It’s the most shocking moment in Academy Awards history: Somehow, someway, presenters Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway read the incorrect winner for Best Picture, announcing La La Land instead of Moonlight. Even now, it doesn’t seem real. Perhaps that’s why we can’t stop talking about that moment ourselves.
In her first public speaking appearance since the event, Academy president Cheryl Boone Isaacs publicly addressed the snafu for the first time. She expressed gratitude over the “humanity” with which cast and crew from both Moonlight and La La Land handled the fiasco.
“You saw a respect and graciousness from the La La Land and the Moonlight filmmakers in a way that I thought was very special,” said Isaacs, who was at the 2017 SXSW Conference & Festivals for a conversation with Oscar-nominated Hidden Figures screenwriter Allison Schroeder.
Following the Oscars, Isaacs promised to Academy members “changes will be implemented to ensure this never happens again.” During her talk, Isaacs also commended the show’s producers and host Jimmy Kimmel for a “brilliant, wonderful show.”
One of the main focuses for Isaacs during her time as Academy President has been to evolve the membership’s diversity in the wake of the #OscarsSoWhite controversy. To help usher in a new era for the organization, Isaacs instituted the A2020 initiative. “Last year with the Academy has been very interesting, to say the least,” she said, adding, “The conversation will continue.”
For the past decade, studies demonstrate that teenagers are using drugs at a lower rate and experts have struggled to pinpoint the reason.
But a report published in Tueday’s New York Times suggests an answer that, at first blush, seems preposterous: Smartphones.
Before you laugh it off as click bait, you should know that Nora Volkow, the director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse, agrees with the hypothesis. In fact Volkow told the New York Times that she soon plans to conduct research on the connection and will convene a group of scholars next month to discuss it.
“Something is going on,” Dr. Volkow told the Times. She called interactive media “an alternative reinforcer” to drugs, adding that “teens can get literally high when playing these games.”
According to the Times report by Matt Richtel:
The possibility is worth exploring, they say, because use of smartphones and tablets has exploded over the same period that drug use has declined. This correlation does not mean that one phenomenon is causing the other, but scientists say interactive media appears to play to similar impulses as drug experimentation, including sensation-seeking and the desire for independence.
A report released in January — “Monitoring the Future,” an annual government-funded study that measures teen drug use— revealed that past-year use of illicit drugs other than marijuana was at the lowest level in the 40-year history of the project for eighth, 10th and 12th graders.
Dr. Silvia Martins, a substance abuse expert at Columbia University who has already been exploring how to study the relationship of internet and drug use among teenagers, called the theory “highly plausible.”
“Playing video games, using social media, that fulfills the necessity of sensation seeking, their need to seek novel activity,” Martins told the Times, but added of the theory: “It still needs to be proved.”
Kim Kardashian To Retire After This Season Of ‘KUWTK’
“Kim has told Kris and the family that this is her last season. She just doesn’t want to do it anymore. It has been a great run but now it is over for Kim,” sources told NAUGHTY GOSSIP. “After the incident in Paris her life has changed. She doesn’t want to live this life anymore. She wants to focus on being a mother and finding other projects. Her marriage is in trouble and she is forced to have security 24/7. She is done. She is going to retire after this season and spend time with her husband and children. As far as she is concerned, she doesn’t want to see another camera for the rest of her life.”
On Sunday, “Keeping Up with the Kardashians” viewers will hear the horrific details of Kim’s Paris robbery from the reality star and entrepreneur. Thieves made off with approximately $10 million worth of jewelry last October.
“They ask for money. I said, ‘I don’t have any money,’” she recalls in an interview for her family’s reality series. “They dragged me out to the hallway, on top of the stairs. That’s when I saw the gun clear as day. I was kind of looking at the gun. Looking down back at the stairs.”
“I was like, I have a split-second in my mind to make this quick decision,” Kim reveals to her siblings. “Am I gonna run down the stairs and like, either be shot in the back – it makes me so upset to think about it – but, either they’re gonna shoot me in the back, or if I make it and they don’t, if the elevator does not open in time, or the stairs are locked, then like I’m (expletive). There’s no way out.”
Caitlyn Jenner Joining ‘Real Housewives Of Beverly Hills’
Caitlyn has been preparing for the release of her memoir, The Secrets Of My Life, out in April – and she is also in talks to join Real Housewives Of Beverly Hills.’
