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“No one could have foreseen that a single hit of marijuana that night would have caused Ms. Spejcher to have a total psychotic break from reality, certainly not Chad and certainly not Ms. Spejcher. In light of these facts, I do not believe that further incarceration of Ms. Spejcher is appropriate,” Judge David Worley said in court. He sentenced her instead to two years of probation and 100 hours community service, educating the public on the dangers of THC.

The new research is more evidence linking cannabis to an increased risk of mental health disorders, including schizophrenia, anxiety and depression, particularly in adolescence. Teenagers who used cannabis within the last year had a dramatically higher rate of developing a psychotic disorder, according to a study published Wednesday. The study, led by researchers from the University of Toronto, found an 11 times higher risk of developing a psychotic disorder among teenagers who used cannabis compared with those who did not. When the analysis was limited to just emergency room visits and hospitalizations, there was a 27-fold increase in psychotic disorders...

Gov. Kathy Hochul’s administration quietly ended a $200 million program aimed at helping disadvantaged entrepreneurs open cannabis dispensaries, amid allegations of predatory lending practices. The Social Equity Cannabis Investment Fund, which was overseen by DASNY, came under fire last month after a report by local nonprofit news outlet The City alleged that DASNY entered into an agreement that allowed a private equity firm to provide $50 million to the fund at a 15% interest rate.

WASHINGTON — The Biden administration will take a historic step toward easing federal restrictions on cannabis, with plans to announce an interim rule soon reclassifying the drug for the first time since the Controlled Substances Act was enacted more than 50 years ago, four sources with knowledge of the decision said. The Drug Enforcement Administration is expected to approve an opinion by the Department of Health and Human Services that marijuana should be reclassified from the strictest Schedule I to the less stringent Schedule III. It would be the first time that the U.S. government has acknowledged its potential medical...

New York weed shops are stocking their shelves with Mike Tyson-branded edibles shaped like an ear with a bite mark – a callback to Iron Mike’s heavyweight showdown with Evander Holyfield. The 57-year-old Brooklyn native — who’s planning a comeback fight against Jake Paul in July — is rolling out his Tyson 2.0 brand “Mike Bites” and he’s planning a promotional blitz at shops next month, including an event in Times Square, a spokesperson told The Post. But the gummies have already appeared at dispensaries Strain Stars in Farmingdale, Housing Works in Greenwich Village, Grow Together in Brooklyn, Flynnstoned in...

A California woman who stabbed a man she was dating 100 times and killed him, before turning the knife on herself and her dog, has been handed 100 hours of community service. Bryn Spejcher, 32, was given the astonishingly low sentence following psychiatrists' ruling that the tragedy was '100 percent' caused by cannabis-induced psychosis, which she suffered after taking two hits of the victim's bong. The judge ruled that Spejcher 'experienced a psychotic break from reality' and 'had no control over her actions' when she killed Chad O'Melia, then 26, on Memorial Day weekend 2018. She will spend the 100...

President Joe Biden took major action ahead of the holiday and pardoned all Americans arrested, prosecuted, or convicted on federal charges for marijuana use, following through on his 2020 campaign promise to expunge cannabis use offenses. Biden signed a proclamation Friday that forgives U.S. citizens and lawful permanent residents caught by law enforcement for possessing the drug and charged, going far beyond the sweeping actions he took last year for thousands of people convicted of possession. The new action includes "additional offenses of simple possession and use of marijuana under federal and D.C. law," the White House said in a...

Illegal Chinese marijuana grows have taken over much of rural Maine. The government is either incapable — or unwilling — to do anything about it. The Maine Wire has identified more than 100 properties that are part of a sprawling network of Chinese-owned sites operating as unlicensed, illicit cannabis growing operations in rural Maine. According to an unclassified memo from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) obtained by the Maine Wire, the illicit grows are operated by Asian Transnational Criminal Organizations (TCOs). The properties cover Somerset County, Penobscot County, Kennebec County, Franklin County, Androscoggin County, and Oxford County. The...

Two new preliminary studies on recreational marijuana and health strengthen existing evidence that regular use negatively impacts heart and brain health, according to the American Heart Association.The first report, drawing on data from a major study involving more than 150,000 people from all walks of American society looking at the relationship between lifestyle, biology and environment, found daily use of marijuana raised the risk of developing heart failure by about one-third compared with non-users.A research team from Medstar Health, a not-for-profit health provider in the Baltimore-Washington metro area, found that among 156,999 healthy people it followed, those who used marijuana...

The heartbroken father of a six-year-old Palestinian boy stabbed to death by his landlord in a hate-crime fueled by the Hamas-Israel war has revealed that his brave son's final words were 'I'm fine.' Wadea Al-Fayoume, six, was killed on Sunday, allegedly by landlord Joseph M. Czuba, 71, who was renting the family a room in his home in Plainfield, Illinois. The boy's mother, Hanan Shaheen, survived the attack and told police later how Czuba appeared at their door spouting hateful, anti-Muslim slurs. He tried to choke Shaheen, who fled inside and called 911, then produced a knife on the mother...

