The most important legalization issue right now:

The current Republican Party no longer supports Democracy. The choice this election is between one party that supports a Democracy (Democrats) and the other party that supports a Putin-style authoritarian oligarchical regime (Republicans). Those are your choices.

— Ben Meiselas (@meiselasb) September 14, 2020

Cannabis is just old-fashioned herbal medicine and it is the same medicine that our ancestors used freely. We must take back our rights, which will allow us the freedom to grow this plant everywhere again and use it in every possible way. pic.twitter.com/5h15dSXZ88

— Rick Simpson (@Simpson_Rick) May 7, 2020

How Marijuana Criminalization Undermines The Coronavirus Response (Op-Ed)

 https://tinyurl.com/y8j2sxv5

... " There will be many policy lessons that emerge from the COVID-19 pandemic. One should be that we can achieve better health, safety, and economic outcomes if we replace cannabis prohibition with a thoughtfully regulated system of sales to adults and take other steps to reduce the number of low-risk offenders who become entrapped in our criminal justice system." 

     - Steve Hawkins, Marijuana Policy Project executive director

From Charlotte To Science: Why Now Is Prime Time For Biden To Embrace Bernie's Marijuana Legalization Plan
https://www.benzinga.com/markets/cannabis/20/04/15785285/from-charlotte-to-science-why-now-is-prime-time-for-biden-to-embrace-bernies-marijuana-legalizat#/.XpNkecfMQi4.twitter

"If Biden is the nominee, and wants people who feel the way I do to consider voting for him, he needs to make peace with a public, explicit refutation of his prior views and endorse Bernie’s cannabis plan. I don’t think cannabis voters should let him get away w anything less."

   - Steve DeAngelo  https://twitter.com/stevedeangelo/status/1237614989684269056

War On DRUGS or A War On the MIND?

The Opioid Crisis Is About More Than Corporate Greed

By Zachary Siegel

“This wasn’t just incompetence on the part of the DEA and the Department of Justice, it was knowing and intentional failure to do what most people think is their jobs.”

 

Study Finds Marijuana Augments Analgesic Efficacy Of Opiates

 The Marijuana Herald

According to a new study published by the journal Neuropsychopharmacology, the co-administration of marijuana and sub-therapeutic doses of oxycodone produces enhanced analgesic effects in human subjects

 

Blaming Prescription Pain Pills For The Opioid Epidemic Is Fake News
 By Peter Pischke

How negligent media have helped inflate a deadly moral panic over prescription opioids and ignored the real sources of addiction, while hurting people who live with devastating chronic pain.

FDA To Take Steps Toward Allowing CBD Products Following Hemp Legalization

By Kyle Jaeger

"Just after President Donald Trump signed the 2018 Farm Bill into law on Thursday, legalizing industrial hemp, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) published a lengthy press release responding to the legislative development—including a pledge to pursue pathways that would allow businesses to legally market products containing cannabis or cannabis-derived compounds." ...

 

Hemp is legal in the United States 

by Pete Guither

The Endocannabinoid System: Here’s How it Keeps You Healthy and Happy

by Marco

FDA Says Marijuana Ingredient CBD Doesn’t Meet Criteria For Federal Control

By Kyle Jaeger

... "Although the federal health regulatory agency’s review concluded that CBD shouldn’t be scheduled in any manner, the drug enforcement agency—citing international treaty obligations—opted to put Epidiolex in Schedule V and otherwise continue to classify CBD itself under the most restrictive category of Schedule I." ...

Marijuana extract can help curb psychosis, study says

Allen Cone at UPI

How the opioid crackdown is backfiring

By BRIANNA EHLEY at Politico

"Hundreds of chronic pain patients responding to a POLITICO survey describe being refused opioid prescriptions they had relied on for years with sometimes devastating consequences."

Why we should abolish ICE — and the DEA too

By Kathleen Frydl at VOX 

"The failed drug war and Trump’s war on immigrants share many features. To change course, we need to change institutions."

The War on Drugs Is Inseparable from US Imperialism

At VICE

 

"Much of the world used to treat drug addiction as a health issue, not a criminal one. And then America got its way."

Workplace Deaths Drop After States Legalize Medical Marijuana

By Kyle Jaeger at Marijuana Moment

Chemo And CBD Combo Can Be Magic Bullet For Pancreatic Cancer

By: Nicole Skrobin at Fresh Toast 

 
"Out of all types of cancers that exist, which type do you think is one of the hardest to beat? On a worldwide scale, pancreatic cancer is one of the deadliest forms of cancer in regards to overall survival rates. According to the American Cancer Society, amongst the combination of all stages of pancreatic cancer, the survival rate for one-year is 20 percent, and the survival rate for five years is under seven percent. Although certain cancer treatments are commonly used such as chemotherapy and radiation, in a recent study, it has been found that the combination of chemotherapy and Cannabidiol (CBD) treatments have led to significant pancreatic cancer survival rates. Read on to learn more about this unique cancer treatment and the likelihood of it being used by humans in the future."

