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Sunday, May 26, 2019

Colorado Passes Bill Allowing Doctors To Recommend Medical Marijuana Instead Of Opioids

Colorado is attempting to help tamper down the opioid crisis by enabling doctors to recommend medical marijuana for any condition meriting a painkiller prescription.

Gov. Jared Polis signed Senate Bill 13 on Thursday, and the new law is scheduled to go into effect on Aug. 2, after passing through Colorado’s General Assembly.

“This will substitute marijuana for an injectable medicine — something that is unregulated for something that’s highly controlled,” Stephanie Stewart, a doctor in Colorado says.

Under Colorado law, medical marijuana can be advocated for individuals struggling with cancer, glaucoma, HIV and AIDS, PTSD or other chronic ailments that cause severe pain, nausea and seizures. The new law includes all conditions where opioids could be prescribed.

The bipartisan legislation is a triumph for marijuana backers, but it raises issues with some addiction-centric caregivers.

“Our real concern is that a patient could visit a physician with a condition that has a medical treatment with signs behind it, and then instead of that therapy, they would be recommended marijuana instead,” explained Stephanie Stewart, a doctor in Colorado.

Backers of the law say it is a safer form of therapy which will help restrict the opioid craze, which is now at epidemic rates in the U.S. As stated by the National Institute on Drug Abuse, every day more than 130 people die after overdosing on opioids.

“Adding a condition for which a physician could recommend medical marijuana instead of an opioid is a more powerful pain management tool that will be useful for both our physicians and patients,” explained Ashley Weber, executive director of Colorado NORML, a pro-marijuana advocacy group.

Individuals under the age of 18 who take medical marijuana should ingest it in an edible form if using it on school grounds or transportation.

The House voted 47-16 in favor of the bill, with many Democrats and a few Republicans behind it. The Senate voted 33-2, with just conservative Senators. John Cooke, R-Greeley, and Bob Gardner, R-Colorado Springs, in opposition.

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from Kushfly https://kushfly.com/blog/colorado-passes-bill-allowing-doctors-to-recommend-medical-marijuana-instead-of-opioids/

Saturday, May 25, 2019

42 Arrested In Denver In A Massive Black Market Marijuana Bust

Authorities said Friday that they raided hundreds of black market marijuana operations in Colorado that flouted the nation’s cannabis legislation by growing tens of thousands of plants in Denver-area houses and selling it out of state.

Investigators seized more than 80,000 plants and 4,500 pounds of harvested marijuana, state and federal prosecutors said in a news conference. Officers raided 247 houses and eight companies and arrested 42 people in Denver and seven neighboring counties.

State law permits up to 12 marijuana plants per house for individual use, but some of the houses had over 1,000 and many had hundreds, U.S. Attorney Jason Dunn said.

Colorado and other states have broadly legalized marijuana usage but it remains illegal under federal law. That has created tension between some state and federal officials, and a booming black market for marijuana.

However George Brauchler, district attorney for the south and east Denver suburbs, said the investigation was a joint state-federal operation, not the U.S. Department of Justice imposing its will over Colorado.

“Make no mistake, we are equal partners in this,” Brauchler said.

State and federal officials said the almost 3-year investigation showed that prohibited marijuana trafficking mushroomed after voters approved recreational usage in 2012.

Dunn said Colorado has been the epicenter for black market marijuana nationwide.

Brauchler cautioned that Colorado is becoming “the wild wild West of marijuana.” He explained the provision in the law that enables small-scale home marijuana farming opened the door to big, illegal procedures.

Brauchler cautioned that other states considering legalizing marijuana could expect the same but added he was not trying to discourage them from doing so.

“I believe states are eligible to do anything they need,” he explained. “But they need to know the fact of the matter.”

“Did they run a survey of prohibited marijuana cultivators to determine why they chose to function where they did?” He explained. “Are they able to know whether those operations existed before legalization or not?”

Tvert blamed the illegal operations on states that still prohibit marijuana, and said if they legalized and controlled it as Colorado does, there would be small illegal production.

Dunn said researchers plan to use federal forfeiture laws to seize 41 homes, 25 vehicles and $2.2 million in money joined to the marijuana operations.

He explained the 41 houses have an average market value of $400,000.

“These grow operations aren’t occurring in abandoned houses or poor parts of the metro region,” he explained. “All these are happening in middle and upper-class areas where a lot of us live and raise families, and they’re happening all over the metro area.”

