Articles

01/16/2019

Not good news!
Only 5 Republican Governors got passing grades from NORML and the 2nd highest grade (C) of this group was Ron DeSantis. :-( The only Republican Governor who got a higher grade (B+) was the Gov. of Vermont who signed a bill that legalized recreational pot! Most Republican governors got Ds and Fs.

01/04/2019

10/01/2018

In summary, when approaching how to define the threshold to report a family to a child welfare system, we must first take into account our state laws. Our medical opinion, however, must be directed by many other factors, including an understanding of the circumstances and the motivation of the parent. Child welfare systems rely on medical providers to make clear statements regarding our medical opinion about whether a child has been abused or neglected. This is a powerful role. We might also use this case to advocate for a change in state laws or policies regarding the well-intentioned use of marijuana in dire circumstances such as the ones that this mother faced.

09/28/2018

The advisory mentions the following risks:
1. Marijuana is addictive. Approximately one in eleven individuals who use marijuana will become addicted. The risk is greater in youth. One in six teenagers who use marijuana will become addicted, and the risk for developing a marijuana substance use disorder further increases for those who use marijuana frequently.....

09/27/2018

• Marijuana is addictive. Approximately one in 11 adults who use marijuana will become addicted, and the risk of addiction is greater among youth.  
• Marijuana now available is more potent with greater levels of tetrahydrocannabinol, or THC, the primary psychoactive substance in Cannabis than marijuana available in previous decades. The long-term health or developmental consequences of exposure to these high concentrations of marijuana are unknown.
• Marijuana use is associated with adverse health outcomes including development of psychoses like schizophrenia and increased risk of motor vehicle crashes.....

09/24/2018

When mothers use marijuana during the first 12 years of their child's life, their cannabis-using children are more likely to start at an earlier age than children of non-using mothers, according to a new study from the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health published in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine. This study is the first to establish a relationship between maternal cannabis use during a child's lifetime and earlier initiation in a nationally-representative, longitudinal cohort and examine the role of race, gender, and other social environmental factors.

09/16/2018

There was more alarming news. Use of illegal drugs, including cocaine, marijuana, and opioids by pregnant women increased significantly between 2015 and 2017. About 7 percent of pregnant women reported using marijuana. Three percent said they used it daily. 

McCance-Katz says marijuana use is linked to fetal growth problems, preterm births, stillbirths, hyperactivity and impaired cognition in newborns. 

09/13/2018

In conclusion, cannabis use is common in people with chronic non-cancer pain who have been prescribed opioids, and interest in medicinal use of cannabis is increasing. We found no evidence that cannabis use improved patient outcomes; those who used cannabis had greater pain and lower self-efficacy in managing pain. Furthermore, we found no evidence that cannabis use reduced pain interference or exerted an opioidsparing effect.

09/13/2018

Over the past several years, FDA has issued several warning letters to firms that market unapproved new drugs that allegedly contain cannabidiol (CBD). As part of these actions, FDA has tested the chemical content of cannabinoid compounds in some of the products, and many were found to not contain the levels of CBD they claimed to contain. It is important to note that these products are not approved by FDA for the diagnosis, cure, mitigation, treatment, or prevention of any disease. Consumers should beware purchasing and using any such products.

09/08/2018

The importance of the published findings and the emerging research regarding the potential negative effects of marijuana on brain development are a cause for concern despite the limited research and are the basis for the following recommendations:

1. Women who are considering becoming pregnant or who are of reproductive age need to be informed about the lack of definitive research and counseled about the current concerns regarding potential adverse effects of THC use on the woman and on fetal, infant, and child development. Marijuana can be included as part of a discussion about the use of tobacco, alcohol, and other drugs and medications during pregnancy.
2. As part of routine anticipatory guidance and in addition to contraception counseling, it is important to advise all adolescents and young women that if they become pregnant, marijuana should not be used during pregnancy.
3. Pregnant women who are using marijuana or other cannabinoid-containing products to treat a medical condition or to treat nausea and vomiting during pregnancy should be counseled about the lack of safety data and the possible adverse effects of THC in these products on the developing fetus and referred to their health care provider for alternative treatments that have better pregnancy-specific safety data.
4. Women of reproductive age who are pregnant or planning to become pregnant and are identified through universal screening as using marijuana should be counseled and, as clinically indicated, receive brief intervention and be referred to treatment.
5. Although marijuana is legal in some states, pregnant women who use marijuana can be subject to child welfare investigations if they have a positive marijuana screen result. Health care providers should emphasize that the purpose of screening is to allow treatment of the woman’s substance use, not to punish or prosecute her.
6. Present data are insufficient to assess the effects of exposure of infants to maternal marijuana use during breastfeeding. As a result, maternal marijuana use while breastfeeding is discouraged. Because the potential risks of infant exposure to marijuana metabolites are unknown, women should be informed of the potential risk of exposure during lactation and encouraged to abstain from using any marijuana products while breastfeeding.
7. Pregnant or breastfeeding women should be cautioned about infant exposure to smoke from marijuana in the environment, given emerging data on the effects of passive marijuana smoke.
8. Women who have become abstinent from previous marijuana use should be encouraged to remain abstinent while pregnant and breastfeeding.
9. Further research regarding the use of and effects of marijuana during pregnancy and breastfeeding is needed.
10. Pediatricians are urged to work with their state and/or local health departments if legalization of marijuana is being considered or has occurred in their state to help with constructive, nonpunitive policy and education for families.

