In the 20 years since California became the first state to legalize medical cannabis, the pressing question in the political debate has obviously been Is weed good for human health? But there is another practical consideration that might even be more likely to get legislators and the public to take notice: Could legal medical marijuana also be good for our economic health?
A new study from the University of Georgia has run the numbers, and its conclusion is a resounding yes.
Using Medicare figures from 2013, when 17 states plus the District of Columbia had provisions for medical marijuana, researchers found that patients switching from prescription pharmaceuticals to medical pot saved the program an estimated $165 million. If all 50 states legalized medical cannabis, the report projected a savings of $468 billion—about 0.5 percent of total prescription drug spending by Medicare Part D.
The news gets even better: Since Medicare Part D coverage is limited almost entirely to seniors, the demographic most resistant to marijuana in any context, the actual savings could be higher.
The goal of the study was to approach the medical marijuana debate from a novel angle. Says study co-author W. David Bradford, a professor of public policy at the UGA, “We realized this question was an important one that nobody had yet attacked.”
Nevertheless, the study provides indirect evidence of public opinion on medical marijuana laws. “The results suggest people are really using marijuana as medicine and not just using it for recreational purposes,” says lead author Ashley Bradford. In other words, they see dispensaries as providing a medical service and not as a backdoor to complete legalization.
To reach their conclusion, Bradford’s team sifted through 87 million data points, winnowing them down to concentrate on nine categories with at least one FDA-approved cannabinoid treatment: anxiety, depression, glaucoma, nausea, pain, psychosis, seizures, sleep disorders, and spasticity.
The same UGA team is planning to look next at Medicaid, which serves a more diverse population.
You’ve probably heard it all — but I’m hoping you haven’t heard this. As The Fresh Toast’s sex columnist, if I really had to distill my top tips for you to improve your sex life — stat — these would have to be the five ideas I suggest you try first. They work for me, every time — hopefully they work for you too!
Maybe you already have one, in which case, good job. But if you’re still using that Pocket Rocket, it’s time to join the modern era and invest in a high-quality sex toy. If you have a vagina or sleep with vaginas, my top suggestions are either the LELO LILY2 (great for clitoral stimulation during penetrative sex, or on its own), or The Womanizer (an innovative new toy that simulates oral sex for those of us with clitorises, and gives a great show. If you’re a penis-owner who wants a toy of his own, there’s plenty out there for you too! Try the unfortunately-named Hot Octopus Pulse II, or enjoya couple’s toy, like the classic WeVibe.
You can read more of my tips for high sex in a different column, but I think this one is the tops. Get high, and decide on a limit — like being able to do anything but kiss, or touch each others’ genitals, and go at it until one person “loses” and the winner gets to decide their (consensual) prize. The tease will get both of you hot and giggly.
If you think you look bad, all the more reason to create some good candle-lighting and overcome that noise! Watching yourself have sex with someone is arousing, and it will get you both off. I promise. We are visual creatures.
If you think it’s too intense to ask a partner about a fantasy they’ve been having that might involve someone else, try asking them to recount a past romp they had before they met you the next time you’re getting down. Hearing about them having sex with someone else might hurt a little — but it will hurt in a good way, so long as you promise not to use any of it against them in a fight someday. Start off with someone safe, like an ex you know you won’t be jealous of, or having them recount a one-night stand, and work your way up from there. Soon, you might be able to even hear their fantasies about that hottie at the party they were flirting with — or even feel open to inviting them home!
Set some mellow lighting and music, get high, and cuddle. Extend the conversational foreplay as long as you can, and only mess around when you really can’t stand not to any longer. Take it slow, focus on your breath, and make sure to start early enough in the night that you know you have hours and hours in front of you. It will feel downright luxurious just to make date night about being each other’s best friends and lovers.
We just completed the amuse-bouche of 2017 and resolutions are already dropping like flies. While you might have already slipped up on a few of your 2017 goals it isn’t too late to rein it in and make 2017 the year of a fitter healthier you.
Here are three things you can do this year to move your fitness journey forward by leaps and bounds, and the third one is a game changer.
