Past articles: 2015 • 2016 • 2017 👀
U.S. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) has come out in support of federal cannabis decriminalization, just in time for 4/20:
The Minority Leader of the Senate is making it official the day before 4/20: He's down with legal weed. In an exclusive interview with VICE News, Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) confirmed he is putting his name on legislation that he said is aimed at "decriminalizing" marijuana at the federal level. For Schumer, this is a shift. While he has backed medical marijuana and the rights of states to experiment with legal sales of pot, what he is proposing is a seismic shift in federal drug policy.
"Ultimately, it's the right thing to do. Freedom. If smoking marijuana doesn't hurt anybody else, why shouldn't we allow people to do it and not make it criminal?" Schumer said.
The legislation should be available within a week or so, and would remove cannabis (still listed as "Marihuana") from the Drug Enforcement Administration's list of Schedule I substances. States would then be free to regulate or continue to prohibit the plant. Cannabis advertising would be regulated as are alcohol and tobacco advertising. (Also at NPR, CNN, The Washington Post, and CNBC, as well as Reason taking a shot at Schumer for not doing it sooner.)
A majority of Americans support the legalization of cannabis, including, for the first time, a majority (51%) of Republicans, according to Gallup. Nine states and the District of Columbia have legalized cannabis for recreational use. 29 states, D.C., Guam, and Puerto Rico have legalized medical use of cannabis, and another 17 states have legalized the use of cannabidiol (CBD). Cannabis became available for recreational purposes in California on January 1.
It remains to be seen whether enough Republicans will favor Schumer's bill (or if it will be ignored like Booker's), but Senator Cory Gardner (R-CO) might. By preventing confirmation of many of President Trump's Justice Department nominees, Gardner was able to secure a "promise" that the federal government will not interfere in states that have chosen to legalize and regulate cannabis. Removing the authority of the federal government to swoop in and shut down "legal" cannabis businesses is a better solution that would ease uncertainty in the market. Maybe cannabusinesses could start using banks instead of mattresses.
In recent weeks, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has supported legislation to legalize hemp production. Former Speaker of the House John Boehner has come out in favor of cannabis legalization and now sits on a board of advisers for a cannabis corporation. President Trump has expressed tepid support for letting states handle the issue.
Studies have found that medical use of cannabis can be effective in reducing rates of opioid addiction. However, many doctors are reluctant to prescribe cannabis, and the Trump administration's opioid crisis handlers have thus far ignored or spoken out against cannabis. Luckily, their views can be marginalized into the dustbin of history if the U.S. Congress does its job and reverses the decades-long prohibition of cannabis. A push to legalize cannabis will not help kratom, which is facing increasing scrutiny from federal agencies despite its reputation as an opioid alternative.
A Food and Drug Administration (FDA) advisory panel has endorsed the use of CBD to treat childhood epilepsy. If the FDA approves of the treatment, it would be the first cannabis-derived drug to win federal approval in the U.S. The version from GW Pharmaceuticals could cost patients an estimated $25,000 per year, so some parents and patients would probably turn to other markets for CBD oil. However, the approval would allow doctors to prescribe the treatment for other uses and could encourage more medical research of cannabis components. (Also at The New York Times and USA Today.)
April 19th was "Bicycle Day", the 75th anniversary of the very first intentional lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD) trip by Albert Hofmann, the chemical's discoverer. LSD, along with other hallucinogens such as psilocybin and ketamine, is being researched as a possible treatment for depression. In the April 2018 issue of Consciousness and Cognition, there is a case report (DOI: 10.1016/j.concog.2018.02.008) (DX) describing the experience of a congenitally blind user of LSD who experienced auditory and tactile hallucinations rather than seeing visuals.
Acute effects of LSD on amygdala activity during processing of fearful stimuli in healthy subjects (open, DOI: 10.1038/tp.2017.54) (DX)
🔥🔥🔥 🌲 🍁 🌳 🔥🔥🔥
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April 20th (420) is a celebration of stoner/cannabis culture. In recent years, decriminalization and legalization of marijuana has accelerated as public opinion has shifted, so there are more reasons to celebrate...
takyon writes:
It's that time of the year again. Time to talk about drugs and the war on them because some stoners declared a holiday or something.
A recent article in Harper's Magazine includes the following gem that sums up the modern Drug War's origins. The journalist interviewed John Ehrlichman, one of the Watergate co-conspirators:
At the time, I was writing a book about the politics of drug prohibition. I started to ask Ehrlichman a series of earnest, wonky questions that he impatiently waved away. "You want to know what this was really all about?" he asked with the bluntness of a man who, after public disgrace and a stretch in federal prison, had little left to protect. "The Nixon campaign in 1968, and the Nixon White House after that, had two enemies: the antiwar left and black people. You understand what I'm saying? We knew we couldn't make it illegal to be either against the war or black, but by getting the public to associate the hippies with marijuana and blacks with heroin, and then criminalizing both heavily, we could disrupt those communities. We could arrest their leaders, raid their homes, break up their meetings, and vilify them night after night on the evening news. Did we know we were lying about the drugs? Of course we did."
[Oh yes, it continues...]
What's up, Soylenteers? I've got to write another one of these? #420TooMainstream.
Legalization Status
Timeline of cannabis laws in the United States
Timeline of cannabis lawSince this time last year, Ohio, Florida, North Dakota, and Arkansas legalized medical cannabis, Illinois decriminalized it, and California, Nevada, Maine and Massachusetts legalized recreational cannabis. An attempt to legalize recreational cannabis in Arizona narrowly failed.
29 U.S. states and the District of Columbia have legalized cannabis for medical use, although restrictions vary widely from state to state.
Germany's medical cannabis law was approved in January and came into effect in March. Poland has also legalized medical cannabis, and Georgia's Supreme Court has ruled that imprisonment for possession of small amounts of cannabis is unconstitutional.
🍁 Cannada: Not So Fast 🍁
Last week, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau unveiled (archive) legislation (archive) that would make Canada the first major Western country to legalize recreational cannabis (the only country to legalize it to date is Uruguay, although implementation has taken years), dealing a serious blow to the crumbling United Nations Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs. However, the Liberal Party of Canada intends to wait more than a year to act on its campaign promise, during which time Canadians can still face prosecution for possession of the drug:
True to form, this government has written down a series of talking points, in this case, trying to make it sound like it's cracking down on pot rather than legalizing it. And Justin Trudeau's ministers are sticking to the messaging from party central like a child reciting Dr. Seuss.
