Canopy expects to see the next cannabis breakthrough in 24 months

Tyler Clifford

Canopy Growth’s $3.4 billion tie-up with Acreage Holdings will give the joint enterprise a leg up amid marijuana legalization across America, CEO Bruce Linton told CNBC Thursday.

On Friday, the Food and Drug Administration is scheduled to hold a hearing on cannabidiol, the nonintoxicating compound found in hemp, to regulate the product that could grow into a $22 billion industry within three years.

The Canadian cannabis companies merged to share operations, brands, and intellectual property in efforts to dominate the dispensary industry in 20 states and in future markets, Linton said. He expects to see a breakthrough in the next 18 to 24 months.

“That’s just enough time to use all of our IP and brands to really get ahead,” Linton said in an interview with “Mad Money’s” Jim Cramer. “The next wave comes on and we’re way at the front.”

Once an illicit, underground business that for decades has led to the incarceration of dealers and users, marijuana has been legalized in some form in more than half of American states and the District of Columbia. Acreage has brought on recognizable leaders to its board of directors, such as former Republican House Speaker John Boehner and former Republican Massachusetts Gov. Bill Weld.

The cultivation, processing and dispensing company was able to attract prominent names to its leadership in part because CBD can be used as an alternative to opioids and a majority of Americans support legalization, said Acreage CEO Kevin Murphy, who joined Linton in the sit down.

Canopy’s acquisition of Acreage will go into full effect once cannabis has been legalized federally.

Illinois may be the next state to legalize recreational use of marijuana. Legislators in New Jersey, New York, Connecticut, and New Hampshire are also debating the topic.

“These folks have joined our organization because they believe in the movement, they believe in the value of the plant, but they also believe in good governance, or they wouldn’t have joined our company in the first place,” Murphy said.

People like Boehner and Weld will be helpful in luring in major brands to partner with Canopy as states continue to loosen cannabis laws, Linton added. The industry is slowly becoming more mainstream as social consumption grows, and companies are considering new products in their catalog including vaporizers, candies, and other food products, he said.

The companies are “pensive” because marijuana is still illegal federally, but they will look to work with dominant players in the space, Murphy said.

“They wanna come in, they all have a committee, they want to go to the right company, but can’t look stupid,” Linton. “These guys (like Boehner and Weld) help keep stupid away.”

Shares of Canopy slipped about 0.7% Thursday. The stock is up nearly 57% this year and more than 46% in the past 12 months.

A Florida congressman is pushing federal protections for vets who use marijuana

By Billy Cox,

 

NORTH PORT, Fla. — Staggered by the burgeoning numbers of veteran suicides, U.S. Rep. Greg Steube said on Wednesday he supports removing marijuana from its wrongly classified Schedule 1 status.

"And I think you'd be surprised by the amount of Republicans that would support it," said the Sarasota Republican, who added Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell would likely block a descheduling bill. But Steube said a vote would enjoy broad bipartisan support in the House and could come up for a vote this session.

"I think as you're seeing a younger generation of elected officials — I mean, look at (Florida Gov. Ron) DeSantis and some of the things he's done — and their positions on those issues are very different."

Steube's remarks followed a town hall meeting sponsored by Concerned Veterans of America at the Suncoast Technical College Conference Center. The nation's suicide epidemic among veterans and active-duty personnel — 20.6 self-inflicted fatalities a day, according to the Department of Veterans Affairs — cast a shadow across the forum, even as many gathered to hear about the latest wrinkles in the Mission Act.

Passed in 2018 to give veterans better access to VA health care, the new regulations will go into effect on June 6. The new law allows patients who've been waiting for more than 20 days or who drive more than 30 miles to enter a VA facility to visit a community doctor closer to their residences.

The expansion is huge, as it opens new avenues of services to roughly 40 percent of the veteran population. Under current rules, just 8% of veterans have those options.

But solving the suicide epidemic has no easy fix, as Steube told a crowded meeting room. In fact, there's so much misinformation about what veterans in Florida and other medical marijuana-legal states are liable for with their medical-cannabis prescriptions, the House freshman said he intends to introduce a bill to codify protection for veterans whose urinalyses may test positive for marijuana.

"The directive is, you can't be denied VA services, but I've heard from veterans in my own district who say they've been told otherwise ... So I have a bill to make it law that if you live in a state that has lawfully opened up medicinal marijuana and you have a recommendation for a prescription ... you cannot lose those VA benefits."

A member of the House Veterans Affairs Committee, Steube calls the suicide epidemic a crisis that can't ignore any potential remedies. He says the VA is trying to be proactive in its screening procedures, but the numbers continue to skyrocket.

"So just in the last 18 months, 34 service members have committed suicide in a Veterans Affairs hospital or clinic — in the actual place that's supposed to be taking care of them ... And if anybody here has a solution to that problem, or ways we can identify service members who are in a higher risk for that category ... I'm all ears to that."

Last year, the Herald-Tribune published a special section on veterans advocating cannabis over opioids to relieve their post traumatic stress disorder, traumatic brain injury, and other wounds.

 Among the suicide victims was 23-year-old Rory Dalgliesh, an Afghanistan combat veteran who shot himself to death shortly before mustering out of the Marine Corps. His father, Rotunda West resident Michael Dalgliesh, was among those who turned out to hear Steube.

Wearing a yellow shirt bearing Rory's photo and the words "Walking to Remember My Son United States Marine American Hero," Dalgliesh stood at a major intersection in April, for one hour a day, 22 straight days, attempting to draw attention to veteran suicides with flags and signs.

"I came here today because I just wanted to talk to a Congressman about what our government is doing about this," Dalgliesh said. "I wear this shirt every day. I think about Rory every day."

Marijuana has been classified as a dangerous drug with no medicinal value since 1970. More than 2 million Americans have medical marijuana prescriptions today, but the VA is barred from dispensing cannabis to troops and veterans because of the federal law.

Marijuana use among older adults increasing rapidly

by Kate Anderton, B.Sc. 

Cannabis use among older adults is growing faster than any other age group but many report barriers to getting medical marijuana, a lack of communication with their doctors and a lingering stigma attached to the drug, according to researchers.

The study, the first to look at how older Americans use cannabis and the outcomes they experience, was published this month in the journal Drugs & Aging.

Older Americans are using cannabis for a lot of different reasons. Some use it to manage pain while others use it for depression or anxiety."

Study co-author Hillary Lum, MD, PhD, assistant professor of medicine at the University of Colorado School of Medicine

The 2016 National Survey of Drug Use and Health showed a ten-fold increase in cannabis use among adults over age 65.

The researchers set out to understand how older people perceived cannabis, how they used it and the positive and negative outcomes associated with it.

They conducted 17 focus groups in in senior centers, health clinics and cannabis dispensaries in 13 Colorado counties that included more than 136 people over the age of 60. Some were cannabis users, others were not.

"We identified five major themes," Lum said.

These included: A lack of research and education about cannabis; A lack of provider communication about cannabis; A lack of access to medical cannabis; A lack of outcome information about cannabis use; A reluctance to discuss cannabis use.

Researchers found a general reluctance among some to ask their doctors for a red card to obtain medical marijuana. Instead, they chose to pay more for recreational cannabis.

Lum said this could be driven by feeling self-conscious about asking a doctor for cannabis. That, she said, points to a failure of communication between health care providers and their patients.

"I think [doctors can] be a lot more open to learning about it and discussing it with their patients," said one focus group respondent. "Because at this point I have told my primary care I was using it on my shoulder. And that was the end of the conversation. He didn't want to know why, he didn't want to know about effects, didn't want to know about side effects, didn't want to know anything."

Some said their doctors were unable or unwilling to provide a certificate, the document needed to obtain medical marijuana. They also said physicians need to educate themselves on the latest cannabis research.

Some older users reported positive outcomes when using cannabis for pain as opposed to taking highly addictive prescription opioids. They often differentiated between using cannabis for medical reasons and using it recreationally.

