USA: BHO explosions will only increase – Michigan

EXPLOSIONS LAST WEEKEND HIGHLIGHT MICHIGAN’S PROBLEM CONTROLLING BHO   27/1/18

Two explosions in one weekend

Two Butane Hash Oil (BHO) explosions ignited in Michigan last weekend, when amateurs were attempting to extract THC from marijuana to make “dabs.”  Michigan’s BHO problem will grow into a bigger problem, because legalizers succeeded in getting marijuana on the ballot in November.  (Read this article to understand the difference between decriminalization and legalization.)

On Saturday, January 20 in Orion Township, a tenant was making BHO  when he suddenly tried to light a cigarette, and everything exploded. The “victim”/maker of the substance was badly burned on his arms and face.   He’s been hospitalized, but the other four roommates made  it out of the house unharmed.

The next day a 25-year-old in a mobile home park blew out the windows of his kitchen when trying to make BHO.   It was 1:30 p.m. in Genesee County, when neighbors heard the loud explosion and called 911.

BHO Labs are part of the current marijuana culture

Butane hash oil fires occur in low rent neighborhoods and as well a exclusive communities such as Butternut Drive in Shelby Township, Macomb County.   Butane is the very flammable gas or liquid used in the extraction of THC for “dabs” or “wax.”   Making wax or dabs, which can be up to 90% THC is very profitable.  Marijuana buds cost between $15 and $20 per gram, but BHO averages a cost between $70 and $100 a gram.

A BHO fire in Oakland Count, Michigan caused explosive damage, shattering windows an objects. A 20-year-old started the fire. Photo: Oakland County sheriff’s office

In order to produce the substance, the producers must strain parts of the cannabis plant through liquid butane.  Then they heat the contents in order to evaporate the leftover residue which just leaves behind the wax-like substance.   In Humboldt County, CA, where a man died making BHO the first day pot was legal in California, officials now control the sale of butane.  Marijuana labs have replaced meth labs as the most dangerous drug labs of this decade. For complete article http://www.poppot.org/2018/01/27/explosions-last-weekend-highlight-michigans-problem-controlling-bho/

 

 

USA: Maryland Cannabis Candy Creating Child Casualties

MARYLAND CHILDREN GET SICK AS BIG MARIJUANA PUSHES AGENDA

24/1/18

Gummy bears in Southern Maryland Middle School

Five schoolchildren were hospitalized in southern Maryland after a middle school student brought and shared marijuana-laced food to school.   Following an investigation, the St. Mary’s County sheriff has charged a father from Great Mills with reckless endangerment.

The man’s daughter and four other students had a reaction to marijuana laced gummy bears on January 2, the first day after winter break.  All five students reported feeling ill, and they were taken to the hospital in Leonardtown.   All children survived and went home to their parents or guardians, but not without a lot of drama.   The event triggered a police investigation, and a father has been charged.

In the affidavit filed, the father claims that “the edible gummy candies were given to him by an associate who came to his house for a party.”   This man left his candies in a plastic bag in his bedroom, knowing they were easily accessible to the daughter.

For More http://www.poppot.org/2018/01/24/maryland-children-get-sick-big-marijuana-pushes-its-agenda/

 

USA: S.A.M – CITY OF COMPTON REJECTS POT SHOPS BY MORE THAN 3 to 1

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Contact: SAM Press Office/Luke Niforatos                                                  FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

[email protected]; 303-335-7584              January 24, 2018 

CITY OF COMPTON REJECTS POT SHOPS BY MORE THAN 3 to 1
Voters Reject Two Local Initiatives; Marijuana Stores Remain Banned
(January 24, 2018 – Alexandria, VA) – Voters in Compton, California soundly rejected two local measures that would have allowed businesses selling marijuana in their city. The rejection, which 76-77% of voters agreed with, means that a ban on marijuana businesses in the city remains.
\”Today, Compton voters refused to be pawns for the billionaire pot lobbyists who just want to get richer,\” said Kevin A. Sabet, a former Obama Administration drug policy adviser who is now head of the anti-legalization group Smart Approaches to Marijuana (SAM). \”This is a great win for public health and safety, and for Compton\’s youth in particular. City by city, this fight continues.\”
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A SAM Action-led rally in Compton, 2016
SAM has engaged in multiple community events in Compton for the past few years.In 2016, Compton was a major focus area for the anti-Prop 64 campaign, which was largely funded by SAM Action, SAM\’s sister organization. Despite state initiatives, marijuana remains illegal, and new guidance issued recently clarifiesthat the sales of marijuana remains a federal felony. 

Recent research has also found that arrests for young, communities of color have gone up since legalization in Colorado.

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USA: The Trade – New Documentary Series on Opiate Crisis

\’It needs to make you uncomfortable\’: the opioid documentary set to shock America

Documentary Amanda Holpuch Wed 31 Jan 2018 22.00 AEDTLast modified on Thu 1 Feb 2018 04.58 AEDT

The Trade is a new docu-series focused on the stories of addicts, their families and the law enforcement officials trying to curb the epidemic that kills 91 Americans a day

Fifteen minutes into The Trade, a new docu-series about the US opioid crisis, a woman is seen injecting heroin in a dingy Atlanta hotel room.

“I hate this shit,” she mumbles as the drug takes hold.

It’s now her friend Skyler’s turn. He ducks into the bathroom to use and soon the two are sitting on the bed: the woman sobs while Skyler simply offers her a cigarette and sits quietly by her side. He’s not panicked and it’s clear this isn’t the first time they’ve gone to a hotel to shoot up.

Each day, 91 Americans die from an opioid overdose. The five-part docu-series, which premieres Friday on Showtime, bypasses the didactic timeline of how the US got to this position and instead places the audience in unvarnished scenes of human suffering.

It’s an intimate style the director, Matthew Heineman, used in the Oscar-nominated Cartel Land, and it puts a face to people affected by the crisis.

The camera keeps rolling as women with children are investigated by police for their connection to the opioid trade in a home filled with kilos of heroin, in a car driven by an intoxicated mother and in a front yard, being taken away by child protective services.

For Complete article https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2018/jan/31/it-needs-to-make-you-uncomfortable-the-opioid-documentary-set-to-shock-america

Official Trailer https://youtu.be/hSh9go26awE

 

CANADA: Doctors concerned MJ industry putting more at risk

Marijuana addiction is real, and teenage users are most at risk

In the rush to legalize marijuana in Canada, medical experts are warning about weed’s alarming side, particularly for younger users

Joe Castaldo January 15, 2018

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Sean Savoie first smoked marijuana around the age of 14 when, behind a gas station, a friend handed him a pop can fashioned into a bong. He doesn’t remember if he got high or even enjoyed the experience, but he did start smoking two or three times a week. Marijuana became a way for Savoie to create an identity for himself during those tumultuous high school years, and a way to make friends. His parents disapproved and urged him to quit, but he never abandoned the habit for long. Eventually, his parents stopped trying, contenting themselves with the fact that at least their son wasn’t using harder drugs. “That kind of told me that it’s okay,” says Savoie, who lives in Winnipeg. “So I started using every day.”

By the time he was in university, Savoie was smoking multiple times a day. He’d spark up as soon as he rolled out of bed, as well as before hanging out with friends, before a video game session, before family dinners and before sleep. No matter what he was about to do, Savoie wanted to be high for it. It never occurred to him that he might have a problem. “It was like, ‘You can’t get addicted to weed. It’s the harmless drug,’ ” he recalls.

But after five years of heavy use, Savoie noticed his short-term memory was starting to fray. He avoided talking to people. Worse, festering feelings of anxiety and depression were growing. He tried to mask them with weed, deepening his dependency. He upended his life, quitting his job and breaking up with his girlfriend, trying to find the source of his depression. Nothing worked. “Maybe it’s the drug use,” he recalls thinking, “because I’m constantly relying on it.” For complete article CannabisISAddictive

 

USA: Opioid Crisis – One son, four overdoses, six hours

by Katharine Q. Seelye New York Times, January 21, 2018.