“Caitlyn’s reality show was cancelled after bad ratings and she doesn’t want to return to The Kardashian show. She is in talks about joining ‘Housewives.’ The president of BRAVO is also the president of E!, so she doesn’t have to worry about contract issues,” sources told NAUGHTY GOSSIP. “Caitlyn wants to get away from Kris, and ‘Housewives’ is her way away from her.”
Recently NAUGHTY GOSSIP spotted Jenner taking a bit of time for herself and picked up a few items at Vintage Grocers in her beachside community of Malibu on Tuesday.
Meanwhile, the ‘I Am Cait’ star is gearing up for the release of her book, which she wrote with Buzz Bissinger.
Love the fresh dirt we bring over daily from Naughty Gossip? Let us know in the comments!
An ambitious group of Arizona veterans at the University of Arizona are fighting to change policy at the state-level in order to allow patients the ability to use medical marijuana on campus without disciplinary action.
“The University of Arizona has not been a fan of the Arizona Medical Marijuana Act, and their campus police department is ready to start arresting medical patients who possess, or consume cannabis while on campus,” reads a petition the group has filed with Change.org.
Although Arizona legalized medical marijuana back in 2010, a separate state law, passed two years later, makes marijuana possession a felony offense on university campuses. This means students with a doctor’s permission to use medical marijuana could be thrown to the wolves of the criminal justice system for simply having this legal medicine.
Dan Schmink, an Army veteran who fought in Iraq, who also operates a business that assists other veterans in adapting to post military life, says many of the men and women he works with cannot function properly without the use of medical marijuana.
But instead of being allowed to use this legal medicine, a lot of these people are forced to self medicate with dangerous anxiety and pain medications, just to get through their studies.
“People truly don’t understand us. They don’t understand why we don’t want pills,” Schmink told KPNX-TV. “I do know there are veterans that rely on cannabis every single day to get through their classes so they can get that degree.”
An ongoing court case involving an ASU student convicted of marijuana possession could eventually lead to the campus ban being overturned. But that all depends on the outcome of the appeal, which suggests the policy is “unconstitutional” because medical marijuana is voter approved.
“Marijuana on campus is prohibited by state law and by federal laws,” ASU’s Police Department said in a statement. “Students who commit violations of the Student Code of Conduct that involve marijuana are guided to substance abuse resources. They may be subject to disciplinary action, ranging from probation to expulsion.”
Enlucem, a strategic brand consultancy currently advising startups in the cannabis space, announced today the results of a detailed consumer study of Californians’ attitudes toward marijuana products.
Results of the 800-person survey found that the market potential for medical marijuana and other future cannabis products in California is staggering – between 15 million and 21 million adults over 21 years of age. While 39% of Californians already use cannabis, another 44% are non-users interested in trying it now that it’s recreationally legal. Last November, California’s legislature legalized cannabis in a state where nearly 1 in 8 Americans live.
“These new potential customers are different than current users. They represent a different demographic, they favor alternative formats to smoking, and look for different cannabis benefits,” notes Ana Hory, CEO of Enlucem.
Key findings of the research include:
83% of California residents are willing to try or use Cannabis
54% of them are female, 54% are 40 years of age or younger, 40% have kids living in the household and most have incomes over $90,000
Consumers’ top health issues that medical marijuana can alleviate include Pain (58%), Stress (54%) and Insomnia (49%)
Cannabis brand awareness remains very low (49% didn’t know any brands)
Most consumers are interested in edible (62%) and topical products (44%), though heavy users (use daily or almost every day) still prefer smoking (75%)
The large majority of survey respondents use or plan to use medical marijuana, while a smaller group will use cannabis recreationally
Five unique persona segments have been identified for brand targeting
Hory’s motivation for the study was driven by cannabis benefits such as improved health and mental well-being. It’s a view shared by Jordan Tishler, MD, a Harvard Medical School graduate and founder of inhaleMD, a Massachusetts doctors group focused on medical marijuana access.
“I find cannabis to be very helpful to patients with chronic pain, insomnia, anxiety and depression, and anorexia. In many cases, cannabis is more successful than conventional medications, with fewer side effects,” says Tishler.
The study’s results came as a welcome surprise to Tripp Keber, co-founder and CEO of Dixie Brands, a large manufacturer of cannabis products in Colorado, with presence in California via a licensee.
