Tag: marijuana consumption

Denver Votes To Allow Social Marijuana Use

Proponents of the measure say that it will cut down on public marijuana use and exposure to kids.

The city of Denver, which was a leader in the recreational marijuana legalization movement, is moving forward with plans to make it easier for people to open businesses that allow social consumption of marijuana.

Councilmember Kendra Black introduced a measure that would relax the rules dictating how far businesses that allow marijuana consumption must be from recreational centers, childcare facilities and other protected establishments. The city council passed the measure by a 9-2 vote on Monday (April 15). The measure will open an additional 2.2 square miles of space for cannabis businesses, the city said.

“There are many people who we have heard from who want to open a business but cannot find a location,” Black told The Denver Post. Although the city passed a law in 2016 allowing social marijuana businesses, like cannabis cafes, there are only two in town, largely because of the strict regulations.

The law currently requires businesses to be 1,000 feet from schools, a stipulation that will remain. However, the city council measure will allow social-use businesses to operate closer to other community and child-focused facilities as long as they are more than 500 feet away.

Proponents of the measure said that it will cut down on public marijuana use, which is illegal, and reduce the frequency of cannabis being used in front of kids.

Stacy Lynn, who advocates for access to medical cannabis for kids, said that the measure is important for protecting young people. “If they have nowhere to consume, they will do it in front of our children,” she said. “How do you get it off the street? You put it in a closed, secure building.”

However, opponents said that the city shouldn’t be strengthening the cannabis industry.

Luke Niforatos, who leads a group opposed to the commercialization of cannabis, said, “I don’t think it’s the job of any member of an elected government to make it easier for a drug industry to make more money, to make it easier for people to use drugs.”

Others, including Councilwoman Robin Kniech, said that the city has spent far too much time tinkering with cannabis regulations.

She said, “There is no evidence whatsoever that kids are at risk from an activity happening in a building they cannot see at 1,000 feet, 500 feet or next door. We have so many huge challenges facing out city, and the time we have spent on this… frankly offends me.”

View the original article at thefix.com

18 April 2019
NYC Bill Aims To End Marijuana Testing Of Job Applicants

The bill is one of several efforts being made to reform marijuana policy while progress has stalled on legalizing it statewide.

New York City may become the first jurisdiction in the country to pass a law that would explicitly bar employers from screening job applicants for marijuana use.

The city council “overwhelmingly” passed a bill (with a 40-4 vote) that would prevent most employers from this practice, the New York Times reports.

“If we want to be a progressive city, we have to really put these things into action,” said the city’s public advocate Jumaane D. Williams, who authored the bill.

Mayor Bill de Blasio has signaled his support of the legislation, which according to the NYT would be the first in the U.S. to prohibit employers from marijuana testing job applicants.

If enacted, the law will affect both public and private employers in New York City, including companies that have headquarters elsewhere, Williams said.

The bill would not excuse every worker from being tested, however. A handful of occupations—including construction, law enforcement, child care, medical care, truck driving and aviation—would be exempt from the rule. Employers may also test workers if they appear to be under the influence of marijuana at work. Federal or state employees and government contractors are also exempt as they do not fall under the city’s jurisdiction.

The mayor is expected to sign the bill into law. It is one of several efforts being made to reform marijuana policy while progress has stalled on legalizing it statewide.

Another bill passed by the city council would stop the city from requiring marijuana testing for people on probation, according to the NYT.

NY lawmakers have made little progress on marijuana legalization, but Governor Andrew Cuomo’s office told CBS News that he was “still negotiating to legalize marijuana by the end of the legislative session in June.” Issues like equity programs—to ensure that people of color are guaranteed a stake in the growing industry to make up for years of being disproportionately affected by anti-marijuana laws—have gotten in the way of reaching a deal thus far.

“I’m proud that the city has taken action where the federal and the state government have stalled,” said Williams.

In 1986, former President Ronald Reagan issued an executive order calling for “drug-free workplaces,” mandating drug testing at federal agencies. According to a survey by the Society for Human Resource Management, in 2011 more than half of U.S. employers conducted drug screenings on job applicants.

However, some disagree that drug testing is a reliable method of predicting job performance.

View the original article at thefix.com

17 April 2019
Connection Between Heavy Marijuana Use & Psychosis Explored

Those who used high potency marijuana—with a THC content above 10%—quadrupled their risk for psychosis, according to a new study.

Legal weed is becoming more socially acceptable, but a study published this week reaffirms the connection between heavy marijuana use and psychosis—highlighting the fact that despite its legal status, the drug continues to have real effects on health.

