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Legalise some drugs, outlaw others?

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Cannabis legalisation in UK 'would raise £1bn a year in taxes'​

Legalising the sale of cannabis in specialist shops would generate £1bn a year in tax revenue and reduce the harm done to users and society, according to the most detailed plans ever drawn up for the liberalisation of UK drug laws.

The study, which was carried out by a panel of experts including scientists, academics and police chiefs, calls for the UK to follow the lead of some US states and allow the sale of cannabis to over-18s in licensed retail stores.

The report’s conclusions will form the basis of a new drugs policy being drawn up by the Liberal Democrat Party, which is expected to debate the issue at its spring conference later this week.
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Supreme Court Rejects Lawsuit Against Colorado​


In a major victory for state’s rights Monday, the Supreme Court rejected an effort by Nebraska and Oklahoma to have Colorado’s pot legalization declared unconstitutional.

The final ruling came out at 6-2 and although the justices have not publicly commented, their dismissal of the case puts an end to the lengthy lawsuit launched against Colorado by the two neighboring states.

Their argument purported that the plant, while legal in Colorado, is spilling across into their states where it is still very much an illicit substance, thereby hindering their anti-drug efforts and massively draining state resources.

However, Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito, who would have heard the lawsuit, did not think this was justifiable ground to impose a reversal on Colorado’s state right to legalization. Since the justices have remained silent, one can only imagine the ruling the pair of justices may have handed down.

In December, The Obama Administration asked the Supreme Court to ignore this lawsuit. Although this was a great sign for Colorado, the final decision wasn't made until today. Needless to say, Colorado cannabis consumers are breathing a sigh of relief.

Does this backwards way of thinking have any implications for legalization in Nebraska and Oklahoma? We certainly hope not, but it's too early to tell. Although the federal ban on marijuana still stands, this ruling reinforces individual states’ right to legalize locally and provides one more step, no matter how tiny, on the road to the full repeal of national prohibition.
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The Multidisciplinary Association for
Psychedelic Studies believes that MDMA-assisted psychotherapy could be legal by 2021.​


Rsearchers have concluded that MDMA ”” otherwise known as Molly; otherwise known as methylenedioxymethamphetamine; otherwise known as Millennial aspirin ”” is one of several psychedelic drugs useful in the treatment of post-traumatic stress disorder. As Phase 2 of the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies’ MDMA-assisted psychotherapy study comes to an end, the non-profit research and educational organization plans to meet this spring with the FDA to plan crucial Phase 3 clinical trials, which could lead to a new kind of prescription. And the application likely won’t end with PTSD. Because MDMA is known for increasing feelings of trust and compassion towards others, it’s an ideal adjunct to psychotherapy.
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Medical marijuana in the US should be governed by science, not politics​


In 2013, Patrick and Beth Collins were desperate. 13-year-old Jennifer, the younger of their two children, faced a life-threatening situation. In response, the Collins family took extreme measures””sending Jennifer thousands of miles away in the company of her mother. Beth and Jennifer became refugees from a capricious government whose laws threatened Jennifer’s health, the family’s safety, and the life they had built together.

Beth and Jennifer did not run from crime or war or famine. They did not flee from some country ruled by a murderous despot to a less dangerous place. They are Americans who found it necessary to move from their home in Virginia to another state in order to seek treatment for Jennifer’s serious medical condition””a treatment that was illegal according to the laws of both Virginia and the federal government.

And so, in Dec. 2013, Beth and Jennifer said goodbye to Patrick and to Jennifer’s older sister, Alexandra. They moved to Colorado, joining thousands of other people who’d gone there wanting to avail themselves of one version or another of this taboo treatment: marijuana-based medicine. Their hope? That Colorado cannabis would do what prescription drugs could not””treat Jennifer’s epilepsy.
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Flakka has hit the Gold Coast. Frightening new party drug"

e.g.


