There are plenty of celebrities
today who are upfront about their marijuana use, such as Snoop Dogg,
Seth Rogen, Miley Cyrus and many, many others. But it’s not just modern
celebrities who enjoy cannabis. Plenty of celebrities in the past
enjoyed getting stoned just as much as the ones today do.
Here are 10 old school celebrities you probably didn’t know used marijuana.
1. Robert Mitchum
Mitchum was one of the biggest film noir stars of the 1940’s and 1950’s, and he also starred in the original Cape Fear.
But in 1949, the actor was sent to prison for 60 days for “conspiracy
to possess marijuana cigarettes.” Luckily it didn’t really affect his
career.
2. Tony Curtis
Tony Curtis was a huge star during the 1950’s and starred in movies such as The Defiant Ones and Some Like It Hot,
and he’s also actress Jamie Lee Curtis’ father. He was arrested in 1970
for possession of cannabis resin while at Heathrow airport, although he
was only fined $120.
3. David Bowie
Many prominent classic rock stars are
known for dabbling with cannabis, including pretty much everyone in The
Beatles and the Rolling Stones. But Bowie’s never really been reported
as being a major stoner. But in 1976 Bowie and some of his friends were
arrested in New York for possession of half a pound of cannabis. One of
the friends with Bowie at the time was none other than Iggy Pop.
4. James Garner
James Garner had a lengthy Hollywood career doing everything from starring in the TV show The Rockford Files, co-starring with Steve McQueen in The Great Escape and he even appeared in The Notebook
with as an elderly version of Ryan Gosling’s character. In his 2012
memoir, Garner admitted he started using marijuana back in the 1940’s
and continued to do so for the rest of his life.
He wrote, “I smoked
marijuana for 50 years. I don’t know where I’d be without it.”
5. Bing Crosby
Bing Crosby is probably best known to today’s generation as the star of White Christmas.
But like many musicians and actors, Crosby also enjoyed cannabis. One
biographer wrote that legendary musician Louis Armstrong introduced
Crosby to marijuana, and one of Crosby’s sons said, “When marijuana was
mentioned, he’d get a smile on his face.”
6. Marilyn Monroe
The legendary actress is known for
abusing various narcotics during her life, which contributed to her
untimely death. But Monroe also allegedly used marijuana, as a home
video showing the actress smoking a joint was sold in 2009 for $275,000.
7. Bob Denver
Best known for playing Gilligan on Gilligan’s Island,
Denver was arrested in 1998 for receiving a package containing
marijuana. Denver admitted to being a cannabis user, saying, “I’ve been
doing it for years.” Weirdly enough the marijuana package was supposedly
sent by actress Dawn Wells, who played Mary Ann on Gilligan’s Island.
8. Peter Sellers
The legendary actor and comedian played
an uptight attorney who falls in love with a stoner in a 1968 movie. But
in real life, Sellers was more alike to the stoner character. Swedish
actress Britt Ekland said he introduced her to marijuana on their first
date in 1964, and they got married 10 days later. So it must’ve been
some good stuff.
9. Ava Gardner
Gardner is another star from the Golden
Era of Hollywood who enjoyed using marijuana. In fact, she was
introduced to the drug by Robert Mitchum while they starred in a movie
together. She said she preferred alcohol to cannabis.
10. Barbra Streisand
Streisand is actually not very hidden
about her past marijuana use. She’s discussed smoking cannabis with
Peter Sellers in interviews, and talked about it in various outlets.
When she started playing in Vegas, she would do a routine where she
would talk about how nervous she was and then she would light a fake
joint on stage. Eventually she swapped in real joints for the fake ones.
MIND CONTROL. Some people recreationally partake in
cannabis to free their minds. But the plant’s non-intoxicating compound,
cannabidiol (CBD), might actually be able to help others rein their
minds in.
According to a new study from King’s College London (KCL), just one
dose of CBD can reduce abnormal brain function in people with psychosis,
a condition in which a person experiences a disconnect from reality and
may see, hear, or believe things that aren’t actually real.
The KCL team published its research on Thursday in the journal JAMA Psychiatry.
THE FIRST STEP. In 2017, KCL published the results
of a clinical trial testing the impact of CBD on patients with
psychosis. They found that the drug lowered the participants’ psychotic
symptoms and improved both their cognitive performance and ability to
function — all without producing significant side effects.
So, the KCL team had evidence that CBD could help treat psychosis. What they didn’t have, however, was an explanation as to how it did so. That’s where this new research comes into play.
NORMALIZING THE ABNORMAL. For their latest study,
the researchers started by enlisting a group of 52 volunteers. Of those,
33 were experiencing “distressing psychotic systems” but hadn’t yet
received a diagnosis of psychosis from a doctor. The other 19 volunteers
served as the control group.
The researchers gave 16 of the volunteers a single dose of CBD,
administered as a pill the patients swallowed, while the rest received a
placebo. They then used an MRI to study the brain function of the
volunteers while they performed a memory task that required the use
three regions of the brain previously linked to psychosis.
The researchers noted abnormal brain activity in all the volunteers
who had experienced psychosis symptoms. However, the abnormal activity
was far less pronounced in the volunteers who received the CBD dose.
According to the researchers, this suggests that CBD could help
normalize the brain activity of people with psychosis.
A STEADY TRANSITION. Though still classified in the
U.S. as a Schedule 1 drug — that is, one with no medical use — cannabis
is gaining traction in the medical community. Medical marijuana is now
legal in 30 states, and in June, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved the sale of a CBD-based medicine for the first time.
That drug, Epidiolex, treats people with two rare forms of epilepsy,
but if further research supports the conclusions of this study on CBD’s
positive effect on psychosis, we might just see the approval of the
first marijuana-derived drug to treat a mental illness in the
not-so-distant future.
Yesterday Buzzfeed reported on a secret committee in the Trump White House
whose goal is to derail efforts to legalize marijuana in the United
States. But something people might be overlooking is exactly how the
committee is doing so.
One memo Buzzfeed published discussed
how the committee wanted federal agencies to submit data that would
show the "threat" marijuana places. They specifically wanted agencies to
only show statistics or trends that were negative towards cannabis, and
wanted them to hide anything that could offer any support to
legalization.
“The prevailing marijuana narrative in the U.S. is partial,
one-sided, and inaccurate,” one memo read. A follow-up memo read,
“Departments should provide … the most significant data demonstrating
negative trends, with a statement describing the implications of such
trends.”
Clearly this secret committee's goal is to bring back the old
myths about marijuana that make it seem like the worst drug imaginable.
Unfortunately Americans are more educated on the issue, and the success
of legalization in various states makes it harder for anti-marijuana
policymakers to simply make up whatever they want about it.
The one thing that's not clear in Buzzfeed's reporting is what
President Donald Trump's role in the committee is. While we can
virtually assume Attorney General Jeff Sessions
is involved. Trump has spoken mostly positively about marijuana
legalization in the past and has even indicated he would sign
legislation protecting states that legalize cannabis.
But obviously this entire committee would indicate that either
Trump's been lying in the past or he has no awareness that the committee
exists.
With marijuana legalization becoming a reality in more and
more states, many institutions and organizations have adapted to these
new laws. And it appears the military may be the next one to do so.
The U.S. army recently made changes
to their policies regarding potential recruits who've undergone mental
health treatments or previously taken medications to help deal with
those issues. In one recent memo, the Army re-affirmed a fairly new policy that allows the organization to accept recruits who admit to using marijuana in the past.
Under the new policy, anyone who says they haven't used cannabis for
four or more years prior to their recruitment can still enter the
service.
But the Army
is also supposedly considering even more dramatic changes to their
recruitment policies. Older recruits in legalized states may very well
have used marijuana frequently in the years leading up to their decision
to join the military. And if those recruits choose to be honest with
the Army and admit to past marijuana use, they can end up losing their
ability to join.
The Army says they're reviewing qualifications related to
marijuana, but that no decision have been made. It doesn't help that the
people in charge of granting waivers for things like marijuana use or
mental health has changed from the Army Recruiting Command to the
Pentagon directly. They're still trying to figure out how to handle the
new system, and it may be too early to make dramatic changes to it.
However it does seem the military is willing to adapt and
accept marijuana users, which is more than can be said about just about
every other part of the federal government. (h/t Army Times)
In this May 24, 2018, file photo, a marijuana plant is shown in Springfield, Ore. (AP Photo/Don Ryan, File)
By Christopher Ingraham
This week, BuzzFeed News reported on the existence
of a previously unknown White House effort to gather information on the
“negative impacts of marijuana use, production, and trafficking on
national health, safety, and security.”
The
Marijuana Policy Coordination Committee, a project of the White House
Office of National Drug Control Policy, is particularly interested in
“the most significant data demonstrating negative trends” about
marijuana use, along with statements “describing the implications of
such trends," according to documents obtained by BuzzFeed.
As critics of marijuana legalization
are happy to point out, there are plenty of concerning trends regarding
marijuana use in the United States. We’ve collected a number of them
below.
1. Overall marijuana use is increasing
Federal
survey data show that marijuana use is on the rise overall -- 8.9
percent of Americans age 12 and older used the drug on a monthly basis
in 2016, up from 6.2 percent in 2002. In the narrowest public health
sense, that’s bad news. The drug is habit-forming, and its use is linked to a number of physical and mental health problems.
On the other hand, public health experts generally regard marijuana as less harmful to individuals and society than, say, alcohol.
The biggest category of concern is use among adolescents, whose
developing brains are particularly susceptible to the drug’s effects.
Federal data show adolescent marijuana use is actually falling, even in states that have legalized the drug.
The
final thing to note in the above chart is that the rate of monthly
marijuana use was on the rise well before Colorado and Washington voted
to legalize recreational use of the drug in 2012.
2. Heavy marijuana use is increasing
Public health experts say
we should worry less about monthly or yearly marijuana use, and more
about heavy marijuana use, measured here as the percentage of monthly
users who use the drug on a daily or near-daily basis. That share has
risen from 32.6 percent in 2002 to 41.7 percent in 2016.
People
who get stoned every single day are at the most risk of suffering
negative consequences from their use, like decreased cognitive ability,
respiratory problems and problems at work. They are also at the most
risk of becoming dependent on the drug.
But there’s a puzzle in this data. Federal surveys show that as heavy marijuana use has risen, the share of all Americans who qualifying as having a marijuana use disorder
has actually fallen, from 1.8 percent in 2002 to 1.5 percent in 2016, a
modest but statistically significant decrease.
As authorities define
it, marijuana use disorder “occurs when someone experiences clinically
significant impairment caused by the recurrent use of marijuana,
including health problems, persistent or increasing use, and failure to
meet major responsibilities at work, school, or home.”
The reasons for those diverging trends aren’t clear.
3. Marijuana is getting stronger
Thanks
to decades of selective breeding and improvements in cultivation
techniques, today’s marijuana tends to be a lot stronger than the stuff
available 30 or 40 years ago, according to data collected by the Office of National Drug Control Policy.
To draw a very crude analogy, smoking a joint in 1968 might have been
akin to drinking a can of beer. Smoking one today could be more like
doing three shots.
Again,
the interesting thing here is that most of this increase in potency
happened prior to legalization in Colorado and Washington in 2012. If
anything, the available federal data shows that average potency has
plateaued and even fallen slightly since then. This gets to a point that
many legalization proponents make: Simply outlawing a drug may not be
the best way to protect people from the risks of using the drug. And
with a relatively benign substance such as pot, outlawing it may actually make dangers worse.
4. In legalization states, more drivers are testing positive for marijuana
A
big concern with increased availability of marijuana is an increase in
stoned driving. While federal research has shown that marijuana is generally less debilitating to drivers than alcohol, driving while high still significantly increases the risks of crashing your car relative to driving while sober.
Last year, for instance, the Denver Post collected data
showing that the number of drivers involved in fatal crashes who tested
positive for previous marijuana use rose sharply from 2013 to 2016. But
as the Post points out, there’s a big asterisk with these numbers:
Because detectable traces of marijuana remain in people’s systems long
after they consume the drug, the rising numbers don’t necessarily
indicate that THC-positive drivers were impaired at the time of their
accidents.
Still, the numbers are increasing fast enough that public health experts are taking them seriously.
5. Marijuana-related ER visits are on the rise
A recent study out of Colorado
found that the number of teenagers going to the emergency room or
urgent care on account of marijuana use rose sharply from 2009 to 2015,
from 1.8 marijuana-related visits per 1,000 visits in that age group in
2009 to 4.5 in 2015.
There
are a number of possible explanations for this. Following legalization,
more teens may be exposed to pot simply because there’s more of it
lying around in Colorado homes. However, the fact that total rates of
teen marijuana use are falling in the state casts some doubt on this
notion.
Another explanation is that
liberalization of attitudes toward marijuana use is making teens more
likely to seek out medical help when they feel they need it.
One final point to consider is that while overdoing it with marijuana can make you have a very unpleasant evening, it’s quite literally impossible to fatally overdose on pot the way it is with, say, alcohol.
I realize a lot of my fellow Republicans don't like to think
of free-market capitalism when it comes to marijuana. But capitalism has
a way of getting desired products to consumers regardless of attempts
by the political class to regulate it.
I witnessed that the other evening as I was out at a bar watching the
legendary Billy Hector play guitar. I ran into a friend of mine who
likes to smoke marijuana and, in the interests of journalistic research,
I asked him what he thought of the ongoing effort in the state
Legislature to legalize pot.
It wouldn't make much difference to him, he said. He pulled out one
of those vape pens, the kind cigarette smokers often use to get a
nicotine rush without all that harmful smoke. They work with pot just as
well, he said, and no one can tell the difference.
He proceeded to show me how it works. No one noticed.
At that point I came to a conclusion that I imagine a majority of our
legislators are coming to: The war on marijuana is over. Marijuana won.
There's not much anyone can do about it - except of course try to cash
in on the tax revenue.
As a non-smoker who prefers to consume his rock-and-roll with the
aid of microbrewed beer, I had only a vague idea of what a vape pen is.
More research was in order. So the next day I spoke with a friend of a
friend who is an expert in the field.
It
turns out that a vape pipe is a small, battery-powered device that can
"vaporize" - hence the term "vape" - an oil. That oil can be saturated
with nicotine for those who want a safer alternative to cigarettes or
with THC for those who want to get a buzz.
Some police departments are trying to crack down, my new friend said.
But if they can't tell what's in the pen it's hard to charge the owner
with anything.
Not only that, he said, but there are many types of edible cannabis
coming into the state from places like Colorado and California where pot
has been legalized. He personally has a medical marijuana card and buys
his legally here in Jersey. But he said he knows plenty of people who
simply order their cannabis through the mail.
"The biggest drug dealer is the U.S. Postal Service," he said. "Back
in early 2000s, it was really hard to get any good marijuana at all.
Nowadays there is just so much stuff that the market is saturated."
That seems to be the case. And I felt sorry for Attorney General Gurbir S. Grewal when he tried to sort this all out in a conference call with journalists Wednesday morning.
Grewal did his best to lay out a policy for municipal prosecutors to
follow as they wait for the governor and legislative leaders to act on
what they promise will be a bill with provisions for expungement of
prior convictions.
Until
such a bill is passed, he said, "a municipal prosecutor may not adopt a
categorical policy of refusing to seek convictions for marijuana." But a
prosecutor should "exercise discretion" and move toward "social
justice" as we await action by the Legislature, he said.
I took that as a cry for help from the AG. The No. 1 source of that help at the moment is Senate President Steve Sweeney.
When I called the Gloucester County Democrat, he said he is hoping to
send a bill to his fellow Democrat, Gov. Phil Murphy, by the end of
September.
"It's just a matter of fine-tuning it," Sweeney said. "The sponsors
are now kind of in the same church and it's just a matter of getting to
the same pew."
Many legislators don't want to come out in favor of a legalization
bill until they're sure it will pass, he said. But once the final
package is put together, Sweeney said, he expects to get the needed 21
votes in the Senate while Assembly Speaker Craig Coughlin corrals 41
votes in his house.
Sweeney has traveled to Colorado with a delegation to see how
legalization is working there. He agreed with my friend that there are
so many different ways of dispensing cannabis in other states that it's
impossible to exclude them from Jersey.
"There
are edibles being developed, lozenges that have no smell," he said.
"There's a wide variety of ways people can consume it other than
inhaling smoke."
Sweeney said state regulation would actually make things safer for consumers. My friend agreed.
"It's out of the bag," he said. "There's no stopping it, so they might as well do what they can to capitalize on it."
New York legislators will hold a series of hearings later
this year to consider proposals to fully legalize marijuana in the
Empire State, four New York Assembly committee chairs announced on
Tuesday.
The hearings will cover a wide range of cannabis-related
issues, including economic regulations, criminal justice policy, public
health concerns and diversity in the marijuana industry.
“These hearings will give New Yorkers an opportunity to
provide input and allow the committee chairs to learn from several other
states that already allow adult use,” the committee chairs wrote in a
press release.
Noting that decriminalization and medical cannabis
legalization alone have not effectively resolved racially discriminatory
marijuana enforcement practices, the committee chairs recommended
further reforms:
“The prohibition on marijuana
has not served the people of New York well. It is an essential time for
the New York State Assembly too hold these hearings and determine a
responsible and responsive plan for the regulation and taxation of the
adult use of marijuana.”
The announcement follows several significant developments in New York cannabis politics.
In May, the New York Democratic Party adopted a resolution supporting adult-use marijuana legalization in the state, calling it “an important social justice issue.”
After ordering a study on the impact of legalization,
New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D) released a report from the state’s
Department of Health in July. The department found that the “positive
effects” of legalization “outweigh the potential negative impacts.”
The following month, Cuomo—who previously described marijuana as a
“gateway drug” and is facing a contentious primary battle with
pro-legalization gubernatorial candidate Cynthia Nixon—said that he’d
reviewed the health department’s report and formed a panel in order to “implement the report’s recommendations through legislation.”
In late July, the Manhattan district attorney ordered prosecutors in the borough to suspend all marijuana possession cases.
The aim of the mandate, similar to an earlier policy change made by
Brooklyn’s district attorney, is to significantly reduce
cannabis-related prosecutions—in this case by an estimated 96 percent.
Dates have not yet been set for the hearings, but the
lawmakers’ press release states they will take place “this fall.”
Tuesday’s announcement was made by Assembly Codes Committee Chair Joseph
Lentol, Health Committee Chair Richard Gottfried, Governmental
Operations Committee Chair Crystal Peoples-Stokes and Alcoholism and
Drug Abuse Committee Chair Linda B. Rosenthal
But that doesn’t necessarily mean it’s bad for those with the mysterious mental illness
By
Amelia McDonell-Parry
There’s a large body of research that has shown people who use marijuana
also have an increased risk of developing schizophrenia, but scientists
have struggled to find conclusive evidence that this correlation
necessarily means causation. A new study, published in the journal Nature Neuroscience and involving genetic data from the DNA ancestry database 23andMe, has confirmed that there is a “significant genetic correlation” that indicates the emergence of schizophrenia may lead to a greater probability of cannabis use.
So are people using marijuana to calm the symptoms of schizophrenia,
or is marijuana use jump-starting the brain-chemical imbalance that
contributes to it? Turns out it might be a lot more complicated than
that.
Over the last several years, researchers at the International
Cannabis Consortium project have been studying whether certain genetic
variations indicate a predisposition towards cannabis use. The new Nature Neuroscience study
is the largest of its kind; the researchers analyzed anonymous genetic
data from over 180,000 people, culled from either previous studies or
from the 23andMe database.
The evidence indicating marijuana use can
cause schizophrenia was “weak,” the authors wrote,
but there was a stronger indication that early symptoms experienced by
“individuals at risk for developing schizophrenia … [may] make them more
likely to start using cannabis to cope or self-medicate.”
This finding brings important clarity to previous studies that suggested smoking marijuana at a younger age can cause the early manifestation of schizophrenia
in people with a genetic predisposition. This new study suggests the
opposite is more likely — that early symptoms of schizophrenia can lead a
young person to start smoking marijuana. A significant factor that many
of these studies struggle to consider are the benefits of
marijuana use in coping with those symptoms.
One reason could be that
evidence of these benefits may be anecdotal, but not necessarily
measurable in the ways traditional science considers valid or
quantifiable.
However, there is also the fact that many of the studies analyzing
the link between marijuana use and schizophrenia are about “risk,” as if
both are inherently negative or hazardous. Marijuana use, unlike a
complicated mental disorder like schizophrenia, is one that can be
controlled, including in many states by law. It makes sense then that
even supposedly unbiased researchers would be more inclined towards
interpretations of marijuana’s causal effects rather than the other way
around.
While there are certainly some downsides to marijuana use — though
none which come close to the potential risks associated with alcohol,
tobacco and legal prescription opiates — its benefits are becoming more widely accepted.
The ongoing spread of legalization, both for medicinal and recreational
purposes, has increased opportunity for deeper research into how
cannabis can be used to manage symptoms of schizophrenia, including the
potential differences between intake methods, like smoking, vaping and
edibles.
There already has been significant evidence of the overall health
benefits of cannabidiol, or CBD, the plant’s non-psychoactive compound,
including its antipsychotic properties. Studies have shown that CBD use by people with schizophrenia led to significant clinical improvements on par with anti-psychotic pharmaceuticals, but with fewer side effects.
While there is still much research to be done into how cannabis’s
psychoactive compound, THC, impacts patients with schizophrenia or its
early symptoms, marijuana legalization and its associated regulations
have made it much easier to adjust the levels of THC versus CBD to meet
the needs, be they recreational or medicinal, of the user. That’s good
news all around.
The Marijuana Data Collection Act would counteract efforts to continue
the decades-long trend of anti-cannabis messaging by the federal
government.
Eric Sandy
Amid a flurry of federal legislation
that would advance cannabis reform in the U.S., the Marijuana Data
Collection Act stands out as one bill that would directly address the
narrative and national mythos of cannabis. In an era of greater
political obfuscation—and in a subject area fraught with decades of
misconceptions and anti-marijuana propaganda—the bill is seen as a vital
step in the path toward federal legalization.
In a Buzzfeed News story
published Aug. 29, reporter Dominic Holden revealed that the Trump
administration “has secretly amassed a committee of federal agencies
from across the government to combat public support for marijuana and
cast state legalization measures in a negative light, while attempting
to portray the drug as a national threat.”
The news immediately drew vocal backlash from industry stakeholders.
“These
are the death rattles of marijuana prohibition,” NORML Political
Director Justin Strekal said in a public statement. “Those who seek to
maintain the oppressive policies of cannabis criminalization are
grasping at straws in their effort to undo the public policy progresses
that have now been enacted in a majority of states, and that are widely
supported by voters of both major political parties.”
In April, U.S. Sen. Cory Gardner (R-CO) announced that he’d reached an apparent deal
with Trump to protect states’ rights to legalize and regulate cannabis
markets, referencing what would eventually become the STATES ACT.
Trump,
however, has never made his position on cannabis reform entirely clear.
He has yet to specifically promote any federal legalization efforts in a
public forum, although he did indicate in June that he “probably will end up supporting” the STATES Act.
Holden’s
report, in fact, signals the exact opposite sentiment from the White
House and what’s being called the Marijuana Policy Coordination
Committee. According to Holden: “The prevailing marijuana
narrative in the U.S. is partial, one-sided, and inaccurate,” says a
summary of a July 27 meeting of the White House and nine departments. In
a follow-up memo, which provided guidance for responses from federal
agencies, White House officials told department officials, “Departments
should provide … the most significant data demonstrating negative
trends, with a statement describing the implications of such trends.”
The Marijuana Data Collection Act would counteract an executive-branch measure like the Marijuana Policy Coordination Committee.
The bill, introduced by U.S. Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (D-HI), has thus far picked up 27 co-sponsors.
“As a result, we have seen a failed war on drugs
being carried out for decades, tearing families apart [and] fracturing
our communities at a tremendous social cost, as well as economic cost to
our taxpayers—heavily weighing on an already overburdened criminal
justice system.”
Watch the full press conference:
<br />
The bill was introduced July 24. Were the Marijuana Data Collection
to be signed into law, the National Academy of Sciences would generate a
report (and would continue to update that report) on the following
subject areas:
REVENUES AND STATE ALLOCATIONS: The monetary
amounts generated through revenues, taxes, and any other financial
benefits; The purposes and relative amounts for which these funds were
used; The total impact on the State and its budget.
MEDICINAL
USE OF MARIJUANA: The rates of medicinal use among different population
groups, including children, the elderly, veterans, and individuals with
disabilities; The purpose of such use; Which medical conditions medical
marijuana is most frequently purchased and used for.
SUBSTANCE
USE: The rates of overdoses with opioids and other painkillers; The
rates of admission in health care facilities, emergency rooms, and
volunteer treatment facilities related to overdoses with opioids and
other painkillers; The rates of opioid-related and other
painkiller-related crimes to one’s self and to the community; The rates
of opioid prescriptions and other pain killers.
IMPACTS ON
CRIMINAL JUSTICE: The rates of marijuana-related arrests for possession,
cultivation, and distribution, and of these arrests, the percentages
that involved a secondary charge unrelated to marijuana possession,
cultivation, or distribution (including the rates of such arrests on the
Federal level, including the number of Federal prisoners so arrested,
dis¬ag-gre¬gat¬ed by sex, age, race, and ethnicity of the prisoners; and
the rates of such arrests on the State level, including the number of
State prisoners so arrested, disaggregated by sex, age, race, and
ethnicity); The rates of arrests and citations on the Federal and State
levels related to teenage use of marijuana; The rates of arrests on the
Federal and State levels for unlawful driving under the influence of a
substance, and the rates of such arrests involving marijuana; The rates
of marijuana-related prosecutions, court filings, and imprisonments; The
total monetary amounts expended for marijuana-related enforcement,
arrests, court filings and proceedings, and imprisonment before and
after legalization, including Federal expenditures disaggregated
according to whether the laws being enforced were Federal or State; The
total number and rate of defendants in Federal criminal prosecutions
asserting as a defense that their conduct was in compliance with
applicable State law legalizing marijuana usage, and the effects of such
assertions.
EMPLOYMENT: The amount of jobs created in each
State, differentiating between direct and indirect employment; The
amount of jobs expected to be created in the next 5 years, and in the
next 10 years, as a result of the State’s marijuana industry.
Why is the liquor industry the first mover on marijuana, and not the Marlboro Man?
By Tara Lachapelle
Cigarette makers and the budding marijuana industry seem like a
natural fit. But alcoholic-beverage companies are the ones leading
investors to, well, the green.
Tobacco
giants Altria Group Inc. and Philip Morris International Inc. are among
the worst-performing consumer stocks in the S&P 500 this year, as
cigarette consumption declines and innovative products remain only a
tiny source of revenue. Contrast that with the situation over at
Constellation Brands Inc. and Diageo Plc, which are both trading near
all-time highs as they get a head start in expanding beyond booze and
into the cannabis space. Their share-price gains aren’t entirely due to
such investments (in fact, Constellation’s stock has bounced around this
year as shipping costs eat into beer profits). But cannabis is the next
growth frontier and shareholders are cheering the early movers.
Hazy Outlook
Tobacco companies aren't
usually the ones to drag down the U.S. benchmark index, but threats to
cigarettes and new products are pressuring their stock prices
Source: Bloomberg
The U.S. tobacco industry hasn’t said much about
marijuana, even though it would seem to be a natural extension of their
smoking products and an obvious path to forge. I made a video
about this two years ago and explained how it wouldn’t be inconceivable
to see the industry throw its lobbying power behind cannabis as the
U.S. inevitably moves toward legalization. I mean, is there any
industry more equipped to navigate the regulatory hurdles? But little
has changed since then.
Cigarette sales volume has slowed alongside higher gas
prices, and newer vapor products may be cannibalizing traditional
smokes. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration is also considering
drastically reducing nicotine in cigarettes to make them less addictive.
Meanwhile, Philip Morris has faced an uphill battle in winning
approval from the agency to market its IQos tobacco-heating stick as a
reduced-risk product. London-based rival British American Tobacco Plc
has its own heated-tobacco product called Neocore (inherited from
acquiring Reynolds American last year) that already secured FDA
clearance and will likely beat IQos to the market.
All the major consumer-staples companies are confronting growth
challenges and trying to figure to out what’s next. But while the
tobacco industry has failed to generate much excitement lately, the
alcohol space is delivering a more intriguing story.
Constellation Brands, the company behind Robert Mondavi wines, Svedka vodka and Corona in the U.S., has been gobbling up craft brewers as
part of an M&A-driven strategy to add more beverages that consumers
are willing to pay up for. Along the way, it’s also taken a stake in
Canada’s Canopy Growth Corp. — ticker WEED — a stake that’s now worth
about $4 billion. Canada has been the hot spot for investment as it
becomes the first G-20 nation to legalize marijuana. Just nine U.S.
states and Washington, D.C. have legalized recreational use for adults,
though the list continues to grow.
Diageo,
the maker of Guinness beer, is in discussions with at least three
Canadian cannabis producers about a possible investment or alliance to
make marijuana-infused beverages, BNN Bloomberg TV reported
last week. Molson Coors Brewing Co. is also starting a joint venture
with Quebec-based Hydropothecary Corp. But while all the action is north
of the border, this money is being spent with an eye toward the U.S.
market.
It’s only a matter of time before the tobacco giants get
in on this, and when they do other players will need to watch out. But
for now, it’s moves like Constellation’s that are lighting up the
market. This column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the editorial board or Bloomberg LP and its owners.
The United States District Court of New Jersey recently
dismissed an employee's disability discrimination, failure to
accommodate and retaliation claims, holding that neither the New
Jersey Law Against Discrimination (LAD) nor the New Jersey
Compassionate Use Medical Marijuana Act (CUMMA) required the
employer to waive its drug testing requirements.
In Cotto v. Ardagh Glass Packing, Inc., No. 18-1037,
employee-plaintiff Daniel Cotto Jr. sustained an injury at work
while operating a fork lift. Consistent with its practices, the
employer, Ardagh, required that he pass a breathalyzer and urine
test before he could return to work. Cotto explained that he was
taking prescription medications, which he was told would not be a
problem. However, in subsequent discussions, the company relayed
concerns about Cotto's use of medical marijuana and placed him
on indefinite suspension until he could pass the drug test. Cotto
objected, presenting his medical marijuana card and prescription,
but Ardagh refused to relax the drug testing requirement.
Cotto
then filed suit, claiming the company's refusal to waive the
drug test constituted disability discrimination, a failure to
accommodate his disability, and retaliation. Ardagh moved to
dismiss Cotto's Complaint, arguing that applicable New Jersey
law, and CUMMA specifically, does not mandate an employer's
acceptance of medical marijuana use or require it to waive drug
testing for substances that are illegal under federal law.
In considering Cotto's discrimination claim, the Court noted
that while no court had addressed CUMMA's effect on the LAD,
other non-New Jersey courts have concluded that the
decriminalization of medical marijuana does not shield employees
from adverse employment action except where expressly provided by
statute. The Court then found that while CUMMA decriminalizes
medical marijuana usage and removes the threat of civil sanctions,
it specifically states that it should not be construed to require
employers to permit the use of medical marijuana in the workplace,
which neither invalidated nor supported Cotto's claims. The
Court thereafter held the employee's disability discrimination
claim failed for the "obvious" reason that "the LAD
does not require an employer to accommodate an employee's use
of medical marijuana with a drug test waiver" – citing
New Jersey courts' determinations that drug testing is
generally acceptable in private employment. Thus, Cotto could not
prove that he could perform the essential functions of his job.
Similarly, the Court held that Cotto could not prove a failure to
accommodate claim because neither CUMMA nor the LAD requires an
employer to waive its drug testing requirement. Finally, because
refusing a drug test is not a protected activity, the Court
dismissed the employee's retaliation claim.
The Cotto decision is unpublished and therefore not
controlling precedent under New Jersey federal or state law.
However, the decision is persuasive authority for New Jersey
private employers to refuse to waive drug tests for medical
marijuana in similar situations while the substance remains
federally-prohibited. Notably, though, New Jersey's Governor
and legislature have discussed their intention to expand marijuana
use protections, making it especially important for employers to
stay tuned for changes in the law which may ultimately enact
workplace protections for medical marijuana users.
Moreover,
multistate employers must be aware of the specific laws in all of
the states in which they operate – and if those laws provide
for workplace protections for marijuana users – before taking
adverse employment actions or refusing to accommodate such use.
Concentrated liquid extracts
from marijuana plants are becoming more and more popular as alternative
medicine, but the science isn't there.
Credit: Shutterstock
The popularity of medical marijuana
is soaring, and among the numerous products consumers are seeking are
cannabis oils — the most in-demand of which is referred to simply as CBD
oil.
A wealth of marketing material, blogs and anecdotes claim that cannabis oils can cure whatever ails you, even cancer.
But the limited research doesn't suggest that cannabis oil should take
the place of conventional medication, except for in two very rare forms
of epilepsy (and even then, it's recommended only as a last-resort
treatment). And, experts caution that because cannabis oil and other
cannabis-based products are not regulated or tested for safety by the
government or any third-party agency, it's difficult for consumers to
know exactly what they're getting.
What is cannabis oil?
Simply put, cannabis oil is the concentrated liquid extract of the marijuana plant, Cannabis sativa.
Similar to other herbal extracts, the chemicals in cannabis oils vary
depending on how the extract is made and what chemicals were in the
plant to begin with.
Cannabis plants produce thousands of compounds but the most well
recognized belong to a class called cannabinoids. There are several
cannabinoids but the two that are most well-known among consumers are THC (tetrahydrocannabinol) and CBD (cannabidiol).
THC is the primary psychoactive compound in marijuana and it is what
people are searching for when they want a product that gives them a
"high." Unlike THC, CBD isn't known to cause psychoactive effects, and
is therefore attractive to those who want to avoid the high but who
believe there are other benefits of CBD, said Sara Ward, a
pharmacologist at Temple University in Philadelphia. [Healing Herb? Marijuana Could Treat These 5 Conditions]
CBD products that don't contain THC fall outside the scope of the U.S.
Drug Enforcement Agency's (DEA) Controlled Substances Act, which means CBD products are legal to
sell and consume as long as they don't have THC. That's likely one of
the reasons why CBD products, including CBD oil, are becoming more
socially acceptable and increasingly popular. In 2016, Forbes reported that CBD products are expected to be a $2.2 billion industry by 2020.
How are cannabis oils consumed?
The physiological effects
of cannabinoids can vary widely from person to person, and also depend
on how they're consumed. That lack of predictability is one of the
reasons why cannabis oil is a challenging candidate for developing into a
medicine, Ward told Live Science.
"Two people may eat a brownie [made with cannabis oil] and one may
absorb massive amounts of cannabinoids and the other may not," Ward
said. "How long it takes to work and how long it stays in the system
differs greatly."
It's a little more uniform when the product is absorbed by smoking or
vaping the oil, Ward said.
But, "there are obvious concerns about
smoking something." A 2007 review published in the journal JAMA Internal Medicine
found that smoking marijuana resulted in similar declines in
respiratory system health as smoking tobacco. A similar review published
in 2014 in The American Journal of Cardiology
found that marijuana smoke inhalation can increase the chances of heart
attack or stroke.
Neither review analyzed the effects of vaping
cannabis oil alone, so it's unclear if it has the same health risks as
smoking other marijuana products.
Why do people use cannabis oil?
People claim that cannabis oil can be used to treat a wide range of
conditions, though evidence to back up these claims is often lacking.
For example, according to Medical News Today,
people use cannabis oil for conditions ranging from pain to acne; some
even claim the oil can cure diseases like Alzheimer's and cancer. (But
again, there is no clinical evidence to support these claims.)
A review published in 2017 in the journal Frontiers in Pharmacology
described how CBD may work to protect the hippocampus — the part of the
brain responsible for several important functions, such as learning, memory
and navigation — during times of stress, and may also help prevent
brain-cell destruction that results from schizophrenia. Another 2017
review published in the journal Annals of Palliative Medicine summarized a handful of studies that suggest cannabis oils containing THC or CBD, or both, may help with chronic pain management, but the mechanism is unclear.
Cannabis treatment in people with certain forms of epilepsy has been more promising. The only FDA-approved cannabis-based drug is Epidiolex, a CBD oral solution for treating two rare and severe forms of epilepsy.
What to keep in mind
"It's important to know that the research in this area is in its
infancy, partly because we haven't really understood much about CBD
until relatively recently," said Marcel Bonn-Miller, an adjunct
assistant professor at the University of Pennsylvania Perelman School of
Medicine. He pointed out that the classification of marijuana as a
Schedule 1 drug by the DEA makes it difficult to get material to use in
laboratory studies. Schedule 1 drugs have a high potential for abuse, according to the DEA, and are illegal under federal law.
Because of this classification, it's not easy for researchers
to get their hands on the drug. "That's not to say you can't do it, but
there are hoops you need to jump through that can be a pain, which may
deter researchers from going into this space," Bonn-Miller said.
"Relatively speaking, it's a small group of people in the U.S. that do
research on cannabinoids in humans."
However, Bonn-Miller told Live Science that he thinks cannabis research is on the upswing.
"If we flash forward five years I think you'll see more studies," he
said. Those studies could reveal more conditions that CBD may be helpful
for and may also reveal that some of the reasons why people say they
use CBD oil are not supported by the science but are instead a placebo
effect. "And that's why we need to do the studies," he said.
The side effects
and risks involved with consuming marijuana-based products aren't
clear, either, Bonn-Miller said. It's important to "determine
cannabinoids that are useful therapeutically while understanding and
using cannabinoids that are associated with less risk," he said. At
least with CBD, he said, it doesn't appear to have the potential for
addiction. That's different from THC, which has been associated with
addiction, he said, and negative side effects, including acute anxiety.
Buyer beware
Both Bonn-Miller and Ward stress that it's up to the consumer to be
well-educated about the material they're purchasing and the research
that's out there. "The companies that are creating [cannabis oils] are
offering lots of claims about its use that are not necessarily substantiated by any research," Bonn-Miller said. So "I think there needs to be, from a consumer standpoint, a lot of vigilance," he added.
And the products on the shelf aren't all the same, Ward said. "There
can be many, many different varieties, and if you're thinking about
doing this for medical reasons, you want to find a trusted source and do
your research," she said. "Where does that oil come from, and how
confident can you be that you know the exact percentages of the
different cannabinoids in the product?"
Bonn-Miller also explained that it's imperative to exhaust the
traditional and established front-line treatments that are available
before seeking out these products. "CBD is not really a first-line
treatment for anything," he said. "You don’t want situations where
somebody says, 'I have cancer I'm going to forgo chemotherapy because I
read something about CBD or THC helping with cancer.'"
That's not a good
idea, Bonn-Miller said. "Not only is the science not there, but you may end up worse off."
More and more people consider smoking marijuana harmless or even beneficial, but mounting research suggests women who are pregnant or breastfeeding should avoid it altogether.
That’s according to new recommendations from the American Academy of
Pediatrics, which cites growing evidence of marijuana’s potential harm
to children’s long-term development.
The strong direction to women and pediatricians comes as more than half of states,
including California, have legalized marijuana for medical or
recreational use, and studies show that a growing number of babies are
being exposed to the drug.
The march toward marijuana legalization has outpaced scientific research about its effects. Because marijuana is a Schedule 1 drug
— by definition, one with potential for abuse and no approved medical
use — federal law has limited research on it. But in a detailed review
of the existing safety data published Monday in the journal Pediatrics,
researchers concluded that enough concerns exist about both short-term
growth and long-term neurological consequences for children to recommend
against it.
“Women should definitely be counseled that it’s not a good idea to use
marijuana while pregnant. If you’re breastfeeding, we would encourage
you to cut back or quit,” said Seth Ammerman, a co-author of the report
and professor of pediatrics at Stanford.
If a breastfeeding mother does not stop using, however, “the benefits of
breastfeeding would outweigh the potential exposure to the infant,” he
added.
A second study, also published in Pediatrics, found that THC, the
molecule that gives marijuana most of its psychoactive effects,
accumulates in breast milk, even up to six days after the mother’s last
use.
STOCK PHOTO/Getty Images
Stock photo of mother and baby.
The findings come as marijuana use among pregnant women is rising. From 2002 to 2014, self-reported use
of marijuana in the past month increased by 62 percent to 3.85 percent.
Since then, a growing number of states have legalized marijuana for
recreational use, so this is likely an underestimate of current rates.
In studies of urban, young and socioeconomically disadvantaged pregnant
women, 15 to 28 percent of women reported using the drug.
California legalized use of recreational marijuana among adults 21 and older beginning in January.
Unlike for alcohol and cigarettes, even legally sold marijuana may not
carry a safety warning for pregnant women, depending on the
state. California and Colorado do require safety warnings.
“There’s a myth out there that it’s benign. And for many adults who are
sporadic users, that’s probably true. But in these circumstances it may
be harmful,” said Ammerman.
Of particular concern, he added, is that the potency of THC in marijuana
has more than quadrupled since 1983. Several of the largest studies
were conducted when potency was much lower, according to the report.
Research has found that THC can easily cross the placenta and accumulate
in the brain and fat of the growing fetus. Studies, while limited,
suggest that prenatal exposure to marijuana could cause harm to
children’s executive functioning, including concentration, attention,
impulse control and problem-solving.
Nonetheless, mothers groups online are filled with women touting the
benefits of marijuana during pregnancy, citing the drug as a remedy for
the nausea of morning sickness.
“A lot of women may be getting the info from online media and from marijuana dispensaries. As health
professionals, we need to educate women that there are a lot of
concerns both for the fetus and for later development,” said Kelly
Young-Wolff, a research scientist at the Kaiser Permanente Northern
California Division of Research, who was not involved in the Pediatrics
studies. (Kaiser Health News is not affiliated with Kaiser Permanente.)
A recent study in the journal Obstetrics and Gynecology, for example,
found that 70 percent of cannabis dispensaries in Colorado recommended
marijuana to treat morning sickness during the first trimester. No
evidence suggests that marijuana use is safe or indicated for morning
sickness, said Young-Wolff, though there are plenty of other options
that a health professional can recommend. And the worst nausea happens
in the first trimester, when the developing fetus might be the most
vulnerable to substances like marijuana.
But convincing women of the dangers of cannabis use during pregnancy can be challenging.
“A lot of the public equates legalization with some kind of endorsement
of safety. Of course, that’s not true,” said Dana Gossett, a professor
of obstetrics and gynecology at the University of California-San
Francisco.
When she counsels patients to avoid marijuana, Gossett said, she runs into a “fair amount of indifference.”
Pregnancy is often a time when women are receptive to changing their
habits to protect their growing baby. But while they generally accept
that smoking cigarettes is bad — that’s been clear since the 1960s —
they often view marijuana as safe and natural, and therefore harmless.
“Just because something is plant-based or natural doesn’t make it safe.” Arsenic, added Gossett, is also a natural substance.
So far, the news of the dangers of marijuana during pregnancy and
breastfeeding does not appear to be reaching its target audience.
On Facebook, the group “Stoner Moms” has more than 22,000 followers. And
the Glow Nurture pregnancy app has several community groups devoted to
users, including “420 Friendly,” “Ganja Mommies,” “CannaMoms” and
“Stoners.”
The chats are filled with women asking not whether marijuana could be
harmful, but rather whether smoking marijuana could put them at risk of
involvement from Child Protective Services.
“I live in Georgia. … I’m only 5 weeks but I plan to keep smoking since
there’s no evidence of it being harmful. Has anyone given birth here
without being tested?” asked one user on the “Moms for Marijuana” group
on the popular BabyCenter app.
A user in Wisconsin wrote: “Did you have any issues with being tested at
delivery or having CPS getting involved while on Medicaid? Thanks in
advance!!”
“I wonder if moms that smoke cigarettes have to go through the same
worries that moms that smoke weed do?” asked a third poster in North
Carolina. “I stopped smoking at 24 weeks and it just sucks that we have
to live in fear of our babies being taken away! Even though there’s no
evidence of weed being harmful!”
Screening rules vary by hospital, but 24 states and the District of
Columbia require health care professionals to report suspected prenatal
drug use, according to the Guttmacher Institute. In many states, drug use can be used as evidence of child neglect or abuse in a civil case.
According to Young-Wolff, although pregnant and breastfeeding women
should certainly be educated about the risks of marijuana, “none of this
research should be used to penalize or stigmatize women.”
Correction: An earlier version of this story incorrectly reported that
no states require safety warnings for pregnant women on legally sold
marijuana. At least six states do require labeling.
Large-scale genetic study is the biggest of its kind ever to look at the potential side effects of cannabis use
By lee bell
Cannabis use has been linked to schizophreniaA new scientific study has linked smoking cannabis with certain psychiatric conditions such as schizophrenia.
Researchers from Radboud University looked at data from more than 180,000 people as part of the study.
They uncovered that people with schizophrenia are also more likely to use cannabis.
The large-scale genetic study, published in Nature Neuroscience , was conducted by a team of scientists part of the International Cannabis Consortium.
New study finds people with schizophrenia are also more likely to use cannabis (Image: Daniel Zgombic/Getty) It's claimed to be the largest to date genetic study to
look at the use of cannabis. It used data from the UK Biobank,
association results from DNA testing kit 23andMe customers as well as
data from individuals in 16 other smaller study cohorts.
The study identified 35 different genes associated with cannabis use with the strongest associations in a gene called CADM2.
“CADM2
has already been associated with risky behaviour, personality and
alcohol use,” said professor Jacqueline Vink, the study’s lead author.
For
this study, Vink and the researchers were able to look across more than
a million genetic variants that together helped to explain
approximately 11 percent of the differences in cannabis use between
people.
The study identified 35 different genes associated with cannabis use with the strongest associations in a gene called CADM2 (Image: Getty) One of the biggest correlations that stood out was the genetic overlap between cannabis use and the risk of schizophrenia.
“That
is not a big surprise, because previous studies have often shown that
cannabis use and schizophrenia are associated with each other. However,
we also studied whether this association is causal,” Vink explained.
“Our study showed that people with a vulnerability to develop schizophrenia are at increased risk of using cannabis.”
The
researchers used an analysis technique called "Mendelian randomisation"
to show a causal relationship between schizophrenia and an increased
risk of cannabis use.
This, the scientists said, indicated that people with schizophrenia
use cannabis as a form of self-medication. However, the researchers
cannot exclude a reverse cause-and-effect relationship, meaning that
cannabis use could contribute to the risk of schizophrenia.
The study also found a genetic overlap between cannabis use and the use of tobacco and alcohol.
There
was a similar overlap between cannabis use and personality types that
were prone to more risky behaviour or were more extraverted.
"This
means that genetic variants impacting cannabis use partially impact
other psychological or psychiatric features as well," the researchers
said.
If you smoke marijuana, your genes could be partially to blame.
That’s because a new study, published in the journal Nature Neuroscience, found that there are actually 35 different genes that make a person more likely to take a puff of a joint or munch on some pot edibles.
Researchers used data
from 180,000 people — some who used the ancestry company 23andMe and
some who took part in 16 other studies — to look for a connection
between a person’s genes and their relationship with marijuana.
People who are predisposed to developing schizophrenia and ADHD are more prone to “lifetime cannabis
use,” the study found. It also determined that there’s a correlation
between consuming marijuana and other types of habits and personality
traits impacted by genetics.
“The study found a genetic overlap between cannabis use and the use of tobacco and alcohol,”
the study’s authors wrote in a press release. “There was a similar
overlap between cannabis use and personality types that were prone to
more risky behavior or were more extroverted.
“This means that genetic variants impacting cannabis use partially impact other psychological or psychiatric features as well.”
But don’t think your genes can
perfectly guess your likelihood of using marijuana. The study’s authors
noted that a person’s genes “helped to explain approximately 11 percent
of the differences in cannabis use between people.” That’s right: Just
11 percent.
Another study, this one published on August 8, suggested that it just might be the THC in marijuana causing problems.
In fact, that research found
cannabidiol (CBD) in marijuana actually can help treat people who have
schizophrenia. CBD is a non-psychoactive marijuana compound known to
help with pain, anxiety and other ailments. But THC, the psychoactive
component of weed that gives people a mental “high,” could make the
mental illness worse, the study found.
Ran Barzilay, child and adolescent psychiatrist at Tel Aviv University’s Sackler School of Medicine, told MedicalNewsToday that it’s like “playing with fire” if adolescents with a predisposition to schizophrenia smoke marijuana.
The authors of the study
published in Nature Neuroscience noted that they did not disprove that
cannabis can worsen or cause a person’s schizophrenia, instead writing
that the relationship between the two is complicated and nuanced.
These studies come at a time when Americans’ support and use of marijuana are at an all-time high.
Sixty-one percent of people favored legalizing recreational use of marijuana in January,
according to a Pew Research Center survey. That is a drastic increase
over the 31 percent of Americans who said the same in 2000.
And a 2017 Yahoo News and Marist College survey found 55 million adults in the U.S. say they use marijuana monthly or yearly
— while another 78 million said they have used it in the past but don’t
anymore. Fifty-six percent said using pot is “socially acceptable.”
Read more here: https://www.miamiherald.com/news/nation-world/national/article217437390.html#storylink=cpy
As New York moves toward legal recreational cannabis, the failure to enact nationwide reforms is becoming more glaring.
Weed
in glass cases at the ribbon-cutting ceremony for MedMen's latest Los
Angeles location. Photo by Rich Polk/Getty Images for MedMen Enterprises
New York State Senator Diane Savino says she knows the moment Governor Andrew Cuomo changed his mind on legal weed.
Cuomo was famously so anti-marijuana that as recently as February 2017 he was still pushing the “gateway drug” line. However, at the beginning of August he announced a 20-person working group
that will look into the practicalities of legalizing the drug for
recreational adult use in the state, a decision that followed a
recommendation from a commission that recreational marijuana be legalized.
Savino,
one of the four named legislators in the working group, traces the
governor’s change of heart back to a conversation she had with him after
New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy was elected in November.
“Murphy
said that within his first 100 days in office he was going to do a
bunch of things—including adult-use marijuana,” she told me. “I had a
conversation with [Cuomo] and said: ‘You’re going to have to start
thinking about adult-use marijuana now.’ He said: ‘Why? The Republicans
in the Senate will never do it.’ I said: ‘It really doesn’t matter what
they think or what anybody else thinks. If Phil Murphy does what he’s
said he’s going to do then you’ll have marijuana to the left of you, to
the right of you in Massachusetts, and to the north of you in Canada.
You can’t stop it.’”
When
asked if Savino’s recollection of the conversation is accurate, Cuomo’s
spokesman Rich Azzopardi replied: “The governor first ordered the
report on the feasibility of a legal marijuana program in January
because the existence of similar programs in surrounding states changed
from question from ‘legalize or don’t legalize’ to ‘how to implement it
correctly.’ The State Department of Health released its findings and now
experts will use it as a roadmap to writing legislation for next
session.”
Savino knows the politics of weed. She was the lead
sponsor of the state’s Compassionate Care Act, which legalized marijuana
for medical use—with many restrictions,
including a ban on smokable weed—when it passed in 2014. She told me
she’ll be encouraging other members to travel the country to examine how
legalization has happened elsewhere. “You have to leave New York!” she
said. “You have to go other states and see what works and what doesn’t
work, to make sure you don’t make the same mistakes.”
When
she was drafting the bill, Savino said she treated the example of
California as a cautionary tale.
“California was the thing that scared
people in New York the most,” she said. “It was a completely unregulated
market because you didn’t have a state law. They allowed local
governments to decide whether they were going to issue licenses. You had
no rhyme or reason to it, and it really didn’t resemble what people
thought a medical program should look like because of the ease with
which people could walk in the door and become patients.”
But
now that New York is considering moving from a medical to a
recreational market, it’ll be time to look at other states again,
including California. Since the beginning of the year, when California's
Prop 64 came into effect and legal weed became a reality,
the drug has moved into the mainstream. In June, Ted Lieu became the
first sitting congressman in the country to help open a marijuana
dispensary when he cut the ribbon on MedMen’s store on Abbot Kinney in
Venice, Los Angeles.
“Prohibition did not work with alcohol, and
it wasn’t working with cannabis either,” Lieu said that day. “We needed
to bring this out and mainstream it. That’s why I was very supportive
of Prop 64. I was one of the co-authors of the ballot guide language,
urging voters to go for Prop 64.”
As it happens, MedMen—probably the most well-known dispensary chain in the country—has
opened a store in Manhattan too, though that branch has to abide by all
the limitations of New York’s medical market. Saviano nevertheless
pointed to it as an example of the normalization of the marijuana
industry.
“It’s
about resocializing the way people think about marijuana,” she said.
“You want to make people feel as comfortable walking into a dispensary
as they do walking into a liquor store. That’s why MedMen decided to
open their dispensary on Fifth Avenue across the street from Lord &
Taylor, two blocks away from Tiffany’s and Saks Fifth Avenue. They
wanted to put it on Main Street America and say: ‘Here it is, don’t be
afraid of it.’”
Something that Savino and Lieu both emphasized
when I spoke to them was the importance of removing cannabis from
Schedule I of the Controlled Substances Act at a nationwide level. “I
suppose it’s true that I just opened a store that is in direct violation
of federal law,” Lieu said at MedMen. “That’s why we need to change
federal law.”
Savino expressed her frustration that Congress
hasn’t taken more of the initiative on the issue.
“You have 336 members
of Congress right now who live in states who have a legal marijuana
program,” she said. “There’s only 435 members of Congress, not counting
the Senate, but they are afraid to take a vote on marijuana policy. It
blows my mind! There’s a level of cognitive dissonance on this issue in
Congress that is astounding. You have 31 states and counting, plus the
District of Columbia, that have legal medical marijuana regulations.
That means you have 31 different sets of standards. Thirty-one different
sets of patient requirements. It’s insanity, and all of this could be
solved if they descheduled marijuana.”
The end of federal cannabis prohibition would bring with it huge changes for the industry. As it stands, it’s very difficult for marijuana businesses to use ordinary banking services
or to take out loans, with many forced to deal only in cash. Marijuana
products can’t legally be transported across state lines—which has led
to absurd situations like Oregon having a surplus of product—and even
the more tolerated CBD and hemp industries exist in a legal gray area.
As
federal legalization looks more and more likely, complicated questions
will have to be answered.
Chief among them is what to do with people who
have criminal records because they sold or used cannabis. Last summer,
New Jersey Democratic Senator Cory Booker introduced the Marijuana
Justice Act, which would clean the records of those who’ve been
convicted of federal marijuana crimes and also invest money into those
communities—disproportionately poor and African American—which have been
hit hardest by cannabis convictions.
There has been no
suggestion from Donald Trump that he would support Booker’s ambitious
bill, but he did say in June that he expects to support the bipartisan
marijuana bill that was introduced into the Senate by Republican
Colorado Senator Cory Gardner and Democratic Massachusetts Senator
Elizabeth Warren, which places the emphasis on states’ rights.
“I support Senator Gardner,” Trump said. “I know exactly what he’s doing. We’re looking at it. But I probably will end up supporting that, yes.”
As
for New York, theoretically the state’s law could change as early as
next year. “The governor claims that he wants us to be ready to look at
legislation by the beginning of next session, which is January,” said
Savino. “We’ll see!”
Health experts blame lack of messaging about responsible use of powerful cannabis products
Katie Nicholson · CBC News
Neil
MacIntosh, right, supervisor at The Rex jazz bar in Toronto, says he
has personally witnessed three different patrons in medical distress at
the bar from cannabis overdoses in the past year. (Rob Krbavac/CBC)
It
was early evening at a popular downtown Toronto jazz bar, the band
playing for an older crowd more into Ella Fitzgerald than Rihanna's Umbrella-ella-ella. Part way through the set, a man in his late 50s stood and then promptly collapsed, face-first, onto the floor.
The Rex's supervisor, Neil MacIntosh, watched in horror from behind the bar.
"You see this scene and you're like, 'Oh God. OK, instantly 911,'" he said.
MacIntosh assumed it was a stroke or a heart attack, but as paramedics arrived, he learned it was something quite different.
"He had eaten a [cannabis] edible and just couldn't handle it," MacIntosh said.
Cannabis overdoses are something he said he's personally witnessed at the bar three times in the past year.
That
mirrors a trend happening across the country — as the Oct. 17 date for
legalization of recreational pot looms, CBC News has learned that
cannabis-related emergency room visits have spiked.
Data
from the Canadian Institute for Health Information (CIHI) shows that
over the past three years the number of emergency room visits because of
cannabis overdoses in Ontario has almost tripled — from 449 in 2013-14,
to nearly 1,500 in 2017-18.
In Alberta, the number has nearly doubled over the same timeframe, from 431 to 832.
Symptoms of
cannabis overdose — or more precisely, THC poisoning, THC being the
main psychoactive chemical in pot — include elevated heart rate and
blood pressure, anxiety, vomiting and in some cases psychosis, possibly
necessitating hospitalization.
Outside
of Alberta and Ontario, the statistics on cannabis overdoses are
sparse. But the CIHI figures that are available for other reporting
jurisdictions, which include small samples from health centres in
Nova Scotia, P.E.I., Yukon, Manitoba and Saskatchewan, show Canadians
in some regions are being sent to a hospital because of pot at four
times the rate they were in 2013.
"That's just the
tip of the iceberg," said Heather Hudson at the Ontario Poison Centre at
SickKids children's hospital in Toronto, pointing to a rise in the number of cases involving children and cannabis.
"We are certainly getting more calls about children who are being exposed unintentionally," she said.
Heather
Hudson, an advanced nursing practice educator at the Ontario Poison
Centre at SickKids children's hospital in Toronto, says her department
has seen an increase in the number of calls related to kids exposed to
cannabis. (Ed Middleton/CBC)
While
the CIHI data doesn't break down what kind of cannabis the patients
used, Toronto University Health Network emergency room physician Dr.
Michael Szabo said edibles are a big factor in ER visits.
"We're
seeing a lot of people out there who are accidentally ingesting huge
amounts of cannabis. They're not realizing that what they're taking, it
is excessive," Dr. Szabo said.
"Nothing's
labelled properly. The serving size is not clearly marked so they're
eating a whole brownie, not realizing they're only supposed to eat
one-eighth of that brownie."
Szabo
said patients who have overdosed on cannabis often present as agitated,
with rapid breathing, high heart rates and elevated blood pressure.
"They
have, often, symptoms like anxiety. It can progress to paranoia and
actually frank psychosis, where they become detached from reality," Dr.
Szabo said.
Depending on the severity of the
case, he said patients can spend up to 20 hours in the ER coming down
from the unintentional high. He added that they are often exposed to
unnecessary radiation from CT scans, because they initially show
possible stroke symptoms.
"It's a huge burden. They're occupying beds. They're occupying nursing time, physician time," Szabo said.
Although
Health Canada doesn't have plans to make edibles legal for another
year, they are already widely available and Szabo said many consumers
don't understand how they work. One problem is that people sometimes eat more of a cannabis product when they don't feel an immediate strong effect.
"When
you ingest something edible it's going to peak in two to four hours
after you take it in," he said. "So you should not increase the amount
that you're taking until the four-hour mark."
In this video clip, Szabo describes a recent cannabis overdose case he dealt with in Toronto:
Dr. Michael Szabo talks
about a serious case of cannabis poisoning in Toronto, and some of the
issues people are encountering with poorly labelled or poorly understood
edible products.
Szabo
said he looks forward to when cannabis edibles are legalized, because at
least then there will be some clear regulation governing them. Until
then, he said he expects to see more patients who have eaten one gummy
too many clogging up the emergency room.
Szabo blames a lack of public health messaging, and he's not alone.
"I
would have liked to have seen public health messaging starting as soon
as the bill passed, if not sooner than that," said Ian Culbert of the
Canadian Public Health Association.
"We've
known that this was coming — at the federal level the Liberals have a
majority, we knew that it was going to pass," Culbert said. "That
[public health] information should have started immediately."
CBC
News contacted the departments of health in several provinces for
details on their public education plans around the legalization of
cannabis:
The Ontario ministry said, "We
see public education efforts as critical in the lead up to the
legalization," but did not provide any specific details about a plan,
including how and when it might be delivered.
Alberta
Health Services said it will be launching a public awareness campaign
aimed primarily at "our target audience of those aged about 25 years,"
with a focus on the health risks associated with cannabis. It gave no
launch date.
The B.C. government said it is
"involved in cross-government efforts to identify key areas of focus for
public education activities that will most effectively reach our most
vulnerable populations."
Manitoba officials told
CBC News the province is working on a public education campaign that is
expected to "touch on a number of areas, including health," adding that
"the campaign is in the planning phases."
Culbert
is alarmed at the scarcity of harm-reduction messaging out there for
consumers, especially when it comes to unregulated edibles. He fears the
number of pot-related emergency room visits will go up even more after
cannabis is legalized in October. "We
know people want to use this product. We know that a quarter of 15- to
24-year-olds in Canada are currently using it in the illegal market. So
it's really important that they have the information they need to make
healthy choices," Culbert said. And, he added, it's not just younger users who need to be educated. "Cannabis
is a very different product than it was 20, 30 years ago. So everybody
needs a bit of a refresher on how do you consume the product and limit
their consumption," Culbert said.
'It's meant to be gentle'
While
official public health messaging remains thin, some in the burgeoning
cannabis industry are taking the responsibility upon themselves to
educate people about the safe and responsible use of edibles. In
her Toronto kitchen, chef Charlotte Langley uses a special machine to
diffuse cannabis strains into fats and oils so she can control the
dosing. She caters cannabis-themed events and helps people learn to cook
safely with cannabis products.
Toronto chef Charlotte Langley caters pot-themed events and helps people learn how to cook safely with cannabis-based products. (Garry Asselstine/CBC)
"I
highly recommend starting light. There's no need to overindulge. It's
meant to be gentle," said Langley, who started experimenting with
cannabis menus in lieu of alcohol as a way to unwind. "I
was looking for some alternatives to sort of relax, take off some of
the pain from working as a chef. You know, I'm on my feet all the time,
I'm running around carrying heavy things. It's a very demanding job,"
she said. A self-described wimp when it
comes to drug use, Langley advocates "micro-dosing," working very small
doses of cannabis into recipes. She also warns that people need to do their homework before cooking with cannabis. "When
it comes to dosing, you really have to know where the strains are
coming from, where they're being sourced, how they're grown, whether
it's CBD or THC. [CBD] is the relaxing version, like a muscle-relaxing
sort of anxiety relieving, versus the THC which is a bit more of a
heady, higher-energy sort of scenario," Langley said. "Then ease your
way into trying small quantities."
Industry guidelines
Back
at The Rex bar, Neil MacIntosh is frustrated at both the lack of public
education about cannabis, and of guidelines for the industry to
safeguard against over-serving in a world where recreational pot will be
legal and as commonplace as having a beer. Even
with all the education around responsible drinking, alcohol is a
significant factor in hospitalizations, sending about 77,000 Canadians
for medical treatment in 2015-16, according to CIHI figures. Still,
MacIntosh said he believes public health messaging around responsible
drinking works, and it also helps servers reduce overuse.
MacIntosh
says he believes public health messaging around responsible drinking
does work, and something similar should be happening around legalized
cannabis. (Rob Krbavac/CBC)
"I'd
like to see a little bit of support from the agencies that tell us to
manage alcohol and manage people's experience with substances. [I'd]
like to see them reiterate that there is a responsibility of the patron
to, you know, to take care of themselves," MacIntosh said. Smart
Serve Ontario, the provincial program that trains restaurant and bar
staff on responsible alcohol practices, told CBC News that servers will
need to "re-align their thinking when it comes to the signs of
intoxication once pot is legalized." It said it has been in talks with
the Ontario government about its role in cannabis education. In
the meantime, MacIntosh says he believes people are going to continue
to learn the hard way, like the gentleman he watched pass out at the
bar. "That's an eye opener for that guy, you know, he's probably going to think twice about it. I hope," MacIntosh said. WATCH - Katie Nicholson's feature from The National on cannabis overdoses and some of the issues with potent and poorly understood edibles:
