Texas has one of the most restrictive medical marijuana laws in the country, with sales allowed only by prescription for a handful of conditions. That hasn't stopped Lukas Gilkey, chief executive of Hometown Hero CBD, based in Austin, Texas. His company sells joints, blunts, gummy bears, vaping devices and tinctures that offer a recreational high. In fact, business is booming online as well, where he sells to many people in other states with strict marijuana laws. But Mr. Gilkey says that he is no outlaw, and that he's not selling marijuana, just a close relation. He's offering products with a chemical compound - Delta-8-THC - extracted from hemp. It is only slightly chemically different from Delta 9, which is the main psychoactive ingredient in marijuana. [continues 1158 words]
More than three-quarters of people who have developed severe lung illness after vaping reported using THC-containing products, a new report found, as officials continue to piece together a picture of the mysterious disease. The new report by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said 76.9% of the 514 patients studied used products containing THC, the psychoactive ingredient in marijuana, in the month preceding the onset of symptoms. More than half of the patients reported using nicotine-containing products, while 36% said they only used of products with THC and 16% reported exclusive use of nicotine-containing products. [continues 406 words]
A law that took effect July 1 legalized hemp and CBD products containing traces of THC, the compound in marijuana that gets you high. But field tests and crime labs haven't caught up. Texas hemp enterpreneur Zachary Miller, interviewed here by a television reporter, was arrested in Okaloosa County after products found in his car tested positive for THC. THC is illegal in Florida unless prescribed by a doctor for medical use but trace amounts are allowed in now-legal hemp products. [Courtesy of Zachary Miller] [continues 1525 words]
Kush. Bud. Herb. Who knows what to call marijuana these days? Born of the need for secrecy, slang has long dominated pot culture. But as entrepreneurs seek to capitalize on new laws legalizing recreational and medical marijuana, they too are grappling with what to call it. Heading to the dispensary to buy a few nugs or dabs? Marketers seeking to exploit the $10 billion market would prefer that you just called it cannabis. Shirley Halperin, an author of 2007's "Pot Culture: The A-Z Guide to Stoner Language and Life," has seen the shift in recent years. Not long ago, she met with an executive to talk about his company's products. "He physically winced when I said the word 'pot,'" she recalled. "Businesses don't want to call it 'weed.'" [continues 1123 words]
Alex Berenson's allegation that public support for marijuana law reform is waning ("Marijuana Activists Pass Their High Point," op-ed, June 26) is nothing short of a pipe dream. Nearly one in four Americans reside in a jurisdiction where the adult use of cannabis is legal, and 33 states regulate medical marijuana access by statute. No state has ever repealed a marijuana legalization law, and two-thirds of adults-including majorities of self-identified Democrats, Republicans and independents-endorse making the plant legal, according to the latest Gallup poll. As more states amend their cannabis laws, public support for legalization continues to rise. [continues 190 words]
Dr. James S. Ketchum, an Army psychiatrist who in the 1960s conducted experiments with LSD and other powerful hallucinogens using volunteer soldiers as test subjects in secret research on chemical agents that might incapacitate the minds of battlefield adversaries, died on May 27 at his home in Peoria, Ariz. He was 87. His wife, Judy Ketchum, confirmed the death on Monday, adding that the cause had not been determined. Decades before a convention eventually signed by more than 190 nations outlawed chemical weapons, Dr. Ketchum argued that recreational drugs favored by the counterculture could be used humanely to befuddle small units of enemy troops, and that a psychedelic "cloud of confusion" could stupefy whole battlefield regiments more ethically than the lethal explosions and flying steel of conventional weapons. [continues 1413 words]
One of the nation's top public-health officials has explained why the fight against the opioid epidemic is so personal to him. At a conference in New Orleans, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Robert Redfield Jr. opened up about his family's experience with opioids, saying that one of his adult children nearly died of an overdose of cocaine mixed with fentanyl, a potent synthetic opioid that is 30 to 50 times stronger than heroin, according to the Associated Press. [continues 681 words]
"He was beautiful," said his mother, Bonnie. "He was perfect." But when Micah turned 3, he began lining up his toy cars in a row and just staring at them. His limited vocabulary became more limited. He forgot how to go potty. Jensen, 47, quit her job as an executive assistant to take care of and homeschool him. Early one morning, she felt something shudder in her bed. Beside her, Micah trembled uncontrollably and she saw his skin turn a deep shade of blue and purple. He gasped for air. [continues 241 words]
