Tag: cannabis

Colorado Governor Says Marijuana Prohibition Created A ‘Chicken And The Egg’ Research Dilemma That’s Blocked Federal Reform

The governor of Colorado says that while marijuana reform is “not really a partisan issue” anymore, there are still “stodgy nanny state Republicans who want to control it.” Meanwhile, he says, ongoing prohibition has inhibited research into the science of cannabis that’s kept it strictly criminalized at the federal level.

Gov. Jared Polis (D) is hoping that will change sooner rather than later. He and the governors of five other states sent a letter to President Joe Biden this week, urging officials to reschedule marijuana under the Controlled Substances Act (CSA) by the end of the year.

In an interview that aired on Fox News Radio’s “The Guy Benson Show” on Thursday, Polis said he would’ve liked to see a federal policy change five or 10 years ago as states such as Colorado enacted adult-use legalization, but he theorized that prohibition itself created a “chicken and the egg” situation that has effectively stymied reform by making it harder to conduct research on the effects of cannabis, a stalemate that has been reinforced by congressional politics.

The administrative marijuana scheduling review that Biden directed last year could help break that policy logjam, he said. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) has already determined that cannabis should be moved from Schedule I t0 Schedule III, and now it’s up to the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) to make a final determination.

Keep reading

Nevada Officials Approve Plan To Let People With Marijuana Convictions Become Police Officers

Nevada officials have officially adopted a proposal to amend hiring standards for police officers to allow job candidates who were previously disqualified for certain marijuana-related offenses to now be eligible for law enforcement positions.

After holding a public hearing on the reform in October, the state Commission on Peace Officer Standards and Training (POST) voted to approve the change, revising regulations around hiring that currently prevent a person from becoming a peace officer if they have been convicted of an offense involving the unlawful use, sale or possession of a controlled substance.

The new language says the restriction doesn’t apply “to a person who has been convicted of an offense involving the unlawful use, sale, or possession of marijuana if the offense is not unlawful at the time the person submits an application for certification as a police officer.”

The commission said the change will expand the pool of eligible candidates for law enforcement positions and “aid agencies in the ability to fill much needed positions.” There will be no adverse effects from the reform, it says, nor additional costs to regulators.

Approval of the change, which was first proposed in May, does not mean that officers can use cannabis once employed, but it represents a significant policy change, especially given that the current rules are written in a way that explicitly emphasizes the no-tolerance policy for marijuana.

Keep reading

Study Finds ‘No Evidence’ That Medical Marijuana Causes Cognitive Impairment In Patients With Chronic Health Problems

Findings of a study examining marijuana’s neurocognitive effects “suggest that prescribed medical cannabis may have minimal acute impact on cognitive function among patients with chronic health conditions”—which may come as a relief to long-term cannabis patients who are concerned about potential neurological drawbacks of the drug.

Authors of the report, published last month in the peer-reviewed journal CNS Drugs, wrote that they found “no evidence for impaired cognitive function when comparing baseline with post-treatment scores.”

To conduct the study, researchers had 40 people in Australia self-administer a single dose of medical marijuana in a laboratory setting, following instructions on the product label. Participants were then tested on an array of neuropsychological metrics—including multitasking, pattern recognition memory, reaction time, rapid visual information processing and spatial working memory, among others—and surveyed on their subjective experience.

“The absence of evidence for cognitive impairment following medical cannabis self-administration was surprising,” the study says, “given prior and substantive evidence that non-medical (‘recreational’) cannabis use reliably impairs a range of cognitive functions. At the same time, these findings are consistent with two systematic reviews published in the last year that suggest that medical cannabis, when used regularly and consistently for a chronic health concern, may have little if any impact on cognitive function.”

Keep reading

States Where Marijuana Is Illegal Typically See Higher Rates Of Treatment Admissions, Federal Study Says

Despite fears by critics that marijuana legalization would lead to sharp increases in problematic use, newly published data from the federal Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) shows that states where cannabis sales remained illegal typically had the highest rates of treatment admissions for the drug.

The data, which was published last week and covers 2021, show admissions to substance use treatment services among people aged 12 and older who go to state-licensed facilities. All told, the SAMHSA report presents findings from nearly 1.5 million admissions nationwide over the course of the year.