 
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Recreational weed could be a $22.6B industry: study​


Sales of legalized recreational marijuana would surpass combined sales of beer, wine, and spirits, it says.

Legalized recreational marijuana promises to spark a $22.6-billion industry in Canada, eclipsing combined sales of beer, wine, and spirits, a new study suggests.

The Deloitte report ”” titled Recreational Marijuana: Insights and Opportunities ”” being released soon concludes that Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s legalization of cannabis next year could jolt the economy.

“There hasn’t been anything like this ”” and granted it wasn’t legislated ”” but you think of the dot-com … flurry,” Mark Whitmore, vice-chair of Deloitte, said in an interview Wednesday.

“It has that kind of feel to it. There’s a lot of froth, a lot of interest in this space and a lot of people think there’s going to be an opportunity,” said Whitmore.

Deloitte estimates that satisfying the recreational weed market will mean producing 600,000 kilograms of marijuana annually ”” far more than the existing 36 licensed producers grow for medicinal purposes.

The consulting firm warns there will be challenges as recreational pot is legalized.
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Former top cops want 'white market' in illicit drugs, decriminalisation, more injecting rooms
​

A new report into drug-related deaths has proposed the decriminalisation of drug use in Australia.

The Australia21 report has the backing of former police commissioners and assistant commissioners, two former heads of Corrective Services, a former Supreme Court Judge and a former Director of Public Prosecutions.

It is the group's third report in five years on the issue.

The report says despite more than 80,000 arrests in Australia each year, there has been a continued rise in diseases, injuries, crimes and social costs.

The report's recommendations include:
  • Decriminalising drug use and consideration of eliminating all penalties
  • More "Drug consumptions rooms" — Australia has only one medically supervised centre in Kings Cross
  • Consideration of a regulated "white market" for drugs in a bid to counter "the black market"
  • Improving health and social services to drug users, particularly in rural areas
  • More funding for harm minimisation strategies
Former federal police commissioner Mick Palmer told ABC News Breakfast his attitude had changed a lot since he was a young policeman in the 1960s.


 
McLovin said:
What do you call giving someone a month's free supply of a powerful, highly addictive, dangerous drug? If someone is at the point of truly needing fentanyl they require it with or without the free supply. And then how do you know the drug has been legitimately medically prescribed, as opposed to just finding a doctor who will prescribe it after the patient saw the ad and the lure of free supply and shopped around?
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Now the Fed is saying that opioids are having an affect on the workforce...Geez who would have thought doling out free samples of a drug so powerful that you need to already have built up a resistance to morphine might have adverse consequences.

Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen, making her most expansive remarks on an opioid epidemic that’s ravaging American communities, indicated the problem is so pervasive it is holding back the nation’s labor market.

“I do think it is related to declining labor force participation among prime-age workers,” Yellen said of the opioid epidemic while answering questions during testimony before the Senate Banking Committee on Thursday. “I don’t know if it’s causal or if it’s a symptom of long-running economic maladies that have affected these communities and particularly affected workers who have seen their job opportunities decline.”

Yellen’s comments come as overdose deaths are surging across the country. The opioid epidemic is the legacy of a major increase in painkiller prescriptions during the late 1990s, though it has transitioned to illicit drugs including heroin and fentanyl in recent years. Employers often cite it as a workforce readiness issue and its footprint spans age and socioeconomic demographics, though it has hit working- and middle-class communities in Appalachia and the Northeastespecially hard.

The epidemic seems to be one reason that middle-age mortality is climbing for white Americans with less education, according to research by Princeton University economists Anne Case and Angus Deaton.

“We are seeing, as I mentioned, an increase in death rates -- which is extremely unusual,” Yellen said today, noting that the trend is “partly reflecting opioid use, and it is obviously a very serious and heartbreaking problem.”

...

Asked whether there is a clear connection between opioids and an opportunity to go to a job, get employed, and have purpose in life, Yellen said that “all of those things are bound up in this opioid crisis,” and are “interacting in ways that are really quite devastating for these individuals and their communities.”

