Weed beats booze as daily marijuana use outpaces drinking in definitive nationwide study of tens of millions of people

BYCARLA K. JOHNSON AND THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
May 22, 2024 

Marijuana is really popular.
JEFF CHIU—AP PHOTO

Millions of people in the U.S. report using marijuana daily or nearly every day, according to an analysis of national survey data, and those people now outnumber those who say they are daily or nearly-daily drinkers of alcohol.

Alcohol is still more widely used, but 2022 was the first time this intensive level of marijuana use overtook daily and near-daily drinking, said the study’s author, Jonathan Caulkins, a cannabis policy researcher at Carnegie Mellon University.

“A good 40% of current cannabis users are using it daily or near daily, a pattern that is more associated with tobacco use than typical alcohol use,” Caulkins said.

The research, based on data from the National Survey on Drug Use and Health, was published Wednesday in the journal Addiction. The survey is a highly regarded source of self-reported estimates of tobacco, alcohol and drug use in the United States.

In 2022, an estimated 17.7 million people reported using marijuana daily or near-daily compared to 14.7 million daily or near-daily drinkers, according to the study.

From 1992 to 2022, the per capita rate of reporting daily or near-daily marijuana use increased 15-fold. Caulkins acknowledged in the study that people may be more willing to report marijuana use as public acceptance grows, which could boost the increase.

Most states now allow medical or recreational marijuana, though it remains illegal at the federal level. In November, Florida voters will decide on a constitutional amendment allowing recreational cannabis, and the federal government is moving to reclassify marijuana as a less dangerous drug.

Research shows that high-frequency users are more likely to become addicted to marijuana, said Dr. David A. Gorelick, a psychiatry professor at the University of Maryland School of Medicine, who was not involved in the study.

The number of daily users suggests that more people are at risk for developing problematic cannabis use or addiction, Gorelick said.

“High frequency use also increases the risk of developing cannabis-associated psychosis,” a severe condition where a person loses touch with reality, he said.

___

The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Science and Educational Media Group. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

Study shows dramatic increase in daily cannabis use in the United States

 

May 22 2024Carnegie Mellon University

Many countries around the world are considering revising cannabis policies. A new study by a researcher at Carnegie Mellon University assessed cannabis use in the United States between 1979 and 2022, finding that a growing share of cannabis consumers report daily or near-daily use and that their numbers now exceed those of daily and near-daily alcohol drinkers. The study concludes that long-term trends in cannabis use parallel corresponding changes in policy over the same period. The study appears in Addiction.

"The data come from survey self-reports, but the enormous changes in rates of self-reported cannabis use, particularly of daily or near-daily use, suggest that changes in actual use have been considerable," says Jonathan P. Caulkins, professor of operations research and public policy at Carnegie Mellon's Heinz College, who conducted the study. "It is striking that high-frequency cannabis use is now more commonly reported than is high-frequency drinking."

Although prior research has compared cannabis-related and alcohol-related outcomes before and after state-level policy changes to changes over the same period in states without policy change, this study examined long-term trends for the United States as a whole. Caulkins looked at days of use, not just prevalence, and drew comparisons with alcohol, but did not attempt to identify causal effects.

The study used data from the U.S. National Survey on Drug Use and Health (and its predecessor, the National Household Survey on Drug Abuse), examining more than 1.6 million respondents across 27 surveys from 1979 to 2022. Caulkins contrasted rates of use in four milestone years that reflected significant policy change points: 1979 (when the first data became available and the relatively liberal policies of the 1970s ended), 1992 (the end of 12 years of conservative Reagan-Bush-era policies), 2008 (the year before the U.S. Department of Justice signaled explicit federal non-interference with state-level legalizations), and 2022 (the year for the most recent data available). Among the study's findings:

• Reported cannabis use declined to a low in 1992, with partial increases through 2008 and substantial growth since then, particularly for measures of more intensive use.
• Between 2008 and 2022, the per capita rate of reporting past-year use increased 120%, and days of use reported per capita increased 218% (in absolute terms, the rise was from 2.3 billion to 8.1 billion days per year).
• From 1992 to 2022, the per capita rate of reporting daily or near-daily use rose 15-fold. While the 1992 survey recorded 10 times as many daily or near-daily alcohol users as cannabis users (8.9 million versus 0.9 million), the 2022 survey, for the first time, recorded more daily and near-daily users of cannabis than of alcohol (17.7 million versus 14.7 million).
• While far more people drink than use cannabis, high-frequency drinking is less common. In 2022, the median drinker reported drinking on 4-5 days in the previous month versus using cannabis on 15-16 days in the previous month. In 2022, prior-month cannabis consumers were almost four times as likely to report daily or near-daily use (42% versus 11%) and 7.4 times more likely to report daily use (28% versus 3.8%).

These trends mirror changes in policy, with declines during periods of greater restriction and growth during periods of policy liberalization."

Jonathan P. Caulkins, professor of operations research and public policy at Carnegie Mellon's Heinz College

Pittcon Highlights: Cannabis & Psychedelic eBook Check out the highlights from Pittcon in the Cannabis & Psychedelic industriesDownload the latest edition

He notes that this does not mean that policy drove changes in use; both could have been manifestations of changes in underlying culture and attitudes. "But whichever way causal arrows point, cannabis use now appears to be on a fundamentally different scale than it was before legalization."

Among the study's limitations, Caulkins says that because the study relied on general population surveys, the data are self-reported, lack validation from biological samples, and exclude certain subpopulations that may use at different rates than the rest of the population.

Source:

Carnegie Mellon University

Journal reference:

Caulkins, J. P., (2024) Changes in self-reported cannabis use in the United States from 1979 to 2022. Addiction. doi.org/10.1111/add.16519.

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As Scrutiny Escalates, DOJ Announces the Formation of the Health Care Monopolies and Collusion Task Force

Health Care Law Brief on May 22, 2024

The U.S. Department of Justice (“DOJ”) recently announced the creation of the Health Care Monopolies and Collusion Task Force (the “HCMC Task Force”) aimed at resolving antitrust issues in the health care industry. Specifically, the HCMC Task Force will focus on investigating issues related to the quality of patient care, consolidations between health care entities, labor and employment, and access and misuse of data. It will further promote DOJ’s public policy relating to the need for and benefits of preserving competition in health care. The HCMC Task Force’s mandate is broad and extends to scrutiny, not only of direct health care service providers, but also of companies that work with health care data and health care technology.

The HCMC Task Force will bring together health care experts, accountants, investigators, civil and criminal prosecutors, economists, data scientists, and policy advisors from across DOJ’s Antitrust Division to identify and address antitrust issues in health care markets. In the announcement, the Deputy Director of Civil Enforcement for DOJ’s Antitrust Division, Katrina Rouse, stated: “The task force will identify and root out monopolies and collusive practices that increase costs, decrease quality and create single points of failure in the health care industry.” The Secretary of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (“HHS”), Xavier Becerra, agreed, reminding the public that “[c]ompetition helps ensure patients have access to high-quality, lower cost care, and that health care workers receive higher pay and work under better conditions … and saves taxpayers money.”

The formation of the HCMC Task Force comes on the heels of the launch of HealthyCompetition.gov, an online public portal to report antitrust violations to DOJ, HHS, and the Federal Trade Commission (“FTC”). This public portal allows businesses and individuals to alert DOJ and the FTC about such anticompetitive behaviors, including, for example, alleged instances of illegal roll-ups, price-gouging, and collusion amongst competitors. Information received by DOJ and FTC may then provide a basis for investigation.

