Tag: marijuana

Marijuana Is the Sixth Biggest Cash Crop In The US

According to the Leafly Cannabis Harvest Report 2022, marijuana was the sixth most valuable wholesale crop in the United States last year at a $5 billion worth, trailing only corn, soybeans, hay, wheat and cotton.

The calculation includes only crops in states where state-sanctioned sales of legal weed are already up and running and exclude production in medical marijuana-only states.

Statista’s Katharina Buchholz reports that 2022 saw a cannabis harvest of 2,834 metric tons, up 24 percent from 2021.

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Marijuana Should Be De‐​Scheduled, Not Re‐​Scheduled

Bloomberg News is reporting that U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Assistant Secretary for Health Rachel Levine has sent a letter to Drug Enforcement Administrator Anne Milgram asking her agency to reclassify marijuana (cannabis) as a Schedule III drug. The DEA defines Schedule III drugs as “drugs with a moderate to low potential for physical and psychological dependence.” The agency currently classifies marijuana as Schedule I: a drug “with no currently accepted medical use and a high potential for abuse.” Of course, that definition begs the question, “Currently accepted by whom?” But an even more important question is, “Why should a plant people have been growing and using recreationally for millennia be scheduled as a drug when alcohol is not?”

When Congress authorized the law enforcement agency to judge the clinical applications, efficacy, and potential dangers of drugs, it authorized cops to practice medicine. And they have been engaging in malpractice. For example, no serious person would argue that marijuana has “no currently accepted medical use.” As far back as 1916, Sir William Osler, the so‐​called “father of modern medicine,” recommended cannabis as the “drug of choice” for treating migraines. But cannabis’s history of “accepted medical use” dates back to at least 2800 B.C.

The DEA also schedules diamorphine (brand‐​named “heroin” by Bayer, its manufacturer in the 19th century) Schedule I even though it is legally used in the U.K. and much of the developed world to treat pain and is employed for medication‐​assisted treatment of opioid use disorder (OUD) in Switzerland, the Netherlands, Germany, Canada, the U.K, Denmark, and Spain.

And even though a bipartisan consensus is emerging that psychedelics may be extremely helpful in treating post‐​traumatic stress disorder, depression, addiction, and compulsive disorders, and in end‐​of‐​life care, the DEA placed them on Schedule I, depriving researchers, clinicians, and patients of these tools for 50 years.

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Top Federal Health Official Confirms At Exactly 4:20 That His Department Is Recommending Marijuana Rescheduling

The head of the top U.S. health agency is confirming news that his department is recommending marijuana rescheduling—posting about the development at exactly 4:20pm ET in an apparent wink to cannabis culture.

Amid a flurry of reactions to reports that the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) is advising the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) to move cannabis from Schedule I to Schedule III, Secretary Xavier Becerra shared a post about it at the symbolic time on X (the social media site formerly known as Twitter).

If anyone thinks the timing is a coincidence, they probably haven’t been closely following Becerra’s account, as the Biden cabinet official has made a habit of talking about marijuana policy on social media at 4:20 on the dot.

On the day that President Joe Biden announced the scheduling review, for example, the secretary posted about his commitment to following through on the directive—at 4:20.

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We Need to Chill Out About Categorizing ‘Medical’ Versus ‘Recreational’

I used to wake up in the middle of the night, every night, with a nightmare. In it, my body was frozen, and trigger warning: In the nightmare, I was fading in and out of unconscious, but someone was raping me. They were textbook PTSD nightmares, and I had no idea what to do about them.

I was raised in the Caribbean, in the U.S. Virgin Islands, surrounded by ganja culture. While millennial “statesiders” my age I’d meet later when I moved to the South for school and then New York for my forever home, I realized that my childhood was different. Far from the “Just Say No” and D.A.R.E rhetoric my contemporaries experienced, many of my friend’s parents were Rastafarians. I grew up understanding that cannabis was a sacrament. So I spent high school, during the Bush era, on the debate team arguing for its legalization, and college majoring in journalism, reporting on cannabis. I’ve always been vehemently pro-legalization. But the reason cannabis didn’t become a big part of my personal life until a decade ago, in 2013, was because I was a total boozehound. 

