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The answer was cannabinoid hyperemesis syndrome, or CHS. It’s caused by heavy, long-term use of various forms of marijuana. For unclear reasons, the nausea and vomiting are relieved by hot showers or baths.
“They’ll often present to the emergency department three, four, five different times before we can sort this out,” said Dr. Kennon Heard, an emergency room physician in Aurora, Colorado.

"Every time we destroy a field ... the locals come back to plant after our personnel has left the area," said Colonel Cipriano Cruz Quiroz, chief of staff of a special narcotics eradication unit based in Badiraguato, Sinaloa state.
 

As Dr. Meng reported at the 2016 annual meeting of the American Society of Regional Anesthesia and Pain Medicine (abstract 2909), management of chronic neuropathic pain with available pharmacotherapy is associated with a high failure rate.

“Given the void of effective therapy, there’s been an increase in use and popularity of cannabis and cannabinoid for treating this type of pain,” Dr. Meng said. “The concern that we have, however, is that recent pain guidelines provide contradictory recommendations.”
 

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. Patients freely share their “medicine” with family and friends, and parents are self-diagnosing, and subsequently dosing their children with high-concentration marijuana products for conditions that may simply not exist (attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder, anxiety, etc.); or allow their medical cards to expire and continue to grow their own.
The use of marijuana for medical conditions, including pain, needs robust studies, and subsequent products need more regulation and consistency for public consumption. Colorado is an example of the societal effect across a wide spectrum of arenas that comes with rampant cannabis use, particularly in youth use and impaired driving fatalities. The problems Colorado is seeing completely transcend “responsible use” or “marijuana as medicine.” 

Colorado Assistant Attorney General Michael Song:

• Song cautioned that doctors have to be tightly regulated, with means to punish those abusing the ability to recommend medical marijuana.
• Song said problems are arising as people, for example, eat a whole cookie, or worse, several, while they wait for the effects to hit. Then they wind up in emergency rooms stoned way over the edge.

Now, as citizen groups attempt to put the brakes on the growing industry, a heated debate has emerged about the drug’s societal impact. Doctors report a spike in pot-related emergency room visits—mostly due to people accidentally consuming too much of potent edible pot products. Police face new cartel-related drug operations. Parents worry about marijuana being sold near their homes and schools. And less affluent communities like Pueblo struggle with the unintended consequences of becoming home to this emerging and controversial industry.
Groups serving the poor in Pueblo report a flood of homeless people arriving from other states. Local homeless shelter Posada, for instance, has witnessed a 47% jump in demand since 2014, including 1,200 people who reported to shelter workers that they came to smoke pot or get jobs in the industry, says Posada’s director, Anne Stattelman. She says her funding is tapped out. “It’s changed the culture of our community,” she says.
Since 2013, law officials say, they have busted 88 drug cartel operations across the state, and just last year law-enforcement made a bust that recovered $12 million in illegal marijuana. Adds Coffman: “That’s crime we hadn’t previously had in Colorado.”
Another surprise to many Coloradans is that a promised huge tax windfall to benefit schools hasn’t materialized. Of the $135 million generated in 2015, for example, $20 million goes to regulatory and public-safety efforts related to cannabis, $40 million funds small rural school construction projects, and the rest goes to youth drug prevention and abuse programs. That’s a drop in the bucket for a $6.2 billion education budget.
For a growing number of her neighbors, however, legalized marijuana is starting to feel like a really bad high.

Some people think that marijuana is not truly “addictive” or that people can’t become “hooked” on the drug, but research shows that about 1 in 10 marijuana users will become addicted. For people who begin using before the age of 18, that number rises to 1 in 6.
Marijuana use directly affects the brain — specifically the parts of the brain responsible for memory, learning, attention, decision making, coordination, emotions, and reaction time.
 

According to research studies, marijuana use causes aggressive behavior, causes or exacerbates psychosis and produce paranoias. These effects have been illustrated through case studies of highly publicized incidents and heightened political profiles.

Marijuana is currently a growing risk to the public in the United States. Following expanding public opinion that marijuana provides little risk to health, state and federal legislatures have begun changing laws that will significantly increase accessibility of marijuana. Greater marijuana accessibility, resulting in more use, will lead to increased health risks in all demographic categories across the country. Violence is a well-publicized, prominent risk from the more potent, current marijuana available.

"The study suggests that the effects of cannabis use on verbal intelligence are explained not by neurotoxic effects on the brain, but rather by a possible social mechanism," said lead author Natalie Castellanos-Ryan, Assistant Professor at Universite de Montreal in Canada

Marijuana use during pregnancy can be harmful to your baby’s health. The chemicals in marijuana (in particular,tetrahydrocannabinol or THC) pass through your systemto your baby and can negatively affect your baby’s development.

