Cannabis Legalization Has Led To A Boom In Potent Forms Of The Drug That Present New Hazards For Adolescents

BY TY SCHEPIS

PROFESSOR OF PSYCHOLOGY

TEXAS STATE UNIVERSITY

Eventually, most adults reach a point where we realize we are out of touch with those much younger than us.

Perhaps it is a pop culture reference that sparks the realization. For me, this moment happened when I was in my late 20s and working with adolescents in school settings to help them quit smoking. When other drugs would occasionally come up, I didn’t understand some of the slang terms they used for these drugs. Many people may have that feeling now when the topic of cannabis comes up – especially in its different and newer forms.

As a professor of psychology, I focus my research on substance use in adolescents and young adults. A major change during my time in research is the legalization and explosion of cannabis availability across the U.S.

There are arguments for and against increasing legalization of cannabis for adult use in the U.S., but expanded access to legal cannabis also may have unintended consequences for adolescents. These consequences are compounded by the increasing potency of some cannabis products.

A shifting landscape

I use the word “cannabis” since it refers to the plant from which the drugs are derived. It also serves as a catch-all term for any substance with chemical compounds from cannabis plants and addresses concerns that the word marijuana has some long-standing racist overtones.

Cannabis now comes in a larger variety of forms than it used to. When most people over 40 think of cannabis, they imagine its dried form for smoking. This cannabis was not particularly strong: The average THC concentration of cannabis seized by the Drug Enforcement Agency in 1995 was 4%, while it was roughly 15% in 2021.

In addition to the smoked form, some might remember an edible form, often baked into a dessert like a brownie, or hashish, which is derived from more potent parts of the cannabis plant.

Today there are many different cannabis concentrates that have high levels of THC, typically ranging from 40% to 70%, and more than 80% in some cases, depending on the method of extraction.

These include oils that can be vaporized by vape or dab pens, waxier substances and even powders.

How cannabis derivatives interact with the brain

THC and cannabidiol, or CBD, are the most common chemicals in cannabis. Each one interacts with the brain in different ways, producing different perceived effects.

CBD does not produce the same “high” that THC does, and cannabidiol may have benefits as a medication for severe epilepsy, as well as other potential but as yet unproven medical uses. The differences between THC and CBD come from how they interact with cannabinoid receptors – the proteins onto which these drugs attach – in the brain and body.

However, CBD can also make people sleepy, alter mood in unintended ways and cause stomach upset. Never use a CBD product without consulting a physician.

The changing nature of cannabis products

THC is the chemical most strongly associated with the high from cannabis. By increasing the amount of THC, concentrated products can increase blood levels of THC rapidly and more strongly than nonconcentrates such as traditional smoked cannabis.

Cannabis concentrates also come in many different forms that range from waxy or creamy to hard and brittle. They are made in a variety of ways that may require dry ice, water or flammable solvents such as butane.

The myriad names for cannabis concentrates can be confusing. Concentrate names include “budder,” which refers to a yellowish paste like frosting; “shatter” is made similarly to budder but comes in a thin, brittle and translucent form; there’s also “wax” or “crumble,” which confusingly is not waxy but is more like a powdery or grainy substance; and “keef” or “kief,” which is powdery in nature and derived from the most potent parts of the cannabis plant. It is similar to hashish.

The names change regularly and can vary by guide or from person to person. It is best to ask what a term means from an open and curious place than to act as if you know all the terminology.

Many concentrates are vaporized and inhaled. Vaporizing is different than smoking, as vaporizing heats the concentrate until it becomes a gas, which is inhaled. Smoking involves burning the compound to produce an inhaled gas.

Many who vaporize concentrates call it “dabbing.” This refers to the dab of concentrate to heat, vaporize and inhale.

Another way to vaporize cannabis concentrates is to use a vape pen. Vape pens are sometimes also called dab pens, depending on the local terms.

Cannabis use and adolescents

One of the reasons why young people are drawn to these sorts of products is that vaping or dabbing the concentrated form makes it easier to hide cannabis use. Vaping cannabis does not create the typical smell associated with weed.

A 2021 systematic review found that past-year cannabis vaping nearly doubled from 2017 to 2020 in adolescents - jumping from 7.2% to 13.2%. A more recent study in five northeastern U.S. states found that 12.8% of adolescents vaped cannabis in the past 30 days, a more narrow time frame that suggests potential increases in use. In addition, a 2020 study found that one-third of adolescents who vape do so with cannabis concentrates.

Cannabis use by adolescents is scary because it can alter the way their brains develop. Research shows that the brains of adolescents who use cannabis are less primed to change in response to new experiences, which is a key part of adolescent development. Adolescents who use cannabis are also more likely to experience symptoms of schizophrenia, struggle more in school and engage in other risky behaviors.

The risks of cannabis use are even greater with concentrates because of the high levels of THC. This is true for both adolescents and adults, with greater risk for symptoms of schizophrenia such as hallucinations and delusions, mental health symptoms and more severe cannabis use.

The best analogy is with another drug – alcohol. Most people know that a 12-ounce beer is much less potent than 12 ounces of vodka. Cannabis in smoked form is closer to the beer, while a concentrate is more like the vodka. Neither is safe for an adolescent, but one is even more dangerous.

These dangers make early conversations with kids about cannabis and cannabis concentrates critically important. Research consistently shows that expressing disapproval of drug use makes adolescents less likely to start drug use.

Start these conversations early – ideally before middle school. You can find some helpful online resources to guide the conversation.

While these conversations can be uncomfortable, and you can look like the out-of-touch adult, they can be a major step toward preventing adolescents from using cannabis and other drugs.

Read original story here

Mounting research points to health harms from cannabis, THC and CBD use during pregnancy, adolescence and other periods of rapid development

BY HILARY A. MARUSAK

Cannabis is a widely used psychoactive drug worldwide, and its popularity is growing: The U.S. market for recreational cannabis sales could surpass US$72 billion by 2023.

As of early 2023, 21 U.S. states and the District of Columbia have legalized cannabis for recreational use for people age 21 and up, while 39 states plus the District of Columbia have legalized it for medical use.

The growing wave of legalization and the dramatic increase in cannabis potency over the past two decades have raised concerns among scientists and public health experts about the potential health effects of cannabis use during pregnancy and other vulnerable periods of development, such as the teen years.

I am a developmental neuroscientist specializing in studying what’s known as the endocannabinoid system. This is an evolutionarily ancient system found in humans and other vertebrates that produces natural cannabinoids such as THC and CBD.

Cannabis and its constituents interact with the body’s endocannabinoid system to product their effects. THC and CBD are the most commonly known cannabis extracts and can be synthesized in a lab. My lab also studies the risks versus potential therapeutic value of cannabis and cannabinoids.

People often assume there’s no risk when using cannabis or cannabinoids during vulnerable periods of life, but they’re basing that on little to no data. Our research and that of others suggests that cannabis use during pregnancy and adolescence can present myriad health risks the public should be aware of.

Cannabis use during pregnancy

More and more pregnant people are using cannabis today compared with a decade ago, with some studies showing that nearly 1 in 4 pregnant adolescents report that they use cannabis.

