Articles

11/07/2015

Inside the home, police found drug paraphernalia, and plastic baggies containing what appeared to be pot-laced push pops, chocolate bars, and other various marijuana infused candies.

11/06/2015

 “It is important to know that legalizing marijuana would not mean greater access to potentially effective treatment for children and adults with a medical illness such as epilepsy. Cannabidiol, or CBD, is not at all marijuana.”

CBD is not medical marijuana. CBD does not get anyone high nor does it increase appetite. It may be beneficial in treating children with rare forms of epilepsy, often difficult to control with medication or other available treatments, but it does not work for everyone with seizures.

“The stories of kids having fewer seizures described in the media are heartwarming and can possibly be of some benefit – just like many other medications available to treat seizures,” Dr. Patel adds.

What are the possible side effects?
CBD can cause nausea, diarrhea, or worse, affect the liver.

Dr. Patel states, “There is nothing natural about marijuana and its components. It is broken down in a person’s liver, similar to many other medications. It has interactions with other medications and is still not fully understood. If further studies show that CBD is safe and effective, it will be sent to the FDA for official approval. If the FDA approves this medication, it will be available in the form of a prescription and no laws will need to be changed.”

“Legalization would make our jobs as medical providers more difficult as we will not know what changing, non-tested preparations a child may be getting. I understand that parents are desperate and want to help their children, however, it is dangerous to give a child or patient a product unless it has been studied properly and is the same consistent product each time.” If the ongoing trials show that Epidiolex is safe and effective, then all people can have access to it through a prescription and know that it has been properly tested and is consistent each month. Medical providers will know how to dose it and it will be regulated by the FDA.

11/04/2015

1. The first major change involves the rising concentrations of tetrahydrocannabinol (THC).As the potency of this drug increased over time, a number of thresholds of toxicity have been exceeded.
2. The anxiety and depression problems resulting from THC consumption are nothing new, but they are much more common now. (I have seen more cases in the last year than in the 4 years prior combined.)
3. Schizophrenia:  All who have suffered this complication have experienced a major decline in functional capacity, often becoming permanently disabled. The prognosis for this condition is very poor. Similar presentations can result from contaminated marijuana.
 
 

11/03/2015

11/01/2015

Adolescent cannabis use increased the odds of non-progression with formal education.

• •Associations for adolescent alcohol use were inconsistent and weaker.
• •Cannabis use accounted for a greater proportion of the overall rate of educational underachievement than alcohol use.
• •Findings inform the debate about the relative harms of cannabis and alcohol use.

10/28/2015

With considerable discussion about Arizona’s education funding, along with high school and college graduation rates, shouldn’t we do all we can to improve our state of education instead of making it much worse by legalizing marijuana?
The Journal Clinical Pediatrics has also found an over 600 percent increase in the amount of marijuana exposure to children six and under in states with marijuana-friendly legislation.

10/19/2015

 But at a bare minimum, these findings suggest we should be avoiding recreational cannabis use during pregnancy. 

10/19/2015

Known as hash oil, wax, dabs, and shatter, concentrates deliver a high so fast and intense many users refer to them as “green crack.” One ounce of the highest potency THC concentrate can yield 560 average tokes on an electronic cigarette. In edibles, Colorado law defines an average serving of THC as 10 milligrams.

The 10-milligram serving size established by Colorado lawmakers means one 1 ounce of high-potency THC oil — the amount one adult is allowed to buy or possess at any given time — also can equal 2,800 average servings. That’s a well-stocked bakery.

Edibles make up about 45 percent of Colorado’s marijuana sales, based on state figures, and are projected to quickly surpass the sale of THC products that are smoked.

10/16/2015

No "anatomic or toxicological" causes of death were found, autopsy documents show. Drug tests revealed only the presence of THC, a chemical found in both prescription drugs and marijuana. The body showed no signs of external injury. The Kentucky medical examiner's office concluded excited delirium killed Gibson.
Excited delirium typically affects those who suffer from mental illness or use illicit drugs. It can manifest as extreme hostility, agitation, super strength and erratic behavior.

10/14/2015

Is legal 'medical' marijuana linked to high youth substance abuse rates?

Let's look at Colorado's substance abuse rates in 2011- 2012 when medical marijuana was legal but recreational pot was not, Colorado youth ages 12- 17 and 18- 25 ranked in the top percentiles for most substance abuse rates: illicit drugs, marijuana, cocaine, non-medical use of painkillers and ranked the lowest for perception of great risk of smoking marijuana.

10/12/2015

Rocky Mountain High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area, Colorado saw a 29 percent increase in emergency room visits, and a 38 percent increase in hospitalizations during retail marijuana’s first year.

10/11/2015

The American Medical Association (AMA) has opposed legalizing marijuana for medical use for many years due to the lack of evidence to support such action. In addition to AMA, the following medical associations also oppose legalizing marijuana or any of its components for medical use before FDA-quality evidence is available.

10/11/2015

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.

