Answer Addiction

Tag: Donald Trump

  • Beach Boys Singer: Trump Tried To Help Whitney Houston Get Sober

    Beach Boys Singer: Trump Tried To Help Whitney Houston Get Sober

    “You tried your best to help Whitney. And she’s not the only one you benefited and tried [to help],” said Beach Boys’ Mike Love at a White House event.

    When the late Whitney Houston was in the depths of her addiction, a few of her famous friends reached out and tried to help, like Clive Davis, the legendary label executive who signed her, and Kevin Costner, her Bodyguard co-star.

    And according to Beach Boys lead singer Mike Love, even Donald Trump offered to help during her time of need.

    As AOL reports, Love made this claim at a White House event celebrating the passing of the Music Modernization Act, which will revamp music licensing and royalties.

    At the podium, Love addressed the President: “People can say what they want, but you’ve always been a big supporter of some of the best music America ever made. I remember you tried your best to get Whitney Houston in some kind of shape.”

    Love then said that Trump and billionaire Revlon executive Ron Perelman tried to get Houston to see the light at an apparent intervention at Mar-a-Lago. “You tried your best to help Whitney. And she’s not the only one you benefited and tried [to help].”

    Trump and Houston were friendly in the past. Trump revealed on The Wendy Williams Show that he was a guest at Houston’s wedding to Bobby Brown and claimed the singer was a frequent guest at Mar-a-Lago.

    Trump said Houston sang for him “many times,” and he was heartbroken when her vocal abilities went downhill from drugs and alcohol.

    “It was very said,” Trump said. “It was certainly a different person in terms of that incredible voice, which was the best I’d heard.”

    Trump felt Brown enabled her, adding, “It was just not a marriage made in heaven. It was bad for her –very bad for her. She was trying desperately to make a comeback,” yet her efforts were a “tough go.”

    Years ago, in an interview with Billy Bush ironically enough, he also blamed the media for enabling the singer. “When you’re a celebrity and a super-celebrity, people sort of do whatever you want to do. They don’t tell you what’s right and what’s wrong. You see with Michael [Jackson] with the drugs – so many people – probably Whitney. You can show up in terrible shape, and they’ll tell you how great you look.”

    Right after Houston’s passing, Trump told Headline News that Houston “had demons like anyone had demons…the drugs were a problem. Something was missing. She needed help. She was crying out for help. And the end result was what happened the other day in L.A.” 

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • Is The White House Waging A "Secret War" On Marijuana?

    Is The White House Waging A "Secret War" On Marijuana?

    The administration’s Marijuana Policy Coordination Committee may be responsible for hindering marijuana legalization. 

    Trump has said in the past that he supports states’ rights to establish their own marijuana policies—yet according to a report by BuzzFeed News, administration officials are waging a “secret war on weed” to push back on support of marijuana legalization across the country.

    Rolling Stone says the Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP) confirmed the existence of the Marijuana Policy Coordination Committee, but “stopped short of confirming” that the goal of the coalition of federal agencies was to shed a negative light on marijuana legalization.

    Members of Congress confirm that the White House’s actions contradict what Trump has said about marijuana policy—leading them to wonder: “Is there someone within the Trump administration directing a negative marijuana message?” as a senior congressional staffer put it.

    “Every time I speak to someone in the administration, despite what the president has said, they tell me it isn’t happening. My question is, who is in charge over there? It borders on ridiculous,” Rep. Tom Garrett of Virginia told Rolling Stone.

    On multiple occasions, Trump has said that he supports a state’s right to choose how it handles marijuana policy. “In terms of marijuana and legalization, I think that should be a state issue, state-by-state,” he said at a 2015 campaign rally in Sparks, Nevada.

    “The president is right on this issue,” said Garrett. “The gatekeepers need to do their job, not undermine good policy.”

    Some point to U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions as the main force within the administration that’s fighting marijuana policy reform. “I’ve discussed marijuana policy with senior White House officials, cabinet members and the president,” said Rep. Matt Gaetz of Florida. “My personal assessment is that the attorney general is the problem.”

    Jeff Sessions is notoriously anti-marijuana. The 71-year-old former senator from Alabama—who once said “Good people don’t smoke marijuana”—has made it a point to enforce, and enhance, the federal prohibition of marijuana.

    “I don’t think America is going to be a better place when people of all ages, and particularly young people, are smoking pot,” the attorney general said in February 2017. “I believe it’s an unhealthy practice, and current levels of THC in marijuana are very high compared to what they were a few years ago, and we’re seeing real violence around that.”

    In response to Sessions’ renewed “war on drugs,” bipartisan legislation has been introduced in the Senate to protect state marijuana policy.

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • Trump Says Sobriety Is One Of His "Few Good Traits"

    Trump Says Sobriety Is One Of His "Few Good Traits"

    The president went on to say that he would “be the world’s worst” if he drank. 

