have decided to remove users – not drugs – from the criminal justice system. What does…
It’s Trudeau’s call now. The nationwide cannabis legalisation may be a good thing, but he also needs to convince other countries that it’s not just a Canadian thing. Canada’s legalisation of marijuana, for both recreational and medicinal purposes, will be a historical moment for Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, and such a thing will not go…
The regulated cultivation and trade of cannabis for recreational use is permissible on the basis of states’ positive human rights obligations. This is the result of research by Legal scholars Piet Hein van Kempen and Masha Fedorova of Radboud University in Nijmegen, the Netherlands. In their research Van Kempen and Fedorova concluded that the U.N.…
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