Another reason we shouldn’t be getting health advice from the State or capitalists. The advice always, always follows dollars and violence.

See also: eggs, cigarettes, red meat, salt, petroleum, and dioxins

decriminalizing >>> legalizing

“[a study] found that in three years, 23 of the 28 cities increased their police budgets by at least 10 percent, as of the 2019-2020 fiscal year. Eight cities saw an increase of at least 25 percent.

We’re not just talking about rural, Republican-run towns: These numbers include the state’s two largest cities, Los Angeles and San Diego. Of all 28 cities studied, the average increase in police budgets was 19 percent over three years.”

HIPAA only protects certain types of patients.

“Perhaps worst of all is the knowledge that this outcome was arbitrary. The decision to terminate my rights was not based upon any actualized threats to my daughters’ safety; rather, it was an automatic reaction to a timed financial incentive set at the federal level by the Adoption and Safe Families Act (ASFA).

Under ASFA, if states want to receive the funding that allows them to finance child protective programs, agencies must either return children home, or move to terminate parental rights once a child has been in out-of-home care for 15 of the past 22 months.”

Prohibition doesn’t work, example #375517365899392735

Women are in fact locked up for drug-law violations at a higher rate than men in federal and state prisons and county jails. Incarcerated pregnant people are often denied prenatal care, and children are often separated from them shortly after birth.

Even in states that have decriminalized or legalized, parental marijuana use is punished, especially in Black and Latinx communities. Parents have been harassed and threatened into mandatory drug treatment programs by the New York City child welfare agency, for example. Police in Kansas have taken away children from medical marijuana patients. And drug-related child welfare cases have in fact increased in Colorado since it legalized marijuana in 2012.

“The rationale for such policies is, in part, that prenatal cannabis exposure causes persistent deleterious effects, especially on cognitive functioning,” write the researchers. “Findings from this review suggest that this assumption should be reevaluated to ensure that our assumptions do not do more harm than the drug itself.”

“The average cocaine addiction lasts four years, the average marijuana addiction lasts six years, and the average alcohol addiction is resolved within 15 years. Heroin addictions tend to last as long as alcoholism, but prescription opioid problems, on average, last five years. In these large samples, which are drawn from the general population, only a quarter of people who recover have ever sought assistance in doing so (including via 12-step programs). This actually makes addictions the psychiatric disorder with the highest odds of recovery.”

the fact that someone went to the trouble to program all this and keep people safe if they choose to imbibe is enough of a reason to save this, even if i never have a need for it.

it’s hard not to assume some political motivations in the CDC’s sloppy investigation of recent lung diseases likely caused by illicit THC e-cigarettes.

if humans are anything like spiders, you're better off starting your day with a joint than a cup of coffee.