In the Fed’s regional survey known as the “Beige Book” released Wednesday, the St. Louis Fed reported that some manufacturers were citing “candidates’ inability to pass drug tests or to consistently report to work.”
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And a few graphs. I think we can thank our lucky stars prescription drugs cannot be advertised in Australia.

1800x-1.png


1800x-1.png


It's pretty sad that a whole generation of middle aged people are being left behind.
 
Ecstasy Was Just Labelled a 'Breakthrough Therapy'
For PTSD by The FDA​


The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has determined that 3,4-methylenedioxymethamphetamine (MDMA), also known as ecstasy, is a 'breakthrough therapy' in the treatment of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).

Thanks to this designation, the drug could have a faster path to pharmaceutical approval.

The Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies (MAPS) announced the FDA's ruling last week, revealing that they can now move forward on two of their upcoming 'Phase 3' trials.

The goal of these trials is to determine how effectively the drug can be used to treat those suffering from PTSD. The trials will include 200 to 300 participants, and the first trial will begin to accept subjects in 2018.

"For the first time ever, psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy will be evaluated in Phase 3 trials for possible prescription use, with MDMA-assisted psychotherapy for PTSD leading the way," said Rick Doblin, Founder and Executive Director of MAPS.

The trials will be held in the U.S., Canada, and Israel, and MAPS plans to open talks with the European Medicines Agency in the hopes of expanding testing to include Europe. For now, the focus is on securing the funding they require.

According to Science, the organisation is still in the process of raising money for the trials, and thus far, they've only managed to secure US$13 million, about half of their goal.

Since 1986, MAPS has been conducting MDMA trials in the hopes of proving the drug's therapeutic value. Following the 2011 release of a small study in the US, the drug has gained traction as a potential treatment for PTSD.

Since then, scientists have been pushing for additional testing, but ecstasy's stigma as a harmful street drug has hindered progress. The FDA's new designation could change that.

"This is not a big scientific step," David Nutt, a neuropsychopharmacologist at Imperial College London, explained to Science. "It's been obvious for 40 years that these drugs are medicines. But it's a huge step in acceptance."

Previous MAPS trials exploring how well MDMA could treat PTSD have yielded favourable results, contributing to the FDA's aforementioned decision. In the association's Phase 2 trails, 107 people who had PTSD for an average of 17.8 years were treated using MDMA-assisted psychotherapy.

After two months, 61 percent of the participants no longer suffered from PTSD. After a year, that number increased to 68 percent, according to the MAPS press release.

PTSD only needs a small trigger like a sound, smell, or an object to bring a traumatic memory rushing back. Nearly 8 million adults experience PTSD per year, and children can suffer from it as well.

Should MDMA prove to be an effective and safe treatment, it could help millions of people live normal, healthy lives without fear of the next debilitating PTSD episode.



 
Magic mushrooms 'reboot' brain in depressed people – study
​

Magic mushrooms may effectively “reset” the activity of key brain circuits known to play a role in depression, the latest study to highlight the therapeutic benefits of psychedelics suggests.

Psychedelics have shown promising results in the treatment of depression and addictions in a number of clinical trials over the last decade. Imperial College London researchers used psilocybin – the psychoactive compound that occurs naturally in magic mushrooms – to treat a small number of patients with depression, monitoring their brain function, before and after.

Images of patients’ brains revealed changes in brain activity that were associated with marked and lasting reductions in depressive symptoms and participants in the trial reported benefits lasting up to five weeks after treatment.

Dr Robin Carhart-Harris, head of psychedelic research at Imperial, who led the study, said: “We have shown for the first time clear changes in brain activity in depressed people treated with psilocybin after failing to respond to conventional treatments.

“Several of our patients described feeling ‘reset’ after the treatment and often used computer analogies. For example, one said he felt like his brain had been ‘defragged’ like a computer hard drive, and another said he felt ‘rebooted’.