Many cannabis-using people may have not known they were pregnant and stopped using when they found out. Others report using cannabis for its touted ability to ease pregnancy-related symptoms, like nausea and anxiety. However, studies do not yet confirm those health claims. What’s more, the potential harms are often downplayed by pro-cannabis marketing and messaging by dispensaries, advocacy groups and even midwives or doulas.

In addition, physicians and other health care providers often are not knowledgeable enough or don’t feel well equipped to discuss the potential risks and benefits of cannabis with their patients, including during pregnancy.

While research shows that most people who are pregnant perceive little to no risk in using cannabis during pregnancy, the data show there is clear cause for concern. Indeed, a growing number of studies link prenatal cannabis exposure to greater risk of preterm birth, lower birth weight and psychiatric and behavioral problems in children. These include, for example, difficulties with attention, thought, social problems, anxiety and depression.

Cannabis and the developing brain

When cannabis is inhaled, consumed orally or taken in through other routes, it can easily cross through the placenta and deposit in the fetal brain, disrupting brain development.

A recent study from my lab, led by medical student Mohammed Faraj, found that cannabis use during pregnancy can shape the developing brain in ways that are detectable even a decade later.

We used data from the National Institutes of Health Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development Study, which is the largest long-term study of brain development and child and adolescent health in the U.S. It has followed more than 10,000 children and their families from age 9-10 over a 10-year period.

Through that analysis, we linked prenatal cannabis exposure to alterations in functional brain networks in 9- and 10-year-old children. In particular, prenatal cannabis exposure appeared to disrupt the communication between brain networks involved in attentional control, which may explain why children who were exposed to cannabis in utero may develop difficulties with attention or other behavioral issues or mental disorders as they develop.

While alcohol abuse has steadily declined among adolescents since 2000 in the U.S., cannabis use shows the opposite pattern: It increased by 245% during that same period.

Data reported in 2022 from the Monitoring the Future survey of over 50,000 students in the U.S. found that nearly one-third of 12th grade students reported using cannabis in the past year, including cannabis vaping. Yet only about 1 in 4 12th grade students perceive great harm in using cannabis regularly. This suggests that many teens use cannabis, but very few consider it to have potential negative effects.

Cannabis use during adolescence

Research shows that the adolescent brain is primed to engage in high-risk behaviors such as experimenting with cannabis and other substances. Unfortunately, owing to ongoing brain development, the adolescent brain is also particularly susceptible to the effects of cannabis and other substances. Indeed, many neuroscientists now agree that the brain continues to develop well into the second and even third decade of life.

In line with this vulnerability, research shows that, relative to those who did not use cannabis during adolescence, those who started using it during adolescence are at increased risk of developing depression, suicidal ideation, psychosis and reductions in IQ during adolescence and adulthood. Neuroimaging studies also show residual effects of adolescent cannabis use on brain functioning, even later during adulthood.

Reading beyond the label

Despite common misconceptions that cannabis is “all natural” and safe to use during pregnancy or adolescence, the data suggests there are real risks. In fact, in 2019, the U.S. surgeon general issued an advisory against the use of cannabis during pregnancy and adolescence, stating that “no amount … is known to be safe.”

Cannabis may be harmful to the developing brain because it disrupts the developing endocannabinoid system, which plays a critical role in shaping brain development from conception and into adulthood. This includes neural circuits involved in learning, memory, decision-making and emotion regulation.

While much of this research has focused on cannabis use, there is also other research that comes to similar conclusions for THC and CBD in other forms. In fact, although CBD is widely available as an unregulated supplement, we researchers know almost nothing about its effects on the developing brain. Of note, these harms apply not only to smoking, but also to ingesting, vaping or other ways of consuming cannabis or its extracts.

In my view, it’s important that consumers know these risks and recognize that not everything claimed in a label is backed by science. So before you pick up that edible or vape pen for stress, anxiety, or sleep or pain control, it’s important to talk to a health care provider about potential risks – especially if you are or could be pregnant or are a teen or young adult.

READ ORIGINAL STORY HERE

CBD Is Not A Cure-All – Here’s What Science Says About Its Real Health Benefits

BY KENT E VRANA

Over the last five years, an often forgotten piece of U.S. federal legislation – the Agriculture Improvement Act of 2018, also known as the 2018 Farm Bill – has ushered in an explosion of interest in the medical potential of cannabis-derived cannabidiol, or CBD.

After decades of debate, the bill made it legal for farmers to grow industrial hemp, a plant rich in CBD. Hemp itself has tremendous value as a cash crop; it’s used to produce biofuel, textiles and animal feed. But the CBD extracted from the hemp plant also has numerous medicinal properties, with the potential to benefit millions through the treatment of seizure disorders, pain or anxiety.

Prior to the bill’s passage, the resistance to legalizing hemp was due to its association with marijuana, its biological cousin. Though hemp and marijuana belong to the same species of plant, Cannabis sativa, they each have a unique chemistry, with very different characteristics and effects. Marijuana possesses tetrahydrocannabinol, or THC, the chemical that produces the characteristic high that is associated with cannabis. Hemp, on the other hand, is a strain of the cannabis plant that contains virtually no THC, and neither it nor the CBD derived from it can produce a high sensation.

As a professor and chair of the department of pharmacology at Penn State, I have been following research developments with CBD closely and have seen some promising evidence for its role in treating a broad range of medical conditions.

While there is growing evidence that CBD can help with certain conditions, caution is needed. Rigorous scientific studies are limited, so it is important that the marketing of CBD products does not get out ahead of the research and of robust evidence.

Unpacking the hype behind CBD

The primary concern about CBD marketing is that the scientific community is not sure of the best form of CBD to use. CBD can be produced as either a pure compound or a complex mixture of molecules from hemp that constitute CBD oil. CBD can also be formulated as a topical cream or lotion, or as a gummy, capsule or tincture.

Guidance, backed by clinical research, is needed on the best dose and delivery form of CBD for each medical condition. That research is still in progress.

But in the meantime, the siren’s call of the marketplace has sounded and created an environment in which CBD is often hyped as a cure-all – an elixir for insomnia, anxiety, neuropathic pain, cancer and heart disease.

Sadly, there is precious little rigorous scientific evidence to support many of these claims, and much of the existing research has been performed in animal models.

CBD is simply not a panacea for all that ails you.

Childhood seizure disorders

Here’s one thing that is known: Based on rigorous trials with hundreds of patients, CBD has been shown to be a proven safe and effective drug for seizure disorders, particularly in children.

In 2018, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration granted regulatory approval for the use of a purified CBD product sold under the brand name Epidiolex for the treatment of Lennox-Gastaut and Dravet syndromes in children.

These two rare syndromes, appearing early in life, produce large numbers of frequent seizures that are resistant to traditional epilepsy treatments. CBD delivered as an oral solution as Epidiolex, however, can produce a significant reduction – greater than 25% – in the frequency of seizures in these children, with 5% of the patients becoming seizure-free.

More than 200 scientific trials

CBD is what pharmacologists call a promiscuous drug. That means it could be effective for treating a number of medical conditions. In broad strokes, CBD affects more than one process in the body – a term called polypharmacology – and so could benefit more than one medical condition.

As of early 2023, there are 202 ongoing or completed scientific trials examining the effectiveness of CBD in humans on such diverse disorders as chronic pain, substance use disorders, anxiety and arthritis.

