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New Report: CBD Is Good for Anxiety

Have a public speaking engagement you’re a bit stressed about, or about to board a plane despite your claustrophobia, recent viewing of Final Destination, and crippling aversion to paying $20 for bad WiFi? Pop some CBD—you’ll be in the same situation, but you’ll feel better, a researcher contends.

Earlier this year, a researcher based in the UK found a lack of evidence for earlier contentions that cannabis use by itself may create anxiety disorders. Now, a second researcher believes there’s ample evidence to support the idea that cannabidiol—or CBD, the magic cure-all compound in marijuana—may help solve anxiety.

Carl Stevenson is a neuroscientist and researcher at the University of Nottingham. Stevenson is the co-author of a new review of existing marijuana-related research. When all the resulting data from studies conducted on humans is compiled, there’s evidence to suggest CBD reduces fear by changing brain activity, as Live Science reported.

And once fear dissipates, anxiety does as well.

“Anxiety” is a broad term that includes trauma-induced bouts of panic stemming from PTSD as well as “phobias” of public speaking, water or other fears that by themselves may appear irrational.

In a 1993 review published in the Journal of Psychopharmacology, test subjects who were administered cannabidiol had less anxiety “when subjected to a social phobia,” Live Science reported. Another study published in 2011 found that cannabidiol also cut down anxiety in people fearful of public speaking.

Though known in cannabis circles for years as the non-psychoactive cannabinoid with significant medical benefits, CBD has catapulted to mainstream fame over the past four years since its star turn in a 2013 CNN documentary. Since then, U.S. states that still outlaw cannabis have passed laws allowing for access to low-THC, high-CBD oils and tinctures.

CBD is also enjoying growing acceptance among medical professionals and policymakers as a palliative for disorders including anxiety and PTSD. Though the VA still clings to the notion that marijuana may make PTSD worse, it also admits that several studies using oral CBD reduced clinical anxiety in research participants.

One problem is that most CBD-related research has been performed not on people, but on rodents like rats and mice. (The landmark study supporting anecdotes claiming that cannabis may also fight cancer was also performed on rats.)

The two studies that Stevenson’s review cites are two of the very few clinical studies performed on humans. Though the brains of rats and humans do have similarities—some of us more than others—more human-based research, such as studies into cannabis and PTSD underway in the United States, are necessary to draw an ironclad conclusion.

But there’s nothing stopping you from popping a CBD capsule or taking a drop of tincture before your next stressful situation—aside from draconian marijuana laws.

You can keep up with all of HIGH TIMES’ marijuana news right here.

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Radical Rant: Only Marijuana Legalization Fulfills the Promise of Medical Cannabis and Industrial Hemp

I’m an adult who likes to smoke marijuana for fun. There is nothing shameful about that.

But there are some people in America who do think smoking marijuana to get high is somehow an unseemly act.

What’s worse is that some of them are supposedly on our side.

Some of the supporters of medical cannabis, for instance, are fond of saying that they are “Patients, Not Criminals” or “Patients, Not Potheads.” They’ll explain how what they’re fighting for are sick and disabled people’s access to medical cannabis, which they’ll assure the listener “isn’t about some stoners just trying to get high.” Those fighting for access to cannabidiol make sure to stress that it’s “not going to get anybody high.”

Oh, no, God forbid somebody uses marijuana to get high!

Healthy people who use marijuana aren’t criminals and don’t deserve to be slandered as potheads or stoners. But consistently framing medical cannabis as something that’s socially acceptable in opposition to smoking marijuana “just to get high” only reinforces our true opponents’ messaging that it’s unacceptable.

Other medical cannabis supporters try to frame it as “health before happy hour.” But that still emphasizes that patients have a morally acceptable justification for marijuana use and everybody else using marijuana is engaged in a frivolity that it’s acceptable to punish.

There’s a similar arm’s-length distancing from adult marijuana use espoused by the supporters of industrial hemp. “It’s Rope and Soap, Not Dope” is the slogan heard most often, along with the usual assurance that “stoners couldn’t get high on hemp if they tried.” Again, hemp is promoted as something morally superior and implications abound that using marijuana is indecorous.

It’s not as if the individuals supporting medical cannabis or industrial hemp mean to be reinforcing our opponents’ messaging. Many of them consume marijuana for non-medical purposes themselves. Most, if not all of them, are with us on the need to end adult marijuana prohibition.

They just won’t say so publicly, lest they lose mainstream empathy for sick people and curiosity about hemp products through association with the reviled potheads.

The irony of it all is that it is the mainstream’s revulsion for potheads that hamstrings their efforts to fully utilize medicinal cannabis and industrial hemp.

Why must people in every medical marijuana state but California have some qualifying condition established by law and not medical judgment? Because without specific, objective, verifiable conditions listed, some potheads will access medical marijuana to get high!

Why are western medical marijuana states curtailing the possession and plant limits set for patients prior to adult-use legalization? Because with greater limits, some potheads will divert that medical marijuana to potheads who want to get high!

Why are eastern medical marijuana states prohibiting home cultivation and smoking altogether, in favor of non-smoked cannabinoid preparations available only through dispensaries? Because with home cultivation, some potheads will divert medical marijuana to potheads who want to get high, and because only potheads smoke marijuana!

Why do southern medical marijuana states ban any form of cannabis oil with more than a scant amount of THC in it? Because if it had THC in it, potheads would use it to get high!

Why is hemp cultivation banned to all American farmers, except a lucky few involved in some limited state hemp research programs at universities and ag departments? Because if we let farmers grow hemp, some potheads will find a way to conceal the marijuana they grow to smoke and get high!

Why are the few farmers who get to grow industrial hemp limited to cultivars of less than 0.3 percent THC? Because if the hemp had more THC in it, the potheads would extract and concentrate it to smoke it and get high!

So long as potheads who smoke marijuana to get high must be prevented from doing so at all costs, there will always be a deserving patient who gets stuck on the wrong side of the “Patients, Not Criminals” line and industrial hemp will continue to be the minuscule-THC cultivars that belie the true potential of plant’s uses.

This is not to say there shouldn’t be niche cannabis advocacy groups fighting specifically for medical or industrial use. It is to say that there are ways of framing the debate that don’t involve throwing under the bus we stoners who like to get high.

After all, we’re the only ones fighting to end the prohibition of the cannabis plant for all people and all uses.

Winning our fight automatically wins all the others, but fighting only for medical or hemp helps only a minority of us and sets artificial limits and restrictions that will never be exceeded until the bigger war on the majority of us—the potheads, the stoners—is over.