WASHINGTON - The massive farm bill that helps determine what farmers grow and Americans eat is poised to get some major momentum thanks to a not-yet-legal crop: Hemp. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, who has pushed hard to make hemp a legal product in the United States, is asking for his hemp legalization bill to be included in the sweeping farm bill. That would help give the farm bill, whose prospects have been considered iffy, more support in the Senate. [continues 639 words]
SAN DIEGO - Support for drugs like Suboxone, Vivitrol and methadone was one of the rallying cries at the annual American Society for Addiction Medicine conference this week in California. Broadly known as medication-assisted treatments, the drugs are sometimes-controversial tools for battling the growing opioid epidemic. Though they work in different ways, all three can be taken long-term to reduce the chance of relapse into drug use. "It's not a matter of ideology," said ASAM president Dr. Kelly Clark. "It's a matter of the facts show a person's risk of dying is higher when they don't take medication." [continues 546 words]
WASHINGTON - Embracing the hemp industry was a savvy political move for Kentucky Rep. James Comer, the only Republican to win statewide in 2011 during an otherwise tough year for his party. The political message got through. Now taking up the charge to make it easier -- and completely legal -- for U.S. farmers to grow and market hemp products, including trendy cannabidiol or CBD oil: Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell. McConnell, R-Ky., who pledges to give the legalization effort "everything we've got," is expediting the legislation and lining up key support from across the aisle as backers seek to convince otherwise tough-on-drugs Republicans to come along. [continues 1102 words]
WEST BRIDGEWATER - The class had covered bullying, Internet safety, and good decision-making, and by February, Officer Kenneth Thaxter could see that the sixth-graders were ready. The lights went off, and the projector went on. "Today," the DARE officer said, "we're going to talk about marijuana." For 16 years, every elementary school student in this small town has learned about drugs from Thaxter. But this year, his lesson needed to change, and he was about to find out whether the students knew why. [continues 1558 words]
Congressman Pete Sessions used a speech to a group of doctors and other healthcare providers at an opioid epidemic summit Tuesday to suggest that marijuana is the gateway to addiction and as a campaign against the medical and recreational legalization movement. The Republican from Dallas called the rising number of deaths from opioid overdose a "national crisis" and implored those on the front lines of the fight, the scientific and medical communities, he said, to provide solutions he can bring to Congress, saying he will get the appropriate funding added to next month's budget bill. [continues 1053 words]
Stung by robberies in California, Colorado, Washington and other states, the cannabis industry is pressing Congress to change federal banking laws so that its retailers no longer have to carry and process large amounts of cash. Yet lacking the lobbying muscle of their adversaries, the industry hasn't gained much traction on Capitol Hill, leaving cannabis business owners and their employees vulnerable to thefts and violent crime. GOP lawmakers from pot-unfriendly states have sidelined legislation in the House and Senate that would allow marijuana businesses to conduct transactions with federally regulated banks. These also include state and community owned banks that are part of the Federal Reserve System. [continues 1138 words]
This month, Rep. Barbara Lee, D-Oakland, introduced legislation to change the spelling of "marihuana" in the 1970 Controlled Substances Act to "marijuana" - and then to drop the word altogether from the federal list of "controlled substances" - that is, illegal drugs. Removing the marijuana prohibition from federal law is just the warm-up act to the bill's primary goal: to end a counterproductive war on drugs. It's past time to reform drug laws that have ruined lives and devastated communities. [continues 608 words]
MANCHACA, Texas -- When California rings in the new year with the sale of recreational pot for the first time, Texas will be tiptoeing into its own marijuana milestone: a medical cannabis program so restrictive that doubts swirl over who will even use it. Texas is the last big state to allow some form of medical marijuana, albeit an oil extract so low in the psychoactive component, THC, that it couldn't get a person high. Though it might seem that Texas policymakers have softened their attitude toward the drug, bringing them more in line with the U.S. population as a whole, they have not. A joint could still land you in jail in Texas, and the state's embrace of medical marijuana comes with a heavy dose of caution. [continues 796 words]
