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Over the past several months, seven people have died and nearly 400 others have gotten sick after using vape pens containing either nicotine or THC, the chemical in cannabis that makes you high. It’s causing a nationwide moral panic: Michigan’s governor enacted regulations that could result in 17-year-olds being hit with six-month jail sentences for every Juul pod in their possession. President Donald Trump has called for a similar nationwide ban on all flavored e-cigarettes. The demand for cannabis vapes has exploded over the past few years, and the illicit market has kept up with the trend. Consumers like vaping because it is more discreet and convenient than rolling a joint or carrying around a bong. Sellers like vapes too because the profit margins tend to be higher — especially on the illicit market, where sellers can save on costs by heavily diluting the THC oil. This haphazard “do something” approach ignores the fact that several of the people who got sick from vaping used pens filled with THC oil, which is already illegal in most states and under federal law. “Banning things — have we not learned that doesn’t curb use?” asked Jeffrey Raber, a chemist who founded a cannabis lab-testing facility in Los Angeles. Public health officials have not yet specified how many deaths and illnesses are linked to cannabis vape products — but there is only one known case involving a person who purchased a THC vape pen from a legal cannabis dispensary. Several of the other cases appear to involve people who bought illicit vapes, which are not subject to any regulations or testing.

California now has the most rigorous testing requirements: Every cannabis product sold in a licensed dispensary is tested for 66 types of pesticides, heavy metals, microbial pathogens and potency. A more effective way to prevent people from using marijuana vape pens that could kill them or make them sick would be to legalize weed so that consumers could have the option to buy regulated, lab-tested products. The public health benefit of legalizing and regulating marijuana is not hypothetical — it’s already happened in states that have done it. Back in 2017, before California’s testing requirements went into effect, around 70% of clients that submitted their product to cannabis-testing lab Cannasafe failed to meet standards the lab was using at the time, according to Antonio Frazier, the lab’s vice president of operations. These days, only 3-6% of Cannasafe’s clients fail to meet the state’s testing regulations. that’s because failing these testing requirements is a huge pain for cannabis companies. Products have to be quarantined. The manufacturer can either destroy the entire batch or submit a “corrective action plan” to the California Department of Public Health, which decides whether or not to approve the plan. “Our fail rate was much higher when no one was required to do it the right way,” Frazier said. “Without regulation, people aren’t going to do what’s right. This has been true in almost all industries.” Legalization and regulation isn’t a perfect solution. There is still a thriving illicit market in California for consumers who don’t want to pay dispensary prices or who live far away from licensed stores.

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At least 32 innocent people are dead. Two shooters were killed and one is in custody. A food festival in Gilroy, California. A busy Walmart in El Paso, Texas. A popular entertainment district in Dayton, Ohio. All three were sites of deadly mass shootings in the past week. The carnage never seems to end and it’s left many in America grappling with how to react, how to heal and how to change things for the better. Celebrities and other public figures echoed many of these sentiments on social media. ✔@lizzo Just got off the phone w/ fam in Dayton… it was a close call for them but that’s not the case for 9 other families, between this & the terrorist attack in El Paso & recent other shootings I feel completely helpless.. make noise & bring awareness.. vote.. don’t normalize this. ✔@jelani9 Fell asleep watching news reports about 20 people killed in #elpaso. Slept for four hours. Awoke to find that the news was talking about 9 killed #dayton Ohio — exactly half a night’s sleep between 29 lost lives. #America. ✔@RepSeanMaloney. Only a week after a mass shooting in California, we’re seeing yet another in Texas. This is an epidemic in America & it needs to end. I stand with El Paso & all the folks in America who want their government to act to keep families safe. ✔@ABC ABC NEWS SPECIAL REPORT: At least 18 people killed during mass shooting in El Paso, Texas. https://www.pscp.tv/w/cBXSgjM3Mzg2fDF5Tnhhdk5kT2dFS2oKcwFzowKEN_amw0qidkEBMzG6XH2T2j80jwV-cLyPGg== … ✔@blink182. Following today’s terrible tragedy in El Paso we are postponing our Sunday, August 4th show at the UTEP Don Haskins Arena in solidarity with the community. Please stay tuned for further updates coming soon. Sending our love to the entire community of El Paso. ✔@jfreewright From online terrorist manifesto described by El Paso Police Chief as the “nexus to a potential hate crime”: “This attack is a response to the Hispanic invasion of Texas…I am simply defending my country from cultural and ethnic replacement brought on by an invasion.” ✔@tim_cook I’m heartbroken about what’s happening in my country. The definition of insanity is doing the same thing and expecting different results. It’s time for good people with different views to stop finger pointing and come together to address this violence for the good of our country.

