In State Where Marijuana is Now Legal, Lessons and Challenges for New Jersey

Andrew Kitchenman

Colorado officials have lingering concerns, but advocates cite benefits of decriminalizing sale, possession and use of pot

Dr. Larry Wolk, executive director of the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment.

As New Jersey legislators consider a bill that would legalize marijuana in the state, they might be able to learn something from Colorado, the first state in the country to experiment with legalization in modern history.
Supporters of the change already point to signs that it will bring in more tax revenue than expected and that it could offer a path toward reducing the influence of drug traffickers while expanding individual freedom.
But critics of legalization, including the state’s governor, say it has sent a troubling message to teenagers. In addition, researchers say that variations in both the potency of the substance and how it affects individuals raises troubling questions about understanding its long-term effects.

Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper, a Democrat, opposed legalization, which was approved in a referendum in November 2012. The legal sale of marijuana began in January of this year.
At the annual conference of the Association of Health Care Journalists (AHCJ) in Denver, Hickenlooper said the state is primarily concerned with the impact of legalization on the state’s youths. “We are going to focus very rigorously on keeping it out of the hands of kids,” he said.
Hickenlooper is concerned about the message that legalization and increased access to marijuana has had on children.

Colorado has nearly 1,200 licensed marijuana stores.
“Kids think it’s safer than they did before it was legalized,” Hickenlooper said, adding that some high-schoolers have been inhaling potent products like butane hash oil, which is 60 to 90 percent tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), the active component of marijuana that is the primary cause of marijuana highs.
The average potency of marijuana currently in use ranges from 10 percent to 15 percent THC, which is several times higher than the level found in marijuana sold in the 1960s through 1980s.

Hickenlooper said other governors have asked him for advice on handling the marijuana issue in their states. He said he’s responded by saying that Colorado has no idea what the long-term results of legalization will be.
“Let’s see how many kids slip off the tracks, let’s see whether the costs of the unintended consequences far outweigh the benefits of having some new tax revenue,” he said.
He also said he wants to devote as much of the marijuana tax revenue as possible to regulating its use and preventing children from having access to it.

While a bill, S-1896 (A-3094), recently proposed by Sen. Nicholas P. Scutari (D-Union, Somerset and Middlesex) seeks to legalize marijuana in New Jersey, it has little chance of being enacted as long as Gov. Chris Christie – an ardent opponent of legalization -- is in office.
Scutari agrees with Hickenlooper that children shouldn’t have access to the substance, but said parents should play the crucial role in shaping their children’s views and behavior.
“What message do we send them about alcohol? You know -- drink responsibly, ingest any of this stuff responsibly,” Scutari said.

Scutari said the federal government’s approach -- prohibiting marijuana -- has failed, both with marijuana and with alcohol.
“Why don’t we make it illegal and everyone will stop doing it?” Scutari asked, then answered his own question: “Oh yeah, we did that a hundred years ago. It didn’t work.”
Hickenlooper also noted the lack of success nationally in fighting drug use.
“The war on drugs was a dismal failure – one of the worst social policy failures, I think, certainly in modern history in this country,” Hickenlooper said during his March 27 speech. “We sent literally hundreds of thousands of kids to prison, made them felons, usually for no violent crime.”

Scutari added that his bill isn’t intended to support marijuana use, but is about promoting personal freedom.
“When you have complete prohibition, then you’re going to have criminal enterprises popping up,” said Scutari.
Colorado’s tax revenue from medical marijuana has been higher than projected, with the state increasing its estimate from $99 million to $137 million annually.
While Scutari’s bill proposes using potential New Jersey tax revenue from marijuana sales to repair roads, he said he’s open-minded about potential uses for the funds.

But he added that the state’s medical marijuana program isn’t working.
Scutari also said fellow legislators have privately expressed support since he introduced the bill on March 24. He added that while he would like legalization to happen now, he’s prepared for a multi-year effort to pass the legislation.
Participants in an AHCJ conference panel discussion about medical marijuana also noted the opportunities and challenges posed by legalized marijuana.
Dr. J. Michael Bostwick, a psychiatrist with the Mayo Clinic in Minnesota, noted that 1 in 10 marijuana users meet the medical criteria for addiction. While troubling, this percentage is lower than for alcohol and nicotine.
Kari L. Franson, a pharmaceutical researcher at the University of Colorado, said that marijuana products that are consumed orally rather than through inhalation tend to vary more widely in how they affect different people, as well as how they affect the same person at different times.

Dr. Larry Wolk, executive director of the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment, said Wolk recommended that all parents talk to their children about research showing that marijuana is not safe or healthy for most children.
“Teach your kids to be a critical thinker and hope they make the right decision,” Wolk said.
Colorado faces challenges in regulating marijuana because the federal government doesn’t test the product, and because of the natural variability in marijuana plants, Wolk said. Therefore, the state is conducting its own tests.

“We see this as an opportunity in public health” to study marijuana, said Wolk, who oversees regulation of marijuana in Colorado.
Wolk said he is hopeful that state labs will be able to standardize and control the amount of the active components in the retail marijuana, allowing the state to better study it.
In response to a question about families who seek low-THC marijuana to treat children with severe seizure problems, Wolk expressed a note of caution.
These families “have become I’ll say the poster children for medical marijuana and it is a very well planned campaign nationally by a number” of marijuana advocates, Wolk said. He noted that there has been a relatively small number of children – roughly 200 -- whose families moved to Colorado to have access to the legal marijuana.

Wolk also noted that advocates only publicize the cases of children with seizures who respond well to marijuana, adding that there is anecdotal evidence that most children with the condition don’t respond well.
“I want some objective information” from advocates, Wolk said. “I’ve gotten nothing … I’ve gotten excuses.”
Michael Elliott, executive director of the Marijuana Industry Group, a trade association, emphasized that Colorado marijuana retailers have embraced regulation, taxation, transparency and accountability. His group also supports using marijuana tax revenue to keep the substance away from children, deter driving while under the influence of marijuana, and combat drug traffickers.

“We want there to be resources to fight these battles,” he said.
But Elliott also noted that marijuana is currently classified by the FDA as a Schedule I drug – along with serious drugs like heroin and LSD – a category for drugs that have no medical uses.
Elliott added that he doesn’t see much difference between how parents should communicate to children about marijuana and how they should talk with them about alcohol.
Bostwick added that he forced his now 20-year-old son into treatment for marijuana use when his son turned 17. “It was absolute hell to figure out what was experimentation and what was going to destroy his life and his brain,” Bostwick said, adding that his son has not used the substance in nearly four years.

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“How to Stop Smoking Weed” Website Debuts, Reveal Permanent Way to Addiction Issue

How to Stop Smoking Weed is really a fresh website to advice a long-term solution if you find that weed ruling your lifetime and replacing your entire friends, passions, and favorite ways to pass the time. Author Ronny is providing do-it-yourself solution tips for a best way to quit smoking weed to get your way of life back to normal.
Washington, D.C, March 28, 2014 – Countless individuals look for how to quit smoking weed each week, as marijuana has become probably the most popular addiction and the other of the extremely controversial drugs throughout modern history.

Nevertheless, not every person is mindful that marijuana might be psychologically addictive, meaning that you’ll need to be mentally prepared and ready to stop your habit. This explains why author Ronny has established a blog about the subject.
The website at: http://www.howtostopsmokingweed-tips.com is a new website that explores multiple problems with marijuana addiction, including ways to stop smoking weed, benefits of quitting smoking weed, comes with a self-assessment and daily program to assist that decision of quitting smoking weed, along with issues that concern those who have the situation. 

Marijuana is considered the most widely used illegal drug in the world. A survey conducted in 2007 discovered that 14.4 million people today in the USA alone had smoked weed one or more times over the previous month. The website is a free informational site which doesn’t require sign up but seeks to responsible to those in order to treat and know the condition.

