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Government oversight and the now legal promotion of ‘getting high’ under government legislation, sees Canadian Government as the new promoter, permitter and pusher of weed! Regardless of outcomes! (Dalgarno Institute)

Legalization has drawn a whole new segment of people who prefer to use legal cannabis and are willing to pay more for it, said Jennifer Lee, the lead partner managing the cannabis sector for consulting firm Deloitte.

“Government oversight does bring a whole new cohort to the market,” she said. “They could have tried it on the black market. They just chose not to, because they wanted to know it was a safe product.”

Generally, she said her research has shown that people over 55 are most enticed by this market, because they dabbled in marijuana years ago and can afford to pay more for legal weed.

People with no cannabis experience often ask for cannabidiol, also known as CBD, a non-psychoactive extract that is used to treat pain and anxiety, said Mike Babins, owner of Evergreen Cannabis in Vancouver.

“They come in here saying, ‘I have no desire to get high. I just want CBD,’ ” Babins said. “And we say, ‘Why? What’s so wrong with being high? Do you think it’s like all those old propaganda movies and you’re going to think you’re a bird and you’re going to jump out the window with all the pretty colours and your family will find you dead on the front lawn?’ ”

Sometimes people still want to stick with CBD, but for those who are willing to try cannabis containing THC, the mind-altering ingredient, staff guide them toward lower-dose products 

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Apr 14, 2019 

Uh-Oh! Drug use is on the rise in the workplace

This past week, Quest Diagnostics (NYSE:DGX), a leading diagnostic testing firm, and the company responsible for testing millions of Americans a year in the workplace for illicit substances, released its latest analysis, known as the Drug Testing Index, on workplace drug usage. Having tested more than 10 million urine samples in 2018, Quest found that 4.4% resulted in a positive test, which includes a combination of illicit (i.e., illegal) drugs and prescription medicines. This 4.4% workforce positivity rate is a 14-year high, and it's a 25% increase from the all-time low of 3.5% recorded between 2010 and 2012.

What's driving higher workplace drug use? According to data from Quest Diagnostics, it's not oxycodones, opiates, heroin, or cocaine. For the general population and safety-sensitive workers (e.g., truck or bus drivers, mechanics, pharmacists, nurses, and so on), usage of these illicit and/or prescribed medications has fallen or been relatively steady between 2012 and 2018.

Meanwhile, amphetamine and marijuana use has risen significantly over the same period. Just over 1% of the general population now tests positive for amphetamines, up from just under 1% in 2012. But the biggest increase is seen with the cannabis positivity rate, which has increased by 40% between 2012 and 2018 to 2.8% among the general population. It rose ever so slightly to 0.88% from 0.84% for safety-sensitive workers between 2017 and 2018. Combining the two categories, the national positivity rate in the workforce for urine tests was 2.3% last year. 

Should we be blaming cannabis for this increase?

Just as concerning is that positivity following an accident has been increasing substantially. As Quest noted, "In the federally mandated, safety-sensitive workforce, positivity for post-accident urine testing jumped more than 51% year over year (3.1% in 2017 versus 4.7% in 2018) and increased by nearly 81% between 2014 and 2018." But the report is clear that prescription opiates were the primary driver in 2018.

This, of course, isn't the case with a handful of recent state-level studies. One 2018 study from the Highway Loss Data Institute finds that while fatalities aren't necessarily up as a result of cannabis use, crashes in recreationally legal states are. In Washington, Oregon, and Colorado, crash statistics have risen as much as 6% since weed was fully legalized. 

For complete story - This new data brings to light a number of bigger problems.

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April 2019

INDIANAPOLIS — An Indianapolis mother has struggled to cope with her son's untimely death. He died from complications of using marijuana, and now the mother is warning parents about the condition that took her son's life.

"He said mom I can't breathe. I rolled him over, and my son was gone," Regina Denney said.

It was one year ago that Denney's son was diagnosed with cannabinoid hyperemesis syndrome. A condition caused by chronic marijuana usage that leads to extreme vomiting, nausea and stomach pain.

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 (This was 12 years ago…it’s even worse now!!!)

• By Jonathan Owen    Sunday 18 March 2007  

Record numbers of teenagers are requiring drug treatment as a result of smoking skunk, the highly potent cannabis strain that is 25 times stronger than resin sold a decade ago.

More than 22,000 people were treated last year for cannabis addiction - and almost half of those affected were under 18. With doctors and drugs experts warning that skunk can be as damaging as cocaine and heroin, leading to mental health problems and psychosis for thousands of teenagers, The Independent on Sunday has today reversed its landmark campaign for cannabis use to be decriminalised.

A decade after this newspaper's stance culminated in a 16,000-strong pro-cannabis march to London's Hyde Park - and was credited with forcing the Government to downgrade the legal status of cannabis to class C - an IoS editorial states that there is growing proof that skunk causes mental illness and psychosis.

The decision comes as statistics from the NHS National Treatment Agency show that the number of young people in treatment almost doubled from about 5,000 in 2005 to 9,600 in 2006, and that 13,000 adults also needed treatment.

The skunk smoked by the majority of young Britons bears no relation to traditional cannabis resin - with a 25-fold increase in the amount of the main psychoactive ingredient, tetrahydrocannabidinol (THC), typically found in the early 1990s. New research being published in this week's Lancet will show how cannabis is more dangerous than LSD and ecstasy. Experts analysed 20 substances for addictiveness, social harm and physical damage. The results will increase the pressure on the Government to have a full debate on drugs, and a new independent UK drug policy commission being launched next month will call for a rethink on the issue.

The findings last night reignited the debate about cannabis use, with a growing number of specialists saying that the drug bears no relation to the substance most law-makers would recognise. Professor Colin Blakemore, chief of the Medical Research Council, who backed our original campaign for cannabis to be decriminalised, has also changed his mind. He said: "The link between cannabis and psychosis is quite clear now; it wasn't 10 years ago."

Many medical specialists agree that the debate has changed. Robin Murray, professor of psychiatry at London's Institute of Psychiatry, estimates that at least 25,000 of the 250,000 schizophrenics in the UK could have avoided the illness if they had not used cannabis. "The number of people taking cannabis may not be rising, but what people are taking is much more powerful, so there is a question of whether a few years on we may see more people getting ill as a consequence of that."

"Society has seriously underestimated how dangerous cannabis really is," said Professor Neil McKeganey, from Glasgow University's Centre for Drug Misuse Research. "We could well see over the next 10 years increasing numbers of young people in serious difficulties."

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In Amsterdam and London, specifically, there was a strong tie between the use of high-potency cannabis and the presence of psychosis. The researchers linked four in 10 (43.8 percent) new cases of psychosis in Amsterdam to daily cannabis consumption and five out of 10 (50.3 percent) of new cases with the use of highly potent versions of the drug.

In London, the researchers believe they could link 21.0 percent of new cases to daily use and 30.3 percent to a preference for highly potent cannabis.

"Our findings are consistent with previous studies showing that the use of cannabis with a high concentration of THC has more harmful effects on mental health than the use of weaker forms," notes lead study author Dr. Marta Di Forti.

"They also indicate for the first time how cannabis use affects the incidence of psychotic disorder at a population level," she adds.

"As the legal status of cannabis changes in many countries and states, and as we consider the medicinal properties of some types of cannabis, it is of vital public health importance that we also consider the potential adverse effects that are associated with daily cannabis use, especially high potency varieties."

Dr. Marta Di Forti

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