Within weeks an estimated 150,000 Texas patients suffering from untreatable epilepsy will have a new means of relief. Cannabidiol (CBD), a form of medical marijuana, will finally be delivered to patients who qualify under the state's very strict guidelines. The CBD reduces or halts convulsive epileptic seizures but doesn't get the patients stoned. Right now, the treatment will be available only for certain epilepsy patients, and it's highly controlled. We believe availability should be expanded for treatment of other conditions when there's evidence those patients can be helped. We urge state lawmakers to begin work through the political and medical hurdles now so they can make that happen when they meet in 13 months. [continues 388 words]
In just a few weeks, medical marijuana will legally be sold in Texas. The plants are nearly finished growing in South-Central Texas, which means workers will soon harvest and cultivate them, drying them out and preparing to extract low-level cannibidiol. Once that medicine is in a liquid form, and packaged in drops, the first sales of medical marijuana -- geared to help Texans with intractable epilepsy -- will occur before the end of this year. "It's very, very exciting," said Jose Hidalgo, chief executive officer of Cansortium Holdings, the Florida-based parent company of Cansortium Texas. "Nothing in life ever goes as planned. [continues 501 words]
As the province wraps up its short consultation period with local governments and the public on the impending legalization of marijuana, city councils - including Merritt - are being put in the hot seat. The federal government will introduce legislation which will see marijuana legalized for recreational use across the country on July 1, 2018. While the feds will retain control over, provinces will be tasked with deciding how to deal with crafting their own rules regarding the enforcement and sale of cannabis products. [continues 444 words]
Growers swapping produce for marijuana A large-scale multinational Delta vegetable producer is swapping out its tomato plants for pot plants in a 1.1-million-square-foot greenhouse because it says it can make more than 10 times the money. Greenhouses operated by Village Farms International in Delta: If various levels of government allow it, the facilities here will be converted into marijuana growing greenhouses. JASON PAYNE/ PNG Village Farms International also has plans to expand five times that scale, resulting in a warning from Delta Mayor Lois Jackson about the future of farms on Agricultural Land Reserve. [continues 421 words]
Nothing seems to have the cops and local and provincial politicians scrambling more these days than their attempts to get ahead of the federal government's plans to make marijuana legal by next summer. But that should hardly be too much of distraction to allow the toker in the Prime Minister's office, the cute and clever Justin Trudeau, off the hook when it comes to effectively dealing with a more immediately critical drug issue, the opioid crisis. Yet is seems to have. [continues 650 words]
Any day now, medical marijuana will legally start to grow in the state of Texas. It will be planted, grown and processed on a 10-acre parcel of land in Schulenburg, a small community east of San Antonio, now that the company that owns the property -- Cansortium Texas -- has received the state's first license to do so. The low-level cannabidiol will be sold, under a 2015 law, to help Texans with intractable epilepsy if federally approved medication hasn't helped. [continues 1020 words]
In 2015, Gov. Greg Abbott signed the first bill allowing any growing or sale of marijuana in Texas. The Texas Compassionate Use Act legalized the selling of a specific kind of cannabis oil derived from marijuana plants for a very small group of customers: epilepsy patients whose symptoms have not responded to federally approved medication. Two years later, Texans still can't legally buy cannabis oil, but a handful of companies believe they are weeks away from receiving the official go-ahead to become the state's first sellers. [continues 859 words]
A Texas girl whose family moved to Colorado to use medical marijuana to treat her intractable epilepsy is among those suing Attorney General Jeff Sessions over the federal cannabis prohibition. Attorney General Jeff Sessions says the federal government should be able to prosecute marijuana use and distribution in states that have declared it legal. An 11-year-old Texas cannabis "refugee" has joined a retired NFL football player, an Iraq War veteran and two others in a lawsuit challenging beleaguered Attorney General Jeff Sessions and the federal government's stance on medical marijuana. [continues 795 words]
Junk science endangers lives. Forensic junk science in the hands of overzealous prosecutors, ignorant police detectives and reckless experts threatens liberty. There is a crisis in America's government-run crime labs - and it's not just the result of a few rogue operators. The problem is long-festering and systemic. In April, Massachusetts state crime lab chemist Annie Dookhan made national headlines after investigations and lawsuits over her misconduct prompted the state's Supreme Judicial Court to order the largest dismissal of criminal convictions in U.S. history. [continues 670 words]
