Author: News Room

The City Council in Eureka, California, adopted a resolution this week to decriminalize psychedelic plants and fungi, making enforcement of laws against personal use, cultivation and possession a low priority for police. It’s at least the fifth local jurisdiction in the state to embrace the policy change. The resolution, which passed unanimously on Tuesday, deprioritizes the investigation and arrest of adults 21 and older for certain psychedelics-related activity. Specifically, it applies to “planting, cultivating, purchasing, transporting, distributing, engaging in practices with, or possessing Entheogenic Plants and Fungi or their extracted compounds that are on the Federal Schedule I list” and…

Marijuana regulators in Maryland have issued guidance meant to help minimize the risk of burglaries and other crimes at licensed cannabis businesses amid what they say is an uptick in thefts targeting dispensaries across the state. “These burglaries have targeted ATMs inside the dispensaries,” the Maryland Cannabis Administration (MCA) said. “MCA is issuing this notice to help reduce vulnerability to burglaries and to help protect licensees and their employees, as well as patients and consumers.” Marijuana retailers are typically cash-based businesses, which is largely due to federal laws limiting the ability of banks to servicethe cannabis industry without legal risk.…

Rhode Island officials have quietly published updated marijuana sales numbers stretching back to the launch of the state’s adult-use market in December 2022, fixing discrepancies in the figures that sometimes amounted to tens of thousands of dollars. The adjustment came in response to a request for clarification from Marijuana Moment after the state Department of Business Regulation published its monthly sales records from September. Initially, retail totals reported by the state didn’t match up with the sum of reported medical and recreational sales. In some cases the differences were small—September’s discrepancy was just $0.04, but errors in other months ranged…

Vivek Ramaswamy is currently the only major 2024 GOP presidential candidate to publicly support not just legalizing marijuana but also taking steps to provide regulated access to certain psychedelics, with a focus on therapeutic use. But the 38-year-old entrepreneur has also made sometimes conflicting comments about his drug policy positions, seemingly walking back more bold calls for reform and challenging reporting on what specific proposals he endorses. And while he’s in favor of legalization, he’s also called for expanding the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), raising eyebrows in the reform community. Ramaswamy has made a habit of grabbing headlines since entering…

“You know who lives there?” Charlie, the man driving our boat, asks me as I jump into the deep blue water of Lake Coatepeque in northwestern El Salvador. He points to a minimalist-style villa on the freshly-mowed slopes of an island at the center of the lake. “That’s President Bukele’s. Ocho million dollares!” In any other Latin American country, people would talk about their leader’s private wealth with scorn. But Charlie’s tone is one of praise, excitement, even pride. It’s a sentiment I encountered again and again while traveling through El Salvador, and for a good reason. Until recently, the…

A congressional subcommittee’s hearing on the use of psychedelic-assisted treatments for mental health disorders that was originally scheduled for Thursday has been postponed, the panel announced after another failed vote to elect a House speaker on Wednesday. It’s not yet clear when the rescheduled event will be. The hearing of the House Veterans Affairs’ Subcommittee on Health was set to be the first time federal lawmakers ever convened a formal hearing primarily to discuss how entheogenic substances such as psilocybin and MDMA could help address an epidemic of veteran suicides. Two panels of experts were set to testify at the…

Fifty-seven percent of Ohio likely voters said in a new survey that they plan to vote yes on Issue 2, an initiative on the ballot next month that would legalize marijuana for adults 21 and older. That includes a slim majority of Republicans even as GOP elected officials in the state continue to oppose the reform. Meanwhile 35 percent of respondents said they plan to oppose the measure, while just 7 percent were undecided. According to the poll, conducted by Baldwin Wallace University Community Research Institute (CRI) and published Tuesday, the reform had majority support among Democrats (66.4 percent), independents…

German lawmakers have officially begun consideration of a bill that would legalize marijuana nationwide. The country’s parliament, called the Bundestag, held the first debate on the legislation on Wednesday after delaying the meeting last week due to the conflict in Israel and Palestine. The legalization measure, spearheaded by Health Minister Karl Lauterbach, would allow adults to legally possess cannabis and cultivate a maximum of three plants for personal use. It would also create social clubs that could distribute marijuana to members. Officials have said a forthcoming second phase of legalization will eventually launch a pilot program for regulated commercial sales…

“It equates to approximately $3 million a month that Missouri cannabis customers are being forced to pay when that is not what the constitution says.” By Rudi Keller, Missouri Independent Marijuana prices rose in many parts of Missouri on October 1 as new local taxes took effect. Lawsuits filed in Buchanan and St. Louis counties argue that some of those taxes are illegal. The constitutional amendment that legalized recreational cannabis sales included a 6 percent statewide excise tax and authorized local governments to charge a sales tax of up to 3 percent. The question now before the courts is whether the…

A new study into the therapeutic effects of psilocybin suggests that use of the psychedelic drug can help ease psychological distress in people who had adverse experiences as children. Researchers said psilocybin appeared to offer “particularly strong benefits to those with more severe childhood adversity.” The study surveyed 1,249 people in Canada, ages 16 and older, who completed a questionnaire used to assess experiences of childhood trauma. They were also asked about psilocybin use, including when they last consumed the substance, their frequency of use and how strong the doses were. “We found that the effect of adverse childhood experiences…