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  • Georgia To Expand Medical Marijuana Program

    Georgia To Expand Medical Marijuana Program

    The new bill will allow cannabis to be grown at four facilities in the state, and oils to be sold at 28 dispensaries.

    Georgia is set to expand its medical marijuana program this week when the governor signs a bill that will allow medical marijuana patients to legally purchase some cannabis products in the state. 

    The state has allowed patients to use cannabis oil since 2015, but they have not been legally able to purchase oils in Georgia, according to The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. It is also illegal to grow cannabis or bring it in from another state. 

    Dr. Larry Tune, a geriatric neuropsychiatrist at Emory University Hospital, said that he would write prescriptions for medical marijuana, knowing how difficult it would be for patients to obtain. 

    “We can do that paperwork but it’s pointless,” he said. 

    The new bill will allow cannabis to be grown at four facilities in the state, and oils to be sold at 28 dispensaries, the AJC reported. Gov. Brian Kemp is expected to sign the measure on Wednesday, after it passed the Senate on Friday (April 12). 

    Kemp said earlier this month that he understood why lawmakers in Georgia were hesitant to change the state’s marijuana laws, but he also recognized that the measure was important.  

    “It’s a very, very tough issue. But there’s a lot of legislative support for it. I respect the legislative process, and I understand why people are doing it, and I understand why people have grave concerns about this,” he said. “I have all of those feelings. It’s a really tough spot.”

    Sen. Matt Brass, a Republican, said that the expansion will make life easier for people who are critically ill, including children. 

    “Some may argue that this is not medicine,” he said. “But we had testimony of children having 80 to 100 seizures a day, but after taking the oil are having just one a week.”

    Although no lawmakers spoke out against the bill, Lt. Gov. Geoff Duncan said that the new measure is not the first step to radially changing marijuana policy in Georgia. 

    “There is no part of me that wants any steps toward recreational marijuana,” he said. 

    Shannon Cloud, whose daughter uses medical marijuana, said that the measure will improve the lives of patients who need the treatment. 

    “I had a career, and I had to quit in part because of this. I wanted to spend more time with my kids, but it takes a lot of time to coordinate all of this,” she said of obtaining her daughters’ medication. “I am not getting paid. I am just trying to get people the medicine.”

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • Denver Votes To Allow Social Marijuana Use

    Denver Votes To Allow Social Marijuana Use

    Proponents of the measure say that it will cut down on public marijuana use and exposure to kids.

    The city of Denver, which was a leader in the recreational marijuana legalization movement, is moving forward with plans to make it easier for people to open businesses that allow social consumption of marijuana. 

    Councilmember Kendra Black introduced a measure that would relax the rules dictating how far businesses that allow marijuana consumption must be from recreational centers, childcare facilities and other protected establishments. The city council passed the measure by a 9-2 vote on Monday (April 15). The measure will open an additional 2.2 square miles of space for cannabis businesses, the city said. 

    “There are many people who we have heard from who want to open a business but cannot find a location,” Black told The Denver Post. Although the city passed a law in 2016 allowing social marijuana businesses, like cannabis cafes, there are only two in town, largely because of the strict regulations. 

    The law currently requires businesses to be 1,000 feet from schools, a stipulation that will remain. However, the city council measure will allow social-use businesses to operate closer to other community and child-focused facilities as long as they are more than 500 feet away. 

    Proponents of the measure said that it will cut down on public marijuana use, which is illegal, and reduce the frequency of cannabis being used in front of kids. 

    Stacy Lynn, who advocates for access to medical cannabis for kids, said that the measure is important for protecting young people. “If they have nowhere to consume, they will do it in front of our children,” she said. “How do you get it off the street? You put it in a closed, secure building.”

    However, opponents said that the city shouldn’t be strengthening the cannabis industry. 

    Luke Niforatos, who leads a group opposed to the commercialization of cannabis, said, “I don’t think it’s the job of any member of an elected government to make it easier for a drug industry to make more money, to make it easier for people to use drugs.” 