Additionally, this past March, DOJ, HHS, and the FTC launched a cross-government inquiry into the observed increasing control by private equity of the health care industry. The agencies have been collectively examining the effect of private equity’s involvement on patient outcomes, prices, employee benefits and wages, and innovation in health care. FTC Chair Lina Khan stated that, “[t]hrough this inquiry the FTC will continue scrutinizing private equity roll-ups, strip-and-flip tactics, and other financial plays that can enrich executives but leave the American public worse off.” The agencies issued a Request for Information seeking comments on transactions between health systems, insurers, facilities, and private equity funds. The comment period, which closed on May 6, resulted in more than 1,600 public comments. Proskauer has the knowledge, experience, and expertise to help health care stakeholders understand and navigate the implications of the law and the enforcement priorities of regulators in this era of increased scrutiny.

 

Federal court rules Arizona private prisons don't violate inmates' rights

By Greg Hahne
Howard Fischer/Capitol Media Services

Published: Wednesday, May 22, 2024 - 12:27pm

Updated: Wednesday, May 22, 2024 - 4:37pm

Arizona Department of Corrections

Cells at Arizona State Prison Complex - Florence.

A federal appeals court has ruled that the state of Arizona is not violating the rights of inmates by keeping them in private prisons.

The decision leaves intact moves by state lawmakers to increasingly contract with companies that run private prisons.

Nearly a third of the state's roughly 32,000 male inmates are in private facilities. That’s about a 10% increase in the last four years.

NAACP attorney Dianne Post says operators are financially motivated to keep inmates for longer on top of forced labor. 

“Doing this for profit is the same thing as slavery. Yes, it is not exactly the same as chattel slavery. But it does not have to be in order to be a violation of the 13th Amendment," Post said.

In its ruling, the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals said the 13th Amendment explicitly carves out incarceration, meaning it does not forbid prison labor requirements.

The food bridge to nowhere: US admits 30% of Gaza aid isn’t getting to civilians

The $300m structure became operational six days ago

Andrew Feinberg

Washington DC

4 days ago

Palestinians line up for free food during the ongoing Israeli air and ground offensive on the Gaza Strip in Rafah (Copyright 2024 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.)

A third of aid arriving from the US-constructed humanitarian bridge in Gaza is not getting to civilians, Pentagon officials admit.

White House National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan told reporters on Wednesday that approximately 695 metric tons of humanitarian aid has been transported to Gaza by way of the US-built pier over the six days since it began operation.

Of that amount, Mr Sullivan two-thirds is “either has gone or is on its way to going to Palestinian civilians.”

“The issue is not actually getting food to the pier [and] off the pier, it’s being able to ensure that we have necessary security arrangements in place to deliver it,” he said.

He also told reporters the US and its’ partners “had modalities to get some of that aid distributed” and are currently “in the process of building out to get more of it distributed.”

Mr Sullivan’s admission that a significant share of the supplies - roughly 230 tons of aid - is not reaching Gaza residents who have been left in a state of famine following nearly eight months of war comes after President Joe Biden and other White House officials have touted the temporary pier.

The temporary structure, which cost approximately $300 million to construct, was built in the Mediterranean Sea and anchored to a beach south of Gaza City, is supposed to be an alternate path for aid that can bypass frequently-closed crossings into Gaza and deliver much need aid to address the “famine” being experienced by war.

But a UN World Food Program spokesperson, Steve Taravella, has said the first tranche of aid trucks to roll off the pier was largely ransacked and looted by people before they could reach a UN warehouse on Saturday.

Of that batch of 16 trucks, he said only five arrived there with their full loads.

Yet Mr Sullivan denied the problems delivering aid over the pier were a “failure of planning” and instead called the bottleneck “an indication this is a dynamic environment we need to continue to refine” and stressed that aid to Gaza “is flowing.”

“It is not flowing at the rate that any of us would be happy with because we always want more, but we are actually seeing good cooperation between the US, the IDF, the UN [and] humanitarian organizations to ensure that aid goes from that pier to innocent people in need,” he said.