Author Ronny reveals that this site offers to explain visitors the “best way to quit smoking weed.” Curing the addiction largely relies on the kind of addiction it is. Ronny remarks, “If you are feeling that pot has taken over your lifestyle and replacing all of your friends, hobbies, and favorite approaches to pass the time, it’s time for you to stop smoking and get your lifetime back on track.

Marijuana can be psychologically addictive; consequently you have to be mentally prepared and willing to stop your habit. So if you are seeking help to get your old life back and dropping your old habits, you have come to the right place.”
Marijuana is currently a harder drug. More powerful weed creates addiction in most users, which is often ignored. Now, many individuals have serious problems if they try to quit weed or successfully pass a drug test. “It’s certainly not simple to discuss the best way to quit smoking weed especially weed grown today in 2014 is over two times as strong as marijuana grown only ten years ago,” he said. 

“With this website, we’re getting online support group, the one which users senses comfortable in, that’s a great distance away from the doctor and from loved ones. There’s no distress here. It’s exactly the facts, as well as a place to leave comments and enquire questions.”
The website also covers for how to stop smoking weed naturally together with using a home cure. “No matter how complicated it really is today. 

Once you have control, it is possible to smoke weed less and on your personal terms or not at all. On this new ability, even those that smoke marijuana daily for many years can quit permanently”
The best answers are simple answers which particular website owner wants everyone to find out what works, what’s to be prevented, and most of all, that there are absolutely no reason to worry discussion.

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Marijuana isn’t the biggest drug threat facing youth

A detective empties a vial of prescription drugs, mostly painkillers, at a police station in Columbus, Ind., on March 22, 2013. (AP file)

Re: “Are recreational pot’s low tax numbers worrisome?,” March 23 Perspective articles.
Regarding efforts to ramp up anti-marijuana education campaigns in Colorado, a little perspective is in order. Like any drug, marijuana can be harmful if abused.

However, the biggest drug threat facing youth is prescription drug abuse. According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control, drug overdose death rates have never been higher. Most are caused by prescription drugs. The problem is so bad that drug overdose deaths have surpassed motor-vehicle crashes as a cause of death from unintentional injury. Marijuana has never been shown to cause an overdose death.

Alcohol poisoning kills more people each year than all illegal drugs combined. Gov. John Hickenlooper is actively promoting craft beer in the governor’s mansion while simultaneously calling for an anti-marijuana campaign [for young people].

By all means, educate youth about the dangers of marijuana. Just make sure it’s part of broader reality-based drug education and not a revived culture war. The medicine cabinet at home and the craft beer flowing in the governor’s mansion both pose greater threats to Colorado youth than newly legal marijuana.

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Surveys yet to link medical marijuana and teen drug abuse

By Stephen Nohlgren

Florida’s proposed constitutional amendment would allow sales only through licensed dispensaries. Experts say strict regulation would limit teen abuse.

As the campaign to legalize medical marijuana in Florida heats up, so too does an enduring worry about whether an herb intended for sick adults will end up harming teens.

Evidence is mounting that heavy pot use among young teens can cause serious emotional and physical damage. The fear is that medical marijuana will boost pot consumption by making it more abundant and socially acceptable.
This is one of medical marijuana's hidden dangers, opponents often say.
Surveys of teen pot use, however, tend to dispel the theory. The research is complicated, but so far, the numbers are reassuring.

America's experiment with medical marijuana began nearly two decades ago. Twenty states and the District of Columbia have now approved it. Florida voters will decide in November whether to hop on board.
Yet reported pot use among teenagers has barely changed since 1996, when California broke the medical marijuana ice and became the first state to legalize its use.
Kids do smoke more pot in the West and New England — where medical marijuana abounds — but that was true before the laws were passed.

Most states, whether they allow medical marijuana or not, follow broad national trends. Teen usage might rise for a while in a medical marijuana state like Oregon but it also happens in conservative Texas. Usage may drop in Alabama, but also in Colorado, a marijuana mecca.
As more states have joined the ranks, reported teen use has remained essentially flat in recent years.
"We cannot draw a clean link between medical marijuana and shifting drug usage rates,'' said Dr. Wilson Compton, deputy director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse.

Surveys can be unclear because they rely on kids to honestly report their usage. If the numbers rise, it could mean teens are smoking more or that maybe they are just more comfortable admitting it. The same goes for interpreting declines in usage.
It also can be years after passage of a medical marijuana law before its impact is fully felt, which also clouds attempts to measure behavioral change.
"We have a tendency to look at all medical marijuana states in a single category,'' Compton said. "Yet they have different timing, different implementation systems, sales and distribution. There are huge distinctions.''

Compton and others worry that medical pot laws might harm some teens, even if overall usage is not altered. A few studies, for example, have reported rising drug arrests and mental health admissions in medical marijuana states.
As for overall teen pot use, the medical marijuana era offers only one solid lesson for Florida voters: Kids choose intoxicants for many reasons that have little to do with adult laws.
Use goes up and down
The brains of young teens are still developing. Scans of heavy pot users show "a profound decrease in connectivity'' between brain cells in certain areas, said NIDA director Nora Volkow. Particularly vulnerable is the hippocampus, "which is important to how we memorize and learn and control emotions.''

According to a University of Michigan survey last year, one-fifth of high school seniors said they had smoked pot in the previous 30 days, and one in 16 smoked daily. By comparison, two-fifths of seniors said they had drunk alcohol in the previous month; one-fifth say they binge drink.
The annual survey, called Monitoring the Future, shows dramatic swings in pot use well before medical marijuana came on the scene. In the late 1970s, nearly 40 percent of high school seniors said they smoked marijuana at least once a month, but by the early 1990s, only about 10 percent did. Then, over just a few years, usage doubled.

A common theory for these swings holds that parental and societal attitudes play a role. If pot use seems to rise steadily, parents and politicians may crank up antidrug messages and allocate money for intervention. When use wanes, society relaxes, only to see another upswing.
Opponents say medical marijuana can boost use by sending a message that pot isn't so bad.
Evidence of the theory, though, is hard to come by.
Ten states legalized medical marijuana between 1996 and 2004, but meanwhile monthly usage by high school seniors dropped 4 points, to 18 percent.
Then usage headed back up for a while, then it flattened out.

Eighteen states and the District of Columbia now have medical marijuana programs up and running, and two more approved it last year. Yet from about 2010 on, "there is no significant difference'' in teen pot use, NIDA's Compton said. "The numbers are the same, virtually identical.''

The devil, the details
University of Florida professor Sarah Lynne-Landsman found no measurable connection between medical marijuana and teen use in a 2013 American Journal of Public Health report.
She thinks medical pot can ease suffering, such as when a patient with wasting syndrome battles nausea. "You can't ask them to take oral meds if they are throwing up everything.''
But Lynne-Landsman urges caution if Florida sets up a medical marijuana system, because although there appears to be no correlation with teen use, further research might turn up new information.
"We don't have enough information to say for sure that these laws will not result in problems for youth,'' she said.

Florida's proposed constitutional amendment would allow sales only through licensed dispensaries. A 2013 study by RAND researchers reported an association between dispensaries and higher teen pot use. But the possible link seemed stronger in the few Western states that allowed dispensaries early on, and weaker in states that established dispensary systems more recently.
"Even though nationwide we are not seeing huge increases'' in teen use, Lynne-Landsman said, "we are going to have to strictly regulate things. The devil is in the details.''

To avoid a new version of the pill mills that doled out huge quantities of prescription painkillers, a registry should keep track of which doctors are approving pot and for what reasons, she said. Dispensaries should be limited in number and kept away from schools and churches.
"We don't know what these changes in policies are going to do,'' Lynne-Landsman said. "It's better to err on the side of caution.''