Previously in Radical Rant: Boiled, Beaten, Choked, Shot—And Cops Get Away With It

Click here for all of Russ Belville’s columns

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High NY Hosts Canna-Biz Networking Confab

The group High NY, “New York’s Cannabis Community,” hosted an event on “How to Apply Your Skills in the Cannabis Industry” at a Lower Manhattan venue Wednesday evening, featuring speakers with background in the biz from California, Massachusetts and the District of Columbia.

Unlike these three polities, New York state has not legalized. But organizers took heart that on that very same day as their meet-up, chronic pain was added to the qualifying conditions under the Empire State’s burgeoning, if still limited, medical marijuana program.

In between a buffet dinner and schmoozing, participants heard presentations from the out-of-state industry players.

Oliver Summers, a dispensary operator in the LA area since 2005 and founder of the Greater Los Angeles Collective Alliance, said that New York is now “what we looked like in LA 12-plus years ago,” and expressed hope for the industry opening up nationwide. He said he toughed it out when there was a “50-50 chance of being raided”—one of his outlets was in fact raided by the DEA.

Michael Latulippe, Boston-based president of the Cannabis Society who works with the Massachusetts Patient Advocacy Alliance, said he is applying his political science degree and background as a community organizer in his current endeavors to help craft the Bay State’s legalization regime, including running interference with the Department of Public Health on the emerging regulations.

He decried the lack of “occupational health standards in an industry where people are dealing with pesticides and mold. A lot of that has been left open by the absence of any federal presence. We need to see more work in this area.”

Representing Washington D.C., attorney Brandon Wyatt, a decorated and disabled army veteran who works with the Weed For Warriors Project, joined Todd J. Hughes, a U.S. Energy Department engineer and founder of the EntreVation consulting agency, to lead a discussion on “Key Cannapreneur Concepts.”

Implicitly noting the uncertain climate for the industry under the new White House administration, they joked to the assembled aspiring entrepreneurs and investors that “feeling uncomfortable should be your new comfort zone.” 

Wyatt and Hughes then invited up audience members to give 30-second pitches on their ideas, including cannabis preparations to relieve menstrual discomforts and use of medical marijuana to ease end-of-life distress in hospices.

Chatting after the presentations, High NY co-founder Josh Weinstein called the organization “New York’s premier cannabis industry community,” hosting monthly “education/networking events” inspired by New York tech industry meet-ups of the dot-com boom in the late ’90s.

Weinstein, himself the “venture-based CEO” of a dating site, says High NY’s mission is to “connect people in the industry, and the next generation thereof.” The group’s third anniversary will be in April.

“New York used to be the second largest black market in the country after California,” Weinstein said. “Now it is the largest black market since California legalization and could become the next largest legal market. I see Massachusetts as the Colorado of the East and New York as the California of the East. One paved the way for the larger market to follow.”

Schwag at the event included CBD-infused candies from Michigan-based Cannabinoid Creations. 

You can keep up with all of HIGH TIMES’ marijuana news right here.

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Watch: Exclusive New Trailer for ‘Grow House’

Dear everyone who considers Friday the quintessential stoner film (AKA anyone who’s anyone), do we have some news for you! This 4/20, there’s a new comedy hitting theaters, and it’s by far one of the dankest movies we’ve seen in a long time!

Grow House—written and directed by Friday co-director DJ Pooh (coincidence, we think not!)—is the hilarious tale of two friends, Darius (played by DeRay Davis) and Pat (played by Lil Duval), who decide to turn their love of herb into some actual green by becoming legal medical marijuana ganjapreneurs.

Of course, knowing how to smoke weed doesn’t mean you know how to grow weed—and comedy ensues. Featuring Malcolm McDowell as Dr. Doobie, Snoop Dogg as himself and a cameo by Charlemagne Tha God, Grow House is the stoner flick we’ve all been waiting for since… well… 1995’s Friday.

So, step aside Cheech & Chong, Mac & Devin and Harold & Kumar (although, we love you all too)—but there’s a new stoner buddy duo in town, Darius & Pat, and their new movie is about to get lit.

Light up and watch the official trailer below:

Follow Grow House on Facebook and Twitter.

For all of HIGH TIMES’ culture coverage, click here.

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Opioids Hurting the Workforce, Marijuana Not So Much

All across the United States, presidents and CEO’s of companies are saying the abuse of prescription painkillers and other doctor-approved medications is having a negative impact on their bottom line, according to a new survey by the National Safety Council.

It seems that the portion of the great American workforce that has succumbed to the grips of addictive prescription medications is now missing around 50 percent more work than their sober counterparts—a situation that is causing these people to take off work as many as six weeks per year.

Although absenteeism is one of the primary complaints among companies dealing with this problem, the report also found that companies are dealing with drug-related injuries, worker-to-worker pill deals and even overdose situations more often.

“Employers must understand that the most dangerously misused drug today may be sitting in employees’ medicine cabinets,” said National Safety Council president and CEO Deborah A.P. Hersman. “Even when they are taken as prescribed, prescription drugs and opioids can impair workers and create hazards on the job.”

“We hope these findings prompt employers to take the lead on this emerging issue, so that workplaces can be as safe as possible,” she added.

The report found slightly fewer than 60 percent of the companies out there are putting their workers through random drug tests. Of the ones that do, they are discovering that somewhere around 41 percent of their staff are on some kind of opioid medication.

But because these drugs are not illegal—that is, as long as the person has a prescription—companies cannot terminate a worker for simply turning in a positive result. In most cases, prescriptions painkillers are covered through company insurance plans—making it relatively easy for workers to get their hands on a variety of dangerous drugs in a manner that is completely legal.

It is for that reason that a growing number of employers are now interested in providing insurance coverage that deals in alternative pain treatments. Almost 90 percent of the companies said they would support this type of change in an effort to reduce the problem with prescription pain pills.

When it comes to alternatives to pain medications, medical marijuana is taking the lead in a number of states. Unfortunately, since the federal government still considers the herb an Illegal drug, most companies have refused to amend their drug policies in such a way that allows workers to use cannabis as a replacement for narcotic painkillers.

For now, the business community has the support of the courts in respect to this issue.

In fact, a couple of years ago, the Colorado Supreme Court ruled that employers were well within their rights to terminate an employee for testing positive for marijuana—even if that worker’s pot use was strictly off-duty and for medicinal purposes.

“Employees who engage in an activity, such as medical marijuana use, that is permitted by state law but unlawful under federal law are not protected by the statute,” Justice Allison H. Eid wrote in the decision.