At least nine people were killed and 27 injured in a mass shooting in Dayton, Ohio, early Sunday morning, officials said ― the second horrific slaughter in America in less than 24 hours. At least 22 people were killed in a mass shooting at a Walmart in El Paso, Texas, on Saturday, and police are investigating whether the suspected gunman, who was arrested at the scene, posted a racist manifesto on social media. The two shootings occurred less than a week after a gunman opened fire at a garlic festival in Northern California, killing three people, including two children. CNN’s Brooke Baldwin became visibly emotional as she processed last weekend’s mass shootings in El Paso, Texas, and Dayton, Ohio. “This has been a horrible week for America,” Baldwin said on Friday’s broadcast of “Newsroom.” “I never thought in my 20 years in journalism that I would get a call last Sunday morning from my boss asking me to go cover a mass shooting and I actually had to ask the question, ‘Which one?’” Baldwin recalled standing in Dayton for three days “on a street where blood was still splattered on the sidewalk” while co-anchoring with colleagues in El Paso. “That was a first for me,” she noted. “And I am worried that it might not be the last unless there is real change in Washington. Pope Francis, during his Sunday message and blessing at St. Peter’s Square in Vatican City in Italy, condemned the attacks on “defenseless people” in three U.S. states. He offered a “Hail Mary” prayer for the victims.

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The buzz over 420 isn’t just media hype, April 20 ― aka “420” ― is considered pot’s biggest day, according to cannabis industry insiders like Robert Arabian, founder of Pop-Up Potcorn, a line of cannabis-infused microwave popcorn, and it should only get more popular now that 33 states have legalized marijuana for medical or recreational purposes. “These days, 4/20 has turned into the biggest Holiday in the cannabis industry and serves as a day of celebration for the advancements the industry has made in the legal space,” Arabian told HuffPost. How is the marijuana industry changing you ask? Here are some significant changes for 2019: Everything CBD — or cannabidiol, the nonpsychoactive ingredient in the marijuana plant — is popping up in all sorts of products, including face masks, jelly beans and even burgers, despite the lack of evidence of its effectiveness for easing pain, insomnia, anxiety and depression. CBD will be sticking around for quite a while, though maybe not in its current form according to Michael Christopher, the CEO of Mood33, a California-based cannabis-infused beverage brand. “We are seeing some proliferation of CBD-infused products that are starting to overwhelm consumers,” Christopher told huffpost.com . “From $9 CBD-infused donuts to $14 CBD-infused brownie mix.

More Women Are Using Marijuana: Sheena Shirvai, director of consumer communications for Eaze, a cannabis-delivery company in California, says women are now behind 75 percent of orders. Last year, baby boomers were seen as the future of sales, but industry experts now see women as the next budding market. Dr. John Oram, the Founder/CEO of NUG, a cannabis company specializing in concentrates, said “soccer moms” are coming into the business in droves ― and it shouldn’t be a surprise. Oram told HuffPost. “Moms generally make the health and wellness decisions in the household. It is natural to expect women to play a greater role in choosing quality cannabis products.” Ray Landgraf of Island Cannabis, which deals with cannabis production technology, says there’s a thirst for pot-infused drinks. “We’re really early on beverages where people are just figuring out the science that will make cannabis beverages a really unique experience. Marijuana Delivery Is The Future: The idea of brick-and-mortar bud shops popping up like Starbucks is one that should be nipped in the bud, according to Brad McLaughlin of BudTrader.com, which bills itself as “the largest cannabis social media platform.” “Dispensaries will go the way of Blockbuster Video. You heard it here first,” McLaughlin said. “People don’t want to leave the pad, especially in major metropolitan cities with heavy traffic congestion like New York, LA and places where it’s cold.” However, many industry insiders such as Bryson Bulda, brand manager of LBS Distribution, a California cannabis company, believe dispensaries are crucial to building burgeoning bud businesses. “Going to a dispensary and talking to budtenders is the only way to actively learn from products and what you are consuming.”

