Mick Mulvaneywrote that a medical cannabis bill the state Senate was debating this month “does not fall neatly” into any pre-existing notion of Republican orthodoxy.
The ongoing medical cannabis debate resumed on Tuesday in the South Carolina Senate.
Mick Mulvaney, former President Trump’s White House chief of staff, is criticizing his own party for opposing a bill to legalize medical marijuana. He called local legislation “something that merits discussion and reasoned analysis,” even if it’s not a proposal that is conventionally considered a conservative priority, reported Marijuana Moment.
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The South Carolina GOP (SCGOP) apparatus has also vocally opposed a congressional bill to end federal prohibition that was filed by a Republican congresswoman representing the state.
Described as a conservative approach to medical marijuana, the bill is titled the South Carolina Compassionate Care Act. However, leaders of the Palmetto State see the measure from a different angle. The SCGOP even paid to circulate a message from a sheriff attacking Davis’s bill.
Former Top Trump Aide Calls Out SCGOP
Triggered by his own state party, Mulvaney is now publicly criticizing SCGOP’s campaign against a bill to legalize medical marijuana.
In an op-ed for FITSNews that was published on Thursday, Mulvaneywrote that a medical cannabis bill the state Senate was debating this month “does not fall neatly” into any pre-existing notion of Republican orthodoxy.
“By allowing doctors the right to prescribe medical-quality cannabis (derived from marijuana) for certain severely-ill patients, the bill raises issues related to everything from law enforcement to allowing patients and doctors more control over health care decisions,” Mulvaney wrote. “It is then, the precise sort of proposal that screams out for reasoned debate.”
For him, suchdiscussion would have been “welcomed” if he was a legislator.
Mulvaney, who continuously voted to back marijuana reform amendments, also pointed to federal “Right To Try” legislation, enacted under the Trump administration.
“If that debate had taken place, the party might also have been made aware of the overwhelming public support for limited medical marijuana,” Mulvaney wrote.
There’s no better time of year than Black History Month to honor Black pioneers in the cannabis industry. Here are four outstanding trailblazers.
One of the undeniable realities of the War on Drugs is that it had a disproportionate impact on Black cannabis enthusiasts. Even so, there are numerous Black pioneers within the world of cannabis that have made an immeasurable impact.
This is the reality, even though there are a multitude of barriers that have restricted Black entrepreneurs from the legal marijuana industry. In fact, some of the ways these pioneers have affected the industry may come as a surprise. There’s no better time of year than Black History Month to honor these pioneers.
The Canna MDs
In 2014, Doctors Rachel and Jessica Knox, who are known as the Canna MDs, founded the American Cannabinoid Clinics in 2014. The purpose of the clinics is to deliver “precision cannabinoid medicine to every patient seeking a personalized approach to healing.”
They got the idea to start the clinic when their mother, Dr. Janice Knox learned about the diversity of medical marijuana patients, along with the benefits of it while her daughters were in college. Now, there are multiple clinics operating throughout the state of Oregon. Their impact when it comes to spreading the word about the therapeutic properties of cannabis has been tremendous.
Hope Wiseman
Becoming a dispensary owner comes with enough barriers for Black entrepreneurs as is. That’s why it’s so impressive that a Black Woman was able to do so at the young age of 25, making her the youngest Black dispensary owner in the nation. Wiseman graduated from Spelman College, an HBCU, and has a background as an investment banker.
Wiseman operates Mary and Main dispensary in Prince George’s County, Maryland, with the pillars of social activism, education and philanthropy at the core of their operations. Mary and Main provides a wide range of therapy treatments and products that help customers aid their discomfort that includes topicals, dry herb and extracts.
Wanda James
Wanda James founded Simply Pure Dispensary with her husband, Scott Durrah, in Denver, Colorado in 2010. When they opened the dispensary, they became the first Black dispensary owners in the nation. Since both Wanda and Scott are both veterans, they pride themselves on serving their fellow servicemen and women.
Given the fact that they opened Simply Pure at the dawn of cannabis legalization in Colorado, they’ve been able to adjust accordingly in order to provide one of the best dispensary experiences in Denver.