Teen pot use trends
This chart tracks the percentage of teenagers who report that they used pot within the previous 30 days. Each number is an estimate; the actual figure could be a bit higher or lower.

Grade	2010	2011	2012	2013
8	8.0	7.2	6.5	7.0
10	16.7	17.6	17.8	18.0
12	21.4	22.6	22.9	22.7

Source: Monitoring the Future, University of Michigan

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Local organization seeking to legalize marijuana

Jeremy Bourque suffers from epilepsy.

In fact, he recently spent nine days in intensive care in a coma. His epilepsy had gotten worse over the years until he said he found a cure- medical marijuana. The 37-year-old has been using the substance for 18 years.
“The last two years I’ve been successful with what strains are good,” Bourque said. “The medicines I would take I wouldn’t be able to get out of bed. I take the medical cannabis at night. It also helps with my stomach issues.”

Bourque said on one trip to the hospital, he was told it would be two weeks before he could walk out of there. With medical marijuana, he walked out of the hospital in two days.
“The doctor told me off the record to keep doing what I’m doing,” he said.
Bourque studied the issue before first using the medical marijuana. He said the type he uses are medicinal compounds without psychotropic effects.
“It (marijuana) pushes the bad out,” he said.

Bourque, consequently, was also one of the 100 who attended the inaugural meeting in support of establishing a Southeast Texas chapter of NORML- National Organization to Reform Marijuana Laws. The organization began in 1970.
Royce Abrego of Orange and Corey Mendes of Beaumont are with NORML and helped organize the initial two-hour long meeting at the Log On Cafe in Beaumont on March 15.
Those in attendance ranged in age from 22 to 83.

Thirty to 40 others spoke at the microphone to give their testimonials for marijuana legalization. Some said they were medical use advocates or non-users themselves.
The meeting mainly consisted of organizing the chapter, background on the organization, fund-raising ideas and receiving donations, the 5013c nonprofit status and planning for community involvement.
It will cost $700 to $1,000 to get a nonprofit started. Attorney Dustin Galmore has agreed to be the legal representative for the Southeast Texas NORML chapter.

The chapter has started a Face Book page and there is also a Texas NORML Face Book page.
Abrego said he didn’t know Mendes was working on starting a local chapter at the same time until they met at the March 15 meeting.  Mendes added he’s been an advocate for NORML for 18 years.
“It (the local chapter) just took off,” Mendes said. “Education is the most important thing. We want to inform everyone and be a successful member of the community. Medical marijuana can change perceptions.”
Part of that education is about the benefits of decriminalizing, or legalizing, medical marijuana used and the agricultural used of hemp.

Abrego said there can’t be any industrial uses for hemp until it’s legalized or decriminalized from a Schedule I controlled substance according to the Drug Enforcement Agency to a Schedule III controlled substance.
Abrego and Mendes added their advocating all-natural and organic marijuana rather than marijuana laced with other substances or synthetic marijuana.
Some of the uses of hemp include hempcrete- a type of concrete that has “huge” industrial and economic value, according to Abrego. One acre of hemp can be produced for paper, textiles and oils.

“Imagine what our petrochemical scientists and labs here can do with hemp. Maybe they can cut benzene use, which is an unsafe carcinogenic, out of the process,” Abrego said. “One acre can produce 700 pounds of grain, compressed 50 gallons of oil, 5,300 pounds of straw and 530 pounds of meal.
No herbicides or pesticides, furthermore, are need to grow hemp.
Mendes said over 30 countries produce hemp and already produce many of these products. The United States also imports some of these products.
Abrego said farmers were encouraged to grow hemp for the war effort during World War I.

Hemp later became illegal after lobbying efforts from big pharmacy companies and major industries, both said.
Currently, 23 states have legalized marijuana one way or another. The process of change has occurred with the majority of the states much the way alcohol was made legal again after Prohibition in the 1920s.
As far as the perception of marijuana being a gateway drug to harder substances, Mendes said marijuana can be used to wean users off of harder drugs. It is used in some rehabilitation facilities in pro-cannabis states. He added the most used drugs, such as caffeine, are legal.
Abrego said 70 percent of voting aged Texans favor some kind of legalization/decriminalization. There’s also mixed opinion in both major political parties in favor.

“This is a people issue that involves our communities. We need to get the right legislators in at the right place and contact these legislators.
“Surprisingly, a majority of the older generation has supported it. They get involved in social media and found they have been misled,” he said.
Decriminalizing marijuana would involve paying a civil fine for use. Currently, a possession charge means losing one’s driver’s license, a loss of student financial aid, professional license, etc.
“The punishment is more detrimental,” Abrego said.
Mendes next switched the topic of employee drug testing.

He believes it will be up to the employer to continue the testing of workers under the influence. Both agreed there need to be better testing methods of employees.
“Synthetic marijuana and prescription pills are the most abuses,” Abrego said.
He added cannabinoids in marijuana can have no psychoactive effects due to minimal or no THC levels and are useful to diabetics and/or brain cancer patients.
“Imagine where our medical practice would be the last 60 to 70 years if we used medical marijuana,” Abrego said. “It is estimated 750,000 are in jail for marijuana possession. It costs $20,000 a year to incarcerate an inmate in the State of Texas versus the $7,000 we spend per school pupil.”

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Easton Pharmaceuticals Announces Signing LOI for Joint Venture Towards Private Medical Marijuana Colorado Grower and Licenses; Provides Clarification on Its Canadian Medical Marijuana Initiatives

TORONTO, ON -- (Marketwired) -- 03/28/14 -- Easton Pharmaceuticals Inc. (OTC: EAPH), a specialty pharmaceutical company that owns, designs, develops, and markets an array of topically-delivered drugs and therapeutic / cosmetic healthcare products, today announces it has signed a letter of intent for the creation of a possible JV with another US company towards a Private Medical Marijuana company in the state of Colorado.

The Letter Of Intent was signed with another public company listed on the OTCQB exchange. Easton has engaged an attorney who for the past few days and moving forward will perform due diligence on the company and most importantly the licenses this company has claimed it has rights to through a private Colorado grower in the state of Colorado. The LOI calls for a joint venture where both Easton and the other company would either purchase an interest in or finance the operations in the private Colorado grower.

Any closing is contingent on the satisfaction of the due diligence by Easton's attorney and its negotiations with the other company's attorney or representatives. Easton Pharmaceuticals, or any other company or principles not having residence in the state of Colorado for more than 2 years, cannot entirely own all the assets in any medical marijuana companies within the state of Colorado. Any negotiations must satisfy these requirements. No time frames have yet been set.


Easton also wishes to clarify the misinformation regarding its Canadian medical marijuana initiatives. Although the company has still not signed a final agreement regarding any of its Canadian medical marijuana initiatives which is as a result of various reasons it is currently unable to disclose, this by no means signifies that it has ended any negotiations with any other companies previously disclosed. No other companies including current growers in B.C. have closed any transactions with any other companies and still maintain discussions with Easton Pharmaceuticals which included a personal meeting with all principals in the past few days. This also includes negotiations with another public company listed on the OTCQB exchange where another joint venture is being contemplated towards medical marijuana assets situated in Ontario Canada.

About Easton Pharmaceuticals
Easton Pharmaceuticals is a specialty pharmaceutical company involved in various industries including medical marijuana that also owns, designs, develops, and markets topically-delivered drugs and therapeutic / cosmetic healthcare products, focused on cancer and other health issues related towards male and female sexual dysfunction, wound healing, pain, motion sickness, scar and stretch marks, cellulite, varicose veins and other conditions. The company's gel formulation is thought to be an innovative and unique transdermal delivery system.