“There is some misinterpretation that employers can’t fire employees now that [cannabis is] legal, but employers can still enforce their policies as there is nothing in the law that says they have to accommodate that,” said Robin Largent, partner at Carothers Disante & Freudenberger LLP in Sacramento.
However, employers who do not have a well-documented cannabis policy could expose themselves to allegations of discrimination.   “I advise clients to modify their policy if necessary to make clear it’s illegal, giving employees clear expectations,” Daniel said.

After his death, testing of 20 medical marijuana samples from across the state found the vast majority were contaminated with dangerous bacteria and fungi.

Researchers at UC Davis are warning some medical marijuana users after identifying potentially lethal bacteria and mold on cannabis samples from 20 Northern California dispensaries.

Pennsylvania is getting ready to launch its new medical marijuana program next year, but state regulations could keep dispensaries from opening in Philadelphia. But regulations requiring these facilities to be at least 1,000 feet from schools and daycare centers leave little room for the industry to set up shop here, said City Councilman Derek Green.
Pennsylvania medical marijuana.

Short-term side effects include impaired short-term memory, impaired motor function, altered judgment, and, in high doses, paranoia and psychosis. Not to mention that drivers who have recently smoked marijuana are twice as likely to get into a car accident than their sober counterparts.Approximately 9% of people who experiment with marijuana will become addicted.
If marijuana can meet all of the FDA requirements, including efficacy data, evidence of safety, and a meticulous quality control program, then the medicinal use of marijuana could be supported. Until then, we will need smoke and mirrors to make it appear that this drug not only makes people feel good, but is indeed good for you.

UC Davis physician researchers have found that medical marijuana contains multiple bacterial and fungal pathogens that may cause serious and even fatal infections. They warn that smoking, vaping or inhaling aerosolized marijuana could pose a grave risk to patients, especially those with leukemia, lymphoma, AIDS or conditions requiring immune-suppressing therapies.
 
“Infection with the pathogens we found in medical marijuana could lead to serious illness and even death,” said Joseph Tuscano, a professor of internal medicine in the Division of Hematology and Oncology at UC Davis, and a lead study author. “Inhaling marijuana in any form provides a direct portal of entry deep into the lungs where infection can easily take hold.”

Please review the following information to better understand how alcohol misuse impacts our families:

1. Overview of Alcohol Consequences- NIAAA PowerPoint (easy reading)

Consequences

• Physical Effects: Infectious disease, Cancer, Diabetes, Neuropsychiatric disease, Cardiovascular disease, Liver and pancreas disease, Unintentional and intentional injury Heart, liver, pancreas
• Unintentional and Intentional consequences: fatal crashes, falls, drownings, burns, suicide, stabbing, shooting, HOMICIDE, assault, sexual assault, domestic violence, child abuse.
• Social harm: family dysfunction, unemployment, criminal conviction, financial, child & family neglect

Cost of Alcohol Abuse:

• Globally, alcohol is third leading risk factor for premature death and disability
• $223.5 billion in 2006- estimated costs of alcohol abuse in U.S.
• Nearly 60% costs paid by government and others
• 15% of U.S. workforce drinks enough alcohol to lead to workforce impairment

     2.  Teen Theft
Teen shoplifting, liquor a bad mix

• 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.

Doubly illegal: Qualitative accounts of underage alcohol access through theft

• … In addition to 9% of respondents who reported stealing alcohol from commercial outlets themselves, a total of 26% respondents reported occasions when their close friends stole alcohol.

       3.  Florida Ranks 3rd in the Nation for DUI Fatalities
2015 DUI Arrest by County
2014 Summary State DUI arrests and Fatalities
      4.  16-18 other states allow hard liquor in grocery store ailses.
               2016 Issue Briefs for State Policymakers- Healthy Alcohol Market

But the complex details on how to get that done is now being hashed out in Tallahassee and as we uncovered, some key lawmakers in Florida's weed wars are already seeing the green from it.

The Washington Poison Center (WAPC) saw a slight increase in calls regarding opioid exposures in 2016 (n=1,696) compared to 2015 (n=1,672). Of the calls received, over 70% (n=1,199) of the exposures occurred in individuals 20 years of age or older.

The state capital may be in Tallahassee, but the pot shop capital for the South may soon become Tampa. Hillsborough County commissioners stuck down a provision that would have limited the number of marijuana dispensaries/pot shops. What does that mean for citizens living in unincorporated Hillsborough?

“It’s a craze, not an epidemic,” he said, adding that “epidemic” implies something beyond people’s control.