If I could do only one exercise for the rest of my life it would be squats. Weighted, unweighted, balet, high bar, low bar, box, front, back or overhead. You can’t go wrong. I know “functional” is quite the buzzword these days, but in this context we are talking about movements that are built right into our DNA.
Whether you are three years old or 93, everybody squats. Maybe it is just to get up and down off the toilet, but we have to squat. Squats promote mobility, balance, coordination, and these benefits translate into more efficient movement in the real world. And if none of that motivates you, squats are one of the best ways to get a nicer butt.
I hope you are sitting down because you are about to get some tough news. If you don’t drink water you will die. Actually you are going to die anyway, but if you don’t drink water you will die a whole lot sooner. Water is truly one of the best things you can do for your body. Your muscles are composed of 75 percent water. Dehydration can lead to weakness, fatigue, dizziness, and electrolyte imbalance. And don’t let the word dehydration fool you into a false sense of security. The moment you have the sensation of being thirsty you are mildly dehydrated. Thirsty signals two percent dehydration, and cognition, coordination, and will power can all be adversely affected at this stage. Avoid this trap, and drink half your body weight in ounces of water each day. If you weigh 180# pounds, you should be drinking at least 90 ounces of water.
Get more sleep. And if you are like most people you should be getting a LOT more. At least eight hours. Sleep is one of our most essential internal rhythms. Muscular health, immune health, hormone levels, brain function, and even sex drive are all connected to how much sleep we get. It isn’t just old folks and babies that need a lot of sleep. We all do. You may feel like you are still crushing it with 5 hours of sleep and a couple of Red Bulls, but I promise you that your productivity, wellness, and longevity will all be increased by getting more sleep.
Have you ever memed before? Have you ever been memed? It’s a weird feeling, those big, blocky white letters covering your face or directed your way. Perhaps someone placed the Crying Jordan meme atop a loved one’s visage; maybe that “someone” was you, meme-ing an uncle after your younger generation squad finally won in the holiday football game.
Whatever your stance, memes are an reality-blurringundeniable aspect of culture, a specific brand of culture. Hold that thought.
Donald Glover won two Golden Globes Sunday night. As creator/director/writer/actor in FX’s reality-blurring Atlanta, Glover was on stage to receive awards for Best Television Series—Comedy or Musical and Best Television Actor—Comedy or Musical. During his show’s acceptance speech for the former, Glover took time to thank Migos, who appear in an episode. But that’s not why Glover was shouting them out. He was just appreciative they made “Bad and Boujee.”
Reporters asked Glover to clarify his comments later backstage. Some had never heard of these Migos or their record “Bad and Boujee.” Why shout them out?
“I think they’re the Beatles of this generation and they don’t get a lot of respect,” he said, hinting at a long-gestating internet argument/troll. “Sort of like the YouTube generation I kind of came up with, there’s a generation of kids that are growing up on something that’s completely separate from a whole group of people—and honestly, that song’s just fly. There’s no better song to have sex to.”
That “Bad and Boujee” would end here wasn’t a foregone conclusion, but it isn’t all that surprising. The track is a firestorm of catchiness and catch phrases, attributes of any great Migos song. From its first moody guitar strum, it throws you into a tidal wave of hype that only swells throughout the record. It signals youthful anarchy through cooled condescension: My life’s better than yours, I can afford whatever I want, but I still eat Cup of Noodles. Who cares if you care?
It’s the Kardashian-Jenners eating Popeye’s in their PJs but, you know, genuine and fresh.
https://www.instagram.com/p/2rnaVrnGk2/
Not only do you love the song, you love to love this song. It excites you and everyone around you instantaneously. A drug in audio form. Just watch this crowd in Nigeria lose their mind and spirits when Migos performs “Bad and Boujee.”
Part of the success and bigness of that record—its own merit well-established—must be attributed to memes. Nothing spreads faster and transforms the meaning of art like memes. They create this sense of instant memories, imbuing well-worn nostalgia into songs and moments not even weeks old. But within an always-accelerating culture, days are months and weeks are years. So when a meme-generating track like “Bad and Boujee” plays, you’re not only celebrating the song, you’re reveling in reliving these mini digital moments you previously experienced, too.
