Marijuana's health effects A new report says the precise health effects of marijuana on its users remain something of a mystery. (Jan. 13, 2017) More than 22 million Americans use some form of marijuana each month, and it's now approved for medicinal or recreational use in 28 states plus the District of Columbia. Nationwide, legal sales of the drug reached an estimated $7.1 billion last year. Yet for all its ubiquity, a comprehensive new report says the precise health effects of marijuana on those who use it remain something of a mystery -- and the federal government continues to erect major barriers to research that would provide much-needed answers. [continues 1147 words]
Researchers combed through more than 10,000 scientific studies to examine the various health effects of marijuana use. More than 22 million Americans use some form of marijuana each month, and it's now approved for medicinal or recreational use in 28 states plus the District of Columbia. Nationwide, legal sales of the drug reached an estimated $7.1 billion last year. Yet for all its ubiquity, a comprehensive new report says the precise health effects of marijuana on those who use it remain something of a mystery -- and the federal government continues to erect major barriers to research that would provide much-needed answers. [continues 1123 words]
Experimental mice have been telling us this for years, but pot-smoking humans didn't want to believe it could happen to them: Compared with a person who never smoked marijuana, someone who uses marijuana regularly has, on average, less gray matter in his or her orbital frontal cortex, a region that is a key node in the brain's reward, motivation, decision-making and addictive-behaviors network. More ambiguously, in regular pot smokers, that region is better connected than it is in nonusers. [continues 235 words]
Painkiller Overdoses Fell in States With Legal Marijuana, Study Finds Could medical marijuana be an antidote for the nation's scourge of fatal overdoses caused by prescription pain medication? A new study suggests the answer is yes, and it's set off a flurry of medical debate over the risks and benefits of making cannabis more widely available to patients. The new research, published Monday in the journal JAMA Internal Medicine, finds that deaths associated with the use of opiate drugs fell in 13 states after they legalized medical marijuana. Compared to states with no formal access to marijuana, those that allowed certain patients legal access to cannabis saw a steady drop in opiate-related overdoses that reached 33 percent, on average, six years after the states' medical marijuana laws took effect. [continues 901 words]
Prescription Drug Deaths Drop in States That Allow Medical Cannabis, Study Finds. Could medical marijuana be an antidote for the nation's scourge of fatal overdoses caused by prescription pain medication? A new study suggests the answer is yes, and it's set off a flurry of medical debate over the risks and benefits of making cannabis more widely available to patients. The new research, published Monday in the journal JAMA Internal Medicine, finds that deaths associated with the use of opiate drugs fell in 13 states after they legalized medical marijuana. Compared with states with no formal access to marijuana, those that allowed certain patients legal access to cannabis saw a steady drop in opiate-related overdoses that reached 33%, on average, six years after the states' medical marijuana laws took effect. [continues 891 words]
A new study suggests medical marijuana could be an antidote for the nation's scourge of painkiller overdose deaths and it has set off a flurry of medical debate over the risks and benefits of making cannabis more widely available to patients. The new research, published Monday in the journal JAMA Internal Medicine, finds that deaths associated with the use of opiate drugs fell in 13 states after they legalized medical marijuana. Compared to states with no formal access to marijuana, those that allowed certain patients legal access to cannabis saw a steady drop in opiate-related overdoses that reached 33 percent, on average, six years after the states' medical marijuana laws took effect. [continues 373 words]
Emergency physicians are bracing for a new rash of overdoses of a drug that looks like heroin but may not respond to commonly used doses of the opiate-reversal drug naloxone because it is so powerful, a new study reports. The threat comes from an emerging street drug called acetyl fentanyl - -- an opiate that is five to 15 times as powerful as heroin and is being mixed with street drugs sold as heroin. An article appearing in the Annals of Emergency Medicine on Monday warns emergency physicians to expect "an upswing in what appear on the surface to be heroin overdoses" but are in fact tied to acetyl fentanyl. [continues 265 words]
Study: Cardiovascular Events in Young Users Up Over a five-year period, a government-andated tracking system in France showed that physicians in that country treated 1,979 patients for serious health problems associated with the use of marijuana, and nearly 2 percent of those encounters were with patients suffering from cardiovascular problems, including heart attack, cardiac arrhythmia and stroke, as well as circulation problems in the arms and legs. In roughly a quarter of those cases, the study found, the patient died. [continues 178 words]
A Study Prompts Concern That Marijuana May Have Cardiovascular Effects. Over a five-year period, a government-mandated tracking system in France showed that physicians in that country treated 1,979 patients for serious health problems associated with the use of marijuana, and nearly 2% of those encounters were with patients suffering from cardiovascular problems, including heart attack, cardiac arrhythmia and stroke, and circulation problems in the arms and legs. In roughly a quarter of those cardiovascular cases, the study found, the patient died. [continues 401 words]
