ALBANY, N.Y.-New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo said Tuesday that he would amend his proposal to regulate and tax recreational marijuana in hopes that the drug could be legalized as part of the state budget due by April 1. The amended proposal would allow for delivery services and reduce the penalty for people who unlawfully sell marijuana to a person under the age of 21. It would also add specificity to a social-equity fund that the Democratic governor said would help revitalize communities that have been most harmed by the war on drugs. He said the amendments reflected conversations with lawmakers. [continues 374 words]
Sue Taylor never would have let one of her students slide 20 years ago if she had caught one with marijuana. But the former Catholic school principal has found a new mission with senior citizens: providing them with information and access to cannabis through her California dispensary, Farmacy Berkeley. It opened in the Bay Area in February. Like many of her former colleagues at the top of religious institutions, she once saw marijuana as a plague on her African-American community. "I was just like them until I saw the healing, and I could not turn my back on that, spiritually," Ms. Taylor, 72, says. [continues 1131 words]
State-sanctioned marijuana shops are contributing to the rise in lung illnesses and deaths at a higher rate than previously believed. Proponents of the marijuana industry have dismissed the "pot vaping crisis," with its deaths and lung injuries, as an aberration of the illicit market. Legal pot, they say, is regulated and thus not to blame for the recent spate of problems. Victims and families who came forward to warn about purchases made at state-licensed shops were lambasted by legalization advocates. When the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention advised against using all marijuana vaping products, industry insiders questioned their motives and called the warnings conspiracy theories. [continues 476 words]
When Garrett Rigg moved from a "transitional living program" facility near Chicago last month into a group home, it was a major milestone for the 27-year-old, who traveled 1,000 miles from his home in Denver to get treatment after a cannabis-induced psychotic break five years ago. Rigg had to leave his hometown because it lacked suitable long-term treatment, according to his mother, Connie Kabrick. The three marijuana dispensaries at the intersection a half block from her home are the reason why she says he can't move [continues 448 words]
I've covered things that injure, sicken and kill kids and adults for more than 30 years. From auto safety to medical errors, I've competed to break stories on the latest deadly defect or health policy change, most recently on electronic cigarettes. In late August, I added vaping-related lung illnesses to the beat. Last month, I added marijuana, psychosis and other mental illness. It's a pretty solitary place to be. We reporters covered the heck out of vaping lung illnesses starting in August. Once it became clear the culprit was THC and not nicotine, however, the news media seemed to lose interest, said former Food and Drug Administration chief Scott Gottlieb at a breakfast event I attended in early November. [continues 784 words]
In an effort to discourage drug use and vaping, a Catholic high school in Ohio has announced plans to begin testing its students for drugs and nicotine, joining what education professionals are calling a growing trend. Administrators at Stephen T. Badin High School in Hamilton, Ohio, said in a letter to parents this week that the drug-testing program, which they said had been shaped over the course of two years with help from the Archdiocese of Cincinnati, would go into effect in January. [continues 670 words]
Two major universities are creating the first career paths for young people interested in the business of marijuana. The University of Maryland announced in June that its School of Pharmacy will offer a master's degree in medical cannabis, and a new course is also being added this fall at Cornell University's School of Integrative Plant Science called "Cannabis: Biology, Society and Industry." "I advise a lot of students in a lot of majors and they're all like, this is going to be cool," said Antonio DiTommaso, program director for agricultural sciences at Cornell. "I think some of it is just a novelty, but it's really going to be based on the cropping, the agronomics, the medicinal aspect, the chemistry, consumer attitudes and policy." [continues 915 words]
Kush. Bud. Herb. Who knows what to call marijuana these days? Born of the need for secrecy, slang has long dominated pot culture. But as entrepreneurs seek to capitalize on new laws legalizing recreational and medical marijuana, they too are grappling with what to call it. Heading to the dispensary to buy a few nugs or dabs? Marketers seeking to exploit the $10 billion market would prefer that you just called it cannabis. Shirley Halperin, an author of 2007's "Pot Culture: The A-Z Guide to Stoner Language and Life," has seen the shift in recent years. Not long ago, she met with an executive to talk about his company's products. "He physically winced when I said the word 'pot,'" she recalled. "Businesses don't want to call it 'weed.'" [continues 1123 words]
DENVER - Serenity Christensen, 14, is too young to set foot in one of Colorado's many marijuana shops, but she was able to spot a business opportunity in legal weed. She is a Girl Scout, and this year, she and her mother decided to sell their cookies outside a dispensary. "Good business," Serenity said. But on the other side of Denver, legalization has turned another high school student, David Perez, against the warehouselike marijuana cultivations now clustered around his neighborhood. He said their skunky aroma often smacks him in the face when he walks out his front door. [continues 2319 words]
Recent efforts to legalize marijuana in New York and New Jersey have been stalled - but not killed - by disputes over how exactly to divvy up the revenues from marijuana sales and by worries about drugged driving. Those are both important issues. But another concern should be at the center of this debate: the medical implications of legalizing marijuana, particularly for young people. It's tempting to think marijuana is a harmless substance that poses no threat to teens and young adults. The medical facts, however, reveal a different reality. [continues 495 words]
