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Wyoming Legislative Panel Advances Delta-8 THC Ban

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A key Wyoming legislative committee last week voted to advance a bill that would ban hemp products with substances that have psychoactive properties such as delta-8 THC, despite reservations from some members of the panel that the bill has shortcomings. The bill, which seeks to ban psychoactive hemp products, was approved by the legislature’s Joint Judiciary Committee on November 6 by a vote of 8-6.

The advancement of the bill comes despite reservations expressed by some members of the committee, including Republican committee co-chair Representative Art Washut, who said the bill was “not ready for prime time,” according to an article from the Wyoming Business Report.

“I made it a point in the past to support legislation coming out of committee that is ready for prime time,” Washut said. “We need a bill that we’re really comfortable with, and, unfortunately, I don’t think we’re there.”

The other co-chair of the Joint Judiciary Committee, Republican Senator Bill Landen, agreed that the bill will likely be amended before it comes to a vote by the full legislature.

“I don’t have any doubt that this is a work in progress,” said Landen. “But I like the fact that this would at least be a step in what I think is a necessary direction.”

If passed as currently written, the legislation would prohibit the addition of synthetic substances or other additives to hemp products. The bill would also prohibit the production and sale of hemp products with more than 0.3% THC, while expanding the definition of THC to include similar “psychoactive” substances including delta-8. 

In testimony to the committee, Shane England of the Hemp Industries Association told lawmakers that they should not change the definition of hemp from the one contained in the 2018 Farm Bill, which defines hemp as cannabis plants with no more than 0.3% delta-9 THC by dry weight. He warned against attempts to enact a total ban on THC, which he said “is a definition that hasn’t stood up in a single court case.”

The intent of the bill is to ban products with added or synthesized delta-8 THC. But delta-8 THC can also occur in trace amounts in hemp, making a total ban on the substance problematic. At the last meeting of the committee, officials from the Wyoming Division of Criminal Investigation told lawmakers that there was no way for the DCI lab to test the difference between what was natural and what was synthetic.

Representative Ember Oakley, also a Republican, noted that the committee has been working on the bill since April, hearing testimony from the state crime lab, representatives of the hemp industry and law enforcement. She told her colleagues that enacting a ban on delta-8 THC is an important step for the legislature to accomplish. 

“In the end, the concept isn’t that difficult,” Oakley said. “This closes a hole that we’re hearing about delta-8 being abused, and, specifically, from younger people.”

Lawmakers Express Reservations

Democratic Representative Ken Chestek noted that the word “psychoactive” was not defined by the bill and suggested the lack of a clear definition could cause problems down the road.

“I’m thinking about somebody who says ‘I use CBD because it helps me relax.’ Is being relaxed psychoactive?” Chestek asked.

Brian Fuller of the state’s Legislative Service Office said that Chestek had raised a valid question, noting that there is currently no definition of the term “psychoactive” in hemp statutes that are already on the books. Senior Assistant Attorney General Kellsie Singleton agreed that a definition of “psychoactive” would help clarify which substances are included under the expanded definition of THC. 

“We did look at some case law to see if there was something out there,” Singleton said. “The closest thing we could find was ‘impairing a person’s physical or mental functioning.’”

Some committee members thought the ambiguity of the legislation could lead to unintended consequences, including a potential ruling that the ban would apply to CBD products.

“If for one instance I feel this bill is going to prohibit CBD … I’m not voting for it, and I’m guessing most everybody on the committee is not going to vote for it,” said Republican Representative Barry Crago.

Before voting the advance the bill, the committee heard testimony from interested parties, including stakeholders in Wyoming’s hemp industry. Paul Yohe of The Green Room in Casper, Wyoming said that the bill was “too broad.” He suggested that lawmakers focus on regulating THC in products instead of prohibiting THC completely.

“With more regulation comes more accountability – then we’ll be able to actually see what people are using in their products,” Yohe said.

Marcus Jones, the operations manager for Plant Hemp Co., said that delta-8  hemp products have helped his customers deal with anxiety, depression and sleep issues.