In particular, CBD appears to be an anti-inflammatory agent and analgesic, similar to the functions of aspirin. This means it might be helpful for treating people suffering with inflammatory pain, like arthritis, or headaches and body aches.

CBD also holds potential for use in cancer therapy, although it has not been approved by the FDA for this purpose.

The potential for CBD in the context of cancer is twofold:

First, there is evidence that it can directly kill cancer cells, enhancing the ability of traditional therapies to treat the disease. This is not to say that CBD will replace those traditional therapies; the data is not that compelling.

Second, because of its ability to reduce pain and perhaps anxiety, the addition of CBD to a treatment plan may reduce side effects and increase the quality of life for people with cancer.

The risks of unregulated CBD

While prescription CBD is safe when used as directed, other forms of the molecule come with risks. This is especially true for CBD oils. The over-the-counter CBD oil industry is unregulated and not necessarily safe, in that there are no regulatory requirements for monitoring what is in a product.

What’s more, rigorous science does not support the unsubstantiated marketing claims made by many CBD products.

In a 2018 commentary, the author describes the results of his own study, which was published in Dutch (in 2017). His team obtained samples of CBD products from patients and analyzed their content. Virtually none of the 21 samples contained the advertised quantity of CBD; indeed, 13 had little to no CBD at all and many contained significant levels of THC, the compound in marijuana that leads to a high – and that was not supposed to have been present.

In fact, studies have shown that there is little control of the contaminants that may be present in over-the-counter products. The FDA has issued scores of warning letters to companies that market unapproved drugs containing CBD. In spite of the marketing of CBD oils as all-natural, plant-derived products, consumers should be aware of the risks of unknown compounds in their products or unintended interactions with their prescription drugs.

Regulatory guidelines for CBD are sorely lacking. Most recently, in January 2023, the FDA concluded that the existing framework is “not appropriate for CBD” and said it would work with Congress to chart a way forward. In a statement, the agency said that “a new regulatory pathway for CBD is needed that balances individuals’ desire for access to CBD products with the regulatory oversight needed to manage risks.”

As a natural product, CBD is still acting as a drug – much like aspirin, acetaminophen or even a cancer chemotherapy. Health care providers simply need to better understand the risks or benefits.

CBD may interact with the body in ways that are unintended. CBD is eliminated from the body by the same liver enzymes that remove a variety of drugs such as blood thinners, antidepressants and organ transplant drugs. Adding CBD oil to your medication list without consulting a physician could be risky and could interfere with prescription medications.

In an effort to help prevent these unwanted interactions, my colleague Dr. Paul Kocis, a clinical pharmacist, and I have created a free online application called the CANNabinoid Drug Interaction Resource. It identifies how CBD could potentially interact with other prescription medications. And we urge all people to disclose both over-the-counter CBD or recreational or medical marijuana use to their health care providers to prevent undesirable drug interactions.

In the end, I believe that CBD will prove to have a place in people’s medicine cabinets – but not until the medical community has established the right form to take and the right dosage for a given medical condition.

READ ORIGINAL STORY HERE

New California Law Prevents Employers From Taking Action Against Employees Based Solely On Cannabis Use Away From Work

JD SUPRA

BY CONNOR, ERIKA RASCH, PAYNE & FEARS ATTORNEYS

Drug screenings form a routine part of many hiring processes, but a new law may require employers to review this practice. The law, AB 2188, signed by Gov. Gavin Newsom on Sept. 18, 2022, amends the California Fair Employment and Housing Act (FEHA) to prohibit employers from discriminating against workers in hiring, termination, or any term and condition of employment, solely because the worker consumes medical or recreational cannabis outside of the workplace.

The law, which goes into effect Jan. 1, 2024, adds California to an increasing list of states enacting workplace protections for state-legal cannabis use outside of[AD1] the workplace. It will prohibit employers from, for example, penalizing or terminating an employee for admitting to using cannabis while off duty and away from work, or refusing to hire a candidate for failing a drug screening test, if that test detects past use as opposed to active impairment.

AB 2188 does nothing to change the requirement that employers maintain drug- and alcohol-free workplaces, nor does the law give employees license to possess, be impaired by, or use cannabis while on the job. Additionally, employers may still base employment decisions on results from tests that detect active impairment.

Impact on Testing

AB 2188 allows employers to continue to utilize drug testing, so long as the methods used do not screen for “nonpsychoactive cannabis metabolites.” Employers should take note that most drug tests currently relied on, however, do exactly that.

When cannabis is consumed, metabolites of the psychoactive molecule THC are circulated and stored in cells throughout the body. Testing issues arise because these metabolites remain psychoactive for, at most, a few hours but remain present in the body in a nonpsychoactive form for up to several weeks (or longer in the case of chronic users). Because most current tests simply detect the presence of any cannabis metabolite, they fail to distinguish between psychoactive and nonpsychoactive metabolites as the law requires.

Exceptions and Prohibitions

AB 2188 contains several exceptions, including for employers in the building and construction trades, certain federal employers or contractors, or positions requiring a federal government background check or security clearance.

Employer Takeaways

Employers should review their company policies respecting cannabis use and, if necessary, bring them into alignment with AB 2188. If employers utilize drug screening, they also should review the screening method used to ensure that it detects psychoactive THC metabolites or impairment, and not merely the presence of nonpsychoactive metabolites.

Lung Illnesses Send Chill Through US Marijuana Vape Market

In this photo taken Sept. 20, 2019, David Alport, owner of the Bridge City Collective marijuana dispensary in Portland, Ore., goes over sales numbers with the store's general manager Cameron Moore. The company has seen a 31% decrease in its sales of vaping products in the past two weeks. “It’s having an impact on how consumers are behaving,” said Alport. “People are concerned, and we’re concerned.” (AP Photo/Gillian Flaccus)

BY GILLIAN FLACCUS, JENNIFER PELTZ

PORTLAND, ORE. (AP) — Vaping products, one of the fastest-growing segments of the legal marijuana industry, have taken a hit from consumers as public health experts scramble to determine what’s causing a mysterious and sometimes fatal lung disease among people who use e-cigarettes.

The ailment has sickened at least 805 people and killed 12. Some vaped nicotine, but many reported using oil containing THC, marijuana’s high-inducing ingredient, and said they bought products from pop-up shops and other illegal sellers. The only death linked to THC vapes bought at legal shops occurred in Oregon.

Amid the health scare, the amount of the legal pot industry’s revenue that comes from vape products has dropped by 15% nationwide, with some states, including Oregon, seeing decreases of more than 60%.

Health officials in California, home to the world’s largest legal marijuana marketplace, this week issued an advisory urging people to stop all forms of vaping until a cause is determined. Massachusetts, which like California allows so-called recreational use of marijuana by people 21 and older, went further than any other state, issuing a four-month ban on vape sales.

Vaping THC is popular for those desiring quick high without the smoke that comes from lighting up joints. Marijuana companies are trying to boost the public’s confidence by promoting that their vaping products are tested by the government, demanding ingredient lists from their vendors and in some cases pulling items from shelves. Some also are scrambling to get liability insurance.

Still, many have seen notable declines in sales in the few weeks since the health scare emerged on a national scale.

