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Former NBA center Vin Baker lost more than $100 million in career earnings and later became a Starbucks barista. Former NBA guard Kenny Anderson made $63 million and filed for bankruptcy the year he retired. Former NBA MVP Allen Iverson made more than $200 million but said during a 2012 divorce proceeding that he didn't have enough to afford a cheeseburger. Former All-Star Latrell Sprewell lost more than $97 million.

War and conflict can take many forms. It’s not necessarily dive bombers, torpedo bombers, and fighters pummeling Battleship Row in Pearl Harbor. That’s visual, tangible, and an undeniable manifestation of intent, but the struggle for dominance between nations can take many forms. The Wuhan virus was not the Pearl Harbor moment for America. The Pearl Harbor moment for America in China’s unrestricted warfare to erase the U.S. was one word: Fentanyl. In a war by any means, first articulated in the ‘90s, the CCP put their Prussian “General Staff” on a war footing, under the aegis of “Unrestricted Warfare”—U.S. Air...

Maine’s taxpayer-funded “harm reduction” specialists call it “boofing” or “booty dumping,” but those are just pleasant euphemisms referring to the practice of sticking heroin, fentanyl, or meth up your butt. Maine Access Points, a taxpayer-funded nonprofit based in Bangor, as well as the city of Portland’s city-run needle distribution center are both offering extensive how-to guides and — even anal injection kits — to help drug users squirt narcotics into their anuses. In Portland, the “Portland Public Health Boofing Kit” comes with a needleless syringe and an informational flyer explaining the proper technique for putting drugs up your butt.

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...

The marijuana industry has become a substantial financial contributor to various political groups, including Young Americans for Liberty (YAL). This libertarian group, often mistaken for a conservative Republican entity, supports far-right GOP insurgent legislators to promote marijuana legalization in the states where they work to influence elections. This short story is about how a political machine conceals its true agenda through culture war fights and confrontational tactics to earn the support of a well-funded out-of-state organization. They don’t care if you support marijuana legalization or not; so long as they convince you to vote for their squad, your voice does...

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...

I do not advocate for pot, only for the individuals right to choose. I don't use it. It has an odor. It's bad for the lungs. I never got a euphoric "high" when I did try it. it's a nothingburger for me personally. I do have friends who partake (vets with PTSD). It is certainly less harmful than fentanyl, heroin and all of the other Schedule 1 drugs and never should have been classified as such. The only thing I can say in its defense is I hear that some of the nurses in rehab are supposedly pretty . ....

It didn’t take long for Oregon to realize decriminalizing hard drugs was a bad idea. On Tuesday, Gov. Tina Kotek, a Democrat, signed legislation that recriminalizes drug possession, reversing Measure 110, which 58 percent of voters approved in 2020. By August, however, 56 percent of Oregonians disapproved after a major uptick in overdose deaths and addiction in the state. Lawmakers from both parties got to work drafting legislation to reverse the measure.

<p>Chrissy Reifschneider had just left rehab to treat her heroin addiction in 2017 when she started taking tianeptine, popularly dubbed “gas station heroin." The 41-year-old from Alabama was struggling with low energy, so a family member who worked at a gas station recommended she try the pills.</p>

Floridians will soon find out whether they’ll get to vote on allowing recreational marijuana and expanding abortion access. The state Supreme Court heard arguments over the two proposed ballot initiatives in recent months. Since then, supporters and opponents have been waiting to see whether the high court gives the go-ahead. With a key deadline looming...

It may seem like a surprise to many that there could be a confrontation between Chinese gangsters at a marijuana farm on the Oklahoma prairie.But it is a reality that has been commonplace in Oklahoma since legislators opened the state up to the medicalmarijuana business. As of January 2022, there hadn't been widely reported cases of Chinese gangsters specifically involved in the Oklahoma marijuana business. However, it's important to note that organized crime groups often exploit vulnerabilities in various industries, including the cannabis market. Here are some ways in which organized crime groups, including those with Chinese connections, might become...

