Trump’s FDA Chief Is a Close Friend of Pot’s Sworn Enemy

When President Donald Trump’s selected Scott Gottlieb—a physician and fellow at a conservative think-tank—to head the Food and Drug Administration, marijuana’s last hope for some help in Trump’s cabinet died out.

Earlier names floated for the position of American drug czar included Jim O’Neill, a Silicon Valley venture capitalist whose claim to something other than infamy is that he’s a friend of Peter Thiel, Trump’s best friend in tech, and briefly served on the board of directors for a (failed) California marijuana legalization initiative. But since O’Neill is also an anti-regulation libertarian who advocated for ending the FDA’s practice of testing medicines for safety before they’re sold to the public—which is sort of what the FDA is all about—he received some consideration from Team Trump.

So instead, we have Gottlieb, who has been a dutiful soldier in the fight against giving Americans more healthcare.

Since Congress is taking the lead on becoming America’s death squad, killing health insurance for 24 million Americans, Gottlieb will be best-positioned to address Trump’s purported goal of bringing down the price of prescription drugs. (But not by letting generic drugs in from Canada; that would be… bad, somehow.)

This choice may also impact cannabis reform in America, and not in a good way. With Gottlieb’s elevation, there’s now a trifecta of serious stumbling blocks to marijuana reform calling key shots in the White House.

There are some positives for anyone interested in safe drugs to draw from Gottlieb’s appointment, as a review of Gottlieb’s C.V. and recent speeches published by the helpful wonks over at Vox shows. Unlike O’Neill, he’s actually a physician. He wants a faster approval track for experimental pharmaceuticals, and he wants to give doctors more power to decide what treatments may be best for their patients.

Most of this sounds OK. And it might be.

Gottlieb does not appear to be nearly as ideological (in all the wrong ways) as Tom Price, the current head of the Department of Health and Human Services who was a staunch anti-medical-marijuana vote while in Congress. And he’s no Jeff Sessions (for there to be multiple living, breathing Civil War re-enactors in Washington’s echelons of power would be a neat trick). 

Parsing his own words, Gottlieb appears almost agnostic on cannabis. Aside from tweeting out links to a few studies, he has said next to nothing on the subject. He doesn’t have to. With Gottlieb, there’s one significant problem: He’s a very, very good friend of one of marijuana’s sworn enemies.

After leaving the George W. Bush-era FDA, where he served as a top deputy, Gottlieb jumped straight into the arms of the pharmaceutical industry.

As Leafly News reported, he’s been a consultant for several very big pharma firms and raked in $400,000 from pharmaceutical companies in recent years. His ties to drug companies are strong—and drug companies, you may recall, really don’t like marijuana. At all.

The lone statewide legalization initiative to lose at the ballot box in November was in Arizona. There, the anti-legalization campaign received a $500,000 donation from Insys Therapeutics, the pharmaceutical company that manufactures Fentanyl, the ultra-powerful synthetic opiate that’s believed to have killed Prince. I

n company SEC filings published by the Intercept, Insys executives stated what’s now become obvious, even as White House officials deny it: Legal marijuana is a viable substitute for prescription painkillers peddled by pharmaceutical companies. Other pharmaceutical companies have donated to similar “anti-drug” measures across the country. There’s a tinge of irony because the cash comes from drug companies; the donations are more “anti-drugs that aren’t the drugs we sell.”

Nearly all significant progress toward undoing the War on Drugs and pushing for more knowledge about cannabis and what it does to our brains and bodies has been at the state level. That’s good, but it can only go so far.

Across the country, scientists and now elected officials are lamenting how little we actually know about marijuana. The federal government wields significant power over scientific research—feds decide where grants go, and the feds also have control over the lone supply of marijuana available for study.

To push forward, cannabis is in need of an ally—someone who will make it easier for researchers—if Trump’s people were serious about deregulating everything, including restrictions on who can study Schedule I drugs like marijuana and how, maybe, it would be a good thing.

But with Price and Sessions calling shots over Gottlieb’s head, this seems unlikely. Trump’s cabinet remains an anti-marijuana minefield.

You can keep up with all of HIGH TIMES’ marijuana news right here.

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by Chris Roberts at High Times

Pie Strains for your Pie-Day Brains

The mathematical concept of Pi pervades our world — and on 3.14 each year, nothing's more satisfying with celebrating Pi's homonym with pies and pie strains.

The post Pie Strains for your Pie-Day Brains appeared first on Leafly.

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by Jeremiah Wilhelm at Leafly

The High Score: Zelda, Breath of the Wild Game Review

We got stoned and played The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild. Read about the immersive gameplay and how it’s perfect for a higher state of mind.

The post The High Score: Zelda, Breath of the Wild Game Review appeared first on Leafly.

