Day: 03/29/2015
Pediatrics Group Says Schools Shouldn’t Drug Test
Random drug testing doesn’t have enough evidence to support it, the AAP says
http://time.com/3761571/drug-testing-schools/
The researchers also add that drug tests don’t typically pick up on alcohol, which is the illegal substance most commonly used by adolescents and teens…
Navajo Nation Imposes 2% Sin Tax on Junk Food to Curb Obesity
http://time.com/3762922/navajo-nation-junk-food-tax-obesity/
Navajo President Ben Shelly approved the Healthy Dine Nation Act last November, which from this week will also eliminate a 5% sales tax on healthy fare including fresh fruits and vegetables.
Revenues from the sin tax will reportedly be channeled towards community wellness projects like farmer’s markets, vegetable gardens and greenhouses in the 27,000 sq. mi. of Navajo reservation spanning from Arizona and New Mexico to Utah…
With nearly half of the Navajo youth population facing unemployment and 38% of the Navajo reservation at the poverty level, supporters say the act may serve as a prototype for sin taxes to curb obesity in low-income communities across the U.S…
http://www.taxrates.com/blog/2013/08/05/navajo-nation-considers-rejects-junk-food-sales-tax/
There is already a 5% tax on junk food sold throughout the Navajo Nation…
http://www.daily-times.com/ci_23864765/navajo-nation-officials-say-lifting-ban-alcohol-is
A majority of residents on South Dakota’s Pine Ridge Indian Reservation appear to have voted in favor of overturning a 124-year-old alcohol prohibition. The unofficial count — 1,645 in favor of allowing alcohol on the reservation and 1,494 against it — is too close to call, according to The Associated Press…
Oglala Sioux officials hope to build education, detoxification and treatment centers with tax revenue from alcohol sales. Navajo Nation officials say they are tracking the situation. But they said that lifting the prohibition on alcohol on the Navajo Nation is not an option.
American Indians and Alaska Natives die from alcoholism at a rate 514 percent higher than other Americans, according to Navajo Nation Vice President Rex Lee Jim’s address to the New Mexico Senate’s Health and Human Services Committee meeting in June 2012.
Although alcohol is illegal on the Navajo Nation, residents in cities and communities such as Shiprock can buy alcohol just a few miles away in so-called border towns like Hogback, Farmington and Gallup…
“I see a lot of people hitchhiking to get (liquor),” said 28-year-old Duane Juan, who lives just south of Shiprock. “They’ll get it. If they legalize, it there will be more trouble here for people that don’t drink.”
One Shiprock resident, Laverne, who did not want to use her last name, said that she sees drinkers gathering on street corners and young women getting into different cars every day. She speculates that some people even resort to prostitution to fuel their alcohol habit.
“If they can’t get liquor then they drink mouthwash, hand sanitizer — whatever will get them high,” she said…
2 dispensaries face off in cutthroat fight for prime Portland turf
http://www.oregonlive.com/portland/
It can be a dog-eat-dog world when it comes to the 226 medical marijuana dispensaries that the state has approved for business…
Population of Oregon: 3.97 million
Number of dispensaries approved in Oregon: 226
Population of New Mexico: 2.08 million
Number of dispensaries in New Mexico: About 20
Marijuana media is buzzing as legal pot gains territory
https://fortune.com/2015/03/24/marijuana-media-news/
SF Evergreen is part of a marijuana media boom that comes as pot emerges from the [underground] market into legal legitimacy. New pot publications —in print and online — are popping up with regularity while older outlets are beefing up staff.
Cannabis Now, Culture Magazine, Marijuana Venture and Marijuana Business Daily have all opened for business in recent years to cover pot culture along with the financial side of the industry. Meanwhile, last summer, the thee-year old website Marijuana.com, hired a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist who has previously worked at MSNBC.com and NBC News, to lead its editorial operations…
In 2013, a year after Colorado residents approved recreational marijuana in their state, The Denver Post introduced The Cannabist, a website dedicated to the cannabis industry including an editor exclusively focused on the beat along with the paper’s first-ever marijuana critic…
Additionally, the San Francisco Chronicle hosts a cannabis industry blog “Smell the Truth” while Denver’s Westword, the alternative weekly owned by Village Voice Media, has featured its “Ask a Stoner” column since 2012…
Readers’ Turn: The Marijuana Debate
The article mentioned that one way to measure marijuana usage is collecting samples of hair clippings from barbershops and salons.
Fellastine of KCMO said:
“Go ahead and check the hair clippings. We stoners are longhaired hippy-types who never get hair cuts!”
Elextra of San Diego addressed that idea and also the racial disparity in drug arrests:
“The first thing that should be done, before white people begin to make millions on the sale and use of marijuana, is release the thousands if not tens of thousands of black people serving time in prison for selling or using it.”
US Cannabis Legalization Impacting Cartel Operations
The cartels used to be able to count on major profits from trafficking marijuana to the U.S. That has been slowly changing, however, even though cannabis grown in the U.S. and sold legally is typically much pricier than Mexican marijuana.
To keep profit margins up, a number of cartels have branched into other sources of revenue, including black tar heroin and meth. A U.S. Customs official told the online news outlet Fusion that between 2013 and 2014, for instance, that the agency saw a spike in seizures of heroin and meth on the U.S.-Mexican border, and a simultaneous decrease in marijuana, cocaine and ecstasy seizures.
The increase in heroin seizures can be attributed to the DEA’s war on pain patients and the medications they use. Not because a lot of pain patients are turning to heroin, but because the supply of prescription pain meds has been so severely restricted, and many of those addicted to drugs were using pain meds. Now, they’re using heroin, a lot of the supply coming from Mexico.
If the DEA didn’t see this potential result before the crackdown on pain clinics and doctors, pharmacies, and pain patients, then they’re stupid. And I don’t think the DEA is stupid. I just think they don’t care about the results of their actions, of continuing the drug war. After all, it’s their livelihood. To the DEA, all drugs are bad, and should be controlled and monitored. (Too bad the federal government doesn’t feel the same way about guns.)
I think meth will always be popular, no matter what’s going on in the drug war. But, with marijuana legalization, will we see a decrease in Americans who use cocaine and ecstasy? I wonder how alcohol sales are doing in Colorado and Washington…
Marijuana seizures were down by nearly 21% in that timeframe, and that was just the first year of recreational sales.
“Approximately 30% of cartels’ drug export revenues come from marijuana,” Mexican security analyst Alejandro Hope told Fusion. “In the long term, Mexican marijuana could be displaced by legal production in the United States.”
Fusion also noted that according to another report, some Mexicans are purchasing marijuana to smuggle back home, because it’s higher quality.
Mexican growers shouldn’t feel bad that our weed is better than theirs — a lot of our bud is grown legally, out in the open, as opposed to in the middle of Mexico’s very violent drug war. And you know, plants are very sensitive to things like war and poverty. Perhaps that’s one of the reasons why New Mexico doesn’t grow very good bud — we’re a very poor state.
For Children’s Seizures, Turning to Medical Marijuana
The Brunnos are among several hundred families who have been helped by the Realm of Caring, a foundation started by Colorado’s Stanley brothers, who have developed a strain of hemp oil that eases symptoms of various illnesses, including cancer, multiple sclerosis and epilepsy. Taking advantage of the state’s laws allowing medical and recreational use of marijuana, they have attracted the attention of desperate parents who have moved to Colorado…
As for the Stanley brothers, Mr. Siqueira said they were hoping to help thousands more children suffering from seizures by ramping up production — in Uruguay. He said that while current laws prevented them from shipping their Colorado-made oil to other states, they could import it from Uruguay…
All Things Chronic 