Articles

04/02/2015

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.

03/30/2015

03/30/2015

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

A teen accused of killing 16-year-old Broomfield High School student Chad Britton in a November car accident near the school was driving under the influence of marijuana, according to police.
He got behind the wheel of his car after smoking weed, even though a friend tried to persuade him not to drive, police officers testified at a preliminary hearing Tuesday.
The 17-year-old driver, who authorities have not identified because he is a minor, is accused of killing Britton by hitting him with the car. The teen is suspected of smoking marijuana before the crash, and had only had his drivers license for six days, police testified.

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

02/26/2015

Warnings: Stem tea may not relieve your medical condition, but it might make you a bit happy. If you substitute medical marijuana buds and leaves for the stems, you will get very happy, and you will be very tired when the happiness dissipates. The resulting feeling you get from making medicinal stem tea may take between 30 to 50 minutes to hit you, so drink just a small amount and wait before re-dosing.

02/25/2015

02/24/2015

02/21/2015

02/19/2015

02/18/2015

02/18/2015

02/16/2015

New research out of Britain’s Warwick University has found a “significant link” between marijuana use and mania, which can range from hyperactivity and difficulty sleeping to aggression, becoming delusional and hearing voices



 

02/14/2015

02/12/2015

02/11/2015

tudents, parents, teachers and school administrators are finding it increasingly more difficult to protect Colorado youth while at school with nearly 300 different types of edibles on the market.

02/10/2015

Dr Marwaha said: "The observed tendency for cannabis use to precede or coincide with rather than follow mania symptoms, and the more specific association between cannabis use and new onset manic symptoms, suggests potential causal influences from cannabis use to the development of mania. It is a significant link."

02/10/2015

#no2pot

02/10/2015

"We found moderate evidence that maternal use of marijuana during pregnancy is associated with negative effects on exposed offspring, including decreased academic ability, cognitive function and attention. Importantly, these effects may not appear until adolescence.

02/06/2015

Medical cannabinoids are here to stay, but intellectual honesty is imperative if we are moving toward exploiting their potential benefits. Owing to rising THC concentrations of products, "medical" marijuana is rarely good medicine. This review has identified the dangers associated with whole­plant marijuana, whether used for recreational or for supposedly medical purposes.

02/05/2015

02/03/2015

#no2pot #biglies

02/02/2015

Pollster Dan Jones & Associates found that only a third of Idaho residents want to legalize pot, 64 percent oppose and the rest didn’t know.

• 18-24 year-olds oppose pot legalization by 55-47 percent
• 25-34 year-olds oppose it by 61-34 percent
• Idaho Republicans are especially against legalizing marijuana, 80-19 percent.
• 49 percent of Idaho Democrats favor decriminalization of marijuana use, while 48 percent oppose.
• Among political independents, 59 percent oppose legalization, 38 percent favor.

02/02/2015

02/01/2015

The fact is that there is no level of THC in blood above which everyone is impaired, and below which no one is impaired.  This is not because we need more studies; it’s because of human biology. Consider the following three factors.

01/30/2015

Also,  http://attcnetwork.org/marijuana/docs/MJInfographic_Body_final.pdf   #no2pot

01/30/2015

01/29/2015

01/28/2015

01/26/2015

01/25/2015

01/23/2015

01/23/2015

01/20/2015

01/18/2015

Shows that Colorado 12 to 17 age group, 18 to 25, 26+ are significantly higher than US average for past 30 day marijuana use and all showed increased rates between 2011-12 and 2012-13

01/15/2015

Appendix

Changes in Marijuana Use Patterns, Systematic Literature Review, and Possible Marijuana-Related Health Effects

01/14/2015

In 2012 and afterwards California 12th graders as compared to their peers in other states became (a) 25% more likely to have used marijuana in the past 30 days, (b) 20% less likely to perceive regular marijuana use as a great health risk, (c) 20% less likely to strongly disapprove of regular marijuana use, and (d) about 60% more likely to expect to be using marijuana five years in the future. Analysis of 10th graders raises the possibility that the findings among 12th graders may reflect a cohort effect that was set into place two years earlier.

01/05/2015

But having medical value” isn’t the same thing as “being a medicine.” A medicine is a material of known chemical composition and dosage that has been shown in clinical trials to be safe and effective in the management of some condition in some patient population. By that standard, natural cannabis can’t be a medicine, simply because natural cannabis varies so widely in its chemical content: not only from one strain to another, but from one plant to another and even from one bud to another from the same plant.
 
“Blow some weed” is not a prescription. That’s the reason that “rescheduling” cannabis to recognize its medical value is a non-starter legally; rescheduling needs to follow clinical research, and would apply only to specific products, not to the plant generically.

01/04/2015