New Bill Would Extend US Military Benefits to Americans Serving in the IDF


The amendments proposed by HR 8445 further incentivize US citizens to become active participants in the Gaza  genocide.

By James Ray ,

MONDOWEISS

Published May 22, 2024

An Israeli soldier controls a tank as military mobilization of the Israeli army continues near the Gaza border on May 16, 2024.MOSTAFA ALKHAROUF / ANADOLU VIA GETTY IMAGES


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On May 17, legislation was introduced and referred to the House Committee on Veterans’ Affairs. Cosponsored by Chief Deputy Whip Guy Reschenthaler (R-PA) and U.S. Representative Max Miller (R-OH), H.R. 8445 went largely under the radar, a strange outcome given the real effect it will have on furthering U.S. support for the Zionist project — in this case through direct support for those wishing to serve in the Israeli Occupational Military.

What H.R. 8445 aims to do is make a series of amendments to programs that are ordinarily only available to members of the U.S. military — the Servicemembers Civil Relief Act (SCRA) and Uniformed Services Employment and Reemployment Rights Act (USERRA). These amendments would do something unprecedented: Extend these programs to American citizens serving in the Israel Occupational Forces.

The SCRA, the result of the Bush administration’s efforts to update the 1940 Soldiers’ and Sailors’ Civil Relief Act (SSCRA), was passed in 2003. Its primary focus is granting active duty U.S. servicemembers legal and financial protections so that they can do the bidding of U.S. empire a little more worry-free. This act’s benefits include protections against default judgments in civil legal cases, reduced interest rates on any pre-service loans to a maximum of 6 percent, protections against home foreclosure, and more.

USERRA, enacted in 1994, is a multifaceted act that ensures U.S. servicemembers can return to their former places of employment after their service ends (with some exceptions) while banning employment discrimination because of past, current, or future military obligations.

In effect, H.R. 8445 is a measure designed to ensure U.S. legal and financial protections are being extended directly to U.S. citizens on the ground in Occupied Palestine as they assist in the ongoing colonization, ethnic cleansing, and genocide of Palestinians. The amendments it proposes formally bring U.S. citizens fighting in a foreign military into the fold, opening up further incentives for becoming an active participant in the Gaza genocide.

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This effort is not necessarily surprising as the U.S. is putting its full weight into protecting and advancing the interests of its colonial outpost across the Atlantic. The Zionist project has long been sustained in part by settlers from the U.S., with more than 23,000 U.S. citizens serving in the IOF as of February 2024. This figure is bolstered further by the reality that an estimated 600,000 Americans were living in areas under Israeli control, including illegal West Bank settlements, prior to October 7. These settlers play key roles in advancing Zionist, and by extension U.S. imperial interests. As such, it is no surprise that they have been consistently enabled to travel and settle in Occupied Palestine, being joined by billions of dollars in U.S. military and economic aid.

This act also only furthers a reality in which U.S. citizens are functionally incentivized to act as mercenaries for the Zionist colony, all while shielding them from the ramifications of their actions when they return home. The protections of the SCRA effectively ensure that U.S. citizens fighting in the IOF abroad are protected from foreclosure, get preferential interest rates for loans, and more — all benefits traditionally used to recruit U.S. citizens into its own military forces. It is the U.S. government’s way of telling U.S. citizens that it will look out for them should they put their bodies on the line for the Zionist colony.

USERRA on the other hand acts as the shield, ensuring that when these citizens return home from aiding a colonial military abroad, they not only have the option to return to their former places of employment, but are protected from “discrimination” based on their former service, stopping businesses that may want to avoid the hiring, retainment, advancement, and extension of benefits to those who willingly participate in the genocide of Palestinians, and the potential war crimes involved in this, from being able to do so. In this sense, the USERRA amendments actually play a role as an anti-accountability measure.

