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• Prenatal exposure to marijuana has been shown to be predictive of psychotic symptoms in young adulthood.
• Monitoring the Future survey reported a five-year decline in the perceived harm of regularly smoking marijuana, from 52.4% of high school seniors to 36.1%
• Marijuana is the most widely used illegal drug in the United States and it is estimated that it is used by 61% of all persons suffering from a substance use disorder related to drugs other than alcohol.
• The risk of developing addiction associated with cannabis use has been reported to increase to about 17% among those who start using marijuana in adolescence, and to 25-50% among those who smoke marijuana daily.
• Smoke from marijuana combustion has been shown to contain a number of carcinogens and cocarcinogens, as well as many of the toxins, irritants, and carcinogens as tobacco smoke. 
• Marijuana-infused edibles account for 45% of the legal marijuana marketplace.
• AMA Marijuana has a high potential for abuse. It has no scientifically proven, currently accepted medical use for preventing or treating any disease process in the United States.

Number Using Opioids and Marijuana on the Rise

Chart: Colorado among states with growing heroin, prescription drug abuse problem 

Consistent with the past, in 2014 still only 47 percent of operators involved in traffic deaths were tested for drug impairment.

Survey highlights:

• Parents still have a big influence over their children when it comes to using marijuana.
• More than 60 percent of marijuana users don't think it's addictive or damaging to the brain.
• One in 10 surveyed report being high at school and while driving, on a daily basis.

Tom Gorman discusses Colorado Legalization Impact Report for September 2015

This week, the Department of Health and Human Services found that marijuana use among all Americans 12 and over – especially those over 26 – significantly increased in 2014 compared to 2013. The number of 16 and 17 year-olds using marijuana in the past month also increased, (14.2% versus 15.0%).

There are difficulties in researching the effects of cannabis.

1. Many people who smoke cannabis also smoke tobacco. And users of cannabis often mix it with tobacco. This can make it difficult to know whether it is the tobacco, the cannabis, or both that has caused a cancer.
2. The amount of THC in cannabis also varies. Some of the cannabis available today is much stronger than it was 20 years ago. These versions contain more THC.
3. Another difficulty researchers have is in recruiting people who smoke cannabis into studies. Because cannabis is an illegal drug in many countries, people may be reluctant to take part in research. And if they do agree to take part, they may not say how much cannabis they actually smoke.

About 27% of high school students who have used both marijuana and e-cigarettes reported using the devices to vaporize cannabis. Those most likely to vaporize pot with e-cigarettes included males and younger students.

The American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals has seen a similar increase. In 2014, the ASPCA's poison control centers received calls on about 539 cases of animals accidentally consuming cannabis, up from 320 in 2013.
"What's worrying to us is the severity of cases now," says Dr. Heidi Houchen, a veterinarian at Northwest Veterinary Specialists in Clackamas, Ore. "We still see the classic case: red eyes, wobbly, urinating on themselves, a little twitchy ... but they can progress through the sedate, leaning, urine-dribbling stage to becoming completely comatose or absolutely rigid. They've come in and had seizures. They can come in a panic, really sensitive to noise and touch. They can pass away."

The percentage of college students using any illicit drug also rose to 41 percent in 2014, compared to 34 percent in 2006, an increase driven mostly by the uptick in marijuana use, the study said.
In 2014, 35 percent of 19-to-22-year-old high school graduates said they thought regular marijuana use was dangerous compared to 55 percent in 2006, the study said.

See report for details, graphs, data.

In summary, marijuana use is harmful to children and adolescents.  For this reason, the American College of Pediatricians opposes its legalization for recreational use and urges extreme caution in legalizing it for medicinal use.  Likewise, the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry (AACAP) recently offered their own policy statement opposing efforts to legalize marijuana. They similarly pointed out that “marijuana’s deleterious effects on adolescent brain development, cognition, and social functioning may have immediate and long-term implications, including increased risk of motor vehicle accidents, sexual victimization, academic failure, lasting decline in intelligence measures, psychopathology, addiction, and psychosocial and occupational impairment.” 