The FDA Approved a Device That Opioid Users' Family or Caregivers Can Use. LOS ANGELES - With opioid drugs, mainly prescription painkillers, responsible for more than 16,000 deaths and half a million emergency room visits a year, the government on Thursday approved the sale of a handheld "rescue pen" that caregivers or family members can use to avert a potentially fatal overdose. The Food and Drug Administration said it cleared the prescription auto-injector to deliver naloxone - the same non-narcotic drug that paramedics and ER doctors use - nearly three months ahead of schedule and after just 15 weeks of deliberation under so-called priority review. [continues 646 words]
The FDA Approves the Sale of a 'Rescue Pen' To Reverse the Effects of Painkillers. Federal officials said Thursday they hoped a new "rescue pen" would help reduce the death toll from overdoses involving prescription painkillers. The Food and Drug Administration approved the sale, by prescription, of the prefilled auto-injector of the drug naloxone that caregivers or family members can use to reverse the effects of prescription painkillers, such as OxyContin and Vicodin, and heroin. Available until now only by syringe, naloxone has been a workhorse drug in emergency departments battling the relentless rise in painkiller overdoses over the last decade. Some communities also have experimented with making naloxone available as a nasal spray to first responders, such as paramedics and police officers. [continues 657 words]
Secondary Consequences of Marijuana Legalization Seen As legalized marijuana appears in an increasing number of American homes, so too does evidence of a dark side: accidental ingestion of pot and pot-infused food by young children. The results can be frightening to such children, who often suffer anxiety attacks when they start to feel unexpected symptoms of being high: hallucinations, dizziness, altered perception and impaired thinking. And the trend should prompt equal concern among adult caregivers and public health authorities, since ingestion of highly potent marijuana by young children can suppress respiration and even induce coma, according to a study published online this week in JAMA Pediatrics. [continues 236 words]
Broad Medical Marijuana Use Creates a New Risk for Children, a Study Finds As legalized marijuana appears in an increasing number of American homes, so too does evidence of a dark side: accidental ingestion of pot and pot-infused food by young children. The results can be frightening to such children, who often suffer anxiety attacks when they start to feel unexpected symptoms of being high: hallucinations, dizziness, altered perception and impaired thinking. And the trend should prompt equal concern among adult caregivers and public health authorities, since ingestion of highly potent marijuana by young children can suppress respiration and even induce coma, according to a study published online this week in JAMA Pediatrics. [continues 498 words]
In the record book of unintended consequences, this one's sure to be a groan-worthy entry: A frightening rise in addiction to the drug OxyContin prompts a reformulation that makes the prescription pain medication harder to abuse. So addicts switch to heroin instead. Clearly, not the hoped-for effect. But according to a letter published Wednesday in the New England Journal of Medicine, it's a switch that appears to be happening across the country -- especially in rural and suburban communities, where OxyContin abuse and addiction had gained a firm foothold. [continues 464 words]
Hallucinogens and other street drugs are increasingly being studied for legitimate therapeutic uses, such as helping patients deal with post-traumatic stress disorder, addiction, chronic pain, depression and even terminal illness. Janeen Delany describes herself as an "old hippie" who's smoked plenty of marijuana. But she never really dabbled in hallucinogens - until two years ago, at the age of 59. A diagnosis of incurable leukemia had knocked the optimism out of the retired plant nurserywoman living in Phoenix. So she signed up for a clinical trial to test whether psilocybin - the active ingredient in "magic mushrooms" - could help with depression or anxiety following a grim diagnosis. [continues 1526 words]
Obama's Drug Czar Blames Prop. 19 and Similar State Measures for Reported Rise. After nearly a decade in decline, marijuana is making a strong comeback among teens, with more high school seniors reporting that they had recently smoked pot than cigarettes, according to a government survey issued Tuesday. This year, 21.4% of high school seniors said they had used marijuana in the last 30 days, while 19.2% reported smoking cigarettes in the same time period, according to the annual "Monitoring the Future" survey from the National Institute on Drug Abuse. It was the first time since 1981 that pot surpassed tobacco in that age group. [continues 394 words]
Fewer Teens Believe Use of LSD, Pot and Ecstasy Is Risky. Extreme Binge Drinking Is an Additional Worry. The federal government's annual report of kids' alcohol and drug abuse seems reassuring: Compared with earlier in the decade, use of hallucinogens was down in 2008, marijuana use was way down, and use of methamphetamines was way, way down. But the researchers and public officials who crunch those numbers warned that some of the statistics gleaned from an annual survey of 46,000 American eighth-, 10th- and 12th-graders were worrisome. [continues 572 words]
Baby Boomers Made Marijuana Their 'Gateway' -- and Some Still Can't Let Go, a Report Says -- but a Younger Generation Finds Prescription Drugs Are an Easier Score. It's been four decades since the dawning of the Age of Aquarius, but aging baby boomers haven't stopped turning on. The federal government's National Survey on Drug Use and Health, released earlier this month, finds that as boomers move into their 50s in large numbers, drug use among older adults in the United States has hit its highest point ever. [continues 1183 words]
WASHINGTON - The use of the illegal "club drug" Ecstasy rose this year by roughly 55% among high school sophomores and seniors, surging particularly in the Northeast and in other urban areas where teens appear to be using the drug to fuel all-night partying. But some younger students focused more on pumping up than on partying down, driving a 40% to 50% increase in the use of performance-enhancing steroids among kids in eighth and 10th grade. All told, 2.8% of sophomore boys reported that they had used muscle-building steroids during the year. [continues 664 words]