    Others, including Councilwoman Robin Kniech, said that the city has spent far too much time tinkering with cannabis regulations. 

    She said, “There is no evidence whatsoever that kids are at risk from an activity happening in a building they cannot see at 1,000 feet, 500 feet or next door. We have so many huge challenges facing out city, and the time we have spent on this… frankly offends me.”

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • Scott Stapp Credits Family For His Hard-Fought Sobriety

    Scott Stapp Credits Family For His Hard-Fought Sobriety

    “It was either get sober or lose my wife and kids, man, and that’s about the lowest rock bottom that I could possibly have gotten to,” Stapp said.

    Scott Stapp, lead singer of the post-grunge band Creed, gave a lot of credit to his family for lifting him out of a period of substance abuse in a recent interview with Detroit radio station WRIF.

    Stapp recently hit his five-year sobriety anniversary after years of struggling with alcohol and prescription drug addiction.

    “My wife and my kids were critical in helping me get sober,” he told DJ Meltdown. “It got to the point where it was either get sober or lose my wife and kids, man, and that’s about the lowest rock bottom that I could possibly have gotten to. So they were critical.”

    In addition to his family, the singer recently gave a shoutout to MusiCares, a non-profit established by the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences that provides support to musicians who have fallen on hard times.

    According to Stapp, MusiCares helped educated him and his wife on the nature of addiction, helping them understand that it’s a disease that requires ongoing treatment.

    “I still have a lot of music ahead me and without MusiCares, that wouldn’t have been possible,” said Stapp. “They provided support and helped educate my wife and I on what we were going through, that it was a disease, and if I did my part, it could be treated and recovered from. Thanks to MusiCares and my family, I’m going on five years sober.”

    Stapp also suffers from bipolar disorder, which went undiagnosed for years and may have fueled his addiction disorders. He has spoken out about multiple suicide attempts and near-attempts, including an incident in 2006 in which he jumped off of a balcony in Miami and fell 40 feet.

    He survived after being discovered by rapper T.I. with a fractured skull and a broken nose and hip. Later that year, he admitted to Rolling Stone that he had been fighting addiction to Percocet, Xanax, and prednisone.

    It wasn’t until 2015 that Stapp told People he had been diagnosed with bipolar disorder after suffering what he called a “psychotic break.”

    “I had a psychotic break that was brought on by alcohol and drug abuse,” he says. “I was hallucinating. I drove around the United States for a month, following an angel that I saw on the hood of my car.”

    During the WRIF interview, Stapp explained how his naiveté going into the world of music set him up for “going down that wrong path.”

    “I just had so much in front of me, and being so naïve, walking into it, I just didn’t know how to handle it, and it got a hold of me,” he said. “And around the same time, I had my first onset of depression. And you combine that with self-medicating, with alcohol and whatever else you can find, and it’s a bad scenario, man.”

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • DEA Kept Database Of People Who Bought Money Counters To Get Drug Convictions

    DEA Kept Database Of People Who Bought Money Counters To Get Drug Convictions

    Over a six-year period, the agency collected “tens of thousands of records, including the names, addresses, and phone numbers” from sellers of money counters.

    For years, the Drug Enforcement Administration collected data on purchases of money counters hoping to net drug convictions. But the controversial program not only pushed the limits of government surveillance, it wasn’t very successful either.

    “Program B,” as it is referred to in a report by the U.S. Department of Justice Office of Inspector General (OIG), which audited the DEA, collected bulk purchaser data on “tens of thousands of records, including the names, addresses, and phone numbers of buyers” from 2008 to 2014, Forbes reports.

    The DEA would issue “administrative” subpoenas to sellers of money counters, and send the data to field offices to cross-reference against law enforcement databases, including records from more than 15 different federal agencies including the ATF, FBI and ICE.

