Students For Sensible Drug Policy at UCI

08/05/2020

"At a time when America is trying to right its wrongs when it comes to the treatment of people of color and the war on drugs over the past few centuries, a Black, disabled veteran is still being held in prison on minor cannabis charges.

Sean Worsley, an Iraq veteran who suffers from a traumatic brain injury and PTSD, uses medical cannabis for his pain and anxiety. He legally purchased the medicine in his home state of Arizona before his arrest.

Worsley and his wife, Eboni, were arrested in Pickens County, Alabama, where cannabis is still not legal, back in August 2016. This took place when the couple stopped at a gas station and were approached by police officers for listening to music “too loudly”. The police then proceeded to search the vehicle where they found Worsley’s medical cannabis."

This is why the war on drugs must end.

Sean Worsley was initially stopped by the police for playing his music too loudly.

02/22/2020

"The US’s legal w**d explosion is an incredible story of de-stigmatization, entrepreneurship, and opportunity. It’s also at risk of becoming a staggering tale of hypocrisy, greed, and erasure. But as a deep-pocketed industry with political momentum, American cannabis is uniquely positioned to serve as a model for what racial reparations could look like.

'This is about harnessing the industry to embody the work of repair,' said Adam Vine, the founder of Cage Free Cannabis, an organization that pushes for 'drug war reparations' in the form of criminal record expungement, job fairs, voter registration, health care, and social equity programs."

The activists at the ground floor and front lines paved the way for this lucrative canna-business. Now as the risk of criminal prosecution has subsided, people are flocking with dollar signs in their eyes. As psilocybin and M**A studies come under way we will again see the people that were scared of the risk, leap at the opportunity to capitalize on the backs of those who put in the work.

The US's booming legal w**d industry is at risk of becoming a staggering tale of hypocrisy, greed, and erasure.

01/09/2020

"Right now, the laws that govern M**A are based on controversial research, and Medina-Kirchner’s work is part of a rapidly growing body of studies that directly contradicts it. And as perhaps the only scientist in the field who has experienced the impact of those laws from within the prison system, he’s also creating a pipeline to help other formerly incarcerated people transition into scientific research."

Ecstasy and absolution meet in the lab

12/26/2019

"The House of Representatives attempted to pass cannabis reforms this month by attaching riders to spending legislation for fiscal 2020—only to see them get summarily shut down in the Senate...

One of the most significant riders to the spending package would have prevented the U.S. Justice Department from using taxpayer dollars to stop states and territories from implementing their own laws authorizing possession, distribution or cultivation of ma*****na. That rider was tossed in favor of a long-standing one that protects only medical ma*****na."

The recreational cannabis industry, which is fully legal in 11 states, will continue to face onerous levels of red tape and uncertainty well into 2020.

12/05/2019

"Federal and state bank regulators announced Tuesday that they were scrapping a burdensome requirement that banks said kept them away from the h**p business. Banks will no longer have to treat their h**p customers as suspicious and file reams of paperwork to anti-money-laundering authorities for each interaction."

United States regulators say h**p businesses should not be treated with any more suspicion than other bank customers.

11/20/2019

"In a surprising turn of events, a key Congressional committee, the House Judiciary Committee, has voted to approve the Ma*****na Opportunity Reinvestment and Expungement (MORE) Act of 2019, or H.R. 3884, which would effectively put an end to cannabis prohibition in the United States of America, on a federal level by removing it from the Controlled Substances Act."

In a surprising turn of events, a key congressional committee, the House Judiciary Committee, has voted to approve a bill that would effectively put an end to cannabis prohibition in the United States of America.

11/11/2019

"Jon Kostakopoulos was drinking a staggering 20 cocktails a night and had been warned he was slowly killing himself when he decided to enroll in another psilocybin trial at New York University. During one psilocybin session, he was flooded with powerful feelings and images from his past.

Jon Kostakopoulos: Stuff would come up that I haven't thought of since they happened.

Anderson Cooper: So old memories that you hadn't even remembered came back to you?

Jon Kostakopoulos: I felt, you know, a lot of shame and embarrassment throughout one of the sessions about my drinking and how bad I felt for my parents to put up with all this.

He took psilocybin in 2016. He says he hasn't had a drink since."

Study participants at some of the country's leading medical research centers are going through intense therapy and six-hour psychedelic journeys deep into their minds to do things like quit smoking and worry less

11/01/2019

"They conclude that, as far as the scientific evidence is concerned, current drug laws have no rhyme or reason to them. The commission blames the UN’s drug classification system, which sorts some 300 psychoactive substances into 'schedules' according to their harms and benefits. Some, such as morphine, have medical uses. Others, such as psilocybin (the active ingredient in magic mushrooms), are used mostly recreationally. Drugs without any apparent medical utility are automatically placed in the most dangerous category—and subjected to the strictest criminal penalties—regardless of the risk they pose.:

Some drugs classified as highly dangerous are less harmful than alcohol or to***co

09/01/2019

08/21/2019

"The National Credit Union Administration (NCUA) said in its interim guidance that providing banking services to h**p businesses is allowable since the crop and its derivatives were federally legalized under the 2018 Farm Bill. The notice also emphasized the economic potential of h**p and the role credit unions can play as the industry continues to develop."

A federal financial agency released updated guidelines on banking in the h**p industry on Monday, following up on requests from multiple lawmakers to provide clarity on the issue. The National Credit Union Administration (NCUA) said in its interim guidance that providing banking services to h**p bus...

07/01/2019

BIG NEWS!!!

The measure prevents the Justice Department from interfering with cannabis laws in states and territories.

06/05/2019

"The vote makes Oakland the second U.S. city to legalize the natural hallucinogens afterDenver decriminalized them on May 8.

The city council’s vote directed law enforcement to cease investigating and prosecuting individuals for using or possessing drugs sourced from plants, cacti and – most commonly – mushrooms that contain the hallucinogen psilocybin."

Oakland, California’s city council on Tuesday voted unanimously to decriminalize hallucinogenic fungi, otherwise known as “magic mushrooms.”