"Although study participants discussed recreational cannabis more negatively than medical cannabis, they felt it was more comparable to drinking alcohol, often asserting a preference for recreational cannabis over the negative effects of alcohol," the study said.

The researchers also found that despite the legalization of cannabis in Colorado and other states, some older people still felt a stigma attached to it.

"Some participants, for example, referred to the movie `Reefer Madness' (1936) and other anti-marijuana propaganda adverts that negatively framed cannabis as immoral and illegal," the researchers said.

The study adds to the growing literature on the diversity of marijuana use patterns in older adults, said co-author Sara Honn Qualls, PhD, ABPP, professor of psychology and director of the Gerontology Center at the University of Colorado Colorado Springs.

"Older adults who use marijuana are ingesting it in a variety of ways for multiple purposes," she said. "This and other papers from the same project show growing acceptance of marijuana use for medical purposes by older adults, and a clear desire to have their primary health providers involved in educating them about options and risks.

Lum agreed.

She said Colorado, the first state to legalize recreational marijuana, provides a unique laboratory to gauge public attitudes toward cannabis.

"From a physician's standpoint this study shows the need to talk to patients in a non-judgmental way about cannabis," she said. "Doctors should also educate themselves about the risks and benefits of cannabis and be able to communicate that effectively to patients."

Source:
University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus

Politics Federal Court Orders DEA To ‘Promptly’ Consider Marijuana Rescheduling…Or Else

By Kyle Jaeger

A federal appeals court gave medical cannabis patients and reform advocates a small but significant procedural victory on Thursday, ruling that it would hold open a case challenging the scheduling status of marijuana under federal law.

In essence, the court is putting the federal government on notice that it must “promptly” make a decision on marijuana rescheduling so that those who rely on its medical benefits don’t unduly suffer.

A group of patients and advocates filed a lawsuit against the Justice Department in a U.S. District Court in 2017, alleging that the Schedule I status of cannabis under the Controlled Substances Act (CSA) poses serious health risks and unfair economic disadvantages.

The court dismissed the case last year, siding with the government in its scheduling determination and shooting down each of the plaintiffs’ claims. It also argued that the plaintiffs should have first pursued reform through an administrative process, seeking relief from the federal agencies responsible for drug scheduling, before pursuing judicial action.

Now, in a new opinion on an appeal filed by patients and their supporters, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit has agreed that they took the issue to the judicial branch prematurely when they should have exhausted their administrative options—but the court also determined that unique circumstances apply, particularly as it concerns the two children plaintiffs who argued that federal law jeopardizes their health and creates legal uncertainty.

“[W]e are troubled by the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA)’s history of dilatory proceedings,” U.S. Circuit Judge Guido Calabresi wrote for the majority. “Accordingly, while we concur with the District Court’s ruling, we do not dismiss the case, but rather hold it in abeyance and retain jurisdiction in this panel to take whatever action might become appropriate if the DEA does not act with adequate dispatch.”

In other words, the appeals panel could have simply upheld the lower court ruling and dismissed the case, but instead it will keep the matter open so that it can take action if DEA fails to appropriately consider a change to marijuana’s legal status within a reasonable amount of time.

The case is “unusual,” the court wrote, because “among the Plaintiffs are individuals who plausibly allege that the current scheduling of marijuana poses a serious, life‐or‐death threat to their health.”

“Taking the facts as alleged, and, accordingly, taking the supposed benefits some Plaintiffs have experienced from marijuana as true as well, we—like the District Court below—are struck by the transformative effects this drug has assertedly had on some Plaintiffs’ lives. As a result, we are troubled by the uncertainty under which Plaintiffs must currently live.”

It’s a ruling that sets this case apart from several other attempts to change the federal drug scheduling system through the courts, all of which have so far failed.

“I think what we have here is perhaps the most significant judicial milestone in the war against prohibition,” Joseph A. Bondy, an attorney who has worked pro bono on the case, told Marijuana Moment in a phone interview.

The plaintiffs in the case, which include young cannabis patients and advocates Alexis Bortell and Jagger Cotte, who suffer from rare conditions that they’ve effectively treated with cannabis products, told the court that they were concerned that DEA would “not move quickly enough to afford them adequate relief.”

With that in mind, the court said it would “retain jurisdiction of the case in this panel, for the sole purpose of taking whatever action might become appropriate should the DEA not act with adequate dispatch.” It emphasized, however, that it holds “no view whatever on the merits of Plaintiffs’ case—that is, on whether marijuana should be listed or not.”

“It is conceivable that, in response to a petition from Plaintiffs along the lines advanced before us now, the DEA would reschedule marijuana, rendering the current case moot,” the opinion says.

“And if the DEA did not, the administrative process would generate a comprehensive record that would aid in eventual judicial review.”

The court also seemed to acknowledge the plaintiffs’ argument that the scheduling of cannabis may not fulfill its stated objectives—that as our understanding of the benefits and harms of marijuana continue to evolve, they raise questions about “whether the extant regulatory regime continues to advance the CSA’s goals in light of the current state of our knowledge about the drug.”

“It is possible that the current law, though rational once, is now heading towards irrationality; it may even conceivably be that it has gotten there already,” Calabresi wrote. “Courts are not especially good at dealing with situations of this sort by themselves. In such circumstances, dialogue between courts and other law‐defining institutions, like agencies, often works best.”

“A sensible response to our evolving understanding about the effects of marijuana might require creating new policies just as much as changing old ones. This kind of constructive governmental work, mixing adjudication and program‐design, creating policy through the balancing of competing legitimate interests, is not generally best accomplished by federal courts on their own; it is, however, the stock‐in‐trade of administration.”

Sebastien Cotte, a reform advocate and father of Jagger, told Marijuana Moment that the court’s judgement was groundbreaking.

“[K]ids like Jagger and Alexis don’t have time to wait for the government and their endless process,” he said. “We are talking about human lives that are running out of time quickly. So I’m hopeful this could be the game-changing case that every suffering and dying kid and patient in the country needs.”

Throughout the opinion, the court emphasized that the wellness of the plaintiffs, and the success they claimed to have had using cannabis as a treatment option, inspired their novel decision in the case. Calabresi said the court empathized with their situation and said their claims about medical cannabis “are no small things.”

Indeed, the plaintiffs “should not be required to live indefinitely with uncertainty about their access to allegedly life‐saving medication or live in fear that pursuing such medical treatment may subject them or their loved ones to devastating consequences.”

Bondy said he and his team will be working with experts to draft a petition for DEA action on marijuana scheduling over the next few months. While the court didn’t provide a timeline outlining how long the agency has to act on the petition, Bondy said that 180 days seemed reasonable, though that may change.

If the DEA declines to take action or delays its decision—rescheduling petitions typically take about nine years to go through the process, the appeals panel’s opinion noted—then the court has several judicial options at its disposal.

“Those actions could include things like compelling them to act—issuing what’s called a writ of mandamus—sanctioning them, having a hearing or finding at that point that we were correct” in arguing that their situation exempted them from first seeking administrative relief “and hearing us on the merits,” Bondy said.

Here’s more from the court’s conclusion:

“But we exercise our discretion to keep jurisdiction of the case in this panel, to take whatever action may become appropriate if Plaintiffs seek administrative review and the DEA fails to act promptly. And we note that, under the unusual health‐related circumstances of this case, what has counted as appropriate speed in the past may not count as appropriate speed here.

“In doing this, we specify that we are not retaining jurisdiction to review the actions the agency may take. Jurisdiction over those may well lie solely in another circuit. Nor do we intend to retain jurisdiction indefinitely. Unless the Plaintiffs seek agency review and so inform us within six months, we will affirm the District Court’s judgment dismissing this case. (And if only some Plaintiffs seek agency review, we will dismiss the complaint as to those who do not.) 