The study, published in The Lancet Psychiatry, looked at the connection between marijuana use and first-time psychotic episodes. The authors found that people who smoked weed frequently and who used high-potency cannabis were more likely to experience psychotic episodes than people who did not use marijuana.

Krista M. Lisdahl, who works at the University of Wisconsin as a clinical neuropsychologist, said that the study contributes to the body of evidence that indicates a link between marijuana use and psychosis.

“This is more evidence that the link between cannabis and psychosis matters,” Lisdahl, who was not involved with the study, told NPR.

The study authors found that people who used pot daily were three times more likely to have a psychotic episode than people who didn’t use marijuana. Those who used high-potency marijuana—with a THC content above 10%—quadrupled their risk for psychosis. The increased risk was even more pronounced for people who starting using cannabis before they were 15.

Marta Di Forti, the study author and a psychiatrist, said that the findings are concerning because high-potency marijuana is more readily available than ever. “Almost 20 years ago, there wasn’t much high-potency cannabis available [in the market],” she said.

The cities that had the most availability of high-potency weed—London, Paris and Amsterdam—also had the highest rates of new psychosis cases. This finding strengthened the connection between THC content and psychosis, says Suzanne Gage, a psychologist and epidemiologist who wrote a commentary that accompanied the study.

“That’s a really interesting finding, and that’s not something anyone has done before,” she said.

Lisdahl agreed. “One of the things that’s really novel is that they could show that variation of use and potency of cannabis was related to rates of first-episode psychosis,”she said.

Despite the link, Dr. Diana Martinez, who researches addiction at Columbia University, said that the research does not point to a causal relationship between marijuana use and psychosis.

“You can’t say that cannabis causes psychosis,” she said. “It’s simply not supported by the data.”

Instead, there are likely multiple factors that influence the emergence of psychosis.

“In all psychotic disorders, there is this multiple hit hypothesis,” she said. Those factors include genetic and environmental causes, possibly including marijuana exposure.

Despite this, Di Forti says that the study should be cause for caution in people who use marijuana regularly.

“There are people across the world who use cannabis for a variety of reasons,” she said. “Some of them recreationally, some of them for medicinal purposes. They need to know what to look for and ask for help, if they come across characteristics of a psychotic disorder.”

View the original article at thefix.com

23 March 2019
Does Marijuana Use Put Teens At Risk For Depression?

A scientific review explored the potential link between depression and teen marijuana use.

Smoking pot is often portrayed as a harmless rite of passage for teens, but according to a scientific review released this week, smoking cannabis can significantly increase a teenager’s risk of developing depression and suicidal thoughts as a young adult.

The review, published in JAMA Psychiatry, looked at data from 11 studies covering more than 23,000 individuals. Researchers concluded, “Adolescent cannabis consumption was associated with increased risk of developing depression and suicidal behavior later in life, even in the absence of a premorbid condition.”

According to Science Daily, smoking pot increases the chances of developing depression by about 7%. That could lead to an additional 400,000 cases of depression in teens in the U.S.

“Our findings about depression and suicidality are very relevant for clinical practice and public health. Although the size of the negative effects of cannabis can vary between individual adolescents and it is not possible to predict the exact risk for each teenager, the widespread use of cannabis among the young generations makes it an important public health issue,” said Professor Andrea Cipriani, who was involved in the study.

She pointed out that the data was carefully controlled and considered in order to really understand the connection between marijuana use, depression and suicidal thoughts. Interestingly, the researchers did not find any increased risk for anxiety in teens who smoked marijuana.

“We looked at the effects of cannabis because its use among young people is so common, but the long-term effects are still poorly understood. We carefully selected the best studies carried out since 1993 and included only the methodologically sound ones to rule out important confounding factors, such as premorbid depression,” Cipriani said.

Lead study author Dr. Gabriella Gobbi said that the review shows a new health concern stemming from marijuana use among teens.

“While the link between cannabis and mood regulation has been largely studied in preclinical studies, there was still a gap in clinical studies regarding the systematic evaluation of the link between adolescent cannabis consumption and the risk of depression and suicidal behavior in young adulthood. This study aimed to fill this gap, helping mental health professionals and parents to better address this problem,” she said.

The possible increased risk for depression is yet another health consequence of marijuana that policymakers need to consider, especially as the drug becomes more widely available on the recreational market, Cipriani said.

“Regular use during adolescence is associated with lower achievement at school, addiction, psychosis and neuropsychological decline, increased risk of motor vehicle crashes, as well as the respiratory problems that are associated with smoking.”