This type of joy can compound infinitely. Such was evidenced by Rae Sremmurd’s “Black Beatles,” the unofficial anthem of last year’s Mannequin Challenge. Before its attachment to the challenge, it was just an underground hit. Then it blew up. What’s perhaps surprising to learn is that pairing “Black Beatles” to the Mannequin was such a concerted effort behind the scenes by Interscope, Rae Sremmurd’s label, and Pizzaslime, a music blog/branding power.
“[It] was really just a vessel for people to hear the music for the first time,” Interscope’s Gunner Safron said. “I think a lot of our technique is really just trying to find content and build content around the music that’s shareable, which then gives people a chance to discover on their own.”
A significant part of music culture now is the ability to participate with your favorite artist as they release projects. It’s remix culture on steroids. Think of how Kanye’s Life of Pablo album cover became a meme, fans writing their own all-caps versions, usually instructing Ye to release the album. It solidified as meme thanks in part to Kanye joining, playfully blaming Chance for Life of Pablo’s delay. Kanye memed himself. (Whenever someone claims Kanye needs to be “more humble,” remember he’s one of our most self-deprecating artists.)
No one actively feeds meme culture like Drake. His “Hotline Bling” music video capitalized on the power of internet parody artists long before others understood their voracious hunger. His “Hotline Bling” music video, especially in retrospect, seems specifically crafted to pull GIFs, meme, screenshot, and share in various ways. Drake either realized, or stumbled into the idea, that these people weren’t discrediting or truly making fun of him. (Okay maybe a bit.) But what really happens is everyone feels part of the moment, something they can reference and remember forever.
As Safron said, it’s a “vessel.” None of this would matter if the art itself couldn’t withstand the scrutiny. Artists and labels will chase creating those moments for fans, if they haven’t already. This will become the new marketing—people becoming commercials for content without ever realizing it. Though that’s a cynical thought, we do, after all, live in an era where people call themselves brands instead of human beings.
But science also can create and a recent example of that involves every middle school nerd’s favorite technology: lasers. It is the latest major breakthrough in the field of polariton lasers, which could lead to new studies in quantum physics, and the key to all this was jellyfish. Enter the jellyfish laser.
Basically, the polariton lasers scientists use currently operate through inorganic semiconductors and generate exorbitant heat that requires cooling. During a 2011 study, scientists found that jellyfish’s green fluorescent proteins, through a combination of mirror and low-energy light, could produce a beam of monochromatic photons. In other words, green lasers.
This was the first insistence of biological lasers. (Much to Dr. Evil’s chagrin.) In 2016, scientists were able to use those green fluorescent proteins from jellyfish, as well as a mirror chamber and E. coli bacteria, to focus and increase the intensity of the “jellyfish laser,” as we’re calling it. Due to the barrel-shaped proteins, this polariton laser can function at room temperature, which is ideal for quantum applications, as some experiments require low-temperature settings. This new jellyfish polariton laser also is much more efficient and compact.
This makes the new study promising for the field of optical computing, [said Stéphane Kéna-Cohen, an assistant professor in the Department of Engineering Physics at Polytechnique Montréal in Canada], and a tiny laser based on biomaterials could also potentially be implanted in the human body for medical applications. In the meantime, he added that they are a useful model for investigating fundamental questions in quantum physics.
This research may be preliminary and it may be awhile until it produces significant results, but polariton lasers can now be constructed organically from jellyfish. Our world is more unbelievable every day.
A cyber attack crippled a major marijuana POS system, sparking an outage that has stymied point-of-sales and inventory systems for dispensaries in 23 states.
MJ Freeway said on Monday that restoring full service may take up to three weeks. In the meantime, nearly 1,000 retailers will be forced to track sales and inventories without the assistance of software.
There are reports that a some retailers have been forced to shut down, since the software is the point-of-sales system. Other retailers have been tracking sales the old-fashioned way — with pen and paper.
“We don’t know yet exactly who or what the motivation was (for the attack),” said Jeannette Ward, director of data and marketing for MJ Freeway. She said the company “will definitely pursue a criminal investigation.”
The Denver-based company is working around the clock to resolve the situation, but stressed that there is no danger of customer data being corrupted by the hack.
