3 Major Hurdles the Marijuana Industry May Not Overcome

Marijuana has expanded like a weed across the United States, but according to our contributors these three hurdles could prove too difficult to overcome.

Source: Flickr user Mark.

The marijuana industry is absolutely budding across the United States. Since 1996, 23 states having legalized medical marijuana, with four states legalizing the currently illicit drug for recreational adult use since 2012.
Marijuana's market potential is obviously enormous; but so are its risks. With that in mind, we asked three of our contributors to name what they believe is a major hurdle the marijuana industry could struggle to overcome. Here's what they had to say.

Sean Williams: A new hurdle for the marijuana industry seems to pop up seemingly every couple of months; but one that continues to ring true is the federal tax complications that marijuana businesses will likely continue to face. Although states have been free and clear to establish legal marijuana businesses and regulate the product without the interference of the federal government, federal tax laws still supersede state tax laws. In other words, what the IRS says still goes when it comes to regulating legal marijuana shops.

Based on the ruling of San Francisco's Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in July in the case of Olive v. Commissioner, U.S. tax code section 280E was upheld as it pertains to marijuana-based businesses. In plainer English, it simply means that legal marijuana businesses can't deduct business expenses when it involves the sale of an illegal drug. Remember, just because select states have legalized marijuana doesn't make it legal on a federal basis.

The federal government still views marijuana as an illicit substance, and because federal tax law supersedes state tax law, marijuana shops are being forced to pay taxes on their gross profits rather than net profits. This burden of taxation threatens the ability of the industry to expand, or in some cases, to even remain profitable.
In order for marijuana businesses to thrive, they'll either need section 280E to be reformed, or they'll need the government to reschedule marijuana to something other than Schedule 1. A Schedule 1 drug is considered highly addictive and not deemed to have any medical benefits. In my personal opinion, neither option appears likely to happen anytime soon.

Source: GW Pharmaceuticals.

George Budwell: The perceived medical benefits of marijuana are perhaps the biggest reason the drug has made major strides toward widespread decriminalization lately. Unfortunately, marijuana's Schedule I status, which deems it as having no accepted medical use and a high potential for abuse, has basically put a stranglehold on any serious research into the drug's potential medical uses -- at least in the U.S.

Outside of the U.S., however, some researchers, like those at Britain's GW Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ:GWPH), have been slowly unraveling marijuana's clinical profile across a host of conditions such as cancer pain, appetite suppression in HIV patients, and spasticity due to multiple sclerosis.
Unfortunately for advocates of legalized marijuana, two recent peer-reviewed articles in The Journal of the American Medical Association cogently argued that the clinical studies to date show little evidence that the drug benefits patients with these, as well as other, disorders.

Complicating matters, they also reported that there is a growing concern that marijuana use might increase the risk of testicular cancer. Medical marijuana still has a long way to go before its clinical profile is well understood. But the early evidence isn't overwhelmingly positive. The drug's political foes could therefore be planning on using these initial clinical studies to try and block any attempts to change marijuana's Schedule I status at the Federal level, which would essentially crush the movement to decriminalize marijuana nationwide. Stay tuned.

Source: MyFuture.com via Flickr.

Eric Volkman: A business isn't on solid foundation if it doesn't have access to basic banking services. This is a major problem in the weed industry -- because the key product is illegal at the Federal level, almost no bank will go near businesses that traffic in it. Banks are regulated by a Federal agency, so the risks of transacting with entities that unambiguously break U.S. laws are obvious.
Without a bank underpinning its finances, a dispensary has no choice but to run its finances in cash.

This is overwhelmingly inconvenient and resource draining; imagine having to make payroll, settle bills with suppliers, retire the electric bill, pay the rent, etc. etc. etc. constantly and solely in hard currency.
It's also risky, because cash-heavy businesses are juicy targets for criminals. That leads to a knock-on problem -- security, which can get prohibitively expensive in a hurry. One dispensary in Colorado, for example, pays around $100,000 annually for armed guards.

It's hard to imagine any industry managing finances effectively – heck, even surviving -- without the aid of a bank. If today's pot business can't connect with this most basic financial institution, it could be difficult to be a business for long.

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High expectations

ARTICLE BY RHONDA SIMMONS; PHOTOS/VIDEO BY MARLA MCKENNA/STAR-EXPONENT

Pam Novy, executive director of Virginia, National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws (VANORML), explains that she decided to champion marijuana legalization in Virginia because of the impact drug laws had on her teenage son.

by Rhonda Simmons 

STEVENSBURG — Members of a non-profit state organization are trying to weed out legislation that criminalizes the possession of marijuana in Virginia.

According to the group’s mission statement, it wants to “represent Virginia’s cannabis community at the General Assembly and throughout the state, and to promote a regulated cannabis market by legalizing the responsible use, cultivation and distribution of cannabis products.”

Established in 1970 and headquartered in Washington, D.C., the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws, or NORML, recently started a Culpeper Chapter in August.

About 25 people filled Lenn Park's enclosed pavilion located between a packed playground of children and softball field on Sunday afternoon for the group’s kickoff meeting in Culpeper.

According to its Facebook page, Virginia NORML strives to educate the community about cannabis by persuading public opinion so that “responsible use by adults will no longer be subject to criminal prosecution and penalties.”

Culpeper resident and Virginia NORML director Pam Novy said Virginia can do a lot to advance the cause of decriminalizing marijuana.

Novy, 54, a clinical psychologist, who served in the U.S. Navy and Air Force, said her journey started decades ago in another state when her teenage son was arrested for possessing less than an ounce of marijuana.  

Novy said her son was sentenced to a mandatory six months in jail, but his time was reduced to three months for good behavior.

“He never got into any trouble before that. He was a good student involved in many community activities and never got into any trouble after that,” shared Novy. “But that incident derailed his life for a couple of years as a young 19- or 20-year-old. He had trouble with getting into schools because he was waiting for court dates,” said Novy.

Novy reiterated that Virginia NORML advocates for the legalization and regulation of marijuana for responsible adults only.

“We do not advocate the use for children. We do not advocate for driving while impaired or illegal activity,” said Novy. “We are advocating for changing the laws. And one of the ways is building coalitions.”

According to the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, marijuana is considered a schedule I drug in the same category as heroin, LSD and ecstasy.

“[Marijuana] should not be classified as a schedule I drug,” Novy opined.

Guest speaker Vivienne Smith, 62, director of Virginia Republicans Against Marijuana Prohibition, says she supports medicinal marijuana use.

“I know people that have epilepsy and Crohn’s disease that are taking drugs, which have horrible side effects,” shared Smith. “Marijuana doesn’t have any bad side effects. If you take too much marijuana, you are probably going to sleep it off and that’s the worst thing that’s going to happen to you.”

Smith proceeded to read the Virginia Republican Creed that starts, “We believe that the free enterprise system is the most productive supplier of human needs and economic justice. That all individuals are entitled to equal rights, justice and opportunities and should assume their responsibilities as citizens in a free society.”

Smith said that the above passage reinforces one key element that, “This country was founded on liberty. And to me, this is a liberty issue. And every single person in this country should be concerned that our liberty is being taken away from us. It’s a liberty issue to be able to do what we want with our bodies.”

Taking the legal route

Based on Virginia law, it’s unlawful for anyone to possess marijuana in Virginia unless obtained from a valid physician's prescription. A person found guilty of possession during a first offense is considered a Class 1 misdemeanor and may face 30 days in jail and up to a $500 fine. For distributing marijuana, the penalties are much tougher.

However, the move toward easing marijuana laws in Virginia is already underway.

State Sen. Adam P. Ebbin (D-30th), who represents Alexandria, Arlington and Fairfax districts, introduced a bill this year to decriminalize the possession of small amounts of marijuana in the commonwealth.

According to his proposed bill, if passed, the $500 criminal fine for marijuana possession would be reduced to a $100 civil penalty payable to the Literary Fund and likely eliminate the 30-day jail sentence. If approved, the bill would also reduce the criminal penalties for the distribution of marijuana.

“This is not going to legalize marijuana. It is going to make it no longer have a criminal penalty,” Ebbin told WJLA last November. “This certainly is going to be a tough bill to pass but it’s an important conversation to have.”

But the anticipated law was rejected in the courts of justice committee earlier this year. Ebbin said Sunday evening that he plans to file another bill in December or January in an effort to decriminalize marijuana in Virginia.

Delegate Ed Scott, (R-30th) who represents, Madison and Orange, and most of Culpeper, said while NORML may be new to Culpeper, it’s not a new organization.

“When I was getting my degree at Virginia Tech 30 years ago, I lived in a dorm with the NORML chapter president,” shared Scott. “Virginia has not legalized marijuana in the last 30 years, and I will be surprised if it is decriminalized any time soon. Legitimate concerns remain about it being a gateway to drugs that are proving to be fatal to too many young lives.”

So far, four states — Colorado, Alaska, Oregon and Washington — have legalized marijuana, allowing the sale and possession for both medical and non-medical use.

And for the record, the Star-Exponent staff didn’t smell any weed in the air on Sunday.

Rise of the bizarre 'cannabis vomiting syndrome': Heavy users suffer from severe nausea and pain that can only be relieved by bathing in hot water several times a day

• Cannabinoid hypermesis syndrome was first recorded in Australia
• Symptoms include severe stomach pain, nausea and vomiting 
• Sufferers often report having a hot bath up to 5 times a day to relieve pain
• Expert warns condition is responsible for a rise in 'unnecessary' hospital admissions for heavy cannabis users - and is 'increasing acutely'

By Colin Fernandez,

A bizarre syndrome that makes heavy cannabis users violently ill and leads them to take frequent hot baths to ease the pain has been reported by doctors. 

Symptoms of the illness include severe stomach pain, nausea and vomiting – and bathing in very hot water up to five times a day for relief.

At least two cases of the syndrome which involve multiple visits to accident and emergency have been reported in the UK and worldwide the conditions is ‘increasing acutely’.

But doctors in the UK warn that the failure to recognise CHS is likely to be draining hospital resources as it is being wrongly diagnosed.