Of all the tallied admissions nationwide in the new Treatment Episode Data Set (TEDS), 10.2 percent were for marijuana or hashish as the primary substance, according to the SAMHSA data. That’s the fourth most common substance after alcohol (34.8 percent of all admissions), heroin (20.2 percent) and methamphetamine (13.5 percent). It’s just above “other opiates/synthetics” such as pain medications or fentanyl (9.1 percent) and cocaine (5.6 percent).

In terms of states with the highest admissions rates where marijuana was the primary substance, on a per capita basis, the top 10 states were South Dakota (151 per 100,000 residents), Iowa (144), Connecticut (141), South Carolina (119), Minnesota (110), New York (95), Wyoming (85), Georgia (84), North Dakota (81) and New Jersey (80).

Keep reading

Germany Delays Final Vote On Marijuana Legalization Bill Until Next Year

A final vote on a bill to legalize marijuana in Germany that was initially planned for this week has been called off amid concerns from leaders of the country’s Social Democratic Party (SPD). The delay means that action on the landmark proposal will be postponed until next year.

“It always has to be approved by the parliamentary groups in the end,” Dirk Heidenblut, an SPD member of Germany’s Bundestag who is responsible for the party’s cannabis policy, said in an Instagram post. “And if a faction leader, in this case the SPD, has concerns, then it cannot be set up yet.”

Despite the delay, Heidenblut added that as long as the measure advances by the end of January, the delay shouldn’t meaningfully impact the schedule for implementing legalization.

If lawmakers pass the bill, the early stages of reform—including home cultivation for personal use—would begin as soon as April.

Keep reading

Toxicology Identifies Cannabis in the Bones of Medieval Italians

Archaeologists excavating in a 17th-century hospital crypt in Milan, Italy, recovered the skeletons of nine people. Using tools of toxicology, they have now identified “the first archaeological evidence” of THC, the psychoactive component of cannabis, in human bones from the Modern Age.

The cannabinoids from cannabis, such as tetrahydrocannabinol [THC], one of the psychoactive properties associated with the plant, are stored in various tissues in the body, including hair and bones. A 2013 a study published in the journal “Drug and Alcohol Dependence,” found that THC can be detected in human bones “several weeks” after the last cannabis use. However, the associated detection technologies have changed – a lot – over the last decade.

The exact mechanisms of how cannabinoids are stored in bones, and how long they remain detectable, varies from person to person, and greatly depends on frequency of use, dosage, and individual metabolism. Bones, essentially act like a reservoir for cannabinoids, and their detection can be used in forensic and clinical settings to assess past cannabis use. But now, a team of researchers have identified THC in the 17th century bones of people buried under a hospital in Milan, Italy.

In a new study, Dr. Gaia Giordano at the University of Milan said that she her colleagues excavated and tested the skeletons of nine people from a 17th century crypt at Milan’s Ca’ Granda hospital. The bone samples were powdered, separated and purified, before being liquified and subjected to mass spectrometry, to identify the chemical components.

The results were subsequently analyzed using the tools of toxicology, the study of chemical substances in living organisms including humans. Toxicologists analyze how substances are absorbed, distributed, metabolized, excreted, and their toxic effects. Whether eaten or inhaled, cannabinoids are trapped and preserved after being absorbed into the bloodstream, and they are ultimately stored in bone tissue.

The team identified THC and cannabidiol (CBD) molecules within the thigh bones of a young man and middle-aged woman, who were both buried between 1638 AD and 1697 AD.

Keep reading

Hundreds of Illegal Chinese-owned Marijuana Operations Taking Over Maine

Hundreds of illegal Chinese-owned marijuana growing operations have been popping up across Maine over the past three years.

On Tuesday, Nov. 28, local law enforcement shut down an illegal marijuana grow that was being operated in a building located behind a licensed marijuana cultivation facility in Franklin County.

Officers from the Wilton Police Department were assisting investigators from the Maine Office of Cannabis Policy (OCP) during a routine follow-up inspection of a licensed facility in Wilton when they raided the illegal operation, authorities said in a press release posted on social media.

“It’s a place that has been on the radar,” State Rep. Mike Sobeleski (R) told The Epoch Times, adding that he had visited the facility previously. The Republican lawmaker said he had learned about the raid just minutes before Tuesday’s interview with The Epoch Times to discuss the illegal marijuana operations being run by Chinese nationals throughout the state.