“We see California as a key market for us, but it is one that clearly needs more data and research on how best to serve its massive consumer base. Enlucem’s research is some of the first and only comprehensive data we have seen coming from California and we look forward to gaining more insight into the next frontier of adult use cannabis.”
For more information about the study, contact Ana Hory at info@enlucem.com.
For more cannabis business coverage, visit the MJ News Network.
Forget about the DEA or the ATF or the FDA cracking down on the cannabis industry. It’s the SEC that is doing the investigating — and it has found one marijuana vending machine company engaging in stock shenanigans.
Last week the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission filed a 55-page complaint charging cannabis vending machine company Medbox and its founder with deceiving investors by forming a secret shell company to create “bogus” sales.
“As alleged in our complaint, investors were misled into believing that Medbox was a leader in the burgeoning marijuana industry when the company was just round-tripping money from illegal stock sales to boost revenue,” according to Michele Wein Layne, director of the SEC’s Los Angeles Regional Office.
Medbox touted record profits and its position as a leader in the marijuana industry. But the SEC found that these claims and other statements made by the company and its founder Vincent Mehdizadeh to be fraudulent.
According to the SEC, Mehdizadeh created a shell company called New-Age Investment Consulting to carry out illegal stock sales and used the proceeds from those sales to boost the firm’s revenue. According to the SEC, Mehdizadeh’s fiancée, Yocelin Legaspi, was allegedly the CEO of the shell company.
Medbox allegedly issued press releases headlining the phony revenues as record earnings to legitimize itself as a viable commercial operation when in fact nearly 90 percent of the company’s revenue in the first quarter of 2014 stemmed from sham transactions with New-Age.
The SEC complaint alleges that Mehdizadeh used $640,000 of the stock revenue to buy a luxury home in the Pacific Palisades.
According to the filing, Mehdizadeh allegedly acknowledged in a text message that “the only thing we are really good at is public company publicity and stock awareness. We get an A+ for creating revenue off sheer will but that won’t continue.”
Mehdizadeh and Medbox, which has since changed its name to Notis Global, have agreed to settle with the government. Mehdizadeh agreed to pay more than $12 million and agreed to be barred from serving as an officer or director of a public company or participating in any penny stock offerings. The settlements are subject to court approval.
When Dave Matthews walks into a room, he does so smoothly and calmly. He’s not bothered by eyeballs – and if he was, he’d just as easily leave through the front door. Matthews, when he meets you, offers to buy you a coffee. Then he sits and begins to open up as you ask questions about politics, naturopathy and his upcoming tour with guitarist, Tim Reynolds. The man who made the words, “Crash into me” and “Satellite” famous explains and expounds in conversation and he’s not afraid to make a monkey face or use a cartoonish voice. Matthews, on a warm spring afternoon, drinks red rooibos tea and says, “Oh, that’s exciting!” when the barista tells him the espresso machine is broken. He also just turned 50 years old.
You recently had a birthday, do you find yourself being more health conscious lately?
I think I’m going through a change in my – well, I don’t know about a change, but I’m a little more health conscious because I’m older.
You look good!
Well, that’s nice. Yeah, well, that’s just only because my kids are getting older. I don’t think I was particularly health-conscious. I’ve never considered myself that but I’m becoming more like that just because I figure I should probably start investing in staying around a little longer if I want to see my kids graduate from college. Or enjoy what adventures they get up to, I probably should ease back a little at least on Irish Whisky, ease back on beer.
Is there a food you love? Are you a pizza person?
Oh yeah, I love all those things. I love ice cream and pizza and tons of animal products, if the animals are happy and I conk them on the head and take their flesh. But I’ve also spent the last week being a vegan. Only because it’s good exercise.
Really?!
But that doesn’t mean that I’m going to be a vegan forever. First of all, I’m sure there’s a huge school of people that would say I’m wrong and there’s a huge school of people who aren’t paying attention, but I do believe that there’s a kind and sustainable way to raise animals because we’ve been doing it for as long as we’ve been talking. So, the morality of it, if an animal is treated well and if an animal is treated respectfully, and the quality of life is there, the act of slaughtering, if it’s done respectfully, all of that I think is, I don’t think you can say there’s an immorality there.
There are so many mouths to feed.