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The whale, believed to be a calf, was found on Friday on the Brazilian island of Marajo. It was about 50 feet from the ocean, according to Newsweek. Researchers are having a whale of a time trying to figure out how the humpback whale wound up in the Amazon rain forest. Darlene Silva, a spokeswoman for Brazil’s Department of Health, Sanitation and Environment, told reporters the animal was found in a mangrove swamp only after researchers noticed vultures circling in the sky, according to the Express. A team from the Municipal Secretariat of Health, Sanitation and Environment found the carcass had no visible injuries and theorized that the whale died at sea. Biologists from the Bicho D’água Institute said the animal was about 26 feet long, though local officials said it was closer to 36 feet long, according to Storyful.

HuffPost reached out to the Bicho D’água Institute, which did not immediately respond but said in a Facebook post that the animal was “not as big as it looks in the images.” Renata Emin, the institute’s project leader, told reporters that researchers don’t know how the animal washed up so far from the beach, but they guessed that the creature was floating close to the shore and was carried inland by a storm, according to the Independent Researchers are collecting carcass samples, but Silva said there will be no attempts to remove it from its final resting spot.
“It’s very difficult to get there and there’s no way we can send a bulldozer because it would not get through,” she said, according to the Independent. “There is no way to remove it. To get there, we need to cross the swamp.”

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A man in Arlington, Texas, Steven Shrout, 25, who came in last in his Fantasy Football League had to do a very nutty thing as punishment, walk around a dog park covered head to toe in peanut butter. He had never played fantasy football before this year, but decided to join a league with some high school friends who had been playing together since 2009. according to WFAA-TV.. I just kind of jumped in, Shrout told the station. “It was my first year, and I didn’t do any kind of studying at first.” He was dogged by bad luck from the beginning when his top draft choice, Pittsburgh Steelers running back Le’Veon Bell, ended up sitting out the entire season. “I will [play fantasy football again], but probably not with the same guys,” Shrout told WFAA-TV with a laugh.

As a result, Shrout was given the choice of paying $250 to the winning person or perform a humiliating stunt. Shrout chose to do the stunt: ” No one believed me, they’re like, ‘No way is he going to do it,” Shrout told the station. But Shrout went through with it last Wednesday, hoping to get out of the sticky situation without a hitch. Standing in a Dallas dog park for 10 minutes clad only in a gold speedo and ― oh yeah! ― covered in peanut butter. “My strategy was to do it as fast as possible, and hope that not many people would see me,” Shrout said, according to Fox 8 News. “A lot of (the dog owners) just wondered what I was doing, and then when I said I lost a bet, they all laughed.” Although Shrout hoped to fulfill the terms of the bet without being seen too much, video of his experience has gone viral. You can see video of Shrout’s nutty adventure on YouTube.com. Still, Shrout told WFAA-TV laughly, I”ve learned a valuable lesson, be prepared to win or lose.

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Former baseball superstar Jose Canseco made his name hitting home runs, but his latest project is a pitch to go Bigfoot hunting. The baseball MVP is pitching a trip to what he claims are the sites of “ authentic alien sightings and proven Bigfoot habitats.”Canseco posted two tweets on Tuesday night offering to take a few lucky people on an expedition tracking the mythical beast and “a real alien.” @josecanseco (Go on a Bigfoot and alien Excursion with Jose Canseco contact Morgan Management at 702-374-3735). and, @josecanseco (Come spend the day with me and my alien Buddies I’ll show you Bigfoot and a real alien call Morgan at 702-374-3735). When HuffPost called the listed phone number and received this text message:
“Spend the weekend with Jose for $5000 cash. Only 5 lucky individuals will get a golden ticket. Oompa loompas ain’t got nothing on Bigfoot. Travel in his custom RV to authentic alien sightings and proven Bigfoot habitats. Camp out in the wild. Tell stories and maybe meet a real Bigfoot. You never know what’s gonna happen with Mr. Canseco. (Food included) Only serious inquiries please. I will help you book your flights to Vegas and set itineraries. Thank you. Morgan” The response said the first excursion was almost full.