    Even more troubling is that the DEA sought data on people buying money counters with no specific target in mind. The subpoenas were “unrelated to a specific drug trafficking investigation or target,” the report said. The practice of issuing blanket subpoenas “wasn’t predicated on individual cases or individual suspicions,” but was “just a general fishing expedition,” as one FBI agent who questioned the integrity of the DEA’s activities explained.

    “You can’t just take any innocent activity that Americans engage in and go grab all their records knowing that a small percentage of it is potentially connected to illegal activity,” the FBI agent added. “And that sounded exactly like what the DEA was looking to do.”

    The program did little to “win” the war on drugs. Of all the people it collected data on, the program netted only 131 arrests. The DEA declined to say how many of these resulted in convictions.

    While the American public had little to show for Program B, the agency certainly benefited from it. From 2008 to 2014, the surveillance program helped the DEA seize $48 million in cash, $4 million in real estate, 88 vehicles, 179 firearms, nearly 1,500 pounds of cocaine and over 21,300 pounds of marijuana.

    Overall, it was “troubling” to the Inspector General that the DEA failed to consider the legal limits of its surveillance program. Scandals are not new to the agency, and the Inspector General seemed to imply that this likely won’t be the last.

    As Forbes reported, “Although both the Justice Department and the DEA say they have ‘no plans to reinstate any of the discontinued bulk collection programs,’ the Inspector General noted that ‘there is nothing preventing the DEA or the Department from seeking to start such a program at any time in the future.’”

    According to a 2015 report by the Drug Policy Alliance, the agency has been investigated by the OIG for numerous scandals including the massacre of Honduran civilians, the use of NSA data to spy on Americans and fabricate evidence, controversial uses of confidential informants, and airline passenger searches.

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • “Crack Pie” Is No More

    “Crack Pie” Is No More

    The restaurant industry is moving away from describing food as “crack.”

    Crack Pie is no more. Milk Bar’s buttery, gooey signature dessert Bar is taking on a new name: Milk Bar Pie.

    The change is part of a larger shift in the restaurant industry toward abandoning the use of the word “crack” to describe delicious food.

    Milk Bar founder and James Beard award-winning chef Christina Tosi explained the decision to her team in a statement. “Our mission, after all, is to spread joy and inspire celebration. The name Crack Pie falls short of this mission.”

    Gastropub chain HopCat made a similar decision last December, when it decided to drop the name “crack fries”—referring to beer-battered french fries in cracked pepper seasoning. The menu item’s new name was announced in January—Cosmik Fries.

    “When we came up with it 11 years ago, it was tongue-in-cheek, and we didn’t put a lot of reflection into it,” said HopCat spokesman Chris Knape. “Times change, we’ve changed and we decided to make a change.”

    As far as we know, this issue was first raised by The Fix contributor Dean Dauphinais in his 2015 blog post “Why Do People Think Crack Cocaine Is Funny?”

    “Why crack has been singled out as the go-to drug when trying to be witty is completely lost on me,” Dauphinais wrote.

    A recent Washington Post article also questions the idea of “so good it’s like crack.”

    “The callousness with which people throw around the word ‘crack’ isn’t the same with other drugs,” writes Maura Judkis. “We don’t call any desserts ‘opioid pie,’ even though those drugs… are highly addictive, too.”

    San Francisco Chronicle food critic Soleil Ho listed “crack” and “addictive” among her “Words you’ll never see me use in restaurant reviews”—an article published in February.

    “No matter how delicious something might be, its effect on me is nothing close to what crack does to people and their families,” wrote Ho. She doesn’t fail to mention Milk Bar’s “Crack Pie” and how Tosi has been playfully referred to as a “crack dealer.”

    “Addictive” is another word thrown around when describing food so good that you can’t put it down. “I’ve used this before in a few contexts, and I realized after talking to friends and colleagues who struggle with real-world addiction that it’s a word that I need to ease out of my food writing,” Ho says.

    While stuff like this may not appeal to old-school folks who aren’t down with the PC police, HopCat spokesman Knape says it’s less about being politically correct and more about recognizing a serious issue that should be treated as such.