It is a frustrating situation for many employees living in legal states, especially since evidence shows that medical marijuana does not come with the same problems as opioid medications.

Last year, a study published in the Health Economics journal found that employees were less likely to call in sick in states where medical marijuana was legal.

Overall, researchers found that worker absenteeism dropped by eight percent in jurisdictions with legal weed.

“The results of this paper therefore suggest that [medical marijuana laws] would decrease costs for employers as it has reduced self-reported absence from work due to illness/medical issues,” the study authors wrote.

Furthermore, several other studies have shown that fewer people are using opioid medications in states that have legalized medical marijuana.

“In theory, we would expect the adverse consequences of opioid use to decrease over time in states where medical marijuana use is legal, as individuals substitute marijuana for opioids in the treatment of severe or chronic pain,” researchers wrote last year in the American Journal of Public Health.

In certain situations, marijuana can even help people be more productive workers. Some studies have shown that cannabis has the ability to increase mental focus and encourage creativity.

The latest findings from the National Safety Council shows that companies in legal marijuana states could benefit greatly by establishing policies that allow workers to replace prescription drugs with cannabis medicine.

You can keep up with all of HIGH TIMES’ news right here.

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Don’t Despair—Here’s Why the Weed Industry Won’t Be Stopped by Trump

As the man in the Oval Office continues to bellow, threaten, lie and display increasingly unstable behavior, let us at least be optimistic about marijuana.

Why?

As the saying goes: Follow the money.

Even as our president continues to hand over the store to his family and friends, legal weed is on a roll that won’t be easily stopped.

Arcview Market Research, according to its most recent report, predicts the marijuana industry will continue to grow at a compound annual rate of 27 percent through 2021.

Troy Dayton, CEO of Arcview, said the momentum of the past few years won’t be stopped by the Trump administration, reported Bloomberg News.

Talk about optimism

Arcview goes so far as to say that cannabis is arguably the fastest growing industry in the world.

It bases such commentary by following the money: Regulated marijuana sales in North America totaled $6.9 billion in 2016, a 30 percent increase from 2015.

Sales are projected to increase to $21.6 billion by 2021, hence the 26 percent compound annual growth rate.

The industry will continue registering double-digit growth rates over the coming four years, despite the instability and ambiguity coming from the White House, says Arcview

And in spite of Trump’s waffling—and Attorney General Jeff Sessions’ non-waffling disdain for weed—Dayton, and others in the industry, say a crackdown is unlikely because the pot movement is just too popular.

Also, the resources necessary to go after it are just not there.

“It’s just so politically unpopular, it would be silly,” Dayton told Bloomberg News.

As it is, some 71 percent of voters say, “the government should not enforce federal laws against marijuana in states that have legalized medical or recreational use,” according to the most recent Quinnipiac University poll on the topic.

The feds’ hands are also tied by legislation.

Jeff Sessions has said he agrees with parts of the Cole Memorandum that allowed states to develop markets without federal interference.

“The Cole memorandum set up some policies under President Obama’s Department of Justice about how cases should be selected in those states and what would be appropriate for federal prosecution, much of which I think is valid,” Sessions told reporters recently in Richmond, Virginia.

Even if Sessions were to rip up the memo, Congress passed an amendment to an appropriations bill in December 2014 that makes it impossible to use Justice Department funds to interfere with state implementation of medical marijuana.

Recreational sales, for now, are unprotected, but that could change too, according to Dayton.

The Arcview report also showed that illegal weed sales declined in states with legal programs.

Of the $56.1 billion in overall weed sales in North America in 2016, 88 percent of was on the black market.

Globally, Arcview expects growth to continue on a similar trajectory.

“We’ve got all these other countries that are passing more laws and also other states, and presumably the federal government could end marijuana prohibition as soon as 2021,” said Dayton. “There’s never been a market that’s grown at 20-plus percent growth each year for 10 years, right? But that’s possible here.”

So, the question is: Why would the current White House dweller, who sees himself as the consummate businessman, want to ruin such a good thing?

You can keep up with all of HIGH TIMES’ marijuana news right here.

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Recent House Bill Could Solve the Trump-Induced Cannabis Problem

The 2016 elections gave a huge boost to legal weed, while simultaneously scaring the hell out of everyone as the keys to the White House and Congress were handed over to a group of reactionary pot-haters.

We will not soon forget the day when White House press secretary Sean Spicer suggested the Trump administration may crack down on states with legal recreational weed.

But what about the new House of Representatives bill that aims to protect states’ rights?

When HR 975, which enjoys bipartisan support by the way, was introduced in Congress by California Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, many saw it as a hopeful sign.

The bill has an optimistic title and straightforward message: “Respect State Marijuana Laws Act of 2017.”

The hope is that the House bill will protect consumers and businesses in states that have passed legalization initiatives or amendments as well as “any person acting in compliance with State laws relating to the production, possession, distribution, dispensation, administration, or delivery of marihuana.”

This basically prevents the feds from busting consumers and businesses in legal medical and recreational states.

The bill, if passed, would also clear up the banking mess that has plagued the industry for years.

This attempt to come up with a reasonable solution to the issue of states’ rights has been viewed as a smart move, undertaken in tandem with the formation of the first-ever bipartisan Congressional Cannabis Caucus, whose goal is to promote sensible cannabis policy reform and ease the tension between federal and state cannabis laws.

NORML referred to the Congressional Cannabis Caucus as a step toward reforming cannabis policy at the federal level: “Having a coalition of lawmakers in Washington, DC who will go on the record in support of advocating for cannabis freedom is something we haven’t had before, but it is an event that is long overdue.”

There are just too many people, including politicians, local advocates and millions of Americans who voted for the safe recreational and medical benefits that weed provides.

So it makes perfect sense for a group of federal lawmakers to step up and provide the extremist elements in the current government with an opportunity to back off. The question is: will they take it?

Some have already begun to mend their anti-marijuana ways and are seeing the light. And that light is green—as in dollars.

The  weed industry raked in more than $6.5 billion in legal sales in the U.S. last year and, if allowed to grow at its own pace, is estimated to reach $25 billion by 2020.

As one of the fastest growing industries in the country and on track to provide more jobs than the manufacturing sector, a change of heart from even the most strident lawmakers will hopefully start to crack the GOP’s anti-weed wall.

Only last week Denver’s Mayor, Michael Hancock, admitted that his town has a lot to lose if the feds come busting the doors down and wreck their wildly successful weed industry, which he once opposed but now realizes that it has been a lifeline.

