Written by Honor Whiteman   Published: Friday 10 March 2017

In the United States, marijuana is becoming increasingly legalized for medicinal or recreational purposes. However, new research warns of the harms of marijuana use after finding that the drug may have negative implications for cardiovascular health.

New research has found a link between marijuana use and greater cardiovascular risk.

From an analysis of more than 20 million health records across the U.S., researchers have uncovered a link between marijuana use and an increased risk of stroke and heart failure.

For more

2 March 2017

As cannabis laws become liberalised in many countries, experts writing in The Lancet Psychiatry argue that there is an urgent need to explore how cannabis use can be made safer.

"Although most users will not develop problems from their cannabis use, it is vital, especially now that cannabis is becoming increasingly liberalised, that we explore alternative and innovative ways by which we can reduce and mitigate cannabis related harms" says Dr Amir Englund, lead author from King's College London. "With the rapidly changing political climate around cannabis, the demand to effectively reduce cannabis-related harms has never been greater, and more research is urgently needed to inform policy decisions. A strategy based on increasing the content of CBD in cannabis might be especially promising because CBD can offset several harms associated with cannabis without compromising its rewarding effects.”

For more For more

Abstract

BACKGROUND: Alcohol and marijuana are the two most abused substances in US colleges. However, research on the combined influence (cross sectional or longitudinal) of these substances on academic performance is currently scant.

METHODS: Data were derived from the longitudinal 2-year Brain and Alcohol Research in College Students (BARCS) study including 1142 freshman students who completed monthly marijuana use and alcohol consumption surveys. Subjects were classified into data-driven groups based on their alcohol and marijuana consumption. A linear mixed-model (LMM) was employed using this grouping factor to predict grade point average (GPA), adjusted for a variety of socio-demographic and clinical factors.

RESULTS: Three data-driven clusters emerged: 1) No/low users of both, 2) medium-high alcohol/no-low marijuana, and 3) medium-high users of both substances. Individual cluster derivations between consecutive semesters remained stable. No significant interaction between clusters and semester (time) was noted. Post-hoc analysis suggest that at the outset, compared to sober peers, students using moderate to high levels of alcohol and low marijuana demonstrate lower GPAs, but this difference becomes non-significant over time. In contrast, students consuming both substances at moderate-to-high levels score significantly lower at both the outset and across the 2-year investigation period. Our follow-up analysis also indicate that when students curtailed their substance use over time they had significantly higher academic GPA compared to those who remained stable in their substance use patterns over the two year period.

CONCLUSIONS: Overall, our study validates and extends the current literature by providing important implications of concurrent alcohol and marijuana use on academic achievement in college.

read more
 
 

A Growing Risk for our Youth

March 6, 2017
When Hamza Warsame fell six floors to his death in December, 2015, the social media was abuzz with suggestions of a hate crime against the Muslim teen.  Warsame, an immigrant from Somalia, was living in Seattle and had been invited to the  21-year-old classmate’s apartment.

Hamza Warsame.  The 16-year-old killed himself after using only once, a reflection of the high potency of today’s pot.

However, the news came out that Warsame had smoked marijuana for the first time and had a psychotic reaction.  He may have tried to jump to the next building’s roof.   It wasn’t legal for a 16- year-old to smoke marijuana.  But Washington is a marijuana state, and his 21-year-old classmate had bought it legitimately at a dispensary. 

For more
 

A more specific scenario has been presented by the economists of the RAND Corporation, who projected the impact of legalization on the state of California. Their analysis focused on marijuana consumption by Past Month users. The California Society of Addiction Medicine offers a summary of their findings, some of which are:

• Cannabis legalization would plausibly lead to a 58 percent increase in consumption
• Increased consumption would result from price reduction and removal of legal penalties.
• Based on current prevalence rates, a 58% increase in consumption would likely generate an additional 305,000 users meeting DSM-IV criteria for marijuana abuse or dependence in California, for a total of 830,000.
• The price of marijuana will substantially decline, likely by more than 80 percent.
• The RAND report projects an average taxation rate of $50 per ounce.
• High taxation could create strong incentives for tax evasion and thus contribute to continuation of a black market for marijuana.
• High taxation may create incentives for users to switch to higher-potency forms of marijuana to minimize cost.
• Increased treatment admissions would result in a $1.5 million increase in cost, of which perhaps $1 million would fall on the taxpayer.
• Increased Emergency Department episodes would result in a $1.9 million to $2.6 million increase in cost.

(The RAND report numbers do not reflect increased costs to criminal justice, workplace productivity, educational failure, or lives derailed.)
If these RAND projections were scaled to the national level, marijuana use alone would quickly rise from the 22.2 million Past Month users of 2015 to become 35 million Past Month users.

For complete article