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by Bailey Rahn at Leafly

First-of-Its-Kind Lawsuit Takes Big Pharma to Court Over Black Market OxyContin

One local newspaper said that this first-of-its-kind lawsuit reads like Everett, Washington is suing Mexican drug lord El Chapo Guzman, rather than Purdu Pharma, which turned a blind eye for years to the black market distribution of its highly addictive OxyContin in order to “reap large and obscene profits.”

Now, the City of Everett is proving this outrage in court and wants compensation for having to deal with the aftermath of years of Oxy addiction.

Black Market? Yes.

Here’s what former State Attorney General Rob McKenna said: “The lawsuit claims Purdue is responsible for knowingly, recklessly, and/or negligently supplying OxyContin to obviously suspicious physicians and pharmacies and enabling the illegal diversion of OxyContin into the black market.”

Purdue and El Chapo: Same Shameless Business Model

An exhaustive investigation done by the Los Angeles Times last year revealed that Purdue had its own extensive evidence that illegal trafficking of its pills was going on, big time, all over the country.

Internal Purdue emails included a 2009 excerpt from an exchange between the company’s compliance director and a sales manager who had become suspicious of the high number of OxyContin prescriptions traced back to a certain clinic in Los Angeles.

After visiting the clinic, according to the LA Times, the sales manager wrote that, “the line was out the door, with people who looked like gang members. I feel very certain that this is an organized drug ring.”

That person was right.

But instead of sharing that info with the DEA, the cops or cutting off production, Purdue just kept churning out more and more Oxy and raking in the profits.

A Los Angeles drug ring was indeed supplying OxyContin to gang members, who were trafficking it directly to Everett, a city of 100,000, north of Seattle.

Serious Charges

While other states have sued Purdue over its deceptive marketing campaigns that exaggerate the benefits while minimizing the risks of the pain med, Everett’s lawsuit is the first to claim that Purdue knew Oxy was being diverted and peddled on the black market and did nothing to stop it.

If successful, Purdue could be held responsible for footing the bill to wean people off Oxy, rehab and other related costs. The lawsuit also states that Purdue fueled a heroin crisis in Everett.

“Other communities have been devastated as well,” McKenna told MyNorthwest.com. “That could run into the billions and put them out of business or put them out of the business of making OxyContin.”

Everett’s jails and detox facilities are overflowing with addicts, a recent NBC report revealed.

In pursuing the lawsuit, Everett’s Mayor Ray Stephanson cited what he called “clear evidence that Purdue ignored their responsibility to stop the diversion of OxyContin into the black market” in its quest for profits.

“Purdue needs to be held accountable for not taking the action they should have taken, that allowed drugs to hit these streets and make addicts of many of my citizens,” Stephanson told NBC News.

The city of Everett’s court filing is available here.

You can keep up with all of HIGH TIMES’ news right here.

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by Maureen Meehan at High Times

Watch: Episode 2 of ‘Growing Exposed’—Growing to New Heights

This second episode of “Growing Exposed” features an impressive indoor garden with cannabis plants reaching a height of over 10 feet tall. Come harvest time, these plants, which resemble trees, have massive buds swelling to the size of two-liter bottles. Founder of Cannabis In Canada, Jason Wilcox leads you through this jungle of towering plants as your tour guide. From start to finish, Jason explains his perfected system and set up that allows for complete control.

“That’s the cool thing about this series” explained the show’s producer Jeremy Deichen. “The viewer gets a behind the scenes look at what other growers are doing. We don’t just show you a perfect bud on a dry rack; we break down the individual techniques used to achieve that final result.”

Jason begins his tour by taking us to the roof—where he reveals the high-tech equipment this grow uses to control their growing facility, from lighting, climate control, water filtration and more. Cooled by three 5-ton air conditioning units, the rooms are built inside of a warehouse the size of a football field.

By the end of the episode, Jason is climbing up ladders inspecting terminal buds of a cannabis variety called Moby Dick. Excited, he takes a moment to compare it to the size of his head.

“These are really chunky beautiful buds that are resinous and smell incredible.” Like a kid in a candy store, Jason goes on to explain, “I’m in heaven.”

Jason makes a point of showcasing the plant food this grower uses. It’s a 3-part base formula created by Green Planet called GP3. The grower explained that a 3-part formula gives him maximum control throughout the vegetative and bloom cycles. He was already using the most popular 3-part system in the industry for years until he learned about a cleaner formula on the market that did not contain carbonates. Carbonates are essentially fillers commonly used in the industry. No one likes salt build up around drip lines and reservoirs.

When we asked Green Planet’s owner Justin Cooper why we keep seeing this line of food behind some of the nicest grows we visit, he answered: “Green Planet Nutrients have been created from the highest sourced ingredients. We believe our formulas are the best in the world. We simply don’t cut corners by using anything artificial. We then take it one step farther by challenging ourselves to bring you the best value possible.”

The master grower I spoke to, made it clear, that this formula promotes healthy aggressive growth. This resulted in significantly boosted yields and really was an easy switch.