“The attack was aimed at corrupting, not extracting, data,” Ward said. “What that means is all client-patient data is still protected, still safe, still encrypted and was not viewed by the attackers.”
Jessica Billingsley, founder of the MJ Freeway, wrote on the company’s Facebook page:
MJ Freeway teams have been working overnight on recovery procedures. The process is progressing, but it is manual and thus very time consuming.
Access to an alternative site will be available for you today. We will update you with further information via email. Thank you for your patience and again, our sincere apologies for the inconvenience.
The company has been fielding a high volume of phone calls from clients and is using social media sites to keep customers up tp date on developments.
“We have spoken to many clients directly. We’ve got our support lines open,” Ward told Marijuana Business Daily, who first broke the story. “We’ve also reached out to (some larger) clients proactively. We’re sending emails to all clients every couple of hours to update them.”
Oh, don’t get me wrong, I love the winter. Just in someone else’s dream. You see, I’m less fond of the slop and the slipping on the ice leading to a fall…or worse! It gives me something to complain about. When a truck splashes a pedestrian — speaking in the first person of course — well, it makes me want to drink. Or at least to make a drink.
When I’m weaving tales of woe, the last thing I want to be is thirsty. But not being a heavy drinker has its benefits and failures. I would have to explain how I came to use weed and liquor in the first place and unless you were in New Orleans at the Pharmacy Museum, you’d never know.
So it stands to reason that if the weather is cold outside, I want to get warm. And the best way to do that is with drink and a fine Indica Strain. I want couchlock. I want to feel like a warm cashmere blanket is bathing my bones in thick heat. There is much to be said for this feeling and it is all good.
The Difficulty of Winter Walking is more than a metaphor; it is the name of this cocktail:
The Difficulty of Winter Walking
Warren Bobrow with DOWW
Ingredients:
2 oz. Cannabis Infused Aged Jamaican Rum (I used OG Kush-decarbed at 240 degrees for 45 minutes- for my Cannabis, then infused for a period of time).
For the rum element, I like my rum to be funky from the use of a Dunder. What is a Dunder? It’s a wild yeast that lives in the dunder or muck pit. Sort of like a sourdough only much funkier. No way do you ever want to see one. But the rum? It’s salubrious!
4 oz. Grilled Pineapple Juice- Grill slices of Pineapple on a grill and cool, then juice. Charred is great!
½ oz. Freshly Squeezed Lemon Juice
½ oz. Raw Honey Simple Syrup
2 oz. Sparkling Water
Pinch of Sea Salt, like Maldon (flaky)
Coconut Water Ice — just like it sounds: freeze a tray of coconut water into ice. Do it now!
Angostura Bitters
Prep:
To a Collins Glass: Add the Coconut Water Ice. Add the OG Kush infused Jamaican Rum to a mixing glass with the 2-3 cubes of regular ice- save the coconut water ice for the cocktail. Add the Grilled Pineapple Juice. Add the Lemon Juice. Add the Raw Honey Simple syrup (1 cup raw honey to 1 cup of hot, not boiling, water. let cool.). Stir until chilled. Add the Coconut water ice to the Collins Glasses. Top with your mixture of rum, pineapple and honey/lemon juices. Finish with a splash of Sparkling Water and the Angostura Bitters. Top with a puff of Sea Salt and serve.
Now, for my next trick…
Here’s a punch I named after my most favorite bar in Miami Beach, (so far anyhow): The Broken Shaker.
The back story is my family owned a home on Hibiscus Island in Miami Beach. And it was a grand Spanish style home that sprawled over several acres of land, which is a lot for anyplace in this area. The Broken Shaker is located in the Freehand Hotel and the designer of the original property designed my grandparent’s home. It’s uncanny for me to enter this hotel/hostel because from the moment that I entered the door of the Broken Shaker Bar, I felt right at home. I’ll name this punch after the name of my grandparent’s home: Shangri-La.
Shangri-La Punch. The tour boats still go in front of the mansion today saying it was the home of the founder of Geritol and Serutan. But no more. Too bad, but time goes on.
The use of Fruitations Tangerine Soda Syrup is brilliant because the second you open the top, the punch is absolute perfection because of the utter quality of the ingredients.