All in all, H.R. 8445 is one of many pieces of legislation that are being proposed to continue U.S. support for the Zionist project. It is not a change from the norm in that regard, but the effects of such legislation are genuinely startling for those trying to stop U.S. involvement in the occupation of Palestine and hold those responsible who participate in it. All this is being done, yet again, in the name of advancing U.S. imperialist interests — interests that are inextricably linked to the continued survival of the Zionist settler colonial project, and Zionism itself.

As debate around abortion continues, this adoption agency cofounder talks about an alternative

AS AN  ADOPTEE I ADVOCATE FOR IT OVER IVF

By Lauren Gilger

Published: Wednesday, May 22, 2024

 - 

Kimmybee Photography

Kelly Rourke

The landscape surrounding abortion in our state continues to shift. Lawmakers repealed an 1864 abortion ban that didn’t include exceptions for rape or incest. Now, a 15-week ban is in place — at least until the election in November, when voters could be voting to expand access to abortion even more. 

As the debate around abortion rights swirl, The Show spent a few minutes learning about another option that some pregnant people choose: adoption. 

Kelly Rourke is a cheerleader for adoption. She’s the cofounder of the adoption agency Building Arizona Families, and she was adopted herself when she was just 3 days old. Her birth mother was 16. She tracked her down years later, after she started this agency, and they became close until her death in 2016. 

Rourke told The Show, in many ways, she is what guided her path in this work.

Full conversation

KELLY ROURKE: Because I'm one of the cofounders, you know, I have done every job within the agency from the ground all the way up, and I love working with birth mothers, because my mother is every birth mother that I work with, I see a little piece of my mother in her. And what was the most important thing for me, after I met my birth mother is increasing adoption awareness. That's why I have a podcast. That's why I love to do interviews, because I think it's really important to get correct information out to people, so they understand what adoption is and what it isn't.

LAUREN GILGER: So I want to talk more in a moment about those sort of misconceptions around adoption that you referenced there. But let's let's talk a little bit about what the organization does. You're a licensed, you know, adoption agency. Let's talk about who comes to you first of all, like in this organization, how do people find you?

ROURKE: Women come to us through referrals from their OB/GYN. A lot of women are homeless, and they're on the street and word gets out on the street, that, you know, placing your baby for adoption is a great option because you know, rather than your baby going into the department of child safety, you're able to you know, keep in contact with the family with the child, you get to pick the adoptive family. So, word gets out on the street and women talk to other women. Obviously, the biggest compliment is when another client, a former client, refers us to another woman who's looking to place their baby for adoption.

GILGER: You mentioned a few of the the sort of demographics you're looking at there in terms of the people who come in your doors. But, in general, are you looking at a lot of you know, teen moms, you mentioned homeless women, you know, who what is their motivation when they come to you?

ROURKE: Our demographics are not at all what you see on TV or in the movies. Teenage moms, I would say are less than 1% of the clientele that we work with, maybe one to 2%, actually one to 2%. It's not very common at all, I would say the average age is closer to 23 to 32. A lot of the women that we work with are substance users. A lot of them are homeless when they come to us. A lot of them have been in the system themselves, and so they're making choices for their, their baby so that their baby doesn't wind up in the state system, and they are able to be a participant in the choices for their child's childhood.

GILGER: So talk about the services that you can offer them. I mean, it sounds like it goes beyond just placing the baby for adoption. But if you're talking about right, if you're talking about women who come to you and are addicted to substances, I mean, there must be some, I guess treatment they can go through with you or would have to go through with you.

ROURKE: Actually, it's not treatment with us the way that it works because we are an adoption agency. We're not a rehab facility. We use intensive case managers. So, we are able to connect with any other case managers that they're working with. So, sometimes women come to us and they have like, they go to a methadone clinic, or they are receiving services through Magellan for mental health. And so we are, we make sure to coordinate with all of the workers that they are working with so that we can provide a global approach and make sure that everybody as a team is involved. So when women come to us, and they are wanting to get clean, again, that is something that we can give them referrals and resources, but it's not something that we provide on site.

