Showing posts with label drugs. Show all posts
Showing posts with label drugs. Show all posts

How Prohibition Drives People Toward Riskier Drugs

by Jacob Sullum.      Rise of the mystery high. Last week NBC News broadcast a story about Cloud 9, "a dangerous new synthetic drug that's been turning up at high schools." Anchorman Lester Holt warned that Cloud 9 is "legal, unregulated and readily available at convenience stores"; that it "has sent almost two dozen young people to     ... MORE

Henry I. Miller: Life-Saving Drugs And Deadly Delays

Curious incentives on display.    The Food and Drug Administration just granted permission for “expanded access” to an experimental medicine for Ebola. It’s OK as far as it goes, but it’s an exception to the FDA’s reluctance to approve the use of life-saving products. Safety and efficacy testing of the drug, designated TKM-Ebola, has barely     ... MORE

NY TIMES: Coalition Urges Nations To Decriminalize Drugs

by Somini Sengupta.        A coalition of political figures from around the world, including Kofi Annan, the former United Nations secretary general, and several former European and Latin American presidents, is urging governments to decriminalize a variety of illegal drugs and set up regulated drug markets within their own countries. The proposal  ... MORE

John Stossel: Healthy Profits?

More damage to the medical profession.    I'm the underachiever in my family. My parents also produced Harvard Medical School research director Thomas Stossel. Mom called him the one who had "a real job." For years, my brother annoyed me by not embracing the libertarianism that changed my life. It bored him. He was comfortable in his Harvard  ... MORE

World Health Organization Calls For Drug Decriminalization

UN argues against its own policy.     JAMAICA, Uruguay, Colorado, Washington—more and more places are rebelling against the UN conventions that established the criminalisation of narcotics half a century ago. But the latest organisation to weigh in against the UN’s line is rather surprising. It is a branch of the UN itself. A report just   ... MORE

Powerful New Painkiller Gives Drug Warriors A Headache

by Tom Wilemon.      Government's noble war to free you from pain relief. A powerful new pain medication approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration that easily can be manipulated by abusers has officials in Tennessee and other states worried. Called Zohydro, it’s an extended-release form of hydrocodone that comes in a capsule   ... MORE

VIDEO: Should Marijuana Be Legal?


Frank Luntz queries a national television focus group.

John Stossel: Bullies Rule

We're told government protects us,       but protectors quickly become bullies. Take the Food and Drug Administration. It seems like the most helpful part of government: It supervises testing to make sure greedy drug companies don't sell us dangerous stuff. The FDA's first big success was stopping thalidomide, a drug that prevented the    ... MORE

AP: Legal Marijuana Revenue Exceeding Expectations

Economic health improving in Colorado.        Colorado’s legal marijuana market is far exceeding tax expectations, according to a budget proposal released Wednesday by Gov. John Hickenlooper that gives the first official estimate of how much the state expects to make from pot taxes. The proposal outlines plans to spend some $99 million   ... MORE

Minnesota Cops Fear Loss Of Millions If Pot Legalized

by Betsi Fores.            The Minnesota Law Enforcement Coalition’s opposition to marijuana legalization is another case of the drug war run amok. The coalition, which includes Minnesota Police and Peace Officers Association, Minnesota Chiefs of Police Association, Minnesota Sheriffs Association, Minnesota County Attorneys Association, and   ... MORE

Stanton Peele: Why We Have Drug Scares

Are there greater social problems we can't face?     How many drug scares can you identify? Jacob Sullum identified these from 2013: marijuana, Salvia divinorum, cocaine,"bath salts," absinthe, Four Loko.  Well, let’s go back a ways.  Of course there was crack.  There were horse tranquilizers.  There was OxyContin.  Before Oxy there were      ... MORE

Can Drug Czar Be Required To Respect Science?

by Johnny Green.     A radical bill is introduced to Congress. U.S. Rep. Steve Cohen (D-TN) introduced a bill Tuesday that would change federal law so that the director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP), commonly known as the “drug czar,” is no longer prohibited from studying the legalization of marijuana and no longer     ... MORE

Jacob Sullum: Why Reschedule Marijuana?

Introducing reality into the equation.        Ever since Congress passed the Controlled Substances Act (CSA) in 1970, drug policy reformers have complained that marijuana does not belong on Schedule I, the statute's most restrictive drug category. Schedule I ostensibly is reserved for drugs with a "high potential for abuse" that have "no     ... MORE