Easton Pharmaceuticals' product "VIORRA" is an over-the-counter aid for the treatment to restore and improve vaginal moisture and elasticity which is believed to have a positive effect on women's sexual desire and arousal, FSAD (Female Sexual Arousal Disorder); the world market for these female conditions is conservatively estimated to be in the billions. VIORRA is a topical, daily-use product classified by the FDA as containing Generally Recognized as Safe ingredients.

Safe Harbor

This news release may contain forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995 (The "Act"). In particular, when used in the preceding of discussion, the words "anticipate," "pleased," "plan," "confident that," "believe," "expect," "possible" or "intent to" and similar conditional expressions are intended to identify forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Act and are subject to the safe harbor created by the Act. Such statements are subject to certain risks and uncertainties and actual results could differ materially from those expressed in any of the forward-looking statements.

There are no guarantees that any proposals, initiatives or negotiations will result in a deal acceptable to the company. Any investment made into Easton Pharmaceuticals would be classified as a risky investment. Such risks and uncertainties include, but are not limited to, market conditions, general acceptance of the company's products and technologies, competitive factors, the ability to successfully complete additional or adequate financing, government approvals or changes to proposed laws and other risks and uncertainties further stated in the company's financial reports and filings.

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In our opinion: As some states flout federal drug law, Justice wavers on enforcement

One of the U.S. Justice Department's top concerns in allowing Washington and Colorado to move forward with plans to legalize and tax marijuana sales is seeing that the states keep criminals out of the industry.

The wavering stance of the U.S. Justice Department on the sale and use of marijuana is beginning to cause more problems across the country. As a harmful substance, its sale and use remain illegal under federal law. Therefore, it ought to be treated as such by federal authorities.
For example, instead of acquiescing in the contravention of federal law by the states of Colorado and Washington, the Justice Department could sue to challenge those states’ efforts to recreationalize the use of marijuana.
Instead, the Obama administration has imposed a contradictory policy that seems both arbitrary and unclear. It certainly is not protecting the public.
The state of Washington is trying to establish a way to regulate its newly legal marijuana industry to make sure the people it licenses to sell the drug do not have criminal backgrounds. The Justice Department, however, refuses to conduct background checks in regards to federal violations. This makes sense, given how distasteful and inappropriate it would be for federal officials to sanction a violation of federal law that they are sworn to prosecute.

In Colorado, on the other hand, the Justice Department is conducting the tests and providing background information to the state.
The administration has yet to explain the inconsistency. It has issued only a terse statement indicating that it is reviewing its policies on background checks and will provide further guidance soon.
We urge its eventual policy to actually enforce federal law, and to begin to send the message that states should not flout federal law and accept this harmful drug as legal. Unfortunately, the administration seems to be confused as to how to act.

There is no question the landscape of social acceptance is changing. Marijuana is moving from the fringes of society to something more corporate and buttoned-down. The industry now has a lobbying presence in Washington. This is likely to continue to lead to an increase in the use of the drug.
A recent story in the Denver Post reported on how three prominent people who were working at the state agency charged with regulating marijuana now have switched sides to become consultants for marijuana sellers. The illegal drug industry apparently pays better than government work.

In Colorado, lawmakers must wait two years after leaving office before becoming lobbyists. Employees in the Department of Revenue’s lottery division have to wait at least a year after leaving before working for that industry. These pauses keep regulators from being enticed to provide preferential treatment in exchange for lucrative employment. Colorado accepted marijuana without apparently thinking through all the consequences.
Banks are largely refusing to provide financial services to the marijuana industry. Unless and until Congress changes the law with regard to the sale and use of marijuana, the Obama administration should not abandon enforcement of the laws, including drug laws.
It is entirely appropriate for Washington to continue controlling the growth and sale of a harmful substance that negatively impacts the welfare of Americans.

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Binghamton University professor talks weed and wellness

Stephen Lisman urges students to gets the facts on marijuana during Tuesday's event

Margaret-Rose Roazzi

One professor at Binghamton University says that it’s time to figure out the goals, not the tactics, of marijuana legalization.

Tycho McManus/Staff Photographer Stephen Lisman, a psychology professor, gives a talk titled “Beyond Reefer Madness” Tuesday night in Appalachian Dining Hall. “You guys are going to be making the legislation of the future,” Lisman said.

Students gathered in Appalachian Dining Hall Tuesday to attend an event titled “Reefer Madness.” The talk was given by Stephen Lisman, a psychology professor who currently teaches a class called Drugs and Behavior. After the talk, the professor opened the floor to questions from the audience as brownies were distributed to attendees.
Lisman told the audience it was important for young people to be informed about marijuana and the intricacies of marijuana policy.

“You guys are going to be making the legislation of the future,” Lisman said. “You guys are going to be out of college and making the decisions that affect us, so I want you to think about marijuana policy as complicated.”
Lisman told the audience that before discussing decriminalization and legalization, it was necessary to agree on what the goals of legalization would be. Examples included decreasing the amount of users, decreasing the amount people actually use or introducing healthier techniques with which to use marijuana.

Marla Goldstein, a freshman double-majoring in psychology and human development, said it is important to get and stay informed about marijuana.
“I think that its very important for our generation to stay educated on the revolution that pot is making because everything from 20 years ago is no longer relevant,” Goldstein said. “Like alcohol prohibition, it’s eventually going to be made legal.”

Lisman described the history of how marijuana came to be demonized, telling the story of Harry Anslinger, the first commissioner of the U.S. Treasury Department’s Federal Bureau of Narcotics, who testified before Congress and stated that marijuana could cause madness and murderous tendencies. Anslinger also popularized the idea of marijuana as a gateway drug, saying that marijuana users turned to heroin once the high from marijuana was no longer enough.
Lisman went on to explain that there are certain health issues observed in chronic, heavy marijuana smokers. He said that there is just as much, if not more, tar in marijuana as in cigarettes.

He also said that the substances in tobacco linked to cellular cancer mutations are also present in marijuana.
Lisman said that recreational use seemed to be safe from most of these health concerns, but mentioned that more research must be done before this statement can be proven.
“There’s very little basis for thinking that recreational use, meaning something less than three joints or four joints a day, can cause serious health problems,” Lisman said.
Lisman ended the talk by reminding the audience that scientific study was the only way to gain conclusive evidence about the effects of marijuana.

In order to move forward, Lisman said, people need to get all the facts on marijuana.
Kenneth Greenstein, an undeclared freshman, said he believed it was important to be informed about marijuana.
“Once the older generation dies off, we’re the generation that makes the laws to legalize it, so we need to be informed,” Greenstein said.

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More traffic on marijuana legalization

by Dan Hartzell

"Joe from Salisbury" had trouble posting this commentary in response to my recent column regarding driving while high on marijuana, and to the several responses from readers both pro and con, so I'll steer the information onto the site for him.

Thanks, Joe!
---------------------------------------------
Hi Dan,
So many issues to debate on this point/counter-point exchange between you and Bob.
Have we seen an increased use of grain alcohol or other hard liquor because beer just doesn’t provide an adequate buzz anymore?  The transition from marijuana to harder forms of drug use is more a value proposition than a decision based on the effects of each. 
If one could obtain the same or better buzz from an alternative source, say crack for example, at a comparable price, then one could expect a logical transition.  

Aside from the price/effect ratio, convenience and availability are other factors.   How easy or difficult is it to find someone selling marijuana vs. selling crack, and how easy or difficult is each to transport, store and consume, especially given the illegal status of both?  Regardless, the fact is that marijuana would be legal and all other forms of “drugs” will continue to be illegal, so we haven’t introduced any new enforcement issues in the process.

