CANNABIS: “Legal Weed Hurting Profits for Big Pharma Opioid Dealers” / The Young Turks / Cenk Uygur, and Ana Kasparian ☮

New data shows that legal marijuana is hurting the profits of corporate opioid dealers, aka Big Pharma. Look for them to double their efforts and their legalized bribes to congress to keep pot illegal nationally. Cenk Uygur and Ana Kasparian, hosts of The Young Turks, break it down. Tell us what you think in the comment section below.

“Research published Wednesday found that states that legalized medical marijuana — which is sometimes recommended for symptoms like chronic pain, anxiety or depression — saw declines in the number of Medicare prescriptions for drugs used to treat those conditions and a dip in spending by Medicare Part D, which covers the cost on prescription medications.

Because the prescriptions for drugs like opioid painkillers and antidepressants — and associated Medicare spending on those drugs — fell in states where marijuana could feasibly be used as a replacement, the researchers said it appears likely legalization led to a drop in prescriptions. That point, they said, is strengthened because prescriptions didn’t drop for medicines such as blood-thinners, for which marijuana isn’t an alternative.

The study, which appears in Health Affairs, examined data from Medicare Part D from 2010 to 2013. It is the first study to examine whether legalization of marijuana changes doctors’ clinical practice and whether it could curb public health costs.”

NEOLIBERAL TOTALITARIAN POLICE STATE: “Legalized Murder and the Politics of Terror” / Chris Hedges ☮

Chris HedgesPolice officers carry out random acts of legalized murder against poor people of color not because they are racist, although they may be, or even because they are rogue cops, but because impoverished urban communities have evolved into miniature police states.

Police can stop citizens at will, question and arrest them without probable cause, kick down doors in the middle of the night on the basis of warrants for nonviolent offenses, carry out wholesale surveillance, confiscate property and money and hold people—some of them innocent—in county jails for years before forcing them to accept plea agreements that send them to prison for decades. They can also, largely with impunity, murder them.

Those who live in these police states, or internal colonies, especially young men of color, endure constant fear and often terror. Michelle Alexander, author of “The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness,” calls those trapped in these enclaves members of a criminal “caste system.” This caste system dominates the lives of not only the 2.3 million who are incarcerated in the United States but also the 4.8 million on probation or parole. Millions more are forced into “permanent second-class citizenship” by their criminal records, which make employment, higher education and public assistance, including housing, difficult and usually impossible to obtain. This is by design.

Continue reading . . .

POLITICAL COMMENTARY: “Alison Flowers: Wrongfully Convicted” / RT America / On Contact with Chris Hedges, and Anya Parampil ☮

In this week’s episode of On Contact, Chris Hedges sits down with Alison Flowers, author of “Exoneree Diaries: The Fight for Innocence, Independence, and Identity”. They discuss flaws in the justice system that result in wrongful convictions and the challenges people face after spending years in prison for a crime they did not commit. RT Correspondent Anya Parampil measures the scale of known exonerations in the U.S.

NEOCONSERVATISM: “Report Finds War Criminal Tony Blair Schemed with War Criminal Bush to Invade Iraq” / “War Criminal Tony Blair Warns That the UN, and Islam are Dangerous” / Jimmy Dore ☮

Report Finds Tony Blair Schemed with Bush to Invade Iraq

War Criminal Tony Blair Warns That The UN & Islam Are Dangerous