The Government’s Solution To The Opioid Crisis Feels Like A War To Pain Patients

By Art Levine at HuffingtonPost

"As the feds crack down on opioid prescriptions, patients are taking their own lives, doctors are losing their jobs and overdose rates continue unabated."

Study: CBD From Marijuana Plus Chemotherapy Tripled Cancer Survival Rates In Mice

by David DiSalvo at Forbes 

 

 

There’s No Rational Way to Justify America’s Drug Laws

By Maia Szalavitz

  "People assume a medical committee sat down to consider which recreational drugs were the safest and least addictive, and this wise group decided alcohol and tobacco should be legal, while marijuana and everything else shouldn't. That's not what happened."

GPR55: The Third Cannabinoid Receptor?

 By Bill Weinberg at cannabisnow.com

 

 ..."In the human endocannabinoid system, cannabinoid receptors are the specialized protein molecules that interact with the active cannabis compounds in the human body. Since the 1990s, scientists have known about the receptors CB1 and CB2, but research is continuing to emerge about the GPR55 receptor and the role it appears to play in the endocannabinoid system as another unique cannabinoid receptor." ...

How the Government is Making the Opioid Crisis Worse

   - Cannabis versus Cancer  -

We know weed can mitigate the side effects of the disease and its treatments, but it might also fight malignancies directly

By Eyal Ballan at Scientific American 

"A number of other laboratory and animal studies have been conducted in recent years on colon, breast and brain cancers. They indicate that cannabinoids may inhibit tumor growth by blocking cell growth, causing cell death and blocking the development of blood vessels that tumors require to grow. We have yet to make the leap to study these promising effects on humans."

Harvard University Finds Cannabis Cuts Tumor Growth in Half in Three Weeks

 By Dr. Fateh Malik

 

"The active ingredient in marijuana cuts tumor growth in common lung cancer in half and significantly reduces the ability of the cancer to spread, say researchers at Harvard University who tested the chemical in both lab and mouse studies."

"They say this is the first set of experiments to show that the compound, Delta-tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), inhibits EGF-induced growth and migration in epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) expressing non-small cell lung cancer cell lines. Lung cancers that over-express EGFR are usually highly aggressive and resistant to chemotherapy."

"THC that targets cannabinoid receptors CB1 and CB2 is similar in function to endocannabinoids, which are cannabinoids that are naturally produced in the body and activate these receptors. The researchers suggest that THC or other designer agents that activate these receptors might be used in a targeted fashion to treat lung cancer".
“The beauty of this study is that we are showing that a substance of abuse, if used prudently, may offer a new road to therapy against lung cancer,” said Anju Preet, Ph.D., a researcher in the Division of Experimental Medicine."

Unique treatment potential of cannabidiol for the prevention of relapse to drug use: preclinical proof of principle
 at nature.com

Medical Cannabis Laws Don’t Increase Teen Marijuana Use, Another Study Finds

 By Tom Angell

“Synthesis of the current evidence does not support the hypothesis that US medical marijuana laws (MMLs) until 2014 have led to increases in adolescent marijuana use prevalence,” the new study, published on Thursday in the journal Addiction, concludes.

This Man Is The Reason Congress Can’t Vote On Marijuana Anymore

 By Tom Angell

In his capacity as chairman of the House Rules Committee, Congressman Pete Sessions (R-TX) has enormous power over which measures make it to the floor for consideration by his colleagues.
Despite continued efforts from a large group of bipartisan representatives, Sessions’s panel has consistently blocked all cannabis proposals from advancing over the course of nearly two years.

New Research Finds No Link Between Cannabis Use and Increased Risk of Traffic Accidents
At MerryJane


The study, published this month in the journal “Frontiers of Pharmacology,” also questions the validity of performing THC blood level tests on motorists.

Medical cannabis safely reduces pain in seniors

 By Brian Blum at Israel21c

Israeli study finds medical cannabis treatment significantly relieves pain and improves quality of life for older adults, with minimal side effects

If weed is no longer a crime, why are people still behind bars? 

By Gary Johnson at HuffingtonPost

Marijuana Smoke Exposure Not Linked To Poor Lung Health According To Study

by Johnny Green at Weed News

Study: Daily Marijuana Use by Alcoholics Linked to Reduced Liver Damage

 By Monterey Bud at Marijuana.com

Why Pot Smokers Scored Higher Than Nonsmokers on This Memory Test

By Brandon Specktor at Live Science 

"Which came first, the burnout or the weed?"
 