Second, the concept that street vendors will continue to exist is just an example of free-market enterprise.  If legal distribution channels are losing sales to competition, then one would assume they will lower their prices.  Ask Bob (the legalization opponent) if he purchases products over the internet and whether he voluntarily submits PA sales tax payments when they're not specified by the vendor.
Also, price is just one component of the purchasing decision.  One would expect the legal distribution network to provide a wider selection of different marijuana types with an expected, if not guaranteed, level of quality.  

This is the advantage the legal system has over the street vendor.  The old adage “buyer beware” certainly applies here.  Ask Bob if he buys his watches at a jewelry or department store or from someone on the streets of our fine city.
The state legislature legalized slots gambling and later added "harder-core" table games, all in the interest of generating new forms of revenue without increasing personal or business taxes.  

Opponents argued that an increasing number of people would become addicted to gambling and suffer untold losses of personal fortune.  Has that happened?
Whether we like it or not, legalization of marijuana may become an inevitable fact purely from the standpoint that it makes good financial sense for the people of the Commonwealth of PA.

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Teens who smoke marijuana do better in school than cigarette smokers, study shows

Topics: Canadian researchers ♦ marijuana ♦ Michael Chaiton

 

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Students who smoke marijuana do better in school than their cigarette-smoking classmates, according to a new study.
Canadian researchers surveyed nearly 39,000 Ontario students in grades 7, 9, and 11 between 1981 and 2011 on their marijuana and tobacco use and their academic performance.
The study found that students who only smoked marijuana performed better in school than students who smoked only cigarettes or those who smoked both cigarettes and marijuana.

However, the researchers said their findings reflected the fact that fewer teens smoke today compared to 30 years ago.
Those students who do currently smoke make up a very “marginalized, vulnerable” population, said the study’s lead author, Michael Chaiton, assistant professor in epidemiology and public health policy at the University of Toronto.
“Now there is a distinction between marijuana use and co-use with other substances, and it’s an indication of the changing social norms,” Chaiton said. “So it’s not an absolute that they do better; it’s that social norms have changed and the population of people who use marijuana are more like the general population.”

About 92 percent of tobacco users also smoke marijuana, the researchers found, but only 25 percent of marijuana users also smoke cigarettes.
When the study began in the 1980s, far more students smoked tobacco than marijuana, which few teens used, but that ratio has reversed in the intervening decades.
Researchers said anti-tobacco messages have been effective in cutting smoking rates for young people, but Chaiton said those remaining teen smokers were highly vulnerable to other risky behavior such as vandalism and theft.

“This is not that tobacco is causing this, it is something that has changed socially in the role of tobacco in society,” Chaiton said.
A recent U.S. study found that smoking, the leading cause of preventable death in the country, was largely a habit of poor or working class Americans.
The Canadian study, published in the March edition of the Journal of School Health, found pot smokers performed “relatively” better than cigarette smokers, but they didn’t out-perform non-users.

Chaiton said “people dramatically underestimate the risks associated with cannabis use, particularly among youth,” and he recommended action as decriminalization or legalization efforts spread.
“If we do legalize or change the regulations in dramatic ways, that does change the social environment again and that can, as we’ve seen a number of times, cause big shifts in youth and we could see another big shift in marijuana use among youth,” he said.

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Legalising Marijuana 'Reduces Murder and Assault Rates'

By Ludovica Iaccino

Legalisation of medical cannabis may reduce certain types of crime, says a study by researchers at University of Texas in Dallas.
Dr Robert Morris, associate professor of criminology and lead author, said the research team found no increase in crime rates resulting from medical marijuana legalisation.
"We're cautious about saying, 'Medical marijuana laws definitely reduce homicide.' That's not what we're saying," Morris said.
"The main finding is that we found no increase in crime rates resulting from medical marijuana legalisation. We found some evidence of decreasing rates of some types of violent crime, namely homicide and assault," he continued.

“"We found some evidence of decreasing rates of some types of violent crime, namely homicide and assault"”

Dr Robert Morris

The study tracked crime rates across all 50 states between 1990 and 2006 when 11 states legalised marijuana for medical use: Alaska, California, Colorado, Hawaii, Maine, Montana, Nevada, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont and Washington.
Using crime data from the FBI's Uniform Crime Report, the researchers studied rates for homicide, rape, robbery, assault, burglary, larceny and auto theft, and concluded that none of them increased after the legalisation.

Robbery and burglary rates were unaffected by the legalisation.
Morris said the models accounted for an exhaustive list of socio-demographic and econometric variables linked to changes in crime rates, including statistics on poverty, unemployment, college education, prison inmates and even the amount of beer consumed per person per year.
Data came from the US Census Bureau, the Bureau of Economic Analysis and the Bureau of Labour Statistics.

"The results are remarkable," Morris said. "It's pretty telling. It will be interesting to see what future studies hold."
The researchers intend to investigate the relationship between recreational marijuana legalisation and crime in Washington and Colorado. The latter legalised marijuana for personal; consumption.
"This new information, along with continued education of the public on the realities of the negative aspects of smoking marijuana — there are considerable negative attributes — will make the dialogue between those opposed and in favour of legalisation on more of an even playing field," Morris said.

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High time for advancing marijuana research

Marijuana use is expected to increase as its legalization spreads. With more marijuana users, we should prioritize research on this pervasive, but relatively understudied, drug.

Marijuana is now legal for recreational or medicinal use in 20 states in the United States and has been decriminalized in many others. A recent Gallup poll¹ found that more than half of Americans surveyed favored legalizing the use of marijuana. Although the extent to which legalization will expand the pool of marijuana users is unknown, it seems likely that there will be a substantial increase; moreover, escalating use in even a small fraction of the US population would represent a big surge in absolute numbers of users.

Marijuana has typically not been considered as high a priority for research as more addictive drugs such as opioids and cocaine. However, as marijuana stands poised to join alcohol and tobacco as a legalized drug, it is critical that we prioritize research to improve our understanding of the medicinal, toxicological, addiction and public health implications of increased marijuana use.
The largest increase in legalized marijuana use has been for medical treatment, based on research suggesting that the cannabis plant contains compounds that may have a wide variety of therapeutic applications.

Those with otherwise intractable pain, nausea and glaucoma (among other ailments) are understandably eager to take advantage of this new and increasingly legal treatment. However, marijuana itself is not a medicine; it includes a large number of compounds with unknown effects, the identified components may interact or interfere when delivered in combination, and levels of active compounds may vary from strain to strain. These compounds will have wide-ranging effects, as the endocannabinoid system is pervasive in the brain; marijuana can influence mood and is known to impair memory, cognitive function, reaction time and motor coordination.

It is important that we prioritize research to determine what other consequences of cannabis use there might be, particularly for long-term use and in those with ailments serious enough to consider marijuana for medical treatment. This information is critical to help the increasing numbers of people with the opportunity to use marijuana make educated decisions about the consequences of choosing to do so.
One particularly under-appreciated consequence of marijuana use is the risk of addiction. The National Institute of Drug Abuse suggests that approximately 9% of people who use marijuana may become dependent, and this number may be even higher for those who start using as adolescents.

Although this rate is far lower than that reported for heroin (23%), in raw numbers, marijuana dependence is already a far more pervasive problem than heroin addiction: according to a 2012 report from NIDA, there were nearly ten times as many individuals with marijuana abuse problems as there were individuals with heroin abuse problems. This number will only grow as marijuana becomes more easily accessible and acceptable to use, so it is urgent that we increase efforts to understand what factors influence dependence and develop targeted treatments. Currently, there are a few pharmaceutical treatments for opiate, alcohol and nicotine addiction, but there is no such drug for marijuana addiction.