If Rohrabacher’s bill to Respect State Marijuana Laws falls flat and Attorney General Jeff Sessions indeed goes after legal marijuana, the weed industry will revert back to the shadows from whence it came.

And who wants to see all those jobs, tax revenue and money dry up?

Pot is not going anywhere, that much we know.

But who is going make it available is the question. The black market or legal shops? What say you President Trump?

You can keep up with all of HIGH TIMES’ marijuana news right here.

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4 Things to Know about Anti-Addiction Vaccines

Drug addiction is a massive menace that has resulted in the loss of hundreds of thousands of lives across the globe. Drugs like heroin, cocaine and crack affect the functioning of the brain, temporarily giving it a feeling of joyous bliss or euphoria. The neurotransmitters and receptors associated with pleasure are activated by these drugs, giving users the intense feeling of happiness.

But, this feeling cannot be sustained by the brain for long, and it tries to normalize things by increasing the receptor activity required to give the ecstasy. This reaction of the brain triggers what we call “drug tolerance” in users, who respond by increasing dosage to get the same results.

Vaccines are being developed to block the entry of drug molecules into the brain and prevent the “high” response in users, thus making drugs less rewarding. Here are a few things you need to know about a vaccine that has been in the making for several years but is now nearing the human trial phase.

1. Is the Brain Being Messed With?

This is a big misconception associated with anti-addiction vaccines.

The vaccine will not alter the structure of the brain. The molecules in the vaccine bind with the drug molecule, making it too big to pass through the brain-blood barrier. Prolonged drug use overloads the reward centre of the brain with false stimuli. As a result, the brain loses its ability to feel pleasure in normal activities and becomes unable to stop heightened pain receptivity.

Drug addiction cannot be cured or controlled easily because the brain has undergone permanent changes due to the sustained use of drugs. The incredible increase in receptor activity makes the addict vulnerable to agonizingly high pain perception when the drugs are withdrawn. Though drugs that can reduce the withdrawal symptoms are available, they are not always useful.

Once the vaccines are administered, the drugs become less rewarding to users because they do not reach or alter the brain. If the vaccines are used by those who are not addicted, they will find drug use less stimulating or rewarding, and absolutely not worth the trouble of taking them.

2. Finance and Funding Is Hard to Come By

Funding for clinical trials for anti-addiction vaccines is not easy to come by. Top pharmaceutical companies see this as a potential marketing disaster, where their name will get dragged into touchy and controversial territory.

Also, several previous trials have not had very encouraging results.

A 2014 trial for a cocaine vaccine yielded poor results and so did an even earlier trial for vaccines to help curb nicotine addiction in smokers. When there are no past successes to show, it becomes harder to get federal and institutional funding.

3. What Are the Challenges to Effective Use of Anti-Drug Vaccines?

Dr. Kim Janda is of the opinion that drug addiction is not a moral failure on the part of the patient; addiction is actually a condition brought about by the changes that take place in the brain. Increase in receptor activity needed to trigger pleasure, higher vulnerability to pain and loss of grip over conscious control and motivation are a few ways in which the brain adapts to drug use. These permanent changes make abstinence physically agonizing.

Patients, as well as the medical community, cannot consider a vaccine as a magic bullet that can undo years of substance abuse in one shot. Also, the vaccine may not have the same effect on everyone. A person who has taken the shot may try something at a party and realize that he is not immune, leading to a possible relapse.

Vaccines are created to protect the user from the effects of a particular drug. It is not possible to vaccinate against every drug, and it is possible that the person may switch to another drug to get the high he or she is craving.

Most addicted people display a range of other deeper problems like depression, anxiety and mental illnesses, which need to be dealt with along with rehabilitation from addiction. Vaccines alone cannot deal with the entire spectrum of health problems faced by addicts. They can only be used in tandem with therapy, counseling and other treatment measures like home drug testing kits to ensure the person stays sober.

Some experts are also of the opinion that vaccines can be used by parents on children to prevent future substance abuse. But by doing so, elders are altering body chemistry of the child to prevent something that they disapprove from happening, which is not exactly ideal.

4. How Do Vaccines Help Improve the Bigger Picture?

Anti-addiction vaccines can be a powerful tool in the hands of medical professionals to help in their fight to cure addiction. Vaccines also bring about general awareness that addiction is a medical condition that can be prevented, just like the flu or tetanus. This will gradually help remove the stigma around addiction and treatment and enable faster recovery among those affected. 

Anti-addiction vaccines will take some time to be available in the market. But, continued support of vaccine research, along with development and trials, are extremely crucial to support the recovery and the rehabilitation of addicts.

Nicole Gomez is a digital content manager at TestCountry. She is involved in drug addiction support groups for recovering addicts and their families. She is passionate about living a healthy lifestyle and helping others do so as well. When she isn’t working she enjoys hiking, reading and cooking for friends and family.

RELATED: New Review Shows Marijuana Eases Opioid Addiction

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Here’s How Teens Who Abuse Opioids Are Getting Them

Most teenagers wallowing inside a wasteland of opioid abuse are not getting pain medications from black market sources. These little pill poppers are obtaining them legally, with a prescription, from their friendly neighborhood physician, according to a new study in the journal Pediatrics.

Researchers at the University of Michigan studied almost four decades of data pertaining to prescription painkillers. What they found was most of the teens using these types of drugs for recreational purposes had been prescribed opioids at one time or another.

These findings provide some additional backbone to another recent exploration into the opioid crisis, which found that people were more likely to become dependent on pain pills if prescribed more than a three-day supply.

It is unfortunate that the mainstream media often discounts the opioid problem in the United States as one that only affects the adult population. However, hospitalizations for opioid-related incidents in young children and teens have been rapidly increasing over the past two decades. A lot of these kids are simply dipping into a family member’s medicine cabinet, while others do not have to look any further than their family doctor to get a taste of what it’s like under the influence of hardcore pharmaceuticals.

“One consistent finding we observed over the past two decades is that the majority of non-medical users of prescription opioids also have a history of medical use of prescription opioids,” study author Sean McCabe, a research professor at the University of Michigan, told Live Science.

This means doctors all across the nation are planting the seed for the future of junkie America.

Right now, the U.S. consumes 80 percent of the global supply of prescription pain pills, with prescriptions for drugs like OxyContin and Vicodin increasing by more than 130 million between 1991 and 2013. If this trend continues, it is conceivable that these drugs could jeopardize the majority of young minds before they are even legally old enough to go to war or drink a beer.

“Health professionals who prescribe opioid medications to adolescents can play an important role in reducing prescription opioid misuse,” McCabe told Live Science. “We consider any rate of non-medical use of prescription opioids alarming, based on the known adverse consequences associated with this behavior.”