In the next few weeks, Nicholas DiPatrizio's lab at UC Riverside will receive a shipment of marijuana. DiPatrizio, a professor of biomedical sciences, then will begin giving mice precise doses of cannabis oil to see how marijuana impacts their weight and a host of serious health conditions often linked to obesity. The study marks the first time UC Riverside has received federal approval to conduct research on marijuana -- or any other substance in the Drug Enforcement Administration's strict Schedule I category. It also marks the school's first cannabis-related grant, with $744,000 from tobacco taxes being used to finance this three-year research project on how marijuana affects metabolic health. [continues 1049 words]
MINFORD, Ohio - Inside an elementary school classroom decorated with colorful floor mats, art supplies and building blocks, a little boy named Riley talked quietly with a teacher about how he had watched his mother take "knockout pills" and had seen his father shoot up "a thousand times." Riley, who is 9 years old, described how he had often been left alone to care for his baby brother while his parents were somewhere else getting high. Beginning when he was about 5, he would heat up meals of fries, chicken nuggets and spaghetti rings in the microwave for himself and his brother, he said. "That was all I knew how to make," Riley said. [continues 1851 words]
UCSF psychiatrist Brian Anderson is studying an experimental therapy to help long-term AIDS survivors - people who were infected with HIV in the 1980s and never expected to live this long - who are feeling sad and demoralized. In a clinic outfitted with a comfortable couch, soft lighting, throw pillows and blankets, the participants of his study are given psilocybin, the hallucinogenic compound found in magic mushrooms. They lie down for a few hours, a mask over their eyes and soothing music playing in the background, and experience a psychedelic trip. [continues 1514 words]
As dozens of states move toward legalizing marijuana -- for both medical and recreational purposes -- scientists and parents have asked what the impact might be on children. Will more teens use pot? Will doing so cause behavioral problems? Will they develop a substance-use disorder? According to a new study published last month in the journal Addiction: yes, probably not, and maybe. The study, led by the Annenberg Public Policy Center at the University of Pennsylvania, found that marijuana use among teens does not lead to conduct problems. In fact, it's the other way around. Adolescents with conduct problems, like cheating, skipping class, and stealing, are more likely to gravitate toward marijuana use. [continues 608 words]
Timothy Durden Jr. made it a habit to throw his arms around his grandmother, plant a big kiss on her cheek and proclaim, "I love you, Grannie." The former Park Hill High School basketball and football player had a passion for joking, dancing, lifting weights. But the 18-year-old also enjoyed "smoking his weed," family wrote in his obituary, and that habit cost him his life when he allegedly tried to rob the teenager who was selling him 2 ounces of marijuana in the Northland. [continues 1107 words]
SALT LAKE CITY -- The push for legalized marijuana has moved into Utah and Oklahoma, two of the most conservative states in the country, further underscoring how quickly feelings about marijuana are changing in the United States. If the two measures pass, Utah and Oklahoma will join 30 other states that have legalized some form of medical marijuana, according to the pro-pot National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana laws. Nine of those states and Washington, D.C. also have broad legalization where adults 21 and older can use pot for any reason. Michigan could become the 10th state with its ballot initiative this year. [continues 790 words]
"My uncle is prescribed marijuana." "My parents use it, and they're doing fine." As a drug prevention specialist who does in-school presentations in the U.S., as well as internationally, Zach Levin has seen the problem firsthand: Teens know that recreational use is legal in states such as Colorado and that medical use is on the rise, and they're using that information to support the old argument that a little weed never hurt anyone. And starting today, Illinois teens have one more argument: In a symbolic win for legalization forces that did not change local laws, Cook County residents voted in favor of legalizing recreational marijuana use by a wide margin Tuesday, with 68 percent in favor and 32 percent against. [continues 790 words]
WEST BRIDGEWATER - The class had covered bullying, Internet safety, and good decision-making, and by February, Officer Kenneth Thaxter could see that the sixth-graders were ready. The lights went off, and the projector went on. "Today," the DARE officer said, "we're going to talk about marijuana." For 16 years, every elementary school student in this small town has learned about drugs from Thaxter. But this year, his lesson needed to change, and he was about to find out whether the students knew why. [continues 1558 words]
FRANKFORT -- Four law enforcement officials and a doctor urged state lawmakers Tuesday to say no to a bill that would legalize medical marijuana. For more than an hour, opponents of House Bill 166 told members of the House Judiciary Committee the ills they see in it. Their predictions about passage of the measure included an increase in crime, creation of trafficking problems along the state's borders, an enhancement of economic and social costs, temptations of children to use marijuana and uncertain physical outcomes over long-term usage. [continues 398 words]
The Rothman Institute at Jefferson, one of the nation's largest orthopedic practices, announced Thursday it would collaborate on a study to investigate the benefits of medical marijuana for patients suffering from chronic and acute pain. Rothman will work with Franklin BioScience, a Colorado-based cannabis grower and retailer. Franklin BioScience expects to open a medical marijuana dispensary in late-March called Beyond Hello in Bristol Township, Bucks County. "There's a link between access to cannabis and reduced opioid overdoses," said physician Ari Greis, a Rothman pain management specialist who will oversee the research. "We're all being cautiously optimistic that it could be helpful to some of our patients. Because we're leaders in orthopedic medicine, we feel this is an opportunity we can't pass up." [continues 513 words]
Students - United States