Not once in that As It Happens interview did [Justice Minister Jody] Wilson-Raybould explain why the government intends to keep on criminalizing Canadians so unfairly (see the Liberal party's website statement) for another year. Instead, literally every second time she opened her mouth, she re-spouted the line about "strictly regulating and restricting access." Off asked eight questions. Four times, Wilson-Raybould robotically reverted to the same phrase.
Meanwhile, Public Safety Minister Ralph Goodale, a parliamentary lifer who mastered the art of repetitive dronetalk sometime back in the last millennium, was out peddling more or less the same line, but with an added warning: Not only will the government continue to criminalize Canadians for what it considers a trifling offence, enforcement will be vigorous. "Existing laws prohibiting possession and use of cannabis remain in place, and they need to be respected," Goodale declared. "This must be an orderly transition. It is not a free-for-all." Why the government cannot simply decide to invoke prosecutorial and police discretion, and cease enforcing the cannabis laws it considers unjust, was not explained. Why that would necessarily be a "free for all" also went unexplained.
The Liberal Party of Canada has taken pains to remind everyone that the Conservative Party will "do everything they can to stop real change and protect a failed status quo". Unfortunately, they did not get the memo that "marijuana" is a term with racist origins.
Make like a tree and legalize it, Cannadia... Cannibinoidia.
President Trump and Attorney General Jeff Sessions
Backtrack to April 20th, 2016. Bernie Sanders still seemingly had a shot at becoming the President of the United States. Sanders, as well as Hillary Clinton (though begrudgingly), supported decriminalization of cannabis, medical use, and the continuation of states making decisions about recreational use. The #2 Republican candidate Ted Cruz also had a "let the states sort it out" stance.
One contender stood out, and he went on to become the @POTUS to #MAGA. The widely predicted "third term" was prevented, and that outcome may greatly affect a burgeoning semi-legal cannabis industry. One recent casualty are Amsterdam-style "cannabis clubs" (think: brewpubs). Colorado's legislature has backed off on a bill that would have allowed on-site consumption of cannabis at dispensaries due to the uncertain future of federal enforcement of cannabis prohibition.
Trump's position on cannabis has been ill-defined, although he supports medical use and has indicated that states should handle the issue. But the same can't be said of his Attorney General, former Senator Jeff Sessions. Here are some quotes about the drug from Mr. Sessions:
I thought those guys were OK until I learned they smoked pot. [Source. Context: Sessions later testified that the comment was a joke.]
We need grown-ups in charge in Washington to say marijuana is not the kind of thing that ought to be legalized, it ought not to be minimized, that it's in fact a very real danger.
I think one of [President Obama's] great failures, it's obvious to me, is his lax treatment in comments on marijuana... It reverses 20 years almost of hostility to drugs that began really when Nancy Reagan started 'Just Say No.
You can't have the President of the United States of America talking about marijuana like it is no different than taking a drink... It is different... It is already causing a disturbance in the states that have made it legal.
Good people don't smoke marijuana.
Cannabis advocates are becoming increasingly paranoid about the federal government's stance towards the states (and a certain District) that have legalized cannabis. And this is following an Obama administration that was criticized for conducting raids in states with legalization. It is too early to tell how the Trump administration will choose to deal with cannabis, but there are signs that harsher policies and greater enforcement could be coming:
On Wednesday, [April 5th,] Jeff Sessions directed Justice Department lawyers to evaluate marijuana enforcement policy and send him recommendations. And some state officials are worried. This week the governors of Alaska, Colorado, Oregon and Washington wrote the attorney general. They asked Sessions and the new Treasury secretary to consult with them before making any changes to regulations or enforcement.
At the White House, press secretary Sean Spicer said recently that the president is sympathetic to people who use marijuana for medical reasons. He pointed out that Congress has acted to bar the Justice Department from using federal money to interfere in state medical cannabis programs. But Spicer took a harsh view of recreational marijuana. "When you see something like the opioid addiction crisis blossoming in so many states around this country, the last thing we need to be doing is encouraging people. There is still a federal law we need to abide by," Spicer said.
Really, Spicer? Recreational cannabis use shouldn't be encouraged during an opioid addiction crisis? Read on.
Politics nexus unavailable for comment.
The Opioid Crisis Drags On (it's relevant)
Heroin use has become more dangerous as dealers have increasingly added other substances that massively increase potency without affecting the size of a dose significantly. Carfentanil, which is used as an elephant tranquilizer, has led to hundreds of deaths over very short timespans. It is impossible for the average user to predict the potency and potential danger of street heroin. While there have been international responses to these compounds, new chemical analogues are being created all the time:
Chinese labs producing the synthetic opiates play hide-and-seek with authorities. On their websites, they list fake addresses in derelict shopping centers or shuttered factories, and use third-party sales agents to conduct transactions that are hard to trace. The drugs themselves are easy to find with a Google search and to buy with a few mouse clicks. A recent check found more than a dozen Chinese sites advertising fentanyl, carfentanil, and other derivatives, often labeled as "research chemicals," for sale through direct mail shipments to the United States. On one website, carfentanil goes for $361 for 50 grams: tens of thousands of lethal doses.
The cat-and-mouse game extends to chemistry, as the makers tinker with fentanyl itself. Minor modifications like adding an oxygen atom or shifting a methyl group can be enough to create whole new entities that are no longer on the list of sanctioned compounds. Carfentanil itself was, until recently, unregulated in China.
2016 saw the addition of kratom to Schedule I of the Controlled Substances Act in the U.S. Advocates for the tree leaf drug, which was formerly classified as a supplement, believe that its painkiller effects and low risk factors make it a useful replacement for the oft-deadly opioids that millions of Americans are addicted to. Kratom users have treated their pain and opioid withdrawal symptoms using the formerly "legal high". The DEA has refused to acknowledge this application and points out the "skyrocketing" number of calls to the Poison Control Center regarding kratom in recent years. One skeptic of kratom, Dr. Josh Bloom of the American Council on Science and Health, has looked at the same evidence and concluded that the trail of bodies left by substances like fentanyl and the scarce number of deaths (perhaps wrongly) attributed to kratom make it clear that the substance is the better "poison". He also notes that:
The number of calls to poison control centers is not reliable for determining how many poisonings actually occurred. It is a crude approximation at best.