Shangri-La/Broken Shaker-style-Roasted Fruit and Rum Punch
1 bottle Jamaican Rum infused with the strain of your choice
4 bananas
2 pineapple
4 pink grapefruit
1 orange
1 bottle Fruitations Tangerine Soda and Cocktail Syrup
1 Bottle Seltzer water
Angostura Bitters
Couple pinches of sea salt, like Maldon
Fresh Thyme
Prep:
Pre-heat an oven to 350.
On a silicone oven proof tray, add slices of the bananas, pink grapefruit slices, the pineapple (peeled and cored and sliced) and the orange. Roast for 30 minutes, let cool and then muddle into a punch bowl, try to get as much juice into the punch as you are able. Augment when necessary with freshly squeezed juices (they don’t appear in the recipe- so add as needed, depending on how many you are serving)
Add the Fruitations Tangerine Soda and Cocktail Syrup. Add the Seltzer and the Angostura Bitters. Top with the sea salt and a bit of fresh thyme- no wood. It’s bitter!
Never more than one per hour please!
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Warren Bobrow, a.k.a. The Cocktail Whisperer, is the author of four books, including his latest: Cannabis Cocktails, Mocktails and Tonics.
Nusret Gökçe is a butcher and restaurant owner in Istanbul. What’s even more impressive these days is that he has amassed more than a million followers on Instagram.
What’s the deal? First off, he’s handsome.
https://www.instagram.com/p/BOf69IPjCyD
He’s also figured out the social media sweet spot of food porn mixed with posturing.
Here he is showing a cut of meat who’s boss.
https://www.instagram.com/p/BNe0Gy-DqO4
Here he is playing soccer without a shirt. #thatcheflyfe
https://www.instagram.com/p/BINLE5aARUf
Here he is looking all Don Corleone like.
https://www.instagram.com/p/BHdHpyxDb6G
Here he is with a tiny baby, which is nearly overshadowed by his chest.
https://www.instagram.com/p/BKTLcHxgsLA
He quickly earned the nickname “Salt Bae” after posting his latest video. Just watch his smooth seasoning technique at the end.
https://www.instagram.com/p/BO9dI9ujWNI
If those meat fingering techniques don’t have you swooning, maybe this will.
https://www.instagram.com/p/BOMBuW_DGas
Is this guy for real?
https://www.instagram.com/p/BFMyfpZMHx6
Nusret has been a butcher since he was 16. He’s now in his early 30s, according to FooDiva.
Remember that New Year’s resolution where you try to stay off social media?
Marijuana legalization is expected to be the mostly widely discussed issue of the 85th Texas Legislature, with a plethora of bills pertaining to the subject already waiting to be heard in the coming months.
This is not surprising, especially considering the way the state’s legislative forces left the cannabis reform topic in the 2015 session, when it tossed every other marijuana-related measure in the garbage with the exception of a measly low-THC bill that allows only a restricted number of patients to gain access to non-intoxicating cannabis oil.
Even this modest legislation ended up on the books with no possible functionality. That’s because a mistake in the language forces doctors to “prescribe” marijuana rather that offer recommendations – an action that is strictly forbidden under the Controlled Substances Act.
There are 11 different bills pertaining to marijuana reform that have already been submitted for the 2017 session. Some lawmakers are hoping to fix the problem with the current medical marijuana law, while others are hoping to expand the scope of the program to service more medical marijuana patients. There are also a couple of measures lingering in the halls of the Texas brass intended to decriminalize marijuana possession, as well as an attempt to drag the Lone Star State completely out of prohibitionary times.
Perhaps some of the most interesting pieces of legislation to be heard this session are a couple of proposals aimed at putting the issue of marijuana legalization on the state ballot. Senate Joint Resolutions 17 and 18 would simply take the marijuana legalization debate out of the hands of lawmakers and let the state’s voters decide which way to go.
“The people should be able to decide what should be legal or not legal and help with the laws,” Corey Mendes, director of Southeast Texas NORML, told KMMT. “Texans would be able to say whether or not they wanted it, not representatives who are in the pockets of special interests.”
However, the bill to watch this session is one designed to eliminate the criminal penalties associated with small time marijuana possession. House Bill 81, which was introduced by State Representative Joe Moody, would simply make the offense a civil infraction, punishable with a $250 fine – doing away with the possibility of jail and a criminal record.