Brittany Moore & Alphonso T. Blunt Jr.
There aren’t very many equity-oriented dispensaries out there, and an Oakland couple recognized the need for one. That’s why Brittany Moore and Alphonso T. Blunt Jr. opened the first equity dispensary in Oakland, Blunts+Moore. They are among the earliest beneficiaries of an equity-program launched in 2017 meant to license Oakland residents with a local cannabis conviction, or who are residents of areas that experience a disproportionately higher number of cannabis-related arrests.
Blunts+Moore operate a 4,000 square foot dispensary that offers hundreds of products including edibles, concentrates and herbs. Since they’re demonstrating an ability to thrive as beneficiaries of the new Oakland equity program, the hope is that they’re providing a blueprint for other Black entrepreneurs to follow in the future.
Ski resorts are caught in the middle of murky legal issues surrounding state and federal cannabis policies.
China Peak Mountain resorts have been forced to position some workers to enforce federal cannabis policies around their property. The recent happenings at this establishment make it a perfect example to describe the contrasting state and federal laws.
Photo by Harrison Moore via Unsplash
The Cannabis Policy at China Peak Mountain
China Peak Mountain is a ski resort in California, located 110 kilometers northwest of Fresno. However, it operates primarily on federal lands. Therein lies the dilemma.
California cannabis legislation permits the recreational and medical use, sales, and cultivation of cannabis plants, but federal laws do not. Cannabis is a Schedule I substance according to the Controlled Substances Act. Other substances in this group include heroin, psychedelics, and cocaine.
This patchwork of cannabis policies has left ski resorts like China Peak Mountain in a confused state, unsure of which cannabis consumption laws to stick to. The Fresno-based resort currently adheres to federal laws and frowns against all forms of cannabis consumption on its grounds.
China Peak Is Cracking Down On Cannabis Use
In December, the China Peak management posted an Instagram story detailing its stance against marijuana use on its grounds. The resort explained that California’s cannabis consumption laws are the opposite of the federal laws. Although the drugs are legal within the California borders, their consumption within the resort is an illegal act.
The resort’s location on United States Forest Service Federal Land means it must abide 100% by its federal laws.
This gentle reminder was accompanied by a series of punishments that could be meted out to visitors found using cannabis. The report stated that employees would be positioned at various locations around the resort grounds to crackdown on its customer base who are adamant about using marijuana around the ski areas.
In addition to this, the management also mentioned that it had received dozens of complaints from consumers who did not like the smell of cannabis. These complaints popped up throughout the last season and increased towards the end of the year. This reinforced the management’s decision to ensure all customers obeyed the federal rules. Staff are positioned in the parking lots, on lifts, and at several points on the ski grounds to prevent cannabis-consuming individuals from using the premises.
More Controversies
The Instagram post was received with mixed feelings. The post also received a lot of backlash from angry patrons who have promised to resist the resort’s stance.
Those found using cannabis in the resort will be removed immediately, according to the management. Customers who insist on resisting will have their passes voided for the remainder of the season, and they will be restricted from the resort’s grounds with no exceptions. Depending on the severity of the offense, the management says it would not allow some individuals to purchase the next season’s pass.
Photo by Colin Lloyd via Unsplash
The post’s conclusion, which begs patrons to stick to the new rules, also sparked outrage. Some patrons maintained that there should be a safe space for cannabis use on the grounds, despite the management’s wish to maintain its good standing with the USFS.
Softening Its Stance
Barely 48 hours after the post was put up, Tim Cohee, owner of China Peak Resorts, made another post on the company’s Facebook page. He wrote that he and his board were not happy to be in such an awkward position as this. He added that he was frustrated with the contradictory cannabis policies throttling the resort’s operations. While he and the resort’s management had expected the post to receive mixed views, they had not expected it to go as badly as it did.
Cohee further wrote that this stance was giving the resort extra running costs, as new employees had to be hired to ensure all points were monitored at all times. This is because the resort does not have the staff numbers or the time to enforce these rules. He emphasized that the resort does not want to act as an enforcement officer, but they have no choice.