Amid a national epidemic of opioid overdose deaths, the Biden administration has launched an initiative to distribute naloxone-based antidotes widely, including in schools and on airplanes. In a statement announcing the “Challenge to Save Lives from Overdose,” the White House described it as “a nationwide call-to-action to stakeholders across all sectors to save lives by committing to increase both training and access to lifesaving opioid overdose reversal medications.” Often sold under the brand name Narcan, and carried by many first responders, naloxone rapidly reverses an opioid overdose. “An overdose can happen anywhere, to anyone,” the White House said. “That’s why...

Chinese gangs have set up thousands of illicit weed farms across the US as they begin to challenge Mexican cartels for supremacy as America's cannabis kingpins. Authorities in Oklahoma, Oregon, California, New Mexico and Maine have all been battling a surge in Chinese weed farms, with some thought to be linked to criminal gangs known as 'triads'. The spread is seemingly uncontainable, with police in Penobscot County, Maine, last week arresting three Chinese nationals at a weed farm and seizing 40 pounds of the drug alongside $4,700 in cash. It is thought to be one of around 270 illegal weed...

Although cocaine is consumed in every part of the world, its base, the coca plant, is mainly cultivated in three Latin American countries: Peru, Bolivia and Colombia. The latter made headlines in the fall of 2023 due to a report released by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) claiming that the area used for coca crop in 2022 grew to 230,000 hectares, a 13 percent increase compared to 2021, according to Reuters reporting. As our chart shows, this further cements Colombia's spot as the top coca producer in the world.According to figures by UNODC and the Peruvian...

Hundreds of thousands of lives have been saved over the years when naloxone — commonly known as Narcan — is administered to someone overdosing on opioids. Drugs Illegal drugs such as cocaine, heroin, and fentanyl can be mixed with xylazine, either to enhance drug effects or increase street value by increasing their weight. sedative/tranquilizer called xylazine to heroin, fentanyl and other opioids. And that’s bad news for addicts because naloxone doesn’t reverse a xylazine overdose. National Center for Biotechnology Information “You overdose on xylazine, and you’re going to die,” said the commander of the Greater Harrison Drug & Violent Crimes...

A 23-year-old woman in Florida was arrested last week after she allegedly called the police to her hotel room to report that someone had stolen marijuana from her — apparently without realizing that she had two outstanding warrants for her own arrest. Lily Marie Rinker was taken into custody on Friday and charged with one count of probation violation and one count of failure to appear in an unrelated case, court records show. According to a probable cause affidavit obtained by Law&Crime, officers with the Stuart Police Department at about 2:04 a.m. responded to a call in regards to an...

Oregon’s first-in-the-nation law that decriminalized the possession of small amounts of heroin, cocaine and other illicit drugs in favor of an emphasis on addiction treatment is facing strong headwinds in the progressive state after an explosion of public drug use fueled by the proliferation of fentanyl and a surge in deaths from opioids, including those of children. “The inability for people to live their day-to-day life without encountering open-air drug use is so pressing on urban folks’ minds,” said John Horvick, vice president of polling firm DHM Research. “That has very much changed people’s perspective about what they think Measure...

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....

North Carolina Congressman Chuck Edwards, NC-11, has introduced the Stop Pot Act, which would withhold federal funding from states and tribes that allow the use of recreational marijuana. NC congressman introduces 'Stop Pot Act' to curb recreational marijuana legalization The bill calls for withholding 10 percent of federal highway funds from areas that violate federal law under the Controlled Substances Act, which prohibits recreational marijuana and classifies it as a Schedule I drug. Edwards released the following statement: "The laws of any government should not infringe on the overall laws of our nation, and federal funds should not be awarded...

A group of novel synthetic opioids emerging in illicit drugs in the United States may be more powerful than fentanyl, 1,000 times more potent than morphine, and may even require more doses of the medication naloxone to reverse an overdose, a new study suggests. Nitazenes are a synthetic opioid, like fentanyl, although the two drugs are not structurally related. In the small study published Tuesday in the journal JAMA Network Open most of the patients who overdosed on nitazenes received two or more doses of the opioid overdose reversal drug naloxone, whereas most patients who overdosed on fentanyl received only...