Stop the hypocrisy, legalize marijuana!

By Luis Buenaflor Jr

JUST RECENTLY Canada legalized the recreational and medicinal use of marijuana which just shows that not everything coming from that country is garbage.

Let me just remind you that in 2013 Canada shipped 50 container vans of household garbage and hazardous waste to the Philippines and as of today these vans are still at the Manila International Container Port, rotting of course.

No amount of selfies from Canada’s Prime Minister Justine Trudeau eating Jollibee “Chicken Joy” solved the problem as Canada refused to take the garbage back. Anyway that’s another story.

For a seemingly “wholesome” country like Canada to suddenly surprise the world by legalizing not only the medical but recreational use of marijuana is something worth commending.

Meanwhile in the Philippines, we have heavily armed policemen cutting and burning marijuana plants which begs this question: why are the plants also armed and dangerous? For God’s sake it’s just a plant.

Of course, moi is one of the people that support the advocacy of “medical marijuana and recreational marijuana.” Yup, you got it right. I am for the legalization of marijuana for both medical and recreational purposes. Or simply put, people should have the right if they choose to get “high” or take marijuana instead of Biogesic without fear of being arrested.

Am I offending your sensibilities? If so, then you are a hypocrite. Everyday millions of people get drunk or smoke cigarettes legally, how come you’re not offended or angry?

It is a fact that alcohol and cigarettes can kill you. Millions of people have already died from drinking alcohol and smoking tobacco while it is also a fact that nobody died from smoking marijuana.

Here are some straight hard facts to ponder upon:
According to www.cdc.gov/tobacco/data_statistics/:

Cigarette smoking is responsible for more than 480,000 deaths per year in the United States, including nearly 42,000 deaths resulting from second-hand smoke exposure. This is about one in five deaths annually, or 1,300 deaths every day. On average, smokers die 10 years earlier than non-smokers.

And herb.co says:
How many people have died overdosing on marijuana? The short answer is Zero.

Unsurprisingly to marijuana lovers around the world, there has yet to be a single reported death linked to cannabis overdose. In fact, you would have to consume 20,000 to 40,000 times your average dose in order for marijuana to kill you. That would be about 1,500 pounds of marijuana in 15 minutes.

That’s not to say that taking 40,000 hits is the sole way to risk death while under the influence of marijuana. Smoking 800 joints in one sitting would put you at risk of dying from carbon monoxide poisoning. But, that isn’t exactly the plant’s fault, is it?

Yes, marijuana is a plant; it’s not a drug which makes one wonder who was that idiot who classified it as a dangerous drug!

As a plant marijuana is no different from your alogbate or talong; you can eat them. But you just can’t smoke alogbate although some people have been smoking talong (but that’s an entirely different story).

According to www.njweedman.com:
Marijuana refers to dried flowers and leaves of some strains of the cannabis hemp plant, which contains various quantities of the non-narcotic chemical THC (tetrahydrocannibinol) in various quantities. When smoked or eaten, it produces the feeling of being “high”, which lasts a few hours. 

Different strains of this herb produce their own sensual effects, ranging from sedative to stimulant.

Marijuana is not addictive. Most users are moderate consumers who only smoke it socially occasionally to relax. We now know that 10 percent of our population have “addiction personalities” and they are no more nor less likely to abuse cannabis than anything else. On a relative scale, marijuana is less habit-forming than either sugar or chocolate. Sociologists report a general pattern of marijuana usage that peaks in the early adult years, followed by a period of levelling off, and finally a gradual reduction in use.

Marijuana does not cause violence. The only crime most marijuana users commit is using marijuana. 
The US Shafer Commission report was the most comprehensive study ever undertaken on the subject. 

It found that marijuana smokers “tend to be under represented” in violence and in crime, especially when compared to users of alcohol, amphetamines and barbiturates. “The simple fact is that marijuana does not change your basic personality.” The American federal government reports that over 70 million Americans have smoked it … probably including some of the nicest people you know.”

And from a report on the WHO:
Marijuana compound is harmless and should be available, WHO says
A compound derived from marijuana has health benefits and should not be subject to government restrictions, the World Health Organization (WHO) said.

“Recent evidence from animal and human studies shows that its use could have some therapeutic value for seizures due to epilepsy and related conditions and that it “is not likely to be abused or create dependence as for other cannabinoids,” it added. 

The global body’s Expert Committee on Drug Dependence specifically examined the potential risks and benefits cannabidiol (CBD), a compound that is found in cannabis plant.

It is distinct from Tetra Hydro Cannabinol (THC). Unlike THC, CBD does not have intoxicating effects — in other words, it does not produce a high.

Medical marijuana advocates point to that difference in arguing CBD should be available to patients who suffer from various ailments that include pain, anxiety and seizures.

The National Organisation for the Reform of Marijuana Laws wrote that “CBD lacks the consciousness-altering properties and abuse potential” of THC and argued there was evidence of “numerous medically beneficial properties” for people diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease, Huntington’s disease, bipolar disorder and other conditions.

I sincerely hope that these facts presented will give you a better understanding of Marijuana other than the false myth created by totally ignorant and stupid politicians. So if you’ll “excuse me while I kiss the sky.”

Marijuana is a gateway drug. But only because we made it one

John Davenport 

 

Marijuana is a gateway drug. But only because we’ve made it one.

By understanding the somewhat boring art of basic retail shopper marketing we can learn how this has happened.

Last month the South Africa’s Constitutional Court passed down a judgment that makes it legal for adults to cultivate or smoke marijuana in their homes. The outrage this caused was remarkable. The uproar continues online, on-air and on TV.

The examples used to bolster arguments of various kinds around the issue are generally from foreign countries where narcotic-use has (with good or less-than-good results) been legalized. But perhaps instead of looking around the globe for facts that can inform our opinion, we should be looking back in time.

The prohibition was a funny time in America. A panic about moral decline due to urbanization had gripped much of the English speaking world. Religeosity of various kinds was rampant, and this fed a fervent feeling that the government needed to step in.

Ferocious women of various backgrounds were involved in the temperance movement and women in general were (understandably) very keen on the idea of laws preventing their husbands from blowing their monthly wages on booze and arriving home on Saturday morning hungover and broke.

We all know that the Prohibition was a failure, but the reasons WHY it was a failure are instructive.

When alcohol was declared illegal, people didn’t stop drinking. As we know, they just obtained their booze from another source. And that source happened to be criminals who brewed it, distilled it and smuggled it into the hands of the consumer.

All the outlawing of booze had done was drive whisky off the shelves of America’s bars and bottle stores and into the sphere of criminals. And there’s the problem. The person who sold me my whisky now ALSO sold hookers, stolen goods, narcotics and ran an illegal casino. As the "point of purchase" for the consumer changed and from a public bar to a den of ill repute in a dingy cellar with blacked-out windows and a funny smell, the consumer now had access to a range of goods they would not normally have come into contact with. Instead of impulse-purchasing a case of over-priced wine when buying his whisky, our consumer was now likely to purchase a couple of hookers, some heroin and gamble away the grocery money when doing so.

By changing the point of purchase, whisky had become a gateway drug. And a crime-wave or rather tsunami, was caused.

It was a bit like selling automatic rifles, cyanide and tastefully-packaged portable nuclear weapons in the check-out queue at the 7-Eleven. An idea which certain elaborately-coiffured US Presidents may not be averse to...

Anyway, in the same way, when Marijuana is outlawed, it is supplied to consumers by a person who ALSO happens to be enthusiastically selling everything from heroin to cocaine to ketamine to crack and crystal-meth etc etc etc etc etc etc.

So if your child was going to buy a joint of Swazi finest (as they tend to) would you rather he or she did so at a nice shop in a mall with a friendly sales assistant named Troy or from a man in an alley who offered them the above smorgasbord of death and horror?

The choice is, of course, entirely yours.  

Is marijuana addictive? Study shows withdrawal symptoms can occur

A recent study reveals that, even though many think marijuana is harmless, some users experience severe withdrawal symptoms.

Can you become addicted to weed? ~ 

The wave of marijuana legalisation that's swept across the United States in recent years has been fueled in part by the popular belief that pot is essentially harmless.

But a new study shows that some heavy users will experience withdrawal symptoms while coming down from their high.

About 1 in 10 frequent cannabis users reports symptoms like anxiety, hostility, insomnia and depression after the intoxicating effects of weed start to wear off, said senior researcher Deborah Hasin, a professor of epidemiology at Columbia University's Mailman School of Public Health.

These folks might be using pot to help treat their anxiety or depression, unaware that they're putting the cart before the horse, Hasin said. "There's a lot of overlap between the symptoms of cannabis withdrawal and the symptoms of anxiety or depressive disorders," Hasin said. "People may actually mistakenly feel that cannabis is helping a depression or an anxiety disorder, when what's happening in reality is they're perpetuating a withdrawal syndrome. Using cannabis makes the symptoms go away, but it's not a good solution to it."

Advocates of marijuana legalization acknowledge that pot can cause withdrawal symptoms, but point out that its addictive potential is far less than other products that have been legally available to consumers for decades.

"The fact that these withdrawal symptoms are relatively mild and short-lived is one of the reasons why cannabis possesses a far lower dependence liability than most other controlled substances, including alcohol and tobacco," said Paul Armentano, deputy director of NORML, a group advocating for reform of marijuana laws.

"For instance, the profound physical withdrawal effects associated with tobacco are so severe that many subjects who strongly desire to quit end up reinitiating their use," Armentano explained.

"In the case of alcohol, the abrupt ceasing of use in heavy users can be so severe that it can lead to death. Simply withdrawing from caffeine can lead to a number of adverse side effects, like rebound headaches," he said.

Is pot harmless?
At this point, 30 states have laws that legalize marijuana in some form. Nine states and Washington, D.C., have made pot legal for recreational use, while the rest allow for use of medical marijuana.

To test the notion that pot is harmless, Hasin and her colleagues analyzed data gathered by a 2012-2013 federal survey on health problems caused by alcohol and other substance use. During the survey, federal researchers conducted face-to-face interviews with more than 36,000 participants across the United States.

The new study focused specifically on responses from more than 1,500 survey participants who reported using pot three or more times a week during the previous year, Hasin said. They were considered frequent or heavy marijuana users.

About 12 percent of heavy pot users reported symptoms that align with those of cannabis withdrawal syndrome, a condition outlined in DSM-5, a diagnostic manual produced by the American Psychiatric Association.

These included nervousness or anxiety (76 percent), hostility (72 percent), sleep difficulty (68 percent) and depressed mood (59 percent), researchers reported.

Physical symptoms were reported less frequently, but heavy users were more likely to experience headaches, shakiness or tremors, and sweating, the study found.

People with a history of mood or personality disorders had a greater risk for experiencing withdrawal symptoms, Hasin said.

Are teens twice as likely to become addicted?
Frequency of use within a week was not significantly associated with withdrawal symptoms, but the number of joints smoked per day did make a difference, researchers found.

Smoking six or more joints per day was associated with cannabis withdrawal syndrome, while smoking five or fewer joints per day was not.

"If people are using cannabis frequently and they're experiencing these symptoms, they should really consider cutting down on their use, at least to see what happens," Hasin said.

"While many people can use cannabis without harm, there are some people who have adverse consequences from using it," she continued. "If they're frequent users and they're experiencing some of these symptoms, they should consider the possibility that cannabis may be causing rather than helping them with those symptoms."

Emily Feinstein, executive vice president for the Center on Addiction, praised the study for shedding new light on the relative safety of marijuana use.

"Misinformation and misunderstanding about marijuana is rampant," Feinstein said. "Marijuana is addictive, and people who are dependent on the drug exhibit the same symptoms as those with other addictions, including cravings and withdrawal." She was not involved with the study.

"When teens and young adults use marijuana, they are nearly twice as likely to become addicted as adults. In the debate about legalizing recreational marijuana, we can't lose sight of that," Feinstein continued. "We need to take the public health risks associated with expanded use of the drug seriously."

The spread of marijuana legalization, explained

by German Lopez

There are no documented deaths from a marijuana overdose, but that doesn't mean pot is harmless.

"The main risk of cannabis is losing control of your cannabis intake," Mark Kleiman, a drug policy expert at New York University's Marron Institute, said. "That's going to have consequences in terms of the amount of time you spend not fully functional. When that's hours per day times years, that's bad."

Jon Caulkins, a drug policy expert at Carnegie Mellon University, put it another way: "At some level, we know that spending more than half of your waking hours intoxicated for years and years on end is not increasing the likelihood that you'll win a Pulitzer Prize or discover the cure for cancer."

Universal Images Group/Getty Images

The risk of misuse and addiction (known in medical circles as "cannabis use disorder") is compounded by the widespread perception that pot is harmless: Since many marijuana users believe what they're doing won't hurt them, they feel much more comfortable falling into a habit of constantly using the drug.

The most thorough review of the research yet, from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, found that pot poses a variety of possible downsides — including for respiratory problems if smoked, schizophrenia and psychosis, car crashes, general social achievement in life, and potentially babies in the womb.

But it doesn't seem to cause some issues that are typically linked to tobacco, particularly lung cancer and head and neck cancers. And the studies reviewed also suggest it carries several benefits, particularly for chronic pain, multiple sclerosis, and chemotherapy-induced nausea and vomiting. (There wasn't enough research to gauge if pot is truly good for some of the other ailments people say it's good for, such as epilepsy and irritable bowel syndrome.)

Critics of legalization claim that marijuana is a "gateway drug" that can lead people to try more dangerous drugs like cocaine and heroin, because there's a correlation between pot use and use of harder drugs. But researchers argue that this correlation may just indicate that people prone to all sorts of drug use only start with marijuana because it's the cheapest and most accessible of the illicit drugs. So if cocaine or heroin were cheaper and more accessible, there's a good chance people would start with those drugs first.

Overall, marijuana is a relatively safe drug — certainly less harmful than some of the drugs that are legal today, and potentially beneficial to some people's health through its medical use. But it's not harmless.

Given that marijuana's harms appear to be relatively small, though, advocates argue that, even if legalization leads to more pot use, it's worth the benefit of reducing incarceration and crippling violent drug cartels financed in part by revenue from illicit weed sales.

The research suggests marijuana legalization could lead to more use

In marijuana policy debates, whether legalization leads to more use is a crucial point of contention. Legalization advocates argue that allowing the drug but regulating it could reduce use and make its use safer, while critics say legalization will make pot more easily accessible and, therefore, more widely used and misused.

It's too early to say whether full legalization will lead to more widespread use, but recent research has found that pot use increased in states that legalized medical marijuana.

A comprehensive study from researchers at the RAND Corporation found that laws that allow medical marijuana dispensaries correlate with increases in overall pot use and dependence for adults 21 and older but only rises in dependence among youth. The findings suggest that allowing businesses to sell marijuana leads to more access and use, particularly for adults.

R.J. Sangosti/Denver Post via Getty Images

Another study from Emory University researchers found that after some states legalized medical marijuana, they saw increases in overall marijuana use and, for adults 21 and over, a rise in binge drinking. The increase in binge drinking is particularly worrying because while marijuana carries few health and social risks, alcohol causes many serious public health and safety issues, such as liver damage, more fatal car crashes, and violent behaviors that can spur crime.

This latest research disputes earlier studies that found no increases in teen pot use following the legalization of medical marijuana. Drug policy experts argue these earlier studies were far less robust; they failed to control for factors like whether a state allows dispensaries, cultivation, or only possession — rendering them incapable of gauging the full effect of different pot policies.

Still, the studies by and large only show correlation, meaning it might not be medical marijuana legalization that's necessarily causing the increase in use. And it's possible — although not likely — that the effects of medical marijuana laws on use could be more pronounced than full legalization.

If legalization does lead to more pot use, the question for society and public health officials is whether that downside outweighs the benefits of legalization. More people getting intoxicated — albeit through a relatively safe drug — isn't an outcome that most supporters of legalization see as desirable, but banning pot has costs of its own, including hundreds of thousands of racially skewed arrests and the creation of a black market that helps finance violent drug cartels around the world.

The case for marijuana legalization

Supporters of legalization say prohibition has failed to significantly reduce access to and use of marijuana, while wasting billions of dollars and resulting in hundreds of thousands of racially skewed arrests each year. Legalization, by comparison, would allow people to use a relatively safe substance without the threat of arrest, and let all levels of government raise new revenues from pot sales and redirect resources to bigger needs.

A 2013 report by the American Civil Liberties Union found that there are several hundred thousand arrests for marijuana possession each year. These arrests are hugely skewed by race: Black and white Americans use marijuana at similar rates, but black people were 3.7 times more likely to be arrested than white Americans for marijuana possession in 2010.

Sentencing Project

The arrests not only cost law enforcement time and money, they also damage the government's credibility. Former Washington, DC, Police Chief Cathy Lanier explained in early 2015, "All those arrests do is make people hate us. … Marijuana smokers are not going to attack and kill a cop. They just want to get a bag of chips and relax. Alcohol is a much bigger problem."

At the same time, prohibition has failed to notably reduce marijuana use. The war on drugs originally intended to take down the supply of illegal drugs, increase prices as a result, and make drugs unaffordable to users. Those goals by and large failed: The White House's Office of National Drug Control Policy found that marijuana prices dropped and stabilized after the early 1990s, and several surveys show marijuana use rose and stabilized among youth in the same time period.

Meanwhile, drug prohibition has created a lucrative black market for drug cartels and other criminal enterprises. Previous studies from the Mexican Institute of Competitiveness and the RAND Corporation suggested that marijuana at one point made up roughly 20 to 30 percent of drug cartels' revenue. Through legalization, drug cartels lose much of that revenue, as sales transition to a legal market, crippling resources these criminal groups use to carry out violent operations around the world.

Legalization would also allow the federal government to tax sales to fund new programs, including treatment for people with drug use disorders. A 2010 paper from the libertarian Cato Institute found legalizing marijuana would net all levels of the government $17.4 billion annually — half of that would come from reduced spending (particularly for drug enforcement), and the rest would come from taxing marijuana like alcohol and tobacco.

More broadly, the legalization movement falls into a broader shift against the harsh criminal justice policies that came out of the war on drugs. As Americans look for alternatives to punitive prison sentences that turned the US into the world's leader in incarceration, legalizing a relatively safe drug seems like low-hanging fruit.

The case against marijuana legalization

Opponents of legalization worry that fully allowing recreational marijuana use would make pot far too accessible and, as a result, expand its use and misuse.

The major concern is that letting for-profit businesses market and sell marijuana may lead them to market aggressively to heavy pot users, who may have a drug problem. This is similar to what's happened in the alcohol and tobacco industries, where companies make much of their profits from users with serious addiction issues. Among alcohol users, for instance, the top 10 percent of users consume, on average, more than 10 drinks each day.

Marijuana users exhibit similar patterns. In Colorado, one study of the state's legal pot market, conducted by the Marijuana Policy Group for the state's Department of Revenue, found the top 29.9 percent heaviest pot users in Colorado made up 87.1 percent of demand for the drug. For the marijuana industry, that makes the heaviest users the most lucrative customers.

Kevin Sabet, head of Smart Approaches to Marijuana, the nation's leading anti-legalization group, explained: "If we were a country with a history of being able to promote moderation in our consumer use of products, or promote responsible corporate advertising or no advertising, or if we had a history of being able to take taxes gained from a vice and redirect them into some positive areas, I might be less concerned about what I see happening in this country. But I think we have a horrible history of dealing with these kinds of things."

Drug policy experts say there are alternatives to commercial legalization, like putting state governments in charge of marijuana production and sales, which could tame the for-profit incentive and give states more direct control over prices and who buys pot.

But legalization opponents worry that any move toward legalization will inevitably attract powerful for-profit forces, especially since the marijuana industry has already taken off in several states.

"The reality is there are myriad other forces at work here," Sabet said. "Chief among them are the very powerful forces of greed and profit. When I look at how things are set up in states like Colorado, where the marijuana industry gets a seat at the table for every state decision on marijuana policy, it troubles me."

Given these concerns, opponents favor more limited reforms than legalization. Sabet, for example, said nonviolent marijuana users shouldn't be incarcerated for the drug. Other critics of legalization support legalizing marijuana for medical purposes but not recreational use.

It's rare that opponents of legalization argue for the full continuation of the current war on pot. SAM and its members, for instance, broadly agree that the current drug and criminal justice policies are far too punitive and costly, helping contribute to the mass incarceration of Americans. So while they may support some reforms, they feel that legalization simply goes too far — and could lead to worse consequences than the alternatives.

Uruguay is the first country to fully legalize marijuana

Outside of the US, Uruguay became the first country in the world to fully legalize marijuana in 2013. After Uruguay, Canada legalized marijuana in 2018.

Other countries haven't legalized, but they maintain relaxed approaches to marijuana use and sales.

The Netherlands allows citizens to keep and cultivate some marijuana, and police let coffee shops sell marijuana as long as they don't sell to minors, among other specific requirements. Spain also permits marijuana clubs where people can use the drug, although the drug is officially illegal to sell. And according to multiple reports from experts, visitors, and defectors, North Korea either has no law restricting marijuana or the law goes effectively unenforced.

One of the reasons marijuana legalization is so rare is because countries have been bound for decades by international treaties that established prohibition across the world. If a country tried to relax its marijuana laws, it could be seen as acting in violation of the treaties, which could lead to a loss in international standing and credibility.

But as more countries and their citizens view the war on drugs and marijuana prohibition in particular as failed policies, many are considering reform. In that sense, Uruguay — and soon Canada — could be the beginning of a much broader global movement.

3 Asian nations warn citizens not to use marijuana in Canada

By Ken Moritsugu 

 

By Ken Moritsugu

FILE - In this June 25, 2007, file photo, inmates peer out of a barred window near the Chinese character "Drug" to watch a performance held to mark the coming International Anti Drug Day at the Chengdu Compulsory Drug Rehabilitation Center in Chengdu, southwestern China's Sichuan province. China is the latest Asian country to warn its citizens in Canada about marijuana use, following Japan and South Korea. Canada legalized the sale of marijuana for recreational use two weeks ago. (Color China Photo via AP, File) AP

BEIJING — Marijuana may be legal now in Canada but at least three Asian governments are warning their citizens to avoid it, including the spectre of possible arrest for Japanese and South Koreans.

China, the latest to weigh in, didn’t go that far. Its consulate in Toronto issued a statement dated Friday reminding Chinese in its jurisdiction — and students in particular — “to avoid contact with and use of marijuana for the sake of ensuring your own physical and mental health.”

Canada legalized the sale of recreational marijuana on Oct. 17.

The Chinese statement, posted on the consulate’s website, included a long explanation of the Canadian and provincial laws, advising them to read it carefully to avoid running afoul of the new regulations.

Both Japan and South Korea warned their citizens in Canada ahead of the legalization.

The Japanese consulate in Vancouver warned on its website that Japanese laws outlawing the possession and sale of marijuana may be applied to actions taken abroad.

“Japanese residents and travellers should take ample care to stay away from marijuana, including food and beverages that include marijuana,” the statement read in part.

South Korea held information sessions in Canada and used a government website and TV broadcasts to lay down the law for its citizens.

“Even in a place where marijuana is legalized, if our citizens smoke, purchase, possess or deliver marijuana, it’s a criminal act, so they will be punished,” the embassy in Canada tweeted. “Please be careful.”

Neither statement from Japan and South Korea explained how they might attempt to enforce their laws against smoking marijuana while abroad. Police and customs officials in South Korea did not answer calls seeking comment.

Both South Korea and Japan have very strict anti-drug laws. In Korea, smoking, buying, possessing or delivering marijuana is punishable by up to five years in prison or a fine of up to 50 million won ($44,000).
 

Vancouver, Canada’s Marijuana Capital, Struggles to Tame the Black Market

People smoking pot at a store in Vancouver.CreditCreditAlana Paterson for The New York Times

By Dan Bilefsky

VANCOUVER — In the pot-friendly city of Vancouver, illegal marijuana dispensaries outnumber Starbucks outlets, and among the most popular is Weeds, Glass and Gifts. There, in a relaxed space reminiscent of the coffee chain, jovial “budtenders” sell coconut chocolate bars infused with marijuana and customers smoke powerful pot concentrates at a sleek dab bar.

When Canada legalized recreational marijuana, on Oct. 17, one of the central aims was to shut down the thousands of illegal dispensaries and black market growers dotting the country. But taming an illegal trade estimated at 5.3 billion Canadian dollars is proving to be daunting.

Many of the products sold at Weeds, Glass and Gifts are banned under the new law, which restricts licensed retailers to selling fresh or dried cannabis, seeds, plants and oil. Yet the retailer’s owner, Don Briere, an ebullient 67-year-old and self-styled pot crusader, has no intention of shutting down his four Vancouver stores or changing his product lineup.

He even has plans for expansion with a new line of outlawed canine marijuana treats, which purport to reduce pet anxiety.

“We’ll keep selling what we are selling,” said Mr. Briere, who in 2001 was sentenced to four years in prison for being one of British Columbia’s most prolific pot producers.

Don Briere, the owner of a black market marijuana outlet in Vancouver, with some of his merchandise.CreditAlana Paterson for The New York Times

The Canadian government faces many challenges in stamping out the illegal marijuana industry. For one, there are too many black market shops like Mr. Briere’s for the government to keep track of.

And as sluggish provincial bureaucracies struggle to manage a new regulatory system, licenses to operate legally are hard to come by, giving illegal sellers added impetus to defy the law.

At the same time, the police and the public have little appetite for a national crackdown.

“The government taking over the cannabis trade is like asking a farmer to build airplanes,” Mr. Briere added.

Canadian policymakers say legalization is a giant national undertaking that will take years to be enforced. Mike Farnworth, British Columbia’s minister of public safety, argued that civic pressure and market forces would help gradually diminish the illegal trade.

“It’s a very Canadian way of doing things,” he said. “It won’t happen overnight.” There will, he added, be no mass raids, “guns and head-bashing.”

Nevertheless, he noted, newly created “community safety units” in British Columbia, staffed by 44 unarmed inspectors, have been given the power to raid dispensaries without a search warrant, seize illegal products and shut them down.

In the week since legalization took effect, there are signs of a chill, if a modest one.

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Clockwise, from top left, all in Vancouver: options for customers at the Cannabis Culture Lounge; a vending machine at the lounge; CBD capsules before being divided for sale at the Medicinal Cannabis Dispensary; and a window display at The New Amsterdam Cafe.CreditAlana Paterson for The New York Times

In Toronto, police raided five illegal pot retailers, two days after the law went into effect. Dozens of others in Toronto, Vancouver and Ottawa have voluntarily closed their doors to avoid being shut out of the legal market.

Even Mr. Briere, who once owned 36 shops across Canada, is applying for government licenses for his stores, and has shuttered nine shops, including in Ottawa, Alberta and Saskatchewan. He is steering those customers to his illegal online shop instead.

Yet hundreds of black market pot outlets remain defiantly open, abetted by provincial governments slow to implement the new law.

On Oct. 17, only one legal government pot retailer opened in British Columbia, in the city of Kamloops, nearly a four-hour drive from Vancouver. That assured that Vancouver’s illicit trade would continue to thrive.

And that day, none of the roughly 100 illegal pot dispensaries in the city had the provincial licenses they needed to operate legally, even those that had applied for one.

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In Ontario, where the government’s online Ontario Cannabis Store has been overwhelmed with soaring demand, some pot smokers unwilling to wait five days for delivery are reverting to their illegal dealers instead.

“Definitely going to use my dealer from now on his business is going way up because of your crappy service,” one frustrated customer wrote on Twitter.

In Montreal, some underground dealers, who do home delivery, are challenging the new legal market by offering two-joints-for-the-price-of-one deals.

As cities across the country grapple with a new national experiment, Vancouver offers a striking cautionary tale about the challenges of policing the illegal trade.

In this picturesque multicultural port city less than a three-hour drive from Seattle, marijuana is as much a recreational drug as a state of mind. Young professionals toke before work, take pot-fueled hikes and chat about strains of vaunted “BC bud” — grown illegally near snow-covered mountains in the southeast of the province — as if discussing fine wine.

Image

Vancouver is an epicenter of Canada’s illegal market in marijuana.CreditAlana Paterson for The New York Times

For decades, cannabis has been so deeply embedded in the social fabric of the city that illegal pot shops operated with impunity as so-called compassion clubs for those seeking medical marijuana, with the police largely turning a blind eye.

But in 2015, City Hall officials, fed up with the proliferation of black market dispensaries, including some selling to minors, passed tough regulations stipulating, among other things, that shops must be about 1,000 feet from schools, community centers or other outlets.

After dozens of dispensaries brazenly flouted the new rules, the city in 2016 began fining transgressors, issuing 3,729 tickets amounting to more than $3 million in fines. But the dispensaries mostly ignored them; only $184,250 has been paid.

Then the city began trying to shut down illegal operators with injunctions.

In March of this year, 53 dispensaries banded together to file a constitutional challenge, saying closing the operators would breach Canada’s Charter of Rights and Freedoms by denying patients access to medical marijuana they purchased at the black market stores.

“The City is using legalization to try and impose Prohibition,” said Robert Laurie, the lawyer representing the dispensaries.

The case is before British Columbia’s Supreme Court.

Kerry Jang, a left-leaning councillor on the Vancouver City Council who is also a professor of psychiatry at the University of British Columbia, and who helped develop the 2015 rules, said the injunctions were necessary to root out “a wild West” of illegal dealers.

Today, those who want to operate legally must pass rigorous criminal background checks and apply for a $30,000 license from the city.

But Professor Jang conceded that the restrictiveness of the new federal cannabis law posed enforcement challenges. “If you make cannabis legal but restrict where you can use it, it will just go underground.”

The challenge of enforcement is all too visible on Vancouver’s gritty downtown east side, an epicenter of Canada’s opioid crisis. Hundreds of addicts sit sprawled on the pavement every day, shooting Fentanyl, a potent synthetic opioid that Professor Jang said killed, on average, seven people a week in Vancouver.

Traffic is periodically interrupted by the sound of sirens as police officers break up drug deals.

A cultivation manager inspecting new marijuana clones at Doja, a subsidiary of the licensed marijuana company Canopy Growth, in Vancouver.CreditAlana Paterson for The New York Times

Chief Constable Del Manak, police chief of Victoria and president of the British Columbia Association of Chiefs of Police, noted that the police had to grapple with Fentanyl overdoses, violent crime and sex offenders, and must prioritize resources according to public safety.

Investigating whether British Columbia residents are violating the law by growing more than four pot plants per household is not a priority, he said.

The legalization of recreational marijuana in Colorado, Washington State and Uruguay, he added, has shown that “it is naïve to think that just because cannabis is legalized, the criminal will walk away from a highly lucrative industry.”

Nevertheless, as the government floods the market with legal cannabis, prices are falling, squeezing out illegal growers. Black market growers who were able to fetch more than $3,000 United States dollars for a pound of cannabis five years ago complain that today they can barely get $1,000.

The new legal marijuana supply chain was in full force on a recent day outside of Vancouver at Pure Sunfarms, where immigrant workers in surgical masks were trimming buds from cannabis plants next to a sprawling greenhouse that once housed tomatoes.

Rob Hill, chief financial officer of Emerald Health Therapeutics, a licensed producer which owns part of Pure Sunfarms, predicted that it was only a matter of time before black market growers went out of business as consumers demanded the purity of government-approved pot, free of contaminants found in some street marijuana.

“We expect a new consumer market of women age 35-45 who will smoke pot instead of drinking chardonnay,” he said.

But Dana Larsen, owner of several illegal dispensaries in Vancouver, countered that underground cannabis cultivation remained deeply entrenched.

Legalization is doomed to fail, he added, because there is so little will to enforce it.

He said he had accumulated heavy unpaid fines from City Hall, had no intention of applying for a license, and was far more concerned about being able to provide cannabis to the elderly and ill customers who relied on him. “In Vancouver,” he said, “you have to make an effort to get busted.”

Why Democrats Should Embrace Pot for the Midterms

Decriminalizing weed has support from politicians who want to curb the opioid crisis and decrease prison populations — so why won’t Democratic leaders get behind it?

 Matt Laslo 

Even as a growing number of political candidates have embraced marijuana decriminalization — some promote it as a way of combatting the opioid crisis, others as a part of criminal justice reform — many say they’re still making up their minds. A handful of pro-pot Democrats have been attacked on the issue, which is why some progressives want Democratic leaders to fully embrace cannabis so the party can show a unified front. Unlike establishment partisan positions on taxes or healthcare — where parties write the play-books — with pot, individual politicians are making it up as they go. And some say they’re going to lose votes as a result.

“The Democratic Party has yet to grasp that marijuana is an issue that moves a core segment of voters which they keep on claiming they want to target, which are white men,” Justin Strekal, political director for marijuana advocacy group NORML, tells Rolling Stone. When it comes to marijuana, there’s been no leadership from Washington, even as polls reveal more than 60 percent of Americans want legalization.

Though Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer introduced his own marijuana bill to decriminalize and regulate at the federal level, he won’t commit to bringing it up for a vote if he becomes majority leader. It’s the same story in the House — when asked if she’d bring a marijuana bill up for a vote, Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi wavered. “I don’t know where the president is on any of this. So any decision about how we go forward would have to reflect where we can get the result,” she said. “You’ve heard me say it, over and over: Public sentiment is everything.”

With Democratic leaders refusing to commit to even voting on marijuana, their candidate’s positions on it are as much of a patchwork as the nation’s disparate marijuana laws — and it could affect some of the most contested races in the country.

This year the battle for New York’s 19th District is nasty. First-term Republican John Faso, who is pretty mum on marijuana, has supported a series of blatant race-baiting ads highlighting his Democratic opponent, Antonio Delgado’s short lived hip-hop career. Faso has accused Delgado of glorifying “drug use” and, while widely decried, his allies say the ads have had an impact.

That was evident on a recent Friday evening at a voter registration event for college students in New Paltz, New York. In his stump speech about shaking up the “status quo,” Delgado brought up the opioid crisis as evidence that Washington’s broken. But in this region that witnessed an 80 percent increase in opioid deaths from 2015-2016, the tall, handsome man refused to acknowledge that marijuana — which is increasingly being found to be an effective way to curb opioid use — could be a solution.

“My focus on the response is making sure that we actually fund drug treatment centers, that we actually fund health facilities and mental health facilities, and that we give these young individuals a chance to recover,” he told Rolling Stone. When pressed on whether marijuana could be a solution, he responded that he did not follow the line of questions. He also added that he only supports medical marijuana.

This apparent fear of attack ads — being labeled a “pro-drug” candidate — is partly why Democratic leaders are being nudged to make marijuana reform part of their agenda. That way, candidates will be better prepared to talk pot politics, even when their opponents try to distort their position and portray them as wanting to loosen restrictions on all drugs.

“Some Democrats are still leery of publicly supporting marijuana policy reform for fear of backlash from Republican opponents, but they shouldn’t be,” says Morgan Fox, media relations director of the National Cannabis Industry Association. “Supporting marijuana policy reform pretty much guarantees a boost of several points in the polls for candidates of either party.”

Yet in some red states, marijuana is being used to lure voters to the Democratic side. Six hundred miles southwest of Delgado, in West Virginia’s Third District, Democrat Richard Ojeda’s made marijuana a centerpiece of his shockingly close race deep in Trump country.

The burly, tattooed veteran and state senator successfully ushered medicinal marijuana through his highly conservative legislature. He’s now running for an open seat in the House, and argues anyone who doesn’t connect marijuana to the opioid crisis is in the pocket of the pharmaceutical industry.

“How about people stop being politicians and start being leaders?” says Ojeda, who now advocates for decriminalization, in part to end mass incarceration. “Because right now that’s what we’ve got: Politicians who want to tell people what they think people want to hear.”

In May, Texas Republican Sen. Ted Cruz used his Democratic challenger Rep. Beto O’Rourke’s support of decriminalization in ads where a narrator says “Beto O’Rourke said we should consider legalizing all narcotics, including heroin.” Even as the ads were running this summer the young Democrat didn’t waver, and he was able to tighten the race.

But in New Jersey — where officials are also gearing up to legalize recreational marijuana —Democratic congressional candidates can’t seem to find a center of the issue.

In the Seventh District, five-term Republican Congressman Leonard Lance supports medicinal marijuana, but he opposes recreational. His Democratic challenger, Tom Malinowski, supports Sen. Cory Booker’s Marijuana Justice Act, which retroactively decriminalizes marijuana while incentivizing states to decrease their prison populations.

“There’s no good rationale for locking up a lot of young people up for marijuana,” says Malinowski, a human rights activist. “And if that’s going to be our judgement going forward then we also need justice looking backward.”

About an hour south on I-95, in the Third District, incumbent Republican Tom MacArthur has been a vocal opponent of recreational marijuana. While MacArthur’s Democratic opponent, Andrew Kim, wants to remove marijuana from the federal list of controlled substances where it’s currently listed next to heroin, he wants to see more scientific data before Congress acts beyond that.

“When I see stats out there saying that states that allow for medicinal marijuana have 25 percent less opioid related fatalities, that is something that catches my attention and makes me think that this is something that we need to look into and research and do in a responsible way,” Kim told me from a back office in the old bank he’s converted into his headquarters.

Kim is perplexed to learn that Democratic leaders in Washington don’t even want to bring marijuana bills to the floor, especially the ones to merely increase research that have Republican support too.

“That’s absolutely a signal that this is an opportunity for us to be able advance this and be able to figure out the right way to go about doing this,” says Kim, who has called for new Democratic Party leaders. “So many people in our district are disenchanted with politics, frankly on both sides of the aisle, and what they’re asking for is a fresh start.”

Everything you need to know about CBD, the cannabis elixir that doesn’t get you high

As Pepsi and other major companies get into the CBD game, what exactly does it do?

 

Getty Images

CBD can be consumed in edible form or through a vaporizer.

By Kari Paul

Do you take cream or sugar with your coffee? How about CBD?

Cannabidiol, a chemical component of cannabis known as CBD, has been popping up at an increasing number of bars and coffee shops in major cities in recent years. Without the psychoactive components in marijuana, the substance reportedly offers some of the anti-anxiety and anti-inflammatory benefits of the drug without getting a consumer high.

Until now, CBD has existed in a kind of legal gray area: In many places it is not necessarily legal, but it’s also not illegal. But this month, the passage of the 2018 Farm Bill will remove hemp and CBD from the Drug Enforcement Administration’s list of “Schedule I” controlled substances, making it an ordinary agricultural commodity and allowing it to be legally sold in all 50 states.

With laws around it relaxing, CBD is going mainstream. Beverage giants like Coca- Cola KO, +1.49%   and Pepsi PEP, +0.31%   are eying CBD-infused beverages as consumption of traditional soda declines. The market for CBD products is anticipated to grow to more than $2 billion in total sales by 2020. People are using CBD for anxiety, sports injuries, and face serums, and even giving it to their pets.

What is CBD?

Cannabis plants contain hundreds of chemical components called cannabinoids, but the two main ones are delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) and cannabidiol (CBD). THC is an intoxicating substance that interacts with endocannabinoid receptors in a user’s brain, activating reward mechanisms that produce dopamine and get a user high.

CBD does not affect these receptors the same way and, therefore, does not have a psychoactive effect. Like THC, CBD extract can be consumed in liquid and other edible forms or through a vape pen.

Is it legal?

Some 47 states as well as Puerto Rico and Washington, D.C. have passed laws allowing the use of CBD to some extent, according to marijuana advocacy organization NORML. After the 2018 Farm Bill goes into effect it will be completely legal in all 50 states.

What is it used for?

While CBD is advertised to treat insomnia, chronic pain, depression, and anxiety, there is little scientific evidence to prove it is effective for these ailments. CBD may be effective for depression and anxiety treatment, studies on rats have shown, but there’s little research on the effects of CBD on humans.

The chemical can be effective for treating seizures due to epilepsy, a study published in the New England Journal of Medicine showed.

In September, a CBD treatment that GW Pharmaceuticals GWPH, +2.03%  created for child-onset epilepsy received approval from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for sale as a medicinal product. Tilray, Inc. TLRY, +2.98%  is also currently developing a cannabis-derived epilepsy treatment. The treatment is currently in clinical trials.

Is it safe?

A preliminary report published by the World Health Organization’s Expert Committee on Drug Dependence found CBD is “not associated with abuse potential” and that it does not induce physical dependence. “CBD is generally well tolerated with a good safety profile,” the researchers wrote.

However WHO “does not recommend cannabidiol for medical use” because there is still little evidence to prove its effectiveness. Although CBD is relatively safe and it is virtually impossible to overdose on it, a user should talk to their doctor before trying it, especially if they are taking other medications, according to Tristan Watkins, chief science officer of cannabis lifestyle brand LucidMood.

“Although CBD is non-intoxicating, large doses can still cause drowsiness,” he said. “It is always advisable to see how you respond to CBD before operating a vehicle or engaging in any other potentially dangerous activity. Additionally, it is generally advisable to speak with your doctor before using any CBD products since some medications may interact.”

Is it regulated?

CBD has thus far been only very loosely regulated and a number of brands have received warnings from the FDA for misrepresenting what goes into their products. Some 70% of cannabinoid extracts sold online are mislabeled, a 2017 study from University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine found.

Approximately 43% of the products surveyed contained too little CBD, while 26% contained too much. And 1 in 5 CBD products contained THC, that active compound that does get people high.

Consumers should be careful about where they purchase CBD and read labels carefully, said Mathew Gerson, founder and chief executive officer of cannabis brand Foria, which sells a 1-ounce CBD “tonic for daily wellness” for $98. “Buy CBD from reputable brands with a demonstrated commitment to transparency and purity — including sharing test results for all claims about product content,” he said.

One telltale sign that a company may not be reliable: It lists “CBD” as an ingredient instead of “hemp oil,” Gerson said. Printing “CBD” on a product’s ingredient list runs afoul of Federal Drug Administration regulations, he said.

“If a company prints CBD on their package you have to wonder what other FDA rules they’re not abiding by, and whether they’re actually doing lab tests for purity on their product,” he said.

Products labeled as “hemp extract” CBD are legally required to have less than 0.03% THC, according to the 2014 Farm Bill. Other products may have higher levels of THC. Standard drug tests don’t typically look for CBD.

What kind should you get?

Consumers should also check labels for important information like where it’s manufactured, the ingredients, the amount of CBD in the product, the date of manufacture or expiration date, and the batch or lot number, Chris Stubbs, chief science officer at CBD and cannabis company GenCanna, said.

“Any firm that is meeting or exceeding food production standards as determined by the code of federal regulations should be able to show transparency in their supply chain and provide substantiating documentation to support,” he said.

Oral CBD added to drinks like coffee and CBD cocktails tend to have a slower effect on the body, while vaporizers have a more immediate effect, but it doesn’t last as long. Topical products like lotion or balm containing CBD work locally on muscles and nerves and have been shown to help with arthritis pain, according to a 2016 National Institute of Health study.

Some companies will label CBD with specific strain information, like “indica” and “sativa.

”These strains make more of a difference when consuming THC than CBD: Indica is known to have a more calming, sedative effect while sativa is a more energetic high. However, the provenance of the product is more important than the strain, Gerson said.

Marijuana is Legal! And with legality comes great responsibility.

By Ricardo Baca

 

AS  you’ve likely realized, marijuana is legal! (For most Americans, at least.) California is beginning to settle into its first set of regulations, and an adult-use Michigan is looking like a sure thing. So, now what?

Now, I’d argue, it’s time to rewrite the rules of engagement surrounding cannabis use.

With legal weed comes infinitely more knowledge, and with that knowledge comes tremendous responsibility—and it’s a responsibility we all share, a mutual respect we owe to one another as we enjoy infused meals together and Pepsi-challenge each other’s vaporizers.

Before these regulated marketplaces gave us a retail infrastructure, multiple levels of consumer protection, and more substantive information about the cannabis we’re consuming, we rarely knew exactly what we were ingesting. While a select few grew their own, tracking all the nutrients and pesticides used in the cultivation process, most of us “got it from a guy”—a scenario I relived recently while strolling Pusher Street, Christiania’s world-famous hash market in the middle of Copenhagen, Denmark.

With the help of a Danish-speaking friend in September, I asked one of the nameless guys peddling hash and flower out of ready-to-run duffle bags about his product. The flower was grown indoors within Copenhagen city limits—illegally, just as he was breaking the law by selling the dried flower in the historic Free City. The hash was Moroccan, of course. (We were in Europe, duh.) When I asked if he had any edibles, he nodded no and pointed across the way to another guy with a nearly identical spread—though this one included a dark brown muffin in a Ziplock bag.

The other dealer knew even less about the weed muffin than his counterpart knew about the flower and hash, but he told me “I think you can eat the whole thing is O.K.” I bought the muffin regardless (because of course I did). And as I unwrapped the infused treat at a nearby cafe, a steaming coffee and bubble waffle as my chosen accompaniment, I felt the familiar sensation so many of us have felt: ignorance bordering on cluelessness as to what I was about to consume.

I had no idea how much activated THC was in this sweet, or how those cannabinoids had been extracted. While we’ve all been there and lived to tell about it, we now know more about the cannabis we’re consuming and we owe it to one another to share that information well in advance of any shared consumption.

Here are three of the new responsibilities we now share in this post-prohibition world. Let’s call them The New Rules of Engagement for Modern Cannabis Use.

Identify product potency
before sharing
I see it happening regularly, from California to Washington, D.C.: Infused edibles shared with no word about their potency.

A poorly labeled infused candy from a known D.C. area business. A respected cannabis chef serving her house-made infused goods at a party in the Bay Area. An industry-leading marijuana company’s high-level networking gathering passing infused and non-infused apps to attendees. I’ve taken part in these exchanges in the past six months, and I’m consistently dumbfounded when people share edibles with others without first communicating the product’s potency.

C’mon, friends. This is the easy part. This is the bare minimum. This is the important place where you can easily guide someone through an enjoyable experience—and also help them avoid a god-awful scenario that might turn them away from marijuana forever.

Everyone has a different tolerance for edibles. I know a veteran consumer who goes through a gram of wax daily, and yet a 5mg edible will put him on the floor. As most of us know, 10mg of activated THC is considered a single dose of edible cannabis by most state regulatory agencies.

Also worth noting: Identifying potency isn’t specific to edibles. If you know someone hasn’t gotten high in years or decades and you’re offering them a hit off your joint or pipe, a friendly warning should be common courtesy. “Hey, you know this is a lot stronger than it used to be, right?” Even if they do know, it’s the right thing to do.

Know your products’ ingredients
Knowledge is power, and marijuana consumers are more powerful today than they’ve ever been, though we still have a long way to go. It’s legitimately important that informed consumers know and understand cannabinoids, terpenes, and the pros and cons surrounding the entourage effect. But since so many of today’s best-selling cannabis products are man-made, it’s also important for us to be aware of the many other ingredients, additives, and mixing agents in today’s marijuana products.

Your vegan friends might ask, “Are these gummies made with gelatin or pectin?” Your California friends might ask, “Do you have any solventless extracts?” Your science-minded friends might ask, “What was the cannabis oil inside this vape cartridge mixed with?”

These are real conversations happening today among thoughtful cannabis consumers, and I promise you these conversations are becoming more common from Anchorage to Boston. Some consumers are curious about edibles made without sugars, and others are actively avoiding vape pen cartridges formulated with the ubiquitous mixing agent polyethylene glycol.

It’s easy for you to be the informed connoisseur who easily can answer these questions because you read the package’s ingredients, so you know this gummy is not vegan-friendly because it’s made with gelatin; this shatter was made with butane, but you have some solventless rosin over here that your friend might love.

Know how your products’ active ingredients
were extracted
Speaking of solventless extracts—not to mention the rise of hyper-informed cannabis connoisseurs—do you know how the oil in your vape pen was extracted? Do you know whether your favorite edible is powered by cannabutter or some other extract? Do you know the difference between supercritical CO2 extracts and BHO (butane hash oil)? And did you know, technically speaking, CO2 is itself a solvent?