“Psilocybin may be giving these individuals the temporary ‘kick start’ they need to break out of their depressive states and these imaging results do tentatively support a ‘reset’ analogy. Similar brain effects to these have been seen with electroconvulsive therapy.”

For the study, published in Scientific Reports on Friday, 20 patients with treatment-resistant depression were given two doses of psilocybin (10 mg and 25 mg), with the second dose a week after the first. Of these, 19 underwent initial brain imaging and then a second scan one day after the high dose treatment. The team used two main brain imaging methods to measure changes in blood flow and the crosstalk between brain regions, with patients reporting their depressive symptoms through completing clinical questionnaires.

Immediately following treatment with psilocybin, patients reported a decrease in depressive symptoms, such as improvements in mood and stress relief.

MRI imaging revealed reduced blood flow in areas of the brain, including the amygdala, a small, almond-shaped region of the brain known to be involved in processing emotional responses, stress and fear.

The authors believe the findings provide a new window into what happens in the brains of people after they have ‘come down’ from a psychedelic, with an initial disintegration of brain networks during the drug ‘trip’ followed by a re-integration afterwards.

Last year, two US studies showed that a single dose of psilocybin could lift the anxiety and depression experienced by people with advanced cancer for six months or even longer.

The Imperial College researchers acknowledge that the significance of their results is limited by the small sample size and the absence of a control/placebo group for comparison. They also stress that it would be dangerous for patients with depression to attempt to self-medicate.


 
Here’s how to solve the NHS’s chronic underfunding:
legalise cannabis​


If there existed a lucrative industry, with proven success, that helps people get better and could save money for the NHS, shouldn’t we be talking about it?

After attending a cannabis conference in Denver, Colorado, it struck me that here was a real solution to some of the difficulties our health services is facing. Cannabis has been medically legal in Colorado since 2000, and recreationally legal since 2012. While there, I realised I had my own dated idea of what “recreational” use actually entailed and was swiftly enlightened. Athletes apply cannabis infused balms for muscle soreness, arthritic pets are treated with cannabis biscuits and mothers take “edibles” (cannabis infused treats) to relax, swapping the wine bottle for weed wine gums. The line between medicinal and recreational use is very hazy anyway. Is your evening glass of Malbec or that pint in the pub for recreational or medicinal purposes? In my case, both.

Colorado was voted one of the happiest places to live in the US and not because they are all stoned. The state government collected almost $200m in cannabis taxes in 2016. There they argue about what to do with all the cash, as opposed to how to salami-slice ever-decreasing budgets, as is the norm in Westminster. Colorado set up the Marijuana Cash Tax Fund which finances education and health programmes. There are now more health care professionals in schools, providing education, as well as care, for those suffering from substance abuse or in need of mental health services.

The estimated value of the UK cannabis industry is £7bn per year, according to a report released last year. Colorado’s model could be effectively replicated in the UK, but on a much bigger scale, with tax money received from the sale of cannabis products diverted to the NHS.

Each year, our health service comes under greater strain from rising costs, staff shortages and increased patient demand. A report released by the Nuffield Trust, the independent health charity, estimated an overspend of £4bn between 2016-2017, which is significantly higher than the official figures released by the NHS. Legalising cannabis would be a great way to start plugging this gap.

In addition to generating a lot of cash, cannabis can help reduce costs within the NHS. Last year in the UK, a record number of anti-depressants were prescribed, costing the NHS about £260m. After Colorado legalised cannabis, there was a fall in prescriptions aimed at treating anxiety and depression.

These benefits are compelling, but a serious collaborative effort between policymakers and healthcare professionals is required to ensure that the tax policy is effective and the regulation stringent. Just like alcohol and tobacco, cannabis use can have serious health implications. Responsible cannabis businesspeople in Colorado sometimes say they are “in the compliance business first and the cannabis business second”. Products can’t use the word “candy” on their packaging.

But ultimately, this is a conversation about choice – particularly when it comes to healthcare. After my sister was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis in 2011 and my father with Parkinson’s disease in 2007, their only option was prescription pharmaceutical treatment. Pursuing cannabis as a therapeutic alternative would have made them criminals in the eyes of the law, with possession punishable by an unlimited fine and a five-year prison sentence. Although that is something I would be prepared to risk if I were in chronic pain, many would not, members of my family included.

Criminalising cannabis deprives patients twice over – first of tax revenue that could be used to fund their care, and second, of the ability to explore the drug as a potential aid to their treatment or recovery. The UK has a chance to improve not only the financial wellbeing of the NHS but most importantly, the wellbeing of the people. My time in Colorado has taught me that public perception needs to shift – from cannabis as a criminal “wrong”, to a healthcare right.


 
Wow.

Canada


Canada Legalizes Marijuana For Those 18 And Older​


Both the Senate and House of Commons have given passage to C-45 to legalize marijuana. It will now only need to go back to the House for one final vote to approve amendments and through the formality of Royal Assent before it can become official law.

Once it does, marijuana use, possession and private growing will be allowed. The age limit will be 18, three years younger than the limit set in the nine U.S. states where marijuana is legal. Marijuana will be sold through marijuana stores, and through online orders.

Once law, Canada will join Uruguay as the only countries to have legal marijuana, though other nations do have laws that allow users to avoid jail time.

The legalization of marijuana was one of the main campaign platforms for Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, who was elected in 2015. Trudeau promised to have marijuana legalized by July of this year.

https://themarijuanaherald.com/news/canada-legalizes-marijuana-for-those-18-and-older/
 
DB008 said:
Wow.

Canada


Canada Legalizes Marijuana For Those 18 And Older​
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I don't think that can work out too well. If people used it occasionally, no problem, but that's unlikely to happen. Stress levels are skyrocketing in the US and that means people will use it to self medicate.

Trudeau.... meh.
 
The war on cannabis has been lost, the Government should be bold and legalise it, Lord Hague tells Prime Minister​


The war against cannabis has been "comprehensively and irreversibly lost", former Conservative leader William Hague has said, as he urges Theresa May to legalise the drug.

Writing in the Telegraph Lord Hague says Mrs May should be "bold" and introduce a "major change" in policy, warning it is "deluded" to think cannabis can be "driven off the streets".

His intervention comes as the Prime Minister faces a growing Cabinet row over whether to allow medicinal use of the drug following pleas from the mother of 12 year-old Billy Caldwell.

 
Nevada collects $69.8M in marijuana tax,
exceeding expectations
​

LAS VEGAS - Nevada far exceeded its marijuana tax revenue during its first year of adult-use sales.

The tax collections totaled $69.8 million for the first fiscal year, about 140 percent of what the state expected, according to a news release from the Nevada Department of Taxation.

The most lucrative months were the final four with each month's totals topping $6.5 million.

The Department of Taxation transferred $27.5 million to the State Distributive School Account to pay for education.


 
awg said:
So what about Cannabis and driving?

It would seem that the current tests used by police may detect cannabis ~24 - 48hrs after consumption

NO LEVEL is legal.

~1 in 6 random tested are failing

Will they set a threshold? Do they do this where it is "legalised"

I have no doubt that cannabis impairs driving substantially, while its effects are upon the user,
however it wears off in a few hours, and 24-48 hrs makes a mockery of the law (although it is illegal to use cannabis at all)
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Colorado Department of Transport

FAQs: Cannabis and Driving​

Q: Is there a legal limit for marijuana impairment while operating a vehicle?

A: Colorado law specifies that drivers with five nanograms of active tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) in their whole blood can be prosecuted for driving under the influence (DUI). However, no matter the level of THC, law enforcement officers base arrests on observed impairment.


Q: What if I use marijuana medicinally?

A: If a substance has impaired your ability to operate a motor vehicle it is illegal for you to be driving, even if that substance is prescribed or legally acquired.


 

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