Cannabinoid hypermesis syndrome, which causes heavy users of the drug to suffer stomach pain, nausea and vomiting, has been recorded in the UK after first being reported in medical literature in Australia

Dr Sauid Ishaq, professor of gastroenterology at Birmingham City University, who was one of the first to observe the syndrome in the UK said: ‘This is a highly unrecognised condition, resulting in numerous unnecessary admission.

'There is an urgent need to highlight this.’

In the US, doctors in Colorado report an ‘acute’ rise in cases of the syndrome there since marijuana laws became relaxed.

CHS, which stands for cannabinoid hyperemesis syndrome, was first reported in medical literature in 10 patients in Adelaide, Australia in 2004.

Recognition of the condition is increasing and doctors are now recognising the condition in patients regularly visiting hospital with severe nausea.

Dr Ishaq reported a 42-year-old man presented on eight occasions with vomiting, abdominal pain, fever and dehydration last year in the east Midlands.

Dr Ishaq of Russells Hall Hospital, Dudley and colleagues found the man had been a chronic cannabis smoker since the age of 14.

After a series of investigations, they found the symptoms ceased when the patient stopped smoking the drug.

Dr Sauid Ishaq, who was one of the first to observe the syndrome in the UK said: ‘This is a highly unrecognised condition, resulting in numerous unnecessary admission' (File image posed by a model)

In the medical journal GHFBB the authors write better awareness of the condition ‘would result in fewer hospital admissions and needless investigations, and may provide patients with real motivation to abstain from cannabis'.

At Macclesfield General Hospital, a 21-year-old chef had been admitted on seven occasions over a two year period with profuse vomiting – but his symptoms ended after he stopped smoking the drug. 

WHAT IS CANNABINOID HYPERMESIS SYNDROME? 

Cannabinoid hypermesis syndrome is characterised by heavy use of the drug, triggering nausea and vomiting as well as frequent hot baths or showers.

Despite studies promoting the use of marijuana's anti-emetic (anti-sickness) qualities, there is increasing evidence of its negative affect on the gastrointestinal tract, triggering CHS.

Sufferers have reported frequent hot bathing helps to provide temporary relief from the nausea, vomiting and abdominal pain typical of the illness.

Lead author Dr Enrico Roche wrote in the journal Gut: ‘The observation that the patient wanted to take regular baths because he had found that bathing eased the sickness was documented in the nursing notes but its significance was not appreciated.’ 

In one case reported in the Journal of American Family Medicine a man ‘spent three days in a hot shower while awake’ to alleviate his symptoms.

His case was not the most extreme however, as researchers reported that one sufferer reported spending ‘300 out of 365 days’ in the bath.

The findings that cannabis can cause severe nausea runs counter to a widespread view that the drug has a powerful anti-nausea effect.

Doctors in Colorado – where cannabis has been legalised – suspected that some of the cases of extreme nausea they had been seeing may have been caused by chronic cannabis use.

They reviewed admission data to hospitals and found an acute rise in the condition since marijuana became legalised and widely available for medical use.

The research, in Academic Emergency Medicine, compared the numbers of people suffering from the condition from November 1, 2008 to October 31, 2009, after which cannabis use became liberalised in the state and between June 1, 2010 to May 31, 2011.

CHS was first reported in medical literature in 10 patients in Adelaide, Australia in 2004. Recognition of the condition is increasing and doctors are now recognising the condition in patients regularly visiting hospital with severe nausea

They found 41 cases of suspected CHS – where patients had been admitted three or more times for nausea - before legalisation rose to 87 cases after legalisation at two hospitals, Denver Health and the University of Colorado. 

The sufferers were predominantly female (71 per cent) and white (72 per cent) with an average age of 31, the authors note.

The authors, led by Dr Kim Howard, wrote they think that the most likely explanation for the marijuana use contributed to an increased rate of cyclic vomiting presentations. 

Marijuana is the most commonly used illicit substance in the United States, the authors note, with 18.9 million users in 2012.

But they add: ‘Unfortunately, there is little information on the deleterious effects of chronic use and its implications for public health.

‘As the number of new and chronic marijuana users grows annually, it is important to measure its effect on public health…the rate of cyclic vomiting seems to have increased acutely.’ 

Data shows race influences marijuana arrests

Lauren Kent 

Marijuana usage is roughly the same across all races. But predicting who gets caught is black and white. In North Carolina, black people are 3.4 times more likely to be arrested for marijuana possession than white people. And according to a 2013 report from the American Civil Liberties Union, the rate was worse for Orange County and nearby Durham and Chatham counties, where the disproportionate arrest rate exceeded the national average of 3.73. 

“The war on marijuana disproportionately is a war on people of color,” said Mike Meno, spokesman for the ACLU of North Carolina. FBI Uniform Crime Report data shows that in 2013, the most recent year for which data is available, 50.2 percent of the people arrested for marijuana possession in North Carolina were black, yet just 22 percent of the state’s population is black. During the past six months in Orange County, 21 out of 33 people charged with low-level marijuana possession were black, said Ian Mance, an attorney at the Southern Coalition for Social Justice. 

Mance also said for all marijuana-related charges, 41 out of 99 offenders were black. In Orange County, black people only make up 11.9 percent of the total population, according to the 2010 census. An arrest could mean losing a job, housing or federal financial aid for college. In 2010, more than half of drug arrests in North Carolina were for marijuana possession, which cost the state almost $55 million to enforce, according to the ACLU report. “Our current marijuana laws make no sense,” Meno said. 

“We are criminalizing numerous individuals for using a substance that is less harmful than alcohol and that most Americans believe should be legal.” Legalization of marijuana use is favored by 53 percent of Americans, according to a March 2015 survey from Pew Research Center. Related Content Chapel Hill mayoral race draws 3 candidates Rachel Herzog 9 hours ago Contextualized grading in focus groups Jonathan Ponciano 10 hours ago UNC men's soccer freshman keeper earns the start Logan Ulrich 10 hours ago UNC volleyball team digs itself into early hole C Jackson Cowart 10 hours ago Police log for Aug. 31, 2015 11 hours ago But marijuana use is not the sole issue — people of color are also disproportionately arrested for selling and manufacturing marijuana compared to white people. 

In North Carolina, more than twice as many black people were arrested for marijuana sales or manufacturing than white people. “People of color and poor communities tend to be targeted much more than more affluent communities, despite the fact that usage is about the same,” said Morgan Fox, spokesman for the Marijuana Policy Project, a D.C. based lobbying organization. Richard Wright, chair of the Criminal Justice and Criminology Department at Georgia State University, is an expert on drug dealers. 

His recent research focused on how the code of street dealing differs from suburban drug dealing. He said suburban drug dealers he interviewed in Atlanta, most of them white teens, were more afraid of their parents than of law enforcement. “They weren’t too worried about going to jail because they were young,” Wright said. “This would be a first time offense, and they came from families with the wherewithal to go to court. 

 “The urban dealers (in St. Louis), the minority dealers, were used to street sweeps and sting operations...whereas these were wholly unknown in the neighborhood in Atlanta.” Durham Police Department spokesman Wil Glenn said they are aware of the racial disparities between black and white people arrested for marijuana. He attributes some of the disparity to the higher police presence in areas where they receive a lot of 911 calls, which are often minority neighborhoods. 

“We answer the calls as they come to us,” Glenn said. “We deploy our workforce in areas where they’re needed most.” Lt. Josh Mecimore of the Chapel Hill Police Department said that marijuana charges are typically related to other actions. “We might get a suspicious vehicle call which leads to a marijuana charge,” Mecimore said. But Department of Justice data shows that black people are also disproportionately likely to get pulled over for traffic stops. Some activists argue that the issue is systemic. 

“Any time there is a transgression, there is a racial disparity,” said Colorado ACLU spokesman John Krieger. In states like Colorado, Oregon and Washington, legislatures removed marijuana possession from the list of transgressions. Colorado’s legalization amendment regulates marijuana much like alcohol consumption — use is still illegal for those under 21, as is driving while impaired. The state generated $44 million in marijuana tax revenue in 2014. 

“That was money going to the underground market and cartels,” said lawyer Brian Vicente, who helped write the amendment. He also said youth consumption has gone down. “Marijuana prohibition was simply a failed policy. It was very costly, and it was having a big impact on people’s lives in terms of sending them to jail and giving them criminal records,” Vicente said. “And it didn’t really seem to be accomplishing any goals to reduce use of marijuana.” 

But larger offenses related to marijuana are still affecting black people more than white people. “Those offenses that would lead to a prison sentence didn’t change,” Krieger said. In the absence of state and national legalization, the ACLU is advocating for individual police departments to consider marijuana possession the “lowest-level priority.” “Most North Carolinians would agree that law enforcement officers have better things to do,” Meno said. Mecimore said that the Chapel Hill Police Department does not necessarily prioritize one crime over another — they enforce what the State Legislature tells them. 

However, he said that the small number of overall marijuana offenders the department arrested last year compared to overall arrests suggests that it is a low priority. Percy Crutchfield, chief of the Pittsboro Police Department, said they don’t have a scale for how to prioritize crimes. “It is still a crime,” Crutchfield said. “An officer does have discretion in certain cases, but it is a violation of the North Carolina Controlled Substances Act.” 

At the federal level, President Barack Obama addressed the war on drugs, as well as the phenomenon of “missing” minority men, when he commuted the prison sentences of 46 non-violent drug offenders in July. But those who advocate for drug law reform, like Meno, argue that 46 is minuscule compared to the hundreds of thousands of people arrested for marijuana possession each year. Meno said the next step in North Carolina is medical marijuana reform. Then, tackling decriminalization and trading in wasted police resources for tax revenue. “In Colorado, the sky has not fallen,” Meno said.

In Our View: Keep Eye on Marijuana

Legal pot's first year yields few surprises, but legitimate concerns remain

A little more than one year into legalized marijuana use for adults in Washington, topics of concern about the drug remain little changed. Marijuana use by minors and those who drive under the influence continue to be the biggest issues with this journey into uncharted territory — and they will require diligence from regulators and law enforcement.

Washington voters approved Initiative 502 in November 2012 with 56 percent of the vote, and legal marijuana stores were up and running by the summer of 2014. While data are still being formulated, a picture of the impact of legalization is becoming clearer. As Patty Hastings recently reported in The Columbian, “As is evident by millions of dollars in sales each month at Vancouver’s retail stores, people certainly use marijuana. And it has had some consequences on the community, but there’s apparently no evidence of major behavioral shifts.”

That echoes arguments that were used in support of legalization (The Columbian editorially supported passage of I-502) — that many adults already were using marijuana, and that enforcing antiquated laws against the drug were a poor use of public funds. Meanwhile, concerns about the negative impacts of legalization apparently are playing out as expected.

To start with, officials see little or no increase in marijuana use by teenagers, judging by surveys and by court records involving the referral of minors to Clark County Juvenile Court. In implementing legalization, Washington took strong measures to limit the impact on teenagers, from restrictions upon the location of marijuana shops to educational programs alerting teens to the dangers of the drug.

Those dangers are particularly crucial for teens. Studies have demonstrated that the brains of young adults are not fully formed, making them particularly susceptible to the impact of psychoactive drugs. As legalization sends the message that society approves of marijuana use on some level — a message that underplays the dangers — it will be essential for teenagers to be educated regarding its effects. Just as they did prior to legalization, many teens will face making personal decisions about marijuana use, and a robust societal discussion can be more beneficial than prohibition in helping them navigate those decisions.

Another overriding concern about legalization — the prospect of more people driving under the influence of marijuana — also has yielded few surprises, as the Washington Traffic Safety Commission has found that marijuana has increasingly become a factor in fatal crashes. In 2014, among 619 drivers involved in fatal crashes, 75 tested positive for recently using cannabis — about twice as many as in 2010.

At the same time, it should be noted that half of last year’s marijuana-positive drivers also were under the influence of alcohol — with many of those surpassing the legal limit for driving.
The issue of driving under the influence of marijuana has exacerbated the difficulty of the job faced by law enforcement. Marijuana acts differently upon the body than alcohol, making it difficult to assess a driver’s level of impairment. But researchers at Washington State University are working on a roadside breath test for marijuana use — a matter of necessity being the mother of invention.

Overall, the legalization of marijuana has been fairly smooth. Like any societal change, it is imperfect; like any action with inherent drawbacks, it will require continued diligence. But the positives of ending an unenforceable prohibition continue to outweigh the negatives.

Legalize marijuana now

By Eric Engle 
Last week, my fiancee and I met in Charleston with the core membership of WV NORML (West Virginia chapter of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws). The meeting was a wonderful opportunity to meet a group of incredible and motivated people, including former West Virginia gubernatorial and U.S. Senate candidate, Jesse Johnson, who is now with the Mountain Party.

It all started at the monthly meeting of the Wood County Democratic Executive Committee, where members of the Parkersburg subchapter of WV NORML were invited by one committee member to speak. Their presentation was quite moving, though I was not and am not in need of being moved. I've long supported the full legalization of marijuana nationwide.

The Controlled Substances Act of 1970 made marijuana a Schedule 1 substance, on par with LSD and Heroine and a step higher in severity than cocaine, a Schedule 2 controlled substance! This is and has been blatantly ridiculous. It is long past time for marijuana to be removed from the Controlled Substances Act altogether. The federal government, however, is in no hurry to make this happen.

Cases like this make me happy that we have a system of federalism wherein states can act, to a point, independently of the federal government. As of today, four states and the District of Columbia have legalized marijuana even for recreational use, and 25 more have allowed for medical marijuana legalization.

West Virginia is behind the curve. It's time we caught up. Parkersburg can and should lead the way. If we can decriminalize weed here in Parkersburg, the way the city of Philadelphia did in Pennsylvania, we can make such a difference in the lives of so many West Virginians for whom marijuana is about quality of life and handling disease, not about emulating Cheech and Chong.

As such, I am working with WV NORML to convince the Parkersburg City Council and the Mayor that the time to decriminalize is now! In the Parkersburg News and Sentinel, the Mayor and Chief of Police suggested that they were totally opposed in no uncertain terms. But these men are public servants beholden to the people and I believe that the majority of the people of Parkersburg disagree with them.

Science Says Marijuana Makes You Skinny — Seriously

By Afarin Majidi

No one’s denying that people usually get the munchies after smoking pot or eating cannabis edibles. All that is definitely true, so much so that many people who are ill and have no appetite or people who need to put on weight often use medical marijuana to help stabilize their body mass at a healthier weight.

But what about the rest of us who are not trying to gain weight? The myth so far has been that people who smoke pot eat more and therefore weigh more. New scientific research, however, is contradicting this popularly held believe.

According to the journal of Obesity Biology and Integrated Physiology, researchers have found that cannabis users have a lower body mass index. Basically, pot users are on average thinner than non-users. Not only that but there’s good news for diabetics and pre-diabetics: Cannabis users have lower blood glucose levels than non-users.
That’s not where the good news ends, either. Several studies show that cannabis users have a higher caloric intake on average than non-users despite the fact that they had a lower body weight.

This means that using cannabis may encourage the munchies and make you eat more, but your metabolism simultaneously gets a little boost that prevents weight-gain. Who would’ve ever thought that marijuana makes you skinny?
The reason for the metabolism boost is that Tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) stimulates the production of a hormone called ghrelin. Ghrelin is a poweful appetite stimulator and is often called “the hunger hormone” in the scientific community. However, ghrelin also plays a big role in helping our bodies break down and metabolize carbohydrates.

Wait! It gets even better: Scientists at the University of Nebraska, the Harvard School of Public Health, and Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center found that marijuana users had a smaller waist circumference than non-users.
In yet another study of 52,000 participants, it was reported — and published in the American Journal of Epidemiology — that rates of obesity are 1/3 lower in cannabis users versus non-users. Cholesterol levels also proved to be healthier in cannabis users as well.

So there you have it: You may be eating more after taking a few tokes but the same stuff that makes you crave all kinds of crazy foods is keeping your body from retaining fat! Now that’s reason to celebrate with a few hits, no?

The 1 Battle That Marijuana Users May Not Win

By Sean Williams
Source: National Drug Abuse Research Centre.

For the most part, almost everything has worked in favor of the marijuana industry over the past two decades. Although you can point to medical marijuana defeats in select states (e.g., Florida's amendment to legalize medical marijuana), marijuana has done nothing but expand its influence, all while support for its legalization among the public has grown.

Nearly everything goes right for marijuana
At last check, 23 states have legalized marijuana for medical purposes, while four states -- Washington, Colorado, Oregon, and Alaska -- along with Washington, D.C., have led the charge to legalize the still-federally-illicit drug for recreational adult use. Furthermore, a majority of national polls suggest that a majority of respondents narrowly support marijuana's legalization, with an overwhelming majority in favor of the legalization of medical marijuana.
The reason for this shift in the public's and states' opinion is plain as day.



New clinical data keeps emerging that suggests marijuana, or the cannabinoids from within the cannabis plant, could be beneficial to alleviating or treating certain diseases and disorders. These range from widespread conditions such as Alzheimer's or type 2 diabetes to rarer indications such as Dravet syndrome or Lennox-Gastaut syndrome, which are two types of childhood-onset epilepsy. GW Pharmaceuticals, a pioneer in cannabinoid research, has demonstrated with its experimental drug Epidiolex that seizure frequencies in both indications were reduced by more than half in mid-stage studies for both indications.

For states, it's all about the green, and by that I mean tax revenue, so get your head out of the gutter. Marijuana isn't a holy grail fix for budget shortfalls, but it's a smart way of boosting revenue via taxation without instituting a statewide tax increase that residents are almost sure to resent. The money generated from taxing marijuana can be used for everything from infrastructure repairs to education and jobs growth.

One of the primary factors that's allowed marijuana to gain so much momentum has been the federal government's hands-off approach to regulating the drug. Although it hasn't wavered on its stance of the marijuana plant as a schedule 1 substance (meaning it's considered highly addictive, illicit, and it has no medical benefits), it's also decided to let individual states set their own marijuana policies and regulate them. This has gone a long way toward allowing the industry to bud (pun fully intended).

One battle marijuana users may not win
Throughout marijuana's expansion, however, there has been one battle that users have been fighting that they just can't seem to win -- and that they may never win. This battle is over the right to use the product as a medical marijuana patient without the fear of being let go or fired for violating an employer's strict zero-tolerance policy on drugs.

The issue took center stage in June when the Colorado Supreme Court issued a ruling on the firing of a quadriplegic man, Brandon Coats, who was let go by DISH Networkin 2010. Coats was written prescriptions for medical marijuana due to his medical condition, but told DISH that under no circumstances was he under the influence of the drug at any point while working for DISH. Although DISH accepted Coats' claims, he was nonetheless let go because of DISH's zero-tolerance drug policy.

The Colorado Supreme Court merely upheld DISH's decision to fire Coats as valid. According to the court, because marijuana is not legal on a federal level, his activities did not comply with the state's own "lawful activities statute" (despite marijuana being legal across the board in Colorado), and therefore DISH was within its legal right to fire him.

Change is needed, but may not come
Coats' case may have set some form of precedent among zero-tolerance employers, but it's unlikely to be the last case to garner a lot of attention. Kabrina Krebel Chang, a clinical associate professor of business law and ethics at the Questrom School of Business at Boston University, noted in a recent interview with Vice News that more than a half-dozen lawsuits have been filed with employers for wrongful termination as a result of medical marijuana usage, and not a single one has resulted in a victory for the fired employee.


What's needed by medical marijuana users is a shift in select employers' zero-tolerance drug policies. However, based on the findings of the Chicago Tribune, which interviewed Jeffrey Risch, the chair of the Illinois Chamber of Commerce's Employment Law and Litigation Committee, a vast majority of Illinois business owners who currently have zero-tolerance drug policies in force have no intention of changing them in lieu of medical marijuana's expansion within the state.
Risch had this to say:

Marijuana is still viewed by the employers I interface with as a drug that they don't want to tolerate. Every one of them will say passionately, sincerely, that they owe an obligation to their workers... to maintain a healthy work environment free from the effect or use of drugs.

That may sound a bit harsh, but there's more to this decision than just the personal views of business owners. Allowing the use of legal medical marijuana for employees could jeopardize a claim with a commercial insurer if something unexpected happens in the workplace or with a product manufactured by a business. Business owners are unlikely to leave their businesses exposed to a potential loss of liability tied to a change in their zero-tolerance drug policy.

Betting on change in the workplace is risky
To say the least, no one is entirely sure how the expansion of recreational or medical marijuana in legal states is going to affect businesses or overall employment in those states.
On one hand, there's certainly the idea that letting go of a medical marijuana user could spare a business from the potential of losing liability if something goes wrong in the workplace. Of course, the other side to this equation is that letting go of a worker for being a legal medical marijuana user means potentially spending thousands of dollars in training a new employee to take their place.

Ultimately, it may wind up costing businesses and employees regardless of what's done in the workplace, and that's not a good thing for the American economy or investors. Keep in mind the interaction between businesses and legal medical marijuana users is still in its infancy, but the initial battles in court seem to suggest that medical marijuana's expansion in the workplace may have come to a grinding halt.

Recreational marijuana use proven safe to brain, study finds

 

You can now smoke pot without fear of damaging your brain, a new study finds. New research published in the journal JAMA Psychiatry studied the brain patterns between siblings and twins ages 22 to 35, reports Time.

Two recent studies documenting the effects of cannabis use on the brain did not do much for the many questions that remain about the safety and long-term implications of using marijuana. Similarly, today’s JAMA study “casts considerable doubt on hypotheses that cannabis use … causes reductions in amygdala volumes”.


“That means there could be widespread elements, genetic and environmental, that predispose us to utilizing marijuana that additionally contribute to variations in our mind volumes”, Agrawal advised Reside Science.

Cortical thickness indicates “how “bushy” the cells are, how many branches they have, how good they might be at processing information”, said senior author Dr. Tomas Paus of the Rotman Research Institute in Toronto. “If you know these disorders run in your family, then I would be super, super careful”. Both studies were published online August 26 in JAMA Psychiatry.

But the problem plaguing all of these studies is that people who smoke marijuana are different from those who don’t in lots of ways, and untangling cause and effect can be incredibly tricky, the researchers said. Cannabis users were found to have smaller amygdalas than nonusers, a result that agreed with earlier findings, Agrawal told HealthDay.

In some pairs, only one sibling had smoked marijuana; in others, both had smoked pot; and in some, neither sibling had used cannabis.

In the case of the amygdala, the researchers write that the smaller brain region may be explained by genetic factors – their analysis didn’t show a significant contribution from environment. For example, childhood exposure to adversity can affect amygdala size, and also can make a person more likely to try drugs.

The authors relied on interview, behavioral and neuroimaging data. While both high-and low-risk females and low-risk males had no changes in their cortical thickness upon marijuana use, high-risk males responded differently.

To get a better picture of the effects of marijuana on the teenage brain, Arpana Agrawal, a geneticist at Washington University in St. Louis, and her colleagues looked at magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) studies of the brains of 241 pairs of same-sex siblings, including some who were twins. Thus, males who are at a high risk for schizophrenia show changes in their brain when they use marijuana. Some experts have expressed concerns that the drug could alter the structure of a user’s brain, but the new research suggests this may not be strictly true. In addition, the male hormone testosterone influences changes in the cortex, and may interact in some way with substances in marijuana.

Goldman, who wrote an editorial accompanying the new studies, added in his email, “What this new research shows is that it is also unsafe to make assumptions about causality from correlation”.

Study participants who’d used pot had on average, a slightly smaller amygdala and a slightly smaller right ventral striatum (another brain region, associated with the reward system). Others worry that making marijuana legal for recreational or medicinal purposes will convey the message that the drug is generally safe when actually it may be risky.

“We do not know almost enough about effects of cannabis on the brain, especially the developing brain”, said Dr David Goldman of the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism in Rockville, Maryland, in email to Reuters Health.

Accordingly, the conclusion is that marijuana use continues to fluctuate throughout the United States, which may or may not be related to similar fluctuations in psychiatric illness.

Did JFK Really Smoke Medical Marijuana While President of the United States?

 There is evidence the 35th president toked up in the White House. Was he just seeking a buzz or was he trying to deal with pain and disease?

By Jay Syrmopoulos

Would it surprise you to know that one of the most respected of all U.S. Presidents, President John F. Kennedy, is rumored to have used medicinal cannabis while in the White House? Kennedy, who was known to suffer from Addison’s disease, as well as severe chronic back pain, was rumored to smoke cannabis on occasion, with a number of recent reports claiming his use was an effort to relieve the pain associated with his medical conditions.

While there is documentation of Kennedy’s usage of cannabis, the correlation with his reported medical conditions seems to lack the same documentary veracity.
According to an excerpt from “John F. Kennedy: A Biography”:
“On the evening of July 16, 1962, according to [Washington Post executive] Jim Truitt, Kennedy and Mary Meyer smoked marijuana together. … The president smoked three of the six joints Mary brought to him.

At first he felt no effects. Then he closed his eyes and refused a fourth joint. ‘Suppose the Russians did something now,’ he said.”
It seems clear from the written biographical account that Kennedy was witnessed smoking marijuana in the White House, but no such documentation seems to exist for claims that JFK was a medicinal user of cannabis.

It’s astonishing that over 60 years have passed, and yet otherwise law abiding citizens are still being locked in cages for treating their medical conditions with cannabis. The inhumanity of destroying someone’s life simply for trying to naturally treat a medical condition with a plant that grows in nature is truly a violation of human rights.

Almost half of all U.S. states and the District of Columbia have legalized marijuana for either medicinal or recreational purposes, yet cannabis’s true potential as a medicine has continued to go unrealized after continually being hampered by federal restrictions.

Whether Kennedy was actually using cannabis as a treatment for his medical conditions or simply a recreational user of cannabis remains speculative. While there is a definitive record of people witnessing him smoke pot in the White House, there has been no conclusive proof put forth that he was a regular medicinal user.

What’s certain is that people deserve the right to choose how they will combat pain and illness. No one should be forced into buying dangerous drugs from pharmaceutical companies, whose products kill more people annually than cocaine and heroin combined.

Please share this story if you think Americans should have the right to use cannabis as medicine and shouldn’t risk being thrown in a cage for doing so!

The People the Pot Laws Forgot

By Amos Irwin
In 2012, Lucy, a certified nurse's assistant (CNA) and single mother of two young children, was riding home on the train when a mentally disturbed woman began shouting at her. Police officers in the next car noticed the commotion. They searched Lucy and found a few joints' worth of marijuana in her purse. Lucy was arrested and spent four days in jail. She lost her job and was sentenced to ten months of probation for marijuana possession. The state suspended her driver's license and charged her over $5,000 in court costs, probation bills, and drug test fees plus $150 for a psychiatric evaluation.

A majority of Americans support marijuana legalization, recognizing that regulation can reduce youth use, raise revenue for drug treatment and schools, deprive gangs and cartels of their main revenue source, and eliminate the waste and injustice in stories like Lucy's. Voters have legalized recreational marijuana for adults through ballot initiatives in four states -- though not Texas, where Lucy lives.

But these legalization initiatives do not affect the old marijuana convictions that burden an estimated four million Americans. Even in states where their once-illegal actions have become legal, people like Lucy continue to be haunted by their records. Lucy's conviction made her ineligible for federal student loans, public housing and food stamps. When she applied for jobs, employers balked at her criminal record.

Her CNA certification and educational financial aid could be revoked -- one reason Lucy does not want me to use her real name. She completed her probation without incident, yet it seems her conviction may follow her for the rest of her life.
Marijuana retroactive relief laws offer a solution. Retroactive relief laws allow ex-offenders whose actions have since become legal to expunge their criminal records.

The vast majority of developed countries apply retroactive relief automatically anytime a prohibited activity is legalized, but the United States does not. Yet while retroactive relief is not automatic here, it does not need to be difficult. States already allow people to apply to expunge old, minor convictions, so the law could simply extend expungement to nonviolent, low-level marijuana offenses.

Oregon is poised to provide retroactive relief for marijuana offenses committed before age 21 with Senate Bill 844, which is waiting on Governor Kate Brown's desk for her signature. Oregon will be the first of the four legal marijuana states to offer any substantive retroactive relief.
Opponents of marijuana retroactive relief laws argue that those who broke the law deserve the consequences, because they knowingly committed a crime.

The foundation of their argument is the belief that marijuana use merits punishment. But who would support a lifelong criminal record for someone who had been convicted of liquor possession during alcohol prohibition? We understand that alcohol possession should not be a crime and would all vote to expunge the obsolete conviction. The same should be true for marijuana.
Justice for individuals aside, there are two important reasons that our society is better off providing retroactive relief.

First, retroactive relief mitigates the racial injustices of the past, since minorities have been far more likely to receive marijuana convictions than whites. Half of all black men are arrested by age 23, and the leading cause of arrest has been drug offenses, mainly marijuana possession. Though black and white Americans use marijuana at similar rates, the targeting of black neighborhoods by programs like stop-and-frisk has made black Americans 3.73 times more likely to be arrested for marijuana possession than whites.

Once arrested, black people have been twice as likely to be convicted and branded with a criminal record. We cannot maintain these old convictions without validating the racial discrimination in the criminal justice system that gave white marijuana users a pass while targeting black users. Retroactive relief is a key step in undoing the injustice of racial discrimination in marijuana law enforcement.

Second, we should support retroactive relief because when a large share of Americans has a criminal record, it hurts all of us. Millions of Americans with marijuana convictions are more likely to find themselves unemployed or underemployed, less educated or homeless. They have less money to spend on American-made goods and services, weakening our economy and depressing the value of our investments. That's why Charles Koch estimates that eliminating mass incarceration could reduce the U.S. poverty rate by 30 percent.

Freeing former marijuana offenders in legal marijuana states from the burden of a criminal record enables them to gain employment and contribute to the economy, making retroactive relief both true social justice and good economic practice.
Retroactive relief can be included in marijuana ballot initiatives, but only when the public starts paying attention to the issue. Initiatives are drafted by advocates who strategically test each provision to see if it attracts or repels voters.

If we start discussing retroactive relief with friends, family and the media, polling will demonstrate and drafters will recognize that retroactive relief is an asset to legalization initiatives, not a liability. If we stay silent, they will find it all too easy to continue ignoring people like Lucy.
Lucy has been lucky -- she eventually found another CNA position, completed her phlebotomy certification and now makes $14 per hour taking blood samples.

However, she doubts that she will ever become a registered nurse, as she had once planned. She has to disclose her marijuana conviction on every job application, which could not only get her rejected but also strip her of financial aid and even her CNA and phlebotomy certifications. Her three-year-old arrest weighs on her nearly every day. "In ten years," Lucy sighs, "I probably won't be in nursing."

Ten Health Benefits of Marijuana

By Marc Howard

10. Treatment of Glaucoma
If you are one of the millions who have been suffering from glaucoma, then smoking marijuana can help you get the best eyesight and relieve pressure from they eyes. Intraocular pressure can increase in certain individuals, especially those who have diabetes. Glaucoma is serious disease that can cause blindness.

9. Manage Epileptic Seizures
People who suffer from epileptic disorders or seizures can get tremendous relief and relaxation from smoking marijuana.


8. Pain Reliever
Marijuana ingestion can benefit your health when used to lessen the pain of MS, Rheumatoid arthritis and migraines. Also those sufferers of HIV, amputation, alcoholism and spinal surgery who are experiencing nerve pain seem to have a lessening of their pain when they are on a medical marijuana treatment protocol.

Marijuana, in the 2010 Canadian study, was found in these patients to be many more times more effective then aspirin in limiting their perception of pain. Medicinal marijuana is administered in more controlled dosages, and strengths that is found on the street. It is a stated goal of physicians to “do no harm.” The lessening of a patient’s pain, represents the epitome of this goal.

7. Prevents the Spread of Cancer
There is a chemical found in marijuana that has been shown to inhibit the growth of cancer cells. Researchers believe the process is that cannabidiol turns off the Id-1 gene. Cancer cells duplicate this gene in higher numbers than non-cancerous cells.

Researchers also studied breast cancer cells in the lab that contained Id-1 in high quantities. They were treated with cannibidiol. The result of this treatment was a lower incidence of Id-1 and the remaining genes were found to be less invasive.

There have been studies done in the US, Spain and Israel that posit that chemicals in marijuana can actually mean the death of cancer cells.

6. THC Reduces the Growth of Alzheimer’s
THC can help to slow down the progression of Alzheimer’s disease.  A study from 2006 found that chemicals in this drug can help keep amyloid plaques from forming. This will help keep you from getting this disease, and legalizing this drug could have everything to do with finding a cure.


5. Reduces the Spread of HIV
Cannabis is highly regarded in the medical community for it’s effectiveness in treating patients with HIV. People who have contracted the disease suffer from weight loss and body aches amongst other many things however, a new research that suggest cannabis might be able to halt the spread of the disease altogether has come to light.

Additionally, a study was conducted in Louisiana; in this research scientists gave a daily dose of THC to primates who had contracted an animal form of the HIV. Over the course of the study, scientists found that the damage to immune system in the primates’ stomach had decreased.

4. Relieves Arthritis Pain
Marijuana will help with rheumatoid arthritis pain, swelling and allow them to have restful sleep .According to a 2011 study, where a cannabis based pain killer was given to rheumatoid arthritic patients, there was a marked decrease in observable pain, compared to the administration of a placebo.

Rheumatoid arthritis can be an extremely debilitating disease, striking the joints of the affected patients. The subsequent swelling causes a reduction in the range of motion. But this kind of arthritis is different than osteoarthritis, the kind one gets with old age. RA is an autoimmune disease, meaning in effect your body is attacking healthy cells. Any age group can get it, and any gender, but women are stricken the most.

3. Slows Metabolism, Helps with Weight Loss
Another use for medicinal marijuana is stimulating appetite. Recent studies by the National Cancer Institute indicate that the inhalation of cannabis can lead to an increased consumption of calories. Conversely, studies published in the American Journal of Medicine suggested that pot smokers are skinnier than the average person.

They studied their levels of the hormone insulin and their blood sugar levels, and even though marijuana users consume more calories, they tend to have a healthier metabolism and a better reaction to sugars. The study analyzed data from more than 4,500 adult Americans — 579 of whom were current marijuana smokers, meaning they had smoked in the last month. About 2,000 had used marijuana in the past, while another 2,000 had never used the drug.

2. Calms Tremors in Parkinson’s Patients
Research has shown for patients suffering from the debilitating disease Parkinson, smoking pot can help reduce pain and tremors. It has been show to increase sleep quality as well as improving fine motor skills. Much of this research has been conducted in Israel.

Being able to release muscle tension, is another benefit of medical marijuana. A study done by the American Cancer Society shows that patients suffering from multiple sclerosis (MS), who used a liquid form of cannabis, encountered a reduced in muscle spasms as well shaking.
Another study done on eight MS patients, in advanced stages, showed a reduction in tremors and muscle stiffness.

1. Helps Veterans Afflicted with PTSD
Marijuana is a safer and less harmful alternative to traditional PTSD treatment. The relaxing effect marijuana has on the user without the fuzzy mental state caused by antidepressants can allow soldiers to relieve their anxiety without having to feel medicated.

Antidepressants and other drugs prescribed for PTSD possess a high risk for addiction and are not recommended for use over long periods of time. Marijuana use can fluctuate, wane, or increase depending on the state of the patient with little no side effects based upon the amount of usage.

There are no conclusive studies that indicate marijuana is addicting in the traditional sense of drug addiction such as substances with opiates. Marijuana may be the safest anti depressant on the market.

Alberta drops legal attempt to stop 4-year-old's use of marijuana treatment

Province had sought court order to force child to go back on prescription drugs

By Charles Rusnell, Jennie Russell,
The Alberta government has abruptly dropped its legal attempt to stop an Edmonton-area mother from treating her young daughter's epileptic seizures with marijuana.
"I didn't think they had the proper evidence to fight something that was working," Lita Pawliw told reporters while holding her daughter Natalya, 4, outside the courthouse in Leduc, a bedroom community south of Edmonton.

As first reported by CBC News early Friday, Alberta's Child and Family Services applied to a court for a supervision order that would have essentially taken control of the child's medical treatment.
If the order had been granted, it would have prevented Pawliw from treating her daughter with the marijuana derivative. But it also could have forced the child back onto a regime of powerful prescription medications that Pawliw said didn't work and turned her daughter into a "zombie," who couldn't speak, hear or walk properly.

"I'm hoping that they realized that I was providing Natalya's best interest, that this is the best results that she has had," Pawliw said. "So why put a stop to it?"
Pawliw said the marijuana product, cannabidiol — a pill — had stopped the debilitating seizures Natalya had suffered since age four months. Cannabidiol contains no psychoactive ingredient and produces no psychological effect.

Pawliw and her lawyer, Brian Fish of Edmonton, were prepared to challenge the order but moments before they were to appear before a provincial court judge, a government lawyer summoned them into a meeting room.

Application abandoned

When their turn in court came, the government lawyer, without explanation, told the judge the ministry was dropping its application.
The government had contended Pawliw was putting her child's health at risk because cannabidiol was an unproven alternative treatment. But it is legal and has been dispensed to people licensed by the province to use medicinal marijuana.
Pawliw has applied for a licence for her daughter and expects to receive it soon.

"I hope this fight is over," Pawliw said. "And if not, we will  be back. I will not back down from what my daughter needs, what thrives my daughter and what is giving her life."
In an emailed statement, the press secretary for Irfan Sabir, the minister responsible for Child and Family Services, said the ministry can't comment on specific cases.

But she said the Human Services ministry is now working with Alberta Health Services on a protocol for dealing with situations where "family members and the medical team disagree about essential medical treatment and it is felt that formal child intervention may be required."
Fish told CBC News he assumes government lawyers decided Natalya's cannabidiol use was exempt, even though she did not have a prescription for the drug. Still, he worries that this might not be the last time the government is involved with the case.

"Cases with children are rarely ever over," he said.
Pawliw said her next challenge is to find a doctor willing to prescribe cannabidiol for her daughter.
"No doctor is willing to, or seems to be willing to, sign for a minor," she said. "Everybody takes a look at it like it is wrong and illegal and it's not."

Marijuana Use May Lower Sperm Counts 'Quite a Lot

by Agata Blaszczak-Boxe,
Smoking marijuana more than once a week may lower men's sperm counts by about a third, according to a new study.
Researchers found that the men in the study who smoked marijuana more than once a week had sperm counts that were 29 percent lower, on average, than those who did not smoke marijuana, or used the drug less frequently.

The researchers thought that amount of reduction in sperm count "was quite a lot," said study author Tina Kold Jensen, of the University of Copenhagen in Denmark.

They also found that the sperm concentrations (which is measured slightly differently than sperm count) were 28 percent lower in the men who smoked marijuana more than once a week.

It is not clear why marijuana use may decrease a man's  sperm count and concentration, but it may have something to do with how THC — marijuana's psychoactive ingredient — interacts with certain receptors in the testes, the researchers said.
In the study, the researchers asked 1,215 Danish men ages 18 to 28 whether they used marijuana and other drugs like amphetamine, ecstasy and cocaine within the past three months, and if so, how often.

The researchers also collect semen samples, to measure the men's sperm counts and concentrations.
About 45 percent of the men in the study said they had smoked marijuana in the past three months. About 10 percent of the study participants had used marijuana as well as recreational drugs during this time.

Moreover, in the men in the study who smoked marijuana and used other recreational drugs, the sperm counts were reduced by 55 percent, and the sperm concentrations were reduced by 52 percent, compared with men who hadn't used the drugs
.
The researchers found that the men who had smoked marijuana in the past three months were also more likely to smoke cigarettes, and consumed more alcohol and caffeine than those who had not.
These lifestyle factors also could have affected the men's sperm levels, so the researchers took them into account, and the link between marijuana and lower sperm levels held. However, the study still does not prove that the drug caused the lower sperm counts, Jensen said.

"We cannot exclude the possibility that the men who used marijuana generally have an unhealthier lifestyle and health behavior, which may also affect their semen quality and hormone levels," the researchers said in the study.

