Marijuana Articles, Research and Data

• opinion
• snake oil
• Neese

Contrary to what you've been told over and over, it is not a preposterous assertion that marijuana is a gateway drug to cocaine, heroin, meth and such. Not everybody who smokes marijuana graduates to harder narcotics, true. But most of those who do go on to the harder stuff start off with weed.
Video on Snake Oil

• Florida

• resource

• Vaping
• Georgia
• adolescent

A Paulding County student collapsed and nearly died after taking a hit off a vape pen. The dramatic scene unfolded in front of a class when the South Paulding High School student collapsed and stopped breathing.
 
*** This is exactly why we need to raise the age for purchasing these products to 21... give our youth a chance.

• study
• Brain
• aging
• science daily

The study found that a number of brain disorders and behaviors predicted accelerated aging, especially schizophrenia, which showed an average of 4 years of premature aging, cannabis abuse (2.8 years of accelerated aging), bipolar disorder (1.6 years accelerated aging), ADHD (1.4 years accelerated aging) and alcohol abuse (0.6 years accelerated aging). Interestingly, the researchers did not observe accelerated aging in depression and aging, which they hypothesize may be due to different types of brain patterns for these disorders.

• Research
• study
• Lancet
• Potency
• Psychosis

In conclusion, our findings confirm previous evidence of the harmful effect on mental health of daily use of cannabis, especially of high-potency types. Importantly, they indicate for the first time how cannabis use affects the incidence of psychotic disorder. Therefore, it is of public health importance to acknowledge alongside the potential medicinal properties of some cannabis constituents the potential adverse effects that are associated with daily cannabis use, especially of high-potency varieties.

• study
• Potency
• Lancet
• Psychosis

The study authors consider high-potency cannabis to be products with more than 10 percent tetrahydrocannabinol or THC, the compound responsible for the drug's psychoactive effects. The fact that consuming high-THC cannabis products has a greater risk is concerning, Lisdahl says, because these products are more common in the market now.

Now a new study published Tuesday in the The Lancet Psychiatry shows that consuming pot on a daily basis and especially using high-potency cannabis increases the odds of having a psychotic episode later.

• adolescence
• Florida

Adolescent Marijuana Use increases in Florida

• San Francisco
• california
• feces

In 2011, just over 5,500 reports were logged by the San Francisco Department of Public Works; in 2018, the number increased to more than 28,000.

• Hyperemesis Syndrome
• business insider

She quit marijuana completely for three months and was symptom-free. Then she tried CBD, hoping there was some form of cannabis she could enjoy. One day she took 200 milligrams of CBD in capsules. That night, she ended up in the ER.   cannabinoid hyperemesis syndrome, or CHS.

• Fried

• Pregnancy
• PubMed

Significant effects of prenatal cannabis exposure have been found on children's sleep, cognitive functions (memory and scholastic skills), as well as on executive (frontal lobe) functions (reasoning, attention, impulsivity, and motivation), and affective (depression) and anxiety symptoms throughout the stages of development. Following the presentation of two case vignettes, we integrate the published information on outcomes of maternal use of cannabis during pregnancy on the developing fetus and the "soft" neurological deficits and neuro-behavioral disturbances manifested by them from early childhood and evolving to peaks in adolescence. Taken together, these data serve to define what we call a heretofore unspecified "fetal cannabis spectrum disorder".

• voting
• Legislation

• cannabis is safe and helpful for PTSD are limited by either anecdotal or poor quality evidence, are offset by studies reporting opposite conclusions, and the well-demonstrated potential harms of cannabis addiction and risk for psychosis are not adequately weighed in the decision to recommend medical cannabis treatment of chronic PTSD
• There is a consensus that multiple social harms associated with cannabis legalization are not being adequately addressed. These include concerns about youth exposure under age 25 (a time of highly active brain development) and youth-marketing of edible cannabis products (eg, gummy bears and other confections) and cannabis concentrates that are easily obtained and “vaped”; unintentional in utero exposure prior to a woman’s knowledge of pregnancy; increased rates of intentional cannabis use during pregnancy; driving impairment and the absence of appropriate technological and legal systems to detect and deter this (equivalent to the breathalyzer for alcohol impairment); and cannabis use in sensitive occupations such as public transportation, public protection, and health services. While the voting public and industry is moving cannabis expansion forward, state proceedings have not yet involved public health, neurodevelopmental experts, and experts in addiction psychiatry and medicine equally with industry and economy experts. This is anything but reassuring for all who keep in mind that the United States is by far the greatest demand population for psychoactive substances, worldwide.4

• Berenson

• The reality is that the medical marijuana argument is meant mostly to protect recreational users from legal problems.
• One in every 15 alcohol drinkers  drink every day while one in every five marijuana users do so daily.
• America is the Western country that uses the most marijuana and has the worst problem with opioids.

• smoking
• Environment

• Truth
• hallucinations
• cannabis-induced psychosis

CONCLUSIONS:
Early cannabis use is associated with psychosis-related outcomes in young adults. The use of sibling pairs reduces the likelihood that unmeasured confounding explains these findings. This study provides further support for the hypothesis that early cannabis use is a risk-modifying factor for psychosis-related outcomes in young adults.

• olfson
• opioids

Is the solution to the opioid epidemic as simple as the legalization of medical cannabis? Commenting on the Bachhuber et al. analysis (1), Finney et al. (4) cautioned that an ecological fallacy may be present—individuals using medical marijuana could have elevated overdose mortality rates even though there is a state-level reduction. They contended that a prospective study of individual pain patients was necessary to assess relationships between cannabis use, use of opioid medications, and other substance use (4).
 

• epilepsy
• science direct
• Death

Two cases of sudden death are reported in patients whose self-determined seizure management primarily relied on artisanal cannabis therapies. Risks of morbidity, mortality and SUDEP in SDTC users need to be further studied. Providers should be aware of the absence of morbidity and mortality data for SDTC in patients with epilepsy may only be due to a failure of reporting.

• psychiatry
• cognition

The authors discovered several interesting things. First, all elements of both alcohol and cannabis use increase annually across the various levels of frequency of use, with the exception of daily alcohol use. Second, the effects of cannabis are considerably greater than those of alcohol. Third, there appear to be both concurrent and lagged effects of cannabis use on several cognitive domains. Thus, use of cannabis has persistent effects that are also exacerbated by continued use.