    President Trump told reporters on Monday that his sobriety was one of his “few good traits.”

    “I’m not a drinker. I can honestly say I’ve not had a beer in my life. That’s one of my only good traits. I don’t drink,” Trump said, according to ABC News. “I’ve never had alcohol, you know, for whatever reason. Can you imagine if I had what a mess I’d be?”

    The president went on to say that he would “be the world’s worst” if he drank. 

    Alcohol came up during the press conference in relation to Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh who has been in the spotlight for an alleged sexual assault that reportedly took place when he was drunk. During a congressional hearing he was open about the fact that he enjoys alcohol. “Yes, we drank beer. My friends and I, the boys and girls. Yes, we drank beer. I liked beer. Still like beer. We drank beer,” Kavanaugh testified.

    “I was surprised at how vocal he was about the fact that he likes beer,” Trump said. “He’s had a little bit of difficulty. I mean, he talked about things that happened when he drank. This is not a man that said alcohol was absent.”

    On Monday night, Jimmy Kimmel picked up the comments on his late night talk show, saying it was alarming that anything about the potential Supreme Court Justice would surprise the president who is trying to appoint him. 

    “After the Kavanaugh hearing last week, it was really hard to enjoy a beer this weekend,” Kimmel said. “Imagine being so off the rails, you even surprised Donald Trump with something.”

    “By the way, I feel like it’s worth mentioning that this guy who has never had a drink in his life once had his own brand of vodka with his name on it,” Kimmel pointed out. “That’s kind of all you need to know about him.”

    Trump’s brother died from complications of alcoholism at the age of 42, which is part of the reason why Trump doesn’t imbibe, the president has said in the past. 

    “He was a great guy, a handsome person. He was the life of the party. He was a fantastic guy, but he got stuck on alcohol,” Trump told People in 2015. “And it had a profound impact and ultimately [he] became an alcoholic and died of alcoholism.”

    After seeing his brother’s struggle, Trump decided to stay away from booze. 

    “I’ve known so many people that were so strong and so powerful [yet] they were unable to stop drinking,” he said. 

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • Kim Kardashian On A Mission To Free More Non-Violent Drug Offenders

    Kim Kardashian On A Mission To Free More Non-Violent Drug Offenders

    Following her initial success, the reality TV star is gearing up to convince the Trump administration to do it again on a larger scale.

    Kim Kardashian West managed to commute the life sentence of Alice Marie Johnson, a non-violent drug offender, with a single meeting at the White House.

    The 37-year-old reality television star is back to present the case of Chris Young, 30, who received life in prison for drug possession after three strikes.

    However, this time she is expanding the scope, calling for a systematic change to stop drug criminals from receiving extreme sentences at a listening session headed by Jared Kushner.

    “It started with Ms. Alice, but looking at her and seeing the faces and learning the stories of the men and women I’ve met inside prisons I knew I couldn’t stop at just one,” West wrote on a Twitter post with photos of the meeting. “It’s time for REAL systemic change.”

    West spoke about Young’s case on the Wrongful Conviction podcast, sharing that Young has already been in prison for 10 years at this point.

    “Yesterday I had a call with a gentleman that’s in prison for a drug case, got life. It’s so unfair… It was just a crazy—there’s so many people like him,” she told the podcast’s host, Jason Flom. “His prior conviction to get him to his three strikes was marijuana and then marijuana with less than half a gram of cocaine.”

    Summing up all the drugs that Young was sentenced for, Flom calculated that the total weight of all the drugs Young was serving a life sentence for weighed less than three pennies.

    West also revealed in the interview that the judge who presided over Young’s case, Kevin Sharp, actually stepped down from his position because he felt the life sentence was “so wrong … [Sharp] was like, ‘I’m gonna make this right. I’m gonna step down and I’m gonna fight to get him out.

    West has reportedly been in touch with Kushner regarding minimum sentences for drug offenders. This new battle is likely to be long-fought, unlike her first success in freeing Johnson.

    “I spoke to the president … He let me know what was going to happen [with Johnson] and he was going to sign the papers right then and there and she could be released that day,” she recounted. “I didn’t know, does that happen right away? Is there a process? What is it? So he was going to let her go. He told me she can leave today.”

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • Bipartisan Bill To Protect States With Legalized Marijuana Gains Traction

    Bipartisan Bill To Protect States With Legalized Marijuana Gains Traction

    The bill would allow states to determine “the best approach to marijuana within [their own] borders.”

    Though Attorney General Jeff Sessions continues to wage war against marijuana, President Donald Trump has said that he is willing to support bipartisan legislation that would allow states to determine their own rules regarding the legalization and regulation of marijuana.