"Though various studies have linked teenage cannabis use to noticeable cognitive decline in adulthood, a recent paper published in the journal NeuroImage casts doubt on the existence of this straightforward cause-and-effect relationship." ...

 

Senators and Reps Tell Trump: Keep Your Marijuana Promise

Senators and Reps Tell Trump: Keep Marijuana Promise by tomangell on Scribd

Marijuana Is Safer Than Alcohol, Tobacco Or Sugar, Americans Say In New Poll
by Tom Angell

 

18033 NBCWSJ January Poll (1!19!18 Release) by Carrie Dann on Scribd

The best border wall is a legal marijuana market
 by Tim Fernholz at Quartz

... “They erect this fence only to go out there a few days later and discover that these guys have a catapult, and they’re flinging hundred-pound bales of marijuana over to the other side,” the agent said. “We’ve got the best fence money can buy, and they counter us with a 2,500-year-old technology.”

Gridiron Cannabis Coalition PSA

War on Drugs or War on Freedom: One Nation’s Perception/Deception of Cannabis

  Posted by Ryan Cristiánat Last American Vagabond

Legal marijuana is supported by every group in America except Jeff Sessions, Republicans and old people
 By Melina Delkic at Newsweek


"Americans support marijuana legalization across race, gender and almost all age groups and political parties—except for Republicans, according to a new poll."

"Sixty-two percent of Republican voters oppose marijuana legalization, and only 33 percent support it, according to a new poll from Quinnipiac University released on Thursday. The divide is a striking contrast to how other demographics feel about pot. Fifty-eight percent of Americans think all marijuana should be legalized, and 91 percent believe medical marijuana should be legal, in line with previous measurements of public sentiment from Quinnipiac."

"And a whopping 70 percent of voters oppose enforcing federal marijuana laws, as Attorney General Jeff Sessions made clear he wants to do when he rescinded the Cole Memo last week." ...

Fear of Mexicans, Not Blacks, Led Kansas to Ban Marijuana
by Jacob Sullum 

 "Steven Alford, a Republican who represents Ulysses in the Kansas House of Representatives, recently opined that his state banned marijuana because blacks "responded the worst" to it, due to "their character makeup" and "their genetics." He was wrong, of course. The contemporaneous evidence suggests it was mainly Mexicans, along with white teenagers, who were on the minds of Alford's predecessors when they voted to ban marijuana in 1927 (not "in the '30s," as Alford claimed)." ...

New Analysis Shows Federal Marijuana Legalization Could Raise $130 Billion, Add 1 Million Jobs by 2025
by Jon Queally at Common Dreams 

  There is no fiscal sense in keeping marijuana illegal. 

  In fact, there is no sense in keeping marijuana illegal federally at all.

America Declares War On Jeff Sessions’ Threatened War On Cannabis
by Johnny Green at Weed News 

 ... "it may a spark movement to quit dancing around with the end of marijuana prohibition and just get it done."

Marijuana Is a Gateway Drug to Federalism
by Charles C. W. Cooke at National Review

... "The United States is a collection of . . . well, of states; it is not a giant centralized democracy with fifty regional departments. Congress should make it a priority to get the federal government out of this area, and to let the states, not the attorney general’s fealty, determine which rules are best for their citizenries." ...

Study Shows Medical Cannabis Helps Reverse Specific Harmful Effects of Tobacco
By Jason Sander at The Marijuana Times 

 ... "he started self-medicating with cannabis and wisely cut back on his tobacco use. After six months of self-medication, the patient was able to get a prescription for medical cannabis. 

The foot slowly regained circulation, the pain in his foot was reduced, and gradually continued to reduce over time.

After three years of medical cannabis treatments, quitting tobacco and taking antibiotics, the patient’s ischemia was reversed almost entirely. The scars on his foot were also greatly reduced, almost nonexistent. In the study, Dr. Robinson noted that the gradual return of blood flow to the patient’s limbs was likely due to the anti-inflammatory nature of CBD." ...

Cannabis Oil Poised to Become Treatment for Autism and Epilepsy

at Civilized

Marijuana studied as treatment for tics of Tourette syndrome
By Ed Stannard at New Haven Register

California’s Lt. Gov. Calls Legal Weed “Criminal Justice Reform”

 By Monterey Bud at Marijuana.com

"Legalizing marijuana is, at its core, about criminal justice reform. It's about ending the failed war on drugs and fixing a broken system that has disproportionately affected low-income and minority communities."

 -California Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsome