Marijuana Articles, Research and Data

• study
• second hand smoke

The main finding was that when rats were exposed to secondhand smoke from marijuana for one minute, their arteries became less efficient at carrying enough blood for at least 90 minutes, whereas similar exposure to secondhand smoke from tobacco caused impairment that fully recovered within 30 minutes (exposure to clean air in the exposure chamber did not cause impairment). (It is important to understand that arteries of rats and humans are similar in how they respond to tobacco smoke, so the response of rat arteries to marijuana smoke is expected to be a valid indication of how human arteries respond to marijuana smoke.)

• drug free workplace
• construction
• workplace
• Business
• Employees
• OSHA

Marijuana’s Negative Effects
Construction workers must have full use of their skills and faculties while performing their jobs. Medical marijuana may have positive medical benefits, but there are also well-documented negative effects. Some negative effects to the central nervous system include changes in sensory perception, altered thought formation and expression, short-term memory problems, and impaired thinking and learning. Negative physical effects include impaired motor performance, loss of balance and coordination, decreased attentiveness and alertness, prolonged response time to stimuli and danger, decreased ability to judge distance and space, and impaired ability to perform complex tasks.

The Leon County School District says, for the time being, they wont allow school nurses to administer the medication or hold medical marijuana in schools until the district gets more guidance from the state and DOE.
NOT A PRESCRIPTION

• Indian River
• Ban
• County commissioner

Indian River County joined many governments across the state banning dispensaries rather than accepting them as pharmacies, the only other option allowed in a state law adopted this summer.

• opioid

The largest increases in opioid-related deaths in Florida from 2014 to 2015 were from the following drugs: Buprenorphine (up 102 percent), heroin (up 74 percent), fentanyl (up 69 percent), codeine (up 57 percent), and Oxymorphone (up 42 percent).

• workplace

: A "clear, steady upward trend in illness/disability as reason for not working among prime-age adults. And even more striking, the level and trend are very similar for men and women, even though most of the attention on this issue is going to men."

• crime
• denver
• Colorado

Since the legalization of recreational marijuana in Colorado in 2013 traffic related marijuana deaths have increased 48%, marijuana related emergency room visits have increased 49%, and marijuana related calls to the poison center have increased 100%. According to the Colorado Bureau of Investigation in 2015 statewide homicides in Colorado rose 14.7% over the previous year.
Pueblo, Colorado had the highest homicide rate with 11.1 killings per 100,000 residents. Aurora, Colorado’s homicide rate more than doubled from 2014. Additionally, more places in Colorado were robbed and more thefts occurred, especially vehicle theft. A total of 193,115 vehicles were reported stolen, up 27.7% in 2015 from the previous year. In 2015, sexual assaults rose 10% in Colorado with Denver, Aurora, Lakewood, Westminster, and Pueblo all reporting higher numbers as well. The letter also notes:
In the city of Denver since the legalization of recreational marijuana the number of crimes in Denver has grown by about 44%, according to annual figures the city reported to the National Incident Based Reporting System. In 2015 in Denver alone crime rose in every neighborhood in the city. The murder rate hit a decade high, 1059 more cars were broken into, there were 903 more auto thefts, 321 more aggravated assaults and 2321 more homes were broken into compared to 2014.

• crime
• california
• denver

Crime is common near pot shops, including assaults, robberies and shootings. On July 19, a security guard was killed and three other men were shot at a pot shop in L.A. during an attempted robbery. Gangs and drug dealers don’t view marijuana dispensaries as pharmacies. Rather, they see them as rival drug dealers.
When pot shops open in a business district, complaints of the business neighbors are numerous. Fights, drug use and street drug dealing increase in the area. This, in turn, affects the type of clientele in the area for neighboring businesses.
It is well known that homelessness has increased in Denver and Seattle after legalization. Also, drug dealing dramatically increases law enforcement costs. The San Diego Association of Governments published a report finding that 52% of males arrested tested positive for marijuana in 2015. Thirty-five percent reported committing crimes to support a drug habit.
The Denver district attorney warned in 2016 that every type of crime there increased after marijuana legalization: “The Denver Police Department is busier enforcing marijuana laws and investigating crimes directly related to marijuana, including murders, robberies and home invasions, than any other time in the history of the city.”
And it can get even worse. Pot industry profits are used to buy political influence.

• Oregon
• car crashes
• Fatalities

“The facts of the accident included Mr. Siegler being the driver of a vehicle while under the influence of marijuana,” the Sheriff’s Office said in a press release. “He subsequently crossed the center lane of travel striking another oncoming vehicle.
Siegler was arrested at his home in rural Rochester and booked into the Thurston County Jail.
Siegler referenced the crash and apparent remorse in a June 30 post on his Facebook page, saying he wanted to pay his respects and that “she deserved better than what happened.”
“I swear I'll live my life for you and your family,” he wrote. “I owe it to you. I'm so sorry. I hope to see you one day in heaven, no matter how much I don't deserve it right now, I just hope you can forgive me. I'm sorry in a way I could never describe. I may not have known you. But I love you and all that you've taught me in this short amount of time.”

• overdose
• tampa

They say they took their daughter to counseling, rehab summer camps, anything to help with her marijuana use and mental health struggles. The day before her overdose, she had passed two drug tests.  Her parents thought they had finally turned a corner.

• academics
• Netherlands
• access
• college graduation
• education

The research on more than 4,000 students, published in the Review of Economic Studies, found that those who lost access to legal marijuana showed substantial improvement in their grades. Specifically, those banned from cannabis cafes had a more than 5 percent increase in their odds of passing their courses. Low performing students benefited even more, which the researchers noted is particularly important because these students are at high-risk of dropping out. The researchers attribute their results to the students who were denied legal access to marijuana being less likely to use it and to suffer cognitive impairments (e.g., in concentration and memory) as a result.

• Michigan
• Fatalities
• car crashes

Drug users now cause almost as many traffic deaths in Michigan as drunken drivers, a trend police blame on prescription drugs, the opioid epidemic and the easy availability of marijuana, medical and otherwise.
Over the past decade, fatal drunken-driving crashes across the state are down 36%, while those caused by people impaired by drugs have risen 263%.

• science daily

"Though the results do not show a direct causal link, it's important to note that even though most people think marijuana isn't harmful, it may have severe consequences for some people's functioning, education and mood," Forbes said. "While that may seem unimportant at age 20, the level of education you receive will likely have a huge effect on your quality of life and socioeconomic status later in adulthood."

• CUD
• Cannabie-use disorder
• study

Abstract

Contemporary models of substance use disorders emphasize the role of cognitive control, which has been linked to difficulties in resisting the use of substances. In the present study, we measured two aspects of cognitive control, response inhibition (operationalized by a Go/NoGo Task) and performance monitoring (operationalized by an Eriksen Flanker Task), in a group of young cannabis-use disorder (CUD) patients and compared these functions with two control groups (i.e. a group of cigarette smokers and a group of non-smokers). We employed both behavioural and electrophysiological measures. The results indicate that CUD patients displayed reduced NoGo-P3 event-related potentials compared with non-smoking controls, but not compared with smoking controls. In addition, CUD patients were slower on Go trials than both control groups. No other between-group electrophysiological or behavioural differences were observed. These results seem to suggest that CUD patients have problems related to response inhibition, but performance monitoring seems relatively unaffected.

• Overdoses
• Family Council

As we keep saying, marijuana may be many things, but “harmless” simply is not one of them.
59 articles on harms of marijuana

• judges
• National Judicial College
• Drug Court

A sample of the comments (all left anonymously):

• “I’ve never sentenced a cocaine or heroin addict that didn’t start with marijuana.”
• “90 percent of felons I ever sentenced started their journey to addiction with marijuana.”
• “As a drug court judge, almost every one of my participants, when asked, stated marijuana was their gateway drug.”
• “I have been assigned to drug cases for 11 years and was a police officer for 32 years. Every conversation I had with people on hard drugs, they always started with marijuana. Why do we want to do this with our citizens?”

• fentanyl

She did not specify how many cases involved marijuana mixed with a synthetic opiate.
“Essentially, the message we’ve tried to get out there, is if you are using any form of street drugs, count on them having some form of synthetic opioid mixed in,” Samarco said.
Samarco added that it is nearly impossible to tell which drugs are mixed with a synthetic opiate.
“We can’t tell you for sure until we test the blood of someone who has died or any of the drugs seized by law enforcement,” she added.
Samarco gave a dire warning to all street drug users.
“Just don’t use it. That’s all we can tell you, and we can’t say it enough.”

• Collier
• Ban
• Amendment 2

"It's tied our hands in my opinion," said Commissioner Penny Taylor, who said she wants to ban dispensaries from Collier County. "It's just the lack of local control. We have certainly the folks that need this for their illness, but we have the whole community at large to think about. That’s the big picture." 

• study
• Georgia State University
• Metabolic Syndrome

“Duration of marijuana use seems to be a significant factor associated with metabolic syndrome,” the researchers said.
Metabolic syndrome is a cluster of symptoms that increase a person’s risk for heart disease, stroke and diabetes.
The study found that “every year increase in marijuana use is associated with at least a 5 percent increase in odds of having metabolic syndrome.”

• fatal
• Teen

“His consistent use of marijuana affected his brain structure,” Gomez-Mallada said.  But Cox ruled: “The court finds there is little possibility of rehabilitation. The defendant is a danger.” Marshall’s accomplice, Henry, has pleaded guilty to second-degree murder and is scheduled for sentencing in July.