But if Plaintiffs do seek agency review, and the agency fails to act with alacrity, Plaintiffs may return directly to us, under our retained jurisdiction.

“To be clear, we repeat that this case remains in our purview only to the extent that the agency does not respond to Plaintiffs with adequate, if deliberate, speed. In other words, we retain jurisdiction exclusively for the purpose of inducing the agency to act promptly.”

Bondy said he felt emboldened by the court’s judgement and that it speaks to success and energy of the broader reform movement.

“We are on the right side of this issue—the advocates, the activists—pursuing things like social equity, the right to medicate yourself with cannabis, the right to travel with cannabis, the right to decide what you’re going do with your body,” he said.

Legal Medical Marijuana Tied To Lower Opioid Use, Another Study Finds

By Kimberly Lawson

 

 

Adding to the ever-growing body of research that suggests legal access to marijuana may help mitigate the opioid crisis, a new study found that states with medical cannabis laws have seen a drop in opioid prescriptions for people aged 55 and younger.

Researchers from the University of Texas investigated prescription opioid use among people with private insurance (as opposed to those on publicly funded Medicare or Medicaid), and compared those rates in states with and without medical marijuana.

“When results were examined within each individual age cohort, opioid prescription rate varied depending on the stringency of state cannabis laws,” the study states. “In particular, in states which implemented medical cannabis use laws (but not other categories of cannabis liberalization laws), lower rates of opioid prescription were seen in the younger age cohorts (18–25, 26–35, 36–45 and 46–54 years).”

The findings were published last week in the journal Preventive Medicine.

Building on previous studies—including one that found opioid-related overdose deaths fell in states with legal marijuana dispensaries—the researchers used information from the database of one of the largest private health insurance providers in the country. This was important, the study’s authors write, because this subset of people “may exhibit different behaviors from Medicare and Medicaid subpopulations with regards to cannabis use.”

Past research has shown states with medical marijuana laws have issued fewer opioid prescriptions to people with government-funded health coverage.

The study population spanned more than four million individuals, which researchers broke down by age group in their analysis.

In 2016, when the research was being conducted, five states had fully legalized marijuana, 21 states had approved only medical cannabis and four other states had simply decriminalized possession.

At the time, 1,770,081 people were enrolled in private insurance in states with legal medical marijuana access.

According to the study’s results, the states with the lowest prescription rates were those that had approved access to medical marijuana. When the results were examined by age group, researchers found that these lower rates were only seen in people ages 18 to 54.

“Overall, age-stratified adjusted analysis showed lowest rate of opioid prescription in states that allowed for medical cannabis use.”

While the authors admit there may be “a public health benefit associated with medical cannabis laws,” they point out this decrease in opioid prescriptions may also have to do with the fact that many states have implemented monitoring programs and other legislation designed to restrict access to opioids.

But, as the study states, “These findings suggest a difference between the privately insured versus Medicaid or Medicare insured populations, especially those who are older adults. Research has shown that Medicaid and Medicare beneficiaries generally have greater disability than those with commercial insurance, perhaps because a proportion of beneficiaries qualify for Medicare coverage based on a disability.” As a result, it’s possible that more patients with public insurance have been prescribed opioids compared to the privately insured.

Also, as the authors note, it’s not surprising that older people have more prescriptions—that just comes with age. They do wonder, however, if “these patients are more likely to use cannabis as an adjunct therapeutic agent for pain control.”

“Baby Boomers, who are now in their mid- 50s and 60s, represent demographic cohort who experienced illicit drug use, including cannabis, as a societal norm, resulting from societal pressures and stresses in their youth,” the study states. “While younger adults appear to use cannabis with greater frequency than older adults (aged 50 and above), studies reveal that cannabis use among older adults may be increasing.”

In fact, one recent study found that 3 percent of adults 65 and older reported using cannabis in the past year. That’s seven times the rate of Baby Boomers who reported use a decade ago.

State Senate approves recreational marijuana bill in quick vote, after changes

By Peter Hancock

• 
  Associated Press, 2018

SPRINGFIELD -- The state of Illinois is one step closer to legalizing recreational marijuana.

The Illinois Senate voted Wednesday to pass the bill, sending it to the House for consideration in the final two days of the session this week. The fast vote was 38-17, with two Republicans joining 36 Democrats in supporting it.

"This bill is going to set the model, I believe, the gold standard for how to approach social equity issues, relating (to) cannabis legalization," Sen. Heather Steans, D-Chicago, the bill's chief sponsor, said in her closing statement on the Senate floor.

The action Wednesday came just hours after a new, revised version of the bill was made public, and it is substantially different from the one Steans introduced on May 3, a proposal that sparked strong resistance from law enforcement, business groups and some local governments.

Like the original draft, the new bill, an amended version of House Bill 1438, provides that starting Jan. 1, 2020, Illinois residents could possess up to 30 grams, or roughly one ounce, of marijuana flower, 5 grams of THC concentrate and 5 grams of THC in a marijuana-infused product. It also authorizes the state to issue a limited number of licenses for cultivators, processors and retail dispensaries, and to charge excise taxes on the retail sale of marijuana products.

But other major provisions in the 622-page bill are substantially different from the original version, and those changes appeared to be key to gaining support and quelling some opposition.

For example, instead of enacting blanket, mass expungements of previous criminal records for minor marijuana-related violations, the new bill allows for expungement through the governor's clemency process if the case involves less than 30 grams of marijuana. For cases involving amounts greater than that, up to 500 grams, individuals and state's attorneys would be allowed to petition a court to vacate a conviction.

"Moving that off the table, I think, paved the way for us to resolve a bunch of other issues that were very important that weren't resolved initially," Sen. Jason Barickman, R-Bloomington, told reporters after a committee hearing on the bill Wednesday.

Among those other issues was a provision allowing people to grow up to five marijuana plants in their own homes, under certain conditions. While the original bill would have extended that right to all adults, the new bill limits it only to people who have been approved to use marijuana for medical purposes.

The new bill also preserves the right of employers to maintain "zero tolerance" policies on drug use and to establish drug-free workplaces. And it allows local governments to prohibit cannabis businesses in their communities, or to enact zoning regulations to control where they are located.

It also preserves the right of landlords to prohibit marijuana possession and use on their properties.

Among the senators from the suburbs, Democrats Melinda Bush of Grayslake, Cristina Castro of Elgin, Thomas Cullerton of Villa Park, Laura Ellman of Naperville, Ann Gillespie of Arlington Heights, Linda Holmes of Aurora, Julie A. Morrison of Deerfield and Laura M. Murphy of Des Plaines voted yes, while Republicans John F. Curran of Downers Grove, Donald P. DeWitte of St. Charles, Dan McConchie of Hawthorn Woods and Craig Wilcox of McHenry voted no.

Last week, a number of Northwest suburban Democrats had balked or wavered on the legislation, led by Rep. Marty Moylan of Des Plaines. The Daily Herald had reached out to 24 suburban Democrats; 12 responded, and of those, eight were uncommitted or disagreed with the legislation before it was revised.

Illinoisans cultivating their own weed was a deal-breaker for Murphy, who said last week she was worried about "the availability of roadside detection, and the current allocation of funding for local law enforcement."

For many supporters of legalization, the most important issues other than expungement involved what they called "social justice and equity" provisions. Among those are provisions that earmark 25 percent of the revenue generated to a grant program for reinvestment in low-income, high-minority neighborhoods.

It also gives preference in license applications to people who live in or have connections to neighborhoods characterized by high arrest rates for marijuana and other drug-related offenses.

Some opponents of the measure, however, said that provision was one of the reasons they voted against the bill.

"There is a limited number of licenses and we're going to give preference to vendors who are going to be in the poorest ZIP codes in Illinois," said Sen. Chapin Rose, R-Mahomet. "We're going to give preference to keeping poor people stoned."

