Articles

04/11/2014

If you don't think promoting marijuana for medical purposes is about making a profit... THINK AGAIN.

04/09/2014

04/04/2014

The coroner also listed "marijuana intoxication" from cannabis-infused cookies as a significant condition contributing to the death.

04/02/2014

04/01/2014

It's time now to change the flawed medical marijuana system by insisting that standard medical procedures be followed in the dispensing of the drug. Let's save our children from the dangers of "marijuana doctors" before all concerns for safety go up in smoke.

04/01/2014

03/25/2014

Marijuana for Epilepsy: Weighing the Evidence, Epilepsy Notes, Andrew N. Wilner, MD, March 25, 2014

In 2011 (more than 2.5 years ago) in "Marijuana: A Viable Epilepsy Therapy?" I reviewed the possibility of marijuana (Cannabis sativa) for the treatment of epilepsy. That article concluded, "More research is needed before patients should consider marijuana for seizure relief, particularly because this represents criminal activity under US federal law and may be accompanied by adverse medical (and legal) events."

What Hasn't Changed Since 2011?

What hasn't changed is the desperation of people with uncontrolled seizures and their families. Heather Jackson, the mother of Zaki, one of the children who responded to Charlotte's web, stated in a Huffington Post video interview, "If you wanted to take my money, I would give it to you. I wanted to save my boy."^[13] Such vulnerable families need to be protected from scams, false promises, and dangerous drugs.

Conclusions

Despite the recent journalistic hype, my 2011 conclusions about "medical marijuana" have not changed. Marijuana is still a schedule I drug. It is not FDA-approved for the treatment of epilepsy or any other neurologic condition. Its medical (and recreational) use is still illegal under federal law. There are no controlled trials demonstrating that marijuana is "safe" or "effective" for the treatment of epilepsy. On the other hand, there is evidence that marijuana may be harmful, particularly in the developing brain after regular use. Synthetic cannabinoids appear even more toxic.

However, for many people with epilepsy, seizures cannot be controlled with FDA-approved medications. Other treatment options, such as the vagus nerve stimulator, responsive neurostimulation, or the ketogenic diet, may not work or may not be appropriate choices. For patients who have exhausted conventional therapies, medical marijuana, for which there is anecdotal evidence of seizure control, could be considered as an unproven, "compassionate use" alternative. Any such use of marijuana should be carefully monitored by a physician. A better alternative for children with intractable epilepsy would be enrollment in the new Epidiolex clinical trial.

03/23/2014

Cannabis is involved in approximately 50% of psychosis, schizophrenia, and schizophreniform psychosis cases Cannabis is a known risk factor for schizophrenia, although the exact neurobiological process through which the effects on psychosis occur is not well understood. Cannabis is also of particular interest in both the first-episode psychosis (FEP) and the ultra high risk (UHR) populations. This is mainly due to their increased susceptibility to cannabis abuse.

03/19/2014

Kevin A. Sabet, the director of the Drug Policy Institute at the University of Florida and a former senior advisor for President Barack Obama's Office of National Drug Control Policy, also takes issue with this sweeping claim.   "Show me that data," Sabet said in reaction to hearing this. "Also, chocolate doesn't cause car crashes or IQ loss or mental illness."

Calvina Fay, executive director of Drug Free America, a nonprofit that educates the public about the dangers of drug abuse, responded, "Unlike marijuana, I am not aware of anyone in treatment for chocolate addiction and it certainly is not a substance that sends people to the hospital or impairs one's ability to work or operate a vehicle or machinery."

03/17/2014

I’d still argue that the police action here was excessive and unnecessary. But it wasn’t nearly as bad as I characterized it. And the timing was, by all appearances, a coincidence.  My apologies for the errors. 

03/11/2014

• Drugged driving kills an average of two people per week in Colorado. That’s more than four times the number of deaths of Columbine and Century Theater combined.
• One half of those deaths are caused by marijuana use.
• Deaths caused by drugged driving are increasing at the same time overall traffic deaths are decreasing. The most rapidly increasing cause of drugged driving deaths is marijuana use.
• Fatalities caused by drivers who tested positive for marijuana increased 26 percent.

03/07/2014

02/27/2014

02/26/2014

Pill mills can become pot shops-  unethical doctors will find a new job!

02/25/2014

There’s no antidote for marijuana but Fitzgerald said those worried about a pet’s recent exposure have a limited amount of time to take action before it’s too late.

02/24/2014

Furthermore, early users of all three substances were more than twice as likely to meet the criteria for marijuana dependence (21% vs. 8%).

02/17/2014

02/15/2014

Cannabinol, a remnant of marijuana, was found in 12.2 percent of those deceased drivers during 2010, (up from 4.2 percent in 1999). Pot was the most common non-alcoholic drug detected by those toxicology screenings.

02/10/2014

02/04/2014

01/30/2014

01/28/2014

01/28/2014

01/24/2014

• A growing body of medical research shows that the psychoactive substance in marijuana may cause permanent cognitive damage when used by adolescents, such as impaired memory and learning.
• The drug can trigger psychotic episodes, especially among vulnerable late adolescents, and the price decreases and social normalization of recreational use will increase the number of underage potheads.
• Very few people are incarcerated for simple possession, which makes up about 88% of arrests. There are currently about 40,000 state and federal prisoners serving time for marijuana-related convictions, and most have violent criminal histories.
• Mr. Obama is also kidding himself if he thinks drug legalization will be a boon to the poor. His own history of drug use is well known, but most users aren't the privileged students of the Punahou School.