“We’re going about this all the wrong way,” Jones told the committee. “We should be regulating packages, how much of the psychoactive components can actually be in a product, instead of banning a product completely that has proven now over two years to help quite a few of Wyoming citizens with their ailments.”

The committee’s vote sends the bill to the full legislature, where further amendments to the measure are expected.

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Ohio Gov. DeWine Hatches Plan To Whittle Down Adult-Use Law Voters Approved

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Republican Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine called on state legislators to amend and whittle down the provisions of Issue 2, the law voters in the state just approved, before the bill takes effect on Dec. 7. And since Issue 2 is a citizen initiative, Ohio lawmakers could lawfully make changes to the law, but they only have about a month to do so. 

Ohio Capital Journal reports that less than two days after voters approved adult-use cannabis in Ohio, the governor wants to scale it back.

“My recommendation to the General Assembly is that they take action to make sure that both rights are protected,” DeWine said Thursday. “People have a right to smoke it. People have a right to consume it. But also that everybody else’s who doesn’t choose to do so is also protected with their rights as well.”

DeWine is “already plotting to change Ohio’s legal weed law,” Benzinga reports. 

The people who fought hard to campaign for Issue 2 are ready for a battle. “I can’t believe in 2023 we’re actually talking about elected officials not respecting the will of the voters and not respecting the outcome of an election,” Tom Haren, spokesperson for the Coalition To Regulate Marijuana Like Alcohol, which led Issue 2, told the Columbus Dispatch.

The governor claims he’s not ignoring the will of his constituents. “We respect what the people have done,” DeWine said, suggesting that he’s not in fact going against the will of Ohio voters. “What the people have clearly told us is they want legal marijuana in Ohio. We are going to see that they have that. We’re also going to live up to our responsibility to all the people in the state of Ohio, whether they voted for it or voted against it. In doing so, he wants to make sure various protections are in place, starting with Ohio’s children.”

The people in Ohio have already decided. Nov. 7, voters in Ohio approved a ballot proposal, Issue 2, to legalize adult-use cannabis, beating out voters in opposition to the measure. The election’s outcome makes Ohio the 24th state to allow adult-cannabis, 14 of which have done so via a public vote. 

Per the new legislation, adults ages 21 and up can legally buy and possess up to 2.5 ounces of cannabis and grow plants at home—up to six plants per person and 12 plants per residence, where at least two adults reside. A 10% tax will be imposed on cannabis purchases and will go toward administrative costs, addiction treatment, municipalities with dispensaries, and social equity and jobs programs.

Ohio Senate President Matt Huffman, who also voiced opposition to the bill, said lawmakers could clarify language “regarding  limits for THC and tax rates as well as other parts of the statute.”

Ohio House Speaker Jason Stephens (R-Kitts Hill) agreed. “Now is the time for the legislature to lead on how best to allocate tax revenues while responsibly regulating the industry,” Stephens said in a statement.

A similar scaled-back cannabis law took place in Utah in 2019. House Bill 3001, which lawmakers passed in a legislative special session, was installed by the Republican-dominated Utah Legislature in response to the voter-approved Proposition 2, which Utah voters approved in November 2018.

HB 3001 was supposedly a “compromise bill.” But critics of the bill say that H.B. 3001 actually functions as a replacement to Proposition 2. Organizations and people such as Rocky Anderson sued the state for attempting to undo the will of voters. Could the same happen in Ohio?

Protect the Children

“One goal will be to make sure that they are protected from advertising in regard to marijuana,” DeWine said. “We want to do everything within our power to reduce the number of inadvertent consumption of gummy bears, cookies and other products that have marijuana.”

Fueling the myth that adults are passing out edibles to trick-or-treaters, an actual incident re-sparked fears that cannabis is a threat to children.

In 2022, a 10-year-old student at Upper Arlington elementary school brought her dad’s infused gummies to school and shared with them with fellow students at lunch. After eating the gummies, the students became sick and were all taken to a local hospital for treatment.

“We have every responsibility to do everything we can to keep those [emergency room visits] numbers down as much as we can,” DeWine said.  

DeWine also wants to reduce the number of drivers who smoke cannabis. Opposition group Protect Ohio Workers and Families claim that if Ohio legalizes pot, it would be subject to an additional 48 fatal vehicle crashes and 2,298 more injury crashes per year if Issue 2 passed.

