Every drug, yes, every drug, from alcohol as a rudimentary anesthetic to methamphetamine as a weight loss supplement, has medicinal applications. Cannabis retains a strange space in our medical landscape: Centuries of anecdote reinforce its therapeutic worth, yet in the United States it's still federally classified as having no medical value. Because of its legal status, it has been woefully under-researched, yet 23 states have medical marijuana laws on the books. The conditions for which medical marijuana can be prescribed vary from state to state. [continues 664 words]
PROVIDENCE - Amid signs that the political climate for legalizing marijuana is growing increasingly friendly, officials in charge of the new regulatory machinery in Colorado and Washington State have some cautionary words of advice: Look before you leap. Marley Bardovsky, the assistant director of prosecution for the Denver City Attorney's Office, and Darwin Roberts, deputy attorney general for Washington State, were among a panel of experts who spoke Tuesday at a forum on legalization at the Brown University Medical Center. [continues 1148 words]
A Liberal Senate forum held earlier this year signified the Trudeau government taking its first tentative steps down the road to legalization. Yet, many questions remain unanswered as the government contemplates a homegrown solution. Can I smoke it now? The government ultimately is the only body with the power to put laws on moratorium, but Karla O'Regan, a St. Thomas University criminology professor, said some police forces might already be inclined to turn a blind eye to marijuana possession related offences. [continues 855 words]
Today's marijuana might surprise the counterculture types who smoked an occasional spliff in their misspent youth. The main psychoactive chemical - delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol, or THC - is often present in exponentially stronger concentrations than even a decade ago. It's a result of modern horticultural techniques and careful breeding. What will be the consequences when the federal government legalizes pot? Weed advocates like to say that marijuana has no known fatal dose - unlike booze or hard drugs. But there is good evidence that a habit of elevated THC can have serious, lasting effects on teenaged brains. [continues 246 words]
U of C investigating marijuana's efficacy as trauma cure Finding a cure for PTSD could come down to mice and marijuana, says a University of Calgary researcher. Italian memory scientist Dr. Maria Morena is taking a cue from indications the use of cannabis by those suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder, and a function of a brain associated with the drug, could be a key in treatment. The endocannibanoid system of the brain reacts to marijuana and creates similar chemicals, much like opioids do with endorphins, said the researcher. [continues 150 words]
HONOLULU (AP) - Industry experts say there are a lot of chemicals that could contaminate Hawaii's medical marijuana. Dispensaries are set to open throughout the state in July, and lawmakers are pushing a broad bill to address many of the obstacles the industry is facing. One is how to regulate marijuana testing. The proposed state law would set requirements for testing medical marijuana's potency and also would test for contaminants such as heavy metals, bacteria and pesticides, which industry experts say is necessary to ensure patient safety. Under state rules, dispensaries must send all marijuana products to a certified laboratory for testing. [continues 286 words]
Test-grown poppies thrive in southern Alberta Premier Rachel Notley is backing a push for the federal government to unravel the red tape that prevents farmers from cultivating poppies in southern Alberta. Thebaine poppies are prohibited under the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act. Canada imports about $600 million worth of thebaine each year from Australia and Europe, because it is not available in North America. Pharmaceutical companies process it into pain relievers such as morphine, codeine and oxycodone. API Labs of Lethbridge says it has been test-growing the poppies and they appear to thrive in southern Alberta, which is best known for grain, potatoes and corn. The company wants to build a $120-million processing plant and take advantage of a potentially huge market. [continues 461 words]
Industry experts say there are a lot of chemicals that could contaminate Hawaii's medical marijuana. Dispensaries are set to open in Hawaii in July, and state lawmakers are pushing a broad bill to address many of the obstacles the industry is facing. One is how to regulate marijuana testing. The proposed Hawaii law would set requirements for testing medical marijuana's potency and would also test for contaminants such as heavy metals, bacteria and pesticides, which industry experts say is necessary to ensure patient safety. Under state rules, dispensaries must send all marijuana products to a certified laboratory for testing. [continues 275 words]
A powerful drug often used to spike heroin and cocaine - sometimes unknown to users - has killed an estimated 700 people in the eastern United States in the past couple of years and has now swept into Orange County. Acetyl fentanyl is cooked in underground labs, usually in Mexico, to emulate the prescription drug fentanyl - the most powerful opioid on the market. It provides an intense high and is cheap to make, so dealers add it to enhance their products, experts say. [continues 757 words]
An experimental drug derived from marijuana has succeeded in reducing epileptic seizures in its first major clinical trial, the product's developer announced on Monday, a finding that could lend credence to the medical marijuana movement. The developer, GW Pharmaceuticals, said the drug, Epidiolex, achieved the main goal of the trial, reducing convulsive seizures when compared with a placebo in patients with Dravet syndrome, a rare form of epilepsy. GW shares more than doubled on Monday. If Epidiolex wins regulatory approval, it would be the first prescription drug in the United States that is extracted from marijuana. The drug is a liquid containing cannabidiol, a component of marijuana that does not make people high. [continues 955 words]
In Israel, Where Pot Innovation Runs Deep, Companies Seek First-Mover Advantage The way Prof. Raphael Mechoulam remembers it, the toughest part about experimenting with cannabis was taking it on the bus. "We went to the police and they gave me 5 kilos of hashish and I went on the bus and everybody smelled something and said, ' What the hell is going on, what kind of smell is that?'" Unlike hordes of college students who excuse their drug use as a passing phase, Mechoulam was quite literally experimenting with marijuana. As a researcher at the Weizmann Institute of Science in Rehovot, he was part of the team (alongside Yechiel Gaoni) responsible for the discovery of THC, the main psychoactive ingredient of cannabis, as well as much of the foundation research in the pharmacology of cannabinoids. [continues 633 words]
A lethal opioid invented in canada has hit the streets and it's 100 times more potent than fentanyl Toiling quietly in a University of Alberta lab, a group of Edmonton scientists developed a synthetic opioid in the early 1980s with jaw-dropping properties. Tests indicated W-18 was 100 times as potent as fentanyl, a prescription painkiller blamed for hundreds of overdose deaths across Canada in recent years. Never actually studied on humans or picked up by a pharmaceutical company, the Alberta invention languished in obscurity for 30 years - a forgotten chemical formula. [continues 719 words]
Of all the conflicts that the United States embarked upon in the past 100 years, President Richard Nixon's war on drugs - launched in June 1971 - was arguably the most futile. The aim was to reduce the illegal trade in drugs by criminalising their production, sale, possession and consumption. An army law enforcement agency equipped with all the resources the most prosperous and technologically advanced nation on earth could muster was enlisted to reinforce this prohibition. However, for all the national treasure expended and the millions of lives lost or blighted, the war has achieved little. Estimates of the size of the US' illicit drug trade are far from precise, but it's estimated that users spend about $100 billion annually, sustaining and enriching large criminal organisations inside and outside the country. [continues 594 words]
LAGUNA WOODS - Tony Pierce was 21 when he smoked marijuana for the first time. It was an act of rebellion, recalled Pierce. "I thought I was going to hell. I remember feeling tired and then paranoid that my mother would somehow find out." Pierce, now 62, said he had to cut short a career as an Orange County Transportation Authority bus driver after he was laid up by chronic pain from spinal cord cancer. He'd spend 18 hours in bed some days. [continues 1727 words]
Affordability, availability and more potent forms of marijuana are spurring alarming trends in pot use among teenagers, law enforcement and school officials say. Not only are more youths being cited for minor in possession, but how they view and use the drug is shifting as marijuana becomes more socially acceptable - and legal. "Pot's chill," says Kate, a 17-year-old North Medford High School student whose name has been changed to protect her anonymity. "It just chills you and opens your eyes. I don't see it as a bad thing." [continues 1717 words]
Prescribing Habits Have Changed, Doctors Say; State Touts Database A lot of Dr. Jeffrey Miller's patients come to him in severe pain after car accidents, traumatic falls and sports injuries. But over the 22 years the orthopedic surgeon has been practicing in New London, he's seen a marked change in attitudes within the medical community, from patients themselves and from health care regulators, toward how that pain is treated - a change that has become even more pronounced with the recent heroin crisis. [continues 1420 words]
DENVER (AP) - Marijuana has attracted many labels in its time. On Friday, Colorado lawmakers debate whether the state should give the drug one more often associated with purple carrots than purple haze - certified organic. Colorado starts work Friday on becoming the first state to regulate organic labels in its pot industry, with other legal weed states watching to see whether they too should step in to help consumers wondering what's on their weed. Organic standards are regulated federally, and pot remains illegal at the federal level, meaning there's nothing stopping commercial pot growers from calling their wares organic. [continues 165 words]
I SAY, "Weed News Roundup"! And you say, "Cool, let's do it." Because you went to a private school that didn't have a sports team with call-and-response cheers. Way to go, Waldorf. Ida-No, You've Got to Be Kidding-Last year, two very stoned and stupid young men, driving from Las Vegas to Montana in a vehicle filled with 20 pounds of cannabis, made a stop in Idaho. Not for french fries, but to call the cops on themselves, asking to be arrested. No, really. Here's a portion of the transcript of their 911 call: [continues 660 words]
Opposes Marijuana Shops in City Says Problems Not Worth Tax Revenue YAKIMA - Even though marijuana can be legally bought just down the road, Yakima's top cop wants to keep marijuana shops out of his city. "I don't see anything positive coming out of it," police Chief Dominic Rizzi Jr. said of a proposal to allow retail sales of marijuana in Yakima. Rizzi sees any financial benefits to the city outweighed by increases in crime and other problems related to addiction. [continues 713 words]
Parliament Should Allow Doctors to Prescribe Cannabis Those responsible for the Government's drug policies could not be accused of any exaggerated deference to the world of scientific papers, double-blind trials and laboratory-bound research. The Psychoactive Substances Bill - which outlaws anything likely to alter a user's mindset - was described in the New Scientist as one of the "stupidest, most dangerous and unscientific pieces of legislation ever conceived". It demonstrates Parliament moving in the opposite direction to the tonnage of evidence showing that draconian approaches to recreational drug use have failed. [continues 220 words]