Much like kratom, medical cannabis has been touted as a solution to the opioid crisis. States with legalized medical cannabis have seen a reduction in reported instances of opioid dependence [DOI: 10.1016/j.drugalcdep.2017.01.006] [DX] So it is puzzling that White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer would use opioids as a bludgeon against cannabis legalization while AG Sessions expresses astonishment over the suggestion of using cannabis as a "cure" for the opioid crisis.
Bonus: Here's a video (2m14s) of a woman getting administered Narcan/naloxone. Here's an alternate video (2m39s) in which a man who overdosed on heroin is able to sit up in about a minute after being administered naloxone.
⚚ The Slow March for Science ⚕
While the Drug Enforcement Agency has refused to reclassify cannabis from its current Schedule I status, citing the supposedly rigorous conclusions reached by the Food and Drug Administration, it will allow more than one institution to grow cannabis for research purposes, ending the monopoly held by the University of Mississippi. However, the Schedule I status of cannabis remains an impediment to further research:
[...] DEA's decision not to reschedule marijuana presents a Catch-22. By ruling that there is not enough evidence of "currently accepted medical use"—a key distinction between the highly restrictive Schedule I classification and the less restrictive Schedule II—the administration essentially makes it harder to gather such evidence.
"They're setting a standard that can't be met," says David Bradford, a health economist at the University of Georgia, Athens. "That level of proof is never going to be forthcoming in the current environment because it requires doing a really extensive clinical trial series, and given that a pharmaceutical company can't patent whole plant marijuana, it's in no company's interest to do that."
Schedule I status presents obstacles for clinical researchers because of restrictions on how the drugs must be stored and handled, Bradford says. Perhaps more significant, that listing may evoke skittishness at funding agencies and on the institutional review boards that must sign off on research involving human subjects.
Researchers have disparaged the quality and potency as well as the appearance and odor of the University of Mississippi's cannabis products:
"It doesn't resemble cannabis. It doesn't smell like cannabis," Sisley told PBS NewsHour last week.
Jake Browne, a cannabis critic for the Denver Post's Cannabist marijuana news site, agrees. "That is, flat out, not a usable form of cannabis," he said. Browne should know: He's reviewed dozens of strains professionally and is running a sophisticated marijuana growing competition called the Grow-Off.
"In two decades of smoking weed, I've never seen anything that looks like that," Browne said. "People typically smoke the flower of the plant, but here you can clearly see stems and leaves in there as well, parts that should be discarded. Inhaling that would be like eating an apple, including the seeds inside it and the branch it grew on."
Research on cannabinoids and psychedelics is proceeding, slowly. One study published yesterday (74 years after the first LSD trip) came to an astounding conclusion: Psychedelics can induce a "heightened state of consciousness":
Healthy volunteers who received LSD, ketamine or psilocybin, a compound found in magic mushrooms, were found to have more random brain activity than normal while under the influence, according to a study into the effects of the drugs. The shift in brain activity accompanied a host of peculiar sensations that the participants said ranged from floating and finding inner peace, to distortions in time and a conviction that the self was disintegrating.
[...] What we find is that under each of these psychedelic compounds, this specific measure of global conscious level goes up, so it moves in the other direction. The neural activity becomes more unpredictable," said Anil Seth, a professor of neuroscience at the University of Sussex. "Until now, we've only ever seen decreases compared to the baseline of the normal waking state."
Inconceivable!
Increased spontaneous MEG signal diversity for psychoactive doses of ketamine, LSD and psilocybin (open, DOI: 10.1038/srep46421) (DX)
♯ Ending on High Notes ♯
And now to scrape the bottom of the barrel:
- Americans Don't Care If Their Parents Know They Smoke Weed, Survey Says
- California Today: At Newspapers, Covering Pot Like Wine (archive)
- Nation's first public needle vending machine for drug users debuts in Las Vegas
- GRiZ Won the Celebrity Weed Game Without Selling Out
- Secret A.T.F. Account Paid for $21,000 Nascar Suite and Las Vegas Trip (archive)
- Legal Marijuana Ends at Airport Security, Even if It's Rarely Stopped (archive)
- Anti-Heroin Video From a Florida Sheriff Appalls Critics but Impresses Constituents (archive)
New Jersey Senator Cory Booker has introduced a bill (alt) that has been described by Marijuana Majority as the most far-reaching marijuana bill ever filed in either chamber of Congress. It would legalize cannabis federally by removing "marihuana" and tetrahydrocannabinols from Schedule I of the Controlled Substances Act. But it would go much further by withholding money from states with racially or financially disparate arrest and incarceration rates for cannabis-related crimes (effectively all states where cannabis is illegal):
The bill would legalize marijuana at the federal level and withhold federal money for building jails and prisons, along with other funds, from states whose cannabis laws are shown to disproportionately incarcerate minorities.
Under the legislation, federal convictions for marijuana use and possession would be expunged and prisoners serving time for a marijuana offense would be entitled to a sentencing hearing.
Those "aggrieved" by a disproportionate arrest or imprisonment rate would be able to sue, according to the bill. And a Community Reinvestment Fund would be established to "reinvest in communities most affected by the war on drugs" for everything from re-entry programs to public libraries.
Booker says that he will work towards bipartisan support for the bill.
Serious legalization attempt or just advertising for a 2020 U.S. Presidential Campaign?
An fMRI study has found evidence of a reduction in depressive symptoms after treatment with psilocybin:
A hallucinogen found in magic mushrooms can "reset" the brains of people with untreatable depression, raising hopes of a future treatment, scans suggest.
The small study gave 19 patients a single dose of the psychedelic ingredient psilocybin. Half of patients ceased to be depressed and experienced changes in their brain activity that lasted about five weeks.
However, the team at Imperial College London says people should not self-medicate.
There has been a series of small studies suggesting psilocybin could have a role in depression by acting as a "lubricant for the mind" that allows people to escape a cycle of depressive symptoms. But the precise impact it might be having on brain activity was not known.