An important strategy for decreasing some of the negative consequences of marijuana use may be increasing efforts to develop drugs based on specific components of cannabis. By narrowing the number of active compounds administered, it may be possible to target particular aspects of the cannabinoid system and avoid some of the side effects. For example, cannabidiol, a non-psychotropic ingredient of marijuana, has shown some promise as an anti-psychotic treatment for schizophrenia. The development of FDA-approved drugs will be particularly urgent as marijuana legalization becomes widespread, as this will also open up opportunities for manufacturers of over-the-counter remedies.

As has happened in the weight-loss drug market, these manufacturers will be eager to sell supplements made of entirely legal over-the-counter ingredients, but which have limited evidence of efficacy or safety, and which will be largely unregulated.
Although it is imperative that we advance the marijuana research agenda, there are currently many obstacles that make it difficult for researchers. A key point of pain, as always, is the need for more financial support. US government funds for research have largely stagnated during the continuing budget crises, so scientists are under pressure to do more with less.

Pharmaceutical companies may participate in some drug discovery work, but have shown little interest in addiction research and have no incentive at all to examine the negative consequences of medical marijuana use. Government resources will need to be channeled to addressing these critical research questions in order to make progress.
A major impediment to marijuana research is that the substance is still classified by federal law as a schedule I drug (the same category that contains heroin and LSD), making it very difficult for researchers to work with. Acquiring the permissions necessary to do marijuana research can take years and require an enormous burden of paperwork .

Legalization is occurring on a state-by-state basis, but the federal policies that govern researchers have not been updated. In light of mounting evidence that marijuana has potential for medical use, it would make sense to reclassify it to a less restrictive category, a change that would dramatically ease constraints on cannabis research.
As the use of marijuana appears to be headed toward wide acceptance in the United States, it is urgent that we support a comprehensive research program addressing the critical gaps in our understanding. If the harmful aspects of marijuana use outweigh the therapeutic benefits, we need to find out now, not far in the future.
If there are components of cannabis with specific therapeutic value, we need to develop drugs that target them. Ultimately, we need data and hard facts in hand to responsibly regulate the use of marijuana and educate consumers about their choices.

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No, legalizing medical marijuana doesn’t lead to crime, according to actual crime stats

By Emily Badger

In this Feb. 1, 2011 photo, Harborside Health Center employee Gerard Barber stands
behind medical marijuana clone plants at Harborside Health Center in Oakland, Calif.
(AP Photo/Jeff Chiu)

Opponents of medical marijuana envision all kinds of insidious ways that legalizing the drug might lead to crime. Make marijuana more accessible, and more people will use it. If more people use it, more will tumble through the weed "gateway" to cocaine, or worse. Those people will then engage in crime to fund their hard-drug habits, or violence in the service of getting the stuff.

Furthermore: Once word gets out about medical dispensaries, those locations will become hotspots for criminals who now know exactly where to find prey carrying cash and drugs. Same goes for grow houses, which just invite property crime.
Pondering all of these dark possibilities, it's no wonder anyone suspects mayhem in medical marijuana laws. Actual historic crime data, however, suggest there's no evidence that legalizing the drug for medicinal purposes leads to an increase in crime. In fact, states that have legalized it appear to have seen some reductions in the rates of homicide and assault.

These findings come from a nationwide study published Wednesday in the journal PLOS One (which is notable for the fact that no one seems to have done this crucial analysis before). Researchers at the University of Texas at Dallas looked at the FBI's Uniform Crime Report data across the country between 1990 and 2006, a span during which 11 states legalized medical marijuana. Throughout this time period, crime was broadly falling throughout the United States. But a closer look at the differences between these states – and within the states that legalized the drug before and after the law's passage – further shows no noticeable local uptick among a whole suite of crimes: homicide, rape, robbery, assault, burglary, larceny, and auto theft.

The robbery and burglary findings are particularly interesting, as those are the crimes we'd most likely expect to see outside of medical dispensaries. But what about the apparent declines in homicide and assault?
The researchers, Robert G. Morris, Michael TenEyck, J.C. Barnes and Tomislav V. Kovandzic, caution that this may be a mere statistical artifact of their analysis. But there's also a plausible explanation:

While it is important to remain cautious when interpreting these findings as evidence that MML reduces crime, these results do fall in line with recent evidence [29] and they conform to the longstanding notion that marijuana legalization may lead to a reduction in alcohol use due to individuals substituting marijuana for alcohol [see generally 29, 30]. Given the relationship between alcohol and violent crime [31], it may turn out that substituting marijuana for alcohol leads to minor reductions in violent crimes that can be detected at the state level.

Their analysis controlled for other potentially confounding factors: employment and poverty rates in each state, income and education levels, age and urban demographics, per-capita rates of prison inmates and police officers, as well as per-capita rates of beer consumption (per the Beer Institute).
The results don't definitely prove that medical marijuana has no effect on crime (or that it might even reduce it). Maybe the researchers failed to account for some other crucial variable here, some common factor that further depressed crime in precisely these 11 states, precisely after the moment that each passed a medical marijuana law, masking the actual crime increase caused by the policy. Or, there's this interpretation, from the authors:

Perhaps the more likely explanation of the current findings is that [medical marijuana] laws reflect behaviors and attitudes that have been established in those societies. If these attitudes and behaviors reflect a more tolerant populace that is less likely to infringe on one another’s personal rights, we are unlikely to expect an increase in crime and might even anticipate a slight reduction in personal crimes.

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Minn. Gov. Proposes Groundbreaking Marijuana Researc

Gov. Dayton recently proposed halting efforts to pass medical marijuana bills 
in favor of conducting more research on marijuana. 

Minnesota Gov. Mark Dayton delivers his State of the State address before a joint session 
of the Legislature (AP/Jim Mone)

In the fight to legalize medical marijuana in Minnesota, the state’s Democratic Gov. Mark Dayton proposed focusing on researching the drug to the state Legislature on Friday.

Specifically, Dayton suggested pausing the state Legislature’s efforts to pass HF1818/SF1641, which would create a conservative medical marijuana program similar to those in states such as New Mexico and Arizona, and investing millions of dollars in studies examining marijuana’s medicinal benefits, instead. Dayton’s announcement came after state law enforcement refused to support or negotiate with state lawmakers on the creation of a medical marijuana program for the state.

Although 20 states and Washington, D.C., have legalized medical marijuana, Dayton has been reluctant to listen to patients and medical professionals, opting to mostly hear law enforcement’s view on the issue.

In his proposal, Dayton suggested the state allocate $2.2 million for a study at the Minnesota-based Mayo Clinic to specifically examine how marijuana’s non-psychoactive ingredient, cannabidiol, or CBD, can be used to help children with various forms of epilepsy.

The study would involve about 200 children ages 1 to 18, Dayton said, but it would not examine any other medical conditions that could be helped by the use of medical marijuana such as AIDS, post-traumatic stress disorder or the effects of chemotherapy. 

Medicinal benefits of the psychoactive ingredient THC would also not be studied.

It is not known how long it would take for the study to be conclusive in Dayton and law enforcement’s projection, nor is it known whether the federal government would allow the Mayo Clinic to study the medicinal benefits of marijuana, since any study would require federal approval and federally-grown and -approved plants.

Heather Azzi, political director for the medical marijuana advocacy group Minnesotans for Compassionate Care, told MintPress News that Dayton has also expressed interest in studying pharmaceutical products derived from the marijuana plant that were created overseas.

Azzi added that not every state is allowed to study these drugs and patients don’t necessarily have five to seven years to wait for the Food and Drug Administration to approve them.

Under Dayton’s proposal, another $390,000 would go toward compiling a 21-member advisory council that would study what happened in states that legalized medical marijuana, including how crime rates were affected and the number of people reportedly abusing substances.

