Author: News Room

A strong majority of New Hampshire residents continue to support marijuana legalization, though opinions are more mixed when it comes to the idea of conducting cannabis sales through a system state-run stores as the governor recently backed, according to a new poll. The Granite State Poll from the University of New Hampshire (UNH) Survey Center posed a series of cannabis questions to respondents in the survey, which was published on Tuesday, as lawmakers in the state explore different reform proposals, including the possibility of creating a hybridized state-controlled and privately licensed market. Overall, nearly three in four New Hampshirites (72…

The U.S. State Department has released its annual report to Congress on international religious freedom issues, again examining the relationship between marijuana laws in other countries and how they either respect or violate the rights of certain believers to practice their faiths. For 2022, the report revealed increased tolerance in some countries for religious groups like Rastafarians who use cannabis ceremonially, with spiritual leaders saying that they’ve been encouraged by reform efforts to legalize or decriminalize marijuana. In certain nations like Saint Lucia, religious organizations said that the government had actively engaged them on cannabis issues. And while certain groups in…

An agent of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) who was fired in 2019 over a drug test has filed suit against the agency.  Anthony Armour, who worked in DEA efforts fighting opioid trafficking, promptly admitted he was self-medicating with CBD after a random drug test showed over-the-limit traces of THC, according to his lawsuit. He was fired for violating the agency’s drug-free workplace policy.  A 15-year DEA veteran and former football player, Armour said he turned to CBD after conventional pain medication failed to give him relief for injuries suffered in both his law enforcement and sports careers.  ‘No…

A New York Senate committee has approved a bill to authorize the establishment of a state-sanctioned overdose prevention center where people could use currently illicit drugs in a medically supervised environment and receive treatment resources. The Senate Health Committee passed the harm reduction legislation from Sen. Gustavo Rivera (D) in a voice vote on Tuesday, sending it to the Finance Committee for consideration. “Harm reduction works. Harm reduction is a modality—a way to approach dealing with an issue which assumes, first, that a person who uses drugs is a person, and that they have to be met where they are,”…

“Oregon workers are calling for the removal of Representative Holvey after his repeated attacks on their livelihoods. He has shown that his allegiance lies with large corporations, not with Oregonians.” By Julia Shumway, Oregon Capital Chronicle Oregon’s largest private sector union is targeting one of the Legislature’s top-ranking Democrats for recall. United Food and Commercial Workers Local 555 has long had a close relationship with Democratic politicians, spending tens of thousands on recent legislative campaigns and endorsing liberals up and down the ballot. But relationships with leaders chilled during the pandemic as the union lobbied unsuccessfully to use federal relief…

U.S. Sen. Tim Scott (R-SC) is entering the race for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination—one of the latest contenders to try and stake their claim against the party’s current frontrunner, former President Donald Trump. As far as marijuana policy goes, Scott’s record is thin. During his time in the House, he voted against an amendment on protecting state medical cannabis programs. But overall, his drug platform has mostly focused on what he views as the nexus between border policies and opioid trafficking. The senator serves as the Republican ranking member of the Senate Banking Committee, which held a hearing where…

New Hampshire House lawmakers are taking up a bill that could be used as a vehicle to legalize marijuana through a quasi hybridized state-run and privately licensed market—though there is significant confusion about the details of the proposed legalization amendment, which some advocates originally characterized as an effective compromise but now see as potentially unworkable. The House Commerce and Consumer Affairs Committee voted to reconsider SB98—a bill on the unrelated subject of alcohol license payments—on Tuesday and then discussed Chairman John Hunt’s (R) legalization amendment, which which members will vote on during an executive session next week. This follows the…

A new federally funded study illustrates the difficulty of developing a breathalyzer-like device for cannabis: Even when using carefully collected samples and laboratory analysis, researchers found THC levels were too inconsistent to tell whether someone had smoked marijuana recently. The findings, from researchers at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and the University of Colorado Boulder, “do not support the idea that detecting THC in breath as a single measurement could reliably indicate recent cannabis use,” authors said. “A lot more research is needed to show that a cannabis breathalyzer can produce useful results,” said co-author Kavita Jeerage,…

A key House committee has blocked amendments to legalize marijuana and carry out a federal study into “the prevalence of fentanyl-tainted” cannabis from receiving floor votes. The proposals were both filed by Republican lawmakers who sought to attach them to a broader bill to ramp up criminalization of the opioid that also contains provisions to generally streamline research into Schedule I drugs. Ahead of Monday’s House Rules Committee hearing on the Halt All Lethal Trafficking of (HALT) Fentanyl Act, Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) proposed an amendment seeking to federally deschedule marijuana. A separate proposal from Rep. Vern Buchanan (R-FL) would have…

A former Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) officer is taking the agency to federal court after being fired for testing positive for THC that he attributes to legal hemp-derived CBD oil he took for pain relief. After 15 years as a special agent at DEA, Anthony Armour was terminated in 2019 following a random drug screening that showed a positive result for a THC metabolite. He promptly notified the agency that he believed the result was related to CBD oil that he’d been using as an opioid alternative after hemp and its derivatives were federally legalized under the 2018 Farm Bill.…