He asked that marijuana users respect the rules and consider the wishes of other guests, their families, and friends who find the smell of cannabis offensive. He added that cannabis smokers could temporarily leave the resort premises to consume weed to prevent being removed from the property for the whole day or more.
Finding a Lasting Solution
Cohee expressed the frustration of many ski resort owners in the United States. To make matters worse, many of the country’s largest ski resorts are located in cannabis-legal states but on federally granted land. Many consumers are often perplexed about how these laws work out, and it’s not surprising because even the workers in the cannabis industry do not understand the constraint policies. Many owners have to find a compromise on this issue, and this confusion will linger until federal cannabis reform is finally approved.
Photo by Michal Knotek from Pexels
Enforcing federal laws has become a bother to privately-owned resorts and even national parks. Many park officials and personnel stated that some cannabis users might be perplexed about the state’s existing cannabis laws and why it is not permitted in these parks. Some come in with their medical marijuana cards issued by their home states in a bid to get around the federal laws being enforced. It’s high time Congress took cannabis reforms more seriously to clarify and resolve these challenges.
At least six cases were filed against people found with cannabis in national parks in Wyoming alone. Alex Freeburg, a criminal defense attorney, explained that these parks and ski resorts have to enforce the law as it is written, regardless of whether or not the guest has a medical marijuana card.
Bottom Line
China Peak’s cannabis situation is not unprecedented. In recent years, many resorts have lost potential customers due to these contrasts in federal and state cannabis consumption laws. The same goes for states with no cannabis reform.
Cannabis users have flooded into canna-legal states in droves to purchase and use the substance legally. This way, they get to enjoy cannabis without technically breaking their state’s laws.
There’s a good chance that none of the claims in this study can be replicated in a clinical setting, meaning that at this moment, you can simply ignore this research.
Did you hear about the latest study that claims using cannabis has negative impact on your ability to think and that it may continue after you stopped using? Yes, in essence, the study suggests that by using cannabis you will experience a detrimental effect on your cognition and that it may be permanent irrespective if you are young or old.
Of course, one would expect that with such outlandish claims that at the very minimal the researchers would provide substantial evidence, however, by their own admission, the “quality of evidence is low or moderate” despite them claiming that it was “of high quality”.
Photo by Dejan Marjanovic/Getty Images
Furthermore, none of the media publications that covered the research posted any data on the findings but simply regurgitate the same drivel as what the official study said in its PR release.
In today’s article, we’re going to be taking a closer look at some modern day Reefer Madness and how this anti-cannabis rhetoric becomes a part of the national conversation.
What the Actual Study Claims
Let’s start with the Abstract of the research.
As you can see, that what the study did was utilize Meta-analyses on particular papers found on the databases of PubMed, PsycINFO, Web of Science and Google Scholar. They then took all of these studies and compiled them to compare all the data.
They then created categories to look for specific changes including;
Learning and Memory
Attention
Processing Speed
Perceptual Motor Function
Language
According to their findings, “verbal learning and memory” had the most impact when people were allegedly under the influence and that “persisted when the acute intoxication (aka the high) passed”.
For the rest of the categories, the researchers claim that “small to moderate” effects were experienced, and all with “lasting effects”.
Can We Trust the Data?
These are legitimate studies, but I’ve been covering cannabis for longer than these Researchers have and know a thing or two about the nature of the studies available in these databases. Firstly, it is a known fact that the vast majority of cannabis research is predominantly negative not because cannabis is a risky or dangerous plant, but because the vast majority of the funding went to studies to illustrate the negative impact of cannabis.
Photo by Charles Wollertz/Getty Images
Therefore any meta analyses would have a negative bias in the result as there is not enough evidence to counter the claims. There isn’t enough research into the benefits and even the quality of the evidence that was used by the researchers were “low to moderate”.
Furthermore, this analyzes takes both acute users and moderate users, old and young, and throws them all in one pile. Because as we all know, the physiological and cognitive health of a young person is exactly the same as an older person…because “SCIENCE!”
The screenshot above shows us one section of a Meta-Analysis it utilized within their critical analysis and as you can see, they included evidence of “low quality”.
The question then should be, “why are we still talking about “Low Quality” of evidence. Of course, researchers use these papers to ask for grants on more specific studies, but when a study is flawed from the get go, riddled with errors – it creates a disingenuous picture of what is really happening.
We Need Honest Cannabis Science
At this point in the article I’m going to stop reporting on the study since the vast majority of the studies they utilized are not replicable in a lab setting. In other words, these are once more “assumptions” based on a rhetoric of people who don’t fully understand the drug or may have had a bias against the substance.
However, as someone who has been reporting on cannabis for more than a decade, I don’t think that it’s bad to see whether cannabis has long lasting effects. It’s in the consumer’s best interest to have as much data as possible to make educated decisions about consumption.
Photo by RODNAE Productions from Pexels
However, in order to do this we need to have funding that not only looks into the potential negative effects of cannabis. In virtually all of the studies, “dose, previous use, tolerance,” all played a factor in the degree of “intoxication” and “impairment” as a result. This means that if someone smokes often, they begin to build up a resistance to these effects – yet according to the study, “it doesn’t matter”. Young, old, heavy user, moderate – their data shows that there’s residual effects in them all.
But that’s not true because there are millions of cannabis users that outperform their non-smoking counterparts in all of these levels of cognition. Cognition and intelligence, retention, and higher cerebral functions can be influenced by a myriad of things such as a lack of sleep, excess stress, poor diet.
This means that cannabis doesn’t necessarily have any causal relationship to the effects illustrated in the study, meaning that we don’t have an accurate picture of the whole truth. In fact, we now have a skewed version of the truth that is being published on multiple sites as “fact”.
Trust in the Institutions
C19 wrecked the trust people have in their institutions. Everyone saw the ineptitude not only of the government, but many of the scientific bodies. There is corruption within the scientific ranks and the pharmaceutical industry has long funded anti-cannabis scientists. When studies of this nature come to light, it doesn’t help to inspire more trust. Rather, it seems that there are researchers desperate to prove their biases by compiling data, playing with queries to create a narrative that fits their hypothesis.
There’s a good chance that none of the claims in this study can be replicated in a clinical setting, meaning that at this moment, you can simply ignore this research even though I’m certain you’re going to see rehashed versions of the findings published on media outlets around the world.
New York senator Michelle Hinchey filed legislation called “Cannabis Container Bill of Rights,” which pushes for recycling across the cannabis industry once retail sales officially begin, reported Marijuana Moment.
The measure asks marijuana shops to provide a $1 deposit for any cannabis product sold in single-use plastic containers and to reimburse customers when they return the container. The proposed legislation would also demand that all cannabis products use packaging made from 50% recycled materials, at a minimum.
Last year, Hinchey sponsored another measure that would give priority to hemp-based packaging over synthetic plastics for cannabis products.
The bill’s justification segment notes that New York’s recreational cannabis law has important packaging demands like childproof sealing, which have caused the industry to have an enormous plastics footprint.
“The legal cannabis industry in the United States produces about 150 million tons of waste each year. Even when marijuana packaging is recycled at home, it is often sorted out by recyclers and taken to landfills,” it says. “While no industry is blameless in the plastic pollution crisis, New York has a unique opportunity to prevent a new source of plastic pollution as we consider the legalization of recreational marijuana.”
This bill is the same as one filed by Assemblymember Patricia Fahy (D) last year, but this new Senate version had been presented to the Senate Environmental Conservation Committee.
New York Cannabis Program Overview
Among other policy changes and updates confirmed since New York State’s legalization took effect in March last year, one of the most significant was the employee cannabis testing policy update. In October, New York became the first state in the Union to prohibit employers from testing most employees for cannabis.
In addition, New York Senator Jeremy Cooney (D) proposed a bill that would allow transgender and non-binary people to qualify as social equity applicants under the state’s cannabis law.
The FDA has pushed for the fast approval of COVID-19 vaccines for kids under the age of 5. Here’s when these shots will be available.