Rice University's Baker Institute for Public Policy has received a $3 million donation to endow a fellow in drug policy to provide objective scientific research in the highly charged political arena of drug addiction, university officials announced Wednesday. Katharine Neill Harris, who currently holds a post-doctoral fellowship in drug policy at the Baker Institute, will become the Alfred C. Glassell III Fellow in Drug Policy. The money to fund her new position comes from the Glassell Family Foundation led by Houston philanthropist Alfred C. Glassell III. [continues 299 words]
A 13-year-old girl found dead over the weekend in Texas was abducted as ransom for stolen marijuana, according to authorities. Police said Shavon Randle was kidnapped Wednesday from a Lancaster home after the boyfriend of one of her relatives stole about 22 pounds of pot, the Fort Worth Star-Telegram reported. Soon after she was abducted, suspects allegedly called a relative from a private number and told them, "Give us our sh-t back or we are going to kill her." [continues 167 words]
When it comes to drug and alcohol rehab centers, California channels its inner Texas: few burdens on business and as free-market as possible. That stands in sharp contrast to New York, Massachusetts and a dozen other states, where would-be rehab operators must prove there's a local demand for their services and obtain a "certificate of need" before snipping opening-day ribbons and scaling those legendary 12 steps. The lack of such a system is a key reason why Southern California is known as Rehab Riviera, with far more centers than the region's population could possibly support, critics say. [continues 1893 words]
HAYFORK, Calif. - The red and purple opium poppies that his family grew on a mountainside half a world away were filled with an intoxicating, sticky sap that his mother traded for silver coins to feed her children and pay for their escape. Adam Lee smiles at the memory of a childhood in war-torn Laos and voyage to America, where he spent decades adapting to life in big cities. Now 47 years old, Mr. Lee has returned to the mountains - the Trinity Alps of Northern California - and to a career farming a different mind-altering crop for his livelihood: marijuana. [continues 1270 words]
WASHINGTON - As a senator, Jeff Sessions was such a conservative outlier on criminal justice issues that he pushed other Republicans to the forefront of his campaign to block a sentencing overhaul, figuring they would be taken more seriously. Now Mr. Sessions is attorney general and need not take a back seat to anyone when it comes to imposing his ultratough-on-crime views. The effect of his transition from being just one of 535 in Congress to being top dog at the Justice Department was underscored on Friday when he ordered federal prosecutors to make sure they threw the book at criminal defendants and pursued the toughest penalties possible. [continues 880 words]
With battering rams and flash-bang grenades, SWAT teams fuel the risk of violence as they forcibly enter suspects' homes. Five months and 85 miles apart, two cases took starkly divergent legal paths. SOMERVILLE, Tex. - Joshua Aaron Hall had been a resident of the Burleson County Jail for about a week when he requested a meeting with Gene Hermes, the sheriff's investigator who had locked him up for violating probation. The stocky lawman arrived in the featureless interview room on the morning of Dec. 13, 2013, placed his soda cup on the table and apologized for not getting there sooner. He asked in his gravelly drawl if they would be talking about Mr. Hall's own case. [continues 6445 words]
Timmins teen selected as the national rep for a you advisory board for D.A.R.E. in the U.S. . A young Timmins woman has been selected as the first ever Canadian to join the national youth advisory board for D.A.R.E. (Drug Abuse Resistance Education) in the United States. Alexya Racicot, a 16-year-old student of Ecole secondaire catholique Theriault, will soon be travelling to Hawaii and also to Texas to help advise and shape D.A.R.E. programs in the future. [continues 666 words]
America's sheriffs have given President Trump a woefully inaccurate view of civil asset forfeiture-the process through which police seize, and prosecutors literally sue, cash, cars and real estate that they suspect may be connected to a crime. "People want to say we're taking money and without due process. That's not true," a Kentucky sheriff told the president last month at a White House meeting. Critics of forfeiture, the sheriff added, simply "make up stories." In fact, thousands of Americans have had their assets taken without ever being charged with a crime, let alone convicted. Russ Caswell almost lost his Massachusetts motel, which had been run by his family for more than 50 years, because of 15 "drug-related incidents" there from 1994-2008, a period through which he rented out nearly 200,000 rooms. [continues 725 words]
