Tag: the war on (some) drugs

Using Marijuana Increases ‘Positive Parenting’ Behaviors, New Federally Funded Study Indicates

A new federally funded study on cannabis use and parenting finds that parents typically don’t consume marijuana while their kids are present. Those who used cannabis, however, were also significantly likely to report positive parenting behaviors in the same timeframe that they consumed the drug.

But the relationship between marijuana and parenting is a nuanced one, wrote authors from the University of Tennessee, Ohio State University and San Jose State University, and appears to also rely heavily on who else is present at the time.

Overall, the findings “reveal a complicated relationship between cannabis use and parenting among a sample of cannabis users,” authors wrote. But the results nevertheless provide “some information on ways parents can engage in harm reduction to support positive parenting.”

The study, funded by a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention grant and published this month in the journal Parenting: Science and Practice, analyzed survey responses from 77 parents recruited by research assistants at Sacramento area cannabis retailers. On average, participants were 32 years old, and nearly three quarters (72 percent) were mothers. About half (50.6 percent) were either married or “living in a marriage-like relationship,” while the remaining half were single, widowed or divorced.

Participants were asked to complete a baseline survey and then five brief surveys per day for a 14-day period, followed by a final survey on day 15. They were asked “a battery of questions,” the study says, “pertaining to parenting behaviors, stress, cannabis use, alcohol use, and context.” Participants received small financial incentives for filling out the surveys, with a total possible incentive for each participant of $190.

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Nationwide Legalization Of Medical Marijuana Could Save $29 Billion In Annual Health Insurance Costs, Study Finds

New research by the medical cannabis company Leafwell suggests that state-level medical marijuana legalization may significantly reduce health insurance costs. In states with legal medical cannabis, companies paid 3.4 percent less for health insurance premiums compared to where marijuana remained illegal—a savings of about $238 per employee per year.

If all states were to implement medical cannabis programs, the study says, the country could save an estimated $29 billion in health insurance costs annually.

“This report strengthens the case that investing in cannabis care isn’t just beneficial to patient care, it’s also good for business efficiency,” Leafwell Chief Medical Officer June Chin said in a statement about the new findings. “By including cannabis in insurance plans, employers can foster a more inclusive and supportive work environment, enhance employee satisfaction, and ultimately contribute to a healthier, more resilient workforce.”

The study, published this month in the journal Applied Health Economics and Health Policy, looked at data from an annual surveys of employers, analyzing a period from 2003 to 2022.

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The Only Legal Marijuana Store In North Carolina Is Thriving—And Represents A Win For Tribal Sovereignty, Leaders Say

More than a week after legal marijuana sales kicked off to all adults at The Great Smoky Cannabis Co., in Cherokee, North Carolina, thousands from across the region have now made purchases at what’s currently the only regulated cannabis retailer within hundreds of square miles.

Marijuana remains outlawed for all purposes in North Carolina, and none of the state’s neighbors—Georgia, Tennessee, South Carolina or Virginia—have legalized recreational sales. That puts Great Smoky, located on the 57,000-acre Qualla Boundary of the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians (EBCI), in a unique and sometimes complicated situation.

Ahead of last year’s election in which the tribe legalized adult-use cannabis, for example, a U.S. congressman representing North Carolina introduced legislation that would have cut federal funding for tribes where marijuana is legal.

But since first opening to all adults 21 and older on September 10, the mood at Great Smoky has been celebratory. Tribal members—including Great Smoky’s general manager, Forrest Parker—and the thousands of non-members who’ve showed up in recent days are reveling in the significance of the moment.

Parker himself described the project as “the most inspiring thing I’ve ever been a part of.”

“We’re the first regulated cannabis in the Bible Belt—in this region,” he told Marijuana Moment in an interview last week. “When you go talk to some of these people, even if they’ve been waiting way longer than they expected, a lot of folks are showing up to just be part of history.”

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Medical Marijuana Leads To ‘Improvements In Physical, Social, Emotional And Pain-Related’ Quality Of Life, Study Shows

A new study finds that patients who used medical marijuana for three months improved on a variety of health-related quality of life (HRQoL) measures, including physical functioning, bodily pain, social functioning, fatigue and general health.