Sixteen of these suspects were arrested on federal drug charges and 26 on state charges.

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from Kushfly https://kushfly.com/blog/42-arrested-in-denver-in-a-massive-black-market-marijuana-bust/

Friday, May 24, 2019

Las Vegas Uses Money From Cannabis Taxes To Fight Homelessness

Commissioners in Clark County, Nevada have now passed a resolution allocating nearly $1.8 million collected from local cannabis taxes to help regrow programs specializing in providing assistance to the homeless.

A little more than $930,000 of the money from cannabis taxes is going to be supplied to HELP of Southern Nevada’s rehousing services “for medically fragile, non-chronically homeless households after leaving local hospitals.” A little more than $855,000 will be awarded to HELP “to help the program costs” associated with a homeless youth center.

Nevada legalized recreational marijuana use in the 2016 election, one of four states to pass such measures during that cycle. Recreational dispensaries opened for business in Nevada in the summer of 2017, allowing adults to purchase up to an ounce of marijuana flower, as well as an eighth of marijuana concentrates.

Before this year, commissioners in Clark County hit pause on efforts to open cannabis lounges in Las Vegas, opting at the time to defer to state lawmakers. But the Las Vegas City Council voted earlier this month to permit dispensaries to apply for licenses to open such establishments, where customers are free to use marijuana products.

Back in December, Clark County commissioners placed a moratorium on recreational dispensary permits, stating that medical patients were snubbed by the industry. However, by the end of 2018, the county had already collected millions of dollars in licensing fees for dispensaries where customers can buy cannabis products.

The end of prohibition has city leaders dreaming about Las Vegas becoming a true mecca for weed tourism; it’s also been regarded as a potentially huge revenue source to relieve a number of the community’s problems.

To that end, the attempt to use funds to support homeless programs began in January, when the Clark County commissioners accepted earmarking the feeds to support the tens of thousands of displaced people in the region. The amount of money directed from the cannabis taxes was capped at $12 million annually.

After the commissioners took up the measure in January, there was debate over where to spend these funds, with some lawmakers favoring a plan that simplifies home. Others advocated a more flexible approach that could avail funds for other providers, such as monetary assistance.

In 2016, the vast majority of respondents in Nevada (54%) approved Question 2, also referred to as the Nevada Marijuana Legalization Initiative, which legalized the drug for people aged 21 and above. California, Massachusetts and Maine passed similar measures that same year.

The post Las Vegas Uses Money From Cannabis Taxes To Fight Homelessness appeared first on Kushfly.

from Kushfly https://kushfly.com/blog/las-vegas-uses-money-from-cannabis-taxes-to-fight-homelessness/

Thursday, May 23, 2019

Gun-Related Suicides Fell After Medical Marijuana Was Legalized

The number of suicides in California per year, such as those committed with firearms, diminished following the state legalizing marijuana use for medical purposes, according to a study.

“Findings show that rates of total gun deaths and suicide dropped significantly in the wake of Proposition 215,” the investigators concluded, referring to the California law legalizing medical cannabis that voters approved in 1996.

“The systematic evidence linking this tendency to the availability of medical marijuana is relatively unclear, however,” the team behind the new study wrote.

For the paper, published this month in Archives of Suicide Research, researchers at the University of California Irvine looked at the total amount of suicides, the number of gun-related suicides and also the amount of non-gun-related suicides listed from the state for those years between 1970 and 2004. They also looked at data in the 41 states which didn’t legalize marijuana during precisely the same time period to obtain a notion of what might have occurred if California hadn’t legalized access to medical cannabis.

Ultimately, the authors observed a noteworthy decrease in untoward deaths in the years after Prop 215 was accepted. “In particular, for many suicides, our results reveal that California’s 1996 intervention resulted in an average reduction of 398.9 suicides per year plus a cumulative decrease of approximately 3,191 suicides through 1997-2004,” the analysis states. “Likewise, legalization led to a decrease in gun suicides of 208 per year on a cumulative decrease of roughly 1,668 fewer gun suicides throughout 1997-2004.”

The question, naturally, is that what could explain these overall findings?

The study provides a couple of distinct theories. One concentrates on how marijuana use may help eliminate the actual motivation for suicide. Individuals with psychological conditions like depression, for instance, may realize that marijuana alleviates their symptoms.