    “It’s not a reflection of us wanting to be politically correct as much as wanting to present an image to the world that’s inclusive and recognizes that what may have been funny 11 years ago never really was,” he said.

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • Wendy Williams Set To Leave Sober Home, Files For Divorce

    Wendy Williams Set To Leave Sober Home, Files For Divorce

    Williams says her sober home stay was one of the best things that has ever happened to her.

    Talk show host Wendy Williams is moving on, in her personal life and in her recovery, announcing this week that she filed for divorce and is making plans to leave the sober home that she has been staying at. 

    “I’m moving out of the sober house in just a few days,” she said on her show on Monday (April 15), according to USA Today. “It’ll be Wendy on her own.

    She said that staying in the sober home gave her a chance to reflect on her life, without distraction. 

    “I have to tell you, I’ve been dealing with issues with addiction, alcoholism, and I have a whole new life that I planned for myself and my son. Believe me you, when you lay in a room with no TV and four gray walls all day and no telephone… and you lay there and you think about your life – this is my life in the sober house – it’s one of the best things, honestly, that could have ever happened to me.”

    Williams seemed hopeful for the future. 

    She said, “Addressing my sobriety, my addiction, head-on has really helped me sort out every single compartment of my life. I have a commitment to me and my son to come out of here better, stronger and faster than ever.”

    Last week, Williams filed for divorce from her husband of 22 years, Kevin Hunter. The couple has a 19-year-old son, Kevin Jr., and Hunter reportedly recently had a baby with his mistress. Despite initially insisting that they were staying together, it is clear that Williams and Hunter now intend to divorce. 

    On Tuesday (April 16), Hunter issued the following statement to PEOPLE. 

    “I am going through a time of self-reflection and am trying to right some wrongs. No matter what the outcome is or what the future holds, we are still The Hunter Family and I will continue to work with and fully support my wife in this business and through any and all obstacles she may face living her new life of sobriety, while I also work on mine.”

    A source told PEOPLE that Williams could not move past Hunter’s long-term infidelity. 

    The source said, “Wendy is telling people she had no idea he had been having an affair, but when she found out the details, it turned out he had been seeing the woman he had a baby with for 15-16 years. That made her realize it was time to move forward with her life. Seek treatment and move on. She’s not taking him back.”

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • Can The "Love Hormone" Help Treat Alcohol Use Disorder?

    Can The "Love Hormone" Help Treat Alcohol Use Disorder?

    Scientists examined whether oxytocin, also known as the love hormone, could be a viable treatment for alcohol use disorder.

    When administered nasally, a spray of oxytocin led alcohol-dependent rats to drink less, a new study has found. 

    Lead study author Brendan Tunstall, a post-doctoral fellow at the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA), tells Inverse that his belief is that eventually, oxytocin could be a form of treatment for alcohol use disorder. 

    “Preliminary studies in humans have already indicated that oxytocin may have beneficial effects in reducing physical signs of alcohol withdrawal and decreasing alcohol craving,” he tells Inverse.

    “However, larger studies are needed to determine the potential therapeutic usefulness of intranasal oxytocin administration for alcohol use disorder.”

    Oxytocin, commonly referred to as the “love hormone,” is a neuropeptide, meaning it signals the brain during “tender situations.”

    To determine whether oxytocin works for treating alcohol use disorder, Tunstall and his team took a group of alcohol-dependent rats and a non-dependent control group and gave them both a dose nasally. 

    Afterwards, when they were exposed to alcoholic drinks, the alcohol-dependent rats did not choose to drink them. They did, however, still drink sugar water. The control group did not show any differences. Tunstall says this shows that the oxytocin affected the rats’ desire for alcohol specifically.  

    The reasoning behind this, Tunstall says, has to do with gamma amminobutyric acid (GABA) signaling in the brain. In the past, it has been proven that GABA signaling increases for those with short and long-term alcohol use. Tunstall and his team wanted to determine whether oxytocin would help GABA signal levels return to normal. 