View the original article at thefix.com

19 February 2019
Does Marijuana Affect Sperm Count?

A new study suggests it does—but not in the way you might think.

Harvard researchers were surprised to find that men who have smoked marijuana had better sperm counts than their counterparts who had never used cannabis—but scientists are cautioning that the link does not mean there is a causal connection between smoking marijuana and increased fertility.

A study published this week in the journal Human Reproduction found that men who had smoked marijuana at some point in their lives had higher sperm counts, which is associated with increased fertility.

Researchers examined 1,143 semen samples from 662 men, all of whom were undergoing fertility treatments with their partners at the Massachusetts General Hospital Fertility Center.

“Men who had ever smoked marijuana had significantly higher sperm concentration than men who had never smoked marijuana,” study authors wrote. There was no difference in sperm count between current and previous marijuana smokers.

These findings came as a surprise, since previous research has indicted that smoking marijuana had a negative effect on fertility. A 2015 study found that men who smoked weekly had a lower sperm count than those that did not, and a study published in 2018 found that THC can change the structure of sperm.

Researchers said that it’s possible that low-level exposure to cannabis could aid fertility by stimulating the endocannabinoid system in the brain. However, they said that it’s just as likely that testosterone levels affect both the likelihood that a man uses cannabis (a risk-taking behavior) and his sperm production.

“Our findings could reflect the fact that men with higher testosterone levels are more likely to engage in risk-seeking behaviors, including smoking marijuana,” Dr Feiby Nassan, who was involved with the research, told Bloomberg.

Allan Pacey, professor of Andrology at the University of Sheffield in Britain, said that men who are trying to have a child should continue to avoid cannabis.

“As the authors point out, men with higher sperm concentrations are likely to have more testosterone in their bodies and thus may be more likely to smoke marijuana because simply they are willing to take more risks,” he said. “In conclusion, I am not convinced that this paper moves us any further forward in this debate. Moreover, nor does it give support to any apparent fertility benefits of smoking marijuana. In my opinion, this should be avoided at all costs in any couples trying to start a family.”

Lead author Dr. Jorge Chavarro said that the findings highlight the need for more research into the effects of cannabis on male fertility.

“These unexpected findings highlight how little we know about the reproductive health effects of marijuana, and in fact of the health effects of marijuana in general,” he said. “Our results need to be interpreted with caution and they highlight the need to further study the health effects of marijuana use.”

View the original article at thefix.com

13 February 2019
New Zealand To Vote On Marijuana Legalization

New Zealand could become the third country to legalize marijuana in 2020.

New Zealand will likely become the first country to hold a national referendum on legalizing recreational cannabis, after the government announced this week that a vote will take place during the 2020 general election.

New Zealand’s justice minister, Andrew Little, said a referendum question would be on the ballot during 2020, although he added that there is “a bit of detail still to work through,” according to The New York Times. That includes exactly what the referendum question will cover.

Marijuana proponents hope that the government will draft a law before the referendum that will lay out exactly how New Zealand would handle marijuana legalization. This would include details like whether sales would be legal or just personal use, and what age limits will be for cannabis use.

Chlöe Swarbrick, a member of Parliament from the Green Party who is also a spokesperson for Drug Law Reform told Newshub that by drafting the law ahead of time, “You can remove all the moral panic and what-ifs from the debate, and there would be clarity and hopefully maturity and respectability in the public debate.”

In November, the country eased restrictions on growing medical marijuana, and polling shows that 46% of New Zealanders are in favor of legalizing recreational marijuana, while 41% are opposed.

Despite the relatively close margins, legalization gained a political foothold when the ruling Labour party was forced to join with the Green Party to form a government. As part of the negotiations, Labour leaders agreed to allow a vote on legalization.

Swarbrick said marijuana use is already widespread in New Zealand and that prohibition disproportionately affects minorities. Legalizing cannabis would allow policy to catch up with the current reality, she said.

“What we have to realise is that our legislative and regulatory response to problems can either exacerbate or minimise harm,” Swarbrick said. “We have to bring the problem out of the shadows and into the light.”

She argued that by legalizing cannabis, the country will be able to control the drug better and keep profits out of the hands of criminal enterprises.

“There is no quality control of this stuff – people are not consuming with any guidelines or education. Drug dealers also aren’t checking IDs. If somebody in this country wants to get access to it there is literally no stopping them,” she said. “We also have the situation whereby because it is so accessible in this country, it’s helping to finance criminal underground activity and is held by the gangs.”

View the original article at thefix.com

20 December 2018
Miley Cyrus Talks About Using Marijuana Again After Quitting

Miley Cyrus says her mom, who “smokes a lot of weed,” got her to begin smoking it again.

A year after she spoke publicly about quitting marijuana, Miley Cyrus says she’s back to smoking pot, although not while she’s working.

Cyrus, 26, said that her mom Tish, who “smokes a lot of weed,” got her using again.

“My mom got me back on it,” Cyrus said, according to USA Today. “When I’m just working I don’t think I function at my highest, most intelligent, most being-able-to-be-as-aware-and-as-present, so I don’t smoke when I work.”

Tish even threatened to quit as Cyrus’ manager to start growing cannabis, but Cyrus laughed off the idea.

“My dad’s got a farm and she’s like ‘I’m just going to quit everything and grow.’ She’s my manager. So if my mom quits everything, that’s quitting me to go home and, like, grow weed,” she said. “Which doesn’t sound like the best idea. … My mom could barely keep us alive. She’s not going to grow pot.”

In May 2017, Cyrus told Billboard why she stopped smoking weed, despite thinking it’s “the best drug on earth.”

“I like to surround myself with people that make me want to get better, more evolved, open. And I was noticing, it’s not the people that are stoned,” she said. “I want to be super clear and sharp, because I know exactly where I want to be.”

Later that summer, Cyrus appeared on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon, joking about how high she had been during past performances on the show.

“I’ve always been very stoned on your shows. I don’t know if you know this, everybody,” she said. “‘Member the last time I was here? I was dressed as a bunny rabbit and then like a cat. There’s a reason for that: I was high.”

Cyrus said she quit because she wanted to focus on the quality of her work.

“I’m actually the most passionate about what I’m doing with this record than I’ve been—I say this every time, but I loved making this record so, so much. And this record at this moment is the most important album that I’ve ever made,” she said. “So I wanted to make sure that I was super clear in the way I’m talking.”

Cyrus said that before that appearance she had a dream she was so stoned on the show she just dropped dead. It was so realistic that she researched whether it was possible, only to find she was very unlikely to die from smoking weed.

“It’s like no one’s ever died from weed, but no one’s ever smoked as much as I did,” she said.

View the original article at thefix.com

13 December 2018
Is Vaping Pot More Powerful Than Smoking It?

Researchers explored whether vaping marijuana produced a stronger high than smoking it in a recent study.

Researchers have published a new study that suggests inhaling vaporized marijuana will result in a stronger high than smoking it. Their conclusion was drawn from six, eight-and-a-half-hour double-blind sessions in which participants consumed marijuana, via smoking or vaping, in one of three possible dosages – between 0 and 25 mg of THC, the psychoactive ingredient in cannabis – and then reported their reactions while scientists conducted physical and cognitive tests.

The results suggested that vaping produced more significant physical and mental effects, as well as higher blood concentrations of THC, than the same doses ingested via smoking.

The study, conducted by scientists at the Johns Hopkins Pharmacology Research Unit in Baltimore, Maryland, utilized 17 healthy adult participants – eight women and nine men – all of whom had smoked marijuana at least once in the previous year but not in the 30 days before the first day of the study.

Over the course of the six outpatient sessions, each lasting 8.5 hours and conducted between June 2016 and January 2017, patients smoked or vaped a dose of marijuana containing either 0, 10 or 25 milligrams of THC.

Dosage order was randomized within each session, and while each participant smoked or vaped all three possible dosages over the course of the six sessions, they were unaware of how much THC they were consuming during each test.

After ingesting a dose, participants then filled out a drug-impairment questionnaire and underwent physical and cognitive tests, including heart rate and blood pressure; they were also asked to complete tasks on a computer, such as simple addition and replicating shapes on a screen.

What the researchers found was that vaping marijuana resulted in more significant impairment than marijuana ingested via smoking. Both the high and low doses produced greater concentrations of THC in the test subjects’ blood and at least twice as many errors on the cognitive tests.

Vaping and smoking did produce similar results in regard to the highest dosage – two participants reportedly vomited after ingesting the 25mg dosage, and one experienced hallucinations – and both methods produced side effects commonly associated with cannabis use, including dry mouth, increased hunger and feelings of paranoia, though participants who vaped reported greater levels of these effects than those who smoked.

Most significantly, the researchers also noted that the dosage with the highest level of THC – 25mg of THC, or 13.4% — was “substantially smaller and has a lower THC concentration that what is typically contained in pre-rolled cannabis cigarettes available for purchase in cannabis dispensaries.” According to the study, these typically contain THC concentrations that exceed 18%.

View the original article at thefix.com

5 December 2018
Are Pregnant Women Using Marijuana More?

A new report examined the most recent trends for smoking and alcohol use during pregnancy.