The present situation with teens and opioids is much more severe than the propaganda laden argument that lawmakers often lean on concerning marijuana as a gateway drug. In fact, studies show that youngsters have a greater disposition toward experimenting with hard drugs, like heroin, after gaining some experience with prescription painkillers. By then, it’s often too late for a turnaround.

Even former U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch, who served under President Obama, believes this to be true.

In 2016, she told a group of Kentucky high school students that, “when we talk about heroin addiction, we unusually, as we have mentioned, are talking about individuals that started out with a prescription drug problem, and then because they need more and more, they turn to heroin.”

“It isn’t so much that marijuana is the step right before using prescription drugs or opioids,” she added.

The current administration, however, does not have as much clarity on the issue.

During a recent speech in front of Virginia law enforcement, U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions rejected the idea of medical marijuana being, at least, a potential solution to the opioid epidemic, despite a number of studies showing it to be a possibility.

“I am astonished to hear people suggest that we can solve our heroin crisis by legalizing marijuana—so people can trade one life-wrecking dependency for another that’s only slightly less awful,” he said. “Our nation needs to say clearly once again that using drugs will destroy your life.”

The problem is the federal government continues to hinder marijuana research in such a way that makes it next to impossible to produce more concrete data with respect to cannabis as an alternative to opioids.

President Trump has the power to change this right now by initiating the process to have marijuana downgraded under the Controlled Substances Act—giving it more scientific flexibility. As it stands, the federal government still considers cannabis one of the most dangerous drugs in the world, even though the DEA admits, “no death from overdose of marijuana has been reported.”

In 2015, prescription opioids, classified less dangerous than marijuana, killed 33,000 American citizens—a death rate that surpassed motor vehicle accidents and gun-related homicides.

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Pilot with 230 lbs. of Weed Lead Police on Wild Chase

It must have looked like a cross between the Keystone Cops and a World War I movie, as a small airplane, full of weed, was being chased by police as it tried to land in several small Texas towns.

The 64-year-old pilot, Wayne Douglas Brunet was being monitored by federal agents because of his “irregular flight pattern” from Oregon to Texas.

When federal agents attempted to stop Brunet as he neared an unmanned airport in Bulverde, a small town north of San Antonio, he saw them and kept flying toward a different airport in Lago Vista, near Austin.

The problem was, the cops were also waiting there to greet him.

So, he decided to abort his second landing attempt in Lago Vista and scoot over to an airport in Llano, Texas.

By the time Brunet got to the Llano Municipal Airport, it was nearly midnight.

He brought his aircraft to a stop, jumped out, tossed a large duffel bag and his cellphone into the grass and took off running.

But, sadly for Brunet, he was apprehended on the tarmac by the Texas Department of Public Safety Air Unit.

Authorities recovered the duffle bag and phone. But inside his plane, however, they found 15 more duffel bags filled with vacuum-sealed packages of weed and $6,000 in cash.

The Department of Homeland Security Customs and Border Protection (CBP) Air and Marine Operation Center (AMOC) apparently were tracking the single-engine plane shortly after it took off from Medford, Oregon for Texas. It had landed only once in Holbrook, Arizona to refuel.

According to the U.S. Attorney’s Office in the Western District of Texas, Brunet is being charged with possession of marijuana with intent to distribute. He faces between five and 40 years in federal prison.

You can keep up with all of HIGH TIMES’ marijuana news right here.

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We Need More Weed: Booze and Opioids Causing More Veteran Suicides

Rather than allow veterans to participate in medical marijuana programs in states where it is legal, the United States government has continued to encourage active and retired members of the military to self-medicate with dangerous prescription drugs. Sadly, a new study finds that this policy may actually be causing more of America’s soldiers to commit suicide.

The latest research shows that veterans with drug or alcohol dependency issues are twice as likely to kill themselves than the ones not plagued by those demons.

The study, which was published in the latest issue of the journal Addiction, suggests that medical marijuana could be a salvation’s wing for a number of vets who mostly rely on sedatives and opioid medications to alleviate the debilitating symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and chronic pain.

Unfortunately, without access to a safer, less addictive alternative to opioids and other prescription drugs, veterans are twice as likely to die by suicide than the average citizen. For women using these drugs, the situation is even worse. They are around five times more likely to commit suicide, the study finds.

Some of the latest data shows around 50 percent of veterans suffer from chronic pain. Sixty percent live with PTSD. Incidentally, it is believed that around 68,000 of these men and women are currently living with an addiction to opioid medications.

For years, veterans have come forward in support of medical marijuana as an effective treatment for pain, as well as for the severe anxiety disorder known as PTSD. Many of them say the herb has allowed them to go on to live somewhat normal, productive lives at a time when they are haunted by some of the most savage images of wartime drama.

But because marijuana remains illegal in the eyes of the federal government, it is against the law for doctors employed with the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs to even discuss cannabis medicine with their patients as part of their overall treatment plan. Instead, Uncle Sam unapologetically gives these so-called medical professionals permission to pour pain pills and other addictive medications down their throats.

Because of this, 20 veterans are dying every day from suicide, according to the latest Veterans Affairs data.

In 2014, somewhere around 7,400 vets killed themselves, accounting for nearly 20 percent of the suicides for the entire nation.

Shockingly, researchers involved with the latest study found the suicide rate to be right around 76 percent for those veterans suffering from an addiction to substances like alcohol and opioids. But it is those vets who rely on tranquilizers and other drugs commonly used to treat anxiety disorders, like PTSD, that are at the highest risk.

In contrast, an extensive study from 2014, which covers nearly two decades of suicide, discovered a more than 10 percent decrease in self-inflicted deaths in states where medical marijuana was legal.

Considering the evidence, it makes sense that by allowing soldiers to medicate with cannabis rather than prescription drugs, fewer would die by their own hand.

But Congress simply cannot seem to come to terms on the issue. Most lawmakers believe that, in a nation where marijuana is considered one of the most dangerous substances in the world, it would be a poor reflection to give our veterans permission to use the drug.

Note: It should be pointed out that the federal government funded the study outlined in the journal Addiction, and it in no way confirms medical marijuana as a solution to ending veteran suicides.

It doesn’t have to.

There are plenty of testimonials and case studies floating around out there that clearly shows the nation has the power to significantly diminish these casualties by giving veterans access to cannabis medicine as opposed to highly addictive drugs.

You can keep up with all of HIGH TIMES’ news right here.