“I would hope … that when Dec. 7 comes and goes that we will be able to inform the people of the state exactly how this program will roll out,” he said. “I think it would be good if that was all done by the 7th so that we’re not in a situation of taking something away from people.” 

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New AI Model Can Identify Designer, Research Drugs on the Fly

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A prestigious science award has been given to a man who created a new generative AI language model capable of identifying the exact chemical structure of designer drugs, even drugs that have not been tested on humans yet. 

The winning entry for the 2023 NOMIS & Science Young Explorer competition was a new AI language model trained by Princeton biologist Michael Skinnider. This new AI model can reportedly identify the chemical structure of research chemicals or “legal highs,” terms which refer to any number of chemical compounds which produce psychoactive effects but have not yet been scheduled by the FDA. The speed at which these compounds can be synthesized has created a legislative loophole where chemists and labs can more or less sell and ship dangerous drugs to people with a label on it that says “not for human consumption” without fear of legal repercussions. 

As a result of this loophole, law enforcement professionals are often faced with a situation wherein they suspect someone is carrying dangerous drugs but can’t prove it, or someone is experiencing adverse effects from a drug that they are unable to identify and thus, unable to properly treat. Traditional field testing kits can’t identify the drug because traditional field testing kits only look for the most commonly used psychoactive compounds (heroin meth, cocaine, the usual suspects), whereas Skinnider’s AI model is reportedly capable of generating and identifying entirely new chemical structures on the fly. 

“Conventional drugs of abuse such as cocaine or methamphetamine still dominate the market, but enterprising chemists have realized that with slight chemical modifications to these drugs, they can create new derivatives that are completely legal,” Skinnider said in an essay on Science. “And because these synthetic drugs have never been tested on humans, they can have unpredictable and damaging side effects.”

Skinnider began his work by first training an AI language model on a simplified molecular input line entry system, otherwise known as SMILES, which is a fancy way of saying he taught the language model a new language which is used to represent different complex chemical structures in a simple text-based format. 

Skinnider taught the AI model a way of then identifying chemicals using a process called “mass spectrometry” which, god help me I’m probably butchering this, but according to Waters, mass spectrometry is a process of measuring the different ratios of electrical charges at the molecular level of whatever you want to test, drugs in this case, to determine the exact molecular weight of the particles in the sample. These molecular weights are used to identify and map the chemical compound. 

“As a MD/PhD student, I saw firsthand how patients could present with devastating symptoms of designer drug intoxications, but emergency physicians had few options to treat them. I wondered whether artificial intelligence could help,” Skinnider said. “Specifically, I asked whether AI could automatically elucidate the chemical structures of new designer drugs from mass spectrometry data. Scientifically, this was a tall order.”

Skinnider then used information from existing research about commonly used designer drugs to further educate the AI model, using 1,753 known examples of such. What he found was the program could then generate examples of entirely new chemical structures that might have similar effects. Not only that, but it could also be used to predict what undiscovered chemicals are most likely to become popular in the future based on what drug users have responded well to in the past. 

Skinnider intimated that these advancements in drug identification technology have very practical real world applications in identifying and responding to drug crises. He also said his technology has already been used to identify new and dangerous psychoactive compounds. 

“I have now applied this technology to tens of thousands of patient samples and used it to discover several new designer drugs, such as a new analog of fentanyl that emerged last year. Currently, I am working with the British Columbia Centre for Disease Control to implement this AI technology in routine clinical practice to automatically discover new drugs as soon as they are introduced into the population,” Skinnider said. “Ultimately, my dream is that first responders, emergency physicians, and public health officials will all be able to take advantage of generative AI to make more informed decisions when treating patients and managing outbreaks.

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Gallup Poll Reveals Record High American Pessimism Over U.S. Handling of Illegal Drug Crisis

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According to a recent Gallup poll, there’s a significant change in Americans’ sentiment toward the nation’s handling of the illegal drug problem and its casualties. According to this survey, which has been tracking public opinion since 1972, a majority of U.S. adults, a whopping 52%, now believe that the country is falling behind in its efforts to manage the illegal drug issue, Gallup reports. 