“If marijuana alleviates the severe strain related to these disorders, we expect suicide threat to reduce after legalization of medical marijuana,” the writers said. “The evidence for this is mixed, however.”

The same goes for individuals with alcohol use disorder, which is associated with an elevated risk of suicide: In case individuals are using marijuana in place of alcohol, then that threat may be reduced.

“If alcohol and marijuana usage are combined, an individual may experience no difference in suicide risk or even an increase in suicide following legalization,” the newspaper reports. “If weed replaces alcohol, on the other hand, an individual might expect a drop in suicide danger following legalization.”

But most information on marijuana as an alcoholic substitute relies on self-reports, which is unreliable.

There’s also the dilemma of gun accessibility for medical marijuana patients; U.S. law prohibits anyone who utilizes federally prohibited controlled substances, such as cannabis, from obtaining firearms. As a vast majority of suicides involve guns, researchers suggest that access to medical marijuana might have precluded some people from buying firearms, thus resulting in the decline in suicide rates. (For what it is worth, California also has some of the strongest gun laws in the country.)

The study’s authors point out that testing these various theories “may reveal insight into the reason why we don’t find the expected reduction in non-gun suicides following legalization.”

Last month, a Republican congressman filed a bill that would allow medical marijuana patients the ability to purchase and own guns.

from Kushfly https://kushfly.com/blog/gun-related-suicides-fell-after-medical-marijuana-was-legalized/

Wednesday, May 22, 2019

Will The NFL Soon Be Allowing Marijuana For Pain Treatment?

In striking an agreement with the NFL Players Association this week which calls for further study of other therapies for pain control, the NFL is sending signals that it has an open mind on an issue that gamers have advocated for decades: allowing for marijuana for pain treatment.

That’s just one potential impact which could flow from the health, safety and health agreement, which bolsters commitment to establishing criteria for prescription drug monitoring and raises support for mental health programs.

Yet the extra acknowledgment that marijuana might be considered is important enough, considering how the NFL has not budged to the stage on removing marijuana from the list of prohibited chemicals as part of this medication coverage — even as an increasing number of nations have legalized the use of marijuana for medicinal and in a number of instances recreational usage.

It is possible that a newly-formed joint pain control committee, with medical specialists appointed by the group and the union, could supply research that supports marijuana and products containing THC for healing support — and progress the ball on the NFL’s drug policy.

“We’ve asked the committee to look at any and all treatments,” Allen Sills, the NFL’s chief medical officer said while attending league meetings. “We will go where the medication takes us.”

We are going to see. With marijuana still not legalized in many states with NFL franchises, a potential sticking point could exist in establishing a new policy that applies uniformly for all 32 teams, allowing marijuana for pain treatment.

Can that be accomplished if the medicine supports it?

Said Sills, “I’m a doctor, not an attorney.”

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from Kushfly https://kushfly.com/blog/will-the-nfl-soon-be-allowing-marijuana-for-pain-treatment/

Tuesday, May 21, 2019

CBD May Reduce Impairment Caused By THC

The more cannabidiol (CBD) in a strain of cannabis with THC, the lower the impairment to brain function, finds a fresh UCL-led brain imaging analysis.

“Over the last two decades, rates of addiction and psychosis linked to cannabis have been on the upswing, while at precisely the same time stronger strains of cannabis with more THC and less CBD have become increasingly prevalent,” said the study’s lead author, Dr. Matt Wall (UCL Clinical Psychopharmacology Unit and Invicro).

“We have found that CBD appears to buffer the consumer against a number of the severe effects of THC on the mind.”

There’s growing evidence that THC is implicated in addiction and cannabis-induced psychosis. CBD, on the other hand, is being researched for a range of therapeutic purposes, but the interplay between THC and CBD is not yet well-known.

In the current study, the researchers monitored brain activity at rest in 17 individuals after taking distinct strains of cannabis.

Both breeds have equal levels of tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), but among these also has elevated levels of CBD whereas another breed, a high-strength cannabis commonly known as skunk, contained negligible levels of CBD. Both strains are similar to the various strains of cannabis in common use.

The researchers discovered that the low-CBD strain diminished functional connectivity in the brain’s default style (particularly from the anterior cingulate area) and salience networks, whereas the high-CBD strain caused only a minimal disturbance to these regions, suggesting the CBD counteracts a number of THC’s damaging effects.