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Anti-Gay ‘Hate Group’ Blocking Marijuana Store—In San Francisco

Forget the San Francisco you know, the one Bill O’Reilly occasionally visits to demonstrate how bad the far-left is at running “the most liberal place in the country.”

Here be reactionaries, too: San Francisco has an active Ku Klux Klansman and last summer, the Klan thought enough of the city to actively recruit for new members—in the world-famous Haight-Ashbury, birthplace of the Summer of Love and (briefly) the home of Jimi Hendrix.

And just as San Francisco is the historic home of gay liberation, with one of the nation’s first gay elected officials—who was a friend and confidante of one of the very first medical marijuana activists, in turn responsible for making San Francisco the single city most responsible for pushing California and then the rest of the United States towards legal marijuana—San Francisco also has, apparently, adherents of a homophobic hate group, who are (thus far) successfully blocking the opening of a medical cannabis dispensary.

As the Bay Area Reporter documented, members of the Pacific Justice Institute (PJI), an anti-LGBT group infamous for comparing being gay to cigarette smoking and concocting bogus stories about transgender people, are agitating against a well-known San Francisco medical marijuana dispensary’s efforts to open up a location on the city’s quiet and relatively weed-free west side.

For context’s sake: San Francisco has more than two dozen marijuana stores, but most are concentrated in the city’s urban core on the east side. On the residential west side, there are almost no places to buy cannabis legally, and previous efforts to open up dispensaries have been met with furious neighborhood opposition and behind-the-scenes government maneuvering.

Dr. Floyd Huen, a longtime physician and the husband of former Oakland, Calif. mayor Jean Quan, wants to partner with the Apothecarium, which operates locations in the city’s Castro District and in Las Vegas, to open up a dispensary on the west side. At a recent community meeting held at a local police station, about 100 people, including members of the Pacific Justice Institute, intimidated Huen to the point where he left the meeting, the BAR reported.

Frank Lee, a neighborhood resident who self-identified as a member of the PJI, told the newspaper that the dispensary makes him “concerned about the children,” and recently called a press conference to announce the group’s “serious opposition” to the dispensary and two other proposed marijuana retail outlets in other parts of the city. As justification, Lee repeated the oft-debunked canard that legal marijuana outlets cause crime (when in fact, they reduce crime, including the crime of selling weed illegally).

Brad Dacus, PJI’s founder and president, did not disavow Lee as a sympathizer and adherent, and said that Lee “understands our goals,” according to the newspaper.

The Southern Poverty Law Center classified the Pacific Justice Institute as an active anti-LGBT group in 2015, about two years after the PJI fabricated a story about a transgender student harassing females in a girls’ bathroom. That never happened, but PJI President Dacus’s support for the state’s short-lived gay marriage ban—and his comparison of defeating gay peoples’ ability to get married to defeating Nazi Germany, as well as his group’s defense of a pastor who preached in support of stoning gay people to death? All that absolutely happened.

Opposing a medical marijuana dispensary whose headquarters is in the Castro District, the epicenter of gay rights (for men, anyway) where Dennis Peron, a gay man and one of the leaders of the medical marijuana movement, still lives today, would be well in line with PJI’s goals.

In addition to Bill O’Reilly-baiting freaks, Klansmen,  gay people and gay-haters, San Francisco also has a land-use process that gives local neighborhood sentiment enormous sway in determining what gets built where—if at all.

This means fringe opinions—even outright hateful ones like PJI’s and Lee’s—may play a role in determining whether Apothecarium’s outlet happens.

At the same time, the new location may not happen irrespective of PJI.

The west side of San Francisco is also heavily Chinese-American, and Chinese-Americans have been reluctant to embrace medical cannabis as a welcome addition to their neighborhoods—for reasons that have very little to do with the actual doings of a 21st-century marijuana outlet.

So it’s an old story, albeit with a new homophobic twist.

All of which makes Huen, the doctor who just wants to open up a weed club, “very sad,” as he told the paper.

You can keep up with all of HIGH TIMES’ marijuana news right here.

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Here’s Why Jeff Sessions Hates All Drugs

Long before you knew who he was or needed to know anything about the obscure throwback of a lawmaker from the Deep South, whose reward for backing Donald Trump well before it was popular or sensible was to be put in charge of the nation’s law-enforcement apparatus, Jeff Sessions was telling lies about marijuana.

In 2014, the then-Alabama senator had a bee in his hood about food stamp benefits. He had heard that in Colorado and Washington, then the only two states in the U.S. where adults could legally purchase recreational marijuana, it was possible for food-stamps recipients to use their EBT cards to buy weed.

Never mind that it was pure nonsense.

As Snopes found, it is impossible to use an EBT card either at the point of purchase in a dispensary or at a dispensary ATM, just as it’s not possible to buy liquor with an EBT card.

Regardless, there was Sessions on the floor of the Senate, just the same, spouting off about a nonexistent problem in someone else’s state and proposing legislation to block it.

This incident is all but forgotten now, lost in a miasma of racist jokes and “off-color remarks,” patent falsehoods about cannabis and crime, and a bizarre refusal to accept data and scientific opinion while insisting, against all odds, that heroin and marijuana somehow belong in the same category. (We also forget, mercifully, that Sessions declared that marijuana could not be safer than alcohol, as data demonstrates, because Lady Gaga was “addicted” to it.)

But as the nation’s top law enforcement officer continues to act as if we’re still living in the Nancy Reagan 1980s with his “revival of the ‘Just Say No’ Show,” as Reason columnist Jacob Sullum put it, it’s important to ask why—as in why is he doing this?

Why persist in an unpopular lost cause, with a fervor so unyielding it is beyond the edge of reason, to the extent it risks seriously undermining of his own credibility with lawmakers and law-enforcement officers who have already accepted the obvious, becoming easy fodder for late-night television jokes in the process?

There’s a not-so-secret answer to this riddle, and it’s hidden—in plain sight—in the weed food stamps episode.

The obvious and easiest explanation is that Jeff Sessions has always done this. He has always been this way. This is how his world works, and he will be damned if he accepts he is somehow wrong.

This would explain the attorney general’s fatal case of confirmation bias, exemplified in Sessions’ choice to seek counsel on the marijuana question from attorneys general who alleged, without data, that legalization was causing violence in their states—and to parrot it back at any opportunity.

It’s important also to remember that it is not just marijuana Jeff Sessions hates. It’s all drugs.

Drugs. Are. Bad.

In Sessions’s fake apology for being “unfashionable” in his persistence to refuse to tolerate drug use of any kind—as Nancy Reagan exhorted us to do before such policies led to an incarceration rate worse than North Korea’s—he clings to some D.A.R.E.-class-level understanding of the “terrible truth about drugs and addiction.”