The evidence for keeping weed illegal keeps mounting — even as the laws get looser. A new, peer-reviewed study (on a significant data set of nearly 60,000 Canadians) has shown that adults who misuse pot have a 60% higher risk of experiencing their first heart attack, stroke, or other major cardiovascular event. In other words: Weed’s not a harmless vice. It’s a killer, like cigarettes. And unlike cigarettes, it literally drives people insane. A massive Danish study based on nearly 7 million health records drew a strong correlation between heavy cannabis use and increased risk of schizophrenia in young men....

Jean-Pierre claimed President Biden "has always supported the legalization of marijuana for medical purposes..." Almost 14 months out till the 2024 Presidential election, the Biden administration's Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) asked the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) on Tuesday to reclassify marijuana as a Schedule III drug under the Controlled Substance Act at the request of President Biden. According to Bloomberg, a DEA spokesperson confirmed the department received a letter from HHS Drug Enforcement Agency Administrator Anne Milgram with the request, and will now initiate its own review of the drug. When asked about the recommendation Wednesday, White...

A Columbia University study has found that teens who use cannabis recreationally are two to four times as likely to develop psychiatric disorders, such as depression and suicidality, than teens who don’t use cannabis at all. The research, published in JAMA Open Network(link is external and opens in a new window) May 3, also finds that casual cannabis use puts teens at risk for problem behaviors, including poor grades, truancy, and trouble with the law, which can have long-term negative consequences that may keep youth from developing their full potential in adulthood. "Perceptions exist among youth, parents, and educators that...

The French psychiatrist Jacques-Joseph Moreau published a book called Hashish and Mental Illness in 1845, the same year that Scientific American brought out its first issue. In it, he explored his own experiences with the drug cannabis at the Paris-based Club des Hachichins—some of which took place alongside the likes of Victor Hugo, Honoré de Balzac and Charles Baudelaire. Two years earlier Moreau described the “undescribable delights” of a “marvelous substance.” But in his 1845 book, he noted in great clinical detail the similarities to psychosis when ingesting high doses. Nearly two centuries later the possible link between cannabis use...

The number of seniors visiting emergency rooms in California for cannabis-related issues is growing, according to new research. From 2005 to 2019, the state’s emergency departments saw a 1,808 percent relative increase in the rate of cannabis-related trips among those aged 65 and older. Cannabis is currently legal for both medicinal and recreational use in California. The state became the first in the country to legalize medical marijuana in 1996, while the substance was not approved for recreational use there until November 2016. The study found that cannabis-related emergency department visits in California rose sharply among seniors from 2013 to...

Manson, she warned. SNIP One such tidbit takes us back to the Hollywood Hills of the 1960s, when Charles Manson was recruiting kids of the famous and well-to-do into what would become his infamous murder cult. Manson wooed, or attempted to woo, the likes of Terry Melcher, the son of Doris Day, Deana Martin, daughter of Dean Martin, and Lansbury's kids, Anthony and Deidre Shaw. Dame Lansbury recounted how Diedre in particular fell under Manson's sway and how she plucked both her kids out of Hollywood and absconded to Ireland in a 2014 interview with Mail Online. "It started with...

Can God totally know himself? If God is infinite it would take an eternity for him to know himself. You can only know something completely if it is finite or bounded. How does space curve? I thought you go through space rather than with space. Is there a negative zero?

On the ropes and with no message about rising crime or the struggling economy to appeal to voters, President Joe Biden has gone to pot. Literally. The president’s election-eve marijuana decriminalization order has him yet again putting politics over people’s lives and health. In a shameless attempt to buy the votes of young people and lower-income minority communities, Mr. Biden is waving his pen around again to dig himself out of the political cellar. The American Left, and some on the Right, along with the Big Tobacco companies already responsible for millions of deaths from their products, have spent heavily...

As drug legalization groups and the cannabis industry lobby to legalize cannabis across the United States, with initiatives to legalize marijuana on the November ballot in five more states, many experts warn this will only increase the physical and mental harm from the unregulated, high-potency cannabis. President of the American Board of Pain Medicine and a vice president of the International Academy on the Science and Impacts of Cannabis, Dr. Ken Finn, said high potency cannabis use is being linked to poisonings in young children, as well as psychosis and schizophrenia in an increasing number of regular users. “A lot...

Those who knew the 21-year-old suspect, Robert Crimo III, say he habitually smoked cannabis, a habit he appeared to share with young mass shooters, including at Uvalde, Dayton, Parkland and Aurora...At some point, his father moved out of the family home into a house two miles away in Highwood, while Crimo stayed with his mother and the Highland Park house fell into disrepair...But when Crimo turned 18, his personality changed, Pacileo told NBC News,..."Instead of therapy, he turned to drugs..."...Another former friend, Bennett Brizes, described the Crimo he knew from age 14 to 17 as "an isolated stoner who completely...