The existence of hallucinations, delusions, and organic brain dysfunction in heavy cannabis users seems to be associated with cannabinoid levels in hair. The continuation of persistent symptoms 3 months after the discontinuation of cannabis abuse, was a remarkable finding. SCIENTIFIC SIGNIFICANCE: We provide evidence that chronic and heavy cannabis abuse results in long-lasting brain dysfunction in all users and in long-lasting schizophrenia-like psychotic symptoms in more than half of all users. These findings suggest a reevaluation of the current classification of cannabis as a "soft narcotic" which erroneously, therefore, is typically considered harmless. (Am J Addict 2017;XX:1-8).

Marijuana legalization also involves significant downsides to existing businesses.  As marijuana use has increased in states that have legalized its use, so has use by employees, both on and off the job.  Large businesses in Colorado now state that after legalization they have had to hire out-of-state residents in order to find employees that can pass a pre-employment drug screen.

Through his research, he believes there may be a link between chronic use of marijuana — especially when started at a young age — and Alzheimer’s. 
Moral issue:  In addition to the money and organizing efforts driving the legalization campaigns, Fortanasce said widespread ignorance has enabled the marijuana lobby to obfuscate the issue. While marijuana may have some medicinal properties (cannabidiol in pot, for example, can help decrease nausea and be used to treat seizures), Fortanasce noted that there are already medications on the market that are far more efficacious than marijuana.

“Instead of people seeing this as a medicine, a lot of people see it as a big business,” anti-drug activist Teresa Miller said. “And it will change our landscape if we end up with pot shops on every corner.”

In a new study, researchers in London, Ontario found that women who used marijuana while pregnant were almost three times more likely to have an infant with low birth weight than women who did not use marijuana.

The number of teenagers sent to emergency rooms more than quadrupled after marijuana was legalized in Colorado — mostly for mental health symptoms, researchers reported Thursday.
They found 639 teenagers who went to one hospital system in Colorado in 2015 had either cannabis in their urine or told a doctor they'd been using cannabis. That's up from 146 in 2005, before the use of marijuana was legalized in Colorado.

The driver, 18-year-old Darion Wheeler died from head and chest trauma. Coroner Stratmoen released toxicology results and determined Wheeler had “Cannabis by-product levels that were higher than 10 times the limit that is considered impaired driving by studies from the National institutes of Health and the Highway Traffic Safety Administration.”

Kirk’s children are seeking damages for negligence, failure to warn, wrongful death, deceptive trade, strict liability, breach of implied warranty, misrepresentation and consumer law  violations. They are represented by Gregory Gold, of Greenwood Village.
The effects of marijuana can be much more powerful when it is eaten rather than smoked. New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd, on a visit to Colorado, wrote a much-cited column about the misery induced by eating marijuana candy.

We should approach mass marijuana production and distribution as we would any other large-scale public health problem. We should do what we can to limit exposure, and we should provide clear, unbiased education. In the case of prevention efforts being unsuccessful, we need to provide immediate treatment and assistance in stopping use. If we are going to use this as a medication, then we should use it as we use other medications. It should have to undergo the same scrutiny, Food and Drug Administration approval, and regulation that any other medication does. Why are we allowing a pass on a medication that very likely would carry with it a black-box warning?

“It’s not the job of the state government to create conditions in which private companies can be profitable for selling marijuana.”  Therefore regulate marijuana like it was a medicine with strict guidelines similar to the FDA process!

The position that medical marijuana dispensaries are prohibited due to the conflict in federal law is not unique. Coral Gables, for instance, holds the same opinion.

Read more here: http://www.miamiherald.com/news/local/community/miami-dade/article151193...

“So called medical marijuana in other states has become a farce and a sham. The average user of smoked medical marijuana has no chronic illness and is a white male in his mid-30s with a history of drug and alcohol abuse. . . In the last 20 years and due to market demand, constant genetic engineering has increased THC potency in marijuana plants, and extraction-concentration methods are becoming extremely popular and widespread. become addicted.”Marijuana is the 2nd leading cause of impaired driving arrests. One in six adolescents trying marijuana will become addicted.
“In the city of Denver since the legalization of marijuana Denver Police Department is dealing with a 900% increase in the unlawful cultivation and manufacture of marijuana concentrate, and a 99% increase in unlawful distribution of marijuana and marijuana concentrate.
Marijuana is the #1 problem in Colorado schools. In school year 2015-16, 63% of all drug related school suspensions were for marijuana. 58% of all drug related school expulsions were for marijuana. 73% of all drug related school referrals to law enforcement were for marijuana violations. Youth past month marijuana use is 74% higher than the national average.