10/08/2015

Pharmacokinetic and pharmacodynamic investigations are also required. Finally, the health consequences of passive vaping should be also considered.  
In conclusion, the new social phenomenon of vaping may slide from nicotine towards other psychoactive drugs (e.g., THC); it therefore deserves the urgent scientific investigation and strict risk assessments which are especially important when young people are concerned. In particular, the presence of toxic substances in the cannabis aerosols generated by e-cigs—from multiple models, brands, BHO and e-liquid manufacturers—need to be investigated.
A synthesis of the practical recipes and experiments reported on the Internet (in addition to our own experiments) shows that the simple, direct use of purified cannabis extracts in e-cigs is not easy because cannabinoids are poorly soluble in e-liquids. Indeed, used pure or in mixture with glycerol, the propylene glycol (PG, or propane-1,2-diol) that is commonly used in e-liquids has both hygroscopic and hydrophilic properties. Consequently, it is not miscible with mineral and vegetable oils and fats. In contrast, cannabinoid concentrates are very lipid soluble, but water insoluble. Furthermore, PG, glycerol, terpenoids, plant fats and waxes, cannabinoid concentrates and THC are very viscous substances. Accordingly, the manufacture of a homogeneous solution using these viscous liquids is a tedious task. Cannabinoid concentrates resemble more a thick, sticky, gummy resin than a liquid. We can infer from these facts that they do not mix readily with glycols, and even less so with glycerol. The addition of terpenoids (e.g., limonene) or lecithin has been advocated to help make cannabis oils miscible...

10/01/2015

My main finding is that it's primarily women who were younger when they become mothers who do continue to use marijuana overtime. Also women who are depressed over longer periods of time, women who smoke, women who use more than the recommended amount of alcohol are more likely to continue to use marijuana while pregnant as well as when they're raising their children. So the take-home messages is to ask women about marijuana use. We know that marijuana use is considered more and more acceptable by women and that they may continue to use while they are pregnant and while they are having children.

09/30/2015

The National Survey on Drug Use and Health (NSDUH) is the primary source of information on the prevalence, patterns, and consequences of alcohol, tobacco, and illegal drug use and abuse and mental disorders in the U.S. civilian, non-institutionalized population, age 12 and older. The survey generates estimates at the National, state, and substate levels.

09/30/2015

“Every state must take steps to reduce drug-impaired driving, regardless of the legal status of marijuana,” said Jonathan Adkins, Executive Director of GHSA. “This is the first report to provide states and other stakeholders with the information they need. And we encourage NHTSA to issue guidance on best practices to prevent marijuana-impaired driving. We look to the federal government to take a leadership role in this issue similar to that of drunk driving and seat belt use.”

09/27/2015

The impact of those changes can be seen not just in marijuana sales, but also in lives lost and harmed. In 2014, the report notes, there was a 32 percent increase in marijuana-related traffic deaths in Colorado compared with 2013. Marijuana-related traffic deaths increased 92 percent from 2010 to 2014.
In contrast, the increase in all traffic deaths during that time period was just 8 percent. Had it not been for marijuana-related traffic deaths, the state would have experienced adecline in traffic fatalities.
There's reason to think this problem won't go away soon. According to the report, an estimated 485,000 Colorado adults regularly use marijuana. Adults who consume marijuana almost daily make up the top 21.8 percent of that population — but they account for 66.9 percent of the demand for marijuana.

09/21/2015

• 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.

09/21/2015

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.

09/15/2015

Tom Gorman discusses Colorado Legalization Impact Report for September 2015

09/15/2015

09/14/2015

09/12/2015

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%).

09/09/2015

Rates of vaporizing cannabis using e-cigarettes were high. These findings raise concerns about the lack of e-cigarette regulations and the potential use of e-cigarettes for purposes other than vaping nicotine.

09/09/2015

We do know that smoking is unhealthy.  And that, like tobacco, cannabis contains cancer causing substances. Therefore it would seem likely to increase cancer risk. But we need more research to know this for sure.

09/04/2015

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."

09/02/2015

09/01/2015

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.” 

09/01/2015

"There is some more welcome news for parents as they send their children off to college this fall. Perhaps the most important is that 5 out of every 10 college students have not used any illicit drug in the past year, and more than three-quarters have not used any in the prior month."
Alongside regular users, the number of occasional marijuana users has also increased. Between 2006 and 2014, the percentage of students who reported using marijuana once or more in the prior 30 days increased from 17% to 21%. During the same period, the percentage reporting use in the past year increased from 30% to 34%.

09/01/2015

08/31/2015

"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."  

08/27/2015

“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.”

08/22/2015

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."
 

08/21/2015

“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.

08/19/2015

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.

08/15/2015

Male teens who experiment with cannabis before age 16, and have a high genetic risk for schizophrenia, show a different brain development trajectory than low risk peers who use cannabis.

08/13/2015

"Our study indicates that there are real problems associated with a higher density of marijuana dispensaries in neighborhoods," Mair said. Community discussions are needed to ensure that marijuana laws have the fewest negative consequences for vulnerable people.

08/12/2015

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.”

08/05/2015

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.

08/02/2015

07/31/2015

Brain abnormalities and memory problems were observed in these individuals in their early twenties, two years after they had stopped using marijuana. The cannabis users were noted to have striatal, globus pallidus, and thalamus changes showing these brain regions appearing to shrink and collapse inward. These individuals also had poorer working memory. The earlier the age of cannabis use, the more dramatic the brain changes and memory deficits were noted to be.
Not only does it appear that cannabis use itself is a potential precursor to future drug use, but the age of first use of cannabis and the frequency of cannabis use seem to also be predictors of future substance abuse issues. Studies have shown that over two-thirds of those under the age of 18 who have been admitted to a drug treatment program identify cannabis as their substance of choice.
” One important characteristic that defines a substance use disorder is “an underlying change in brain circuits that may persist beyond detoxification, particularly in individuals with severe disorder"

07/30/2015

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.

07/27/2015

Marijuana should not be legalized in America or the UK.

07/27/2015

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.

07/26/2015

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.

07/24/2015

"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.

07/17/2015

07/16/2015

“Telling someone to use marijuana for PTSD or any mental health problem is like telling them to go get drunk,” says one specialist who has treated the disorder among veterans and active-duty service members for more than 15 years.