08/20/2018

07/31/2018

A Canadian love-fest for Florida pot companies continues to blossom with a $93 million deal that includes a Ruskin-based grower yet to begin selling marijuana products.
 
In your recent article, Canadian firm strikes a deal to enter Florida marijuana market with Ruskin grower, you have a picture of medical marijuana in a pill bottle and with a prescription pad.  MEDICAL MARIJUANA in this form IS NOT A PRESCRIPTION AND IS NOT FDA APPROVED.. NOR DO ANY MEDICAL ASSOCIATIONS SUPPORT THIS FORM OF MEDICATION.  Please show it for what it is a bag of pot with a label 'medicine'.  #FasleHope #FakeMedicine

07/12/2018

First and foremost, marijuana is already associated with more abuse and dependency (now called substance abuse disorder) than all other illegal drugs combined. Roughly four out of seven problem usersof illegal drugs are using marijuana. This is a dangerous blind spot exploited by many legalization advocates (although some of them are now warning about the growing risk of heavy marijuana use under legalization)....

07/03/2018

The preliminary figures show that 959 people died in Colorado last year from drug poisoning, a figure that includes both intentional and unintentional overdoses. In 2016, 912 people died. In 2000, for comparison, drug poisonings claimed fewer than 400 lives.

07/01/2018

We found that among young recreational cannabis users, a regular dose of cannabis had no effect on simple and learned tasks, but its use led to significant impairments on complex and novel driving-related tasks, as well as perceived driving ability and safety, for up to 5 hours after use. The present finding that the first 5 hours after cannabis use affected driving-related performance substantiates the recommendations of Canada’s Lower-Risk Cannabis Use Guidelines, which recommend waiting 6 hours after cannabis use before driving.30
 

06/05/2018

During the same time period that cigarette smoking around children came down more than 7%, marijuana smoking around children went up nearly 5%. With more and more states legalizing marijuana for recreational use, that number is likely to continue going up.
This is not good. Besides the fact that we don’t want children getting high, or exposed to the dangers of inhaled secondhand marijuana smoke, there is the additional concern about long-term effects on the brain. While research is still ongoing, there is evidence to suggest that when youth and young adults (whose brains are still developing) are exposed to marijuana, it may have permanent effects on executive function, memory, and even IQ.

05/25/2018

When we talk about legalizing marijuana, we must acknowledge that we are talking about legalizing a mind-altering substance that affects the brain by impairing cognition, judgment, and reflexes. We need to discuss the science and data behind the consequences of marijuana consumption on our youth and their developing brains, as this is an issue that is far-too-often overlooked.

05/22/2018

Teens have taken a technology that was supposed to help grownups stop smoking and invented a new kind of bad habit, molded in their own image.

“Juul is already a massive public-health disaster—and without dramatic action it’s going to get much, much, much worse.”

Winickoff believes that the vape industry is co-opting the national wellness trend—“when, in fact, vaping can cause something called bronchiolitis obliterans, or popcorn lung,” he said. Popcorn lung has been linked to diacetyl, an organic compound that some companies use in their e-liquid, and that has been detected as a by-product of e-cigarette vapor. But diacetyl has also been detected in cigarette smoke, at a level hundreds of times greater, and no feasible amount of smoking has been found to cause popcorn lung. (Juul does not use diacetyl in its liquid, and, in tests, the company has found no measurable amounts of diacetyl in the vapor emitted by its devices.)

05/16/2018

The Netherland’s attempt to divide markets into soft vs. hard drugs by allowing coffee shops to sell cannabis did not result in lower consumption of hard drugs. Overall it has been a social disaster.
The cannabis grown and sold today is not same drug as was available in the 1970s. The average THC has increased to more than 15%. Cannabis issue can clearly lead to addiction. The damage to the brain from chronic use is worse compared with chronic use of heroin. Among the negative effects of long-term cannabis use in adolescence include neuropsychological dysfunction, decline in IQ, short memory, among others.
Professor Madras focused on how cannabis smoking can affect the behavior and brains of children. Preclinical tests studies show that the use of cannabis before pregnancy may have adverse effects on future children.

05/16/2018

This report finds that legalization in Illinois, however, would cost at least $670 million, outweighing the projected tax revenue.

05/09/2018

Researchers had two women conduct "mystery caller" phone conversations with employees at 400 dispensaries across the state, telling them that they were eight weeks pregnant and suffering from morning sickness. During the majority of those calls, the employees recommended the women use cannabis products.

04/26/2018

I'm here to tell you this is not a safe drug," McCance-Katz said during a town hall event at "NatCon18," the National Council for Behavioral Health's annual conference.
"Americans have a right to know that and we should be telling them that," she continued.
And while tobacco and alcohol rates have declined among pregnant women in recent years, illicit drugs -- mainly marijuana but also opioids -- have increased from 78,000 women in 2015 to 111,000 in 2016, she said.
On the contrary, "marijuana use was associated with substantially increased risk of addiction and overdose for opioids," she said, citing research from Mark Olfson, MD, MPH, and colleagues in the American Journal of Psychiatry.
 
 

04/20/2018

"Trust me, if the data was coming back and we saw spikes in violent crime, we saw spikes in overall crime, there would be a lot of people looking for that bottle and figuring out how we get the genie back in," he said. "It doesn't seem likely to me, but I'm not ruling it out."

04/17/2018

Conclusions: Our findings disconfirm the hypothesis that a population-level negative correlation between medical marijuana use and prescription drug harms occurs because medical marijuana users are less likely to use prescription drugs, either medically or nonmedically. Medical marijuana users should be a target population in efforts to combat nonmedical prescription drug use.

04/13/2018

04/08/2018

From 2005 to 2015, 4,202 marijuana-related visits were identified. Behavioral health evaluation was obtained for 2,813 (67%); a psychiatric diagnosis was made for the majority (71%) of these visits. Coingestants were common; the most common was ethanol (12%). Marijuana-related visits increased from 1.8 per 1,000 visits in 2009 to 4.9 in 2015. (p = < .0001) CONCLUSIONS: Despite national survey data suggesting no appreciable difference in adolescent marijuana use, our data demonstrate a significant increase in adolescent marijuana-associated emergency department and urgent cares visits in Colorado.

04/08/2018

1. Legalizing cannabis has been shown to increase the rates of motor vehicle accidents.
2. Cannabis use is a risk factor for mental illness.
3. Inhaled Cannabis use is a risk factor for respiratory infections.
4. Cannabis use increases the rate of vascular disease. Cannabis is the third most often identified drug of abuse
5. Cannabis use during pregnancy has been associated with increased risk of adverse birth outcomes
6. Legalization of cannabis has been shown to increase cannabis exposure in the pediatric population.
7. Heavy cannabis use is associated with diminished lifetime achievements.
Doctors must educate the public about the potential harm cannabis causes with heavy, and possibly moderate, widespread use just as they do about the dangers of tobacco use. Tobacco use has declined in the United States in large part because of the knowledge the public now holds about its adverse effects, as opposed to legislative action.

04/02/2018

It is a sham that expands the conditions that qualify an individual for “medical marijuana” to any condition and for any person, no matter of age. It is a scheme to establish a system of “fake” medicine to further the game plan of the marijuana industry for full commercialism that will allow anyone for any reason to buy marijuana for the high they desire and the profit the industry demands. It is now up to the Vermont House to recognize what is happening and stop it before it is too late.

03/10/2018

Overall, while less dangerous than opioids by far, and possibly helpful for some conditions, including pain, no findings, to my knowledge, clearly demonstrate that marijuana use positively impacts people with opioid use disorder. Moreover, marijuana use carries risks, including cannabis use disorder, psychosis and cognitive impairment, as well as additive effects when used with other substances, including opioids.