There are. But I do think there’s a way to do it. We don’t need to eat or waste as much as we do. I don’t think we need to eat as much as we do. That element could use some changes. But I think the way we relate to the planet, the way we farm is not strategic.
So, let me ask, what level of responsibility do you feel for something like that? For me, I see people who need groceries or hear of someone who got kicked out of their house and they have an autistic son and I have the inclination to always help – but you have to have boundaries, limits.
The one place where I think, as far as government is concerned, I think governments have a much greater responsibility to care for the population. I don’t care whether you call it socialism or whether you call it a safety net. The greatest flow of money is in the hands of a very small group of people and corporations and they should pay a greater amount of money back, in my opinion. Or at least an equal amount of money, percentage-wise, as everyone else. Then, I think, culturally we need to try and look after each other. Socially, we need to look after each other. But I don’t think guilt is a useful relationship to have with yourself. I don’t think that emotion does anything. And I think some people do good things. And some people make an effort, but we can’t all. It’s hard to always be available. But it’s easy to indulge a respect and also not fear each other. I think our society is more and more getting obsessed by the individual, as opposed to the collective. America loves to obsess on the individual. I’m not saying it’s bad to say, ‘I’m me and I deserve the respect of all individuals.’ Yeah, we all do. But at the same time, if that individual figured out a way to exploit the system – to use the society they’re in – and make a billion dollars, it doesn’t mean they worked harder than anyone else, because you can’t work a million times harder than someone else.
You can’t work 40-million hours a week!
If someone digs ditches for 40 hours a week and then works at a restaurant for 20 hours a week so they can get food on the table, there’s no way that a guy who works 60 hours a week and makes billions of dollars has worked that much harder. They say, ‘I worked hard for my money.’ Yeah, but you didn’t work that hard. So hand over the money. And these days a lot of money goes to the military. And if we’re stuck with this Nation-State concept, then we don’t want to deplete our military so Canada and Mexico can take over. But if we’re stuck with this, I think we have a greater responsibility. And if you have a lot, give some back somehow – it doesn’t have to be through taxes, because maybe that system doesn’t work too well. But I do think we should have a compulsion to want to help. I always thought it was interesting in South Africa when I was growing up, if you sat 100 paces away – I saw it over and over again – people that were begging, it was inevitably the person who looked like they didn’t have much at all that who would be giving the beggar money.
Right because they know want more keenly.
But then the person with the fur coat and fancy bag would give the person a wide birth like they’re going to catch poverty from them, or something. Nobody wants to be poor and nobody deserves to be poor. There’s not so many poor people that they’re going to bankrupt the rich. There’s no chance of that. If every rich person just said, ‘Let’s house the poor,’ they probably wouldn’t notice that their money was missing.
Are you on your computer or watching TV, following all the Trump headlines?
I think it’s great when people get together and take to the streets. Any time. I think it’s great. And there’s merit in a lot of different responses. I think the dust is going to settle to a degree. I’m an immigrant so I have very strong opinions that favor immigration only because I believe that any healthy democracy – whenever you have immigrants, whether they wanted to come or not, because the slaves are a great example, or the Irish potato famine – they grow the economy. Because suddenly you have a population of people, willing or unwilling, like the Chinese building the railroads. And then there’s going to be people who take advantage of that by getting rich by exploiting people and there’s going to be people who stay comfortable but not doing anything because somebody else is doing it. And there’s always going to be people that do that. But if you took that labor force of new people in all levels – I’m not just saying farm hands or just busboys – but all levels, doctors and technicians. If you take that away, it’s not like the people here that don’t have work are going to fill those holes. You have to be more proactive if you want to employ the people that are unemployed here. Like if you employ coal miners in West Virginia and not have them be coal miners because coal is a dying industry, no matter what anybody says, then you need to go in and build windmills and solar in West Virginia. And so those people can say, ‘Oh I got a job!’ and it’s not a dying job, it’s a growing industry. Renewable energy is growing and it employs more people than fossil fuels already in America. And yet, government, because there’s money that’s left over.
Fossil fuels still have so many chips in the game.
All the money in renewable energy is in investment, in the future. But the fossil fuel industry has the gold now, so they can line the pockets of whomever. Here’s what I think I can do. I mean, I’d love to run around the streets and wear a pink pussy hat on my head.
You don’t feel comfortable doing that?
No, I’m happy to do that. But what I think I can do is try and get people to move solar industries and wind industries into West Virginia to manufacture those giant things. Get it to those places. Go to the closed down air-conditioning factory and build solar panels in the same building and hire people to do it. That’s a very simple way to look at it, but that’s a New-New Deal. As opposed to, ‘We’ll bring back the air conditioner!’ No, you’re not going to bring back the air conditioner plant. So I think there’s lots of opportunities. What is a crucial fight for me would also be immigration. I think [the recent political move banning immigration] is a foul, foul mistake. That’s one to fight. I’m not as obsessed with – although I understand it – ‘Respect me, respect who I am!’ I mean, I understand that. But I feel like there’s distraction, a slight of hand going on. It’s like, ‘Look over here!’ while we do something else. In a weird way, I think some of the immigration stuff, the shock of it distracts us from what’s happening on Wall Street. Although it is illegal. If you think about international agreements and how we should treat refugees, to say we won’t take them in, breaks a lot of treaties. And it’s just against what we stand for. But I’m not sure that [Trump has] succeeded in doing that yet. The wall I find offensive. The concept has got to be illegal. It’s just so obscene. But maybe they can build a wall. It’s such a waste of money.
Yeah you see these Facebook memes, ’$20 billion for the wall and $20 billion would cure homelessness.’
And a wall, you just climb a wall!
And there’s a wall there already, fences.
And rivers. It’s not easy. If you ask anybody who got here illegally, it’s not easy to sneak in here. Less people are coming now than were coming before. Obama was, what did they call him, the ‘Deporter and Chief.’ He was rough on immigrants. Ramping it up a bit more is just dangerous and I think it could be more damaging. But I think the hoopla about everything [Trump’s] doing makes us miss the Wall Street stuff. We had a big problem and now they’re saying the whole housing thing had nothing to do with the lack of regulations, but he’s talked about how he’s helping the American worker, or that’s his goal. But he’s hiring all the people that stole people’s houses. He’s hiring that one guy from Goldman Sachs who’s going to get confirmed, the Treasury Secretary, I think 30,000 people lost their homes on his watch at Goldman Sachs. There’s not a lot of people screaming, ‘What are you doing on Wall Street?’ They’re saying, ‘Respect me as a woman, or respect the rights of lesbians, gays, transgenders,’ which I think is valid and there’s a real, genuine fear. And we’ve come a long way in those areas, especially here on the coasts. The verbal assault has happened and so it’s fine to have a verbal assault back, but while we’re having a fight over that, there’s real stuff happening on Wall Street. And to assume that something more sinister is happening quietly is a good idea. Anyway, I don’t find him and everyone he’s surrounded himself with – I find him impossibly unsatisfying. And I think he has very little imagination and I don’t think he cares in the slightest about what people think of him.
Really?
I think he likes to be liked. But I think he convinced himself that anyone who says they don’t like him is either lying or is wrong. And once he can do that, it doesn’t really matter if people like you.
Right, he’s not really populist in a way for the country he’s serving. But I think he’s a narcissist and he wants to be at the center.
And that he deserves to be. To be a narcissist I don’t think you have to want to be liked. But you certainly want to think you have the right to be. Even though it seems to a degree, I hope, that Congress will maybe step up a bit more and not just have it be Lindsey Graham and [John] McCain on the Republican side saying, “Hey, wait – don’t do that.” Even though, they’re not doing enough. People need to certainly stand up. But there’s a lot of things in place that hopefully – there’s no question that Trump, if he could, would be a Fascist. I don’t think anyone, even that voted for him, would question that. They’d be like, ‘Yeah, of course!’
It’s funny how Socialism has such a terrible connotation but Fascism, half the country is like, ‘Cool!’
Yeah, he ‘shoots from the hip. Mussolini was awesome!’ Yeah, there’s some bad taste – maybe it started in the 80’s, but I don’t know. I think even under Clinton I think Socialism, for whatever reason, the idea of it – I mean, it’s such a nice word! It’s not a bad thing.
What’s your relationship with your cell phone?
Well, I think I’m on it too much. For sure.
Do you have a Facebook feed that you go through, something like that?
No. I do have Instagram because my kids got me on it. But I have a very small following. I don’t have an Instagram that’s public. I might, but it’s not really mine. I think it’s the band’s. I think the band has a Facebook. But I’ve never seen it. I’ve never been on Facebook.