Psilocybin for treatment-resistant depression: fMRI-measured brain mechanisms (open, DOI: 10.1038/s41598-017-13282-7) (DX)
64% of Americans now support the legalization of cannabis, an all-time high since Gallup first asked the question in 1969. Also for the first time, a majority of Republicans (51%) support legalization, up from 42% last year:
As efforts to legalize marijuana at the state level continue to yield successes, public opinion, too, has shifted toward greater support. The Department of Justice under the current Republican administration has been perceived as hostile to state-level legalization. But Attorney General Jeff Sessions could find himself out of step with his own party if the current trends continue. Rank-and-file Republicans' views on the issue have evolved just as Democrats' and independents' have, though Republicans remain least likely to support legalizing pot.
Also at NPR, The Hill, NORML, and Reason.
Related: New Attorney General Claims Legal Weed Drives Violent Crime; Statistics be Damned
4/20: The Third Time's Not the Charm
Opioid commission's anti-marijuana argument stirs anger
New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, head of the presidential commission on opioids, warned of the dangers of marijuana in a letter to President Donald Trump earlier this month about the panel's findings, saying the current push for marijuana legalization could further fuel the opioid epidemic.
"There is a lack of sophisticated outcome data on dose, potency, and abuse potential for marijuana. This mirrors the lack of data in the 1990s and early 2000s when opioid prescribing multiplied across health care settings and led to the current epidemic of abuse, misuse and addiction," Christie wrote in the letter, which was released with the commission's final report.
"The Commission urges that the same mistake is not made with the uninformed rush to put another drug legally on the market in the midst of an overdose epidemic."
[...] But some experts say the commission's fixation on marijuana was bizarre and troubling, lending credence to outdated views of marijuana as a gateway drug. And these experts want to nip such thinking in the bud.
They emphasized that they support efforts to curb the nation's opioid epidemic, but not the demonization of marijuana in the process.
"I was surprised to see negative language about marijuana in the opioid report," said Dr. Chinazo Cunningham, a professor of medicine at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine. "Research that examines pain and marijuana shows that marijuana use significantly reduces pain. In addition, the majority of studies examining marijuana and opioids show that marijuana use is associated with less opioid use and less opioid-related deaths."
You had one job.
Previously:
Study Finds That Legalized Medical Cannabis Led to a Decline in Medicare Prescriptions
New Attorney General Claims Legal Weed Drives Violent Crime; Statistics be Damned
4/20: The Third Time's Not the Charm
Jeff Sessions Reboots the Drug War
President Trump Declares the Opioid Crisis a National Emergency
According to Gallup, American Support for Cannabis Legalization is at an All-Time High
Opioid Crisis Official; Insys Therapeutics Billionaire Founder Charged; Walgreens Stocks Narcan
FDA Blocks More Imports of Kratom, Warns Against Use as a Treatment for Opioid Withdrawal
California launches legal sale of cannabis for recreational use
California will launch the world's largest regulated commercial market for recreational marijuana on Monday, as dozens of newly licensed stores catering to adults who enjoy the drug for its psychoactive effects open for business up and down the state.
It becomes the sixth U.S. state, and by far the most populous, venturing beyond legalized medical marijuana to permit the sale of cannabis products of all types to customers at least 21 years old.
Colorado, Washington, Oregon, Alaska and Nevada were the first to introduce recreational pot sales on a state-regulated, licensed and taxed basis. Massachusetts and Maine are on track to follow suit later this year.
With California and its 39.5 million residents officially joining the pack, more than one-in-five Americans now live in states where recreational marijuana is legal for purchase, even though cannabis remains classified as an illegal narcotic under U.S. law.
The marijuana market in California alone, which boasts the world's sixth-largest economy, is valued by most experts at several billion dollars annually and is expected to generate at least a $1 billion a year in tax revenue.
- All Politics — and Cannabis Marketing — Are Local (Study: Washington, Colorado Provide Insight for California)
- California preps for pot-infused fare, from wine to tacos
- As California legalizes pot, laws collide at US checkpoints
- Medley of agencies tasked with enforcing California pot laws
- The Failed War on Drugs
- Legal recreational pot in California: What you need to know
- New year brings broad pot legalization to California
- Latest: Confusion for LA dispensaries as legal pot begins
- California pot shops ring in 2018, ring up first legal sales
FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb has released a new statement denouncing the drug kratom. The statement says that the FDA has learned about new deaths that "involved" kratom use, additional adverse effects associated with its use have been found, and that Public Health Assessment via Structural Evaluation (PHASE) "3-D computer technology" has been used to analyze the chemical compounds in kratom:
Using this computational model, scientists at the FDA first analyzed the chemical structures of the 25 most prevalent compounds in kratom. From this analysis, the agency concluded that all of the compounds share the most structural similarities with controlled opioid analgesics, such as morphine derivatives.
The FDA continues to discourage the use of kratom, which it is calling an opioid.
At this time, the CDC recommends that people not consume kratom in any form because it could be contaminated with salmonella:
An outbreak of 28 salmonella infections in 20 states has been linked to kratom products, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said in a statement Tuesday. Though no deaths have been reported, 11 people have been hospitalized.
[...] California had the highest number of salmonella cases (three). North Carolina, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania and Utah each reported two cases while Alabama, Arizona, Colorado, Florida, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Michigan, North Dakota, New York, South Carolina and Tennessee each reported a single case, the CDC found.
Kratom should not be consumed in any form, the CDC said, because the source of salmonella contamination has not been identified.
Also at The Verge, STAT News, and CBS.
Previously: DEA Welcomes Kratom to the Schedule I List Beginning September 30
The Calm Before the Kratom Ban
FDA Blocks More Imports of Kratom, Warns Against Use as a Treatment for Opioid Withdrawal
FDA Labels Kratom an Opioid
Related: Opioid Commission Drops the Ball, Demonizes Cannabis
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell will introduce a bill to legalize the production of hemp by removing it from the list of controlled substances. The Hemp Farming Act of 2018 would remove the need for a federal permit to grow hemp. Since 2014, the federal farm bill (Agricultural Act of 2014) has allowed state agricultural departments to designate hemp projects for research purposes, with 34 states subsequently authorizing research and production occurring in 19:
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) announced a new bill on Monday that would legalize hemp as an agricultural product.
The Hemp Farming Act of 2018 would legalize hemp, removing it from the federal list of controlled substances and allowing it to be sold as an agricultural commodity, according to WKYT.
"Hemp has played a foundational role in Kentucky's agriculture heritage, and I believe that it can be an important part of our future," McConnell said in a statement.