GILGER: OK. Talk about the help that you provide them outside of just the adoption, and, it sounds like, beyond giving birth.

ROURKE: We've always helped women after they deliver in terms of adoption counseling. So, when they come to us, we make sure that they see an adoption adoption counselor that is independent of our agency and making sure it's the right choice for them. We will provide this counseling throughout their pregnancy as often as they want it and after they deliver. We can help them if some women want to go back to school and so we care them into looking at admissions. It's not from a financial aspect, it's from a case management aspect.

So, we can help coordinate with them. We help them create a resume. We help them if they want to go on an interview, and they're nervous about what that's going to look like, you know, we can do mock interviews with them. You know, housing, Arizona is in a huge housing crisis right now, and we can definitely help women try to identify an apartment. They are eligible if they qualify for financial assistance after they deliver. So there, once a woman delivers and places her baby for adoption, we're still able to help them with their living expenses for six weeks after they deliver. We really want women who come into our agency to leave in a better position than when they came to us. We don't want a woman who comes into us and is homeless to leave the program and still be homeless. Does that happen? Yes.

GILGER: Okay, so let me ask you about the broader landscape here. A lot of centers that promote giving women alternatives to abortion, right, are strongly opposed to abortion or part of the anti-abortion movement. Would you classify your organization in that camp?

ROURKE: Our organization takes a very neutral approach. We are not a political organization. We are licensed by the state of Arizona. We also hold a Hague accreditation for adoption, and so again, we take a very neutral approach. We want to be a resource that women can use if they are experiencing an unplanned pregnancy and want to place their child for adoption.

GILGER: Do you think the changes in abortion law in the state right now will impact what you do? Like do you anticipate seeing more adoptions because fewer women may be able to get abortions in the future?

ROURKE: I think it's definitely too soon to tell. I think maybe in a year, we will be able to answer that a little bit more accurately, because right now, it's so soon. And the changes are continually occurring as to what may or may not happen with the laws that have been passed. So, I would still stand by it's just too soon to tell.

GILGER: Yeah. I wonder, I wonder how you navigate this, right? Because a lot of folks in this conversation would talk about the the choice between having an abortion or going through something like an adoption instead, like, have you ever had a woman start the process with you and then decide to have an abortion instead? How do you navigate that?

ROURKE: I've been doing this for almost 20 years, I I can think of maybe one situation. Usually what we see is women who have had previous abortions, and are experiencing another unplanned pregnancy will actually choose adoption. The women that we speak with that have been in this situation have said they didn't even know that adoption existed. And they didn't know that that was an option for them.

GILGER: Is that part of the conversation, though? When you're talking to women about their choices here, you say like, 'well, you can go through this with us, and here's the things that we can do for you. But also you could have an abortion up until this point?'

ROURKE: No, that's again, we take a very neutral approach. So because we're an adoption agency, when they come to us, our focus is adoption. You know, they get to choose an adoptive family. They get to choose whether they want open, semi-open or closed adoption. That's not what an adoption agency would do. 

GILGER: Yeah. Okay, so final question for you then Kelly. I wonder, what do you want people to know about the work that you do that you think might be misunderstood? 

ROURKE: We are working with women with an unplanned pregnancy, and we are there to help them place their baby for adoption. This is not something that is monetarily incentivized. This is not something that we have an ulterior motive for. This is women. A lot of women who work for us are a member of the adoption triad themselves. And so not only are we professionally invested in what we do every day, but we're also personally invested because this is personal for a lot of us. These women are really heroes. This is a hard choice.

GILGER: All right. We will leave it there for now. That is Kelly Rourke, president and CEO of Building Arizona Families. Kelly, thank you for coming on. Thanks for telling us your story here and about what you do. I appreciate it. 

ROURKE: Absolutely.