“It’s having an impact on how consumers are behaving,” said David Alport, owner of Bridge City Collective in Portland, which in two weeks saw a 31% drop in sales of vape cartridges that hold the oil that vaporizes when heated. “People are concerned, and we’re concerned.”

In the United States’ booming legal cannabis market, vaping products have exploded in popularity. In roughly two years, they have grown from a small fraction of overall sales to about one-third, with $9.6 billion in sales between 2017 and 2019, according to New Frontier Data, an economic analysis firm that tracks the industry. About one-fifth of U.S. cannabis consumers report using them.

New Frontier found a 15% decline in the market share for vape sales nationwide during the first week of September and saw no rebound in data collected through Sept. 18. At the state level, New Mexico, Massachusetts, Nevada and Montana all saw drops of one-third or more, while California fell by 6%.

Oregon, which announced its death at the beginning of the month and said it was from a vape purchased at a regulated dispensary, saw one of the biggest drops in market share for vape revenue — 62%, said John Kagia, the firm’s chief knowledge officer.

Yet as vape sales sink, some retailers report sales of other cannabis products going up. Bridge City Collective, for example, saw its usually lackluster edible sales increase about 40 percent the same week vaping sales plummeted. Consumers also are showing more interest in the dried flower used in joints.

Analysts are watching to see if vape sales erode further after the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced Thursday that the number of suspected vaping-related illnesses had grown by 52 percent in the past week.

“This is a very, very fast-moving issue, and it will likely be a couple more weeks, if not months, before we understand the impact it’s really had on the retail ecosystem and on consumers’ attitudes,” Kagia said prior to the announcement.

Doctors have said the illnesses resemble an inhalation injury, with the lungs apparently reacting to a caustic substance. So far, no single vaping product or ingredient has been linked to the illnesses.

Health officials in New York are focusing on vitamin E acetate, a viscous solution that’s sometimes added to marijuana oils. Retailers in some markets are pulling products from their shelves that contain that and other additives. Other companies have proactively released public statements saying their vape oils contain only pure THC.

Medicine Man, which operates five retail outlets in Colorado, announced Thursday it has stopped selling vape products with propylene glycol or vitamin E acetate.

“The decision to take this particular product off our shelves was significant, as the confidence and trust of our consumers is paramount to our core values,” Medicine Man President and Chief Executive Officer Sally Vander Veer said. “Hopefully the rest of the industry will also conclude that removing these cannabis products with the chemical additives under scrutiny from the market is in the best interest of consumers and all of us as operators.”

In Illinois, a message board for medical marijuana patients banned posters from sharing home vape recipes.

“I just do THC. No flavor additives. I won’t even take that chance,” said Lisa Haywood, a medical marijuana card holder who lives outside Chicago and follows the board for advice and support.

State regulators track the cannabis sold to consumers but don’t monitor what additives are in marijuana oil vapes. That’s led states to begin discussions of how to tighten restrictions on vaping products even as retailers themselves try to determine which of the products on their shelves contain so-called cutting agents.

“We haven’t evolved our system that far to think about what we would test for in those products. A lot of these additives were conceptual at the time when the (marijuana legalization) law passed and the program came into place,” said Steve Marks, executive director of the Oregon Liquor License Commission, which oversees the state’s cannabis industry.

“Figuring that out is part of the evolution that we have to do as a consumer protection agency,” he said.

Hilary Bricken, a Los Angeles-based attorney whose firm specializes in cannabis business law and regulatory issues, said the legal marijuana industry is moving so fast that many states are “literally making this up as they go,” and the vaping scare has stripped away the sense of security that consumers get from buying from a licensed dispensary.

The vaping crisis will undoubtedly hasten tighter regulation at the state level and force the industry to patrol itself better to avoid crippling lawsuits, she said. The idea of more regulation unnerves some medical marijuana.

If there’s a ban, “what does it do for all these people who have been seeing relief? ... It is going to really impact patients and the industry that we’ve fought” to create, said Melanie Rose Rodgers, a Colorado medical cannabis patient and leader of the state’s chapter of Americans for Safe Access, which advocates for medical marijuana patients.

Bobby Burleson, an analyst with Toronto-based investment and financial services company Canaccord Genuity, said the initial problems for the vape segment of the cannabis industry should moderate, and the health scare may in the end help the legal marijuana industry.

The crisis “should ultimately accelerate the shift away from the black market for cannabis products in the U.S.,” he said.

Flaccus and Peltz, who reported from New York City, are members of AP’s marijuana beat team. Follow

US Awards $3M To Fill Gaps In Medical Marijuana Research

In this Aug. 15, 2019, file photo, marijuana grows at an indoor cannabis farm in Gardena, Calif. With nine research grants announced Thursday, Sept. 19, 2019, the U.S. government will spend $3 million to find out if marijuana can relieve pain, but none of the money will be used to study the part of the plant that gets people high. (AP Photo/Richard Vogel, File)

BY CARLA K. JOHNSON

THE ASSOCIATED PRESS, SEPTEMBER 19, 2019

The U.S. government will spend $3 million to find out if marijuana can relieve pain, but none of the money will be used to study the part of the plant that gets people high.

Nine research grants announced Thursday are for work on CBD, the trendy ingredient showing up in cosmetics and foods, and hundreds of less familiar chemicals. THC research was excluded.

The federal government still considers marijuana an illegal drug, but more than 30 states allow it use for a range of medical problems, some without good evidence.

The science is strongest for chronic pain, the most common reason people give when they enroll in state-approved medical marijuana programs. But little is known about which parts of marijuana are helpful and whether the intoxicating effects of THC can be avoided.

“The science is lagging behind the public use and interest. We’re doing our best to catch up here,” said Dr. David Shurtleff, deputy director of the National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health, which is funding the projects.

THC has been investigated extensively, Shurtleff said, and its potential for addiction and abuse make it unsuitable for treating pain.

Other federal agencies have supported marijuana research, but much of the focus has been on potential harms. Shurtleff said the grants answer the call in a 2017 National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine report, which concluded a lack of marijuana research poses a public health risk.

Another driver is the nation’s opioid addiction crisis, with its roots in overuse of prescription painkillers. The crisis has sparked new scientific interest in marijuana’s pain-easing properties.

Dr. Judith Hellman, a grant recipient from University of California San Francisco, said scientists need to better understand pain and to find more ways to treat it. “It’s very exciting to have the opportunity to do that,” she said.

Hellman’s research involves the body’s ability to produce signaling molecules similar to marijuana’s ingredients. Her and Dr. Mark Schumacher’s work involves human immune cells in the lab, then tests on mice.

Human test subjects will be involved in only one of the grant projects. University of Utah researcher Deborah Yurgelun-Todd will scan the brains of human volunteers with lower back pain to see how CBD extract — mixed with chocolate pudding — affects pain-signaling pathways. Half the volunteers will get pudding without CBD as a control group.

Two more human studies may be funded in a second round of grant awards, NCCIH said.

In July, the National Institute on Drug Abuse said it would grow 2,000 kilograms (4,409 pounds) of marijuana this year at the University of Mississippi, which holds the sole federal contract for producing research cannabis. Those plants won’t be used in many of the new projects, which instead will use lab-made versions of the chemicals.