In addition to funding community reinvestment grants, the bill calls for dedicating 35 percent of the revenue to the state general revenue fund, 20 percent for substance abuse prevention and mental health services, 10 percent to pay down the state's backlog of unpaid bills; 8 percent for local law enforcement, and 2 percent for public education and safety campaigns.

Why Some People Freak Out on Cannabis, and Others Don’t

Tricia Romano

(CSA-Printstock/iStock)

Many years ago, my friend Brian and I decided to spend a blue-sky day getting stoned and listening to music in Brooklyn’s Fort Greene Park. It sounded like a brilliant plan.


Brian was a mega stoner. He could take hit after hit, and he thought everyone else could too.

It became clear that cannabis and I do not work well together. But why?

 

Me, I would only take one light puff. The sudden alteration was too much, too sudden, too big. But at his urging, I inhaled deeply—and once more for good luck.

This being before the iPhone and before the iPod, we brought our own Walkman CD players, which means we didn’t have the entire world of music at our fingertips, and could only listen to what we brought with us. Brian had chosen pretty, funky electronic music by The Avalanches—the perfect music for a day in the park. Uplifting, cheery, life affirming.

I had chosen the-then new Coldplay record, which had the single, “Yellow.” 

Oh yeah your skin and bones
Turn into something beautiful
Do you know?
For you I’d bleed myself dry
For you I’d bleed myself dry

By the end of the second chorus Chris Martin had me sobbing. It’s just so saaaad, I cried to Brian. He loves her so much!

Brian was totally confused. He was listening to his own music, in Avalanches-land, blissed out.
He just wants to love her, I wailed. And we’re all gonna die. 

It became clear that afternoon that cannabis and I did not work well together.

Caution: Meltdown Ahead

When I smoke weed I get paranoid. I have panic attacks. I melt the fuck down.

This didn’t come as a great surprise. I’d seen signs over the years. Like the time I smoked up at my best friend’s house and convinced myself I was locked in the bathroom, while a group of New York music critics that I wanted to impress waited for me to come out. Centuries passed. The bathroom door in her old apartment was sticky, and when I tried to leave, I panicked because it wouldn’t open.

No matter how many different ways I jiggled the lock and the doorknob, it refused to turn. My hands grew sweaty. I was sure that everyone could hear me on the other side, thinking I was a total loser because I couldn’t operate a doorknob. In hindsight, I’m pretty certain that door was perfectly easy to open. But in my panicked, paranoid state, it remained sealed forever.

Why does this happen? Why do some people freak out and others just chill out?
I tracked down some experts to find the answers.

Breaking the Network

Michael Backes is the author of Cannabis Pharmacy: The Practical Guide to Medical Marijuana.

Years ago, before writing the book, Backes suffered from horrible migraines. He found relief with medical cannabis, but he was frustrated by the lack of information available to most patients.

So when he wasn’t working his day job—Backes was a researcher for Hollywood filmmakers —he became a self-taught expert in all things cannabis.

In some people, cannabis can break the brain's salience network in all the wrong ways.

 

Backes explained that there are several complex networks in the brain that serve to control certain thought processes: the executive network, the default network, and the salience network.

“The executive network is: I’m going to go to Columbia and become a doctor,” he told me.

“And then there’s the default mode network: Breakfast was pretty good. My girlfriend was mean to me.” The salience network, he explained, assigns value and meaning to a person’s perceptions.

“THC breaks that salience network. So what happens is the knock at the door becomes the narc at the door.” An innocent glance turns into surveillance with sinister intent: That person’s looking at me funny.

Or, in my case: The bathroom door won’t open!

As he explains it, a broken salience network means your brain isn’t interpreting normal things correctly. That can make some people anxious. For others, that anxiety ramps way up—“scaling all the way up into full-blown paranoia and even mild hallucinations,” he says. “It actually resembles an acute psychotic episode. They lose the ability to order their thoughts.” This is how otherwise high-functioning adults can end up in the emergency room with cannabis-induced paranoia.

What’s Going on in the Brain?

One of the most puzzling and complex issues surrounding cannabis is the connection, or possible correlation, between marijuana use and mental illness.

It’s generally agreed that some connection exists between cannabis and schizophrenia. Past studies indicate that cannabinoids interact with the triggering mechanism involved with schizophrenia—but exactly how isn’t yet known.

One recent study posited the idea that cannabis use actually followed the emergence of mental illness, as patients attempted to self-medicate with the mind-calming aspects of cannabis. Other studies point to the possibility of early cannabis use hastening—but not causing—the onset of schizophrenic symptoms.

Cannabis and an Underlying Condition

Neuroscientist Thomas Deuel, an assistant professor of Neurology at the University of Washington who practices at the Swedish Neuroscience Institute in Seattle, agrees that cannabis doesn’t cause these illnesses. Rather, he says, it can exacerbate whatever underlying condition is already present—which at the extreme end can be schizophrenia, bipolarity, and depression.

“If you’re smoking a lot of pot, you’re lowering the threshold” for schizophrenia, Deuel said.

Teenagers with an underlying predisposition may hasten the onset of the disease with heavy cannabis use. “Smoking pot might set it off, but it doesn’t cause schizophrenia,” he explained. Schizophrenia typically becomes apparent in the early-to-mid-twenties, an age when many people are trying
cannabis.

Sub-Psychotic Reactions

What about those who aren’t at risk for schizophrenia? Do some people have a greater underlying disposition to react negatively to cannabis use?

Science can’t yet tell us. Deuel says it’s not clear why some of us experience a panic attack when consuming cannabis, and others don’t. “Some people get paranoid and some people don’t,” he says.

“We don’t know why.”

But there are some potential remedies for bad trips, some of which would surprise you and which I’d wish I’d known about years ago.

Pharmaceutical Anxiety Drugs

Deuel said that if someone comes to the ER, if they just appear to be suffering from anxiety, medical professionals might give Ativan or another type of anxiety medication in the benzodiazepines family like Valium to calm them down.

“That will calm people down in terms of anxiety and paranoia, but it’s not a real antidote,” Deuel said, adding that if a person is freaking out they should limit stimulation—a quiet, dimly lit room with friends and familiar faces is best.

A real psychotic break, he said, would require stronger drugs and may take weeks to fade.

What About CBD?

Backes’ tip is to not let the freak out happen in the first place. He suggests pre-dosing with CBD.

A well-worn trope is that today’s cannabis is not your parent’s weed. With the exception of countries that bred cannabis for hashish, most cannabis grown in the last twenty years was high in THC, with little to no CBD present.

There's some good evidence that CBD basically works like the seatbelt for THC.

 

“There’s some evidence to back it up from some good scientists in several countries that CBD basically works like the seatbelt for THC,” Backes says. “And so what happened is when we bred all the CBD out, we basically made the car go really, really fast and removed the seatbelt.”

He recommends pre-dosing with a good amount of CBD—40 to 60 milligrams—before smoking to counteract any effects of the salience network being broken.

During the trip itself, a dose of CBD might help assuage the anxiety, but he cautions, unless you took it beforehand, “You’re kind of on the rollercoaster.”

Dr. Ethan Russo, a neurologist who is the director of research and development for the International Cannabinoids Institute based in Prague, agrees that a better-balanced plant, one with more CBD, can help, but says these should be present in the plant and be better labeled. Russo advocates for better regulation inside the industry, which he deems disappointing. ”Part of the problem is that quality control in the industry is not what it should be,” adding that, “The direction of cannabis production has been for everything to be high in THC and high in myrcene.”

Black Pepper, Lemon, and Pine Nuts: Sounds Tasty

One remedy that Neil Young swears by is black peppercorns. And science seems to bear it out. Russo’s study in the British Journal of Pharmacology found that there’s synergy between cannabis and black pepper. The terpenoids in pepper and the tetrahydrocannabinol in cannabis work together in the brain to create harmony—in medical terms, “phytocannabinoid-terpenoid entourage effect.”