03/03/2018

Kara Macek, spokeswoman for the GHSA, said the organization could point to several possible factors in the high level of fatalities: increased exposure to danger as more drivers hit the road and more people move to urbanized areas, an uptick in distracted driving from cellphone use, or even an increase in accidents in states that have legalized recreational marijuana use.
The GHSA report noted that in some states that have legalized recreational marijuana — Alaska, Colorado, Maine, Massachusetts, Nevada, Oregon, Washington and the District of Columbia — pedestrian fatalities went up 16.4 percent in early 2017, while all other states saw a 5.8 percent drop.
“We lack causation data, but can see a correlation,” Macek said. “This is a red flag we need to look at as a country. We don't have a position on marijuana legalization, but we do have a position on getting people home safely.”

03/02/2018

Marijuana use is associated with an increased risk of prescription opioid use.  
Marijuana use seems to strengthen the relationship between pain and depression and anxiety, not ease it.

02/14/2018

"Every person I've ever asked that has a drug addiction problem, I would ask them intentionally 'what was your drug of choice that set you on this path?' Marijuana. Every time, marijuana," Judd said.
He went on to say that when you look at all the drugs killing people and contributing to drug related deaths, "leaving marijuana out of the recipe would be a horrible mistake."

02/12/2018

“The violence is there with other drugs, but we don’t see the homicides associated with other narcotics as we do with marijuana,” said Anoka County Sheriff’s Lt. Wayne Heath, commander of the Anoka-Hennepin Narcotics and Violent Crimes Task Force. “No one knows why in marijuana it leads to that extra step.”

02/02/2018

An 11-month-old Colorado boy’s death from a heart condition was likely related to ingestion of marijuana, two Denver doctors have concluded, but the precise link remains unclear.

01/31/2018

Over time, the substance most often found in completed teen suicides is marijuana. Most of these suicides have toxicology results available. It is unclear as to why marijuana is most often present.

01/18/2018

Is Kratom just a tropical plant?
 

01/12/2018

New research reveals that several species, including the northern spotted owl, are succumbing to rat poison from thousands of "unpermitted private marijuana grow sites" in the northwestern California counties of Humboldt, Mendocino and Del Norte.
It's the contamination of the owls' primary food source — mice and rats, which, like humans, are attracted to the aromatic crop — that has been the animals' undoing: Scientists from the University of California, Davis, and the California Academy of Sciences have detected traces of anticoagulant rodenticide in seven of the 10 northern spotted owl carcasses they collected, according to a study published today (Jan. 11) in the journal Avian Conservation and Ecology.

01/10/2018

Tetra Health Care, a California-based chain that hires licensed doctors to write medical marijuana recommendations at six clinics in Florida, is closing all but one to focus on working with state lawmakers to make access easier for patients, a spokeswoman said.

01/10/2018

UC San Diego — along with every other University of California System institution, all of the California State University System, community colleges and private colleges — does not allow marijuana on university grounds or in campus buildings.

01/09/2018

But she didn't have cancer. She had an obscure syndrome called cannabinoid hyperemesis syndrome, a condition only recently acknowledged by the medical community. It affects a small population — namely, a subset of marijuana users who smoke multiple times a day for months, years or even decades.

There's no hard data on the prevalence of the illness. But in California and Colorado, which have loosened marijuana laws in recent years, some emergency physicians say they're seeing it more often. One study in Colorado suggests there may be a link.

01/08/2018

bstract

Although recent Cannabis use is widely reported to be associated with drug-related traffic accidents, the evidence that Cannabis users show an increased risk of being involved in road crashes is still not unequivocally proved. The purpose of the present work is to provide an objective assessment of this hypothesis, by comparing the frequency of occurrence of positive urine analyses in drivers involved in traffic accidents (n = 1406) with that observed in a control population undergoing mandatory urine drug testing (n = 1953). Urine analyses for drugs of abuse were performed by screening immunometric techniques followed by confirmation with UHPLC-QQQ MS, adopting a cut-off concentration for THC-COOH of 15 ng/mL. A case was classified as "positive" when a driver admitted to hospital for road traffic injuries showed urine concentrations of THC-COOH higher than the cut-off. All samples showing positive results for any other controlled drug in urine or blood alcohol concentrations >0.5 mg/mL were excluded from the study. Subjects positive to THC-COOH, and negative to all the other tested substances were 116 in Group 1 (8.2%) and 16 in Group 2 (0.8%). Subjects resulting negative to any tested substances were 1290 in Group 1 and 1937 in Group 2. The frequency of THC-COOH detection in the two groups was compared by using the "chi square" test, which resulted = 119.57, i.e. highly significant (P <<< 0.01). The Odds Ratio of the two groups was =10.88, showing a high degree of association between the presence of THC-COOH in urine and the occurrence of traffic accidents (P < 0.0001). The presented data, proving a high degree of association between Cannabis use and the occurrence of traffic accidents with injuries of the driver, support the use of urine testing for Cannabis in the procedures for the issuing of the driving licence, particularly in the case of subjects formerly or presently using Cannabis. This finding looks even more relevant in the present times, because of the increasing success of the policies of legalization of Cannabis for medical and non-medical purposes.

