Health Archives - Page 38 of 60

Drug's August 8, 2014May 24, 2015

Tennessee Drug Tests Welfare Applicants, Finds Just 1 Person Using Drugs

The state is using its tight welfare budget to administer the expensive tests. Tennessee is all set to deny welfare benefits to poor residents based solely on the fact that they’d used drugs. In July they rolled out a program to drug test welfare applicants, which would create even worse health issues for already-struggling addicts. However, the first month’s tests proved that most welfare applicants weren’t using drugs in the first place: of more than 800 applicants, the state caught only one person using drugs. The testing program was popularised and enacted, no doubt, in response to the stereotype that poor people who use government assistance programs tend to be drug users. But it appears that the stereotype is baseless. Just 12 people in Utah’s similar drug testing program came […] Read More

Marijuana August 7, 2014June 7, 2015

Here’s Why California Still Hasn’t Legalized Pot

California has the oldest, most established cannabis industry in the US, so what gives? The following article first appeared in Cannabis Now: California boasts the world’s eighth largest economy, larger than even Russia. San Francisco Weekly’s Chris Roberts recently estimated the demand for legalized marijuana in California to be $2.1 billion. The estimate, initially reported at $2.1 trillion, was based on the numbers coming out of Colorado scaled to fit the Golden State. California supplies the nation with food, wine, technology and entertainment, and its politics have controlled it thusly. This year alone billionaire venture capitalist Tim Draper has financed a ballot initiative that would split the state into six smaller states, creating the wealthiest state in the nation — Silicon Valley. Californians have even elected two entertainers to the […] Read More

Drug's August 1, 2014June 7, 2015

The NY Times’ Hypocritical Employee Drug Tests, Like Marijuana Prohibition, Need to End

Workplace drug testing is unjust and ruins lives. The following article first appeared on Substance.com: Unless you’ve been in hiding, you’ll know that the New York Times made history last Sunday, July 27, when it launched a series of editorials calling for an end to marijuana prohibition. The first piece, “Repeal Prohibition, Again,” was a complete reversal of the Grey Lady’s hitherto cautious—some would say conservative—position on the drug war: “It took 13 years for the United States to come to its senses and end Prohibition, 13 years in which people kept drinking, otherwise law-abiding citizens became criminals and crime syndicates arose and flourished. It has been more than 40 years since Congress passed the current ban on marijuana, inflicting great harm on society just to prohibit […] Read More

Health Insurance July 30, 2014February 26, 2015

Thank You Obamacare – California Health Insurance Costs Spike Up To 88% In 2014

If you like your disposable income… forget it. Health-care insurance premiums for individuals in California rose between 22% and 88% in 2014 from last year, even after the federal health-care overhaul. This has led, as Bloomberg reports, to Proposition 45 – a bill that would grant regulatory say on proposed premium increases. “Unless Proposition 45 is passed we are going to continue to see dramatic year-over-year increases,” warned Insurance Commissioner Dave Jones. As Bloomberg reports, Insurance Commissioner Dave Jones said, a Democrat, is pushing a statewide ballot measure for November known as Proposition 45 that would give him regulatory say on proposed premium increases. The measure is opposed by insurance companies, which have said that it would actually cause rates to rise while harming the […] Read More

Drug's July 30, 2014June 7, 2015

Behind FedEx’s Alleged Billion-Dollar Drug Trafficking Crime: Diet Pills

Can’t the feds at least go after addictive drugs? The federal war on drugs has now become a war on diet pills. FedEx Corp. pleaded not guilty in federal court in San Francisco on Tuesday to 15 charges related to shipping illegal drugs that allegedly earned it $820 million, prompting some media outfits to ask, “Is FedEx America’s Biggest Drug Dealer?” The 26-page indictment, handed down by a grand jury in mid-July, accuses FedEx of conspiring with online pharmacies—the Chhabra-Smoley Organization from 2000-’08, and Superior Drugs from 2002-’10—to distribute eight prescription drugs: three diet pills, three anti-anxiety meds, one sleeping pill and a low-level painkiller. Most of the charges concern the diet pills: Phendimetrazine, Phentermine and Diethylpropion. “The advent of Internet pharmacies allowed the cheap […] Read More

Drug's July 30, 2014June 7, 2015

No, Teens Don’t Smoke More Pot In Medical Marijuana States

A new national report dispels the common prohibitionist argument. The U.S. federal government stubbornly continues to classify marijuana as a Schedule I substance with no known medical uses. While our government blocks all research on the potential benefits of marijuana, clinical studies in Israel, Spain and elsewhere confirm what patients in the 23 U.S. states with medical marijuana programs already know: it’s a miraculous treatment option for many known diseases, with the potential to mitigate, and sometimes reverse, ailments ranging from cancer, PTSD and epilepsy to arthritis, skin abrasions, and chronic pain. Since so many of the arguments against cannabis medicine are crumbling, marijuana prohibitionists are resorting to fear-mongering about the “safety of the children” to defend their position. They insist that allowing marijuana in any form will give kids […] Read More

Drug's July 30, 2014May 24, 2015

Why Are Law Enforcement Officials Making More Marijuana Arrests Than Ever?

This uptick in arrests comes even though pot remains widely used, available, and perceived of as safe by most Americans. The following first appeared on the NORML Blog: Law enforcement in many states are making a greater number of marijuana arrests than ever before despite polling data showing that the majority of Americans believe that the adult use of the plant ought to be legal. According to a just published report, “Marijuana in the States 2012: Analysis and Detailed Data on Marijuana Use and Arrests,” which appears on the newly launched RegulatingCannabis.com website, police made an estimated 750,000 arrests for marijuana violations in 2012 – a 110 percent increase in annual arrests since 1991. Yet, despite this doubling in annual marijuana arrests over the past two decades, there has not been any […] Read More

Marijuana July 27, 2014February 26, 2015

2014: Historic: New York Times Calls for Marijuana Legalization

“The social costs of the marijuana laws are vast.” The New York Times’ editorial board agrees with the majority of Americans that marijuana prohibition has got to end. In an editorial on July 26 titled “Repeal Prohibition, Again” the board outlined the many reasons to legalize the herb, drawing comparisons with the nation’s 13 years of failed alcohol prohibition in the 1920s and ’30s. Following a “great deal of discussion … inspired by a rapidly growing movement among the states to reform marijuana laws,” the board came to the conclusion that the federal government should repeal its 40-year ban on marijuana. Marijuana has been criminalized as a “most dangerous” Schedule I drug for too long and the toll has been great. It is by far […] Read More

Medical, Smoking July 24, 2014February 26, 2018

Tell Young People the Truth: E-Cigarettes and Vaping Flavors Help People Quit Smoking

It’s ironic that anti-smoking advocates are attacking a practice that helps people not to smoke. Elected officials and anti-smoking advocates need to re-think their knee-jerk reaction and hostility to e-cigarettes and vaping. It seems like every day we hear a new attack – yet these products are actually helping some people quit or cut back on the much more dangerous alternative of smoking tobacco. In May, a large study out of England that was published in the journal Addiction made worldwide news when they announced that smokers trying to quit were 60 percent more likely to succeed if they used electronic cigarettes than over-the-counter therapies such as nicotine patches or gum. Despite these promising results, politicians are grilling e-cigarette companies. In a major New York Times piece last week, Senator Jay Rockefeller of West […] Read More