Dec 5, 2023 | Blog, Cannabis Science, Driving While High, Drugged Driving, Science
This randomized clinical trial investigates the accuracy of field sobriety tests administered by law enforcement officers to assess functional impairment and driving performance among individuals who have smoked cannabis.
Question
How accurate are field sobriety tests (FSTs) in identifying acute Δ9-tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) impairment?
Findings
In this randomized clinical trial of 184 cannabis users randomized to THC or placebo, law enforcement officers classified 81.0% and 49.2%, respectively, as FST impaired, and officers suspected that 99.2% of FST-impaired participants received THC. Driving simulator performance was associated with select FSTs.
Meaning
In this study, FSTs differentiated between THC- and placebo-exposed participants; however, the substantial overlap of FST impairment between groups and the high frequency at which FST impairment was suspected to be due to THC suggest that absent other indicators, FSTs alone may be insufficient to identify THC-specific driving impairment.
If you are interested in learning more detail about this evaluation go here to the National Center for Biotechnology Information.
Meanwhile... until they figure it out, if you get a DUI for being under the influence of cannabis, although legal, you will need an experienced attorney to fight for you in the court system. If you want to fight call our office. If you don't, well then settle for what they dish out and accept that you can't go back and change the outcome.
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Apr 8, 2017 | Blog, News
In states that legalized medical marijuana, U.S. hospitals failed to see a predicted influx of pot smokers, but in an unexpected twist, they treated far fewer opioid users, a new study shows.
Hospitalization rates for opioid painkiller dependence and abuse dropped on average 23 percent in states after marijuana was permitted for medicinal purposes, the analysis found. Hospitalization rates for opioid overdoses dropped 13 percent on average.
At the same time, fears that legalization of medical marijuana would lead to an uptick in cannabis-related hospitalizations proved unfounded, according to the report in Drug and Alcohol Dependence.
As Doctors See Benefits of Medical Marijuana Treatments for Seniors, Calls for Changes in Policy
“Instead, medical marijuana laws may have reduced hospitalizations related to opioid pain relievers,” said study author Yuyan Shi, a public health professor at the University of California, San Diego.
“This study and a few others provided some evidence regarding the potential positive benefits of legalizing marijuana to reduce opioid use and abuse, but they are still preliminary,” she said in an email.
Dr. Esther Choo, a professor of emergency medicine at Oregon Health and Science University in Portland, was intrigued by the study’s suggestion that access to cannabis might reduce opioid misuse.
Related: Pediatricians Warn Against Pot Use: Not Your Dad’s Marijuana
“It is becoming increasingly clear that battling the opioid epidemic will require a multi-pronged approach and a good deal of creativity,” Choo, who was not involved in the study, said in an email. “Could increased liberalization of marijuana be part of the solution? It seems plausible.”
However, she said, “there is still much we need to understand about the mechanisms through which marijuana policy may affect opioid use and harms.”
An estimated 60 percent of Americans now live in the 28 states and Washington, D.C. where medical marijuana is legal under state law.
Meanwhile, the opioid epidemic – sparked by a quadrupling since 1999 in sales of prescription painkillers such as Oxycontin and Vicodin – kills 91 Americans a day.
Shi analyzed hospitalization records from 1997 through 2014 for 27 states, nine of which implemented medical marijuana policies. Her study was the fifth to show declines in opioid use or deaths in states that allow medical cannabis.
Sessions: ‘We Don’t Need To Be Legalizing Marijuana’ 1:15
Previous studies reported associations between medical marijuana and reductions in opioid prescriptions, opioid-related vehicle accidents and opioid-overdose deaths.
In a 2014 study, Dr. Marcus Bachhuber found deaths from opioid overdoses fell by 25 percent in states that legalized medical marijuana.
Since last year, when New York rolled out its medical marijuana program, Bachhuber has included cannabis in a menu of options he offers his patients who suffer chronic or severe pain from neuropathy and HIV/AIDS, he said in a phone interview. Bachhuber, a professor at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine and Montefiore Medical Center in the Bronx, was not involved in the new study.
Related: Marijuana Users Risk Schizophrenia, But the Drug Helps Pain
Many of Bachhuber’s patients ask for help quitting highly addictive opioids, and some have used marijuana to taper off the prescription painkillers, he said.
Nonetheless, a 1970 federal law puts cannabis in the same category as heroin, Schedule 1 of the Comprehensive Drug Abuse Prevention and Control Act, and finds it has no medicinal value. Consequently, doctors can only recommend, not prescribe, marijuana, and physicians who work for the federal government cannot even discuss the weed.
Federal prohibition also has led to severe limitations on marijuana research.
In January, a National Academies report found conclusive or substantial evidence that cannabis can effectively treat chronic pain, chemotherapy-induced nausea and spasticity. The report, written by an independent panel of medical experts, found no evidence of cannabis overdose deaths.
It did, however, find links between cannabis use and an increased risk of vehicle accidents as well as the development of schizophrenia or other psychoses, particularly among the most frequent users.
Bachhuber lamented the dearth of research on the best ways to use marijuana as medicine.
“We have information that it works based on the National Academies’ report,” he said. “But we don’t know who it works best for, at what dosage, for how long.”
Last week, U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions, the nation’s top cop, reiterated his concerns about marijuana and heroin, an illegal opioid.
“I am astonished to hear people suggest that we can solve our heroin crisis by legalizing marijuana,” he told law enforcement officers in Virginia, “so people can trade one life-wrecking dependency for another.”
http://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-news/legalized-marijuana-could-help-curb-opioid-epidemic-study-finds-n739301
Feb 28, 2017 | Blog, News
In a Hill op-ed, NORML refutes claims that cannabis contributes to increased opioid consumption, uses facts and data to highlight the inverse correlation between opioid abuse and medical marijuana.
Washington, DC: On Thursday, White House Press Secretary lied to the American public when he claimed “I think that when you see something like the opioid addiction crisis blossoming in so many states around this country, the last thing we should be doing is encouraging people (by regulating the adult use of marijuana)” during his daily press conference.
Paul Armentano, Deputy Director for NORML, published a response in The Hill newspaper systematically refuting this claim.
“Yet even a cursory look at the available evidence finds Spicer’s concerns to be misplaced and his allegations to be dead wrong.
In reality, permitting legal access to cannabis is consistently associated with reduced rates of opioid use, abuse, and mortality.”
Armentano cites several relevant peer-reviewed studies from the US, Canada, and Israel to bolster his arguments.
He concludes: “Proponents of marijuana prohibition have long alleged that experimentation with pot acts as a ‘gateway’ to the use and eventual abuse of other illicit substances. But the evidence does not support this claim. In reality, permitting marijuana sales to be regulated by licensed, state-authorized distributors rather than by criminal entrepreneurs and pushers of various other illicit drugs results in fewer, not more, Americans abusing other, potentially more dangerous substances.”
You can read the piece by clicking here.
NORML’s mission is to move public opinion sufficiently to legalize the responsible use of marijuana by adults, and to serve as an advocate for consumers to assure they have access to high quality marijuana that is safe, convenient and affordable.
NORML and the NORML Foundation:
1100 H Street NW, Suite 830, Washington DC, 20005
Tel: (202) 483-5500 • Fax: (202) 483-0057 • Email: norml@norml.org
Dec 4, 2015 | Blog, News
At this point, marijuana is legal for medical use in nearly half of the country. But David Casarett, MD, author of the recently-released Stoned: A Doctor’s Case For Medical Marijuana, wants to clear a few things up. Initially skeptical of marijuana’s medicinal value, Dr. Casarett waded through the evidence, spoke to patients, and even tried the drug firsthand to figure out if the hype was warranted. A year and a half later, he’s confident that marijuana has medical value, even though we have a lot left to learn about it. Below, Dr. Casarett busts a few of the biggest marijuana misconceptions out there.
