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ARMADAIn the days of the Armada, a fleet of warships, the scuttlebutt was the rumor or gossip that would spread throughout the ship. Today, Armada Law Corp presents The Scuttlebutt, a daily summery of news articles that people within the cannabis, hemp and plant medicine industries are chatting about along with links to the full articles.
In today’s news:
Australian psychiatrists will be able to prescribe psilocybin, the active ingredient in “magic mushrooms,” and MDMA, also known as “ecstasy,” to treat depression and post-traumatic stress disorder, respectively, beginning in July, health authorities have announced.
The announcement Thursday by the Therapeutic Goods Administration of the Australian Department of Health and Aged Care is the result of a process that began when petitions were filed with regulators to reclassify the substances.
The decision takes into account a report prepared by public health and pharmacology experts tasked with examining the body of clinical research into the drugs — eight studies on MDMA and six on psilocybin. The experts determined that the drugs were effective “in closely clinically supervised settings and with intensive professional support,” according to the report’s conclusion
In an order Thursday granting his motion for a sentence reduction, U.S. District Judge Dale A. Drozd wrote that “changes in the legal landscape” regarding marijuana and the gulf between Scarmazzo’s served time and that of his co-defendant, among other factors, supported a reduced sentence.
“The court is persuaded that the granting of the requested relief is appropriate at this point and is supported by both extraordinary and compelling circumstances and consideration of the sentencing factors set forth,” Judge Drozd wrote.
Drozd noted that in the years since Scarmazzo’s trial and sentencing, federal marijuana offenders receive far shorter prison terms, federal prosecutors have taken a largely hands-off approach to state-regulated cannabis activities and federal prosecutions of marijuana crimes has gone down.
Scarmazzo’s arrest, conviction and sentencing occurred within a 13-year window after California had legalized medical marijuana but before the U.S. Department of Justice amended its policy to deprioritize prosecution of state-legal cannabis activities.
“A federal judge in Oklahoma has ruled that a federal law prohibiting people who use marijuana from owning firearms is unconstitutional, the latest challenge to firearms regulations after the U.S. Supreme Court’s conservative majority set new standards for reviewing the nation’s gun laws.
Lawyers for Jared Michael Harrison had argued that their client’s Second Amendment right to bear arms was being violated by a federal law that makes it illegal for “unlawful users or addicts of controlled substances” to possess firearms.”
The rising demand for ayahuasca has led to hundreds of churches like this one, which advocates say are protected from prosecution by a 2006 U.S. Supreme Court ruling. In that case, a New Mexico branch of a Brazilian-based ayahuasca church won the right to use the drug as a sacrament — even though its active ingredient remains illegal under U.S. federal law. A subsequent lower court decision ruled Oregon branches of a different ayahuasca church could use it.
“In every major city in the United States, every weekend, there’s multiple ayahuasca ceremonies,” said Sean McAllister, who represents an Arizona church in a lawsuit against the federal government after its ayahuasca from Peru was seized at the port of Los Angeles.
https://www.voanews.com/a/psychedelic-churches-in-us-pushing-boundaries-of-religion/6947049.html