Researchers in Illinois hope to create a library of useful compounds found in cannabis plants.

“We make them from scratch and test them one by one,” said David Sarlah of the University of Illinois. Marijuana contains such tiny amounts of the interesting ingredients that it’s too costly and time consuming to isolate enough for research, Sarlah said.

Sarlah, an organic chemist, will make the chemicals. His colleague Aditi Das will run tests to see how they react with mouse immune cells.

“There are so many beneficial effects that patients report. We need to know the science behind it,” Das said.

Follow AP Medical Writer Carla K. Johnson on Twitter: @CarlaKJohnson

The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Department of Science Education. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

Marijuana Use By US College Students Up, Highest In 35 Years

This Aug. 15, 2019 file photo shows a marijuana plant in an indoor cannabis farm in Gardena, Calif. A survey released on Thursday, Sept. 5, 2019 says U.S. college students are using marijuana at the highest rates in 35 years. Marijuana use continues to be higher in college-age adults than any other age group. (AP Photo/Richard Vogel, File)

BY NMIKE STOBBE

NEW YORK (AP) — U.S. college students are using marijuana at the highest rates in 35 years, according to a report released Thursday.

About 43% of full-time college students said they used some form of pot at least once in the past year, up from 38%, a University of Michigan survey found. About 25% said they did so in the previous month, up from 21%.

The latest figures are the highest levels seen in the annual survey since 1983.

About 6% of college students said they used marijuana 20 or more times in the past month. For adults the same age who weren’t enrolled in college, the figure was 11%.


“It’s the frequent use we’re most worried about” because it’s linked to poor academic performance and can be detrimental to mental health, said John Schulenberg, one of the Michigan researchers.

College-age adults are the biggest users of marijuana than any other age group. Use among high school students has been flat for a few years.

The 2018 findings are based on responses from about 1,400 adults age 19 to 22, including 900 who were full-time college students and about 500 who were not.

The survey only has comparable data on college kids going back to 1980. So it doesn’t say how common marijuana use was in the 1960′s and 1970′s — a time when marijuana use on college campuses was considered widespread.

Marijuana use has been rising in college-age kids for more than a decade. Schulenberg said it seems to be tied to views about risk — in the early 1990s, about three-quarters of young adults said pot was risky. But last year it was down to 22%.

The survey also found about 11% of college students said they vaped marijuana in the previous month — more than double the figure in the 2017 survey.

___

The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Department of Science Education. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

US Growing Largest Crop Of Marijuana For Research In 5 Years

This 2014 photo provided by the University of Mississippi shows marijuana plants growing at the Ole Miss medicinal gardens in University, Miss. The plants are used for research under a contract from the National Institute on Drug Abuse. The planned NIDA grow for 2019 will be divided between high THC and high CBD varieties with “recent interest (in CBD) as a potential medicine for a number of medical conditions,” NIDA said. (Robert Jordan/University of Mississippi via AP)

BY CARLA K. JOHNSON

THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

The U.S. government is growing the largest crop of research marijuana in five years, responding to interest in varieties with high levels of THC and CBD.

The government is the only source of pot for nearly all research in the U.S., while it still considers it illegal and dangerous.

Scientists have asked for weed that more closely matches what’s sold in states that have legalized medical or recreational marijuana, the National Institute on Drug Abuse said in an email Thursday to The Associated Press.

The federal agency said it plans to grow 2,000 kilograms (4,409 pounds) this year at the University of Mississippi, which holds the sole federal contract for producing marijuana. That’s enough for 5 million joints, although the government provides the marijuana in different forms.

The crop will be divided between high THC and high CBD varieties with “recent interest (in CBD) as a potential medicine for a number of medical conditions,” NIDA said. The compound THC causes pot’s mind-altering effect; CBD doesn’t get people high.

Last year, a CBD-based drug was approved by federal regulators for two rare seizure disorders and researchers are pursuing research on it for other conditions. Others are focused on THC.

“We want to study what our patients are using,” said University of Colorado Assistant Professor Emily Lindley, who is investigating marijuana with high THC as an alternative to opioids for chronic back pain.

Lindley and other researchers want others besides the University of Mississippi to get federal authorization to grow research pot. The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration created an application process for growers, but has not acted on more than two dozen applications. In June, Scottsdale Research Institute in Arizona asked the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia to order the DEA to process the applications.

“We are still working through the process and those applications remain under review,” said DEA spokeswoman Katherine Pfaff in an email Thursday. She declined to comment on the litigation.

In response to questions from the AP, NIDA said there had been no major increase in demand for cannabis by researchers in recent years. Last year, 20 researchers got shipments of government marijuana, much of it from frozen cannabis grown in 2014. Since 2010, the number of researchers receiving government marijuana has ranged from eight to 21.

Researchers should be able to obtain material from the new crop in the fall after harvest and analyses are completed, NIDA said.

Follow AP Medical Writer Carla K. Johnson on Twitter: @CarlaKJohnson

The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Department of Science Education. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

Utah Farmers And Entrepreneurs Compete To Grow Medical Pot

In this Tuesday, July 2, 2019 photo, Darren Johnson, a hemp processor, holds raw hemp that will be used to make CBD oil at his processing facility, Wasatch Extraction, in Salt Lake City. Johnson is one of 81 applicants vying for a medical marijuana growers license in Utah. (AP Photo/Morgan Smith)

BY MORGAN SMITH

NEPHI, UTAH (AP) — The wide metal barn on the Utah alfalfa farm owned by Russell and Diane Jones will host their youngest son’s wedding next month. By September, they hope the structure will be full of marijuana plants.

The Joneses are fourth-generation farmers, members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and among 81 applicants for one of a handful of coveted spots as a licensed medical marijuana grower in conservative Utah.

Though leaders of their faith once opposed the bid to legalize medical marijuana, Russell Jones says he researched the drug’s pain-relieving benefits as he battled Hodgkin’s lymphoma. Now he and his wife want to be part of an emerging industry that some doubted would ever come to the state.


“This is groundbreaking for Utah,” Diane Jones said. “Who doesn’t want to make history?”

Others hoping to win licenses include larger operations that grow hemp, and a handful of out-of-state growers. State officials are expected to begin awarding up to 10 licenses later this month.

The state recently opened the licensing process to out-of-state growers, a change that makes locals like hemp processor Darren Johnson nervous.

“Does it bode well for me? No, but they want it to be seamless. They don’t want hiccups. And I get that,” he said.

Some applicants worry the process stacks the deck against local growers in favor of “Big Weed,” or companies that have successfully grown cannabis in other states where the crop is legal. The application requires a $2,500 fee, and submissions are hundreds of pages long. Those who get a license pay $100,000 every year to keep it, in addition to buying tools and facilities that can cost millions.

Department of Agriculture officials said they are awarding extra points to applicants with community ties as they review applications. Eight applications came from out-of-state growers. The state is looking for farmers able to expand operations as demand increases while keeping costs low and growing plants free of mold and pesticides.

At an indoor facility in North Salt Lake, Troy Young tends to rows of hemp plants under the harsh, purple glow of LED lights designed to nurture growth. Young grows industrial hemp, a nonpsychoactive cousin of marijuana legalized in Utah last year.