The salience network supports other brain networks and determines what sensory or emotional inputs we listen to, and disruptions of the network have previously been implicated in dependence and psychosis.

The researchers also discovered that the THC-induced disturbance of functional connectivity in the posterior cingulate was strongly correlated with participants’ reports of subjective experiences, like feeling more ‘stoned’ or ‘high’, implying that the mind area may be fundamental to driving cannabis’ subjective effects. This association involving the anterior cingulate and subjective effects was blocked by CBD.

The researchers say their findings add to evidence that cannabis breeds with greater CBD content may be less harmful, suggesting that CBD content of cannabis should maybe be regulated in authorities where it’s legal.

“As cannabis is becoming lawful in more areas of the world, people purchasing cannabis ought to be able to generate an educated decision about their choice of cannabis breed and be aware of the relative risks,” said Dr. Wall.

“In case CBD can restore disturbance to the salience system, this could be a neuroprotective mechanism to describe its capability to treat disorders of salience like psychosis and addiction,” added senior writer Professor Val Curran (UCL Clinical Psychopharmacology Unit).

The post CBD May Reduce Impairment Caused By THC appeared first on Kushfly.

from Kushfly https://kushfly.com/blog/cbd-may-reduce-impairment-caused-by-thc/

Monday, May 20, 2019

Temporary Cannabis Tax Cut Shut Down By California Law Makers

An attempt to jump-start California’s accredited marijuana retailers failed to clear a key legislative committee on Thursday, likely dooming its prospects for the year since the country’s largest legal cannabis industry continues to flounder in the shadow of the illegal — and tax free — black sector.

Costs for legal marijuana goods are inflated in California by the 15% cannabis tax consumers need to pay at the register and a cultivation tax on growers of $148 per pound for flowers and $44 per pound for the leaves.

A group of state lawmakers, led by Democrat Assemblyman Rob Bonta, had hoped to temporarily reduce the sales tax to 11% and suspend the cultivation taxation for two and a half years to help retailers compete with prices on the black market.

A Bonta spokesman said he’d agreed to eliminate the sales tax portion of the bill in the hopes it would bring in enough votes to get it from committee and have an opportunity to pass. But the bill failed to clear the Assembly Appropriations Committee on Thursday, meaning it won’t progress to the Assembly Floor and is likely dead for the year.

“I am really disappointed,” stated Tiffany Devitt, Chief Compliance Officer for Santa Rosa-based CannaCraft, a cannabis producer and distributor. “We are being crushed by the black market.”

It is possible lawmakers could reestablish it using legislative maneuvers later this year, but it is unclear if they want to do that. California’s bud tax collections are not at all what lawmakers had expected after voters agreed to legalize the drug in a state with nearly 40 million people.

State officials estimate that if bud tax collections continue in their current rate — which is hard to predict since the business is so new — that the state will collect $270 million annually. That’s $85 million less than initial estimates.

Just recently, Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom’s administration lowered cannabis tax revenue estimates for the budget year that begins July 1 by $223 million.

“The taxes are so high that there is a big incentive to avoid them,” said Dale Gieringer, director of pro-marijuana group California NORML. “”The black economy is currently at least as big or larger as the authorized market.”

State taxes aren’t the sole barrier to California’s emerging marijuana market. Industry advocates say local taxation and requirements on licensing and laboratory testing add up to make a legal bud company more costly. Additionally, retailers often don’t have somewhere to put their money because most banks will not accept it because selling marijuana remains a federal crime.

Efforts to address the banking issue did survive the statute. The Senate Appropriations Committee innovative Senate Bill 51, which will make cannabis-limited charter banks and cannabis-limited charter credit unions. The law would enable individuals financial institutions to cash special-purpose checks.

“We can’t sit by while the security of legal business owners, their employees, and the general public are put at risk. SB 51 represents an initial step in getting cannabis cash off the street and integrating these authorized firms into our economy,” Sen. Bob Hertzberg, D-Van Nuys, stated in a news release.

Bonta’s bill was one of several proposals from the Legislature that stalled out Thursday after they didn’t make it out of committee.

The post Temporary Cannabis Tax Cut Shut Down By California Law Makers appeared first on Kushfly.

from Kushfly https://kushfly.com/blog/temporary-cannabis-tax-cut-shut-down-by-california-law-makers/