"According to Ohio Revised Code, the per se limit for marijuana in Ohio is 50 nanograms per milliliter of blood. Young’s test came back at 112.90 nanograms per milliliter, the patrol said."  

“As marijuana is approved for medical or recreational use, we need to carefully consider where we allow dispensaries to be placed,” said lead author Christina Mair, Ph.D., assistant professor in Pitt Public Health’s Department of Behavioral and Community Health Sciences. “Our study indicates that there are real problems associated with a higher density of marijuana dispensaries in neighborhoods. More study and monitoring, coupled with thoughtful legislation and community discussion, will be prudent to ensure that marijuana laws have the fewest negative consequences for vulnerable populations.”

Marijuana use by kids between the ages of 12 and 17 is 58 percent higher in Colorado than the national average, according to the RHMIDTA. The rate of use among college-age adults is 54 percent above the national average. Drug-related suspensions from Colorado schools jumped 34 percent from the 2005-2009 period to the 2010-2014 period, while alcohol-related suspensions stayed flat.
 "Everything they said would happen has not," says Gorman. "They said alcohol use would go down. Alcohol use went up. They said it would eliminate the (marijuana) black market. We are the black market. The trends show that legalization is not working."
 

“We have seen marijuana involvement in fatal crashes remain steady over the years, and then it just spiked in 2014,” said Dr. Staci Hoff, WTSC Data and Research Director.
From 2010-2014, nearly 60 percent of drivers involved in fatal collisions were tested for drugs. Among these tested drivers, approximately 20 percent (349 drivers) were positive for marijuana.
From 2008 through 2014, more than 1,100 people died in impaired collisions in Washington. Impaired driving is involved in nearly half of all traffic deaths and more than 20 percent of serious injury collisions. The highest percentage of these deaths occurs during the summer months.

Overall, these studies seem to indicate that cannabinoids have a significant role to play in the management of chronic pain. However, there are important issues that limit the validity of this conclusion. First and most important is how the improvement in pain was evaluated. In many of the studies, only instruments to measure the level of pain, most notably the Visual Analogue Scale, were used. This is fine when one is measuring acute pain. But when it comes to chronic pain—which is what the studies were looking at—the most important measures of the impact of any treatment are improvement in functioning and other objective measures, such as reduction in use of analgesic medications.
he review found minimal evidence that cannabinoids are beneficial for the nausea and vomiting associated with chemotherapy or for stimulation of appetite in patients with HIV/AIDS. It also found no evidence of effectiveness for the treatment of glaucoma or mental disorders; instead, it found that cannabinoids were more likely to worsen the latter. There was some evidence that cannabinoids might be beneficial for the spasticity associated with multiple sclerosis, but even here the results did not reach statistical significance. 
Current research has fallen far short of criteria required by the FDA to approve any drug, much less for conditions not considered acutely life-threatening and for which there are already many other effective and safe treatments. The variation from state to state as to which medical conditions are approved for cannabinoid use is not because lawmakers have ignored scientific evidence. Rather, it reflects the absence of such evidence and an approval process based on politics, not science.

Pharmacokinetics encompasses the absorption of cannabinoids following diverse routes of administration and from different drug formulations, the distribution of analytes throughout the body, the metabolism of cannabinoids by different tissues and organs, the elimination of cannabinoids from the body in the feces, urine, sweaty oral fluid, and hair, and how these processes change over time. Cannabinoid pharmacokinetic research has been especially challenging because of low analyte concentrations, rapid and extensive metabolism, and physio-chemicaI characteristics that hinder the separation of drugs of interest from biological matrices and from each other, and that lower drug recovery because of adsorption of compounds of interest to multiple surfaces. Mass spectrometric developments now permit highly sensitive and specific measurement of cannabinoids in a wide variety of biological matrices.

THC is a large, fat-soluble molecule whose concentration in the blood rapidly drops as it is sequestered into the body’s fat stores, including the brain.  Immediately after smoking a joint, the THC level will be very high in the blood and very low in the brain.  The THC level in the brain climbs rapidly at the same time that as it is declining in the blood.  At some point, the concentrations cross, and the concentration continues to rise in the brain while it is still declining in the blood, since the brain acts like a sponge, soaking up the partially insoluble THC from the blood.  

It gets called synthetic marijuana, but it’s not marijuana. It is a cannabinoid. And it is confounding health officials and law enforcement. This hour On Point:  the unpredictability and danger of the little packets known as “spice.”

Police said Johnson initially claimed he wasn't the driver of the vehicle, but eventually admitted both to driving and to using marijuana and alcohol prior to the crash.

Prosecutors said McKay, 17, was going 75 miles per hour in a 45 mile per hour zone at 3 a.m. on Sunday when he lost control of his car killing Luther Wiggins-Stoudemire, 18, Kassidy Clark, 16,  and Jenna Farley, 14.
Prosecutors also said McKay admitted smoking marijuana a little more than an hour before the crash.

Marijuana should not be legalized in America or the UK.

Party goers saw the driver, who had a learner’s permit, drinking alcohol and smoking marijuana at the house late into the night before, said a search warrant issued to gather evidence as part of an investigation into possible charges of DUI manslaughter, possession of marijuana, possession of alcohol under 21 years old and possession of drug paraphernalia.

Over the next few hours, the man showed erratic speech and hostile behaviors, the report said. About 2.5 hours after he ate the whole cookie, he jumped off a balcony on the fourth floor of his building, and died from trauma from the fall, the report said.

"She said she didn't know where her son was, and then saw him standing in the living room and made the decision to walk to the manager's office for help instead of going in and getting him out," Nelson said.  By the time she returned, Sosa-Martinez could see her son through the flames, it wasn't too late.

Safety concerns coupled with a lack of evidence of efficacy in controlled studies result in a risk/benefit ratio that does not support use of marijuana for treatment of seizures at this time. Healthcare professionals, patients, and caregivers are reminded that use of marijuana for epilepsy may not be advisable due to this lack of information on safety and efficacy. 

Smoke is harmful to lung health. Whether from burning wood, tobacco or marijuana, toxins and carcinogens are released from the combustion of materials. Smoke from marijuana combustion has been shown to contain many of the same toxins, irritants and carcinogens as tobacco smoke.4-7

American Epilepsy Society- Letter to Gov. Otter, Idaho

Typical "medical" pot user and drug dealer.

Heroin use is part of a larger substance abuse problem.

Nearly all people who used heroin also used at least 1 other drug. Most used at least 3 other drugs.
Heroin is a highly addictive opioid drug with a high risk of overdose and death for users.
People who are addicted to…

Alcohol are 2 times more likely to become addicted to heroin.
Marijuana are 3 times more likely to become addicted to heroin.
Cocaine are 15 times more likely to become addicted to heroin..
Prescription opioid painkillers are 40 times more likely to become addicted to heroin.
SOURCE: National Survey on Drug Use and Health (NSDUH), 2011-2013.

PLEASE note:  23 states in the US have legalized marijuana- using the entire plant as medicine not isolating specific cannabinoids as done in research labs.
However, Dr. McCormick was quick to warn of the dangers of individuals self-medicating, but stated he hopes the research would lead to a "safe synthetic equivalent being available in the future."

“Our courts and prisons are actually filled with people who committed serious crimes while under a drug’s influence or while they were in possession of very large amounts of a drug with the intent to sell it in circumstances associated with violence and/or firearms,” he said. “If anything, we need to conduct more research on how marijuana use contributes to criminal behavior.”