But alcohol made my PTSD stemming from my assault worse. Sometimes, back in the day, to be perfectly honest, it made me downright nasty or even suicidal. So my ambition kicked in, having seen what alcoholism can do to others (it runs in my family), and I quit. I haven’t had a drink in 10 years. I’ve been Cali Sober since before the term existed, baby. 

So, a few years into sobriety, when a stoner close to my heart told me that people used cannabis to treat anxiety, PTSD and that THC could even suppress nightmares, at first, I was skeptical. Sure, it should be legal, just like alcohol, and the government is full of shit, but would it affect me like liquor did? Personally, 12-Step programs did more harm than good. I’m a big believer that a one-size-fits-all model is not suitable for recovery, something society finally seems ready to talk about.

Especially in the first few years after my assault, I needed to be shaken and reminded of my power — which had been robbed from me — instead of admitting I was powerless, which is, in so many words, the first step of AA. I’m glad the program works for many, including people I love, and I won’t even get into the fact that its founder, Bill W., fully embraced psychedelics at the end of his life, adamant that they could treat alcoholism. Because this story is about why recreational use and medical use have more overlap than the establishment makes them out to.

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Study: Cannabis Exposure Not Associated with Increased Psychosis Risk Among High-Risk Youth

The use of cannabis doesn’t raise one’s risk of psychosis or other adverse health outcomes, even among adolescents who are at high risk for the disorder, according to longitudinal data published in the journal Psychiatry Research.

A team of researchers affiliated with Hofstra University in New York and with Stanford University in California assessed the relationship between cannabis use and health outcomes in a cohort of adolescents at clinical high risk for psychosis. Study participants were tracked for two years. 

Investigators reported that those subjects who consumed cannabis were no more likely than non-users to become psychotic. 

Authors concluded: [C]ontinuous cannabis use over 2-years of follow-up was not associated with an increased psychosis transition rate, and did not worsen clinical symptoms, functioning levels, or overall neurocognition …  indicating that CHR [clinical high risk] youngsters are not negatively impacted by cannabis. … These findings should be confirmed in future clinical trials with larger samples of cannabis using individuals.”

The findings are similar to those published in April in the journal Psychiatry and Clinical Neurosciences. That study also failed to identify cannabis use as a risk factor for psychosis in clinically at-risk subjects. The study’s authors concluded: “Our primary hypothesis was that cannabis use in CHR [clinically high risk] subjects would be associated with an increased rate of later transition to psychosis. However, there was no significant association with any measure of cannabis use. … These findings are not consistent with epidemiological data linking cannabis use to an increased risk of developing psychosis.” 

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Delaware’s Beach Towns, Known For Boozy Parties, Are Banning Marijuana Businesses

Three of Delaware’s six most prominent beach towns have now voted to ban cannabis dispensaries, while the other three are in discussions to do the same. All are located in Sussex County, the state’s Republican stronghold.

The first town, Dewey Beach, passed its ordinance in June. On August 18, Rehoboth Beach and Bethany Beach followed suit. Fenwick Island began drafting an ordinance in July. South Bethany is expected to be reviewing one of its own in September or October. Lewes is in similar discussions.

The slightly inland town of Ocean View, also part of Sussex County, introduced a proposed ordinance in July. Its town council does not meet in August and so the ban will not be voted on until at least September.

“It’s almost laughable,’’ Mark Jacobs, a member of the state’s Marijuana Control Act Oversight Committee, told WHYY. “I mean, Dewey Beach, which encourages excessive drinking, whose clubs are fined yearly for violating the state’s alcohol laws. It’s hypocritical that a town that has the well-earned reputation of being a party town is first to jump on the old, debunked reefer madness attitude that it’s somehow perfectly acceptable to get sloshed drunk, but it’s not acceptable to get a little stoned.”

In April, Delaware passed legislation that legalized cannabis for adult use and then regulated its commercial sale. But it also permits jurisdictions to ban cannabis businesses at the local level. Only jurisdictions within Sussex County, the southernmost of Delaware’s three counties, have so far taken steps to do so, with legislators warning that dispensaries would attract “unsavory” people and residents stating that cannabis use is incompatible with a beach being family-friendly.

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Cannabis Doesn’t Increase Heart Attack Risk

Middle-aged adults with a history of cannabis use over the previous year did not have a higher risk of suffering a heart attack, according to the results of a recent study by researchers at the University of California in San Diego.