He is among a number of ambitious growers who have invested in equipment and set aside money hoping to receive a license to grow medical marijuana.

Cannabis in its various forms is challenging to grow and requires a lot of experimentation, he said.

“It’s fun for me. I get to be a mad scientist,” said Young, 52. He has a personal stake in marijuana legalization. Young lost his mother to an opioid addiction. If she had access to a less destructive pain-relieving drug, like marijuana, he said, maybe she’d still be alive.

Marijuana has been shown to help ease chronic pain, and studies have suggested medical marijuana laws may reduce opioid prescribing.

“There’s a real need for it. It’s not just about the high,” Young said.

Johnson, the hemp processor, has a spacious warehouse in Salt Lake City with a team of technicians and equipment primed to grow medical marijuana. One room is filled with large beakers. Sticky hemp drips through paper filters and into the glass to extract CBD oil.

Hemp is his side business. Johnson works full-time in construction but views cultivating marijuana as a smart, long-term investment.

“Once (medical marijuana) becomes less taboo and people opt for that over an opiate-based drug, we’re going to see more demand and a stronger market,” he said.

Revenues from the state’s medical cannabis program are projected to reach $5.4 million in 2020 then grow to $16.2 million in 2021, said Richard Oborn, director of the state health department’s Center of Medical Cannabis.

Utah joined 33 states in legalizing medical marijuana after voters approved a new law last year.

Leaders of the state’s predominant faith originally opposed the push to ask voters to approve medical marijuana but eventually struck a compromise with some advocates to allow medicinal use of the drug with more regulation.

Whoever wins the state’s 10 grower licenses will have to grow the cannabis in Utah. The state also will choose licensed processors to make medical marijuana products to be sold in dispensaries expected to open next year.

Marijuana Use Doubles In US Pregnant Women To 1 In 14

This Nov. 27, 2015 file photo shows two marijuana buds displayed for a customer in Denver. A government report released on Tuesday, June 17, 2019 shows that pot use in pregnancy has doubled among U.S. women and is most common during the first trimester. (AP Photo/David Zalubowski, File)


BY LINDSEY TANNER

CHICAGO (AP) — Pot use in pregnancy has doubled among U.S. women and is most common during the first trimester, government research shows.

Overall, 7% of pregnant women, or 1 in 14, said they used marijuana in the past month. That’s from a nationally representative health survey in 2016-17 and compares with a little over 3% in 2002-03.

Some studies have linked marijuana use during pregnancy with increased chances of premature birth and low birthweight. Animal studies have linked high doses early in pregnancy with fetal brain abnormalities, but whether typical use in humans poses similar risks is unknown, said Dr. Nora Volkow, director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse.

“Because we don’t know exactly how harmful it is, it’s better to err on the side of caution,” said Volkow, one of the authors of the government study. Marijuana use during pregnancy “is not worth the risk,” she said Tuesday.

The study was presented at a medical meeting Tuesday and published online in the Journal of the American Medical Association.

First trimester use jumped from almost 6% to 12%. Many women may have used pot before they learned they were pregnant, or used it to ease morning sickness, although few women said a doctor had recommended it, Volkow said.

Among women who weren’t pregnant, the rate of marijuana use increased from almost 7% to nearly 12%, or 1 in 8.

The results are based on health surveys involving nearly half a million U.S. women who were questioned during a period when rising numbers of states legalized marijuana for medical or recreational use. It’s legal in 10 states for both uses but remains illegal federally.

A separate study on marijuana use among pregnant Canadian women, published in the same journal, adds to evidence suggesting that pot use in pregnancy may lead to premature birth. A journal editorial notes that like similar previous studies, the Canadian research can’t rule out whether other factors that may have contributed.

The editorial warned against relying on imperfect data to make judgments about potential harms from marijuana use and said more rigorous research is needed. Volkow said U.S. government restrictions on marijuana research are “very much an issue” and have hampered efforts to answer fundamental questions about pot use.

Follow AP Medical Writer Lindsey Tanner at @LindseyTanner.

The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Department of Science Education. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

Growers Hope Standards Bring Order To Hemp Industry 'Mess'

In this Thursday, June 13, 2019, photo, Jennifer Lane, a student intern at the Oregon State University Extension Center, plants a hemp seedling in a field at one of the research stations for Oregon State's newly announced Global Hemp Innovation Center in Aurora, Ore. The center will be the largest such research hub in the U.S. (AP Photo/Gillian Flaccus)
BY GILLIAN FLACCUS

AURORA, OREGON. (AP) — A unit of wheat is called a bushel, and a standard weight of potatoes is called a century. But hemp as a fully legal U.S. agricultural commodity is so new that a unit of hemp seed doesn’t yet have a universal name or an agreed-upon quantity.

That’s one example of the startling lack of uniformity — and accountability — in an industry that’s sprung up almost overnight since the U.S. late last year removed hemp from the controlled substances list.

A global hemp research lab announced Thursday in Oregon, coupled with a nascent national review board for hemp varieties and a handful of seed certification programs nationwide, are the first stabs at addressing those concerns — and at creating accountability by standardizing U.S. hemp for a global market.

“If you look at a lot of financial markets, they’re all saying, ’People are investing in this, and we have no idea what to divide it by,” said Jay Noller, head of Oregon State University’s new Global Hemp Innovation Center. “We have hemp fiber. What is it? What’s the standard length?”

Oregon State’s research hub will be the United States’ largest and will offer a certification for hemp seed that guarantees farmers the seed they’re buying is legitimate and legal. That’s a critical need when individual hemp seeds are selling for $1.20 to $1.40 each — and an acre of crop takes up to 2,000 seeds, Noller said.

Licensed hemp acreage in Oregon, which has an ideal climate for growing the crop, has increased six-fold since last year, earning Oregon the No. 3 spot for hemp cultivation after Montana and Colorado, according to Vote Hemp, which advocates for and tracks the industry in the U.S.

Four other states — North Dakota, Colorado, Tennessee and North Carolina — also have hemp seed certification programs. Other U.S. universities, such as Cornell in Ithaca, New York, have hemp research programs, but Oregon State’s will be the largest, built on years of hemp research done in test fields in China, Bosnia and Serbia and now at 10 research stations sprinkled across the state. On Thursday, Oregon State researchers began to sow their third crop in a field in Aurora.

The new center dovetails with a greater movement to create a national infrastructure around hemp as the market explodes. Globally, the supply of hemp is less than 10% of the demand, and that’s driving states like Oregon to rush to stake a claim in the international marketplace, Noller said.

Across the U.S., the number of licensed acres of hemp jumped 204% from 2017 to 2018, according to Vote Hemp. And the market for a hemp-derived extract called cannabidiol, or CBD, is expected to grow from $618 million in 2018 to $22 billion in 2022 as its popularity as a health aide skyrockets.

The U.S. National Review Board for Hemp Varieties will start taking applications in the fall from growers who want to claim credit for specific genetic varieties of hemp. Once growers have secured a unique designation from the board, they can apply for a plant patent with the U.S. government so no other grower can produce that type of hemp.

A meeting in Harbin, China, in early July will bring together members of the global hemp industry to start to hash out critical details such as what to call a unit of hemp seed or the standard length of hemp fiber, Noller said. Other countries, such as China, have been growing hemp for years, but the industry lacks a universal standard countries can apply to trade, he said.