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MYTH: Medical marijuana always gets you high.
“There are two main ingredients in marijuana: One is tetrahydrocannabinol (THC); the other is cannabidiol (CBD). There are dozens of others, but those are the ones that we know the most about. They’re present in the largest amounts, and they’ve been studied the most. Of the two, it’s THC that has the most brain effects. It’s THC that gets you high. If you feel euphoric, or if you’re unfortunate enough to have bad side effects (like hallucinations), those are due to THC. So, marijuana probably will get you high as long as it’s got some THC in it. “But, CBD, on the other hand, doesn’t have any of those brain effects. In fact, there have been studies using 300, 400, or 600 milligrams of CBD — which is a really whopping dose — with no psychological effects whatsoever. If it has effects, those are probably on the immune system and inflammation, although it may have some effects on neuropathic pain. “So if you’re using marijuana or marijuana products that are low in THC, then no, you won’t get high. That includes, most notably, the concentrated oils that are used [to treat] pediatric seizures.”
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MYTH: All strains are created equally.
“There are definitely wide differences in strains, most notably with respect to their concentrations of THC and CBD. There are so many differences, and they can be so hard to keep track of, that actually, many people advocate not paying attention so much to what the strain is, but instead asking the dispensary to make sure that whatever they sell is tested for THC and CBD concentrations.
If you feel euphoric, or if you’re unfortunate enough to have bad side effects, those are due to THC.
Dr. David Casarett
“But, there’s another school of thought — which also has some credibility in my book — that says, ‘Sure, THC and CBD are the main ingredients of marijuana, but they’re not the only ones.’ And there are dozens of other cannabinoids present in smaller amounts that may be effective, too. So it’s certainly possible you could have two different strains with equivalent amounts of THC and CBD, but which may have different effects due to other cannabinoids that are in them. The problem is we just don’t know much about what those other cannabinoids do. So at least as a first pass, looking at THC and CBD concentrations is a good way to go. “[Researchers] are becoming interested in the possibility that a lot of the pain relief that you get from marijuana comes less from THC and more from CBD…However, most of the trials that I’ve seen for nausea use either THC or other synthetics that are not available for purchase through dispensaries. That doesn’t mean that CBD is not effective, but it does seem that the evidence is pointing in the direction of THC.”
3. MYTH: Smoking marijuana causes severe lung damage.
“One risk that everybody I’ve spoken with thinks exists is the risk of lung damage. They say, ‘Of course, if you smoke half a joint a day for years, you’re going to end up with lung damage and emphysema, like you do with smoking [cigarettes].’ But, it turns out that’s not true. There have been a couple of very large, controlled studies that have failed to find any long-term pulmonary effects [in] people who are smoking [marijuana]. There might be a few changes in lung function, but there really isn’t any of the change that you see with chronic smoking. “There are two potential explanations for that. One is theoretical: We know that CBD is an anti-inflammatory. That’s important because the way that smoke particulates cause lung damage is by causing inflammation. So it may be that the CBD that’s in marijuana actually protects against some of that inflammation and damage.
It may be that the CBD in marijuana actually protects against some of that damage.
Dr. David Casarett
“The other [explanation] is much more basic and probably the best one: It’s just a matter of dose. Most people who develop emphysema due to tobacco smoking do so after smoking one or two or three packs a day for decades. Think for a moment about what you’d be like if you smoked 40 or 60 joints a day for 20 or 30 years — lung damage would probably be the least of your problems. It could be that if someone were courageous enough to smoke that much marijuana…they would get lung damage. They probably wouldn’t care about that lung damage if they got it. But people generally don’t use that much.”