Even if Dayton’s CBD Therapeutic Act does pass, Azzi said it likely won’t do much to protect patients, since Minnesota passed a similar piece of legislation in 1980, known as the THC Therapeutic Research Act, which she said has never been effective because the feds are not cooperating and are, in fact, blocking medical marijuana research.

Though law enforcement supports the measure, and many medical marijuana legalization advocates applaud the push for more research, many legalization advocates are concerned that the state will continue to be unable to help those with certain medical conditions legally obtain the medicine they need and keep them out of prison.

While medical marijuana varieties high in CBD and low in THC have been touted as a great way to heal children, the reality is that THC does have medicinal values that some children rely on to keep them healthier.

Angela Garin’s 5-year-old son Paxton, for example, suffers from a brain abnormality called polymicrogyria, which results in intractable epilepsy, cerebral palsy and autism. 

Garin said since Paxton has started using medical marijuana, his seizures have decreased by about 88 percent, but she said Paxton isn’t taking a CBD-only strain. Garin said this proposal is concerning to her because she doesn’t know if a CBD-only strain would work for her son.

Brandan Borgos, a Minneapolis-based attorney and board member with the Minnesota chapter of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws, agreed that CBD-only legislation is not the right direction, adding that the research proposal is just “burying the patients and HF1818 beneath a mountain of time.”

“If Dayton is trying not to take a stance on the issue or a middle road he certainly is not accomplishing it. Citizens are ANGRY. Take one look at his Facebook page and see the comments overwhelming his declaration of his tax bill’s success. We will continue to dog him until the election on this issue,” Borgos told MintPress.

Dayton’s Chief of Staff Jaime Tincher said that the administration proposed the studies because they are looking for ways medical marijuana legalization can move forward in the state.

“It is my understanding that key stakeholders in the law enforcement and medical communities, including the Mayo Clinic, would support and advocate for the approach we are considering,” Tincher said.

Health Commissioner Ed Ehlinger agreed, saying, “This approach would allow us to address the problems of our most vulnerable patients, our children, and help us find safe and effective treatment consistent with the high standards of Minnesota’s nation-leading medical care system.”

Meetings between members of the governor’s administration as well as interested advocacy groups are expected to continue throughout the week.

Azzi said it’s up in the air whether the state Legislature will pass a medical marijuana bill this session, but she pointed out that the governor is no longer threatening to veto the bill. 

In fact, Azzi said Dayton has apologized to medical marijuana advocates and patients “for putting us in the position we are in,” which is that they were forced to negotiate with law enforcement bodies that have said they will not support a program that conflicts with federal law.

Given that the medical marijuana bill before the state Legislature was crafted in December 2012 and shared with interested parties, Azzi said it was a shame that some parties have waited until the last two months of the legislative session to raise concerns.

Azzi said some of the parties involved in holding up the bill are now helping advocates fix issues, she believes there is still hope a medical marijuana program may be coming soon to Minnesota.

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Marijuana debate ignites local viewpoints

Now that Colorado residents are free to walk into marijuana dispensaries every day, the debate about legalization has spread to other parts of the country, including Baldwin City.

Chief of Police Greg Neis said he recognizes both sides of the issue, but he believes legalizing marijuana would cause more harm than it’s worth.

“I see nothing but problems down the road,” Neis said. “It’s just like alcohol. How many drunk drivers do we have killed all the time? You legalize marijuana, they’ll get in their cars and they’ll drive.“

In addition to public safety, Neis and other opponents of legalization believe it will cause users to head toward new and stronger drugs.

The term “gateway drug” has been a rallying cry for years; however, researchers, including those in American Journal of Psychiatry, Journal of Health and Social Behavior and British Journal of Addiction, have not found a connection between marijuana use and that of harder substances.

In a random survey of 100 Baker students, 60 percent said they have tried marijuana. In the same survey, only 36 percent of students said they think marijuana will be legalized in Kansas within the next five years.

Associate Professor of History Leonard Ortiz said keeping marijuana illegal reflects a similar ideology to the prohibition of alcohol. At the time, some U.S. citizens were afraid of what liquor could potentially do to the body.

“Today, I think in addition to taking it out of the hands of the drug dealers, we could also create a tax-based revenue, just like they do in Colorado, which goes toward education,” Ortiz said. “And since they haven’t really proved that marijuana is dangerous for people, I see legalizing it as a logical way of dealing with the issue of marijuana. I think legalizing it is the right thing to do.”

Senior Matt Fry agrees with Ortiz, saying that the added revenue is something for states to consider when they start making budget cuts.

“Colorado is arguing about where they should put that extra money, while other state senates are arguing about where they can cut back and find more money,” Fry said. “So it’s a bit of a change in a conversation to have, and I think it would be welcome in several cash-depleted states.“

Arcview Market Research estimates that recreational marijuana sales in Colorado will add $359 million to the economy. Colorado's economy has already seen an impact from legalizing the drug.

At Mile High Pipe and Underground in Boulder, Colo., business has increased significantly since dispensaries opened. Employee Alex Barnes said across the board, sales have gone up 15-20 percent.

“We stay busy pretty much all the time,” Barnes said. “Old people, young people -- it’s just pretty popular around here.”

Andrea, who works at a Colorado dispensary and asked that her last name be withheld, said a lack of education is one reason legalizing marijuana is such a debated topic.

“(Marijuana) helps people in a lot of ways,” she said. “I study it all the time. It’s very medicinal in addition to being recreational. There’s a lot to be done with it. The reason why a lot of people have a problem with it is that we don’t know a whole lot about it.”

While the discussion rages on, some agree that the only thing to be done now is to watch and wait.

“People are a little stuck in their ways and they are resisting change and sort of keeping it all hunkered down as us, all together in one group, you know, resisting the rest,” Andrea said. “I think it’s just a matter of time before everyone’s minds change.”

Fry also foresees other states following suit.

“I think Colorado is sort of an experiment in a way, and we will see if other states should be adopting it, if the federal government should step in,” Fry said. “I think people are handling it in the right way, and as long as there hasn’t been any sort of increase in illegal activity, I think it’s a possibility for a lot of states just for the fact of the revenue it generates.”

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This Family Had To Fire Their Doctor To Get Medical Marijuana For Their Son

LOS ANGELES -- By the time Andrew Rios was 2 years old, he had already been given nine different medications to quell the non-stop seizures that had racked his little body since he was just 5 months old.
One of them, Felbamate, caused severe bruising, as well as insomnia, which makes epileptic seizures worse. Depakote put him in a coma for four days. Phenobarbital made him very aggressive, which led to a prescription for an antipsychotic medication. The final drug, Banzel, seemed to increase the number of seizures, from two a day to six a day.

Andrew's mother, Genesis Rios, said the neurologists at his hospital told her that if Banzel didn’t improve things, there were no more pharmaceutical options for her son. Instead, she would need to consider either a brain surgery that could blind him in one eye or vagus nerve stimulation surgery, which involves inserting a pacemaker-like rod into his chest.
Rios and her husband felt they were at the end of the road for Andrew. At 24 months old, when he should have been walking and talking, Andrew spent his days in his mother's arms, crying and seizing. The combined brain damage from the seizures and side effects from the medication caused him to seriously lag behind his twin brother, who was developing normally.

But when Rios brought up the possibility of trying medical marijuana, which some doctors report has therapeutic effects with children like Andrew, she said both of his neurologists balked.
"The moment I said cannabis, it was like, 'No, no, no, no.
We don't do cannabis here,' almost as if I were crazy," recalled Rios, who lives in Los Angeles with her family. "I thought, well, the medications you already gave him are crazy. You've already drugged him up more than [cannabis] would ever drug him up."