Really, you’ve never been on Facebook?
It’s not a position. It’s just – unless I went on as someone and just for the sake of connecting. It just seems like a lot to manage. I get to the point when somebody sends me a video that’s linked to Facebook, but I just try to find another way to see it. It’s kind of nice not to be part of something.
I talked with Sir Mix A Lot recently and he said his #1 piece of for young musicians is that they’re walking, talking brands as soon as they release their first album.
But I don’t care. Only because of the way that the people around me have run the business around me. I’m not opposed to that, I think I have a real presence, a relative presence, a digital presence. But I haven’t spent a lot of time branding, but I guess somebody has.
Certainly – I think of that drawing, the Dancing Nancy.
Yeah, that thing’s all over. And I drew it a long time ago. It was our first t-shirt. And now I see it around like, ‘Oh, look!’ And I kinda like it. It’s not offensive, it’s not cute. It’s just kinda graceful. A little graceful image. It’s got a little vibe to it. I kinda like it.
Do you find yourself pining any way for pre-internet days?
I think it’s amazing. I do think it’s more difficult to – and I definitely talk to people in elevators, which somebody really like and other people really don’t like at all. Quite often people don’t like to be talked to in elevators – sometimes more than others, sometimes I don’t want to talk. But I like doing it. ‘Hello!’ Making small talk.
You must learn something from people at least sometimes in those occasions.
Yeah, if you just talk to people and ask them, ‘What’s doin?’ I have a friend, he’s on Facebook and Instagram. He’s running and walking across the U.S. He’s not far from done. He went from Virginia and now I think he’s in New Mexico. Twenty miles a day. He’s got a tent and a little buggy. And he knocks on doors, ‘Can I pitch my tent in your yard?’ He tells people what he’s doing. He talks to people as he goes, makes conversation with anybody. Finds out all sorts of things. But the whole way he’s meeting people and that’s the whole point of what he’s doing. He’s hairy but he wasn’t before. He was a well-kept kid. Now he’s pretty bushy.
Tell me about the tour you’re about to do with Tim Reynolds.
I’m not really a proud person. Well, sometimes when my kids are concerned. But I think I still feel proud about the unusualness of my band and I love the people that I work with. Although, now we’ve been around long enough and things that are around long enough don’t seem that unusual unless they’re awesome like smaller flowers. And I love the band I play with but I just felt as though I was starting to – I had to do something else.
Is that how you felt when you did your solo record ‘Some Devil,’ too?
Yeah. Just because I feel like I need to avoid the analogy of the dragon eating its own tail. When you do something the first time, whether you succeed because of your own good work or good luck or because of someone else helping you, when you do a thing a first time, there’s a sort of blindness and courage. But when you do it a second time and when you keep doing it then at some point, for me, it starts to feel like, ‘What am I doing?’ At one point it went from I don’t want it to become a thing that I’m doing because I’ve become an imitation of myself. I don’t want it to become because I have to do it because I did it. Because I’m lucky enough that it happened well so I have to do it again. Not that that’s what it is necessarily. And there’s also – relationships change, you know. We’ve been together for 25 years. And I love everyone that I work with but I just felt like this year I wanted to do something different. So, initially, I wasn’t going to do anything but I love playing with Tim and I don’t get to do it very often because I’m out with the band.
It must spawn something different, creatively.
Tim was the first musician in Virginia that I played with when I moved there. He was the first musician I went to see. And then I met him and I watched his band and then we started to talk and he let me sit in with his band. We’d hang out a bit and play music and make weird, fun recordings. I was never really that eloquent but he certainly inspired me. So I have a really great connection to him. We did some crazy out music early on. But that was before the band. And I just love playing with him. So we’re going to do a couple shows for a couple weeks down in Mexico. Then we’ll do a tour in Europe, which I’m excited about, going back there. He and I did something there probably ten years go, maybe more. And we had a blast. So I’m really excited to go back with him again. And we’re going to do a little tour in the States. We’re playing some big venues and some different venues. So it’s going to be interesting. But we have done some pretty big places together, but the crowd just has to expect something a little different. But they do. I think they really enjoy it. People enjoy relaxing.
At South by Southwest Monday, in front of a panel that included actress Kate Mara and retired spaceman Clayton Anderson, Budweiser Vice President Ricardo Marques unveiled plans for the brand to become the first beer on Mars. When asked what the challenges are of bringing beer to space, Anderson said, “Anytime you go from a gravity-based environment…and then you go to a zero gravity-based environment, and you put carbonation in a beverage, it’s going to cause issues.”
And while there are many hurdles that must be overcome to reach such metaphorical and literal heights, Marques says the solar operation “is a dream that builds off our unbreakable belief in the power of the pursuit of the American dream.” Watch the announcement:
The marijuana farmers on the 12-acre farm at the University of Mississippi have one job: To provide research-grade cannabis for scientists. And, according to one top researcher, the government-run facility has failed. Badly. It turns out the government marijuana is inferior and moldy.
Sue Sisley, who was awarded a grant to study cannabis as a treatment for military veterans suffering from chronic post-traumatic stress disorder, the dried marijuana she received from the university was moldy and had the consistency of talcum powder.
“It didn’t resemble cannabis. It didn’t smell like cannabis,” Sisley told PBS. “They weren’t able to produce what we were asking for.”
According to Sisley, the medical marijuana she received was contaminated with mold and the chemical potency was not what she had requested for the study.
To exacerbate the problem, there is no other legal source of marijuana for Sisley — or any American scientist for that matter — to conduct experiments. The University of Mississippi facility is operated by the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA).
As PBS reports:
Since 1968, it has been the only facility licensed by the DEA to produce the plant for clinical research. While eight states and the District of Columbia have legalized marijuana — and all but a handful allow at least some medical cannabis — growing the plant in large quantities remains forbidden under federal law. For all practical purposes, that means that any medical study that wants to use marijuana on human subjects must go through the University of Mississippi.
Rick Doblin, whose organization Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies (MAPS) is partnering with Sisley on the research, told PBS that this recent episode “shows that NIDA is completely inadequate as a source of marijuana for drug development and research. They’re in no way capable of assuming the rights and responsibilities for handling a drug that we’re hoping to be approved by the FDA as prescription medicine,” he said.
NIDA claims there have been no previous complaint about mold or potency, but it admits that the cannabis is not tested before being delivered to researchers.
“There’s no telling how many subjects in past studies were exposed,” Sisley warned.
According to the PBS report:
One sample, billed as having a 13 percent level of THC — the main psychoactive compound in marijuana — had just 8 percent when tested at the independent facility in Colorado. Other samples were off by lesser amounts. Subsequent testing at the University of Illinois-Chicago confirmed the presence of total yeast and mold. The Chicago tests also found all four samples contained trace amounts of lead, though well below the levels generally considered to be hazardous, at least for adults.
“We waited 20 months to get going, and then we got this sub-optimal study drug,” Sisley said. “The longer we allow this monopoly to continue, the more efficacy [of the] research will continue to be thwarted.”
Medical marijuana is a controversial topic within the US, shrouded in mystery and suspicion. Even with the legalization of the medicinal use of the drug in most states, there’s still much ground that has to be explored, especially when it comes to chronic pain.
Marijuana’s complicated history with American politics has made the conduction of reliable research a difficult, creating an endless loop of struggles for proponents of the plant. Many medical practitioners are not opposed to the idea of medical marijuana, but still don’t prescribe it to their patients, claiming that there’s not enough research on the matter and that they’d rather use methods with certifiable results instead of resorting to experimentation.
Recent studies have demonstrated the effect the drug has on some illnesses, one of them being chronic pain, and how helpful marijuana has been for its treatment. Chronic pain is one of the country’s most pervasive issues, affecting over 100 million Americans at an annual cost of $600 billion. Opioids have been the leading medical treatment for the illness, but they come with a bunch of side effects that have many believing that they do more harm than good. In 2014, there were over 14,000 deaths caused by unintentional overdoses on opioids. These drugs are also a much discussed source of addiction that have led us to the current American opioid crisis, where the drugs are among the leading sources of death in several states.
All of this evidence should put medical marijuana in a good spot, but still, doctors are incapable of prescribing the herb to their patients because of its illegal status under federal law. They’re only able to verify that their patients are viable for medical marijuana, which in turn allows them to purchase the drug out of pocket at their local dispensary.
If you want to learn more on the subject, you can read these stories that explain things further:
