Articles

06/23/2015

The majority of the products we tested were inaccurately labeled," said study author Ryan Vandrey, of The Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in Baltimore.

06/23/2015

The researchers pooled results from studies that tested marijuana against placebos, usual care or no treatment. That's the most rigorous kind of research but many studies found no conclusive evidence of any benefit. Side effects were common and included dizziness, dry mouth and sleepiness. A less extensive research review in the journal found similar results.

06/20/2015

A systematic review of the benefits and adverse events (AEs)
 
A total of 79 trials (6462 participants) were included; 4 were judged at low risk of bias. Most trials showed improvement in symptoms associated with cannabinoids but these associations did not reach statistical significance in all trials. Data about AEs were reported in 62 studies (127 reports).
 
There was an increased risk of short-term AEs with cannabinoids, including serious AEs. Common AEs included dizziness, dry mouth, nausea, fatigue, somnolence, euphoria, vomiting, disorientation, drowsiness, confusion, loss of balance, and hallucination.
 
Four (5%) trials were judged at low risk of bias, 55 (70%) were judged at high risk of bias, and 20 (25%) at unclear risk of bias (eAppendix 13 in Supplement 2) The major potential source of bias in the trials was incomplete outcome data. More than 50% of trials reported substantial withdrawals and did not adequately account for this in the analysis.
 
Common AEs included asthenia, balance problems, confusion, dizziness, disorientation, diarrhea, euphoria, drowsiness, dry mouth, fatigue, hallucination, nausea, somnolence, and vomiting.
 
There was no clear evidence for a difference in association (either beneficial or harmful) based on type of cannabinoids or mode of administration. Only 2 studies evaluated cannabis.  There was no evidence that the effects of cannabis differed from other cannabinoids.
 
An additional limitation of many included studies was their very small sample sizes.
 
Future studies should assess patient-relevant outcomes (including disease-specific end points, quality of life, and AEs) using standardized outcome measures at similar time points to ensure inclusion in future meta-analyses.
 
Future trials should adhere to the CONSORT (Consolidated Standards of Reporting Trials) reporting standards197 and ensure that appropriate methods are used for randomization, allocation concealment, patient and outcome assessor blinding, handling of withdrawals, and avoiding selective outcome reporting.

06/19/2015

06/15/2015

Finally, from a public health standpoint, it is crucial that we begin to address regulatory standards for this industry given that it is in the early stages; we have a unique opportunity to shape the industry practices as legislation continues to evolve. This could help decrease potentially numerous problems similar to those that have occurred with both alcohol and tobacco advertising.

06/10/2015

06/09/2015

He said users' attitudes conflicted with established scientific evidence, showing cannabis increased the risk of motor vehicle crashes by up to 300 per cent.

06/05/2015

Marijuana has a complex composition, containing 60 known cannabinoid compounds. Study of these compounds is ongoing, and it may well be that one or more of these compounds will become a valuable method of glaucoma treatment. At the present, however, despite public fascination with the concept, smoking marijuana as a way to treat glaucoma is not practical, useful and may be a dangerous option.

06/05/2015

The U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency, in their 2013 National Drug Threat Assessment Summary, noted,“Transnational Criminal Organizations (TCO) and criminal groups will increasingly exploit the opportunities for marijuana cultivation and trafficking created in states that allow ‘medical marijuana’ grows and have legalized marijuana sales and possession.“ Meaning that marijuana legalization may well increase criminal gang activity.

06/05/2015

In March of this year plants at several growing facilities in the Denver area had to be quarantined because of the misuse of “pesticides.” The pesticides, it turns out, were improvised concoctions of chemicals, including some unidentifiable mixtures. Cannabis growers have been left to improvise since no commercial pesticides are labeled for legal use on cannabis plants.
In 2014 and 2015, nearly $6 million in pot revenues have been distributed to local governments. But the cost of increased law enforcement, drugged driving incidents, fatal crashes, loss of productivity and a huge spike in gang-related crime bring into question the cost-benefit of those dollars. Teen drug-relatedschool expulsions are also on the rise. And the notion that prisons filled with minor drug offenders would be relieved of overcrowding—a selling point of legalizing marijuana—has been blown to smithereens. Denver’s homeless population has exploded since Amendment 64 went into effect. And there are indications that finite tourist dollars are going more to pot and less to Colorado’s iconic natural wonders.

06/05/2015

The Gazette kicks off a four-day perspective series, "Clearing the Haze," that examines health, social, regulatory and financial issues associated with the world's boldest experiment with legal marijuana. 
The ugly truth is that Colorado was suckered. It was promised regulation and has been met by an industry that fights tooth and nail any restrictions that limit its profitability. 

06/03/2015

In Chapel Hill this week, four students were taken to the hospital after apparently overdosing.

One of the teens told ABC11 they thought they were using liquid marijuana but instead drank liquid ecstasy.