01/07/2018

Law enforcement officials applauded Sessions' move.

"We applaud the Attorney General for this action today that brings clarity on enforcement of the law by rescinding a confusing policy brought on by the previous administration that hindered law enforcement. This will allow sheriffs to carry out their mission of upholding the rule of law and keeping their communities safe," said National Sheriffs' Association President Harold Eavenson and Executive Director Jonathan Thompson in a statement.

01/04/2018

WASHINGTON - The Department of Justice today issued a memo on federal marijuana enforcement policy announcing a return to the rule of law and the rescission of previous guidance documents. Since the passage of the Controlled Substances Act (CSA) in 1970, Congress has generally prohibited the cultivation, distribution, and possession of marijuana.
In the memorandum, Attorney General Jeff Sessions directs all U.S. Attorneys to enforce the laws enacted by Congress and to follow well-established principles when pursuing prosecutions related to marijuana activities. This return to the rule of law is also a return of trust and local control to federal prosecutors who know where and how to deploy Justice Department resources most effectively to reduce violent crime, stem the tide of the drug crisis, and dismantle criminal gangs.
"It is the mission of the Department of Justice to enforce the laws of the United States, and the previous issuance of guidance undermines the rule of law and the ability of our local, state, tribal, and federal law enforcement partners to carry out this mission," said Attorney General Jeff Sessions. "Therefore, today's memo on federal marijuana enforcement simply directs all U.S. Attorneys to use previously established prosecutorial principles that provide them all the necessary tools to disrupt criminal organizations, tackle the growing drug crisis, and thwart violent crime across our country."

01/01/2018

Conclusions:

Cannabis use appears to increase rather than decrease the risk of developing nonmedical prescription opioid use and opioid use disorder.

12/21/2017

Community-by-community, residents of Massachusetts are deciding if they want to be able to drive to the corner store to buy marijuana.

12/14/2017

NIH’s 2017 Monitoring the Future survey shows both vaping and marijuana are more popular than traditional cigarettes or pain reliever misuse

11/16/2017

Major self-mutilation (amputation, castration, self-inflicted eye injuries) is frequently associated with psychiatric disorders and/or substance abuse. A 35-year-old man presented with behavioral disturbances of sudden onset after oral cannabis consumption and major self-mutilation (attempted amputation of the right arm, self-enucleation of both eyes and impalement) which resulted in death. D

11/16/2017

CONCLUSION:
Cannabis abuse can increase injury severity and prolong workdays lost. Drug testing is recommended for at-risk construction workers with inadequate safety measures.

According to research published earlier this month in the American Journal of Public Health, Colorado’s legalization of recreational marijuana in 2014 coincided with a 6.5 percent reduction in opioid overdose deaths. The researchers studied the opioid overdose rate in the state from 2000 to 2015, and found that after 14 years of a steady rise in opioid overdose deaths, the rate decreased by an average of 0.7 deaths per month.
 
My response:
The  study failed to account for the following:
•             Increased public education about the dangers of opioid prescribing (In 2014, 10.3% of patients received high-dose opioid prescriptions which was reduced to 8.7% in 2016)
•             Use of PDMP  (The rate of multiple provider episodes per 100,000 residents decreased from 60 in 2014 to 32 in 2016)
•             Wider distribution of the overdose-reversing drug naloxone (2011: 997 to 2015: 3,393)
•             Move from Rx opioids to heroin (Heroin overdose deaths increased 50% from 2014 to 2016 while opioid deaths decreased 12%.) Failure to quantify the impacts of the above make it unlikely any researcher could separate out the impacts of all of                them from another potential factor.
 
In addition, there is legitimate research that shows that marijuana use primes the brain for opioid addiction.
http://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/can-marijuana-help-addic... #FakeNews