The principal psychoactive constituent of cannabis is Δ9-tetrahydrocannabinol (THC). THC administered intravenously is characterized by the appearance of psychopharmocological effects within 5 minutes, which continue for at least 90 minutes, providing an excellent experimental window.[12] In within-subjects tests with nonclinical volunteers, D'Souza, in particular, has shown that intravenous administration of THC causes schizophrenia-like symptoms, perceptual disturbances, anxiety, and impaired working memory (eg, Morrison et al[13] and D'Souza et al[14,15]). Similar but more pronounced results were found in patients with schizophrenia.[15]

In response to inaccurate statistics from pro-marijuana groups and proposed legislation in South Carolina; the South Carolina Law Enforcement Division (SLED) conducted the following research:
On April 16, 2015, the South Carolina Department of Corrections reported that of the more than 23,000 inmates presently incarcerated, only ten (10) of those inmates had been convicted of possession of marijuana.  All ten (10) inmates were incarcerated for multiple violent offenses, traffic violations, probation violations or negotiated plea bargains.  None of the ten (10) would have been incarcerated at the South Carolina Department of Corrections without other more serious violations accompanying the possession of marijuana offenses.  
     Between April 16, 2015 and July 6, 2015, SLED made random inquiries of seven county detention centers throughout the four regions of the state.  The total inmate population for the seven detention centers was 3,017.  Of those 3,017 inmates, only six (6) (.001%) were incarcerated for possession of marijuana. 

Ellen Snelling, chairman of the Anti-Drug Alliance, lives in Temple Terrace and often participates in the parade. She said the float and the NORML organizers who accompanied it and handed out fliers were out of place at a family-friendly event.
“When you promote drug legalization on a float in a parade, it can give a really bad message to children,” Snelling said. “I believe in free speech, but I think there is a time and a place to conduct speech referring to legalization of drugs, and a children’s parade is not that place.”
Snelling also questioned if the members of the Central Florida NORML chapter used deception to get the float in the parade. She said when she first saw the float it was an unadorned boat, but when she came back 20 minutes later, the wagon was festooned with NORML banners. Atop the green and white float was a fake 10-foot marijuana cigarette, painted red on the tip as if burning.

Seeing advertisements for medical marijuana was related to middle school adolescents' intentions to use marijuana and their actual marijuana use one year later. Researchers say this is particularly important given that the mean age of adolescents surveyed was 13 and initiation of marijuana use during early adolescence is associated with poor school performance, neuropsychological performance deficits and further use of other illicit drugs, such as heroin and cocaine.

Currently, there are several factors hindering adoption:
1.    Illegal at federal level. 
2.    No FDA approval. Medical marijuana is not viewed as safe or effective by the U.S. Food & Drug Administration (FDA).
3.    Lack of proof of efficacy. 
4.    Evidence-based guidelines.
5. Effect on work performance. 
6. Drug-free workplace programs. 

The study found that 10th and 12thgrade use in Colorado increased significantly after medical marijuana. 
The study did not look at recreational marijuana
The study did not look at marijuana use over an extended period of time....read more on link

Trespass grows are large-scale operations, with plant counts numbering anywhere from 1,000-80,000, and they are largely funded and operated by drug trafficking organizations. They are uniformly conducted with flagrant disregard for environmental and social well-being.
The use of these chemicals causes toxic contamination in all aspects of the ecosystem. After these chemicals are dispersed from grow sites and leeched into the soil and water supply, they slowly make their way through the entire food chain. From insects to scavengers to birds, smaller animals to bigger ones, evidence of chemical contaminants from trespass grows is being discovered.

Studies show that children exposed to marijuana in utero have lower scores on tests of visual problem-solving, visual and motor coordination, and visual analysis, compared with children not exposed to the drug, the report states. Prenatal marijuana exposure also has been associated with decreased attention span and behavioral problems. The nervous system of a human fetus can respond to the chemicals in marijuana within 14 weeks of gestation, and studies have shown that 14-year-olds are more likely to be marijuana users if their mothers used the drug during pregnancy.

A National Institute on Drug Abuse study tasked stoned participants with driving a highly sophisticated driving simulator.
 
Researchers found that after their blood levels of THC reached a certain point, the drivers weaved similarly to a driver with a BAC of .08
 
The study also found that combining cannabis and alcohol decreased motor skills even more than just one or the other 

79 different studies: they found only moderate evidence indicating that marijuana reduced nerve pain and pain from cancer. 
If a pharmaceutical company, for example, wanted to get a drug approved for a medical condition and they only submitted anecdotal data, there's absolutely no chance that that drug would be approved.

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.