"You go to the drug store and buy Sudafed, you know exactly what's in it. When they get ecstasy or liquid marijuana, they don't know how much THC is really in that particular item. They don't know if it's mixed with something else," said Rebecca Wheeler, who is a substance abuse prevention health educator with the Poe Center for Health Education.

Liquid marijuana, or the chemical THC, can be bought in cartridges or extracted from marijuana plants.

It is often used in a vaporizer and can appear odorless and colorless making it easy for teens to conceal.

05/26/2015

Nationally, the average price of an ounce of weed is $324. But in four states that have legalized or decriminalized pot – Washington, Oregon, Colorado and Alaska -- the price of an ounce of weed has fallen below $300. Oregon is the cheapest, where an ounce of high-quality marijuana goes for only $204, almost half the cost in North Dakota, the most expensive state.  

05/25/2015

The drug Tian manufactured is a synthetic substance significantly stronger than marijuana that is applied to a smokable plant material.
The drug is transported from China in powdered form, in packages labeled fertilizer or industrial solvents.

05/20/2015

Another death in Colorado has been listed as having “marijuana intoxication” as a factor, according to a CBS4 investigation, and several other families are now saying they believed the deaths of their loved ones can be traced to recreational marijuana use.

05/18/2015

There are a lot of greedy selfish people who are willing to do and say anything to get money. What good is it if your pain is gone and so is your ability to think straight? We exist as humans because we think, not we exist because we don’t have pain.

05/17/2015

Five legal standards are:

1. Does marijuana have a known and reproducible drug chemistry?
2. Does marijuana have adequate safety studies?
3. Are there adequate and controlled studies showing marijuana’s efficacy?
4. Are marijuana’s therapeutic benefits accepted by qualified experts?
5. Are scientific data available for scrutiny?

To sustain the view that marijuana should remain in Schedule I, the prosecution team also had to show that marijuana has:

1. A high potential for abuse,
2. No currently accepted medical use in treatment in the United States, and
3. Unacceptable safety standards for its use under medical supervision.

05/13/2015

Among the 137 people who completed the study, the number of seizures fell by an average of 54 percent, according to a team led by Dr. Orrin Devinsky, of New York University Langone Comprehensive Epilepsy Center in New York City.
 Keep in mind that Epidiolex is VERY different than the so-called low THC strains of marijuana (also known as Charlotte’s Web) that are being grown and sold in several states.  Unlike Epidiolex, the strains of marijuana are  not cloned and the end products vary widely.  Most importantly, these strains contain varying levels of THC whereas Epidiolex is virtually pure CBD.

05/12/2015

Pedro Moreno, 25, is charged with reckless homicide and aggravated driving under the influence in the crash about 5:35 a.m. Wednesday at the Loomis ramp on northbound Interstate 55. Killed was his brother, Enrique Moreno, 28, who lived with Pedro Moreno

05/09/2015

Pot advocates have long claimed that legalization would reduce crime by suppressing illicit trade and increase government revenue all in one fell swoop.
Neither claim has proven true. Revenues from marijuana taxes in Colorado from the first full fiscal year since legalization are projected to be only 58 percent of what was expected. And there has not been a drop off in violent crime either; the state's homicide rate rose 21 percent the year after voters agreed to legalize pot, and in Denver, gang-related murders are up this year, too. 

• Do you think increased marijuana use among teenagers and adults is good for the future of our country?
• Would you want your son or daughter to become involved in using marijuana?
• Do you want more impaired drivers on our interstates and roadways?
• If you were an employer, would you want to hire an employee who uses marijuana? As an employee, do you want to work with drug users who put you at risk and run up healthcare costs?
• Do you think this higher intoxicant level in marijuana is a positive factor for the health and safety of Americans?

05/08/2015

 Russell admitted he had smoked marijuana at lunch and again as he drove to pick up his children in Brodhead, the criminal complaint indicates.“All I did was smoke a bowl of marijuana. It's not like I am high,” Russell is quoted as saying in the criminal complaint.“The defendant did not seem to understand that smoking marijuana and driving were illegal,” the complaint states

05/05/2015

05/03/2015

.03%  or  93,200 children in the U.S. have severe forms of epilepsy and do not respond to current treatments of the population 320,000,000.  
 
Charlotte's Web results....Dr. Chapman and colleagues at Colorado Children’s Hospital and the University of Colorado reviewed cases of 58 children with severe epilepsy who came into their care while using artisanal CBD. Parents reported seizure reduction of 50% or more in only one-third of patients, but except for two children there was no improvement in their EEGs. Adverse effects occurred in 47% of patients: 21% experienced increased or new seizures; 10% suffered developmental regression with one patient needing intubation; one patient died.  