KJZZ's The Show transcripts are created on deadline. This text may not be in its final form. The authoritative record of KJZZ's programming is the audio record.

More stories from KJZZ

LIFE AFTER ROE 

Louisiana’s Alarming Push to Criminalize Abortion Pills

By Andrea González-Ramírez, a senior writer for the Cut who covers systems of power.
UPDATED MAY 23, 2024

Photo: ALLISON DINNER/EPA-EFE/Shutterstock

Louisiana will soon become the first state in the nation to reclassify the two drugs used in medication abortions as “controlled dangerous substances,” a move that experts say could have far-reaching implications for pregnancy care. The Louisiana Senate approved the legislation, known as SB276, on Thursday and sent it to Republican governor Jeff Landry, who opposes abortion rights. He is expected to sign the measure into law, and it could go into effect as early as October. 

Even though the state has had a near-total abortion ban in place since the overturn of Roe v. Wade, and most patients can’t even access abortion pills unless they travel out of state or order them online, conservative lawmakers have  gone a step further in equating the drugs to opioids and depressants. The bill is just the latest push by anti-abortion advocates to curb the use of pills, which are used in more than two-thirds of abortions in the U.S. The Supreme Court is expected to rule next month on whether to reinstate certain restrictions on mifepristone.

During an hourlong Louisiana House debate on the measure on Tuesday, anti-abortion lawmakers claimed that the drugs are “harmful to an unborn child” and that the proposed restrictions wouldn’t prevent doctors from prescribing the pills in other clinical situations outside of abortion care. Opponents begged their colleagues to reconsider, pointing out that health providers in Louisiana have voiced their opposition to the bill. While mifepristone is approved by the FDA exclusively for abortion, misoprostol is a stomach ulcer medication that’s used off-label for a wide range of gynecological care beyond terminating a pregnancy, including inducing labor, managing a miscarriage and postpartum hemorrhaging, and softening the cervix before a biopsy,. “This does not prevent anyone from getting the drug, but it significantly delays care for plenty of people—probably for 99 percent of people who need it and who have nothing to do with wanting an abortion,” Democratic state representative Mandy Landry (no relation to the governor) said during the debate. Her motions to amend the measure and to send it back to committee for more discussion both failed on Tuesday.

Pregnancy care in Louisiana — which has the highest rate of maternal mortality in the nation — has already been disrupted because physicians are afraid of running afoul of the abortion ban, according to a recent report. The procedure is outlawed in nearly all cases with exceptions for when a pregnancy is “medically futile” or the life of the pregnant person is in danger. The law also does not exempt rape and incest cases, and lawmakers recently rejecting adding these exceptions for children under 17. Providers who are found in violation face up to 15 years in prison and $200,000 in fines. Researchers found that, to avoid the impression of violating the state’s ban, health providers are delaying care for ectopic pregnancies and miscarriages as well as performing C-sections rather than abortions — the standard of care — in cases when the pregnancy is not viable.

Mandry believes the bill will further intimidate health-care providers. “The ban’s exceptions are construed extremely narrowly, meaning doctors are afraid to even use them,” she tells the Cut. “Now, with this bill, providers are worried about being investigated just for writing a prescription. They are nervous about overprescribing misoprostol and looking like they are giving it out for abortions just like they’re nervous about doing abortions to save the life of the mother.”

SB276 was introduced by Republican state senator Thomas Pressly, whose sister was given misoprostol by her then-husband without her knowledge. According to Texas prosecutors, the man was attempting to induce an abortion without his wife’s consent. The child was born premature and has experienced developmental delays; earlier this year, he pleaded guilty to charges of injury to a child and assault of a pregnant person and was sentenced to 180 days in jail

The measure originally intended to establish the crime of “coerced criminal abortion,” creating penalties for someone who gives a pregnant person abortion pills without their consent. But after the bill unanimously passed the state senate, Pressly, working in partnership with the anti-abortion organization Louisiana Right to Life, included a last-minute amendment to add abortion pills to the state’s Uniform Controlled Dangerous Substances Law. Drugs that are considered controlled, dangerous substances include opioids, depressants, and medications that are highly addictive, like Xanax and Valium. Rescheduling mifepristone and misoprostol as Schedule IV drugs would require physicians to have a special license to prescribe the pills; to list their names, their patients’ names, and the pharmacy dispensing the medication in a state database; and to store the drugs in specific secure rooms.