The New York Times reported this month that expectant mothers are taking up marijuana in increasing numbers. We asked women who used marijuana during pregnancy to share their stories. Hundreds of readers wrote in; most had smoked, while a few vaped or ate marijuana-laced edibles. Roughly half said they had used pot for a medical reason. Most felt marijuana use had not affected their children, or were not sure; just a handful worried the children might have suffered cognitive deficits. [continues 1446 words]
Overdose: Friends celebrate life of 'Auntie Mary' and hope her death opens eyes to 'national health crisis' Mary Purdy baked homemade cupcakes, played the piano and lived for her two young boys. Friends describe her as a leader in the Downtown Eastside, where she's known by many as "Auntie Mary," while her sister remembers her as a loving and generous spirit whose smile could light up a room. But on Jan. 17 Purdy died in her south Vancouver home - one of the latest victim's of B.C.'s fentanyl crisis - leaving behind her two sons, a sixyear-old and a four-year-old. [continues 648 words]
All Newman resident Phillip Blanton wanted to do, he said, was bring some comfort to his granddaughter, who has stage 4 Hodgkin's lymphoma. But his California medical marijuana card counted for nothing in Texas, where the 67-year-old now faces felony drug possession charges. Blanton was driving to Houston to see 20-year-old Makayla Farley, who's being treated at the Houston Methodist Hospital cancer center. She's fighting for her life, he said, has a hard time eating and is always throwing up. She's on morphine and other drug cocktails for pain. "I was going to give her Papa's cookies to help with the nausea and pain and to help her relax." [continues 863 words]
A year ago, I woke in the night with pain so severe I was crying before I was fully aware what was going on. A 50-year-old cop sobbed like a child in the dark. It was a ruptured disc and related nerve damage. Within a couple of months, it became so severe that I could no longer walk or stand. An MRI later, my surgeon soothingly told me it would all be OK. A nurse practitioner handed me a prescription for painkillers -- 180 tablets, 90 each of oxycodone and hydrocodone. [continues 656 words]
[photo] Former Inland congressional candidate Paul Chabot is leaving for Texas. In a Facebook post, Chabot , a Republican, said he and his family are moving "to find a region of the nation that embraces our values and morals we cherish." Rancho Cucamonga Republican Paul Chabot, who ran unsuccessfully for Congress in 2014 and 2016, is moving to the Lone Star State -- but not before dispensing some harsh words for California progressives. Chabot recently used Facebook to announce his family's move to McKinney, Texas, lamenting that liberals "have degraded the State of Reagan to but a shell of its former self." [continues 370 words]
The program launched by the Ocean County Prosecutor's Office provides rehabilitation to those without insurance. Heroin and fentanyl deaths are rising in Ocean County.(Photo: Getty Images/iStockphoto) Anyone suffering from addiction can now drop into two police departments in Ocean County and get treatment, whether they have insurance or not, officials announced Monday morning. The program also allows addicts to turn in their drugs without fear of being prosecuted, Al Della Fave, the spokesman for the Ocean County Prosecutor's Office said. The office is spearheading the program known as the Heroin Addiction Response Program. [continues 542 words]
Sitting in a jail cell and preparing to spend as many as five years in state prison for two heroin possession charges, Matt Lopreiato found himself at a grim crossroads. "I destroyed my family inside and out. I felt like my life was over. No family, no friends," the 27-year-old Toms River man said. "I felt like I was alone and would be better off dead to be completely honest with you." The heroin addict went cold turkey and spent 43 days in Ocean County Jail. Then an offer arrived: go through addiction treatment, succeed and go free. [continues 899 words]
WASHINGTON -- The DC Cannabis Coalition says it plans to hand out thousands of joints of marijuana on Inauguration Day -- for free -- to urge federal legalization of pot. The group plans to start handing out joints at 8 a.m. Jan. 20 on the west side of Dupont Circle in the nation's capital, where recreational marijuana is legal. Then, marchers will walk to the National Mall where the real protest will begin. [continues 365 words]
An unclassified document from the Drug Enforcement Agency shows the areas of influence generated by Mexico's major criminal organizations. The "intelligence report," dated July 2015, includes three maps that show the various DEA offices around the country and the cartel-related cases they deal with; potential markets that drug cartels will exploit due to population density; and heroin deaths by state. In Texas, the many offices appear to have their time spent dealing with cases involving the Sinaloa, Gulf, Juarez, the Knights Templar, Beltran-Levya, Jalisco and the Zetas. [continues 119 words]