4. MYTH: You can’t get addicted to weed.
“On the flip side, a risk that many people don’t think about — that I certainly didn’t think about — that turns out to be very real is the risk of dependence and addiction. I honestly didn’t think that marijuana addiction was a real phenomenon, at least not in the same way that addiction to cocaine or heroin or even nicotine is, but it turns out it is. “The same circuits that create addictions to any of those other drugs are also involved in creating addiction to marijuana, with the same syndrome of craving and continued use in a way that’s disruptive to work, relationships, and physical health. There’s also a withdrawal syndrome…for people who use a lot regularly and then suddenly stop. People develop anxiety, agitation, and sometimes aggression in much the same way as somebody who uses alcohol continuously and then stops using. “It’s the same circuit that gets activated, and it works in the same way, but researchers also note that it’s not as likely to be activated. It’s very difficult to pin down the probability of addiction, because so many things determine it, but…somewhere around nine to 10% of regular users of marijuana will become dependent. That’s compared to between 13 and 15% of [regular users] becoming dependent on other drugs, like cocaine. “One lesson seems to be that your likelihood of becoming addicted to marijuana is less than that of [becoming addicted to] other drugs. And, when people do become addicted to marijuana, it’s not necessarily as severe an addiction. Many people are addicted to marijuana using clinical psychiatric criteria, but still manage to function.
Many people are addicted to marijuana using clinical psychiatric criteria, but still manage to function.
Dr. David Casarett
“However, all of the research that I’ve seen on marijuana addiction has been with recreational marijuana. So I don’t know how well that translates to medical [use]. Even if you say there’s a 9% chance that a 22-year-old who uses marijuana at parties is going to become addicted, does that mean that a 55-year-old administrative assistant…who uses it twice a week to get to sleep at night — is she really going to become addicted? Well, I wouldn’t dismiss the possibility, but there’s a big difference between those two people. I just don’t think we know enough about the risk of addiction in medical-marijuana users [to say they have the same risk].”
5. MYTH: Smoking pot causes mental illness.
“Part of the reefer madness message is that marijuana use causes mental illness in general and schizophrenia in particular. That’s not so much a myth, but the truth is more complicated than I thought. I think the jury is still out on this, but what I gleaned from a fairly contradictory set of evidence and studies is that it doesn’t seem that smoking marijuana causes schizophrenia. “On the other hand, there does seem to be an association between marijuana use and psychotic episodes, which consist of some of the symptoms of schizophrenia (including hallucinations and confusion). But unlike schizophrenia, psychotic episodes seem to be pretty acute, are often provoked by some external event, and resolve on their own. I think there’s pretty good data to indicate that marijuana use makes those episodes more likely. And people who are at risk of having them have them sooner if they’re marijuana users. That’s not definite, but that evidence seemed to me to be a little more persuasive. “In general, I think it’s pretty good advice that if you have risk factors for mental illness, you should be careful about using recreational drugs.”
See Original Article Here
Jul 26, 2015 | Cannabis Science, Health Benefits of Marijuana, Medical Marijuana, News
A new study published in the Journal of Bone and Mineral Research has found that smoking marijuana may help to heal broken bones more quickly.
Researchers at Tel Aviv University found that rats with broken bones healed more quickly when given cannabinoid, or CBD, the non-psychotropic compound in weed, and THC.
The study, published in the Journal of Bone and Mineral Research on Thursday found that the bones not only healed quicker, but were also stronger and more resilient against a repeated fracture, meaning the bones treated with marijuana were much less likely to break again.
The scientists behind the research believe that this is due to a connection between cannabinoid receptors in the human body and the stimulation of bone growth.
Dr. Yankel Gabet of Tel Aviv’s Bone Research Laboratory presented findings that show that cannabidiol (CBD), a non-psychoactive chemical found in marijuana, may have therapeutic qualities in the mending of fractured bones. CBD can be separated from tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), the component of marijuana commonly attributed to cause the altered state produced by taking the substance.
Because of the ability of the chemical to able to have positive outcomes for the healing of broken bones, there will undoubtedly be a continued effort to prove the effectiveness of CBD. Medical marijuana has also been shown to be effective for a range of other ailments. One of the most recently discovered is a possible positive influence on Alzheimer’s disease. A study published in the Journal of Alzheimer’s Disease presented findings indicative of a use for the substance to treat the disease, previously reported Inquisitr.