The only solution, according to the man who directs and supervises the DEA, is to prevent drug use—of any kind, of all kinds—from happening in the first place.

We’ve tried this policy before. It’s bad policy. It’s unrealistic, it doesn’t work, it’s expensive and it’s also counter-intuitive. It helps leads to where we are today: a mass embrace of legalized marijuana, something that was by no means a fait accompli less than a decade ago.

This is the reveal.

Jeff Sessions is hanging onto this not because he believes Drug War 1.0 can be revived and won, an argument akin to pushing for the U.S. Navy to readopt wind-powered ships because of how great they were at the time.

He himself has admitted it.

So, here is another theory: He hates drugs because doing so allows people he has never liked to be punished. These people are non-white people.

Such views fit neatly into the grand Republican plan to reclaim the South—the “Southern Strategy,” which, as Ronald Reagan strategist Lee Atwater admitted, is patent, virulent racism by only slightly less obvious means than shouting racial epithets.

The modern drug war began with Richard Nixon’s Controlled Substances Act.

Though other aides later denied it, Nixon’s domestic policy adviser, John Ehrlichman, allegedly admitted to a magazine writer that the War on Drugs was cooked up as a way to punish the American left and marginalize black people.

One look at how the drug war was subsequently prosecuted—and in which neighborhoods, and against whom, and the consequences, including voter disenfranchisement and economic disaster—demonstrates how well it served this strategy.

Before Ronald Reagan told the South that the Voting Rights Act was a “humiliation,” he was cooking up fabulous tales about public-housing complexes with gyms and swimming pools and public-assistance recipients feasting on steaks and driving Cadillacs—the mythical “welfare queens.”

These are the racist dog-whistles that Atwater had the politicians under his sway utter.

Sessions’s odd outburst about EBT-funded marijuana purchases is straight out of Atwater’s playbook. It’s the welfare queen line, with some of the nouns swapped out. Look, Sessions tried to say—people are wasting your hard-earned tax dollars on their drug habits! It’s no stretch to assume the people to whom Sessions is referring are not white people.

Sessions has gone to great lengths to insist that he’s not a racist, that off-color jokes about the Ku Klux Klan being OK people until he heard they smoked weed either didn’t happen or were meant to be jokes.

But he can’t hide from his record, which reveals he believed wholeheartedly Reagan’s line about the shame of the federal government forcing the South to let black people vote. He used his power as a U.S. attorney in Alabama to prosecute community organizers who were registering black people to vote. This turned heads in the 1980s, when people who could remember segregated lunch counters were still voting.

Then-Senator Ted Kennedy declared it was “inconceivable” that Sessions could be a U.S. attorney, let alone a judge. According to then-Ohio Sen. Howard Metzenbaum, Sessions was a nominee of ”marginal qualifications who lacks judicial temperament… A nominee who is hostile, hostile to civil rights organizations and their causes.”

There is another word for someone who is hostile against people who marched with Martin Luther King, Jr., and are hostile to causes like desegregated schools, lunch counters and the right to vote.

After this debacle, Sessions laid low for almost two decades. He did very little in the U.S. Senate until Obama’s second term, when he began to speak his outdated piece on weed. Then, all of a sudden, just as blatantly racist alt-righters had their man for president in Donald Trump—a man whose values Lee Atwater would recognize, though he would abhor his countenance—Sessions resurfaced, tripping upward into a position of extreme power.

Back in 2014, conservative TV pundit Bill O’Reilly, a one-time liberal bugaboo all but forgotten in the age of Pepe memes, fake news and Breitbart warmongers now dictating policy in the White House, allowed himself a moment of clarity. When the New York Times used its editorial page to call for the legalization of all drugs, O’Reilly scoffed. This wasn’t about drugs—it was about race, as in racially skewed arrest and incarceration statistics.

This is the argument masterfully made by academics like Michelle Alexander in The New Jim Crow.

When it wasn’t acceptable to deny black and brown people the right to vote, the right to work or the right to personhood just because they were black, punishing them for drug use was a convenient work-around. When it wasn’t acceptable to use them for slave labor or as grossly underpaid sharecroppers, you could incarcerate them and use them for slave-wage labor while behind bars. Disenfranchised blacks, satisfied whites and elected Republicans. Great success.

O’Reilly could see it.

There is no doubt Jeff Sessions sees it, too. (Klan hoods have eyeholes, after all.)

That he refuses to acknowledge it and uses the bully pulpit of attorney general of the United States, in the era of terrorism, religious discrimination, immigration controls and gun violence to spread disinformation and outdated nonsense about drugs tells you all you need to know.

Every time Jeff Sessions opens his mouth on drugs, he’s using Lee Atwater’s dog whistle.

You can keep up with all of HIGH TIMES’ marijuana news right here.

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Marijuana’s Next Billion-Dollar Market: Lab Testing

Fifty billion here, $10 billion there—estimates of the size and the growth of demand for cannabis, cannabis research and other marijuana-related ancillary products and services differ only in guessing at just how huge weed is going to be, everywhere, for everybody. (Amazing; this is just what investors want to hear!)

Now comes sweet music for the ears of anyone involved with a marijuana-testing lab: cannabis testing is poised to become a $1.4 billion market by itself, according to a new estimate.

Cannabis lab testing for potency, purity and detailed information such as terpene counts was worth $866 million in 2016. With rising demand for medical marijuana throughout the world, and legalized recreational cannabis available throughout more and more of North America, testing labs will be worth $1.4 billion by 2021—a year-over-year growth rate of more than 10 percent. Which is to say: pretty huge.

The estimate includes the cost of equipment and computer software used to test cannabis—expensive liquid and gas-chromatography machines—as well as the cost of hiring skilled and trained humans to run them and interpret the results. This is one area where growth may be inhibited; according to research analysts, there is a “dearth of skilled professionals” working in marijuana lab testing.

This is all according to an estimate from Markets and Markets, an India-based “global research firm” founded in 2001 that is also a veritable report factory. This estimate on the cannabis testing market is but one of 60,000 market reports the organization claims to publish in a calendar year. (Reading the full report will cost you several thousand dollars; this is all per the perfunctory introduction.)

It’s safe to say that there will be increasing demand for accurate and reliable marijuana testing and the subsequent clean cannabis, following a string of contamination scandals.

Two of Health Canada’s officially licensed marijuana companies were recently found to be using a banned pesticide in product delivered to patients—some of whom say they are now more sick than they were before as a result—and in California, an immuno-compromised cancer patient died after acquiring a fungal contamination that may have originated in smoked marijuana.