COVID-19 vaccines for children under the age of 5 have been heavily debated. Despite Pfizer and Moderna pushing for their emergency approval, everyone involved is reticent to get it wrong. Still, if everything were to work accordingly and the FDA were to approve the shots, children between 6 months of age and 5 years old could start receiving them late this month or the next.
This past Tuesday, Pfizer and Moderna requested emergency authorization from the US Food and Drug Administration in order to get vaccines to kids under the age of 5. Clinical trial data and all of the pertinent information will be submitted soon, with the FDA meeting on February 15th to reach a conclusion.
“The confidence of the American public depends on that, that you’re recommending something that you would give to your own children,” said Dr. Paul Offit, director of the Vaccine Education Center at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, to CNN. “It all depends on the data. The data will tell us just how good these are. There should be a robust safety profile and a robust efficacy profile and immunogenicity profile. And if that’s true, speed doesn’t really matter, as long as they have those data.”
If the vaccine were to be approved, it would function like all of the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines, requiring two shots at separate times for the initial full inoculation. Still, pending more studies, kids under the age of 5 might work differently than older children and adults. Pfizer has some data dating back to December showing that two shots didn’t build up the expected immunity and that a third might be necessary.
According to health experts, the approval of the vaccine has been pushed forward in order to address the growing numbers of COVID-19 infections and hospitalizations seen in kids under the age of 5.
Following the vaccine’s approval, vaccinating kids under the age of 5 should be relatively easy with a few caveats. While doctors and health practitioners will likely be equipped with how to vaccinate these kids, some pharmacies might not have the personnel with the necessary training for vaccinating children these young.
Just like with any other product on the market, there will be significant differences when you buy cheap vs. expensive cannabis.
A new analysis from Leafreport has just proven this, though we didn’t expect them to find such a huge difference. Leafreport has already been doing analyses every 6 months to provide consumers with a glimpse of the current CBD market, including helpful data such as thorough pricing studies that help in comparing over 3,000 CBD products made by over 100 brands.
Photo by Erin Hinterland via Pixababy
Their CBD reports have proven valuable for consumers as well as industry insiders because the market continues to grow and it has become challenging to decipher which products are worth spending our hard-earned money on.
They discovered that there is a 5,100% difference when comparing the cheapest and the most expensive CBD items on the market. CBD isolate is currently the lowest priced product on the market, which they found to be 19% less priced on average compared to when they obtained the same data on April 2021. Meanwhile, capsules were the product that saw the biggest price increase in the same period, which spiked 2.55%.
The biggest price difference was found to be in the topicals category, where the most expensive product was 11,142% different from the cheapest. They also found that Industrial Hemp Farms was the brand with the most economical products in general, for the second time in a row while Kushly was the most expensive brand. The 5,100% difference was discovered to be the biggest disparity in the industry, which they found in edibles.
Pricing Factors
Leafreport spoke to Laura Fuentes, Green Roads CBD Chief Officer of Science and Innovation, about the factors that affect pricing. “Companies like Green Roads that spend heavily on top-quality raw materials, independent testing, and other best practices, will naturally be more expensive than other brands that skip those steps – and expense – completely,” she says.
“If you review the pricing on all the top players in the industry, the pricing gap isn’t that big because most follow the same production process and have similar costs. The gap starts to arise when companies who fly under the radar and don’t follow generally accepted manufacturing procedures turn up with lower prices; consumers should be wary of pricing that seems too good to be true.”
They also spoke to Mitch Meyers, a co-founder of BeLeaf Life Oils, who stresses that consumers get what they pay for. “It is very important that people taking CBD for health and wellness purposes understand the company, the source of their hemp, and the testing regimen of the company producing the products,” Meyers says.
Meanwhile, Winston Peki, Herbonaut’s chief editor, says that how CBD is produced is a major factor in determining its final price. “The basis of difference in pricing for all CBD products, whether that’s oils, creams, or gummies, is highly related to the production process,” he says. He also elaborates that extraction type of processes impact the price since full-spectrum CBD products will cost more than isolate, whether the brand is vertically integrated or not, and the plants of the hemp part used also play a role.