Rios wanted to give Andrew a strain of marijuana that is high in cannabidiol (CBD), a compound believed to calm the excess brain activity that causes seizures, and low in tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), the psychoactive compound thought to cause a pot user’s "high." She had heard about it from a cousin, who had watched a Discovery Channel program about another child who was taking a CBD strain of cannabis oil to calm his debilitating seizures.
In September 2013, when Andrew's neurologists suggested that surgery could be the next step, Rios knew she had to try the cannabis option. She said she also had to find new neurologists who would respect her decision to use marijuana. Rios sought a second opinion from Andrew's pediatrician.

"I asked the pediatrician what he thought: brain surgery or a non-psychoactive cannabis oil?" Rios recalled. "He said, 'I'd try the oil.'"
Rios did her research and two months later found Dr. Bonni Goldstein, medical director for the California clinic chain CannaCenters. Goldstein is a former emergency pediatric doctor who had switched exclusively to cannabis care in 2008. She also serves as medical director for Ghost Group, which operates several major marijuana-related websites.
Under Goldstein’s watch, Andrew started taking the oil, squirted under his tongue by his mother, on Nov. 15, 2013. By then, he was 26 months old and had been seizing daily for almost two years.

After his first dose, he didn't have a seizure for the next two days. The myoclonic jerking in his arms, which was by then a daily nuisance, stopped completely and never came back.
Under Goldstein's oversight, Rios slowly increased her son’s cannabis dosage to three times a day, hoping to extend the time between seizures.
Four months later, Andrew can now go up to two weeks without a seizure, when before he was having up to six seizures a day. His seizures have subsided enough that he’s been able to resume working with speech and motor skills therapists.

When asked about potential side effects from the cannabis, Rios ticked off a list: Andrew is smiling, laughing and playing with his four siblings, and his brain seems to be recuperating. Shortly after starting the treatments, he began speaking again.
"Every week, it's something new: eye contact, noticing family members in pictures. He's starting to talk like he should," said Rios. "If you're asking for negative side effects, I haven't seen any. ... Thank God there’s something like cannabis.”

Andrew Rios plays on the slide without fear of seizures for the first time in months. (Courtesy of the Rios family.) Hundreds of other families like Rios’ have begun using medical marijuana to treat their children's otherwise intractable seizures, and many have seen positive results. "Marijuana refugee" families are flocking to Colorado, where their children can get on the waiting list to try a high-CBD strain of marijuana called “Charlotte’s Web” that has worked wonders on young patients. Moved by the promising anecdotal evidence, even conservative states like Utah and Florida look ready to allow some medical use of marijuana.
California legalized medical cannabis in 1996, and 19 other states and the District of Columbia have followed suit.

But it remains illegal on a federal level: Since 1970, the federal government has classified marijuana as a Schedule I drug, a category for substances that have "no currently accepted medical use" and a "high potential for abuse." As a result, it’s very difficult for researchers to win grants and approval for the kind of testing that leads to Food and Drug Administration approval of pharmaceutical drugs.
Scientists who want to study marijuana in clinical trials, develop information about its effects or come up with standards of care have lost 44 years of federal funding and research -- time that could have been spent nailing down a treatment for debilitating forms of childhood epilepsy like Andrew’s.

In that vacuum of knowledge, traditionally trained epilepsy doctors are loath to prescribe untested, federally banned products like cannabis -- despite an endorsement from the Epilepsy Foundation.
So cannabis use remains highly stigmatized in the medical field, even in states where medical marijuana is legal. And parents like Rios struggle to find physician support to treat their ailing children with cannabis.
In addition to Goldstein's continued monitoring of Andrew’s cannabis treatment, Rios’ son is now under the care of Dr. Raman Sankar, M.D. Ph.D., the chief of pediatric neurology at Mattel Children’s Hospital UCLA. As Andrew's seizures are being better controlled with cannabis oil, Sankar is helping Rios to taper her son off his multiple pharmaceutical drugs.

Meanwhile, Goldstein works to safely increase Andrew's cannabis dosage to further reduce his seizures.
But even though they’re both caring for Andrew, Sankar and Goldstein don’t see eye to eye on the proper way to use cannabis as part of a treatment plan.
Goldstein is passionate about the good the drug has done for her pediatric seizure patients and believes marijuana must be downgraded from its Schedule I status so that scientists can study its medicinal properties. Fifty percent of her epilepsy patients have seen a reduction in seizures, she said, while a handful have stopped seizing completely under her supervision.

“For many of the people I see, this is the last resort,” said Goldstein. “How long do you let your child have seizures? How invasive and aggressive are you with treatment before you realize this plant has some value?”
For his part, Sankar is no cannabis hard-liner -- in talking to HuffPost, for example, he distanced himself from others in his field who have “fired” patients for experimenting outside the bounds of their prescriptions -- but he hasn’t jumped on the medical marijuana bandwagon, either.
Sankar agrees that marijuana needs to be removed from Schedule I status, and he sympathizes somewhat with Goldstein's decision to treat patients with cannabis.

But as long as marijuana’s effects remains unstudied, he remains skeptical about doctors' guiding parents in administering the drug to their children.
"Sometimes people get very excited and enthusiastic, and they will actually say, 'You can do anything you want. I trust you. Experiment with my child,'" he said. And Sankar, who treats patients with various forms of epilepsy and other neurological disorders, has to remind parents how problematic such requests can be.
"It's incredibly understandable -- all they can see is the horrible time they've had controlling their child's seizures and the toxicities that come from many of the medications," said Sankar.

"But I think where the disconnect has occurred is that we don't normally do medicine that way."
"We don't want to go back to the time before the FDA, when people would subscribe to snake oil,” he said. “Our concern is really that we should have a consistent product in terms of purity and potency, good-quality efficacy data, dose response data, good-quality toxicity data and safety warnings as may be needed."
Sankar is not just talking about the need for better data. He’s working with his colleague, Dr. Shaun Hussain, to gain approval from the FDA and the Institutional Review Board at UCLA to participate in a multi-hospital pharmaceutical cannabis pilot study.

It would, for the first time, test an FDA-approved cannabis-based drug on children like Andrew, whom Sankar tentatively diagnosed with Lennox-Gastaut syndrome this February. The drug, Epidiolex, was created by U.K.-based GW Pharmaceuticals, and it was approved for a pilot study on patients with Lennox-Gastaut syndrome, Dravet syndrome and other forms of intractable epilepsy last fall.
"Everything will be done by the books," promised Sankar. "The drug will be administered by the UCLA pharmacy, overseen at our facilities, and the data will be shared among the hospitals."

As with all trials, the number of participants will be limited, in part because there's only so much of the free drug to go around. Sankar and Hussain hope to have it up and running at UCLA by the end of 2014. If successful, the pilot study could lead to randomized, controlled, double-blind studies that could establish the place of CBD in epilepsy treatment.
Rios is very interested in having Andrew be part of Sankar’s trial. She said she'd like to have more information about how the cannabis is interacting with the other drugs he's still tapering off, and the trial’s tests could give her that. Rios is also excited about the fact that Epidiolex would be a rigorously controlled product -- as opposed to the CBD oils that can vary in strength.

But four months into the cannabis oil treatment, Rios is not waiting around for formal testing to catch up with her son's needs. Before he began using it, Rios thought Andrew would grow up dependent on a wheelchair, needing round-the-clock care and tube feeding. Medical marijuana has given her hope that he might be able to develop normally.
"The only thing I want you to know is that this works," said Rios, recalling the time she took Andrew to an outdoor park just a month after he began treatment. He played all that day without experiencing one seizure. "My son is better," she said.

Rios added that children like Andrew don’t have the luxury of waiting for the government’s approval. "A lot of children don't have the time to wait [for a trial]," she said. "Every single day your kids have a seizure or are on drugs that keep them high, you lose them more and more."

Andrew Rios plays on the swing without fear of seizures for the first time in months. (Courtesy of the Rios family.)

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