LUBBOCK, Texas - Across from a sprawling cotton field, among mobile homes in varying states of decay, one stood out: a double-wide with a new, expansive metal garage and the only paved driveway on the dead-end street. It was here that an unemployed former computer repairman with a bad back ran what a drug informant called the biggest fentanyl ring in Lubbock. All Sidney Lanier needed was a computer and an elementary knowledge of chemistry to order shipments of the potent synthetic opioid from China and turn it into a highly profitable - and dangerous - street drug. [continues 1455 words]
Tillis says he may not return if bills like sentencing changes aren't passed Senate WASHINGTON - Sen. Thom Tillis said Wednesday that he may not seek re-election in 2020 unless a sweeping overhaul of the nation's prison sentencing system is passed. Tillis, R-N.C., has sought to make revamping the nation's criminal justice system one of his signature issues since arriving in Washington in 2015, leaning on his experience in pushing through North Carolina's Justice Reinvestment Act when he was state House speaker in 2011. [continues 697 words]
Texas traffickers hide in plain sight in Colorado with its lax pot laws Tien Nguyen, 35, is charged in Smith County, Texas with money laundering after allegedly being stopped with $71,900 in cash in a rental car on Interstate 20. Handout Tien Nguyen, 35, is charged in Smith County, Texas with money... Three packages were mailed one after another, each shipped from the same Colorado post office to the same Houston business in the name of the same fictitious person. [continues 1675 words]
A Mother Risks Prison and Splits Up Her Family in a Desperate Attempt to Rid Her Son of Cancer. The Rockies unfurled outside Kristen Yeckley's passenger window, but she kept her eyes on the speedometer. No more than 5 mph over the limit, she urged her mother. Hands at 10 and 2. She had stayed up past 3 a.m., sobbing, praying, plotting the route back to Pinellas Park. The drive meant committing a federal crime with her 5-year-old son in the backseat. Kristen kept imagining handcuffs, the fear on Tyler's trusting face. If they were pulled over, she would use his medical records to plead for sympathy. She and her husband, Joe, had saved up for their dream home with a backyard pool. They had comfortable jobs, poker nights, a college fund in their son's name. Then came Tyler's diagnosis. When doctors said he was out of options, Kristen and Joe vowed to do anything, even split up their family, to give Tyler a chance with a treatment Florida doesn't allow. That brought Kristen to the sloping road out of Colorado last summer, 2,000 miles from home - with vials of liquid medical marijuana buried in her mother's suitcase. Worry first tugged at Kristen in the line to see Santa Claus. [continues 4161 words]
ATLANTA - Twenty years after a federal law blocked people with felony drug convictions from receiving welfare or food stamps, more states are loosening those restrictions - or waiving them entirely. In April, Gov. Nathan Deal, a Republican, signed a criminal justice reform bill that lifted the ban on food stamps for drug felons in Georgia. Alaska followed suit in July, although applicants must prove they are complying with parole and are in treatment for substance abuse. And in Delaware, a bill to lift cash assistance restrictions for drug felons passed out of committee in June. The legislative session ended before the bill could be put to a vote. [continues 1261 words]
Businessman Has N. Texas Town in Sights for Facility to Produce Oil to Treat Epilepsy GUNTER - A cotton gin that sat empty for decades in this small North Texas town could be filled next year with the first cannabis plants legally grown in the state. Jae S. Lee/Staff Photographer Patrick Moran, president and co-founder of the Texas Cannabis Industry Association, aims to plant Texas' first legal cannabis plants in Gunter. A statute enacted last year paves the way for cultivation of non-psychoactive cannabis to produce CBD oil for treating people with severe epilepsy. [continues 1340 words]
How did MJ get on same schedule as heroin? For nearly a century officials have touted the dangers of marijuana. Many of us can dip into the memory banks to find attempts of officers visiting our classrooms to enlighten us on how drugs would ruin our lives. The common narrative was that we'd get arrested and go to jail as they conveniently overlooked the fact that the only danger came from the legal system rather than the plant itself. Predictably and perhaps ironically, the DARE program didn't deter as many young minds from experimenting with marijuana as it intended. According to a Pew Research poll, nearly half of Americans have tried marijuana at least once. [continues 547 words]
Marijuana Use Could Overtake Cigarette Use in a Few Years. A new Gallup poll out today finds that the percent- age of American adults who say they currently smoke marijuana has nearly doubled over the past three years. In 2013, only 7 percent of adults said they were marijuana smokers. When Gal-lup asked again in July of this year, 13 percent admitted to current marijuana use. That works out to more than 33 million adult marijuana users in the U.S. If America's marijuana users resided in one state, it would be bigger than Texas and second only to California in population. [continues 296 words]