    “Together, these results provide converging evidence that oxytocin specifically and selectively blocks the enhanced motivation for alcohol drinking that develops in alcohol dependence likely via a central mechanism that may result from altered oxytocin effects on CeA GABA transmission in alcohol dependence,” the study authors wrote. “Neuroadaptations in endogenous oxytocin signaling may provide a mechanism to further our understanding of alcohol use disorder.”

    In previous experiments with rats, Tunstall and his team determined that alcohol led to “hyperactive GABA signaling,” which was no surprise. But they also found that oxytocin seemed to lessen the effects of GABA signals when it came to the rats, which they think could be responsible for the changes they have observed in the alcohol-dependent rats.  

    Even though the results of this recent study indicate that oxytocin could be helpful in treating alcohol use disorder, Tunstall says the study only examines the neuropeptide’s effect on one neuron category in the brain. This could be problematic if alcohol use disorder is rooted in another area of the brain entirely, he says. 

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • Atlanta May Soon Ban Smoking In Public Places

    Atlanta May Soon Ban Smoking In Public Places

    Atlanta already passed a smoking ban for outdoor parks in 2012.

    Under a new bill, Atlanta, Georgia could soon join the growing number of cities that have banned smoking in public places. 

    According to the Atlanta Journal Constitution, the new legislation would prohibit smoking in various public spaces, including Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport (by getting rid of smoking lounges), restaurants and bars, hotels, motels, stores, offices, public transit, restrooms and parking structures.

    Smoking within five feet of the entrances of such places, windows and ventilation systems would also be prohibited, the AJC reports. 

    “If people wish to smoke in public, we simply ask that they step outside,” said city council member Matt Westmoreland. “Legislation like this saves lives. It creates a safer, healthier city.”

    In 2012, Atlanta passed a smoking ban for outdoor parks. Under the proposed legislation, the definition of smoking would be expanded to also include e-cigarettes or vaping. However, this excludes facilities like cigar bars and hookah lounges that meet certain sales thresholds. 

    Some restaurants in the area already ban smoking while others allow it, according to the AJC. This is because back in 2005, Georgia passed what it called a smoke-free law, which allowed restaurants and bars to allow smoking under certain circumstances. 

    Currently, according to Georgia Restaurant Association CEO Karen Bremer, it’s estimated that less than 10% of restaurants in the area allow smoking.

    Tommy Webb, owner of Northside Tavern, currently allows it but says he is open to the idea of becoming a non-smoking space.

    “People have been pushing me to go to non-smoking… It is a question that comes up often and I’m caught in the middle,” Webb told the AJC. “I’m rolling with the times.”  

    Officials at Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport—the country’s busiest airport—have been planning to convert existing smoking lounges into shops or restaurants. According to the AJC, the airport is one of only five in the U.S. that still allows smoking.

    Delta Air Lines, based in Atlanta, expressed in a statement that the airline supports the idea of a smoke-free airport. “Employees and customers who work and travel through ATL every day deserve a safe and healthy environment,” the statement read. 

    Moving forward, Westmoreland says he plans to hold a work session in May during which the ordinance would be discussed.

    If approved by committees and the full council, the ordinance may be in effect by September 1 of this year. 

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • John Oliver Takes On Sackler Family, Opioid Epidemic

    John Oliver Takes On Sackler Family, Opioid Epidemic

    “Last Week Tonight” tackled the opioid epidemic again—this time putting the spotlight on the Sackler family members who have reportedly played a role in it.

    John Oliver spotlighted the opioid epidemic for the second time on HBO’s Last Week Tonight. This time, the late-night host recruited the help of actors Michael Keaton, Bryan Cranston and more, to bring to life the 2015 deposition of former Purdue Pharma president Richard Sackler about the company’s marketing of OxyContin. 