One area where lab testing is absolutely set to expand significantly is California—the largest single producer and consumer of cannabis in America—where none of the marijuana is subject to state quality-control standards and may be sold as-is until Jan. 1, 2018.

According to Berkeley, Calif.-based Steep Hill Labs, one of the labs mentioned in Markets and Markets’ report as a key player, much of the marijuana sold in dispensaries in California would fail safety standards in other states.

Of particular concern are the CO2 cartridges used in vape pens. More popular than ever as a discrete, clean and easy way to consume cannabis, cartridges use oil distilled from raw cannabis—and any contamination in the starting product is concentrated in the resulting oil.

Some vape cartridges may also include chemicals including polyethylene glycol, which is classified as a carcinogen. Does yours have this nasty stuff? You probably don’t know! Though you’d like to—and hopefully you will, well before the industry that’s telling you becomes worth seven figures.

You can keep up with all of HIGH TIMES’ marijuana news right here.

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Oregon Senate Approves Proposal to Protect Weed Buyers’ Information

As many people fret over a possible federal crackdown on weed, Oregon has stepped up to the plate to protect its pot-smoking citizens.

A proposal to shield the names, birthdates, driver’s license numbers or any other identifying information of potentially thousands of Oregon’s recreational pot customers cleared its first major hurdle in the Oregon Legislature this week.

The proposal, Senate Bill 863, was sponsored by a 10-member bipartisan committee that has already crafted most of Oregon’s marijuana policies. The bill cleared the Senate on Tuesday and now, heads to the House for consideration.

SB 863 seeks to put an end to a common practice in Oregon’s pot industry, wherein legal retailers tend to store information on their customers, such as names, addresses, birthdates, driver’s license numbers, etc.

If the proposal becomes law, which is likely, retailers would have 30 days to destroy their recreational customers’ info and would be prohibited from keeping those records in future.

Data from medical marijuana cardholders would be excluded from this practice in that they don’t face persecution from the feds, at least not yet.

But why were pot retailers keeping this information in the first place?

Like many large retailers in the U.S. who ask similar questions, legal weed vendors say the data they collect is used for marketing purposes, such as email lists for promoting new products and for offering birthday discounts.

Senate Bill 863 would still permit this type of data keeping, but only if the customer does so willingly.

State Senator Ted Ferrioli, Republican minority leader and one of the bill’s sponsors, said it is a privacy concern not only for Oregon’s pot smokers, but potentially federal employees, concealed-weapon permit holders and out-of-state visitors.

“I don’t have to tell you of the frequency of hacking incidents or inadvertent releases of data… the loss of this information could be damaging for many different reasons,” Ferrioli said Tuesday on the Oregon Senate floor.

“We’ve heard a lot of conflicting information about the (White House) administration’s approach to cannabis,” he continued.

That’s for sure. Mixed signals from the White House abound.

There’s White House spokesperson, Sean Spicer, who suggested a federal crackdown might occur…sometime.

Then, several days ago, U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions, a dyed-in-the-wool pot-hater, cast doubt on medical marijuana, saying “medical marijuana has been hyped, perhaps too much.”

No matter how things pan out in this tense, and at times baffling, standoff between states’ rights and the strident anti-weed White House, any enforcement of federal prohibition could be complicated for Oregon, where most pot shops are licensed to serve both recreational and medical patients in the same place.

“When you’re a medical cardholder, you opt-in to your records being kept because you have a qualifying condition that requires higher limits and potencies and certain products… So, the bill went as far as it reasonably could to protect privacy,” said Jonathan Lockwood, spokesman for the Senate GOP caucus.

Oregon… such a reasonable state; GOP and Democrats working together.

Why can’t we all be like Oregon?

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Fear and Avoidance: Tennessee Medical Marijuana Dies Because Lawmakers Are ‘Scared’

Though the notion of giving sick people their choice of medicine is a winner in every poll and is at last taking hold in the South, there will be no medical marijuana in Tennessee this year. Why ever not?

The reason is simple, according to Tennessee state Rep. Jeremy Faison. It’s because his fellow lawmakers are scared.

Faison was sponsor of a bill that would have seen Tennessee lawmakers make a medical marijuana law themselves and not foist the difficult question onto voters, as nearly ever other state has done. Nothing wrong with direct democracy: Voter initiative was how medical marijuana first came to pass in California, and the voter initiative is also how adult-use marijuana legalization is coming about. However, making laws that reflect popular support is something elected lawmakers are supposed to do—you could even say it’s their core function.

Some state legislatures have found the fortitude necessary to pass a law that has overwhelming popular support. Others have at least voted on the question. But instead of even putting Faison’s proposal to a vote, Tennessee lawmakers will spend the summer “studying” the issue, as the Tennessean reported.

What elected laymen could conceivably add to the body of scientific knowledge—or what possible counterpoint they could posit to the National Academy of Sciences’s findings that cannabis does indeed help with pain and cancer and AIDS-related suffering—is beside the point. Just like lawmakers in Utah before them, Tennessee lawmakers are eager for any excuse to avoid having to vote on the issue.

“The Senate, bless their heart, are just scared to death of their voters,” Faison, a Republican, said after a state House committee voted to table his legislation and allow the state house speaker and the lieutenant governor to form a “task force” to study cannabis instead.

Not that it matters, but this is, of course, a wholly irrational fear, as even die-hard Republicans are on board with cannabis. According to a poll of “hardcore Tea Party Republicans” taken by Tennesseans for Conservative Action in January, 52 percent of likely voters support medical marijuana, with only 31 percent opposed.

Faison pointed to mounting evidence supporting marijuana’s value as an alternative to prescription painkillers, but had to contend with naysayers, no doubt emboldened by U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions, the lead denier of science showing cannabis is an effective alternative to opiates, and that opiate use goes down where cannabis is legal.

“That plant — it’s not killing us, it’s the legal prescriptions that are killing us,” he said.

Going forward, Faison predicts running and hiding from marijuana will be a bigger political liability for his fellow lawmakers than actually having to, you know, vote on it.

“Tennessee is there, my constituents are there, their constituents are there,” he said, according to the Tennessean. “I just have to get the Senate there.”

Or get them out.

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Conspiracy Theories Are The Reason We Still Have Polio

Conspiracy Theories Are The Reason We Still Have Polio

In Pakistan’s Swat Valley, some families worried that the polio vaccine was a secretive method from the government to enforce birth control.

March 19, 2017 at 09:36AM

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