“Louisiana has been ground zero for abortion for a really long time, and it’s not really surprising that this kind of stuff is gonna keep happening,” Representative Landry says. “This bill is sort of creating a pregnancy database because misoprostol is prescribed very regularly to induce labor. If you know anyone who has been induced, it’s highly likely they took that. It’s a bad situation.”

The bill carves out an exception for pregnant people who obtain the pills for their own consumption, but anyone who is not a health-care provider and is found in possession of abortion pills without intending to take them would be criminalized. Violators could face up to ten years in prison.

“Imagine you’re a person who’s 14 weeks pregnant and you’re starting to miscarry. Your physician says, ‘Well, I can prescribe you this medication, misoprostol, that will help you expel this miscarriage,’” says Kirsten Moore, director of the EMAA Project, which seeks to expand access to medication abortion. “Now you can’t, as a patient, ask your partner or your mother or friends to go get the prescription filled for misoprostol. Instead, you’re gonna have to jump through these extra hoops to show that you are in fact the person getting the medication.”

More than 240 doctors in Louisiana oppose the measure and wrote a letter to Pressly saying that reclassifying abortion pills will create “the false perception that these are dangerous drugs that require additional regulation.” The Louisiana Society of Addiction Medicine also submitted a letter in opposition to the bill, referring to it as “legislative overreach” and saying it “goes against the spirit of the drug scheduling system.”

There’s simply no scientific basis for reclassifying mifepristone and misoprostol as Schedule IV drugs, according to Moore. The pills have been on the market for more than two decades and have an excellent safety record (taking them is less risky than taking Viagra or Tylenol). “Drugs are put in that Schedule IV category because they are shown to be addictive and they can be diverted to nefarious purposes,” Moore says. “But neither mifepristone or misoprostol are addictive, period. Putting these pills under lock and key again is just the wrong solution for what we know to be a pretty isolated incident of bad behavior.”

SB276 will also add to the climate of fear facing abortion seekers in Louisiana, says Tyler Barbarin, director of grants and development at the Louisiana Abortion Fund. The group, which offers financial and practical support to patients seeking an abortion outside the state, already hears confusion and distress among callers who aren’t sure what they are legally allowed to do. “There’s the chilling effect every time a piece of legislation passes or even is threatened to pass. People are scared for their lives; they’re scared to be criminalized,” she says. “It’s not going to lend itself to people’s well-being. You can’t destroy people’s ability to care for one another and then expect them to still thrive.”

In a statement, Vice-President Kamala Harris condemned the legislation. “Absolutely unconscionable. The Louisiana House just passed a bill that would criminalize the possession of medication abortion, with penalties of up to several years of jail time,” she said.

“Let’s be clear: Donald Trump did this,” Harris said. Trump has bragged about being “able to kill” Roe and has said that it should be up to the states to determine abortion bans.

SB276 could also have an impact outside of Louisiana. Experts expect to see similar bills crop up across the country, as the anti-abortion movement is deeply invested in cutting access to medication abortion, which now makes up more than 60 percent of clinician-provided terminations in the U.S. A recent #WeCount survey also found that about 8,000 patients a month are obtaining abortion pills through telehealth in states with abortion bans. “It’s not an accident, and it won’t be an isolated incident, right?” Moore says of the Louisiana bill, pointing at the current Supreme Court mifepristone case. “If Louisiana does this, we can expect a number of other states to follow suit really quickly.”

This story has been updated.