Earlier this month, a man identifying himself as the property manager told the Maine Wire that the building was being used to grow marijuana and that operators paid about $30,000 per month in rent.

He also reportedly told the news outlet that the facility was being run by four Asian men who claimed they were from New York, California, Washington, and Massachusetts.

Keep reading

Top Federal Agency Promotes New Marijuana Research Center Amid Scientists’ Complaints About ‘Complex’ Study ‘Barriers’ Under Prohibition

A top federal health agency says it recognizes that there are ample concerns among scientists about how they’ve “encountered barriers that have hampered their research” into marijuana under federal prohibition, including “complex” federal regulations and inadequate supplies of cannabis.

That’s why the National Institutes of Health (NIH) is now seeking to resolve some of those challenges by standing up a Resource Center for Cannabis and Cannabinoid Research, an official said in a blog post on Tuesday.

NIH posted a notice of funding opportunity late last month, explaining how it’s seeking an entity to operate the center through a cooperative agreement in order to “address challenges and barriers to conducting research on cannabis and its constituents.”

To help facilitate that process, the National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health’s (NCCIH) Patrick Still announced that the health agency will be holding a webinar on January 25 to provide potential applicants with technical assistance.

“There’s growing interest in potential therapeutic uses of cannabis and its constituents among both health care providers and the public,” Still, who is a program director for NCCIH’s Basic and Mechanistic Research branch, wrote. “Substances in cannabis have a variety of pharmacologic effects, and rigorous research is needed to understand their mechanisms of action and investigate their possible value in helping to manage health conditions.”

“However, investigators working in this field have encountered barriers that have hampered their research,” he said, pointing to feedback NCCIH received as part of a request for information last year.

“The barriers that many of them have mentioned include difficulty meeting complex federal and state regulatory requirements, problems obtaining cannabis products suitable for research, a lack of validated measures of cannabis use and exposure, and inadequate scientific infrastructure to support research studies,” Still wrote.

Keep reading

It’s Time To Rethink Termination Of Employees For Positive Marijuana Drug Tests

As a social conservative, alcohol has always been my drug of choice. For me, the odor of marijuana on a city street evokes a discomfiting sense of lawlessness and societal decline. But I remind myself that Carrie Nation, who attacked alcohol-service establishments with a hatchet in the lead-up to prohibition, had the same feelings toward the bourbon I so relish. And so it’s time to bury my own hatchet when it comes to cannabis.

Irrespective of one’s thoughts on marijuana legalization, we have reached a point of no return both in terms of culture and economics. More than 50 percent of Americans live in jurisdictions where recreational marijuana is legal, and 74 percent have access to medical cannabis. Revenue of the U.S. cannabis market will exceed $30 billion in 2023 and will increase at double-digit rates for the foreseeable future. State treasuries hunger for the tax revenue.

Given its legality, given its ubiquity, it is time we stop gratuitously destroying careers based on marijuana tests that say nothing about impairment. The problem is particularly acute in the transportation industry, where employers are compelled by federal law to randomly test employees and remove them from their safety sensitive positions based on positive tests. Frequently, that removal is followed by termination by the employer and license action by the regulating agency.

Driven by my sympathy for the affected individuals, I have handled numerous cases for employees who have lost their jobs due to positive tests. Moreover, most of the cases I have handled have resulted in reinstatement—sometimes due to specimen collection errors, occasionally due to deficient medical review and once due to a laboratory’s failure to properly validate its testing methodology. However, our nation’s marijuana dilemma calls for a broader approach: a change in policy.

It is undisputed that the mandated testing methodologies do not reflect time-specific impairment; however, that limitation has always been met with a collective shrug by regulators. After all, the “prohibited drugs” for which the federal government requires testing are all illegal; therefore, it is considered sufficient that the test confirms that, at some time in the recent past, the employee used the drug.

By contrast, a “positive” test for the legal drug of alcohol has always required proof of current intoxication.

The obvious solution would be to apply the alcohol current intoxication approach to cannabis. The problem is that, currently, there is no reliable test for current marijuana impairment. In response to this dilemma, we have seen a sub rosa movement by certain decision makers and regulators cutting some slack for employees who test positive for marijuana.

Keep reading