Photo by Aleksandr_Kravtsov/Getty Images
“It’s erroneous to compare the prices of CBD products based on how much CBD you get for a certain price,” he says. “Other hemp compounds can significantly increase the effectiveness of CBD and possibly also create unique effects through their interactions with CBD.”
“Paradoxically, isolating CBD from an extract is cheaper than trying to remove all non-beneficial compounds, but trying to keep all beneficial compounds inside the extract,” Peki said. “If you isolate CBD, you simply filter everything else out. If you want to preserve other cannabinoids and volatile compounds like terpenes, you need a much more sophisticated filtering process that can be more costly.”
Other Factors That Play A Role
While CBD in general costs more than other types of wellness supplements, there are many things that affect the final price.
One of these is the source of hemp. Ideally, you want to go with organic hemp since the nature of hemp plants are dynamic bioaccumulators, which means they basically absorb all substances in the environment they are grown in. So, if they were grown using pesticides and chemicals, you’d also be putting these things in your body. When you buy CBD from organic farmers, this ensures better quality and purity while giving you peace of mind that it’s rich in all the good stuff and doesn’t have any chemicals.
CBD extract spectrum also plays a role; there are isolates, broad-spectrum, and full-spectrum on the market. Isolated cannabidiol is cheap and widely available but many consider it to be less beneficial compared to broad-spectrum and full-spectrum CBD because it doesn’t provide the benefits of the entourage effect.
Photo by CRYSTALWEED cannabis via Unsplash
Broad-spectrum refers to CBD that is similar to full-spectrum though it doesn’t have THC. Full-spectrum CBD will give you the closest compound makeup to what is found in the hemp plant since it has a rich array of terpenes and cannabinoids that already naturally are found in hemp, as well as some trace amounts of THC, though it’s usually 0.3% or less. Full-spectrum CBD will always be the superior product because it’s been tested and proven to be more effective, so it’s no surprise its more expensive.
Additionally, how much CBD concentration is found in a product also plays a role. High concentration CBD is pricier because they also provide more value for money, since a lower cost of CBD in every mg comes in your dose. The reasoning for this is similar to buying your groceries in bulk.
Some CBD products also contain other ingredients that can increase the price such as natural flavors, organic honey, etc. There’s also third-party testing, which is recommended for all hemp products. CBD products that can provide you with a certificate of analysis from a third-party laboratory gives consumers peace of mind that you are seeing unbiased testing results.
The results may have implications for the treatment of episodic memory deficits, which are not only hallmarks of Alzheimer’s disease, but are also prevalent in many psychiatric disorders.
Cannabidiol (CBD) may be capable of improving episodic memory and verbal recall, possibly providing important therapeutic treatment, according to a study undertaken at the University of Basel, Switzerland.
The study’s lead author, Janine Hotz with Division of Cognitive Neuroscience, and her colleagues say such findings are particularly interesting because they suggest a potential treatment option for psychiatric conditions affected by deteriorated verbal memory.
“The results are in line with the idea that vaping cannabidiol interacts with the central endocannabinoid system and is capable to modulate memory processes, a phenomenon with possible therapeutic potential.”
Treatment For Memory Decline?
“The results may have implications for the treatment of episodic memory deficits, which are not only hallmarks of Alzheimer’s disease, but are also prevalent in many psychiatric disorders like schizophrenia, bipolar disorders or posttraumatic stress disorders,” according to the study.
Study Design And Participants
The double-blind, placebo-controlled, randomized, crossover trial comparing the effect of vaping cannabidiol (CBD) e-liquid (0.25 ml, 5% CBD, 12.5 mg CBD) with vaping a placebo e-liquid was performed at the University of Basel with 34 healthy Swiss adults between the ages of 18 and 30.
Photo by Christian Wiediger via Unsplash
“The present study revealed an average increase of recalled words 20 minutes after vaping CBD compared to placebo condition by 10%. Importantly, we did not detect medication effects on attention or working memory performance, suggesting that CBD has no negative impact on these basic cognitive functions,” wrote Dr. Hotz, also a member of the Faculty of Psychology.