While High Times readers may think, well, of course, the feds are failing; this poll marks the first instance in its history where such a negative majority opinion has been recorded. Before 2019, their polling showed that Americans were optimistic that the country was making progress combating illegal drugs, with the approval stats clocking in at 41%. 

The latest results reveal that only 24% of the participants maintain that the U.S. has made progress in this area, setting a new low in the trend. Additionally, 23% of respondents believe the situation has remained static. 

The central villain in this story is fentanyl and other synthetic opioids, which has caused drug overdose fatalities to spike. According to USAFacts, in 2022, 73,654 people died from a fentanyl overdose in the U.S. This is more than double the amount of deaths from three years prior in 2019. Fentanyl deaths have increased every year for the past decade. 

However, as much as drug enthusiasts would love to blame fentanyl, there are other culprits in play. Gallup reports that since 2019, there has been an escalation in overdose cases associated with other drugs, including cocaine and methamphetamines.

America’s view on handling illegal drugs shows a divide among political parties — and presidents. Republicans do not think that progress is being made. A mere 12% of Republicans responded that they felt we were headed in the right direction, while 75% feel we’re regressing. The Democrats were much more optimistic. 40% answered that they consider the situation improving, compared to 27% who think it’s worsening. Independents clocked in somewhere in the middle, with 22% seeing progress and 52% feeling that the situation is going down the drain.

Gallup reports that voters may be more likely to respond positively based on who is in the White House, which explains why the Democrats were more glass-half-full than the Republicans. And, of course, Republicans are historically more conservative about drug use. Even though some of the liberal’s most loathed figures, such as Matt Gaetz, a U.S. representative from Florida, are joining leftist hero Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, aka AOC, the U.S. representative for New York’s 14th congressional district, in the right to help pass pro-psychedelic and cannabis legislation. Most recently, Gaetz proposed an amendment to the National Defense Authorization to cease cannabis testing for military members. 

Conservative Dan Crenshaw of Texas, a former Navy SEAL, is also pushing for changes to drug policy. In July 2023, Crenshaw and AOC hosted a press conference recognizing progress with a provision in the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) that directs the Secretary of Defense to conduct a clinical report on psychedelic treatment in military treatment facilities. 

Despite a tendency to feel better about things when your party is president, the Democrats aren’t thrilled with Biden. The same data from Gallup shows that Democrats responded less positively reading the illegal drug situation under Biden than Republicans did under Trump in 2019. 

Biden has been careful to walk the tightrope of acting pro-cannabis legalization without following through. “I believe the president has displayed a regressiveness for cannabis policy,” said AOC in July. “And if there’s a regressiveness toward cannabis policy, it’s likely to be worse on anything else,” she added. 

While both voters and lawmakers are let down by Biden’s failure to reschedule cannabis, according to the Gallup poll, 74% of U.S. adults see the government’s failure to address casualties from illegal drugs as “extremely or very serious.” This is up from 64% in 2021. The highest concern was recorded in 2000, when the question was first asked, clocking in at 83%. 

Interestingly, while Americans are upset with the national handling of illicit drugs, they voice less concern in their local areas. 35% rate it as extremely serious (19%) or very serious (16%). This figure is almost equivalent to the record 34% in 2000. 

In light of the terrifying increase in overdose deaths from fentanyl and other opioids, in addition to deaths from substances such as cocaine, the American public has never been more pessimistic regarding the government’s handling of illegal drugs, even if they don’t carry that same concern in their hometowns, where it may be harder to criticize. 

Perhaps most importantly, this data shows that drug policy will shape the upcoming 2024 presidential election in numerous ways. To start, there is pressure to decriminalize cannabis on a federal level. A new Gallup poll published on November 8 showed that an estimated 68% of Americans, or seven out of every ten individuals, said “yes” to the poll questions, “Do you think the use of marijuana should be legal, or not?,” as High Times reports. And now, additionally, as this latest poll shows, voters also want a leader who can stop the deadly drugs from taking any more American lives. If AOC is right about Biden, and he isn’t cut out for the task, voters must consider that Trump could once again find his way into the White House. 

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