    Oliver addressed the Sackler family members’ alleged role in the opioid epidemic, drawing from pages of legal documents that are being made public as more and more municipalities sue the giant drug manufacturer, most famous for marketing OxyContin. 

    He pointed out that the billionaire Sackler family, while donating to arts and research institutions around the world, has made an effort to stay out of the public eye. In fact, Oliver said, there are very few photos, let alone video footage, of Richard Sackler available in the public domain. 

    So, Oliver brought in actors to read the transcript of Sackler’s deposition in a 2015 case brought by the state of Kentucky. Purdue settled with the state on the condition that millions of pages of documents brought as evidence be destroyed, but the deposition was leaked and Last Week Tonight made the entire 140-page document available online. 

    The show also put together a website, The Sackler Gallery, to showcase the family’s role in the opioid crisis. On the website, actors Bryan Cranston, Michael Keaton, Richard Kind and Michael K. Williams give life to Richard Sackler’s testimony. 

    “The launch of OxyContin tablets will be followed by a blizzard of prescriptions that will bury the competition,” Williams says in one clip, repeating Sackler’s infamous proclamation. “The prescription blizzard will be so deep, dense and white.” The Sacklers have said that this comment was taken out of context.

    In another clip, the actors repeat Sackler’s proclamation that people who abused opioids were to blame for the epidemic. He referred to them as “criminals,” trying to shift the blame away from himself. 

    Oliver rightly noted that while Sackler seemed to take issue with these people’s excessive drug use, his company did nothing to curb suspicious drug sales that were earning the company billions. 

    “He is furious at the people who are part of the problem, but the people he’s angry at helped make him incredibly rich,” Oliver said. “You don’t see Adam Levine making a song condemning horny middle aged women because that would make him hypocritical.”

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • NYC Bill Aims To End Marijuana Testing Of Job Applicants

    NYC Bill Aims To End Marijuana Testing Of Job Applicants

    The bill is one of several efforts being made to reform marijuana policy while progress has stalled on legalizing it statewide.

    New York City may become the first jurisdiction in the country to pass a law that would explicitly bar employers from screening job applicants for marijuana use.

    The city council “overwhelmingly” passed a bill (with a 40-4 vote) that would prevent most employers from this practice, the New York Times reports.

    “If we want to be a progressive city, we have to really put these things into action,” said the city’s public advocate Jumaane D. Williams, who authored the bill.

    Mayor Bill de Blasio has signaled his support of the legislation, which according to the NYT would be the first in the U.S. to prohibit employers from marijuana testing job applicants.

    If enacted, the law will affect both public and private employers in New York City, including companies that have headquarters elsewhere, Williams said.

    The bill would not excuse every worker from being tested, however. A handful of occupations—including construction, law enforcement, child care, medical care, truck driving and aviation—would be exempt from the rule. Employers may also test workers if they appear to be under the influence of marijuana at work. Federal or state employees and government contractors are also exempt as they do not fall under the city’s jurisdiction.

    The mayor is expected to sign the bill into law. It is one of several efforts being made to reform marijuana policy while progress has stalled on legalizing it statewide.

    Another bill passed by the city council would stop the city from requiring marijuana testing for people on probation, according to the NYT.

    NY lawmakers have made little progress on marijuana legalization, but Governor Andrew Cuomo’s office told CBS News that he was “still negotiating to legalize marijuana by the end of the legislative session in June.” Issues like equity programs—to ensure that people of color are guaranteed a stake in the growing industry to make up for years of being disproportionately affected by anti-marijuana laws—have gotten in the way of reaching a deal thus far.

    “I’m proud that the city has taken action where the federal and the state government have stalled,” said Williams.

    In 1986, former President Ronald Reagan issued an executive order calling for “drug-free workplaces,” mandating drug testing at federal agencies. According to a survey by the Society for Human Resource Management, in 2011 more than half of U.S. employers conducted drug screenings on job applicants.

    However, some disagree that drug testing is a reliable method of predicting job performance.

    View the original article at thefix.com