"It is … important to note that marijuana users were distinct in several ways from nonusers," Dr. Michael L. Eisenberg of Stanford University School of Medicine, who was not involved in the new study, wrote in an editorial accompanying the study in the journal. And although the researchers adjusted for these differences, such as higher rates of cigarette smoking and alcohol consumption, they could have still confounded the potential effects of marijuana on sperm, he wrote.

Still, the new study "provides important information for patients and providers regarding the negative association between marijuana use and semen quality," Eisenberg wrote.

Cannabis for Treating Psychiatric Problems? A Clear Yes, Maybe.

By Will Hall

Marijuana is now legal in two states, and legal for medical use in 23 states and the District of Columbia. Polls show the majority of Americans support cannabis legalization, and more and more of the country is joining the legalization trend. As a counselor working with people diagnosed with psychosis and mental illness I am often asked about my opinion and clinical experience — as well as my personal experience — with medical cannabis.

The issue is not clear-cut either way, but I think it is time for everyone, especially if you are concerned with the risks of pharmaceutical drugs, to set aside what we think we may know and take a serious look at cannabis as an option for people with serious mental health challenges. Medical use of marijuana has clear potential for reducing psychiatric drug use, drugs that are notorious for their devastating adverse effects. The decision to use cannabis is not simple, and along with the War on Drugs anti-pot propaganda there is also a lot of pro-marijuana fanaticism to wade through, but this is the reality: many people can forgo pharmaceutical drugs and use cannabis instead.

I don’t need to reiterate the extensive research on medical use of cannabis available on the internet, and I have already written about cannabis and substance use in counseling practice in a previous post on Mad In America ('The Substance of Substance Use”). But here are some more thoughts about cannabis specifically.

There is now widespread evidence people are already successfully using cannabis to treat psychiatric conditions. Cannabis has long been used as medicine and spiritual tool throughout human history, for for far longer than the brief period of prohibition when it's been criminalized. Criminalization didn’t come from medical assessment of cannabis’ usefulness, but was instead a political decision motivated by racism and suppression of the insurgent youth culture.

 Extensive studies showing medical benefits — for cancer, Alzheimers, multiple sclerosis, hepatitis C, irritable bowel, Parkinsons, pain management, and other conditions — have driven ballot initiative success around the country. This has begun to convince even longtime opponents, with US President Obama formally acknowledging cannabis as no more dangerous than alcohol, and CNN's chief medical correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta, one of the world’s most influential opinion leaders on medicine, recently reversing his opposition to medical marijuana. Dr. Gupta even apologized for his previous anti-legalization stance and “not looking hard enough" at the issue.

But what about mental health conditions?
Around the country, medical marijuana cards are routinely given to people suffering anxiety, depression, insomnia, ADHD, trauma, and mental health issues. The internet is replete with a growing number of testimonies of successful symptom alleviation through cannabis, including people diagnosed with psychotic disorders such as bipolar and schizophrenia, These are not just a few anecdotes, these are thousands of people giving firsthand accounts of benefitting from cannabis for mental health conditions.

And with the growing number of dispensaries, review websites, and legal cannabis consumers, these testimonies are growing in number.
And at the same time, it is not uncommon for me to receive emails like this:
"Our son was doing so well in school, and then he started smoking marijuana and went psychotic and went into the hospital, where he was diagnosed with schizophrenia.”
“Before her delusions began I learned she was experimenting with marijuana…”
So what is going on?

Our culture has been saturated for years with a simplistic prohibition mentality around marijuana. Media reports demonize cannabis, with many scientific studies were twisted and manipulated to support a political agenda. Just one notorious example was the Heath/Tulane study in 1974. which claimed to show marijuana “kills brain cells.” These findings, reported by a mainstream research institution with impeccable scientific credentials, were considered gold standard evidence and quickly became part of the mainstream attitudes.

“Marijuana kills brain cells” was paraded by President Reagan in his anti-drug propaganda and brought out by frightened parents everywhere when they discovered a joint in their teenager’s bedroom. The study even supported extremist media campaigns like the “This is your brain on drugs” television commercial, where a broken egg on a hot griddle became the last word on marijuana dangers.
The Heath/Tulane study was later exposed as pure scientific fraud: researchers were able to show brain cell death only by pumping so much marijuana smoke into the laboratory animals that the animals couldn’t breathe.

It was asphyxiation from lack of oxygen, not ingesting marijuana, that caused the brain damage. The poltiicization of science continues, and Dr. Gupta writes that of current US marijuana studies, 94% are designed to investigate harm, not potential benefits.  Despite countless other studies showing marijuana’s benefits and extremely low risk profile compared to either tobacco or alcohol - two very legal and very deadly drugs — we have let prohibition politics, not solid science, shape and continue to determine US drug policy and leadership worldwide.

This corruption is even more true in mental health, where substance use has become synonymous with substance abuse, and the mental health system oversees abstinence-based treatments that are often the criminal punishment for users arrested for possession alone. No leading mental health organization has publicly expressed opposition to the War on Drugs or presented an honest discussion of the potential value of legalization. Mainstream mental health websites such as National Alliance for the Mentally Ill and the Schizophrenia Society of Canada continue to echo this demonization.

Any potentially valuable caution about the role of cannabis use in psychosis - of which I will discuss more in a moment - gets lost and discredited in the general “just say no” message. There is no balanced discussion, not of how cannabis might help some people forgo the risks of psychiatric drugs relative to the possible risks to adolescent brain development. Mainstream opinion makers, driven in part by pharmaceutical and American Medical Association opposition to legalization, have instead elected to emphasize the psychosis-marijuana link research and ignore everything else.

NAMI medical director Dr. Ken Duckworth sums it up on the NAMI website “The overwhelming consensus from mental health professionals is that marijuana is not helpful—and potentially dangerous—for people with mental illness.” He doesn’t point out that this consensus is a result of politics, not medical science. The rest of the policy document has War on Drugs propaganda on full display. Dr. Duckworth writes, “Approximately one-third of people in America with schizophrenia regularly abuse marijuana.”

Really? Can we see a study citation for that statement? The answer is no, there is no citation because NAMI made this claim up, there is no research behind it.
Dr. Duckworth also rings the alarm bell of addiction, counting the mental health industry’s conflation of use and abuse. He states that “a significant percentage of individuals who use marijuana will become physically dependent on the drug.

This means that stopping their marijuana abuse will cause these people to experience a withdrawal syndrome.” Dr. Gupta, however, disagrees. Dr. Gupta writes on CNN that “In 1944, New York Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia commissioned research to be performed by the New York Academy of Science. Among their conclusions: they found marijuana did not lead to significant addiction in the medical sense of the word…” He adds, “The physical symptoms of marijuana addiction are nothing like those of the other drugs I've mentioned.”

My bet is with Dr. Gupta on this one. As Dr. Gupta’s reversal indicates, there is a clear case for legalization of cannabis because there is an undeniable scientific research base — and common sense base - for cannabis’ benefits relative to its risks. As a recreational drug there is just no comparing cannabis risks to other drugs such as alcohol and tobacco. But in the context of the War on Drugs’ demonization, proponents of marijuana have reacted with a defensive romanticization, adding to the confusion. Left in a vacuum by mental health and medical organizations that should have been providing sound and honest discussion on the issue, the many mainstream research studies on medical benefits of cannabis are often touted and available on aggressively pro-marijuana sites.

You feel that you are pulled to one side of the other in this political - and economic - tug of war. (The pro-marijuana sites are after all, now burgeoning with advertising revenue from the surfacing marijuana industry. The message today is “cannabis is good for you,” and of course the next message will be “buy some today” and then “from us.”)

As a society we are thankfully stepping away from both demonization and romanticization. And this means looking at two important facts about cannabis: dosage and strain. 
The cannabis of today isn't the cannabis of yesterday. But the commonplace claim that "marijuana today is stronger than it was in the past" is far from the whole picture. Yes there is a lot more strong marijuana out there, but that also has positive implications for medical use. There is a an increased complexity and sophistication of how cannabis is being used, in many different ways by many different people, that has to be understood.

As far as dosage goes, the importance of understanding this complexity is well illustrated by the experience of New York Times Pulitzer Prize winning columnist Maureen Dowd. In a high-visibility, and influential, act that formed part of Times reporting on growing legalization efforts in Colorado and elsewhere, Dowd got high on pot in Denver. And promptly had a psychotic episode. She presumably didn’t go on to be diagnosed bipolar, and did not need to be hospitalized, but her bad trip, replete with delusions of being dead and paranoid fears of the police, for some might be considered proof positive that cannabis is a bad idea for anyone “at risk for psychosis.”

Dowd, however, was in effect writing a denunciation of wine by binge drinking on tequila. “Alcohol makes you sick and pass out” says more about how, how much, and what we drink, than it does that we drink alcohol. Simple enough common sense, but that is exactly what has been lost with prohibition propaganda. Without adequate understanding, Dowd apparently downed an entire cannabis infused edible candy. Edibles are notorious for their potency. Then she did what anyone following sensible marijuana use knows not to do - she gobbled up even more of the edible when she didn’t feel any effects after a few minutes.

She doubled the eventual impact of the drug, and delivered a massive dose to her marijuana-naive self after the slow-onset that is standard for eating marijuana (smoking effects are much faster; eating means the cannabis has to be digested before experiencing amplified effects.). It could be humorous - Dowd was lambasted in the internet for her irresponsibility - if it wasn’t so emblematic of the impact of prohibition. Rational discussion by a presumably thoughtful professional journalist turns into nonsense, fuel for more simplistic demonization.

Dosage, including the delivery method (and now there are tinctures, vaporizers and other methods beyond smoking or eating), is an important reality to cannabis consumption. If a drug leads to psychosis at a higher dose, but doesn’t at a lower dose, is the problem the drug or its use? If a drug at one dose is useful and at a higher dose is harmful, does that mean the drug is “useful” or “harmful?” So we begin to see one explanation for how a drug that many people find useful for psychosis can be the very drug that causes psychosis for many others.