01/22/2014

01/21/2014

Marijuana today is "genetically modified," with THC levels that "far surpass the marijuana" of the 1970s.    YES

The number of samples confiscated with a THC concentration greater than 9 percent has increased significantly, from 3.2 percent in 1993 to 21.5 percent of the 1,635 marijuana samples collected in 2007.

01/15/2014

The effects of cannabis, the report continues, can be euphoria or dysphoria, calm, anxiety or even psychosis. Additional phenomena include heightened wakefulness followed by drowsiness, a sharpening of the senses followed by slower comprehension, and increased motor activity followed by problems of coordination. “Many of these side effects of cannabis stems from a high dosage or chronic use,” writes the pharmacists' association.

01/01/2014

12/29/2013

12/27/2013

Not that it wasn’t predictable, but the federal government, fueled by new Monitoring the Future data collected by the University of Michigan on behalf of the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA), is reporting a rise in the illicit use of marijuana among high school students.

12/13/2013

The number of unintentional marijuana poisonings in children rose markedly in Colorado after medical marijuana was decriminalized in 2009, with visits to one emergency department climbing from zero to 2.4% of all poisoning cases in just 2 years, according to a report published online May 27 in JAMA Pediatrics.

11/29/2013

At any given time, the firm has $30 million to $40 million invested in cases awaiting a verdict or settlement. It spends about $45 million annually on advertising, not just television and radio but a sophisticated social media operation led by a team in New Jersey. The firm has zero debt.

11/11/2013

10/17/2013

"Greg and I have never talked about it, but I'm spending a boatload of money to get it on the ballot in Florida this fall," Morgan said. "Now that I know he feels this way, maybe we can do something in Kentucky, too."

10/13/2013

10/10/2013

09/09/2013

Since marijuana contains cancer-causing chemicals (carcinogens) similar to tobacco smoke, your risk for lung cancer may be increased if you smoke marijuana. Also, marijuana users expose their lungs to a larger amount of smoke because they tend to inhale more deeply, smoke without filters, and hold their breath when they inhale. This type of inhalation pattern exposes your lungs to more smoke than a cigarette.

Aspergillus can live on the marijuana plant and be inhaled in the marijuana smoke. It is not recommended that you smoke marijuana if you have cancer, are taking chemotherapy, have had a lung transplant, or have a weak immune system.

Second-hand smoke (inhalation of another person’s marijuana smoke) can cause serious health problems, especially in infants and children or anyone with a chronic lung condition. Second-hand marijuana smoke contains many poisons including cyanide and ammonia.

08/13/2013

07/16/2013

06/25/2013

06/11/2013

Institute for Behavioral and Health- 
The threat to public safety on the roadways posed by marijuana-impaired driving has been pushed to the top of nation’s agenda by the legalization of marijuana in Colorado and Washington as well as by the legalization of “medical” marijuana in 18 states and the District of Columbia. Marijuana has significant impairing psychological and physiological effects on driving. 

06/01/2013

Based on reviews by the National Eye Institute (NEI), the Institute of Medicine (IOM), and on available scientific evidence, the American Academy of Ophthalmology Complementary Therapy Task Force finds no scientific evidence demonstrating increased benefit and/or diminished risk of marijuana use in the treatment of glaucoma compared with the wide variety of pharmaceutical agents now available.

05/01/2013

04/26/2013

"Our results suggest that adolescents are particularly vulnerable to develop cognitive impairment from cannabis and that the drug, far from being harmless, as many teens and even adults are coming to believe, can have severe neurotoxic effects on the adolescent brain,"..

04/01/2013

03/06/2013

2013 University of Maryland summary of Hookah legislation by state.

01/17/2013

In summary, by sampling on use-days and amount used, we find that most of the consumption and, hence, most of the associated intoxication and flow of money into the black markets, comes from people who use frequently. Examining the number of users can be enlightening but does not fully capture the dynamics of cannabis usage. In order to understand market-related quantities like demand, and to better assess implications for crime, health, and productivity, researchers should analyze cannabis usage indicators like use-days and quantity consumed.

01/01/2013

Alcohol is legal and regulated. Its use is our nation’s No. 3 cause of preventable death, behind diet related illness. Alcohol use costs our country at least $185 billion annually — which is also roughly 10 times the amount of money our state and federal governments collect from today’s taxes on the substance (HHS)
Marijuana: According to the 2010 National Study on Drug Use and Health (NSDUH) • Marijuana accounted for 4.5 million of the estimated 7.1 million Americans dependent on or abusing illicit drugs • In 2009, approximately 18 percent of people aged 12 and older entering drug abuse treatment programs reported marijuana as their primary drug of abuse • 61 percent of persons under 15 reported marijuana as their primary drug of abuse

12/09/2012

Several Capital High School students agreed with Graham’s assessment, " that teens are taking advantage of it being easier to shoplift liquor" than beer or wine.

“You’re not an automatic suspect when you walk in a grocery store,” said one student interviewed Tuesday in the school parking lot.

“We’re only catching a small percent of what’s happening,” Graham said. “We are not getting all of the alcohol-related incidents referred for criminal charges.”

School officials and police have said they are concerned that the store’s liquor is sold in the same aisle as soft drinks and energy drinks where students congregate.