See also: McConnell looks to complete hemp's comeback as crop
Hemp gains powerful ally to free it from marijuana ties
Marijuana legalization could help offset opioid epidemic, studies find
Experts have proposed using medical marijuana to help Americans struggling with opioid addiction. Now, two studies suggest that there is merit to that strategy.
The studies, published Monday in the journal JAMA Internal Medicine [open, DOI: 10.1001/jamainternmed.2018.0266] [DX], compared opioid prescription patterns in states that have enacted medical cannabis laws with those that have not. One of the studies looked at opioid prescriptions covered by Medicare Part D between 2010 and 2015, while the other looked at opioid prescriptions covered by Medicaid between 2011 and 2016.
The researchers found that states that allow the use of cannabis for medical purposes had 2.21 million fewer daily doses of opioids prescribed per year under Medicare Part D, compared with those states without medical cannabis laws. Opioid prescriptions under Medicaid also dropped by 5.88% in states with medical cannabis laws compared with states without such laws, according to the studies.
"This study adds one more brick in the wall in the argument that cannabis clearly has medical applications," said David Bradford, professor of public administration and policy at the University of Georgia and a lead author of the Medicare study. "And for pain patients in particular, our work adds to the argument that cannabis can be effective."
Also at the Washington Post.
Association of Medical and Adult-Use Marijuana Laws With Opioid Prescribing for Medicaid Enrollees (open, DOI: 10.1001/jamainternmed.2018.1007) (DX)
Previously:
Study: Legal Weed Far Better Than Drug War at Stopping Opioid Overdose Epidemic
Opioid Commission Drops the Ball, Demonizes Cannabis
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has issued its first-ever mandatory recall for kratom-containing "food products", because the company selling them did not comply with the agency's request for a voluntary recall:
FDA orders kratom product recall over Salmonella; first such mandatory move in history
Federal drug regulators issued their first-ever mandatory recall Tuesday to a company selling several products containing the herbal supplement kratom and contaminated with Salmonella.
The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) said it issued the order because Triangle Pharmanaturals of Las Vegas refused to cooperate.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said last month that the kratom Salmonella outbreak was linked to 11 hospitalizations among 28 people who caught the strain.
The FDA is advising consumers to discard the products that are part of the mandatory recall, which it says include, but isn't limited to: Raw Form Organics Maeng Da Kratom Emerald Green, Raw Form Organics Maeng Da Kratom Ivory White, and Raw Form Organics Maeng Da Kratom Ruby Red. The company, which promotes itself as a consulting firm, may "manufacture, process, pack and/or hold additional brands of food products containing powdered kratom, FDA says.
Related:
FDA Blocks More Imports of Kratom, Warns Against Use as a Treatment for Opioid Withdrawal
FDA Labels Kratom an Opioid
CDC Warns of Salmonella Infections Linked to Kratom
Medical Marijuana's 'Catch-22': Limits On Research Hinders Patient Relief
By the time Ann Marie Owen, 61, turned to marijuana to treat her pain, she was struggling to walk and talk. She was also hallucinating. For four years, her doctor prescribed a wide range of opioids for transverse myelitis, a debilitating disease that caused pain, muscle weakness and paralysis. The drugs not only failed to ease her symptoms, they hooked her.
When her home state of New York legalized marijuana for the treatment of select medical ailments, Owens decided it was time to swap pills for pot. But her doctors refused to help. "Even though medical marijuana is legal, none of my doctors were willing to talk to me about it," she says. "They just kept telling me to take opioids."
Although 29 states have legalized marijuana to treat pain and other ailments, the growing number of Americans like Owen who use marijuana and the doctors who treat them are caught in the middle of a conflict in federal and state laws — a predicament that is only worsened by thin scientific data.
Because the federal government considers marijuana a Schedule 1 drug, research on marijuana or its active ingredients is highly restricted and even discouraged in some cases. Underscoring the federal government's position, Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar recently pronounced that there was "no such thing as medical marijuana."
President Trump has promised Senator Cory Gardner of Colorado that he will support states that choose to legalize cannabis, despite rescinding the Cole Memo earlier in the year. In exchange, Gardner will stop holding up the confirmation of Trump's Department of Justice nominees:
"Since the campaign, President Trump has consistently supported states' rights to decide for themselves how best to approach marijuana," Gardner said in a statement. "Late Wednesday, I received a commitment from the President that the Department of Justice's rescission of the Cole memo will not impact Colorado's legal marijuana industry. Because of these commitments, I have informed the Administration that I will be lifting my remaining holds on Department of Justice nominees," Gardner added.
The Washington Post first reported the development, and the White House confirmed on Friday Gardner's statement was accurate.
In January, Attorney General Jeff Sessions revoked the Cole Memo, Obama-era guidance designed to discourage prosecutors from targeting states that have legalized marijuana. The move provoked an outcry from marijuana friendly states, including Gardner's Colorado, in which the marijuana industry has flourished since 2000. Angry that Sessions had reneged on his pledge to leave marijuana states alone, Gardner promised to block all DOJ nominations, pending a resolution. Since then, he has held up about 20 Justice nominations, the Washington Post reported.
The news caused a surge in the stocks of some cannabis companies.
Meanwhile, former Speaker of the House John Boehner, who was "unalterably opposed" to legalization of cannabis back in 2011, has now evolved and is seeing green. Boehner announced that he has joined a board of advisers for Acreage Holdings, a cannabis corporation operating in 11 states. Is it a "watershed moment" for the industry?
Ketamine could become an approved treatment for depression in the UK soon:
Ketamine has 'fast-acting benefits' for depression
Ketamine has "shown promise" in the rapid treatment of major depression and suicidal thoughts, a US study says. Ketamine has a reputation as a party drug but is licensed as an anaesthetic. The study found use of the drug via a nasal spray led to "significant" improvements in depressive symptoms in the first 24 hours. The Royal College of Psychiatrists said it was a "significant" study that brought the drug "a step closer to being prescribed on the NHS".
The report by researchers from Janssen Research and Development, a Johnson and Johnson company, and Yale School of Medicine, is the first study into ketamine as a treatment for depression that has been done by a drug company.
[...] The study found those using esketamine had a much greater improvement in depression symptoms at all points over the first four weeks of treatment. However, at 25 days the effects had levelled out. The study's authors suggest it could offer an effective rapid treatment for people severely depressed and at imminent risk of suicide and could help in the initial stages of treatment, as most anti-depressants take four to six weeks to become fully effective.
