S.O.S. Drug Policy Newsletter & Legislative Updates

By Julian Smith In the gray half-light of dawn, eight figures creep through the dry pine forest near Quincy, California. Seven of them wear camo uniforms bearing the logos of various government agencies: U.S. Forest Service, National Guard, California Fish & Wildlife, Plumas County Sheriff. Most have blackened faces and assault rifles at the ready.…

By Eric Russell In York County, the Choose to Be Healthy Coalition at York Hospital has organized prescription drug takeback programs and helped present data on substance use to parents at regional high schools. In Brunswick, Mid Coast Hospital sponsored a training program for parents to effectively monitor their children for warning signs of substance…

By Laura Kelly President Trump last week took a first step in evaluating his administration’s response to the epidemic by creating the Commission on Combatting Drug Addiction and the Opioid Crisis. “I made a promise to the American people to take action to keep drugs from pouring into our country and to help those who…

Thanks to advances in science, we have never known so much about the effects marijuana use has on the human body, particularly, the fragile brain. Yet, in a political era when scientific research is regularly marshalled to end public policy debates, the powerful, growing scholarship on marijuana has largely been ignored or dismissed. Indeed, marijuana use seems to be one of the glaring areas in modern life where wishful thinking reigns over rationality.