Russo’s research includes chemicals found in lemons, pine nuts, and black pepper, and when these are present in cannabis they can work together to create a high without anxiety or paranoia.

Consider the role of terpenes in your overall experience.

 

“Pinene will eliminate the short term memory impairment that THC produces. Limonene can produce an anti-depressant effect, and linalool can produce an anti-anxiety effect,” he says. A plant with “some THC, some CBD, some linalool, is probably going to be much more tolerable for someone like you— and that’s a lot of people—that tend to get anxious.”

The remedies of lemonade, pepper, and eating pine nuts during or after ingesting cannabis go back thousands of years. “This is traditional knowledge that’s been passed along. Now, in this instance, we got the reports from the ancients about lemon. It was also reported in the 19th century,” Russo says.

Backes and Russo caution against viewing these as a magical solution after the fact: Though it can serve as a way to wake up from the post-pot groggy phase and may help calm you a little bit, it’s not likely to stop the trip in its tracks.

“What we want to do is avoid these bad experiences,” Russo says.

Nothing proven, says Thailand minister, as HIV patient claims cannabis 'cured' her

PHOTO: Pixabay

The Nation/Asia News Network

 

Public Health Minister Piyasakol Sakolsatayadorn has ordered an investigation into claims that cannabis oil "cured" a bed-ridden HIV patient, who has had the virus for over 20 years.

Piyasakol said yesterday that there has been no scientific study indicating that marijuana can be used to cure HIV, the virus that causes acquired immune deficiency syndrome (Aids).

His remarks came after a media report that a bed-ridden HIV patient in Phetchabun province showed signs of improvement after consuming cannabis oil for three weeks. The patient could speak and move more freely, it said, adding that she no longer needed to rely on others for her daily routine.

The minister said he has instructed his Office of Permanent Secretary and Phetchabun's chief public health official to find facts regarding this matter.

"We are not trying to find any fault. We just want to see if it's true. If it is, then there could be some benefit," Piyasakol said, adding that cannabis was found to help relieve pain caused by certain diseases, but there was no scientific evidence proving it can cure HIV.

In Thailand, he said, all HIV patients get anti-retroviral drugs regardless of the healthy cell count in their immune system. As a result, the number of deaths caused by HIV/Aids is "very low" in the country, he added. Also, he said, civic groups and NGOs working on HIV/Aids actively follow up on the patients.

A senior Thai Red Cross official also said yesterday that, so far, there has been no information that cannabis can cure HIV.

Dr Praphan Phanuphak, director of the Thai Red Cross' Aids Research Centre, said he suspects cannabis oil made the patient in Phetchabun feel better. "But I can confirm that there is nothing better than the anti-retroviral drugs to treat HIV," Praphan said. He also warned HIV patients against ditching the anti-retroviral drugs in favour of herbal alternatives like cannabis.

"You may put yourself under risk. Herbs can be used as supplements, but not the main method of treatment," he warned.

Apiwat Kwangkaew, leader of the Network of HIV/Aids Patients in Thailand, said yesterday that marijuana is not a cure-all, adding that the cannabis oil may have improved the symptoms of the HIV patient in areas that were not directly related to the virus.

He suggested that HIV patients should not ditch anti-retroviral drugs for yet to be proven alternative treatments. "You may risk drug resistance, which could lead to difficulties in treating your illness. Things like this have happened before," he added.

The Other Side: Time for feds to reschedule marijuana

By Kelvin Wade

 

Kelvin Wade: The Other Side

I was driving near my house a couple of weeks ago and saw a billboard advertising one of Sacramento’s many marijuana dispensaries. It still blows my mind that the weed I used to surreptitiously purchase in an Armijo bathroom decades ago can be bought by anyone 21 and older walking into one of the various weed stores. (Of course, not in Fairfield. Sorry.)

Despite my championing of medical and recreational marijuana, and despite my dalliances with the plant in my youth, I’ve never been a pothead. Anyone who knows me knows I prefer whiskey if I’m looking to relax. And while I supported Proposition 215, the 1996 Compassionate Use Act that legalized medical marijuana in California, I had no illusions about who the bulk of users would be.

I often wrote that the malady most medical marijuana users were trying to battle was sobriety.

But having been exposed to many people who use marijuana for a variety to illnesses and reading some of the tentative studies, America’s favorite Schedule l drug seems to have quite a few curative properties.

In a study published this week in the American Journal of Psychiatry cannabidiol, or CBD, a chemical derived from cannabis, has shown to be helpful in the treatment of heroin addiction. CBD reduced cravings for heroin and calmed anxiety for up to seven days after use. Using one illicit drug to help corral the addiction of another seems almost too good to be true. But it’s not the only study that shows this promise.

Having been someone treated with various opioids like morphine for years, I’ve recently began using cannabis for chronic pain and the results have been positive.

But I could write column after column filled with anecdotal stories. What we need, and the researchers behind the latest study say they need, is for marijuana to be rescheduled so it can be studied in depth.

Research on tetrahydrocannabinol, or THC, CBD and other cannabinoids is hampered by the fact that the federal government still classifies marijuana in the same schedule as heroin. It doesn’t take a scientist to realize that these two drugs, their effects and addiction rate are nothing alike and marijuana retains its demonized status as a carryover from the reefer madness days. Researchers need that change to study them thoroughly.

It was a failure of President Barack Obama not to reschedule marijuana, believing he didn’t have the authority to order the Food and Drug Administration to reclassify the drug. It was more lack of political cover than political ability. Fortunately in this case, we have a president who could be the one to take that step. Telling Donald Trump that he could do something that Obama failed to do should be all the incentive he needs.

We need facts involving marijuana and chemicals derived from cannabis. We need to know what therapeutic properties it has and we also need to know the hazards. Too many pot advocates dismiss any negative properties but the science is the science and we need all the facts.

Right now many companies are pushing CBD oils and creams and making all sorts of claims about its curative powers that have not been tested or substantiated. There’s a lot of anecdotal evidence out there but what we need is peer-reviewed scientific studies so we can weed out (pun intended) the quacks looking to make a fast buck on people’s ignorance. We need those results so sick people aren’t sold false hope.

The World Health Organization has called for this change internationally and the United Nations is also tackling this issue. Why don’t we lead the way?

This isn’t a partisan political issue. Marijuana is used therapeutically and recreationally by a wide swath of Americans. Putting pressure on our representatives to reschedule and study marijuana will hopefully – eventually – lead to federal decriminalization of a much-maligned substance. Peace.

Thailand’s Government Amends Law for the Production, Distribution and Possession of Marijuana

By Editor

Under the new ministerial regulation adopted yesterday, seven conditions are laid out to permit the possession of cannabis, as well as its production and delivery.

BANGKOK – Thailand’s cabinet yesterday fleshed out regulatory details for the production, distribution and possession of marijuana, months after the longstanding narcotics law was amended to allow the production and possession of cannabis for medical purposes.


The amended law was broadly stated, leading the Public Health Ministry to add detailed conditions and forward them for Cabinet approval

Under the new ministerial regulation adopted yesterday, seven conditions are laid out to permit the possession of cannabis, as well as its production and delivery.

First, it must be used for medical purposes. Second, it must be for medical, scientific or drug-related research. Third, it must not undermine narcotics crime-suppression work and related international cooperation. Fourth, marijuana products can be exported. Fifth and sixth, the activities for drug production must be for “special cases” and patients must be under the care of registered and traditional medical practitioners. And last, local and foreign |travellers within Thailand can have access to medical marijuana.



Previously, the ministry had issued two regulations related to the qualification for traditional medical practitioners, as well as for approval of traditional drug formulas containing marijuana. The latter was intended to clear up murky areas concerning traditional practices using marijuana for medical purposes, one of the most controversial points in the amendment.

Maj-General Atisit Chainuwat, a member of the PM’s Office spokesperson team, said the Interior Ministry had suggested that a campaign be implemented to raise public awareness and knowledge about the pros and cons of marijuana, as well as to better understand the new regulations.

