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]