Although similar decriminalization proposals have failed in the past, the issue now has more support from the very lawmakers who previously stood against it.
“We’re spending our tax dollars on incarcerating [people that don’t deserve to be incarcerated] because they got caught with a small amount of marijuana,” State Representative Jason Isaac, who voted against a decriminalization bill in the 2015 session, told the Texas Tribune. “These are people that we probably subsidize their public education, we probably subsidize where they went to a state school, and now they’re branded as a criminal when they go to do a background check.”
There is also a possibility that the legalization of a comprehensive medical marijuana program could be a hot issue during this session. State Senator Jose Menendez recently submitted a proposal aimed at putting a full strength medicinal cannabis law in place for patients living with “debilitating and chronic medical conditions.”
“Doctors, not politicians, should be determining what is best for Texas patients,” Menéndez said in a statement. “This is legitimate medicine that can help a of variety people, from the grandmother suffering from cancer to the veteran coping with PTSD after returning home from war.”
Even if some of this legislation goes the distance this year in the House and Senate, it is not yet known whether Texas Governor Gregg Abbott would support any of these reforms in ink. So far, his administration has not said whether the Governor plans to support any marijuana-related bills in 2017.
Marijuana companies unite to help veterans. Yes, The Veterans For Cannabis Foundation, with the help from two cannabis companies, are creating special marijuana strains specifically designed to help veterans combat PTSD and related disorders.
“We are very proud to be working together with the Veterans For Cannabis Foundation,” said Mike Catalano, head of marketing for Medicinal Genomics and Courtagen Life Sciences. “Their mission of effecting change through data collection may ultimately help to reduce the unnecessary deaths amongst our veteran population, in particular for conditions where opioids are commonly prescribed. Registering the genetic fingerprint of the cannabis strains used will help control the consistency of the products and the data collection efforts.”
According to the Veterans Administration, there are 22 suicides of U.S. veterans each day. Nearly 20 percent of vets returning from the Afghan and Iraq wars suffer from PTSD. In addition to the staggering suicide figure, there is a growing concern of needless accidental overdose deaths caused by prescription medication, which occur at a 50 percent greater rate in the veteran population. The opioid epidemic killed more than 33,000 people in 2015 — many of them veterans who were overly prescribed pain medications from the VA.
Because the federal government still considers cannabis to be an illegal, Schedule I substance, most veterans are denied access to medical marijuana. Last year, Congress gave veterans the right to discuss medical marijuana as a treatment option with their VA doctors in states where it is legal.
“The death rate from opioids among VA health care is nearly double the national average,” said Rep. Earl Blumenauer, D-Ore., who authored the bill allowing for veterans’ access to cannabis. “From what I hear from veterans is that medical marijuana has helped them deal with pain and PTSD, particularly as an alternative to opioids.”
While the new policy allows VA doctors to discuss medical marijuana treatment and complete the regulatory paperwork for state-sponsored programs, it does not allow VA doctors to provide marijuana or cover the cost.
Monday’s joint announcement hopes to make the process more transparent and scientific. What makes the VFCB program intriguing is that the Veterans For Cannabis Foundation will be creating specially branded cannabidiol (CBD) products that can be tracked with the VFCF application.
Instead of strains named Green Crack or Alaskan Thunderfuck, the program with create strain names with names more palatable to a government committee that may help the data get a fairer assessment. Tracking the genetics will ensure that the connection to the original name is not lost, using StrainSEEK™ strain identification and registration services.
The program is free to veterans of all branches of the military and the products will be priced at a discount for those who served our country.
“We are laser focused and extremely excited to be working with Medicinal Genomics and Courtagen Life Sciences to bring cannabis science to the forefront in the treatment of our veterans,” said Joshua Littrell, founder of Veterans For Cannabis Foundation. “With MGC’s StrainSEEK program we are able to take some of the guess work out of cannabis treatment in our veteran community. VFCF will now be able to replicate and reproduce the experience for veterans in our program. Our veterans are begging for a treatment they can trust and that is uniform. Now they can rest assured knowing they are receiving the same treatment every time.”