“Gains were observed in all HRQoL domains assessed after three months of medical marijuana use,” note authors from the Philadelphia College of Osteopathic Medicine and the Public Health Management Corporation, also in Philadelphia. In several measures, however—including physical functioning and pain—patients’ age played a significant role, “with older participants displaying less improvement than younger participants.”

The longitudinal study, published in the Journal of Cannabis Research last week, followed 438 new medical cannabis patients who completed “semi-structured interviews” both before they began using cannabis and again three months into use. Most participants were recommended marijuana to treat either anxiety disorders (61.9 percent) or pain (53.6 percent).

“New medical marijuana users experienced improvements across all domains of HRQoL over the first three months of medical marijuana use for any of the more than 20 qualifying medical conditions for use in” Pennsylvania, the authors wrote. “Notably, participants endorsed greater than 20 percent increases in ratings of their role limitations due to physical health problems and emotional problems, and in social functioning after three months of medical marijuana use.”

Researchers described the study as “one of the largest longitudinal studies of quality of life in individuals using medical marijuana in the US.”

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Medical Marijuana Has ‘Promising Results’ For Fibromyalgia Patients, New Study Shows

Marijuana is useful in treating pain and other symptoms related to fibromyalgia, a new study shows—with authors reporting pain relief, improved sleep and better quality of life in patients who vaporized THC-rich cannabis.

Researchers behind the new case series concluded that “cannabinoids treatment showed promising results in the management of chronic pain and other FM [fibromyalgia]-associated symptoms, improving the quality of life of these patients,” though they acknowledged the need for further study given the limited nature of their initial observations.

The research, published in the Journal of Alternative Complementary and Integrative Medicine, looks at the impact of cannabis treatment on three patients in Portugal who used an 18-percent THC cannabis flower product. The product, from the Canadian producer Tilray, is “the only commercially available medical cannabis product in Portugal,” the study notes.

In addition to reductions in pain and improvements in sleep quality—seen in all three subjects—two of the patients also reported decreases in other medication they were seeing, suggesting a substitution effect.

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We Need Medical Freedom

In a free society, people have the right to decide what to do with their own bodies. If you want to take something that “orthodox” medicine says you shouldn’t, this decision should be up to you. If the government can ban “dangerous drugs,” why not dangerous ideas too? As the great Ludwig von Mises points out, “Opium and morphine are certainly dangerous, habit-forming drugs. But once the principle is admitted that it is the duty of government to protect the individual against his own foolishness, no serious objections can be advanced against further encroachments. A good case could be made out in favor of the prohibition of alcohol and nicotine. And why limit the government’s benevolent providence to the protection of the individual’s body only? Is not the harm a man can inflict on his mind and soul even more disastrous than any bodily evils? Why not prevent him from reading bad books and seeing bad plays, from looking at bad paintings and statues and from hearing bad music? The mischief done by bad ideologies, surely, is much more pernicious, both for the individual and for the whole society, than that done by narcotic drugs.

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California Governor Unveils Emergency Ban On Hemp Products With THC

California Gov. Gavin Newsom last week proposed an emergency ban on intoxicating hemp products, saying the new regulations are needed to protect the safety of children. The governor issued the proposed emergency regulations, which prohibit sales of consumable hemp products that contain intoxicating cannabinoids including THC after they were drafted by the California Department of Public Health (CDPH).

“We will not sit on our hands as drug peddlers target our children with dangerous and unregulated hemp products containing THC at our retail stores,” Newsom said in a September 6 statement. “We’re taking action to close loopholes and increase enforcement to prevent children from accessing these dangerous hemp and cannabis products.”

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Dem House candidate pushes tough on fentanyl stance after dismissing it as border issue

Democratic congressional candidate Monica Tranel appears to be changing her tune on the fentanyl crisis this cycle after previously suggesting that the deadly drug was not coming from the southern border.

Tranel, the Democratic candidate running in Montana’s First Congressional District against Republican incumbent Rep. Ryan Zinke, recently released a campaign ad appearing tough on the border.

However, during her first congressional bid in 2022, Tranel claimed that the border crisis is unrelated to fentanyl trafficking while debating Zinke at the City Club Missoula.