It becomes more understandable that my email inbox has emails from people blaming marijuana for mental illness alongside emails from people who’ve been helped.
Dowd also didn’t chose her strain with any care, and strains can make a huge difference in cannabis use. There are hundreds of strains of crossbred hybrid cannabis, with colorful names like Blue Dream, Girl Scout Cookies, AC/DC, and Lemon Alien Dawg. This diversity isn't just fanciful or aesthetic: strains differ by aroma and flavor, Much more importantly, different strains have drastically different psychoactive effects. Alcohol intoxication might feel a bit different between beer, wine, and spirits, but not by much The different effects between different cannabis strains are like taking completely different substances.

There are 483 currently known compounds in marijuana, and at least 84 different psychoactive cannabinoids. THC is just one. This may explain why some people are using marijuana to alleviate psychosis while others find it makes psychosis worse. Medical marijuana users routinely share information about the qualities of different strains - some good for sleep, some for anxiety, some for depression, etc - to help each user find out what works for them. Of the many alkaloids, cannabidiol (CBD) is associated with tranquilizing response, while THC causes more mind-altering, and is potentially paranoia and anxiety inducing.

Similarly, marijuana users have long known that the sativa varieties are different than the indica; sativa is associated with a more energetic high, prone to produce anxiety and paranoid in some people. while indica is more sedating. There is strong evidence that high CBD cannabis can alleviate psychosis for the simple reason that is is tranquilizing, in the same way that anti-psychotics are for many people helpful because they are tranquilizing. CBD, however, clearly lacks the devastating side effects of antipsychotic drugs.

(The cannabis industry is still only now emerging from the underground, and with lack of the regulation and quality control of other industries users still have to rely on trial and error. It’s not a guarantee that what the dispensary labeled as Blue Dream isn’t actually Kali Mist, or there isn’t sativa in that tincture marked indica. Medical users will be better served by legalization, which will allow greater testing and reliability of supply, as in the wine industry.

The best role of regulation in the legalization process is fiercely debated by growers concerned about issues such as ecological sustainability, labor conditions, and the specter of Big Tobacco-style profiteering. In Sonoma County where I live, there is a huge marijuana industry and vast sums of money moving into the state in anticipation of California following the trend towards full legalization. The legal wine industry in the area is very shady, and has a deserved reputation for greedy disregard for the environmental and local community in its rapid expansion.

That might be a cautionary tale: the gentle peace-ecology-love aura of marijuana may, some fear, quickly give way to the cutthroat realities of just another boom industry and agribusiness product.)
Word about CBD is getting out. Along with the emails from people tracing psychosis back to marijuana use, I now routinely encounter people in my work, lucky to be in a legal state or country or able to risk acquiring pot through the underground, who are using cannabis to help with distressing experiences associated with psychosis and mental illness diagnosis.

Some have switched strains to high CBD and found different effects, some are using cannabis to help come off psych drugs, some are using cannabis instead of psych drugs, and some - very interestingly - have gotten benefits from cannabis and never gotten on psychiatric medications to begin with. Scientific studies on CBD support what I am seeing: a University of Cologne study from Germany, in a four week trial, found CBD as effective as an anti-psychotic in calming psychotic symptoms. A co-author of the study wrote “Not only was [CBD] as effective as standard antipsychotics, but it was also essentially free of the typical side effects seen with antipsychotic drugs.”

A glance through research results on CBD from studies around the world shows evidence to support what we know already: CBD marijuana can help mental health conditions. These users are often careful in dosage, some even using just a few drops or “homeopathic” doses to get the desired effects.
(Other research is also intriguing. Numerous studies show anxiety alleviation, and, consistent with studies on Alzheimers and Parkinsons, one University of Montreal study published in Psychiatry Research even showed cannabis users diagnosed with schizophrenia to have better memory and prefrontal lobe functioning than those not using cannabis.

Could cannabis be not only a substitute for psychiatric medications, but a treatment for the harm they caused? And other studies that are more troubling, such as those showing memory impairment and youth development harm, are essential to come to terms with in any benefit/risk assessment, but what do dosage and strain have to do with the results these studies found?)
So the kind of cannabis used, as well as the dosage, may explain part of the puzzle of different reports around cannabis and psychosis.

This is in addition to a general principle with all psychoactive substances, a principle that applies to cannabis as well:
Response to cannabis use is widely diverse and individual. The medical marijuana dispensary community is thoroughly familiar with the fact that as a "medicine" cannabis does not provide uniform "treatment." Instead, just as each individual experiences “illness” differently, each individual has their own response, and what is right for one person might not be right for another - including the need to forgo cannabis altogether.

Some people find the “high” contributes positively their medical condition and life circumstnaces, others seek out strains that have helpful effects without the high. Dispensary staff I've met are skilled at helping individuals navigate different strains and dosages for individual needs.
Substance abuse is a serious and devastating problem. Some people find that abstinence is the best strategy, such as following an AA 12 step program. Taking any drug - alcohol, tobacco, or cannabis -- involves risks.

Cannabis needs to be subjected to the same caution, but overall cannabis is undoubtedly much safer on the body than alcohol or tobacco (zero marijuana caused deaths compared to many millions of alcohol and tobacco deaths) and much safer than any psychiatric medication. The growing legalization and medicalization of cannabis will no doubt be used by some to rationalize their addiction or avoid facing the fact that the drug is not helping them - but this is true of any substance, including alcohol and psychiatric meds.

Once we step outside the demonization/romanticization polarity of the War On Drugs mentality we can engage this complicated reality more clearly. Saying cannabis might be helpful for some people is not to deny it might make others worse.
What about me personally? I found years ago that marijuana only worsens my own anxiety and further disconnects me from reality. I was smoking around the time I was first hospitalized, and though I quit marijuana I still had another psychotic break many years later when I wasn’t using and hadn’t used marijuana for 8 years.

I do believe that pot was a contributing - but in no way a causal - factor in my first crisis, however, and that smoking played a role in the several years onf decline that led to that crisis. But tellingly this was all wildly overstated by the hospital doctors who interviewed me. When I moved to Conard House, an outpatient facility in San Francisco, I was sent to a mandatory anti-drug meeting along with every marijuana user at the house, regardless of the frequency of use or whether or not it was abused or a problem.

When I challenge the meeting leader by saying that marijuana was much safer than alcohol, I was kicked out of the program. (I was sent to a homeless shelter at 14th and Mission, right next to a thriving street crack market where I passed dealers every day on my way to and from my room. A good friend of mine from a previous program, who had been abstaining from cocaine for several years, was sent to the same shelter, I watched as he gradually lost control of his addiction with the temptation of those dealers; he left the shelter and I never heard from him again.)

I think that CBD strains are promising, and I personally would not hesitate to try a small dose of CBD marijuana in a time of emotional distress where I felt I had run out of other options. I would watch carefully my response, and proceed only if I felt confident I wasn’t going to get paraoind or become anxious. Friends, clients, and colleagues who use cannabis have educated me about its potential if I did ever find myself in need, and have introduced me to the California dispensary system.

I’m grateful I live in a state where I can learn about these issues and can first try a CBD brownie (gluten free of course) instead of a dose of Seroquel if I ever get out of hand with sleep deprivation or go off the deep end in a psychosis. And when I’ve seen friends go down to the psychotic vortex and head for the hospital, I wish there was some CBD weed around to try first to help them break the crisis cycle, rather than relying on a psych med as a last resort.

With clients I work with I now feel it is unethical as a therapist to not include cannabis in the list of possible wellness tools for those in legal states. I am pro-choice regarding psych drugs, and if I acknowledge that anti-psychotics, even with the risks, might be a wise choice for some people, I would be completely, well, crazy not to acknowledge that cannabis might be a wise choice for some people as well. I’ve always welcomed herbal medicine and traditional chinese and other treatments into the range of possible wellness choices, because they have such a demonstrated history of helping so many people.

Cannabis also has such a history, and I believe everyone working in the field as a therapist or psychiatrist needs to consider taking the same stance I have.
From a mental health advocacy standpoint, marijuana legalization also has many other implications that we as mental health professionals should look at. The AMA, APA, NAMI and other groups have failed to meet this issue responsibly. An American Journal of Public Health study by a team of economists, for example, examined states that had legalized marijuana for medical use.

The study found there was a 10.8 percent reduction in the suicide rate of men in their 20s and a 9.4 percent reduction in men in their 30s. That is extraordinary - we know that psychiatric drug use can exacerbate suicidality (the drug warning is right there on the label), and alcohol of course can contribute to suicidality. It’s not clear exactly why greater availability of medical cannabis might lower suicide rates, but this is a very, very significant finding to study further for anyone who takes suicide prevention seriously.

(I recently lost a dear friend to suicide, and I am convinced benzodiazepines and alcohol played a role in killing her. I wish her therapist and doctors had explored cannabis as an alternative - she needed any alternative - and her death is one of the things motivating me to write this blog post and “come out” with my clinical practice decisions around cannabis.)
Studies also show reduction in alcohol use results from legalization, which, again, has enormous implications. Alcohol is an extremely dangerous and socially destructive drug with notorious mental health harms.

The National Council on Alcoholism and Drug Dependence reports that alcohol use is a factor in 40 percent of all violent crimes in the United States, including 37 percent of rapes and 27 percent of aggravated assaults. In 1995 alone, college students reported more than 460,000 alcohol-related incidents of violence in the US. A 2011 prospective study found that dating abuse was associated with drinking among college students.

A 2014 study found marijuana had clearly lower rates of associated domestic and partner violence. As pro-legalization comedian Bill Hicks remarked, imagine you are at a sporting event and some guy in front of you is screaming and picking a fight: is he high on marijuana or is he drunk on alcohol?
Reducing alcohol use in society will likely reduce violence; reducing violence means reducing trauma in society as a whole.

When did we lose sight of ending violence as a way of preventing the cause of so many mental health problems? And legalization has already reduced traffic fatalities associated with drunk driving in states where it is legal - each traffic death sends out shockwaves of trauma and grief, and turns many people to alcohol or psychiatric drugs. (Hicks also said the biggest traffic danger from driving high is hitting the garage door because you forgot to open it.) Marijuana legalization is an upstream solution with huge implications.