This isn’t completely out of left field for the 54-year-old outfielder. A few weeks ago, Canseco posted a series of tweets claiming aliens had given him the secrets to time travel. Canseco has gotten kicks from making outrageous statements in the past, such as in July 2017, when he responded to the Me Too movement by bragging about being molested by lots of women. In July 2015, he said he planned to live as a woman for a week to better understand Caitlyn Jenner’s situation. In November 2014, he falsely claimed that his middle finger had come off during a poker game. Naturally, many people on Twitter had strong responses to the pitch: Adam Biehler @CenTexAg Replying to @JoseCanseco People used to make fun of me because my favorite player took steroids and took a homer off his dome but look at me now! MY favorite Bash Bro hangs with aliens. chareth cutestory @steven53844468 Replying to @JoseCanseco Will they be different aliens from last time? I don’t want to spend time with the same aliens.

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“I think this country hasn’t dealt well with the issues of race,” the lawmaker told NBC’s Chuck Todd. “We have a president who’s a racist.” When it came to addressing President Donald Trump’s history of racism, Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) didn’t mince words in a “Meet the Press” interview Sunday. Noting Brown’s frank description of Trump, Todd paused for a moment, asking him to explain. “I know that he built his political career knowing what he was doing on questioning the legitimacy and the birth place of the president of the United States,” Brown said, referring to the birther conspiracy theory Trump promoted staring in 2011, using it in an effort to undermine Barack Obama’s credibility. Brown also pointed to housing discrimination in the Trump real estate empire, adding that violence at the 2017 white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, told the country even more about the president’s beliefs on race, appearing to be alluding to Trump’s weak response to the chaos when he had initially skirted around denouncing neo-Nazis.

Most recently, Brown, who is considering a run for president, has called for the resignation of Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam following the Democrat’s admission that he had once worn blackface in a dance contest in which he impersonated Michael Jackson. Controversy has brewed steadily over the governor since last week, when a photo of a man in blackface next to another individual dressed in a Ku Klux Klan uniform surfaced from Northam’s 1984 medical school yearbook. While Northam has indicated he has no plans to step down, Brown called on him to resign and consider participating in discussions on race “as a private citizen.” “Charlottesville was only a symptom and a more public viewing and outing, if you will, of president Trump’s views about race, and racism” Brown said.

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LOS ANGELES (AP) – The Democrat’s proposed spending plan, released Thursday, projects the state will bank $355 million in marijuana excise taxes by the end of June. Deep in Gov. Gavin Newsom’s new budget is a figure that says a lot about California’s shaky legal marijuana market: The state is expecting a lot less cash from cannabis taxes. That’s roughly half of what was once expected after broad legal sales kicked off last year.
Most consumers are continuing to purchase pot in the illegal marketplace, where they avoid taxes that can near 50 percent in some communities. Tax collections are expected to gradually increase over time, but predicting what that amount will be remains something of a guess. Industry experts say the diminished tax income reflects a somber reality. Tax collections for “a newly created market are subject to significant uncertainty,” the budget said. Josh Drayton of the California Cannabis Industry Association credited Newsom with taking “a realistic look at the challenges” after a bumpy first year of broad legal sales. Newsom also recommended a sharp increase in spending for regulatory programs, although it’s an open question whether it will be enough to help steady the state pot economy.