The town suddenly became a haven for recreational pot users, drawing in transients, panhandlers and a large number of homeless drug addicts, according to officials and business owners. Many are coming from New Mexico, Arizona and even New York.
He said he’s also noticed an uptick in crime in the area. Shoplifting, he said, has become a major problem in Durango and business owners are becoming fed up.

But he was also the teen who began smoking marijuana at 14 before turning to oxycontin two years later. He wrecked his mother's car while driving stoned, pilfered money from his friends, dropped out of high school and spent three weeks in jail after his parents turned him in for stealing their credit cards.

Aside from the changes to criminal law, legalization has implications for school safety policies, child abuse and neglect statutes, child care center regulation, advertising restrictions, substance abuse programs, employment law, traffic offenses, banking, state revenue, ports of entry and federalism, among many others.
These policy challenges have far-reaching implications, few have been easy to resolve, and most have drawn time and resources away from other policy areas. But most stakeholders have approached each issue with good faith and an earnest determination to find solutions that gain broad support.

First, dosing of smoked marijuana remains unpredictable. And although much of the medical marijuana debate centers on the effects of single exposures, insufficient information exists regarding the effects of repeated exposures. Approximately 10% of people routinely using marijuana become addicted, with a higher incidence amongst adolescents. Tolerance and down-regulation of receptors have been documented with repeated marijuana use. A marijuana withdrawal syndrome has also been recognized, as has an association with psychosis.

Conclusions One-fifth of the adolescents in our sample followed a pattern of occasional or regular cannabis use, and these young people were more likely to progress to harmful substance use behaviors in early adulthood.

“The pill mills were everywhere,” said Teresa Miller. We had our van stolen from our front yard one Saturday night, and it was abandoned in Brooksville with drugs in it. I don’t want this to happen again, and I don’t want that type of clientele walking through our neighborhood again.”

“John is an old friend who shares the same values [of] trying to hold government accountable and make it more efficient,” Corcoran said. “We share that mission.”
Morgan had been the driving force behind the referendum approved by voters last year, and a bill outlining how medical marijuana regulations would work was passed Friday during the Legislature’s special session. 

She did not specify how many cases involved marijuana mixed with a synthetic opiate.
“Essentially, the message we’ve tried to get out there, is if you are using any form of street drugs, count on them having some form of synthetic opioid mixed in,” Samarco said.
Samarco added that it is nearly impossible to tell which drugs are mixed with a synthetic opiate.
“We can’t tell you for sure until we test the blood of someone who has died or any of the drugs seized by law enforcement,” she added.
Samarco gave a dire warning to all street drug users.
“Just don’t use it. That’s all we can tell you, and we can’t say it enough.”

"It's tied our hands in my opinion," said Commissioner Penny Taylor, who said she wants to ban dispensaries from Collier County. "It's just the lack of local control. We have certainly the folks that need this for their illness, but we have the whole community at large to think about. That’s the big picture." 

A sample of the comments (all left anonymously):

• “I’ve never sentenced a cocaine or heroin addict that didn’t start with marijuana.”
• “90 percent of felons I ever sentenced started their journey to addiction with marijuana.”
• “As a drug court judge, almost every one of my participants, when asked, stated marijuana was their gateway drug.”
• “I have been assigned to drug cases for 11 years and was a police officer for 32 years. Every conversation I had with people on hard drugs, they always started with marijuana. Why do we want to do this with our citizens?”

The research on more than 4,000 students, published in the Review of Economic Studies, found that those who lost access to legal marijuana showed substantial improvement in their grades. Specifically, those banned from cannabis cafes had a more than 5 percent increase in their odds of passing their courses. Low performing students benefited even more, which the researchers noted is particularly important because these students are at high-risk of dropping out. The researchers attribute their results to the students who were denied legal access to marijuana being less likely to use it and to suffer cognitive impairments (e.g., in concentration and memory) as a result.

Abstract

Contemporary models of substance use disorders emphasize the role of cognitive control, which has been linked to difficulties in resisting the use of substances. In the present study, we measured two aspects of cognitive control, response inhibition (operationalized by a Go/NoGo Task) and performance monitoring (operationalized by an Eriksen Flanker Task), in a group of young cannabis-use disorder (CUD) patients and compared these functions with two control groups (i.e. a group of cigarette smokers and a group of non-smokers). We employed both behavioural and electrophysiological measures. The results indicate that CUD patients displayed reduced NoGo-P3 event-related potentials compared with non-smoking controls, but not compared with smoking controls. In addition, CUD patients were slower on Go trials than both control groups. No other between-group electrophysiological or behavioural differences were observed. These results seem to suggest that CUD patients have problems related to response inhibition, but performance monitoring seems relatively unaffected.