    The bill was introduced by Senators Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) and Cory Gardner (R-CO), who, as High Times noted, have taken distinctly opposite stances regarding marijuana in their respective states. But the pair has united over federal cannabis prohibition, which they view as impugning on not only states’ rights to determine their own laws, but also the legal cannabis industry’s ability to access safe banking and insurance.

    Their efforts appear to have earned a positive response from Trump, who told reporters that he would “probably” support the bill.

    The bill, called the Strengthening the Tenth Amendment Through Entrusting States, or STATES Act, would allow individual states, Washington, D.C., U.S. territories and federally recognized tribes to determine for themselves “the best approach to marijuana within [their own] borders.”

    This would be accomplished by amending the Controlled Substances Act (CSA) so that those states or tribes that comply with basic protection would be considered exempt from federal law regarding the “manufacture, production, possession, dispensation, administration, or delivery of marijuana.”

    The STATES Act would also remove industrial hemp from the CSA, and would implement several “common-sense guardrails” to ensure that states continue to regulate marijuana in a “safe and respectful manner” that is compliant with federal standards. These include prohibiting individuals under the age of 18 to work in marijuana operations and preventing sale or distribution of marijuana to individuals under the age of 21 for reasons other than medical purposes.

    Additionally, and most crucially for legal cannabis business, the bill would allow federally insured banks to do business with such entities.

    In a statement, Senator Warren wrote, “The federal government needs to get out of the business of outlawing marijuana.” She added that current federal laws have negatively impacted the criminal justice system, scientific research and economic development, while states like Massachusetts have implemented commonsense marijuana legislation that has supported these categories. “They have the right to enforce their own marijuana policies,” she wrote.

    Senator Gardner took similar aim at government policies in his statement while focusing his argument on states’ rights issues.

    “The federal government is closing its eyes and plugging its ears while 46 states have acted,” he wrote. “The bipartisan, commonsense bill ensures the federal government will respect the will of the voters—whether that is legalization or prohibition—and not interfere in an states’ legal marijuana industry.”

    At a press conference on June 6, President Trump said that he knew “exactly what [Senator Gardner’s] doing,” and “probably will end up supporting” the STATES Act.

    Given Trump’s penchant for spur-of-the-moment decisions that often take his cabinet and party by surprise, it remains unclear whether he will ultimately voice approval for the bill, but the statement flies in the face of Attorney General Sessions’ stance on marijuana, which was crystallized in a January 2018 memo granting federal prosecutors the “necessary tools” to crack down on cannabis.

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • President Trump Will "Probably" Support Ending Federal Marijuana Ban

    President Trump Will "Probably" Support Ending Federal Marijuana Ban

    Despite what he and Jeff Sessions have said in the past, President Trump has promised to support bipartisan legislation to legalize marijuana.

    On Friday, President Donald Trump publicly said that he would be willing to support a bipartisan bill by Congress to lift the federal ban on marijuana.

    Historically, marijuana has been subject to a federal ban alongside LSD and heroin. Recently, some states have moved to legalize marijuana, placing the drug in a strange middle ground where it is both legal and illegal depending on the tier of law considered.

    The bipartisan proposal would allow each state to decide on its own how to treat marijuana within its borders, while recommending a few federal restrictions such as an age limit set at 21.

    “I support Senator Gardner. I know exactly what he’s doing,” Trump told reporters, referring to Republican Senator Cory Gardner of Colorado. “We’re looking at it. But I probably will end up supporting that, yes.”

    President Trump’s remarks greatly deviate from his appointed U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions’ stance on pot. Sessions has previously reversed the Obama-era hands-off marijuana policy to start cracking down on cannabis again.

    “The previous issuance of guidance undermines the rule of law and the ability of our local, state, tribal, and federal law enforcement partners to carry out this mission,” Sessions wrote in a memo allowing federal prosecutors to return to “previously established prosecutorial principles that provide them all the necessary tools to disrupt criminal organizations, tackle the growing drug crisis, and thwart violent crime across our country.”

    The president himself has been wishy-washy about marijuana. During his campaign, he has at times said he would respect states’ decisions on marijuana, while he would also criticize legalization efforts.

    Senator Gardner wants to ensure that no matter what states decide, the federal government will keep its hands off.

    Democratic Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts is another one of the bipartisan supporters of the measure. She said that Washington “needs to get out of the business of outlawing marijuana.”

    With such a change, legal marijuana businesses in states like California would no longer have to worry about the looming threat of federal drug enforcement coming to sweep away their investments. This would also help with the fact that banks hesitate to do business with legal marijuana dispensaries because of fear of being prosecuted by the federal government.

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • Trump Commutes Drug Offender's Sentence After Kim Kardashian Push

    Trump Commutes Drug Offender's Sentence After Kim Kardashian Push

    This is the first commutation of Trump’s presidency. 