Also at Medical Daily.
Efficacy and Safety of Intranasal Esketamine for the Rapid Reduction of Symptoms of Depression and Suicidality in Patients at Imminent Risk for Suicide: Results of a Double-Blind, Randomized, Placebo-Controlled Study (DOI: 10.1176/appi.ajp.2018.17060720) (DX)
Can a Framework Be Established for the Safe Use of Ketamine? (DOI: 10.1176/appi.ajp.2018.18030290) (DX)
Related: FDA Designates MDMA as a "Breakthrough Therapy" for PTSD; Approves Phase 3 Trials
Study Suggests Psilocybin "Resets" the Brains of Depressed People
Ketamine Reduces Suicidal Thoughts in Depressed Patients
Studies Identify How Ketamine Can Reverse Symptoms of Depression
Over Years, Depression Changes the Brain, new Study Shows
UC San Diego to use controversial marijuana compound to treat severe autism
UC San Diego will try to alleviate severe autism in children by giving them a non-psychoactive chemical found in marijuana, a project funded by the biggest private donation ever made in the U.S. for such research.
The $4.7 million study involves the controversial compound cannabidiol, or CBD, which is widely marketed nationwide as something of a miracle drug, capable of treating everything from cancer to post-traumatic stress disorder.
[...] UC San Diego dealt with the issue by asking the Ray and Tye Noorda Foundation of Lindon, Utah, for $4.7 million to study whether CBD can ease the most severe symptoms of autism, including seizures, self-injuring behavior, and crippling anxiety. The foundation agreed, and it is urging the federal government to remove marijuana from its list of Schedule 1 drugs so that cannabis can be widely studied.
Related: 4/20: The Mary Jane Majority
US experts back marijuana-based drug for childhood seizures
Recreational cannabis is now legal in Canada... to a point. Here are some ground rules:
Adults of at least 18 years old will be allowed to carry and share up to 30 grams of legal marijuana in public, according to a bill that passed the Senate in June. They will also be allowed to cultivate up to four plants in their households and make products such as edibles for personal use.
[...] The supply of recreational marijuana could be limited, at least early on, in some stores. Officials in Nova Scotia and Manitoba said they won't have a large selection, at least not on the first day, CNN affiliate CBC News reported. [...] Marijuana will not be sold in the same location as alcohol or tobacco. Consumers are expected to purchase the drug from retailers regulated by provinces and territories or from federally licensed producers when those options are not available.
[...] Authorities will soon announce plans to pardon Canadians who have been convicted with possession of 30 grams or less of marijuana, CNN partner CTV reported. The production, distribution or sale of cannabis products will still be an offense for minors.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Friday April 20 2018, @11:20PM (5 children)
More fuel for your fire:
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(Score: 0, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 21 2018, @12:22AM (4 children)
Takyon... dude. Your DANK link is so unpleasant I'm going to have to spend all day tomorrow washing the ear cack away, that was like an audible goatse. You need to step your game up, like, do you even internet brah? [youtube.com]
(Score: 2) by takyon on Saturday April 21 2018, @12:30AM (1 child)
Are traps gay?
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(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 21 2018, @12:31AM
Mark says no :P
(Score: 3, Touché) by takyon on Saturday April 21 2018, @12:59AM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gc6caVIHPcg [youtube.com]
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(Score: 1) by Ethanol-fueled on Saturday April 21 2018, @01:39AM
OWWWWWW! My ears! Oh, it HURTS! The HUMANITY!
(Score: 3, Insightful) by SomeGuy on Friday April 20 2018, @11:52PM (2 children)
Now can work on making the pointless abuse of unicode illegal?
Here, have an old fashioned ASCII :P
(Score: 3, Informative) by takyon on Friday April 20 2018, @11:57PM
It's like, the new Egyptian, man.
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(Score: 2) by DannyB on Monday April 23 2018, @02:24PM
We need to be encouraging the use of pointless unicode.
The proposed new UTF-512 character encoding encodes each character into 64 bytes (or 512 bits).
This is a big enough character space that 2^64 characters can be used for characters whose glyphs look like 8x8 grids, with every possible combination of black and white grid cells. Thus there will be character symbols that resemble characters from a forgotten 8 bit world.
And emojis! Let's not forget the poor emojis! There will be emojis for every possible way you can feel. For every flavor of birthday cake! For every kind of caffeineated beverage! For every one of the 87 (or is it now 89) genders! There will be an individual emoji for every living person on earth, so that nobody feels left out -- a trophy for participation, as it were.
Fonts could contain a character glyph for every single one-second possibility of the three hands of round face clocks. Thus you could update a clock every second, on a simple text display through ssh by simply updating one character in the corner to the next second-hand position of the clock.
The character space of UTF-512 has almost unlimitated possibilities. All of the Klingon, Romulan, Cardassian, Narn, Centiari, Minbari, Vorlon and other language alphabets could be included into fonts.
And bestest of all, a committee could double all this by simply proposing UTF-513.
The people who rely on government handouts and refuse to work should be kicked out of congress.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by khallow on Saturday April 21 2018, @12:29AM (2 children)
(Score: 3, Funny) by TheGratefulNet on Saturday April 21 2018, @01:18AM (1 child)
I ran over a threshold this winter.
yeah, me too. needed new tires after that.
"It is now safe to switch off your computer."
(Score: 1) by khallow on Saturday April 21 2018, @01:42AM
(Score: 4, Interesting) by snufu on Saturday April 21 2018, @01:07AM (6 children)
Rebels who got blazed every day just to "stick it to the man" through their subversive illegal act of protest. Now they are the equivalent of the town drunk.
(Score: 3, Funny) by takyon on Saturday April 21 2018, @01:09AM
G_d is my co-pilot and Boehner is my budtender.
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(Score: 0, Flamebait) by Ethanol-fueled on Saturday April 21 2018, @01:45AM (2 children)
I can't smoke for reasons :(
But yeah, there's nothing worse to the cause of legal weed than chronic stoners. Especially people who go to work high. Which is okay if you're stocking shelves or flipping burgers. Not okay for designing and building baby-killing weapons systems.