Most of my friends in Oakland, California, often lecture on the necessity of consuming only solventless extracts while many of my friends in Denver consume only concentrates made via solvents, and each of their arguments is convincing.

Can you hang in these conversations, backing up your argument with the pros and cons of each method of extraction? As I mentioned, these conversations are becoming more prevalent, so you’ll at least want to know your way around the subject matter so as to not be left in the kief-like dust.
(Fun fact: Kief is, of course, solventless.)   

*User Beware*

Like every other substance people put into or on their bodies, cannabis can affect users in vastly different ways. While the herb delivers many recreational and medicinal benefits from relaxation to alleviation of the nausea that often accompanies chemotherapy, unwanted side effects may occur. They can include minor issues like the notorious “munchies” or disruptive responses like anxiety, paranoia, and cognitive impairment.

In the 1970s, black market pot seized by authorities commonly tested between 1 percent and 3 percent THC. Granted, weed was anything but pure in those days, containing not only flower (where THC is concentrated) but also stems, seeds, and leaves. Even with low THC levels, though, some users experienced unpleasant reactions. Today, depending on a variety of variables including cultivation environment, strain, curing method, and processing, THC may reach 20 percent or higher.

The amount of THC and the ratio of THC to CBD determine users’ experience: The higher the THC content, the more noticeable the psychoactive impact. Because CBD can moderate THC’s effect on the nervous system, the higher the CBD content, the less noticeable the “high.”

Delivery methods also make a difference in how users experience cannabis’s effects. Smoking produces an almost immediate response in most people, while edibles’ effects may not be perceived for an hour or more.

All those factors—plus additional considerations like residual pesticides and solvents, and legal risks in medical-only states—make it imperative consumers know the details about cannabis selections prior to use. One type of product may work better than others for any given consumer, and dosage tolerance definitely makes a difference. Yesteryear’s horror stories about unwittingly ingesting “pot brownies” pale in comparison to the unintended potential consequences of sharing cannabis with others who don’t have the facts to make an informed decision.

 

Mind the Link: Marijuana Heightens the Risk of Psychosis

Alice B. Lloyd

As legalization looms, psychiatrists and public health advocates are spreading awareness. 

 

Recreational marijuana is now legal in Canada, and as my colleague Tony Mecia writes, a Democratic takeover of the House could help facilitate legal pot in more places in the United States.

And soon.

Legalizing cannabis has a number of upsides. It’s projected to help the farming economy while hurting the smuggling economy, and sparing small-time offenders from outsize sentences—and that’s not to mention its medicinal uses, for chronic pain, PTSD, and chemo patients’ nausea. But beyond these known and anticipated benefits looms one risk proponents ought to know but tend not to: Marijuana increases a user’s likelihood to develop psychotic symptoms.

A recent study placed marijuana among the five clearest triggers of schizophrenia, out of 98 catalysts under consideration. The other top triggers—a chemical predisposition, the experience of trauma as a child or adult, and obstetric complications (aka, trauma experienced in utero)—are less preventable than marijuana use. An earlier study, conducted over 15 years in Sweden, concluded that the risk of developing schizophrenia increased six times for high-level users. But even using moderately, just 11 to 50 times overall, doubles the risk according to a more recent study. And for those who start using younger, the risk is higher still: 15-year-olds who use marijuana are three-times likelier to develop psychotic symptoms than those who start at 18.

Psychosis usually rears its head during one’s late teens or early 20s, which happens to be within a couple years of a typical recreational user’s first experience with marijuana. It’s a complex set of mental disorders that covers symptoms like hallucinations, paranoid delusions, all the way to full-blown schizophrenia—which, while sometimes manageable, has no known cure.

Canadian brothers Joel and Ian Gold, a psychiatrist and a philosophy professor respectively, published a column the day that their homeland legalized cannabis, and threw open the doors to new state-run dispensaries. The Golds co-authored Suspicious Minds in 2015—a book that looks at the social and pop-cultural influences on psychosis. In the process of researching the book they were surprised to discover the depth of literature establishing a causal link between marijuana and psychosis, said Joel, a professor who also served as Bellevue Hospital’s ER director and outpatient director for a number of years.

The link, Gold is certain, will come to bear as legalization gains. “I certainly expect there will be an uptick,” he said, citing a study showing an overall increase in use after legalization. “Let's presuppose that there will be an increase in the number of young people using cannabis. Then by extension there will be an uptick in the number of people developing psychosis a year down the road,” Gold said.

As legalization takes root, the perception of marijuana’s harmfulness and knowledge of its risks have diminished.

Just as Gold and his brother found the link something of a surprise in the midst of their research, most patients find it quite a shock. Even men and women who take their health seriously, he said, consider marijuana—especially when it’s not smoked—more or less harmless. Though the research they cite is robust, “It hasn’t really crossed over into the public consciousness and I’m not sure why.”

The Schizophrenia Society of Canada published an awareness campaign: An ominous and obviously teen-targeted public service announcement intones, “It’s not always to tell whether you’re experiencing the negative effects of being high, or something more serious. What sucks is that’s it’s just the luck of the draw.”

And, as is often the case, lawmakers will be left to regulate in reverse. One imagines further adjustments to existing age limits, dose restrictions, and purchasing cut-offs would follow in the wake of what mental health crisis—or what growing fear of one—may yet come. The aforementioned age-level study, which found 15-year-old first-time users had a higher risk that 18-year-olds, suggests the strict enforcement of legal age restrictions could have a hand in regulating around so tender a problem as the link.

But, Gold also said, users will be more likely to learn of their heightened risk and heed warnings about it once cannabis is more widely legal stateside: Legalizing something has a way of making it seem suddenly very prevalent and therefore seem, paradoxically, more dangerous.

There’s reason to hope, meanwhile, that widening cultural acceptance of marijuana as a consumer product might also lead to productive exploration of the plants’ other, beneficial uses—even be as a groundbreaking anti-psychotic, in fact. Cannabidiol (CBD), a separate chemical from THC, derives from cannabis but doesn’t get you high. For now, it’s mostly popular among naturopaths.

But psychiatric researchers hope it will someday help combat schizophrenia. Though still in the early stages, CBD’s development as anti-psychotic suggests the possibility of perfect chemical counterbalance within the plant itself: It’s THC-potency that increases a frequent marijuana user’s risk of psychosis, according to a study from the U.K.

Responses to their co-authored op-ed have poured in since Canada’s legalization day, but primarily from people who were not surprised to learn the statistics they laid out. Men and women who’ve seen family members or loved ones use cannabis heavily and later develop psychosis—many of them the parents of psychotic children—sent the brothers messages of thanks. Some added words of regret.

If only we’d known, they’d say.

Widespread legalization is politically—and practically—inevitable. But it may also exact an insidious burden on a sensitive segment of the population. A possibly preventable burden, the psychiatrists would stress, and one that may not manifest for several years. For the moment, it’s an epic experiment, in other words, with the potential to do a lot of damage.