“This is the first time in U.S. history where we have a new crop that’s suddenly gone from prohibited to no longer prohibited,” Noller said. “We have never had something like this.”

Hemp growers like Trey Willison applauded the move toward greater transparency in a booming market.

Some novice farmers are falling prey to seed sellers who secretly, or even unwittingly, market seed that grows into “hot” cannabis plants, with THC levels too high to market legally as hemp, he said.

Hemp and marijuana are both cannabis plants but have different THC levels. Marijuana, illegal under federal law, refers to plants with more than a trace of THC. Hemp has almost no THC — 0.3% or less under U.S. government standards.

States with hemp programs test for THC in the crops, but do so after the plants are grown and close to harvest. Crops that test over the THC limit for hemp must be destroyed — and farmers with bad seed might not know until it’s too late, Willison said.

In one case last year, an Oregon seed seller marketed seeds on Craigslist as having a 3-to-1 CBD to THC ratio — but unbeknownst to farmers, the THC levels were still too high to be legal, he said. Several farms in Wisconsin, where agricultural hemp was just getting underway, bought the seeds and then went under when the resulting plants tested “hot,” Willison said.

The seeds “look identical, and you can’t tell them apart until four months into the year, when you know something’s wrong,” he said. “A bunch of farms failed, and it originated in Oregon.”

Other sellers are marking up the cost of what he called “garbage seed” as much as 1,000 times, said Willison, who started Unique Botanicals in Springfield, about 100 miles (160 kilometers) south of Portland, after leaving his marijuana-growing business due to a glut of weed in the Oregon market.

“A lot of people say, ‘Is your seed certified?’ and there’s no such thing as certified seed right now. There’s no test, there’s no oversight. ... There’s no proof of where the seed is coming from,” he said.

“They’re trying. It’s at the very beginning, for sure, but they are trying to do something about this mess.”

Flaccus is a member of AP’s marijuana beat team. Follow her on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/gflaccus . Follow AP’s complete marijuana coverage: https://apnews.com/Marijuana

Mike Tyson Wants To Expand His California Ranch Into 'The Lollapalooza Of Cannabis'

Mike Tyson in his cannabis ranch. Image: Instagram via Metro

BY EMMA SPEARS

Iron Mike plans to use the resort to hold a music festival, build a video game arena and install a “lazy river” where guests can float and chill.

Boxing legend Mike Tyson has announced that he is building a 407-acre, cannabis-themed resort in southern California.

Tyson has long been a cannabis enthusiast, even owning his own cannabis farm. Now the 52-year-old wants to expand by turning his California ranch into “the Lollapalooza of cannabis.”

Tyson’s ranch already has 20-acre reserved for cannabis cultivation. His portfolio of cannabis endeavours includes the Tyson Ranch and the Tyson Cultivation School — which teaches farmers how to successfully grow cannabis and develop signature cultivars, all under a company called Tyson Holistic Holdings.

Iron Mike says he plans to use the resort to hold a music festival, build a video game arena and install a “lazy river” where guests can float and chill.

“I thought about how much good I could do by helping people with cannabis. It was a no-brainer,” Tyson told Cannabis & Tech Today earlier this year. “I’ve been fighting for over 20 years, and my body has a lot of wear and tear. I had two surgeries and I used marijuana to calm my nerves, and it would take the pain away. But before, they had me on those opiates, and those opiates had me all screwed up.”

The resort intends to educate guests on the benefits of cannabis consumption, as well as allowing them a safe space to consume, enjoy live music and relax.

“He’s building a holistic centre for health and wellness,” said Tyson’s business partner Rob Hickman. “There will be testing at the university. It’s going to be about educating people on the healing benefits, how to grow, and how to be in proper business.”

Want to keep up to date on what’s happening in the world of cannabis? Subscribe to the Cannabis Post newsletter for weekly insights into the industry, what insiders will be talking about and content from across the Postmedia Network.

SOURCE: THE GROWTH OP

Get Tough: Pot Industry Wants LA Crackdown On Rogue Shops

In this March 15, 2018 file photo, an undercover Los Angeles County sheriff's deputy loads two evidence bags into a van after raiding an illegal marijuana dispensary in Compton, Calif. The legal marijuana industry is urging Los Angeles City Hall to get tougher with illegal shops that are gouging into their business. Illegal pot shops are widespread throughout Los Angeles, selling cheaper products than their legal rivals because they don't pay taxes. In a letter Monday, June 10, 2019, the industry group Southern California Coalition recommended the city consider seizing cannabis inventory and cash from illegal shops that are found to be selling tainted products. (AP Photo/Jae C. Hong, File)

LOS ANGELES (AP) — The legal marijuana industry urged Los Angeles City Hall on Monday to get tougher with illegal shops that are gouging their businesses in open sight.

Illegal pot shops are widespread throughout Los Angeles and typically look like the real thing. And they’re thriving — they sell cheaper products than their legal rivals because they don’t charge hefty state and local taxes.

In a letter Monday, the industry group Southern California Coalition recommended the city consider seizing cannabis inventory and cash from illegal shops that are found to be selling tainted products.

In the legal market, marijuana, concentrates, cookies and other products must be tested by independent labs for consumer safety — a requirement that illegal shops can ignore.

The group said that the failure to seize cash and pot products from illegal shops after raids allows the business to quickly reopen.

With no testing safeguards in place in the illegal market “there’s a high probability the … cannabis products in these shops are contaminated,” the group wrote.

They urged the city “in the strongest possible terms to continue testing cannabis … in unlicensed shops.”

California’s effort to transform its longstanding illegal and medicinal marijuana markets into a unified, multibillion-dollar industry kicked off last year. But the transition has been uneven and it’s likely to take years for the legal market to find its footing.

Many communities ban marijuana sales and growing, leaving residents in those places without access to legal shops. Businesses complain about hefty tax rates that can approach 50 percent in some communities, which they say drive consumers into the tax-free illicit market. There’s on ongoing fight over home deliveries, and a promised tax windfall never arrived.

There have been problems in other states with legal marijuana. In Nevada, a court fight is underway after some businesses charged that the state system for awarding licenses is unfair. In Oregon last year, an excess of marijuana in the supply chain prompted regulators to suspend processing new applications for marijuana business licenses.

In Los Angeles, the industry group said that many legal shops are being driven toward bankruptcy because they are surrounded by rogue shops undercutting them.

Because of taxes and heavy regulatory fees, legal operators “cannot compete with illicit operators,” the group said.

The group also recommended ticketing employees at rogue shops to discourage them from returning, and having building inspectors always accompany police on raids to close down unsafe structures. They also suggested the city consider placing tax liens on illegal shops.

Copyright © The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Medical Pot Laws No Answer For US Opioid Deaths, Study Finds

BY CARLA K. JOHNSON

THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

In this May 20, 2019, file photo photo head of cultivation at Loving Kindness Farms Jason Roberts checks one of his marijuana plants in a grow room wearing green lights not to wake them wake them during their night cycle in Gardena, Calif. A new study shoots down the notion that medical marijuana laws can prevent opioid overdose deaths. Chelsea Shover of Stanford University School of Medicine and colleagues reported the findings Monday, June 10, in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. (AP Photo/Richard Vogel, File)

A new study shoots down the notion that medical marijuana laws can prevent opioid overdose deaths, challenging a favorite talking point of legal pot advocates.

Researchers repeated an analysis that sparked excitement years ago. The previous work linked medical marijuana laws to slower than expected increases in state prescription opioid death rates from 1999 to 2010. The original authors speculated patients might be substituting marijuana for painkillers, but they warned against drawing conclusions.

Still, states ravaged by painkiller overdose deaths began to rethink marijuana, leading several to legalize pot for medical use.

When the new researchers included data through 2017, they found the reverse: States passing medical marijuana laws saw a 23% higher than expected rate of deaths involving prescription opioids.

Legalizing medical marijuana “is not going to be a solution to the opioid overdose crisis,” said Chelsea Shover of Stanford University School of Medicine. “It would be wonderful if that were true, but the evidence doesn’t suggest that it is.”

This Aug. 29, 2018, file photo shows an arrangement of Oxycodone pills in New York. A new study shoots down the notion that medical marijuana laws can prevent opioid overdose deaths. Chelsea Shover of Stanford University School of Medicine and colleagues reported the findings Monday, June 10, in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. (AP Photo/Mark Lennihan, File)

Shover and colleagues reported the findings Monday in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. It’s unlikely, they said, that medical marijuana laws caused first one big effect and then the opposite. Any beneficial link was likely coincidental all along.

“We don’t think it’s reasonable to say it was saving lives before but it’s killing people now,” Shover said.

In the opioid crisis, dozens of forces are playing out across the nation in different ways. How widely available is the overdose antidote naloxone? Who has insurance? How broadly does insurance cover addiction treatment?

What’s more, prescription pills once were involved in the largest share of overdose deaths, but that changed as heroin and then fentanyl surged. The studies on marijuana laws and opioid deaths don’t account for that.

The new study undermines recent policy changes in some states. Last week, New Mexico joined New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania in approving marijuana for patients with opioid addiction.

“I was told my paper helped change the law in New York. I was appalled,” said Rosalie Liccardo Pacula of the Rand Drug Policy Research Center. She co-authored a 2018 study on marijuana laws and overdose deaths.

Experts agree evidence doesn’t support marijuana as a treatment for opioid addiction. Drugs like buprenorphine, morphine and naltrexone should be used instead, Pacula said.

How L.A.’s Pot Czar Is Bringing Order To The Wild West Of Weed

BY SARAH DAVIDSON

LOS ANGELES MAGAZINE

Ask pretty much anyone in L.A.’s cannabis industry how the process of turning the former black market green is going, and they’ll admit it’s chaos. Applications for temporary licenses to sell marijuana run $9,000 to $12,000, and the city bureaucracy is painfully slow-moving. A little over two years into legalization, L.A. has issued only 179 temporary licenses to grandfathered-in medical cannabis retailers. The city expects to begin its third phase of licensing for newcomers this spring, though an exact time line is still TBD. As a result, the illicit market is flourishing, and the LAPD has started to crack down on an estimated 2,000 illegal weed shops. By the end of last year, legal weed in California had brought in $471 million in tax revenue—far less than Gov. Jerry Brown’s $630 million prediction.

All of this is to say, the arrival of legal weed to the country’s largest cannabis market has been nothing short of disappointing. But you’d be hard-pressed to find someone who’s disappointed with Cat Packer, the executive director of the city’s Department of Cannabis Regulation. On paper, Packer is the kind of person millennial liberals are delighted to see represented in government: At 27 she’s younger than Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, and her identity as a queer black woman seems like it could immunize the industry against complaints of privileged white guys calling all the shots. But in person, Packer isn’t a joint-smoking, fist-pumping progressive. She looks neither hippie-dippie nor particularly “L.A.” She’s thoughtful and hyperfocused. When she speaks, people are “stakeholders” or “folks”; projects are “initiatives.”

Perhaps that’s because Packer has become the gatekeeper of the city’s green rush as she attempts to transform her ideals into real-life policy. Some say her methodical approach is responsible for the bottleneck in modulating the mad dash to cash in on weed—but somehow that isn’t a criticism. “When you want to do something right, you take a long time to do it,” says Chris Hoo, an attorney at Evergreen Law in West Hollywood. “I wouldn’t want her job.”

People compare Packer’s responsibilities to building an airplane while flying it. When she first started, Packer worked alone. This year, she and her 17-member team have been tasked with creating the rubric for granting licenses while simultaneously vetting hundreds of applications. Potential business owners are required to submit hyperdetailed operational plans that include sections on how they will maintain a diverse staff and where surveillance cameras will be located on retail premises. In addition, applicants must submit to a series of prelicense inspections by representatives from the DCR, the Department of Building and Safety, the LAPD, the Fire Department, and the Department of Health. Getting all those departments on the same page has proved next to impossible.

But the city has confidence that Packer can do the job—she was confirmed unanimously by the City Council for her position at the DCR after being selected by Mayor Eric Garcetti. Though she had never met him, he knew her from her work as an organizer with the nonprofit Drug Policy Alliance, where Packer says she was known as the type of person who would show up uninvited to industry meetings and demand a moment of silence for victims of the drug war.

“I saw myself as someone who would get things done outside of systems,” Packer says. Now she has effectively put her personal life—which includes her dog, Rick James, and partner, Aimee Ewell—on hold to see what she can do from the inside.

That’s because Packer is passionately committed to increasing diversity in the industry. She grew up in Virginia with her mother, a military veteran. At 16, Packer went to live with her father in Ohio. “That’s when my circumstances changed,” Packer says, recalling a particular instance at her new school in which she was laughed at by a teacher when she inquired about summer reading. Bored by the curriculum, Packer, then a high school senior, enrolled in Ohio State University. She stayed on for law school, which is where her ideas about inequality and cannabis policy clicked into place.

“In law school I’d hear things that weren’t politically correct or language that was discriminatory, and I’d think to myself, ‘These are the people who are going to be judges and attorneys and making laws,’ ” she says. “I recognized I had a role to play in this process.” When privileged classmates blithely used the same drug that minorities were being jailed for using, that didn’t sit right with her.

Now her baby is the city’s social equity program, which will prioritize issuing licenses to those with prior cannabis convictions as well as residents from zip codes that have been disproportionately affected by drug policing. Packer believes the policy will provide a boost to neighborhoods crippled by the war on drugs, although results aren’t guaranteed. Similar initiatives have failed in cities like Oakland, where disputes between social equity applicants and general applicants have left many of the roughly 600 social equity business owners unable to operate as their annual permits expire.

Only time will tell if Packer’s policy succeeds where Oakland’s failed. If nothing else, her efforts will keep inequality in the conversation despite the systemic issues that fuel it. (Historically oppressed groups don’t have easy access to startup capital, for instance, and getting a bank loan to peddle a federally illegal substance is tricky.) But she remains hopeful that she can make a difference.

“A new generation of leadership is taking a critical look at policies that slipped through our parents’ hands,” she says. “I believe there’s a way to use cannabis policy to build communities because past policies have destroyed them. At least, that’s what I tell myself on days it gets hard.”