The Commerce Ministry, meanwhile, suggested that monitoring and regulatory mechanisms be used to prevent misuse of the plant.

The Mental Health Department is also planning to join other agencies to study the impact marijuana use can have on health as well as marijuana-based drugs to treat mental illnesses.



Dr Kiattiphum Wongrajit, the department chief, said it’s widely accepted that chemicals extracted from marijuana can be medically beneficial, but each chemical has a different intensity and has varying effects on people’s health and mental state. THC, for instance, can have a potentially negative affect on mental health, while CBD can work in an opposite fashion. Hence, drug formulas for different illnesses need different amounts of these chemicals, which is why patients should be under the care of doctors.

The department has learned that the number of people addicted to marijuana had risen from 2,127 in 2017 to 2,612 last year. In the first four months of this year, 1,468 marijuana addicts were undergoing treatment for psychosis, paranoia, laughing fits and other conditions.

Congresswoman Presses Homeland Security Head On Anti-Marijuana Immigration Policy

By Kyle Jaeger

A Nevada congresswoman challenged the acting head of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) on Thursday over a recent memo explaining that immigrants who work at state-legal marijuana businesses may be ineligible for citizenship.

Rep. Dina Titus (D-NV) argued during a hearing of the House Homeland Security Committee that the cannabis industry is tightly regulated, meaning that employees must generally meet higher standards than in most other businesses. It’s therefore questionable, she said, that DHS regards naturalization applicants who’ve worked in the legal marijuana market as having insufficient “good moral character”  for approval.

“If we use that term, there may be some people involved in legal political activities that lack ‘good moral character’ based on some of our judgement,” she said.

DHS Acting Secretary Kevin McAleenan, who also serves as the commissioner of Customers and Border Protection, told Titus that he’s “actually not familiar with that decision process,” referring to the memo released by U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) last month. “But I can certainly look into it and get back to you.”

“Obviously there’s a difference of viewpoint in the enforcement of marijuana laws between the federal and some of the emerging state jurisdictions,” McAleenan said. “But it’s something that I’ll look at.”

Lawmakers are already moving forward with legislative attempts to reform federal policies as they apply to immigrants, visitors and cannabis.

For example, the House Judiciary Committee approved immigration legislation on Wednesday that includes provisions protecting immigrants who were brought to the U.S. as children and who engaged in cannabis-related activities made legal in the state where they took place from being denied permanent resident status.

A bill filed by Rep. Earl Blumenauer (D-OR) earlier this month aims to resolve problems visitors coming from countries that have legalized cannabis may face when attempting to enter the U.S. The legislation would make it so visitors from Canada who work in the country’s legal marijuana market, for example, wouldn’t be barred from entry.

Cabinet approves seven conditions for regulation of marijuana

File photo

By THE NATION

THE CABINET yesterday fleshed out regulatory details for the production, distribution and possession of marijuana, months after the longstanding narcotics law was amended to allow the production and possession of cannabis for medical purposes.

The amended law was broadly stated, leading the Public Health Ministry to add detailed conditions and forward them for Cabinet approval

Under the new ministerial regulation adopted yesterday, seven conditions are laid out to permit the possession of cannabis, as well as its production and delivery.

First, it must be used for medical purposes. Second, it must be for medical, scientific or drug-related research. Third, it must not undermine narcotics crime-suppression work and related international cooperation. Fourth, marijuana products can be exported. Fifth and sixth, the activities for drug production must be for “special cases” and patients must be under the care of registered and traditional medical practitioners. And last, local and foreign |travellers within Thailand can have access to medical marijuana.

Previously, the ministry had issued two regulations related to the qualification for traditional medical practitioners, as well as for approval of traditional drug formulas containing marijuana. The latter was intended to clear up murky areas concerning traditional practices using marijuana for medical purposes, one of the most controversial points in the amendment.

Maj-General Atisit Chainuwat, a member of the PM’s Office spokesperson team, said the Interior Ministry had suggested that a campaign be implemented to raise public awareness and knowledge about the pros and cons of marijuana, as well as to better understand the new regulations.

The Commerce Ministry, meanwhile, suggested that monitoring and regulatory mechanisms be used to prevent misuse of the plant.

The Mental Health Department is also planning to join other agencies to study the impact marijuana use can have on health as well as marijuana-based drugs to treat mental illnesses.

 Dr Kiattiphum Wongrajit, the department chief, said it’s widely accepted that chemicals extracted from marijuana can be medically beneficial, but each chemical has a different intensity and has varying effects on people’s health and mental state. THC, for instance, can have a potentially negative affect on mental health, while CBD can work in an opposite fashion. Hence, drug formulas for different illnesses need different amounts of these chemicals, which is why patients should be under the care of doctors.

The department has learned that the number of people addicted to marijuana had risen from 2,127 in 2017 to 2,612 last year. In the first four months of this year, 1,468 marijuana addicts were undergoing treatment for psychosis, paranoia, laughing fits and other conditions.

New York Launches Final Bid for Adult-Use Legalization in 2019

Max Savage Levenson

Despite a recent chorus of skepticism, New York legislators are mounting a final bid for an adult-use cannabis bill before the current legislative session ends on June 19.

If this effort fails, legislators probably won't have another shot at adult-use legalization for at least two years.

 

Last Friday, a group of State Senators unveiled Bill 1527A, which aims to merge the progressive Marijuana Regulation and Taxation Act (MRTA)—which has been introduced several times since 2013—with the legislation that failed to pass as part of this fiscal year’s budget.

Although Governor Cuomo has recently stated that he won’t use his political clout to persuade on-the-fence lawmakers to support the bill, the bill’s compromises may be enough to convince him to “twist arms.” 1527A presents a sort of final shot at legalization for the moment; if it fails to pass, it’s unlikely that legislators will have another stab at cannabis for at least two years.

Merging Two Bills

According to state Sen. Liz Krueger, who represents parts of Manhattan and is an original sponsor of MRTA, 1527A picks up where the legislation proposed during the budget talks left off. “We’ve attempted to take all of the negotiated agreements that took place during budget negotiations and expand our bill,” she said.

The personal possession limit would drop from two pounds to three ounces.

 

“You should be willing to use the art of compromise to come up with something that gets you to your goal,” added Democratic Majority Leader Crystal Peoples-Stokes, who sponsored the bill in the State Assembly.

The revised bill greatly expands of the Office of Cannabis Management, a regulatory body proposed by Gov. Cuomo. In the new bill, that office will oversee virtually every facet of the recreational cannabis market, the state’s medical cannabis program, and the state’s hemp and CBD markets as well.

The bill limits the amount of cannabis an individual can possess. While the original legislation put a cap at two pounds, 1527A lowers the maximum to three ounces.

Furthermore, it also includes a tax hike. Each gram of cannabis would now be taxed at a rate of one dollar, versus the previous proposal of 62 cents.

Social Justice Measures

1527A retains many of the progressive measures for social equity that have long been central to MRTA. The new bill preserves its mission of “significant dedicated investment in communities most harmed by marijuana prohibition, equity in the industry, permitting individuals to grow cannabis for personal use, and addressing past criminal convictions,” says Peoples-Stokes.

Instead of merely sealing the records of individuals with cannabis-related charges—a process in which the record still exists—the new bill will ensure that those individuals will have their records fully erased, or expunged. That decision will have significant impact on thousands of people seeking jobs or housing, and provide particular relief to communities of color. The bill arrives on the heels of a new report that shows that between 2010 to 2018, 81% of people arrested for low-level marijuana possession in the upstate city of Rochester were black. According to the 2010 census, black people make up 42% of Rochester’s population.

No Custody Penalty

The new bill also addresses the frequent (and already illegal) use of cannabis as a justification to separate low-income and minority children from their parents, a practice that has recently been brought to light by WNYC and further documented by Leafly. “It is the intent of this act that no child shall be the subject of a child neglect or abuse investigation or proceeding based solely on a parent’s alleged marihuana use, or activity made lawful by this act,” reads the bill. “A newborn child’s positive toxicology result for marihuana, is not sufficient on its own to support a finding of child neglect or abuse.”

Finally, while the original bill put an emphasis on giving licenses to individuals with prior cannabis-related convictions, 1527A expands that category to include any individual who “had a parent, guardian, child, spouse, or dependent, or was a dependent of an individual” affected by the war on drugs.

A Political Chess Game

Legislators including Krueger believe that the bill currently doesn’t currently have enough support to pass in the Senate, so she’s hoping the bill will pass in the State Assembly first, giving it momentum and a fighting chance in the Senate.

“Then I can try to make the case that people who might have been scared away when it dropped out of the budget should come back to vote for it,” Krueger said.

If lawmakers end the legislative session in June without approving a bill, she added, they will have “flunked the assignment.”

Backup: An Expanded Medical Bill

In the midst of the revised adult-use bill, State Senators Diane Savino and Richard Gottfried have cooked up an expanded medical bill that, if 1527A fails to pass, could provide a stopgap measure for the state’s stunted cannabis industry.

New York’s current medical program is meager at best. There are only 100,000 patients (in a state of nearly 20 million people) and only ten companies have licenses to sell medical cannabis. The updated bill loosens the language around qualifying conditions; it eliminates terms like “serious” and “severe debilitating or life threatening,” and allows a doctor to certify a patient to use cannabis regardless of whether any of the qualifying conditions apply.

Furthermore, the medical bill would double the number of dispensaries each licensed company is allowed to operate. The current law only allows for the sale of tinctures and oils; the new bill would finally legalize cannabis flower.

“One of the things that’s been abundantly clear from the very beginning is that this was a narrow program that only served a small number of patients,” Savino said. “We saw some improvements over the years, but now we’re trying to really close those remaining gaps.”

Cannabis Extracts Are Legal, Arizona High Court Rules

Leafly Staff

(tonda/iStock)

This story has been updated.


PHOENIX — The Arizona Supreme Court has ruled medical marijuana patients are protected from arrest for possessing cannabis extracts as long as they don’t have more of the drug than allowed.

The unanimous decision Tuesday concluded cardholders are immunized because extracts such as cannabis oil and hashish are considered marijuana under the state’s 2010 voter-approved medical marijuana law.

The state's highest court gave prosecutors and previous courts a bit of a spanking in Tuesday's ruling.

The ruling reversed a lower court decision that found patients faced arrest for hashish possession because the drug isn’t mentioned or included by name in the law.

The case, which for years has put Arizona’s entire medical cannabis industry and 184,000 patients in a kind of limbo, began in March 2013. Rodney Jones, a registered medical marijuana patient, was arrested for possessing 1.4 grams of hashish.

‘All Parts of the Plant’

Prosecutors argued that the 2010 Arizona Medical Marijuana Act (AMMA) did not protect Jones, because hashish and other cannabis extracts did not qualify as “marijuana” under the language of the initiative. Marijuana, they contended, only referred to cannabis flower and leaf.

Jones was convicted and sentenced to 2 1/2 years in prison.

His appeals were denied by subsequent courts, leaving the Arizona Supreme Court as his last, best hope.

The state Supreme Court, in its ruling issued Tuesday morning, gave prosecutors and previous courts a bit of a spanking. From the outset, the justices made clear in their ruling that because the AMMA was passed by voter initiative, their primary objective would be to “give effect to the intent of the electorate.”

“The most reliable indicator of that intent,” wrote the court’s majority, “is the language of the statute, and if it is clear and unambiguous, we apply its plain meaning.”

The AMMA permits those who meet certain qualifying conditions to use medical marijuana without fear of arrest and prosecution. The initiative defined marijuana to mean “all parts of any plant of the genus Cannabis whether growing or not, and the seeds of such plant.”

Prosecutors and subsequent appeals courts had argued that the term “marijuana” meant only the leaf, seeds, stem, and flower of the plant—not extracts such as hashish or cannabis oil. That narrowed definition put entire categories of medical cannabis products in legal peril.

“We actually saw a lot of anxiety from some of our most vulnerable patients,” Moe Asnani, owner of The Downtown Dispensary in Tucson, told Leafly following Tuesday’s ruling.

Prosecutors won in previous cases because lower courts agreed that the AMMA’s definition of “marijuana” must conform to the word as defined by Arizona’s previously passed criminal code.

That code separated the leafy aspects of the cannabis plant from the more refined category of extracts.

The code was written so long ago that “hashish” was the only extract in existence at the time.

“The word ‘all,’ one of the most comprehensive words in the English language, means exactly that.”

 

Today’s Arizona Supreme Court ruling blew that reasoning out of the water.

“AMMA defines ‘marijuana’ as ‘all parts of [the] plant,’” the high court found. “The word ‘all,’ one of the most comprehensive words in the English language, means exactly that.”

In other words: All marijuana is legal for patients means all marijuana is legal for patients.

Again and again, the high court shot down state prosecutors’ contention that the AMMA does not apply to resin, hashish, or other extracts. The justices said they were “unpersuaded” by the argument that the AMMA limits cannabis use to dried flower.

And finally, for Rodney Jones, the best news of all: The Supreme Court vacated his conviction and sentence.

‘Pride and Reckless Disrespect’

“The Jones case has been the single most important issue in Arizona marijuana for the past year,” said Mikel Weisser, head of the Arizona chapter of NORML, which submitted a friend-of-the-court brief in the case.

Many cannabis advocates saw Jones’ arrest as an overreach by police intent . Concentrates are already widely sold by state-licensed dispensaries and commonly consumed by medical cardholders, who often prefer cannabis oils to smoking. But some in politics and law enforcement still vociferously oppose legalization, and the arrest of Jones was seen by many as an effort by cannabis opponents to hobble the state system.

“This case was about the pride and reckless disrespect for law and human suffering exhibited by Sheila Polk, the Yavapai County prosecutor who pushed this case for five years and then didn’t have the integrity to even show up for the Supreme Court hearing,” Weisser told Leafly. “We pray Arizona law enforcement will take a lesson and learn to respect the lives of the sick people who participate in our medical marijuana program.”

Demitri Downing, founder and director of the Arizona Marijuana Industry Trade Association, said dispensaries in the state saw a rush of patients stocking up on extract products during the Memorial Day weekend, concerned the ruling might go the other way. Luckily, “the Supreme Court saw through the nonsense and came up with a ruling that works well for patients and the industry,” he added.

“It’s important, because many patients have, through personal experience, found the modalities that work best for them, whether it’s vaping concentrates, flower, or edibles,” Downing explained.

“So taking away the entire category of extracts would be effectively taking away their medicine.”

Too Natural for Naturalization: Even Decriminalized Marijuana Can be a Bar to US Citizenship

Seyfarth Shaw LLP

As a number of states and the District of Columbia have moved to permit possession, use and sale of marijuana for both medicinal and recreational purposes and the business of legalized cannabis distribution has grown exponentially, federal law banning such activity remains unchanged.

Deeming the trend in state law irrelevant, federal immigration authorities have in fact moved in the opposite direction. Last month, on April 19, US Citizenship and Immigration Services announced policy guidance “to clarify that violations of federal controlled substance law, including violations involving marijuana, are generally a bar to establishing good moral character for naturalization, even where that conduct would not be an offense under state law.” (uscis-issues-policy-guidance-clarifying-how-federal-controlled-substances-law-applies-naturalization-determinations)

Immigration regulations impose a requirement on applicants to become U.S. citizens to establish “good moral character” (GMC) in order to be approved to take the oath of naturalization. 8 C.F.R. § 316.10(a). As a general matter, violations of the Controlled Substance Act (CSA) trigger a “conditional bar,” a non-temporary but waiveable bar to naturalization. Chapter 5, Section C of the USCIS Policy Manual, which provides guidance to immigration officers on the application of the controlled substances bar, has been updated to state that the conditional GMC bar applies regardless of state law decriminalizing marijuana.