“It is a significant issue where we are, but where it is coming from is not the southern border,” Tranel said of fentanyl during the debate. “It’s being made in China, and how it’s getting here is a complex series of things that are happening, and shutting down the border is not going to reduce the fentanyl crisis.”

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New Jersey Governor Signs Controversial Bill Restricting Sales Of Hemp Cannabinoid Products

New Jersey businesses are temporarily banned from selling hemp products without a cannabis license under a controversial bill Gov. Phil Murphy (D) signed into law Thursday, a response to years of complaints about legal loopholes that allow minors to buy sketchy hemp products.

The measure will put hemp products, which are federally legal, under the purview of the state’s Cannabis Regulatory Commission, the agency that oversees New Jersey’s recreational and medicinal marijuana markets.

In a signing statement, Murphy called the bill flawed, but said in the two-and-a-half months since the bill landed on his desk, he’s held discussions with supporters and critics that convinced him it’s “very unlikely that revisions to the bill would have the broad support necessary to move through the Legislature quickly.”

“Unlike many issues, the status quo poses an immediate risk to health and safety, as these unregulated intoxicating hemp products are widely available to minors. Because the bill would address this present danger, I have concluded that the wiser course is to sign the bill now and commit to working with the Legislature to address the technical issues and other challenges in separate legislation,” he said in the statement.

Congress legalized hemp in 2018, but with little regulation, testing or enforcement, intoxicating products have been spotted on shelves of corner stores and gas stations. Lawmakers moved to pass the bill amid concerns that children are buying products advertised with thousands of milligrams of THC.

Hemp products have a lower form of THC than cannabis, and they do not get users high in the same way marijuana products with delta-9 THC (the kind someone would buy at a cannabis dispensary).

Under the new law, it’s illegal to sell products with any detectable amount of THC to a person under 21 years of age. And within 30 days, businesses will have to pull any hemp products off their shelves until the cannabis commission establishes new rules regarding sales.

The bill—amended with last-minute changes—elicited “significant concerns” from the cannabis and hemp industries, Murphy noted. Wording in the bill has created confusion, specifically the definition of hemp product as “any product cultivated, derived, or manufactured in this state from hemp,” Murphy said.

That language could either allow businesses to sell hemp products made outside of New Jersey without violating the law, or limit sales to those products made exclusively in New Jersey, Murphy said, noting the former would largely defeat the purpose of the bill by creating “an enormous loophole,” while the latter could violate the Constitution’s dormant commerce clause.

The bill’s supporters applauded the long-awaited signing.

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Nixon Admitted Marijuana Is ‘Not Particularly Dangerous’ In Newly Discovered Recording

Former President Richard Nixon, despite declaring the war on drugs and rejecting a federal commission’s recommendation to decriminalize marijuana, admitted in a newly unearthed recording that he knew cannabis is “not particularly dangerous.”

“Let me say, I know nothing about marijuana,” Nixon said in a March 1973 White House meeting. “I know that it’s not particularly dangerous, in other words, and most of the kids are for legalizing it. But on the other hand, it’s the wrong signal at this time.”

“The penalties should be commensurate with the crime,” Nixon said, arguing that a 30-year sentence in a cannabis case he recently heard about was “ridiculous.”

“I have no problem that there should be an evaluation of penalties on it, and there should not be penalties that, you know, like in Texas that people get 10 years for marijuana. That’s wrong,” the president said.

The comments, first reported by the New York Times, come as the federal government is reconsidering marijuana’s status as a restricted Schedule I drug.

The Department of Health and Human Services, after conducting a review initiated by President Joe Biden, recommended last year that cannabis should be moved to Schedule III. The Department of Justice agreed, publishing a proposed rescheduling rule in the Federal Register in May.

The Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), however, has expressed hesitation about enacting the reform, however, and has scheduled a public hearing on the cannabis rescheduling matter for December 2, after the upcoming presidential election.

Nixon’s admission in the newly revealed tapes that marijuana is “not particularly dangerous” runs in contrast to his image as a drug warrior and undermines his and subsequent administrations’ decisions to classify it in Schedule I of the Controlled Substances Act, which is supposed to be reserved for substances with a high potential for abuse and no accepted medical value.

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