Top News

About Those Comments from Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas...

Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas issued a statement this week highlighting the conflict between state and federal marijuana laws after the Supreme Court chose not to hear a case that sought to allow the marijuana industry to deduct advertising and other expenses from its taxes.

While the decision was a devastating loss for state “legal” marijuana businesses, the pot industry spin machine immediately went into overdrive---claiming that Thomas’s statement signaled a victory for them and a move toward striking down all anti-marijuana laws.

SAM President Dr. Kevin Sabet dives into all of this and explains why Justice Thomas's statement is not as big a deal as the pot industry is trying to spin it into in his latest column for Newsweek.

Read it here.

Legislative Effort to Legalize in Delaware and Minnesota Officially Dead for 2021

On Thursday, in a significant victory for public health and a tremendous loss for Big Marijuana, the Delaware and Minnesota legislative sessions officially expired without a bill to commercialize marijuana garnering enough support to pass.

SAM President Dr. Kevin Sabet cheered the victory in a statement:

"Residents of Delaware and Minnesota can breathe a sigh of relief. Their lawmakers did not capitulate to the demands of the marijuana industry this year. We were especially proud to see Delaware's Democratic Governor John Carney hold the line and bolster the opposition against this Big Pot push. His courageous stand against this new Big Tobacco-type industry should be applauded."

Marijuana Legalization Bill Passes in Connecticut; Local Coalition Sends List of Public Health and Safety Demands to Governor Lamont.

Connecticut Governor Ned Lamont recently signed SB 1201 into law, expanding the commercial marijuana industry into the state.

In response, a group of public health and safety advocates in the state have sent the governor a comprehensive list of action items they deem essential to “mitigate the worst of the harms” that have been seen in other states that have legalized the commercial sale of marijuana.

“The marijuana industry cannot be trusted to regulate itself while they put their profits ahead of the health of Connecticut residents. We cannot allow its army of lobbyists to prevent the necessary safeguards we need to keep the industry in check from being implemented. We must install them now before it is too late.”

Read more here.

America's Pot Labs Have a THC Problem

Underscoring the whistleblower accounts detailed in Dr. Kevin Sabet's latest book, Smokescreen: What the Marijuana Industry Doesn't Want You to Know, this in-depth article from FiveThirtyEight dives into the issue of lab testing fraud that is widespread in the pot industry.

Legal states have delegated regulatory lab analysis to for-profit marijuana testing labs. Pot cultivators must pay private labs to conduct safety tests and potency analysis on their product prior to it being sold. Across the country, labs have been accused of fraud due to the inflating of THC potency, passing moldy marijuana off as safe, and making up results entirely — as pointed out in Smokescreen.

Read more here.

UN World Drug Report Calls for Global Ban on Marijuana Advertising & THC Potency Caps

The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) released the latest edition of the annual World Drug Report, which highlighted the fact that while use of marijuana among young people has increased to levels not seen since the early nineties, the perception of harm from use among the same demographic is at a historic low.

The report also called for a global ban on marijuana advertising and the implementation of a cap on THC potency in marijuana products where the marijuana industry has expanded.

Read more here.

New Study: Marijuana Use Leads to Opioid Relapse in Young Adults

A new study published in the journal Emerging Trends in Drugs, Addictions, and Health examined the relationship between marijuana use among those in short-term recovery from an opiate use disorder and relapse. The study found that adolescents/young adults with opioid use disorder who used marijuana as a harm reduction strategy were not successful as their marijuana use enhanced cravings for opiates and promoted relapse.

Read our breakdown of the study here.

New Study Finds Further Links Between Marijuana Use and Suicide

A new study conducted by the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) analyzed data from more than 280,000 people and found marijuana users thought about suicide, planned suicide, or attempted it more often than those who do not use the substance.

Read more here.

Op-Ed Corner

O(NDCP) Director, Where Art Thou?

-6/15/2021

Our Patchwork of Marijuana Laws is Unsustainable

-7/2/2021

Smokescreen: What the Marijuana Industry Doesn't Want You to Know

We are proud to say that copies of Dr. Kevin Sabet's new book, Smokescreen: What the Marijuana Industry Doesn't Want You to Know, are flying off the shelves and is officially a bestseller, with over 20,000 copies sold!

Smokescreen serves as an exposé on the marijuana industry and pulls the rug out from under the industry's promoters.

Click here to order your copy today!

As always, thank you for being a SAM supporter. If you can, please support our efforts with a small donation by clicking here.

All the best,

Colton Grace

Communications Associate

Smart Approaches to Marijuana

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