Drug deaths draw the most notice, but more addicted people live than die. For them and their families, life can be a relentless cycle of worry, hope and chaos.

* * * * *

Even in the cheeriest moments, when Patrick was clean, everyone – including him – seemed to be bracing for the inevitable moment when he would turn back to drugs.

“We are your neighbors,” his mother, Sandy Griffin, said of the many families living with addiction, “and this is the B.S. going on in the house.”

* * * * *

. But the opioid scourge, here and elsewhere, has overwhelmed police and fire departments, hospitals, prosecutors, public defenders, courts, jails and the foster care system.

Most of all, though, it has upended families.

* * * * *

“It’s a merry-go-round, and he can’t get off,” Sandy said of Patrick and his overdoses. “The first couple of times, I started thinking, ‘At least he’s not dead.’ I still think that. But he’s hurting. He’s sick. He needs to learn to live with the pain of being alive.”

* * * * *

Unlike some of the other parents, Sandy seemed battle hardened, like one who had been immersed in a war for a long time.

“I lost myself 10 years ago,” she told the group. “I couldn’t go to work, I couldn’t get out of bed.” She said she was consumed by codependency, in which “you are addicted to this human being to save them.”

She said she had realized that she had to save herself.

* * * * *

For drug users and their loved ones, though, the worry never ends. No day can be ordinary. The threat of relapse is constant.

When Patrick recently texted Sandy, saying, “I love you,” her first thought was that he was about to kill himself. She frantically called him back. Patrick told her he was fine, he had just been thinking about her.

For a moment, Sandy caught her breath.

For complete article : www.nytimes.com/2018/01/21/us/opioid-addiction-treatment-families.html

 

Honduras: DEA Press Release – Congressman and Drug Trafficking

 

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Contact: DEA Public Affairs (202) 307-7977

Press Release

DEA investigation unravels drug trafficking
and corruption by Honduran congressman

Conspiracy included massive cocaine loads from Colombia and elsewhere

for U.S. import, safe passage, bribes, government protection

 

WASHINGTON — A member of the Honduran National Congress faces U.S. charges for drug trafficking, weapons and conspiracy thanks to a DEA-led international drug investigation, federal law enforcement officials announced today. Honduran Congressman Fredy Renan Najera Montoya has been charged in Manhattan federal court with conspiring to import cocaine into the United States and related weapons offenses involving the use and possession of machine guns and destructive devices. The United States is seeking Najera’s extradition from Honduras and he faces a maximum of life imprisonment if convicted.

“Najera used his position in the Honduran Congress to facilitate huge amounts of drug trafficking and corruption, while using security teams possessing dangerous and deadly weapons that threaten the rule of law and innocent lives,” said Raymond Donovan, DEA Special Agent in Charge of the DEA Special Operations Division, which coordinates multi-agency, multi-national drug trafficking and narco-terror operations worldwide. “DEA will continue to go after these dangerous criminal individuals and their violent networks with our counterparts across the world utilizing every law enforcement tool at our disposal.”

According to the DEA investigation and in the charges announced, multiple drug-trafficking organizations in Honduras and elsewhere worked together with support from Najera and others to receive multi-hundred kilogram loads of cocaine sent to Honduras from Colombia and elsewhere via air and maritime routes. Their criminal scheme also included drug transport westward in Honduras toward the border with Guatemala and eventually to the United States. For protection from official interference, and in order to facilitate the safe passage through Honduras of the cocaine loads, drug traffickers paid bribes to public officials, including certain members of the National Congress of Honduras.

Najera is a member of the National Congress of Honduras who participated in and supported the drug-trafficking activities of large-scale drug traffickers in Honduras and high-ranking members of Mexico’s Sinaloa Cartel. For example, Najera facilitated the receipt of cocaine-laden aircraft at clandestine landing strips in Honduras that were protected by heavily armed security personnel so that the cocaine could be transported through Honduras, sold to the Sinaloa Cartel, and imported into the United States. Najera also participated in a maritime cocaine-trafficking venture that involved a $50,000 bribe paid to Fabio Porfirio Lobo, whose father was the President of Honduras at the time of the payment. On September 5, 2017, in United States v. Lobo, No. 15 Cr. 174 (LGS), U.S. District Judge Lorna G. Schofield sentenced Lobo principally to 24 years’ imprisonment based on his conviction for participating in a conspiracy to import cocaine into the United States.