From a public health standpoint there is really no argument: if we can bring alcohol use down in society, then marijuana legalization is clearly worth it. According to the Centers for Disease Control, abuse of prescription opioids such as Oxy-Contin and Vicodin is a national epidemic that kill 16,000 people annually and devastate lives and families. Cannabis legalization could also reduce the market and illegal demand for opiods, easing this epidemic.

Legalization of cannabis also has important implications for young people and families - once we understand the complexity of substance use. The War on Drugs has devastated the US black community, and it is shameful that white-dominated mental health organizations have not spoken up against prohibition. Prison and the police are a traumatizing factor that directly interfere with mental health recovery. While legalization, according to the Journal of Adolescent Health, has not led to an increase in teen marijuana use, it does give families and youth more flexibility.

For young people using cannabis, it might be more realistic to switch the kind of cannabis they are using as a harm reduction approach, rather than giving cannabis up completely. Many young people are committed to cannabis as a lifestyle, a form of religious expression, and a pathway to independence. Under prohibition it is impossible to talk openly about their cannabis experiences, and difficult to differentiate cannabis strains they are consuming.

It may be easier for a teen to hear "use CBD strains, not the THC strains" than for them to hear "you have to stop smoking entirely;” “You can smoke pot, but in moderation" might work better than "you can't get high at all."
A harm reduction perspective is best served by legalization. Collaborative relationships require honesty: young people today know that different strains do different things, and they know the hypocrisy of a War On Drugs that sends people to jail for smoking a joint and then sells their lawyer whiskey at the bar next to the courthouse. Overgeneralized associations between marijuana and mental health problems, including psychosis, ignore a complex reality.

Adolescents using marijuana who get into emotional and psychological difficulties are like any adolescents who get into emotional and psychological difficulties, for whatever reason. They need help and support. The family needs help and support. The problem is never “marijuana plus genetics equals psychotic disorder.” The marijuana may, or may not, be part of the problem. When families — and doctors —are blaming the marijuana it is usually a sign of a deeper problem being avoided.

Prohibition is based on fear, the same fear behind the search for a simplistic answer, something to grab ahold of as the solution in a situation that feels out of control.
Cannabis use then often becomes a power struggle in families. As a therapist I have seen time and time again families where a son or daughter has been psychotic after using marijuana, and the family's response is to ban their son or daughter from using. So what does the young person do? They keep smoking, of course, except now they have a new problem: hiding from the parents, a power struggle with their parents, and the beginning of a cycle of isolation if the power struggle continues.

I have to work hard to stay in a trusting relationship with both sides, and that job gets harder the more prohibition fear entrenches intolerance. The solution is to create conversations about the substance; even if the parents are strongly against any marijuana use, it’s important to respect all sides, but on an equal playing fiend where the young person can be validated for a choice that has some science on its side. Dismissing one side doesn’t help. Doesn’t it make more sense to say Let's talk? than to Just Say No?

I have no doubt that marijuana use has played a role in many people’s problems with psychosis. I routinely work with people to encourage them to stop smoking when they know it can lead to crisis. I’ve seen people off marijuana start using again and end up hospitalized. And marijuana can certainly lead to habituation for some people and play a role in substance problems. Educating society about these risks makes the same sense that educating society about alcohol risks makes sense - as long as the risks are not exaggerated.

Personally I would like to see cannabis avoid the commercialization of alcohol and be a more accepted - but not promoted or advertised - personal option. We really don’t need any more consumerism than we already have. Instead, we need an honesty and smart use that we really don’t even have with alcohol, with all the alcohol advertising and the culture of happy hour and spring break.
And of the risks, what about the correlation between first break psychosis with a higher rate of marijuana use? There is in my view validity to that concern — and it also be at least in part misleading.

What if the causality is sometimes in the other direction? What if people who end up psychotic are drawn to altered states of consciousness in general, what if they first seek out in marijuana what they eventually end up later seeking in their break to a psychotic reality? Working with young people over many years, I see the need to get "high" comes first, not after, the substance. Few families have honest discussions about the need to get high and get away - how it is a human need that everyone has.

And getting high repeatedly may be an escape hatch out of untenable life circumstances and confusing options. Maybe a young person is drawn to cannabis by the same inner need that will eventually draw them to psychosis, correlating the two - but not indicating causality.
As we come to terms with the devastating impact that psychiatric drugs have on society, we face a compelling question: What if there was a substitute? Someone considering a benzo, or an anti-psychotic, or an anti-depressant, is about to embark on a risky treatment option that might work out fine, or might end up destroying their life.

That is the reality of the risks of psychiatric drugs. The Soteria House alternative and the Open Dialogue approach, it should be remembered, do rely on psychiatric drugs as a last resort. What if everyone had, on a wide scale, the option of choosing something with a lower side effect profile, and perhaps thereby could be diverted from a risky pathway? That may be what the US is on the brink of with legalization. And what exactly do we know of Pharma’s influence in opposing marijuana legalization?

The American Medical Association and APA have long opposed legalization; does medical cannabis represent a threat to Pharma markets?
These social implications have not gone unnoticed by the web of financial interests benefitting from cannabis prohibition. The same public policy corruption driving psychiatric drug use is also evident in efforts to block legalization. Dr. Herbert Kleber of Columbia University, an impeccably credentialed academic, is widely quoted in the press warning against marijuana - and also serves as a paid consultant to leading prescription drug companies.

Oxy-Contin manufacturer Purdue Pharma and Vicodin manufacturer Abbott Laboratories are among the leading funders of the Community Anti-Drug Coalition of America and Partnership for Drug Free Kids - both  fierce prohibition advocates. (Other funders include Janssen and Pfizer.) When Patrick Kennedy’s so-called Project SAM (Smart Approaches to Marijuana) worked against Alaska’s legalization initiative, activists counterattacked by pointing out the organizations extensive  financial ties to the liquor and beer lobby.

Dr. Stuart Gitlow, President of the American Society Of Addiction Medicine, another legalization opponent, went on the media circuit disputing President Obama’s statement that marijuana is no more dangerous than alcohol: Gitlow serves as medical director for pharma company Orexo, an opioid manufacturer. Former Drug Enforcement Administration head Peter Bensinger and former White House drug czar Robert DuPont (yes that was his title) now run a commercial firm that specializes in the market for workplace drug testing.

While some police have come out against the War on Drugs, many police are lobbying in favor of it. Is it because they receive millions in funds to use under drug money seizure and assets forfeiture laws? One Florida sheriff who led opposition to legalization went so far as to state openly that drug asset forfeitures were important for county law enforcement resources. California legalization was opposed by another police lobbyist who made a career of funneling federal War on Drugs grants to state law enforcement.

This is corruption in the crudest form : a mandate for serving public good diverted to individual gain.
As Los Angeles Police Department Deputy Chief Stephen Downing told The Nation, “The only difference now compared to the times of alcohol prohibition is that, in the times of alcohol prohibition, law enforcement—the police and judges—got their money in brown paper bags. Today, they get their money through legitimate, systematic programs run by the federal government.

That’s why they’re using their lobbying organizations to fight every reform.” Legalization means challenging economies of influence and politics of corruption that have made drug policy and criminalization big business. Importantly, ending alcohol Prohibition in 1933 involved a vast clearing out of this corruption from the federal to the local level; hopefully the grassroots drive for cannabis policy reform will likewise have wide anti-corruption implications.

Even when we support cautious consideration and avoid making any blanket endorsement, cannabis is a powerful psychoactive plant that involves risks. Small controlled doses - a few drops of tincture, a small puff from a cigarette, a single edible candy - are still unpredictable, and might launch someone onto an unpleasant altered state, make working or relating in public difficult, trigger insomnia, interfere with driving, set someone down a path to addiction, or worse.

Harms to memory and cognition development among adolescents might reveal themselves after long term heavy use. There are risks: it’s not a one size fits all solution. It will take some time to sort out studies and research honestly and get a realistic sense of the social impact in the wake of a politicized and corrupted research legacy.
And this underscores one of the central problems with the cannabis policy discussion. Legalization activists wisely chose to emphasize medical uses on a pathway towards greater marijuana acceptance.

But in practice, as a plant medicine, cannabis has never been and probably never will be a targeted medical treatment. It is a plant, not a pill. Cannabis is a choice to introduce a substance into one’s body that will have unique and unpredictable effects on consciousness. It’s a life decision. It changes you, in subtle ways or dramatic ways, to ingest a substance.
Like regularly taking alcohol, drinking coffee daily, smoking cigarettes, and the use of food and herbal medicines in traditional cultures, marijuana is really best understood as a relationship.

The human body and mind have receptors uniquely designed to interact with cannabis, which helps explain the broad range of consciousness and physical health effects now bing studied and experienced. Specific uses and strains might target symptoms associated with a diagnosis, but cannabis is not like penicillin. Only the individual knows how perception and consciousness are altered, and whether that is experienced as a plus or a minus in life.

Some people will choose to be high if it goes along with reduction of some other discomfort; others will prefer to avoid getting high in any form. From food to movies to wine to sexuality, “self-medicating” is after all a widespread social practice and should be acknowledged: we all, to some degree, medicate ourselves just as we all, to some degree, get high. And this is what we have overlooked in our understanding of psychiatric drugs - they too are very powerful mind altering substances that get us “high.”

It’s not what we think of as a high, we are still altered when we take our Zyprexa or our Prozac, and some psychiatric drugs, such as the benzodiazepines and the stimulants, are widely used recreationally. The psychiatric drugs have clear toxicities to the body; cannabis has extremely few, and a wide profile of benefits. That’s why it’s been used around the world as medicine since prehistoric times. It is also mind altering, despite the emphasis on “medical” use, and we need to recognize that altering our minds is part of what we do as humans.

We need the freedom, especially when we are facing extreme distress and crisis, to choose what risks we want to take and what substances we want to introduce, or not introduce, into our bodies and minds. We are bombarded by physical and psychological stresses in virtually every aspect of our lives today. Some of us choose alcohol, Some of us choose yoga, running, and organic food. Some us will choose cannabis. We need to take a principled and ethical look at that choice, and we need to ensure that people exploring this option aren’t put in jail for it.