Initially “the state was too optimistic about how the implementation of legalization was going to work. This governor has paid attention to that,” Drayton said. The budget recommends just over $200 million for marijuana-related activities in the fiscal year that starts July 1, which would be over a 50 percent boost from the current year. That said, Drayton added that legal businesses need a break from hefty tax rates that are driving consumers to the illicit economy. Local governments are free to slap taxes on sales and on growers too, which has created a confusing patchwork of tax rates around the state. Various proposals have been made to cut state pot taxes.
The state’s top marijuana regulator, Lori Ajax, has said the state intends to get more businesses licensed and operating in 2019, while cracking down on rogue operators who continue to proliferate across the state.
By some estimates, up to 80 percent of sales in the state remain under the table, snatching profits from legal storefronts. At year’s end, California’s effort to transform its longstanding illegal and medicinal marijuana markets into a unified, multibillion-dollar industry remained a work in progress. Meanwhile, the courts budget includes nearly $14 million for resentencing of thousands of drug offenders whose offenses are no longer crimes since California legalized recreational pot.

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The renowned theoretical physicists hosts “Stephen Hawking’s Favorite Places,” a new short film available on the streaming service Curiosity Stream. The film follows Hawking around the universe as he “travels” in a computer-generated imagery spacecraft, giving the audience a peek into simulations of a black hole and Gliese 832c, an earth-like planet outside our solar system that scientists believe may be able to support life. Stephen Hawking has said it before and he’ll say it again: If extraterrestrials call, do not answer ― at least, not without careful consideration. And Gliese 832c isn’t even the closet possible second-Earth. In August, scientists announced that Proxima b, a planet orbiting Proxima Centauri — the nearest known star to our sun — has a temperature that could allow liquid water and is possibly habitable.

But if we ever get a signal from any of these places, Hawking warns that we shouldn’t be too eager to say hello. It’s an idea Hawking has expressed numerous times before — typically using human beings as an example of why we shouldn’t trust other intelligent life. “We should be wary of answering back,” he says in the film, according to USAToday. “Meeting an advanced civilization could be like Native Americans encountering Columbus — that didn’t turn out so well.” “I imagine they might exist in massive ships, having used up all the resources from their home planet. Such advanced aliens would perhaps become nomads, looking to conquer and colonize whatever planets they can reach.” It’s an idea Hawking has expressed numerous times before — typically using human beings as an example of why we shouldn’t trust other intelligent life. “We only have to look at ourselves to see how intelligent life might develop into something we wouldn’t want to meet,” he told The Times of London in 2010. Well, we’re convinced. NASA, we really hope you’re listening.

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Congress is on the verge of officially legalizing industrial hemp, with a measure that would create a legal distinction between the popular crop and other, intoxicating strains of marijuana. In a statement Thursday, leaders of the U.S. Senate and House agricultural committees reported that they’d reached a tentative agreement on the 2018 Farm Bill. Included in that larger piece of legislation are a number of provisions that would allow for the commercial cultivation, research and development of industrial hemp. A vote is expected by the end of the year. Under the new farm bill, hemp would be defined as any part of a marijuana plant with a THC concentration of 0.3 percent or less. Hemp is a variety of cannabis that contains very low amounts of tetrahydrocannabinol, or THC, the primary psychoactive compound in marijuana. While strains of cannabis with higher THC can get people high, hemp does not. There are a few remaining procedural hurdles that could threaten the legislation, but for the moment, the broader farm bill and its hemp measures look likely to pass, said Eric Steenstra, president of Vote Hemp, an advocacy group. “We’ve had five years and what we’ve seen is that there are a lot of people who are wanting to grow this crop..

It is typically grown for use in food, fuel, textiles and other applications. Since 1970, however, federal law has classified all cannabis plants as Schedule I substances, alongside drugs like heroin, LSD and a number of deadly synthetic opioids. “The hemp part of the bill has never really been in dispute,” said Steenstra. “I feel very optimistic about this.” In 2014, Congress passed a farm bill renewal that allowed for pilot programs and research on hemp. Over the past few years, hemp has begun to develop into its own thriving industry. Cultivation operations quickly sprouted up across the U.S., and in 2018, more than 3,500 licenses were issued in 23 states, leading to over 77,000 acres of hemp being planted, according to Vote Hemp. In 2015, just 9,650 acres of hemp had been planted in 15 states, Steenstra added. That explosive growth has helped convince skeptical lawmakers that the longstanding prohibition on hemp is no longer defensible. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), once a vocal opponent of hemp legalization, has since become a leading advocate for the initiative.

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