This guidance asserts that marijuana remains classified as a Schedule I controlled substance under the CSA, further noting that Schedule I substances do not have any “accepted medical use pursuant to the CSA.” Marijuana offenses under federal law arise with possession, production or distribution of the substance. Moreover, such activity remains a crime under federal law regardless of the legality of the activity under state law, and regardless of whether the use of marijuana is for recreational or medicinal purposes. USCIS Policy Manual, Chapter 5 Section C.3.

Depending on the specific facts of a naturalization case, such activities, whether established by a conviction or an admission by the applicant, may preclude a finding of GMC. The Policy Manual does recognize an exception to the conditional bar if the violation established was for a single offense of simple possession of 30 g or less of marijuana. This exception also extends to paraphernalia offenses involving controlled substances as long as the paraphernalia offense is related to simple possession of 30 g or less of marijuana.

Additionally, the Policy Manual guidance likely signals a stricter approach not just for naturalization applicants, but for applicants for temporary visas and green cards as well.

Applicants for naturalization, and their attorneys or representatives should recognize that a conviction for a marijuana-related CSA violation could well operate as a long-term bar to naturalization.

Admission of marijuana use – even in the absence of a conviction, and even if relatively infrequent and/or for medicinal purposes — can trigger the conditional bar to establishing good moral character and thereby block an otherwise qualified candidate from attaining U.S. citizenship.

7 jaw-dropping facts about the US Cannabis industry

by Raghav

image source: The Motley Fool               

Despite being federally illegal, cannabis has taken the United States by storm. The drug is now legal for medicinal use in as many as 33 states and for recreational purposes in 10.

Besides generating $52 billion in sales (2018), the industry is expected to post a 76% increase in cannabis jobs this year.

Given below are a few facts about the cannabis industry in the US that are sure to make your jaw drop:

The cannabis industry employs 5 times as many Americans as the coal industry

At least 250,000 people are presently employed in the cannabis industry – and these are just the people who are directly involved with handling marijuana plants, suggests a report from New Frontier Data, a cannabis data-analysis and market-research firm.

On the other hand, the coal industry employed just 52,300 people in 2018.

A County in Colorado made a whopping $35 million off marijuana in 2016

According to a report published in the Denver Post, Pueblo County in Colorado generated roughly $58 million in revenue through cannabis sales in 2016. Removing the additional costs of law enforcement and social services, which total to $23 million, Pueblo made a profit of nearly $35 million.

This is quite a surprising figure considering the fact that Pueblo County’s population is no more than 200,000.

The cannabis industry could soon surpass the GDP of a few US States

The legal cannabis industry’s economic impact in the US was between $20 billion and $23 billion in 2017, reports Marijuana Business Factbook. MBF also projects that the economic impact could reach as high as $77 billion by 2022.

These numbers are comparable to the GDPs of West Virginia and Idaho – both, according to the Bureau of Economic Analysis, were just a tick over $77 billion last year. Furthermore, if the cannabis economic impact reaches the projected figure in 2022, it will surpass the GDP’s of North and South Dakota, Alaska and Delaware.

Investors poured over $10 billion into the North American cannabis industry in 2018

A report by news agency The Associated Press says that entrepreneurs invested over $10 billion in the North American marijuana industry last year.

Notably, this figure is twice the total amount invested in 2015, ’16 and ’17 combined. Experts suggest that the number could increase to $16 billion in 2019.

The median marijuana salary is 10% higher than the US median salary

As per Glassdoor, the median salary in the marijuana industry, in 2018, was $58,511. In the same year, the median salary for US workers as a whole was calculated at $52,863. That’s, in fact, a difference of 10.7%!

Sales of legal marijuana were more than those of Oreo and Organic produce combined!

Reportedly, $6 billion worth of legal marijuana was sold in the year 2017. Interestingly, the figure is more than the combined sales of organic produce ($4.8 billion) and Oreo ($700 million).

‘Marijuana policing’ cost Americans $3.6 billion from 2001-2010

Over 8 million people were arrested in the US in the first decade of 2000s, according to American Civil Liberties Union Data. Thus, the US government spent nearly $3.6 billion on law-enforcement costs.

Canadian cannabis company funds digital tools to fight underage marijuana abuse

By Alexandra Mazur

Canopy Growth, based out of Smiths Falls, Ont., has funded a project that has created digital tools aimed at stopping teen cannabis use.
Getty Images

One of Canada’s largest cannabis companies, Canopy Growth, has partnered with drug awareness organizations to create digital tools aimed at curbing drug abuse among young people.

The cannabis company, based out of Smiths Falls, Ont., has partnered with Parent Action on Drugs and Canadian Students for Sensible Drug Policy to create an educational chatbot and text-messaging system that is meant to help youth, parents and educators talk frankly about cannabis use.

According to Hilary Black, CAO of Canopy Growth, the partnership began two years ago before recreational cannabis use was legalized.

Black says the company understood that legalization would bring up concerns about the potential for young people to use and abuse the drug.

“We have a tremendous responsibility to make sure those who may be at risk when using the drug are not using it,” said Black.

This is why Canopy Growth offered two unrestricted grants to Parent Action on Drugs and Canadian Students for Sensible Drug Policy to create the digital programs launched on Tuesday.

One of the grants went to Dr. Jenna Valleriani, strategic adviser for Canadian Students for Sensible Drug Policy, who helped shape the educational material behind the digital programs through the Sensible Education toolkit, which offers evidence-based cannabis education guidelines geared towards youth.

The second grant when to Parent Action on Drugs, which implemented the toolkit through the chatbot and text message program.

The chatbot can be found on the Parent Action on Drugs website and is aimed at engaging parents and youth to prevent early use and abuse of cannabis.

Jane McCarthy, manager of program development at Parent Action on Drugs, said the organization wanted to provide parents and youth with an interactive experience that would spark open and honest conversation about cannabis use.

The chatbot offers three different activities for those interested in chatting.

The first is a game of charades — when the term given is guessed, the bot spits out educational tips like the following: “Combining alcohol and weed can increase the effects of both drugs and the risk for alcohol poisoning, which can be deadly. Bottom line: alcohol and weed are a bad combo!”

The chatbot on the Parent Action on Drugs website allows parents to play interactive games with their children to help open up the conversation about cannabis.
 

Parent Action on Drugs

 

The other two games the chatbot offers are question-and-answer chats or scenario-based conversations, which are designed to facilitate conversations between those using the program.
The text-messaging system developed is geared toward young adults and teens from 15 to 21 years of age.


It’s a compliment to the Parent Action on Drugs What’s with Weed? campaign, which encourages young people to ask themselves questions about cannabis use and consumption.

Those interested can go to the website and subscribe to the automated text messages, which will be then be delivered once a day for 54 days. The texts can include facts about how weed affects the body, cannabis laws, tips for reducing risks and safer use, questions to reflect upon cannabis use, alternative approaches to coping with stress and messages of support for cutting down or quitting.

According to McCarthy, the What’s with Weed? campaign is geared towards youth who use cannabis or those who may be concerned about their use but has also been broadened to appeal to anyone interested in learning more about cannabis use.

WATCH: An explainer on the health effects of cannabis
Neither Canopy Growth nor Parent Action on Drugs would disclose the amount of funding given to support the digital education campaigns, but according to Joanne Brown, program director at the drug awareness organization, Canopy Growth gave a substantial amount of money that allowed the organization to develop a program she feels will really hit home with youth.

“Digital tools are expensive to develop,” said Brown. She added that if it weren’t for Canopy Growth’s involvement, the organization definitely wouldn’t have been able to develop digital tools with this level of sophistication.