Free Republic

Washington – Today, the U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) and Treasury’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) announced coordinated actions to bring additional financial pressure upon those who manufacture, sell, or distribute synthetic opioids or their precursor chemicals. OFAC identified Chinese national Fujing Zheng (Zheng) and the Zheng Drug Trafficking Organization (DTO) as significant foreign narcotics traffickers pursuant to the Foreign Narcotics Kingpin Designation Act (Kingpin Act). OFAC also designated one additional Chinese national, Guanghua Zheng, for his support to the Zheng DTO’s drug trafficking activities, as well as one Chinese entity, Qinsheng Pharmaceutical Co....

XLR-11, PB-22, AB-FUBINACA, MAB-CHMINACA, 5F-AMB. These are the cryptic and sometimes unpronounceable names of the most dangerous drugs you’ve never heard of. They are responsible for kidney injury, psychosis, seizures, coma and death. For instance, AB-FUBINACA was responsible for a spate of recent poisonings at Wesleyan University. And MAB-CHMINACA was associated with more than 100 hospitalizations in Baton Rouge. Neither of these drugs were known to the scientific community until late last year. These drugs are synthetic cannabinoids – several of the hundreds that have been identified as new “designer drugs” in the past five years. More than 150 were...

The Supreme Court ruled today on the dangers of some so-called “legal highs”, setting new sentencing thresholds for possession of the drugs. Judges had to rule on the substances after a drug dealer appealed a two-years suspended sentence for selling herbs mixed with artificial cannabinoids—the active ingredients of cannabis—over the internet. The Bavarian state court in Landshut found that the man knew that he was selling consciousness-altering substances to people inside and outside Germany. His sales were often in amounts significantly larger than the 1.75 grams the state court decided would be “minor” for sentencing purposes after hearing evidence from...

Observatory Marijuana may be something of a wonder drug — though perhaps not in the way you might think. Researchers in Italy and Britain have found that the main active ingredient in marijuana — tetrahydrocannabinol, or THC — and related compounds show promise as antibacterial agents, particularly against microbial strains that are already resistant to several classes of drugs. It has been known for decades that Cannabis sativa has antibacterial properties. Experiments in the 1950s tested various marijuana preparations against skin and other infections, but researchers at the time had little understanding of marijuana’s chemical makeup.

Marijuana has a reputation for making people dash to the kitchen (or the nearest convenience store). New research shows why and helps explain how a hormone called leptin usually keeps the appetite under control. The results may help scientists design better diet drugs. Researchers have known for several years that a connection exists between leptin and cannabinoids, the molecules in the brain that stimulate appetite and that are related to those found in marijuana (ScienceNOW, April 11 2001). Mice that don't make leptin have oversized appetites, for example, and they have unusually high concentrations of cannabinoids in the hypothalamus. But...