“As alleged, Fredy Renan Najera Montoya used his power and influence as a Honduran congressman to help facilitate the transport of huge quantities of cocaine from Colombia through Honduras, and ultimately to the streets of the United States,” said Manhattan United States Attorney Geoffrey S. Berman. “Along with the DEA, we are committed to attacking the drug trade at every level, regardless of a defendant’s status. We look forward to trying Najera on U.S. soil.”

Najera, 41, was charged with three counts:  (1) conspiring to import cocaine into the United States, (2) using and carrying machine guns and destructive devices during, and possessing machine guns and destructive devices in furtherance of, the cocaine-importation conspiracy, and (3) conspiring to use and carry machine guns and destructive devices during, and to possess machine guns and destructive devices in furtherance of, the cocaine-importation conspiracy.  If convicted, Najera faces a mandatory minimum sentence of 10 years’ imprisonment and a maximum term of life imprisonment on Count One, a mandatory minimum sentence of 30 years’ imprisonment and a maximum term of life imprisonment on Count Two, and a maximum term of 20 years’ imprisonment on Count Three.

DEA’s Special Operations Division Bilateral Investigations Unit coordinated this investigation, which included the DEA New York Strike Force, and DEA Tegucigalpa Country Office, as well as the U.S. Department of Justice’s Office of International Affairs.

 

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USA: New National Poll Shows Support for Marijuana Legalization Dips Below 50%

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Contact: SAM Press Office/Luke Niforatos                                                FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

[email protected]; 303-335-7584          January 17, 2018

New National Poll Shows Support for Marijuana Legalization Dips Below 50% When Voters Are Given Other Policy Choices
Mason-Dixon poll on marijuana finds support for non-legalization stands at 50%; It also finds 50% support for federal laws if individual users aren\’t targeted

(January 17, 2018 – Alexandria, VA)  – A national poll conducted by Mason Dixon and funded by Smart Approaches to Marijuana (SAM), found support for non-legalization measures like decriminalization edges out support for full marijuana legalization. In the poll, 49% of likely voters supported legalization whereas 50% supported other policies. One percent were undecided.
\”The country is almost evenly split on legalization,\” said Brad Coker of Mason-Dixon polling. \”When people are given the choices of decriminalization, keeping marijuana illegal, or medical marijuana, cumulatively they slightly prefer these alternatives over legalization.\”
The poll also found 50% of Americans were comfortable with enforcing federal marijuana laws if individual users were not targeted. Only 43% of likely voters said they would still oppose enforcing federal laws.
\”This poll shows that we need to move beyond this false dichotomy between prohibition and legalization, especially for individual users,\” said Kevin Sabet, Ph.D., President of SAM. \”These results clearly indicate the oft-touted vast public support for marijuana legalization has a shakier foundation than marijuana investors would have you believe. This should give pause to politicians and marijuana financiers alike.\”

 

USA: Nearly Half of all Americans Know Someone Impacted by Addiction

46 Percent Know Someone Impacted by Drug Addiction

By Scott Rasmussen Friday, 12 Jan 2018

Forty-six percent of American adults have a family member or close friend who is or has been addicted to drugs.[1]

This is an issue that cuts across all segments of society. The Pew Research Center reports that there are few differences along partisan, racial, or other demographic lines. In fact, the only notable demographic distinction is that Americans over 65 are somewhat less likely than younger adults to know someone who is or has been addicted.

While nearly half of all Americans know someone who is struggling with addiction, federal government data found that only 2.7 percent of Americans reported behavior that meets the criteria of an \”illicit drug use disorder.\”

Read Full Article Here 46 Percent Know Someone Impacted by Drug Addiction

 

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