Gary Johnson's Marihuana addiction is one of the reasons why I voted for Trump instead. Did you see that guy's last interview? He was giggling off his ass every 5 seconds and saying that open borders was a good idea. Even stoned Mexicans don't believe that. And all Mexicans are stoners.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Saturday April 21 2018, @03:33AM
Maybe Gary Johnson giggles at the sound of his own name?
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(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 21 2018, @03:52PM
Stupid as ever. You don't need weed to come across dumb.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 21 2018, @04:55PM (1 child)
Time to stop smoking and find something else to do, I guess.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 21 2018, @10:07PM
heroin.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 21 2018, @01:49AM (2 children)
Legalization is a no-brainer for countless reasons, or even if only for the reduced strain on the legal/penal system here in the land of the free which has the largest prison population in the world (not per capita, but for reals). But the closer it gets to reality, the more I consider what the other side of the sword will cut. Will the uplifting social benefits of legality outweigh the loss of the unique social structure that emerged under the pressure of black market trade (and under a specific pharmacological influence), the collapse of which is sure to follow the legion of mom n pop growers inevitably being crushed by big business? What is the value of perhaps the only market that is not primarily motivated by hoarding as much currency as possible, to nail that quarterly growth figure? (Granted, there's enough money flowing in for a typical person to be plenty satisfied). What are we losing with the only large market that more or less necessitates an actual social connection to another nearby human for trade to occur? What might it cost, to have recreational mind alteration more tightly coupled to the pursuit of profit by organizations too large to suffer the oppression of morality and ethics endemic to small groups of normal humans? Would "decriminalization" make any less of a mess?
Big picture wise, legalizing marijuana alone is the most watered down version of a better play; if it stops funneling money to whichever extranational cartel proves the most ruthless and power hungry, facilitates the identification and treatment of addiction, enables regulation of the potency and quality per adulterants, and etc., then it's probably an improvement... opioid epidemic notwithstanding.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Saturday April 21 2018, @02:07AM
Corporatization of cannabis culture is a concern, but at the end of the day, people could grow their own under new state laws (and it's unlikely 6 plant limits and the like are going to be strictly enforced), and possibly organize with others to create a coffee shop level business or small grow operation.
Already, cryptocurrency markets like Silk Road, Agora, etc. have shown people a way to get their hands on illegal drugs without needing a social connection (cue the "I can't get weed because I'm antisocial" Anonymous Coward). Whether or not it becomes easier or harder to operate such a market now that the feds are sniffing around remains to be seen.
People still demand other drugs, like MDMA, cocaine, LSD, etc. Even if all drugs are decriminalized eventually, we are unlikely to see a friendly and mainstream taxed marketplace for most of them like we see with cannabis, alcohol, and caffeine.
The societal benefits of legalizing cannabis are clear, and you touch on some good ones. What chemicals/pesticides were people getting along with their weed 20 years ago, compared to today?
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(Score: 3, Insightful) by fyngyrz on Saturday April 21 2018, @02:46AM
Well. Look at alcohol; many mom-and-pop businesses (moonshiners, basically) were crushed by fine liquors and other high quality products. And fewer people went blind as a result.
Which eventually led back to craft beers and so forth as the people (as opposed to the corporations) realized that large-scale production would inevitably miss out on countless variations, and those niche products were marketable, if they were made with care.
I think it'll be okay. I'd just as soon know that my SO isn't smoking up something dusted by... angels...
A little regulation and care isn't a bad idea, really. I'll take the win for personal liberty and call it good for now.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Saturday April 21 2018, @02:06AM (3 children)
We can't stop a war! War on drugs, war on poverty, war on education, war on stupid, war, war, war! If we stop warring against MJ, we'll lose money somehow!
It's hard to believe we've come this far. As a youth, or a young man, I wouldn't have believed anyone who told me that marijuana would one day be legal.
(Score: 2, Funny) by realDonaldTrump on Saturday April 21 2018, @02:30AM
Can you believe that despite 93% bad stories from the Fake News Media (should be getting good stories), today we had just about our highest Poll Numbers, including those on Election Day? Rasmussen just came out at 51% Approval despite the Fake News Media. They were one of the three most accurate on Election Day. Just about the most inaccurate were CNN and ABC News/Washington Post, and they haven’t changed (get new pollsters). Much of the media is a Scam! The American public is wise to the phony & dishonest press. Make America Great Again!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 21 2018, @10:09PM (1 child)
MJ died. We won that war.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Saturday April 21 2018, @10:43PM
No, we haven't won the war on kiddie diddlers. Visit the dark nets.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Saturday April 21 2018, @02:21AM (9 children)
Willie Nelson bless Chuck's pointy little head. It's about time Republicans started seeing at least a few issues through the small government lens. I mean, it's only one of the core bits of their stated platform.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 3, Informative) by takyon on Saturday April 21 2018, @03:03AM (6 children)
Chuck is a Democrat. Pretty high up in the Dem food chain right now, in fact. He's otherwise known for being related to Amy Schumer [wikipedia.org].
Or did I just get woosh'd hard?
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(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Saturday April 21 2018, @03:18AM (2 children)
Naw, I just got him confused with a different nimrod.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 21 2018, @05:05PM (1 child)
After that I'd be hesitant to throw out accusations bird brain!
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Saturday April 21 2018, @05:42PM
You saying there's any significant difference between a career Douchebag and a career Retard? That's funny.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by cubancigar11 on Saturday April 21 2018, @05:07PM (2 children)
So it is possible to get so high you find Amy Schumer funny.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Saturday April 21 2018, @05:16PM (1 child)
Are you saying this is an elaborate plot by a sitting U.S. Senator to invigorate his cousin's comedy career?
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(Score: 2) by cubancigar11 on Sunday April 22 2018, @02:56AM
Isn't that what you meant by "high up"?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 21 2018, @03:15AM (1 child)
It's very likely just a coincidence this has anything to do with small government. Stopped watch effect.
I wonder if the elites think they can have World War 3 without those pesky protests by placating hippies with legal weed. I also wonder if they're right.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Saturday April 21 2018, @03:32AM
Or the Seeing Dollar Signs effect: The (legal) cannabis industry is apparently several times bigger than the whiskey industry [thehill.com] despite being confined to a handful of states and having to stuff cash under the mattress.
Which is why the other anon fretting about Big Weed coming in and controlling everything is right to do so. Elites want their cut.
