IA Push for Fentanyl Test Strip Legalization, Case of Kidnapped Cartel Leader Grows More Bizarre, More… (8/22/24)

A ballot of polls finds robust assist for marijuana legalization however much less so than two years in the past, South Dakota medical marijuana operators are complaining about delta-8 and delta-10 THC merchandise, and extra.

Marijuana Coverage

Ballot of Polls Present Robust Assist for Marijuana Legalization however Slight Decline Just lately. An evaluation of main polls on marijuana legalization over the previous decade from CBD Oracle finds that assist for legalization climbed from 53 p.c in 2015 to 62 p.c this 12 months, however peaked at 71 p.c within the first half of 2022. 

The evaluation additionally confirmed what has been evident for a while: that assist for legalization is stronger amongst Democrats, independents, and adults beneath 45, and weaker amongst Republicans and older voters. 

The report additionally had comparatively grim tidings for this 12 months’s marijuana legalization initiative campaigns in Florida and North and South Dakota. It discovered that Florida is prone to be “an in depth name,” that the measure in North Dakota is “not prone to win,” and the measure in South Dakota “may go both approach.”

Drug Coverage

Iowa Activists Push for Fentanyl Take a look at Strip Legalization. Iowa is certainly one of solely 5 states that haven’t legalized using fentanyl take a look at strips to detect the presence of the harmful artificial opioid—the others are Idaho, Indiana, North Dakota and Texas—however after a failed effort to get a invoice by means of the legislature in 2023, activists are gearing up for a renewed push to get the job finished. 

That 2023 invoice, sponsored by Rep. Megan Srivinas (D), gained some bipartisan assist within the GOP-dominated legislature, and Srivinas and state activists are getting ready to reintroduce laws to legalize the take a look at strips subsequent session. 

“The conversations I’ve had round it have left me extra optimistic for the long run,” Srinivas mentioned.

Ann Breeding co-founded Steps of Hope after her son died of a fentanyl-involved overdose. She mentioned fentanyl take a look at strips can save lives and must be legalized. 

“If it saves one life, it issues,” Breeding mentioned.

“There’s a whole lot of stigma,” Breeding mentioned. “‘They’ve made their alternative, allow them to die. Oh, it’s one other one off the streets.’ I’ve heard all of it. I feel folks don’t perceive as a result of it’s by no means occurred to them. However I’ve obtained information. It shouldn’t must occur to you. It’s time to start out listening to all people who will get it,” Breeding mentioned.

The Iowa Hurt Discount Coalition can be pushing for a invoice, arguing that not solely wouldn’t it save lives, it might assist decide what is definitely within the state’s drug provide. 

“We all know fentanyl is in our drug provide. We all know it’s round,” mentioned the group’s government director, Deborah Krauss. “We have now to go by overdose information as a result of we simply don’t have sufficient information on what the availability is.”

Medical Marijuana

South Dakota Lawmakers Hear Medical Marijuana Operators Complaints About Artificial THC Merchandise Slicing into Their Enterprise. The legislature’s Medical Marijuana Oversight Committee held a listening to Monday the place medical marijuana operators informed them that loosely regulated hemp-derived THC merchandise are slicing into their enterprise. 

The artificial merchandise, offered as delta-8 THC and delta-10 THC, can produce a excessive just like marijuana, which comprises delta-9 THC. As with medical marijuana, the merchandise can come within the type of smokeable flower, joints, vape oil, and edibles, however they aren’t required to bear the identical testing, labeling, and safety necessities as medical marijuana. 

Medical marijuana operators informed the lawmakers the artificial merchandise pose each well being dangers and risks to their backside strains. The legislature final 12 months handed a invoice that banned the manufacturing or sale of 4 THC variants, however others stay out there. 

The variety of medical marijuana cardholders has declined this 12 months, which operators blamed partially on the state’s lack of regulation over artificial THC merchandise (however which additionally may very well be partially attributable to legalization in neighboring Minnesota). 

These shops are “unlawful dispensaries promoting hashish beneath the guise of hemp,” mentioned Dakota Herb CEO Dalton Grimmius.

The committee took no motion on the listening to, however members instructed that it ought to advocate a summer time examine, which might not happen till 2025. That would all be rendered moot, although, if a marijuana legalization initiative on the November poll wins. 

Worldwide

Mexico to Cost Son of El Chapo—Not with Drug Trafficking however with Kidnapping. Joaquín Guzmán López, the son of imprisoned Sinaloa Cartel chief Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman and a cartel chief himself as head of the Los Chapitos faction, is dealing with expenses in Mexico or apparently kidnapping rival Sinaloa Cartel faction chief Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada and turning himself and his prisoner in to US authorities at an airstrip close to El Paso. 

Federal prosecutors mentioned this week that “an arrest warrant has been ready” in opposition to the youthful Guzman for kidnapping. However additionally they cited one other portion of the Mexican prison code that defines his actions as treason, which the regulation says is dedicated “by those that illegally abduct an individual in Mexico as a way to hand them over to authorities of one other nation.”

That part of the Mexican prison code was a response to the kidnapping of a Mexican physician was who needed by the DEA for alleged involvement within the 1985 kidnapping, torture, and homicide of DEA agent Kiki Camerena in Guadalajara. 

The federal prosecutors additionally scoffed at Sinaloa state prosecutors’ effort to distance Gov. Ruben Rocha from the kidnapping—which occurred at his residence—and the killing of his political rival Hector Cuen—which additionally occurred at his residence. State prosecutors had launched a video of an obvious capturing at a neighborhood gasoline station the place they claimed Cuen was killed in a theft try, however the federal prosecutors mentioned the video didn’t match the variety of gunshot wounds on Cuen’s physique and that the video “is unacceptable, nor does it have adequate worth as proof to be taken into consideration.”