The Likely Cause of Addiction Has Been Discovered, and It Is Not What You Think

By Johann Hari
Image result for love failure drugs
 
It is now one hundred years since drugs were first banned — and all through this long century of waging war on drugs, we have been told a story about addiction by our teachers and by our governments. This story is so deeply ingrained in our minds that we take it for granted. It seems obvious. It seems manifestly true. Until I set off three and a half years ago on a 30,000-mile journey for my new book, Chasing The Scream: The First And Last Days of the War on Drugs, to figure out what is really driving the drug war, I believed it too. But what I learned on the road is that almost everything we have been told about addiction is wrong — and there is a very different story waiting for us, if only we are ready to hear it.
 
Full Article: 
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/johann-hari/the-real-cause-of-addicti_b_6506936.html?ncid=fcbklnkushpmg00000063

U.S. Congresswoman Tells Nevada To “Puff, Puff, Pass That Bill”

By Keith Mansur

 
A United States Congresswoman from Nevada told the Nevada Assembly that they need to advance the marijuana legislation they are considering, telling them to, “Puff, puff, pass that bill.”
In comments on Tuesday, April 18th, Rep. Dina Titus told the Nevada state legislators the Trump administrations immigration enforcement were “xenophobic policies” that had negatively impacted tourism in the state. She commended the legislators for the economic outlook for the state, and she encouraged them to pass their current marijuana legislation that will start the roll-out of the adult-use cannabis in the Silver State.
 
Full Article: 
http://www.occnewspaper.com/u-s-congresswoman-tells-nevada-to-puff-puff-pass-that-bill/

These candies represent each pill this veteran takes each year. He’d prefer cannabis.



Joshua Lee, a disabled Missouri veteran, found viral fame last week when he posted a photo of 9,828 Smarties representing the pills he takes every year for his medical problems. Courtesy Joshua Lee

Read more here: http://www.miamiherald.com/news/nation-world/national/article144193514.html#storylink=cpy

You don’t have to guess how many Smarties candies Joshua Lee stuffed into the plastic bag he holds in a photo that has gone viral.
He’ll tell you the number: 9,828.
They weigh just shy of 10 pounds. On most days it hurts for him to lift that much weight.
The disabled Missouri National Guard veteran went to two bulk candy stores in Jefferson City and Columbia to round up all those sugary pellets. When the stores didn’t have enough in bulk he bought wrapped ones.
He and his wife, Julia, unwrapped piles of the tiny rolls.
Lee, who is 33, posted his photo online last week, where it was met with shock and awe: Those candies represent the number of medications he takes on an annual basis.
“My medication schedule is a handful in the morning, six or eight at noon and another handful in the evening,” said Lee, who lives with his wife and two sons in Holts Summit.
The photo is the first salvo in Lee’s new mission: He’s become a foot soldier in the grassroots crusade to get medical marijuana legalized in Missouri.
 
Full Article: 
http://www.miamiherald.com/news/nation-world/national/article144193514.html

The BOSSest of them all: Jack Herer

Christopher Gallagher
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Now, there are CannaBosses and there are CannaBOSSes. When you are the guy who writes the definitive book exposing the true causes behind Prohibition; when you have one of the all-time great cannabis strains named in your honor; when PBS does a documentary about your work in support of cannabis; when you spend your life traveling hundreds of thousands of miles advocating for the plant we love until you have had a stroke after one speech and a heart attack that claims your life after another. When this is your resume, the, you can join Jack Herer in that latter category as a stone cold CannaBOSS.
 
Full Article: 
http://www.dgomag.com/articles/1717-the-bossest-of-them-all-jack-herer

Hempcrete subdivision

HANNAH BARTLETT
A section at 42 St Lawrence St has been given council sign-off as a special housing area.

MARION VAN DIJK/FAIRFAX NZ A section at 42 St Lawrence St has been given council sign-off as a special housing area.
A steep block of land in Nelson’s Victory Square suburb could soon be home to a new subdivision constructed using hempcrete.
The Nelson City Council has approved four new special housing areas (SHAs) as part of the Housing Accord, which is an agreement between councils and central government intended to boost housing supply.
A 15-lot block of land at 42 St Lawrence St is included in the suite of new SHAs.