If you are already using a 3-part, then GP3 can be substituted even mid crop, and the only thing you will notice is your plants getting happier. I think another reason people like GP3 from Green Planet Nutrients is you won’t have a learning curve.  If you’ve ever used any other 3-part on the market, then you will easily be able to understand the feeding schedule and dial this one in to your liking.

The garden also features an activated charcoal filter to clean the air going out of the facility (known as a scrubber), a dehumidifier which recycles the water the plants transpire back into the system, a high-end water filtration system that removes both chlorine and chloramine (which is damaging to crucial inoculants), a water chiller to keep water at a steady 70°F and to top it off, each room is certified fire-safe. Every single component is wired for precision and efficiency.

This facility keeps a room packed full of mother of optimal phenotypes and hybrid strains; it is a forest of ganja. However, how do you select a mother plant?

The keen knowledge of David Robinson, the Garden Sage, explains this topic in the second episode of Growing Exposed.

Robinson explains that it takes roughly 6 – 9 months to identify the best phenotype out of a batch of seeds, which becomes your mother plant. The mother plant is sustained in vegetative growth, so it is kept under a constant 18 hours of light a day. This plant will never flower, but the clippings taken from the plant, which have a rooting hormone applied to the stem to encourage roots to form and thus create a “clone,” are grown to bloom.

Also featured in this episode is Keirton, a company that manufactures a product called the Twister. The Twister is a wet and dry trimmer for the cannabis industry, and it literally saves the day. With conveyor belts and all sorts of high-tech machinery, this trimmer can wet-trim an incredible 9 pounds of cannabis in an hour, which is a necessity for a grow operation of this scale.

We hope you enjoy the tour of this facility on Episode Two of “Growing Exposed” exclusively on HIGHTIMES.com.

Don’t Miss Episode 1 of “Growing Exposed”—Clandestine Gardens! 

For all of HIGH TIMES’ grow coverage, click here. 

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by Jeremy Deichen at High Times

The Federal Government Is Cheating Young Addicts Out of Treatment

Adolescents suffering from the often-deadly grips of opioid addiction are not receiving the same level of treatment as their adult counterparts, according to the latest study from Johns Hopkins School of Public Health.

Researchers say that while 26 percent of adult heroin addicts in the United States were given medication-assisted treatment back in 2013, in the form of methadone or suboxone, only two percent of the adolescent population received the same opportunity.

Sadly, this lack of attention to the young drug addict also takes place when it comes to cases involving prescription painkillers.

In examining the data of nearly 140,000 patients, researchers found that 12 percent of the adult addicts were given federally subsidized medications to help ease them into recovery, with less than one percent of adolescents being given the same consideration.

These findings are detailed at great lengths in the latest issue of the Journal of Adolescent Health.

This is a problem that is going to require a great deal more attention, said lead researcher Kenneth Feder. Otherwise, the opioid epidemic could spiral into something far worse than what we are witnessing today.

“There’s more that needs to be done across the board to facilitate access to these treatments when they’re medically necessary,” Feder told Reuters Health. “The best validated treatment for somebody struggling with an opiate addiction is treatment that includes some sort of medication assistance.”

But the system is simply not set up to take care of youngsters grappling with a drug problem.

As it stands, methadone and heath care clinics cannot treat anyone under the age of 18 without written permission from a parent or guardian. What’s more is Medicaid requires adolescent drug addicts to actually fail a treatment program at least two times before it pays for them to get on methadone—a policy that is contributing to more sickness and death than healthy Americans.

In 2015, somewhere around 276,000 adolescents were using opioids, with 122,000 having an addiction to these substances, according to the American Society of Addiction Medicine.

Of these cases, thousand of them died from overdoses to heroin, prescription pain pills and methadone, reports the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Medical experts, like Dr. Lisa Marsch of the Geisel School of Medicine in New Hampshire, say the federal government’s current policy on treating adolescent drug addiction is “a real disservice based on the science and the data.”

She believes it is imperative for youngsters to receive medication-assisted treatments the moment an addiction is identified.

“We want a chance to stop this problem early,” she said.

There is some concern that the situation will only worsen with the Republican’s plan to repeal Obamacare. The party’s newly drafted “American Health Act” would reportedly freeze Medicaid expansions and sever ties with some “essential” heath benefits under Obamacare, including substance abuse programs.

Medicaid, which presently covers around 70 million Americans, pays for more drug addiction services than any other insurer in the nation.

You can keep up with all of HIGH TIMES’ news right here.

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by Mike Adams at High Times

Group Urges MA Lawmakers to Hold off on Cannabis Law Changes

The group behind a ballot initiative that legalized recreational cannabis in Massachusetts is now urging state legislators to keep the new law intact.

The post Group Urges MA Lawmakers to Hold off on Cannabis Law Changes appeared first on Leafly.

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by The Associated Press at Leafly