New federal data shows that while fewer women are taking in cigarettes and alcohol during pregnancy, more are using marijuana. A research letter published in JAMA Pediatrics examines the data, gathered between 2002 and 2016.

According to the data, the percentage of pregnant women who reported smoking cigarettes during pregnancy changed from 17.5% to around 10%. Alcohol use also fell from nearly 10% to close to 8.5%. While cannabis use among pregnant women is rare, the data shows it has increased from near 3% of pregnant women in the data collection, to almost 5%.

The National Survey of Drug Use and Health provided the data, which came from 12,000 pregnant women ages 18 to 44. Close to 3,500 of these women were in their first trimester of pregnancy, a critical time for fetal development in general but specifically and crucially, of brain and neurological function.

The CDC asks expectant mothers not to use the drug while pregnant, due to potential developmental harms for infants. While pot and cigarette smoke differ, they both are known to cause harm to the lungs, as reported in the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA).

According to NIDA, “Marijuana smoking is associated with large airway inflammation, increased airway resistance, and lung hyperinflation, and those who smoke marijuana regularly report more symptoms of chronic bronchitis than those who do not smoke.”

The increase of pregnant women using cannabis may be due to new laws allowing medical marijuana use, which is now legal in nine states and on the agenda for approval in many more.

However, this viewpoint is not as of yet supported by data, and it is probable to think that the increasing amount of stress for the average American—expensive health insurance, costs of organic food, and pricey rent/mortgage—has played a role in pregnant women turning to smoking pot for stress relief.

Overall, the percentage of smokers in the U.S. is at a new low, having dropped from 45.1 million cigarette smokers in 2005 to 36.5 million, close to 15% of the population, in 2015. The researchers did find that decreases in smoking were less pronounced among certain subgroups of pregnant women, including Black women, women ages 26 to 44, and those who did not finish high school.

This data supports the idea that increased stress and lack of access to proper care and living also increases the chances that a pregnant woman would smoke marijuana.

Alcohol use for the overall American population, including pregnant women, remains generally consistent. In other countries, especially European ones, drinking during pregnancy is acceptable in small doses, and even considered beneficial to the pregnancy.

The National Survey researchers were reported in Time as concluding, “Greater public awareness regarding the consequences of prenatal cannabis exposure in offspring health is necessary.”

View the original article at thefix.com

10 November 2018
Can Quitting Marijuana Improve Memory For Teens?

Impaired memory functions from marijuana use don’t have to be permanent.

New research on the impact of marijuana use among teenagers appears to corroborate other studies that suggest cannabis can be detrimental to the development of their brains.

However, the recent study also suggests that abstinence from marijuana use for 30 days or more may reverse its effect on memory, attention and the ability to retain new information.

The results of the research have raised additional questions about marijuana use and teenagers, including the possibility of permanent impairment if no abstinence is undertaken.

As Science News noted, studying marijuana use among this age group runs afoul of ethical issues—unlike adults, children can’t be asked to use a drug in order to study its effects. So the researchers—from Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston and Harvard Medical School—circumnavigated the problem by recruiting teenagers who reported using marijuana at least once a week to participate in their study.

Eighty-eight Boston-area teens and young adults between the ages of 16 and 25 who reported weekly marijuana use were recruited, and 62 of them were offered money to stop using for a month. Payments increased as the month wore on, with some participants earning more than $500 for their abstinence.

Of the 62 that received payment, urine tests revealed that 55 of them were able to remain abstinent for the full 30 days. All 88 test subjects were also tested on levels of attention and memory; these included directional tests and the monitoring of number sequences, as well as retention of information.

The study results—which were published in the Journal of Clinical Psychiatry on October 30—found that while attention remained largely unchanged for the abstinent participants, they showed moderate improvement on memory tests, especially those that required them to remember lists of words. Those participants that continued to use marijuana during the test period showed no signs of improvement on these memory tests.

Neuropsychologist and study co-author Randi Schuster said that the test results showed that marijuana use can have a negative impact on how young people retain new information, but abstinence may play a role in reversing those effects. “From these data, we think that at least some of that impairment is not permanent,” she noted.

Response to the study results focused on the effect of marijuana use beyond the study time frame. “If somebody is using very heavily over a prolonged period of time, is there a point at which these functions may not recover?” asked clinical neuropsychologist April Thames of UCLA.

To answer these questions, Schuster and her fellow researchers plan additional, longer-term studies, including studying the effect on memory among 13- to 19-year-olds who abstain for a period of six months.

View the original article at thefix.com

5 November 2018