 
Full Article: 
http://www.stuff.co.nz/nelson-mail/news/91083770/steep-block-of-land-earmarked-as-nelson-special-housing-area

Let Timmy Smoke: It’s Time to Open Baseball’s Hidden Cannabis Culture

 
Full Article: 
https://www.leafly.com/news/pop-culture/let-timmy-smoke-time-open-baseballs-hidden-cannabis-culture

Cowboys Owner Jerry Jones Reportedly Wants NFL To Stop Banning Cannabis

Bruce Y. Lee

Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones recent reported position on marijuana may make him more
 
As a Philadelphia Eagles fan, I by definition cannot agree with anything that the Dallas Cowboys do, unless they choose to send all of their top players to the Eagles. However, at the recent National Football League (NFL) owners-only meeting in Arizona, Cowboys owner Jerry Jones may have offered an interesting suggestion: stop banning marijuana use among NFL players. Of course, I wasn’t part of this meeting, since owning an Eagles game ticket stub does not constitute owning the team. Therefore, this information is based on reports from Mike Florio on Pro Football Talk. Before jumping to agree or disagree with Jones’ suggestion, let’s take a look at the situation.
 
Full Article: 
https://www.forbes.com/sites/brucelee/2017/04/02/cowboys-owner-jerry-jones-reportedly-wants-nfl-to-stop-banning-marijuana/#7ea9d2fd5c87

Therapeutic Ratio

A common medical way to determine drug safety is called the therapeutic ratio. This ratio defines the difference between a therapeutically effective dose and a dose which is capable of inducing adverse effects.
A commonly used over-the-counter product like aspirin has a therapeutic ratio of around 1:20. Two aspirins are the recommended dose for adult patients. Twenty times this dose, forty aspirins, may cause a lethal reaction in some patients, and will almost certainly cause gross injury to the digestive system, including extensive internal bleeding.

The therapeutic ratio for prescribed drugs is commonly around 1:10 or lower. Valium, a commonly used prescriptive drug, may cause very serious biological damage if patients use ten times the recommended (therapeutic) dose.
There are, of course, prescriptive drugs which have much lower therapeutic ratios. Many of the drugs used to treat patients with cancer, glaucoma and multiple sclerosis are highly toxic. The therapeutic ratio of some of the drugs used in antineoplastic therapies, for example, are regarded as extremely toxic poisons with therapeutic ratios that may fall below 1:1.5. These drugs also have very low LD-50 ratios and can result in toxic, even lethal reactions, while being properly employed.
By contrast, marijuana’s therapeutic ratio, like its LD-50, is impossible to quantify because it is so high.
In strict medical terms marijuana is far safer than many foods we commonly consume. For example, eating ten raw potatoes can result in a toxic response. By comparison, it is physically impossible to eat enough marijuana to induce death.
Marijuana, in its natural form, is one of the safest therapeutically active substances known to man. By any measure of rational analysis marijuana can be safely used within a supervised routine of medical care.
– FRANCIS L. YOUNG, DEA Administrative Law Judge

LD50 – Lethal Dose

The most obvious concern when dealing with drug safety is the possibility of lethal effects. Can the drug cause death?
Nearly all medicines have toxic, potentially lethal effects. But marijuana is not such a substance. There is no record in the extensive medical literature describing a proven, documented cannabis-induced fatality.

This is a remarkable statement. First, the record on marijuana encompasses 5,000 years of human experience. Second, marijuana is now used daily by enormous numbers of people throughout the world. Estimates suggest that from twenty million to fifty million Americans routinely, albeit illegally, smoke marijuana without the benefit of direct medical supervision. Yet, despite this long history of use and the extraordinarily high numbers of social smokers, there are simply no credible medical reports to suggest that consuming marijuana has caused a single death.
By contrast aspirin, a commonly used, over-the-counter medicine, causes hundreds of deaths each year.
Drugs used in medicine are routinely given what is called an LD-50. The LD-50 rating indicates at what dosage fifty percent of test animals receiving a drug will die as a result of drug induced toxicity. A number of researchers have attempted to determine marijuana’s LD-50 rating in test animals, without success. Simply stated, researchers have been unable to give animals enough marijuana to induce death.
At present it is estimated that marijuana’s LD-50 is around 1:20,000 or 1:40,000. In layman terms this means that in order to induce death a marijuana smoker would have to consume 20,000 to 40,000 times as much marijuana as is contained in one marijuana cigarette. NIDA-supplied marijuana cigarettes weigh approximately .9 grams. A smoker would theoretically have to consume nearly 1,500 pounds of marijuana within about fifteen minutes to induce a lethal response.
In practical terms, marijuana cannot induce a lethal response as a result of drug-related toxicity.
– FRANCIS L. YOUNG, DEA Administrative Law Judge