05/03/2015

Marijuana contains more than 400 chemicals. The primary psychoactive chemical is delta-9- tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) and is the component of marijuana principally responsible for the “high” experienced by pot smokers. Along with the high, users exhibit slower reflexes and decreased coordination. Marijuana also impairs judgment. Slower reaction times, impaired judgment, and problems responding to signals and sounds equal dangerous drivers. No wonder those who drive within three hours of smoking marijuana are twice as likely to be involved in a major car crash.

04/30/2015

04/29/2015

04/24/2015

04/22/2015

04/19/2015

04/14/2015

Among the 137 people who completed the study, the number of seizures fell by an average of 54 percent, according to a team led by Dr. Orrin Devinsky, of New York University Langone Comprehensive Epilepsy Center in New York City.
Keep in mind that Epidiolex is VERY different than the so-called low THC strains of marijuana (also known as Charlotte’s Web) that are being grown and sold in several states.  Unlike Epidiolex, the strains of marijuana are  not cloned and the end products vary widely.  Most importantly, these strains contain varying levels of THC whereas Epidiolex is virtually pure CBD.

04/10/2015

Even though they don’t act on the disease, placebos affect how some people feel. This happens in up to 1 of 3 people. A change in a person’s symptoms as a result of getting a placebo is called the placebo effect. Usually the term “placebo effect” speaks to the helpful effects a placebo has in relieving symptoms. This effect usually lasts only a short time. It’s thought to have something to do with the body’s natural chemical ability to briefly relieve pain and certain other symptoms.

04/05/2015

He hoped to make anywhere from $30,000 to $100,000 through this illegal business venture. 

04/04/2015

04/03/2015

04/02/2015

03/30/2015

03/30/2015

03/30/2015

The "gold standard" in medical research is "peer-reviewed, randomized, double-blind" studies, which all medicines are subjected to before the Food and Drug Administration will allow them to be prescribed by doctors to their patients, said Mikaya, who added that none of those studies have been conducted on medical marijuana. In the case of medical marijuana, those studies would show, among other things, whether medical marijuana "is effective as a medicine" and "whether its benefits outweigh its risks," Mikaya said.

03/26/2015

03/26/2015

03/23/2015

More than 40 states have reported seizures of Colorado marijuana and THC products, according to the Rocky Mountain High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area. The federally funded task force also reports that seizures involving Colorado marijuana bound for other states have risen nearly 400 percent, from 58 incidents in 2008 to 288 in 2013 — the year before Colorado’s marijuana retail stores opened. That is consistent with Denver police records showing a nearly 1,000% spike in the amount of marijuana officers have seized — 937 pounds in 2011 compared to a little more than 4 tons last year.

03/22/2015

A study by a team from Children's Hospital Colorado that was presented during the AES Annual Meeting in December 2014 and has recently been accepted for publication in the journal Epilepsy & Behavior, found that artisanal "high CBD" oils resulted in no significant reduction in seizures in the majority of patients and in those for whom the parents reported improvements, these improvements were not associated with improvement in electroencephalograms (EEGs), the gold standard monitoring test for people with epilepsy.

Additionally, in 20% of cases reviewed seizures worsened with use of cannabis and in some patients there were significant adverse events. These are not the stories that you have likely 

heard in your public hearings, but they are the reality of practitioners at Children's Hospital Colorado who have cared for the largest number of cases of children with epilepsy treated with cannabis in the U.S.

03/17/2015

03/15/2015

03/12/2015

The study is among the first to say the hippocampus is shaped differently in heavy marijuana smokers and the different looking shape is directly related to poor long-term memory performance.
The study also found that young adults with schizophrenia who abused cannabis as teens performed about 26 percent more poorly on memory tests than young adults with schizophrenia who never abused cannabis.

03/03/2015

03/01/2015

·        These consequences include impaired short-term memory and decreased concentration, attention span, and problem solving, which clearly interfere with learning. Alterations in motor control, coordination, judgment, reaction time, and tracking ability have also been documented; these may contribute to unintentional deaths and injuries among adolescents (especially those associated with motor vehicles if adolescents drive while intoxicated by marijuana).
·        Negative health effects on lung function associated with smoking marijuana have also been documented, and studies linking marijuana use with higher rates of psychosis in patients with a predisposition to schizophrenia have recently been published, raising concerns about longer-term psychiatric effects. New research has also demonstrated that the adolescent brain, particularly the prefrontal cortex areas controlling judgment and decision-making, is not fully developed until the mid-20s, raising questions about how any substance use may affect the developing brain. Research has shown that the younger an adolescent begins using drugs, including marijuana, the more likely it is that drug dependence or addiction will develop in adulthood.
·         A recent analysis of 4 large epidemiologic trials found that marijuana use during adolescence is associated with reductions in the odds of high school completion and degree attainment and increases in the use of other illicit drugs and suicide attempts in a dose-dependent fashion that suggests that marijuana use is causative.

02/27/2015

Marijuana was found in Moreano’s car and investigators believe booze contributed to the crash, according to a police source.

02/26/2015