The new study, “Associations Between Monthly Cannabis Use and Myocardial Infarction in Middle-Aged Adults: NHANES 2009 to 2018,” was published on August 7 in the peer-reviewed American Journal of Cardiology, found that a history of cannabis use over the previous year was not associated with an elevated risk of myocardial infarction (MI) among a nationally representative study of nearly 10,000 adults aged 35 to 59. Additionally, study participants who reported using cannabis in the month before experiencing an MI, also commonly known as a heart attack, showed a lower risk compared to participants who had not used cannabis recently.

“In a representative sample of middle-aged US adults, a history of monthly cannabis use for more than a year before a myocardial infarction was not linked to a subsequent physician-diagnosed MI, after accounting for cardiovascular risk factors,” the authors of the study wrote. “However, when considering recent use, the odds were three times greater if no use was reported in the past month.”

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Marijuana laced with fentanyl? Claims unfounded, doctor says

Police departments across the country have recently warned of finding marijuana laced with fentanyl, but one doctor is cautioning not to put too much stock in the warnings.

Concerns over fentanyl have grown as more drugs are being laced with the deadly narcotic. Authorities in states including Alabama, Illinois, Louisiana and New York all claimed to have begun finding fentanyl-laced marijuana.

In one of the most recent cases, the district attorney in Montgomery County, Pennsylvania, just outside Philadelphia, said Friday that police discovered THC gummies that contained fentanyl and claimed the supposedly tainted product was responsible for two overdoses.

But the office walked that back Monday, saying testing conducted over the weekend found that the products “did not alert to any illegal drugs at the lab’s threshold level of detection.”

One doctor who argues the reports should be taken with a grain of salt is Dr. Ryan Marino, a toxicologist who has conducted extensive research on fentanyl exposure.

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Let’s Dispel The Myth That Cannabis And Tobacco Smoke Are Equally Hazardous To Health

A growing percentage of Americans perceive smoking cannabis to be less dangerous than smoking tobacco cigarettes. They’re correct, but you wouldn’t know it from reading the recent slew of media headlines.

“Many Americans wrongly believe exposure to marijuana smoke is safer than tobacco,” screamed CNN. Coverage of the survey data in Everyday Health warned, “People Underestimate the Health Risks of Smoking Marijuana.” Syndicated coverage of the study by US News and World Report similarly lamented, “More Americans Than Ever Believe Marijuana Smoke is Safer Than Cigarette Smoke. They’re Wrong.”

In fact, it’s the news media that’s in error.

Numerous studies assessing the long-term health impacts of cannabis smoke exposure belie the myth that marijuana is associated with the same sort of well established, adverse respiratory hazards as tobacco.

For example, federally funded research performed by scientists at the University of California, Los Angeles compared the lifetime risk of lung cancer among more than 2,000 long-term marijuana smokers, tobacco smokers, and non-smokers. Investigators determined that those who regularly smoked cigarettes possessed a 20-fold higher lung cancer risk than did non-smokers. By contrast, those who only smoked marijuana possessed no such elevated risk.

“We hypothesized that there would be a positive association between marijuana use and lung cancer, and that the association would be more positive with heavier use,” the study’s lead author explained. “What we found instead was no association at all, and even a suggestion of some protective effect.”

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People Who Use Marijuana Are Half As Likely To Develop Type 2 Diabetes, New Meta-Analysis Finds

People who use marijuana are about half as likely to develop type 2 diabetes, according to a new meta-analysis of scientific studies.

Researchers at the Tabriz University of Medical Sciences in Iran published the study in the journal Phytotherapy Research this month, expanding on the scientific literature examining the effects of cannabis on glucose regulation and insulin secretion that are tied to the chronic disease.

To investigate the relationship, the researchers analyzed 11 relevant surveys and four epidemiological cohort studies that were published in scientific databases such as PubMed up through July 1, 2022.

They found that the incidence of type 2 diabetes among people who consume marijuana “was 0.48 times lower than in those without cannabis exposure.”

“A protective effect of cannabis consumption on the odds of diabetes mellitus type 2 development has been suggested,” the paper says. “Yet given the considerable interstudy heterogeneity, the upward trend of cannabis consumption and cannabis legalization is recommended to conduct studies with higher levels of evidence.”

Prior studies have similarly linked marijuana to lower rates of type 2 diabetes, which is the version of the disease where patients produce low amounts of insulin and can become resistant to the hormone.

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