Adventures of a Gonzo Journalist
Is CBD oil legal in the US? Oddly, the answer seems to depend on who you ask.
Despite the many benefits of CBD oil and a growing field of research showing both its safety and its efficacy, this popular hemp extract exists today in a confusing legal gray area.
The Drug Enforcement Agency insists that CBD oil is illegal at the federal level, while other legal experts and many vendors and producers of CBD oil think the DEA is overstepping its bounds and argue that hemp extracts are legal.
Posted in Audio, Journalism, and MintPress News
Despite widespread misinformation, the Drug Enforcement Agency hasn’t made CBD oil illegal, yet. And, thanks to multiple protections passed by Congress, it’s unlikely that they can simply make CBD products disappear. Even so, the misinformation created by a recent administrative move by the agency to reclassify CBD created a lot of needless fear. At the very least, the DEA can expect to face serious legal action if they attempt to ban CBD.
I also recently covered Donald Trump’s decision to appoint his bankruptcy lawyer, David Friedman, as the next U.S. ambassador to Israel. Friedman is openly supportive of Israel’s illegal settlements in the West Bank and Gaza, which underwent record growth in 2016. While the president-elect often surrounds himself with anti-Semites, he’s also selected numerous cabinet members and advisers who supports a far-right, anti-peace view on Israel and Palestine.
Posted in Journalism, and MintPress News
An administrative change by the Drug Enforcement Administration has left users of CBD oil, a popular tincture derived from agricultural hemp, fearful that they could lose access to this vital health remedy.
CBD oil is currently considered legal in all 50 states, and agricultural hemp, a non-psychoactive variety of the cannabis plant from which CBD oil is extracted, is legally grown in many states. While scientific research into its benefits is just beginning, preliminary results show that CBD oil can benefit conditions ranging from epilepsy to chronic pain.
But on Dec. 14, the DEA added a notice to the Federal Register that quietly informed the public that it had established “a new drug code for marihuana extract.” The DEA’s argument is that the agency is entitled to regulate CBD oil because all extracts contain trace amounts of THC, the active ingredient in cannabis which remains illegal at the federal level.
Establishing this new drug code is, effectively, the first step toward classifying CBD oil alongside cannabis under the Controlled Substances Act. This act classifies cannabis as a Schedule 1 substance, alongside drugs like heroin which are considered to have no practical medical benefit.
However, legal experts and advocates for hemp doubt that the DEA has the mandate to easily ban CBD oil.
Posted in Journalism, and MintPress News
Legal cannabis is booming, and with Colorado netting $1 billion in legal, regulated sales in the first 10 months of 2016, the industry’s growth isn’t showing any signs of slowing.
Sales of both recreational and medical cannabis hit $1.1 billion by October, according to analysis of sales data from the Colorado Department of Revenue. A boost in sales from the December holiday season is expected to push the total even higher.
“We think we’ll see $1.3 billion in sales revenue this year,” said Christian Sederberg, a partner at Vicente Sederberg and a leading cannabis industry lawyer, in a Dec. 12 interview with The Cannabist, a division of The Denver Post.
Posted in Journalism, and MintPress News
On Thursday, Colombia’s Congress ratified a new peace accord that could end decades of civil war and weaken the ability of foreign corporations to turn a profit on unrest in the South American country.
Since the 1960s, communist rebel forces have fought right-wing paramilitary groups and their government allies in Colombia’s ongoing civil war. While the paramilitary groups ostensibly formed in opposition to communist groups like the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, their targets were more often the civilian and indigenous population.
The Colombian government reported in November that more than half a century of armed conflict has left 7,011,027 people displaced, 267,000 murdered, and 46,000 “disappeared.”
Throughout the decades of conflict, massive international businesses have been eager to take advantage of the paramilitary groups’ skills to suit their own interests and move into land formerly occupied by displaced people. Some of the numerous foreign corporations accused of serious human rights abuses in Colombia include fruit companies Dole, Del Monte, and Chiquita, agribusiness giant Cargill, and other representatives of the fossil fuel industry like Texaco (formerly Texas Petroleum Company) and Exxon Mobil.
Posted in Journalism, and MintPress News
A new study suggests that cannabis could help ease the deadly opioid epidemic in the United States.
Participants reported “a notable decrease in their use of conventional pharmaceutical agents,” including a 42-percent drop in the use of opiates, according to the pilot study published in Frontiers in Pharmacology on Oct. 13.
The study also suggested that the cognitive function of some medical marijuana users improved over a three-month period.
However, the authors warn that the study’s sample size was too small to be considered conclusive. Twenty-four patients were involved in the initial sample, and 11 returned for follow-up tests on their cognitive abilities three months after initiating treatment.
“While intriguing, these findings are preliminary and warrant further investigation at additional time points and in larger sample sizes,” the authors wrote.
Despite its preliminary nature, the Frontiers study joins a growing number of anecdotal reports that cannabis may help chronic pain patients reduce their use of prescription painkillers and help addicts ease the symptoms of withdrawal.