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(Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 21 2018, @03:35AM (6 children)
If there aren't pardons for every single person convicted of possession / trafficking, it's just a scam. Whitey with the big bucks to invest gets to make a profit, but the Hispanics and African Americans (disproportionately charged, tried, convicted, and incarcerated) are, as felons, prohibited from legit getting into the business. Anyone /not/ calling for full pardons? We knows you is a racist shithead, and when you look in the mirror there's a racist shithead.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Saturday April 21 2018, @03:53AM (3 children)
It probably won't happen (the closest you get is the number of commutations/pardons from Obama), and the reasoning will be something along the lines of "They knew what they were doing was illegal but chose to do it anyway". Or: "The real crime was TAX EVASION".
Even if there were a clean slate and all the criminal records were expunged (including ones where there were other offenses, including violence), blacks and hispanics would still have less money to invest and would end up controlling a smaller portion of the industry. 3 of the Fortune 500 CEOs are black [fortune.com], black home ownership is under 50% [nareb.com] compared to ~72% for whites, median income [cnn.com] is lower, median black household wealth is about 8% of whites (10% for hispanics), etc. etc. The die is cast. Having wealth now means you are more likely to have wealth later, so the inequality could exist indefinitely... until civilization as we know it collapses or ascends to a post-money utopia.
But there is no clean slate for most. Ex-felon drug dealers will have trouble securing capital and entering the cannabis industry, even though they have business skills that they put to use in the real world.
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(Score: 1, Troll) by chromas on Saturday April 21 2018, @07:47AM (2 children)
This calls for reparations! Give up your unearned shekels of white colonialist privilege unto my black African American ass of color.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 21 2018, @05:08PM
*whistles*
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 21 2018, @10:12PM
Earn it.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Whoever on Saturday April 21 2018, @04:40AM
Don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good.
Legalize now (or, rather, allow the States to legalize), then perhaps later issue pardons.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 21 2018, @05:31PM
regular people don't think about race in regards to drug laws, but i guess that's racist too. fuck you. how bout that?
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Whoever on Saturday April 21 2018, @03:41AM (7 children)
This is so obviously a winning policy for whichever party embraces it. Making cannabis regulation a state issue allows those red states who hate their population to continue to ban it. No enforced legalization, so no lost votes. There is no downside.
It speaks volumes about how incompetent the Democrats are that they haven't embraced it earlier.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Saturday April 21 2018, @04:18AM (6 children)
Cannabis prohibition has been a national disgrace. There have been plenty of national disgraces, but it's always annoying to be living during an ongoing one (or several at once). The Democrats' slow evolution on this issue continues to be shameful, and reminds of the gay marriage issue (which ultimately got resolved by the Supremes instead of Congress). Congress as a whole has been content to kick the can-nabis down the road, despite so many states legalizing medical use, flouting federal law.
I predict most Republican Congressmen will steer clear of the issue for now, despite the 51% support among Republicans (probably higher if measured again today). If prominent Republicans flipped early, perhaps they could convince Republican voters to follow and change their minds on the issue. Is a Republican going to stay home on Election Day because their party supports cannabis? It's not abortion we're talking about. Trump's core supporters are more likely to be hurt by the opioid epidemic [npr.org], and plenty of them support cannabis legalization [cbsnews.com].
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(Score: 2) by Whoever on Saturday April 21 2018, @04:38AM (5 children)
The trick is to portray it as a States' rights issue. Don't explicitly make Cannabis legal, but defer the issue to individual States. Then it becomes possible for Republicans to support it.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Saturday April 21 2018, @04:44AM (4 children)
That's what this legislation does. Decriminalizes rather than legalizes, and allows states to make their own rules. Except that it's a states' rights bill for Democrats rather than Republicans. This could have been achieved years ago, but it is unclear that it will happen even now. And it's unlikely that there will be a veto-proof majority, so President Trump has to dip his pen in the ink for it to take effect.
>the current year
>still debating this issue
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(Score: 4, Insightful) by Whoever on Saturday April 21 2018, @04:56AM (2 children)
Maybe that's what the Dems are hoping for: Congress passes the bill and Trump vetoes it.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 21 2018, @03:30PM (1 child)
The same president who is basically doing the same as the previous two and 'let the states handle it'. Seriously doubt that would get a veto.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Saturday April 21 2018, @03:35PM
It depends on how much ear time Jeff "Mean Keebler" Sessions gets with the President.
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(Score: 2) by realDonaldTrump on Saturday April 21 2018, @07:16AM
I like to do some things the old fashioned way. And some modern. President Clinton (Bill), Bush Jr. & Obama -- when he started out -- got one thing right. Cross Townsend Rollerball. No more fountain pens!!!
(Score: 1) by ripvanwinkle on Saturday April 21 2018, @09:36AM (4 children)
Why did they pick exactly this day? For someone from Europe this seems very strange because the 20th of April is Adolf Hitler´s birthday and only celebrated by nazis..
(Score: 2) by takyon on Saturday April 21 2018, @10:00AM (3 children)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/420_(cannabis_culture) [wikipedia.org]
Why did Hitler's mom pick that day to give birth?
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(Score: 1) by ripvanwinkle on Saturday April 21 2018, @11:12AM (2 children)
Thanks, aware of that. Nice anecdote, 4:20.
Fun fact: German saying: Kein Bier vor Vier
Rhymes in German and means No Beer before 4pm
Still, in most_of_world there is a connotation to Hitler, and that's no day to celebrate..
Seems pretty inconsiderate (imprudent, ignorant if not illiterate)
scnr
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 21 2018, @03:35PM (1 child)
I love the hitler fact about 4/20. It winds up the potheads every single time. Good troll by the way. They swoop in to defend the 'history of it'. When the truth is they just want to get high.
From the ex-potheads I ask 'why 4/20'. They would usually say 'didnt matter I was going to get stoned either way'. It is like an alcoholics reasoning to get drunk. "just because". People rationalize shit away for stupid reasons. Most do not want to admit they have base urges so they use cover like 4/20 to hide that. People who want to use shit like this will find a reason. When you are on shaky ground any reason is good as another.
I do not *care* you want to get high. I just do not want you to kid me or yourself on the stupid reasons you are doing it. It is not the act, it is the lies you tell to commit the act that tick me off. Just do not lie to me.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Saturday April 21 2018, @03:37PM
Complaining that Adolf Hitler was born on 4/20 is like crying about being born on 9/11. Get over it.
I'd rate your trolling a 2/10.
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