If you do not have a UserName and Password please request one from Cindy at:  cindy@nyscouncil.org and she will share the credentials you need to access the protected areas of our Website.  Again, the link will be live until September 5.
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Since 2007, people working at charitable nonprofits have been able to use the Public Service Loan Forgiveness Program to pay off federal student loans. Now, the Department of Education is proposing to disqualify borrowers if they work for nonprofits engaged in activities frowned on by the current administration — including helping immigrants or trans people, supporting reproductive health, working for racial equity, or conducting protests or civil disobedience. The Department of Education is accepting public comments on these proposed rules until September 17.  Please see attached document for more information. 
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After years of expanding harm reduction strategies like syringe exchanges, fentanyl test strips, and naloxone distribution, many states and cities are now retreating from these approaches despite a recent decline in overdose deaths. President Trump denounced harm reduction in an executive order, while San Francisco, Philadelphia, and several Republican-led states have cut or restricted such programs in favor of “recovery first” policies. Critics say harm reduction normalizes drug use, while supporters argue it saves lives, prevents disease, and offers a pathway to treatment. The shift has sparked a national debate over whether drug policy should prioritize abstinence and public order or evidence-based efforts to reduce harm. 

Here’s a gift article we secured from the NY Times: https://www.nytimes.com/2025/08/25/health/harm-reduction-san-francisco-trump.html?unlocked_article_code=1.g08.XH0P.IEFxWj3G7pfO&smid=url-share
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Final MAHA Report Draft Leaked

Politico Nightly, 8/22POT POLITICS — Could a teetotaling, 79-year-old Republican who wants drug dealers put to death be the president who ushers in the biggest shift in U.S. drug policy in decades?

Donald Trump said earlier this month that his administration is looking into loosening federal restrictions on cannabis and would make a decision in the coming weeks. That’s raised hopes among legalization advocates and industry officials that the Trump administration could finally do something to fix America’s legal-but-not-really-legal $30 billion weed market.

Trump announced his support for an adult-use legalization amendment on the ballot in Florida last year, saying that he would vote for the measure. And he’s also signaled support for medical marijuana and states’ rights on the issue of cannabis policy.But Trump has also pushed a more punitive approach to drug policy on the campaign trail, going so far as to call for the execution of drug traffickers. And he has appointed vehemently anti-cannabis officials like former Attorney General Jeff Sessions, who rescinded Obama-era DOJ guidance that protected state-legal cannabis businesses.

Those inconsistent — and at times incoherent — views on the issue make predictions about where the White House will ultimately land highly fraught.Thirteen years after the first U.S. states legalized adult-use marijuana, most Americans now live in a state where anyone at least 21 years old can legally purchase weed. Gone are the days when legalization could be easily dismissed as some sort of lefty, hippie issue — red states like Missouri and Montana are home to flourishing weed markets, thanks to their voters voicing support at the ballot box.The politics surrounding support for legalization have also shifted, turning it from an issue that mostly appealed to liberals to one that is adopted by small-government, personal freedom-loving Republicans. Division on cannabis reform now falls more along generational rather than ideological lines.Legal cannabis proponents like to point out that there are precious few, if any, issues that 70 percent of Americans agree on — an all-time high for legalization support, according to a 2023 Gallup poll. While Democrats are still more likely than Republicans to support the policy, Gallup found that Republican support for legalization reached a majority — 51 percent — for the first time in 2022. Meanwhile, young men — a key group that Trump courted and turned out during the presidential election — are more likely than other demographics to consume cannabis.Marijuana has been classified as a Schedule I narcotic — the most restrictive category, alongside heroin and LSD — since the Controlled Substances Act was enacted in 1970. The Biden administration initiated a process to move marijuana to Schedule III — but that process has stalled.

The drug classification level, or schedule, matters a great deal. Federal tax code prohibits businesses trafficking in Schedule I substances from writing off their expenses — a provision originally aimed at illicit drug dealers. But the provision, known as 280E, turns out to be a big financial problem for state-regulated marijuana businesses.If cannabis is moved to Schedule III, U.S. cannabis businesses would no longer have to shoulder such a hefty tax bill. The top 12 U.S. cannabis companies would see their tax bills fall by $800 million a year, according to Viridian Capital Advisors. The move would also further open up cannabis research.Moving marijuana to Schedule III could also have other impacts on the U.S. cannabis industry, said Anthony Coniglio, CEO of NewLake Capital Partners, a lender to some of the country’s largest cannabis companies. It could help advance additional federal legislation to ease the industry’s banking woes and it could also lead to additional legal medical and recreational state marijuana markets.“The long-term impact is much more significant,” Coniglio said, citing long-stalled federal legislation that would make it easier for cannabis companies to access banking services. “It could be a catalyst for other dominoes such as SAFE Banking.”Meanwhile, rumors are flying — at least among marijuana legalization advocates — that the president could remove marijuana from the Controlled Substances Act entirely, treating it just like alcohol or tobacco. Under that scenario, state-regulated marijuana programs would no longer be in violation of federal drug laws.

Removing marijuana from the CSA entirely poses some legal challenges. But the president has not been shy about testing the limits of executive power — as evidenced by his attacks on the courts and efforts to dismantle agencies. Shane Pennington, a partner at the law firm Blank Rome, co-authored an Oklahoma Law Review paper last year outlining how the executive branch could — in theory — deschedule, or remove marijuana from the list of controlled substances, without Congress. But rescheduling is still the more likely scenario, Pennington said. The rescheduling process initiated by the Biden administration stalled after January hearings were canceled by an administrative law judge. Trump could restart the effort or launch his own rescheduling process through the DEA, bypassing the hearings entirely.“ This looks like an easy win,” Pennington said, imagining how Trump could message it. “‘Look I finished the job that Biden couldn’t get done and I did it quickly.’”