In what may be some sort of modern record for fact-free grandstanding on drug issues, U.S. Rep. Mark Kirk, a Republican from the suburbs north of Chicago, has introduced a bill to ratchet up penalties for so-called “super pot”. Under Kirk’s proposal, penalties would be massively increased for those producing or selling marijuana with THC levels 15% or higher — to the point where a single plant could land someone in jail for 25 years.

Small problem: THC is, for all practical purposes, nontoxic. Higher-THC marijuana is not more dangerous. People simply smoke less, just like they drink less vodka than they do beer. That’s not just my opinion. Scientists who have examined the issue have concluded that the evidence simply isn’t there to sound alarm bells over so-called “super pot.” See, for example, this detailed review from the journal Addiction.

Congressman Kirk, it feels safe to say, has no intention of letting mere facts get in his way.

In mid-May, spurred by a press release from the drug czar’s office, the American news media reported with varying levels of hysteria that average marijuana potency had soared past the 10% THC level for the first time. Clearly the sky was falling, or at least was about to.

Small problem: According to the actual report, from the Marijuana Potency Monitoring Project at the University of Mississippi, average marijuana potency is only 8.52% — a fact easily determined by doing something most journalists apparently didn’t bother to attempt: reading the report, which is based on tests of samples seized by police. The way they got to the claimed rate of 10.1% was by including samples of hashish (average potency 20.76%) and hash oil (15.64%). [Read more →]

“If something is not legal, you can’t regulate it very effectively.”

            – Prof. Robin Room, School of Population Health, University of Melbourne

On October 2, the Global Cannabis Commission, a group of top scientists commissioned by the Beckley Foundation, issued its groundbreaking report, “Cannabis Policy: Moving Beyond Stalemate.” Your faithful correspondent was able to attend the daylong seminar in which the report was discussed, held in the distinctly imposing Moses Room of the House of Lords in the Palace of Westminster.

This is a highly condensed summary of the 175-page report. I wrote a lengthier summary here, and the full document can be downloaded here.

The report was written by five leading marijuana and drug policy researchers: Benedikt Fischer of Simon Fraser University in Vancouver, Peter Reuter of the University of Maryland, and three Australians: Wayne Hall of the University of Queensland, Simon Lenton of the National Drug Research Institute at the Curtin University of Technology, and Robin Room of the University of Melbourne. A number of other important researchers joined the discussion (and contributed advice and research to the report).

Some highlights: [Read more →]

It was probably inevitable: Lacking actual facts to make their case, opponents of Question 2 in Massachusetts have begun spinning fictional scare stories in order to frighten voters out of reforming that state’s marijuana laws.

Question 2 would replace the current criminal penalties for possession of up to an ounce of marijuana by adults with a civil fine. Marijuana would still be illegal, but simple possession of a small amount wouldn’t require arrest, booking, and all the time and expense that entails, and would not generate a criminal record. Eleven other states already have such “decriminalization” laws on the books, and they’re working just fine. Notably, they have not produced an increase in rates of marijuana use, as the National Research Council has noted.

So opponents trying to frighten voters about Question 2 have no choice but to make stuff up. [Read more →]

I promise, we will not do a new post every time an ONDCP official lies. We’d never get any work done. But the falsehoods uttered by deputy Drug Czar Scott Burns in this interview in the Arcata Eye, a small northern California paper, are so blatant that they deserve mention. To avoid having to write a War and Peace-length tome, I’ll focus on just two: [Read more →]

An editorial in the July 18 New York Times worries about rising drug overdose deaths among young people, but misleadingly brings marijuana into the picture, for no good reason. 

While the Times is right to raise alarm over rising drug overdose deaths among youth, references to marijuana in that context are both puzzling and misleading. [Read more →]