    On Wednesday (June 6), President Trump commuted the prison sentence of Alice Marie Johnson, a non-violent drug offender, after meeting with fellow reality TV veteran Kim Kardashian West, who urged the president to reconsider Johnson’s life sentence.

    This is the first commutation of Trump’s presidency. Kardashian met with the president at the White House last Wednesday (May 30) to discuss prison and sentencing reform, including the possibility of revisiting Johnson’s case. Johnson, 63, was sentenced in 1996 as a first-time, non-violent drug offender, with no chance of parole. At the time of her release on Wednesday, she had served more than 21 years in prison.

    In her essay for CNN—“Why Kim Kardashian Wanted President Trump to Free Me”—Johnson describes how she got involved with drug sellers. “This was a road I never dreamed of venturing down. I became what is called a telephone mule, passing messages between the distributors and sellers. I participated in drug conspiracy, and I was wrong,” she recalled.

    Johnson had applied for clemency during the Obama administration three times, with no success. President Barack Obama commuted a total of 1,715 prison sentences during his time in office—this included 568 life sentences. The majority of these were for non-violent drug crimes.

    While serving time, Johnson was described by her warden Arcala Washington-Adduci as a “model inmate who is willing to go above and beyond in all work tasks.” Johnson has spent her time becoming an ordained minister and mentor to young women in prison. “And if I get out,” Johnson said at the time, “I have a job secured, and plan to continue to help those in prison and work hard to change our justice system.”

    “Justice has been served today, and it’s long overdue. Alice has more than paid her debt to society as a nonviolent drug offender,” said Johnson’s attorney Brittany K. Barnett in a statement. “Life in prison without the possibility of parole screams that a person is beyond hope, beyond redemption. And in Alice’s case, it is a punishment that absolutely did not fit the crime.”

    In its own statement, the White House said, “While this Administration will always be very tough on crime, it believes that those who have paid their debt to society and worked hard to better themselves while in prison deserve a second chance.”

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • Trump Wants New Anti-Opioid PSA Campaign To "Engage And Enrage"

    Trump Wants New Anti-Opioid PSA Campaign To "Engage And Enrage"

    The White House’s new ad campaign will echo the “This Is Your Brain on Drugs” ad campaign first launched in 1987.

    The Trump administration’s anti-opioid ad campaign is coming soon, according to Axios.

    The PSA campaign, the product of a partnership between the White House and the Ad Council, will “shock the conscience,” a source disclosed to Axios. They added, “[President Trump] thinks you have to engage and enrage.”

    The president declared in March that the government will oversee a “large-scale rollout of commercials” to raise awareness about the dangers of opioid abuse.

    “The best way to beat the drug crisis is to keep people from getting hooked in the first place. This has been something I have been strongly in favor of—spending a lot of money on great commercials showing how bad it is,” said Trump at the time.

    “So that kids seeing those commercials during the right shows on television or wherever, the internet, when they see these commercials they [say], ‘I don’t want any part of it.’ That is the least expensive thing we can do. Where you scare them from ending up like the people in the commercials and we will make them very, very bad commercials. We will make them pretty unsavory situations and you have seen it before and it had an impact on smoking and cigarettes.”

    Indeed, research has estimated that the anti-smoking campaign by the Truth Initiative has prevented approximately 301,930 young Americans from smoking in 2015-2016. However, national anti-drug initiatives like “Just Say No” and “This Is Your Brain on Drugs” are generally considered unsuccessful in their attempts at keeping kids off drugs.

    The new ad campaign will echo the “This Is Your Brain on Drugs” ad campaign first launched in 1987. According to Axios’ source, Trump is a fan of the ad’s shock value and stark message.

    Since its debut, the ad has been re-made to feature Rachel Leigh Cook in a 1997 rendition. The actress appeared in a 2016 version of the ad as well, but this time to highlight a totally different message: “This is your brain on the war on drugs.”

    Cook, in partnership with the Drug Policy Alliance, resurrected the iconic egg and frying pan motif to bring awareness to all the ways that the War on Drugs is ruining people’s lives. “It fuels mass incarceration. It targets people of color in greater numbers than their white counterparts,” says Cook in the ad. “It cripples communities. It costs billions. And it doesn’t work. Any questions?”

    The ad was re-made a different way in the same year, with the original anti-drug message but for a new generation. The ad begins with the familiar image of an egg cracking into a sizzling frying pan: “This is your brain. This is your brain on drugs. Any questions?”

    But instead of ending there, as the original PSA did, a child responds:

    “Yeah, I have questions.”

    “Why is heroin so addictive?”

    “Weed’s legal, isn’t it?”

    “Prescription drugs aren’t as bad as street drugs, right?”

    And finally: “Mom, Dad, did you ever try drugs?”

    View the original article at thefix.com