“The effect of CBD on episodic memory was independent of age, sex, depressive symptoms, frequency of cannabis consumption in a year, and the ratings after vaping (relaxation, tiredness, motivation, mood, tolerance).”
Hotz pointed out that BMI also seemed to play a role.
“The interaction between BMI and drug suggests that the dose for subjects with lower BMI might have been too high to increase memory.”
Now What?
“To conclude, while further research is needed to identify dose-response and time-response relationships, our results show that CBD can improve episodic memory, a drug effect with possible therapeutic potential,” wrote Hotz in the paper that was published in the Journal of Psychiatric Research.
A new study shows the subtle differences between tobacco and cannabis smoking. They’re both bad for your lungs, but in different ways.
Smoking alters your lungs, no matter the substance. But, according to a new study, there’s a difference between long-term cannabis smokers and long-term tobacco smokers.
The study, conducted by researchers from New Zealand, showed the differences in which cannabis and tobacco operate. While it found both substances detrimental to people’s health and lungs, it found that smoking tobacco made people’s lungs decline in how much air they can force out while smoking cannabis produced the opposite; cannabis was connected to higher lung volumes.
“Although the effects of cannabis were detrimental, the pattern of lung function changes was not the same. The research found that prolonged cannabis use led to over-inflated lungs and increased the resistance to airflow to a greater extent than tobacco,” said Professor Bon Hancox, one of the study’s co-authors. “It was also found that cannabis use may also impair the ability of the lungs to extract oxygen from the breath. This is a known consequence of smoking tobacco, but has not been demonstrated with cannabis until now.”
Photo by RODNAE Productions from Pexels
The study is one of the longest and most comprehensive studies done on the effect of lifetime cannabis use, tracking over 1,0000 adults until the age of 45, measuring their tobacco and cannabis smoking habits. At the start of the study, when subjects were 18, they all had similar lung health, an overall healthy baseline. By 45, lung damage was apparent, particularly in those who smoked tobacco.
Despite the fact that cannabis has been smoked for ages, very little is known about its effects, with the most evident harm being “bong lung,” a condition that leaves users with bronchitis and permanent lung damage known as emphysema. This condition has appeared in people who abuse cannabis smoking, not in regular or occasional smokers.
Lung damage from cannabis and tobacco has been historically difficult to differentiate, primarily because cannabis smokers tend to be tobacco smokers, at least in years past. In future studies, it’ll be worth looking into whether or not tobacco smoking has decreased and whether or not cannabis users are still tobacco consumers.
The Maryland Senate also has been working on an approach to legalizing marijuana. The chamber has been working for months to develop an implementation framework.
Maryland lawmakers announced legislation they say will put the state on an equitable path to legalize adult recreational marijuana if voters approve the bill in November.
House Speaker Adrienne Jones said the bill introduced Thursday sets out to address criminal justice and public health issues, while also building a foundation for social equity in the cannabis industry.
“While I feel strongly that the voters should decide this issue, it is the General Assembly that is charged with making sure we have a legally defensible, equity-driven plan in place should they choose legalization,” Jones, a Baltimore County Democrat, said in a press release.
“Marylanders deserve to have their voices heard at the ballot box on the question of legalization, but we cannot move forward without an implementation plan that addresses our immediate priorities,” said Del. Luke Clippinger, who chairs the House Judiciary Committee.
What’s In The Bill
The bill would allow Marylanders to possess up to 1.5 ounces of recreational cannabis. Possession of over that amount and up 2.5 ounces would be reduced to a civil offense rather than a misdemeanor.
The legislation also would automatically expunge the conviction of anyone previously found guilty of simple possession of marijuana if it was the only charge in the case. In addition, anyone currently held in a state prison or local jail for a cannabis conviction would be re-sentenced to end their term of incarceration.
Senate In Step With The House
The Maryland Senate also has been working on an approach to legalizing marijuana. Sen. Will Smith, who chairs the Senate Judicial Proceedings Committee, said the chamber has been working for months to develop an implementation framework.
“We will not send this to a referendum without having a clear idea as to what things look like in terms of the actual regulatory framework,” Smith said. “The regulatory framework has to be sussed out before we send it to the voters.”
