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Dr. Bertha Madras speaks at the House Professions and Public Health Subcommittee

The most frequently occurring drugs found in decedents were ethyl alcohol (5,385), benzodiazepines (4,209, including 1,523 alprazolam occurrences), fentanyl (3,655), cocaine (2,962), cannabinoids (2,710), morphine (1,855), amphetamine (1,425), methamphetamine (1,419), fentanyl analogs (1,418) and oxycodone (1,181). Since heroin is rapidly metabolized to morphine, this may lead to a substantial over‐reporting of morphine‐related deaths as well as significant under‐reporting of heroin‐related deaths.

   

Rep. Smith is pro-pot and rude to speakers... write on his twitter  https://twitter.com/CarlosGSmith/status/1361822803922722826
 
Dr. Madras speaks the truth:  “People who go into the emergency department with psychosis, due to their initiation into marijuana use, and they continue to use, they’re more likely to convert to full-blown schizophrenia, and the conversion rate is between 20% and 40%,” she said.
 

Updated information and brochure

Maternal cannabis use in pregnancy and child neurodevelopmental outcomes We link pregnancy and birth data to provincial health administrative databases to ascertain child neurodevelopmental outcomes. We use matching techniques to control for confounding and Cox proportional hazards regression models to examine associations between prenatal cannabis use and child neurodevelopment. 
 

Marijuana Use During Pregnancy Linked To Autism In Children: Study
 

To look for longer-term effects of cannabis, the experimenters called the subjects back a week later and tested them again on the word lists, this time with a few different dummy words thrown in. They also re-interviewed the subjects about the VR scenarios using a combination of old and new questions. As before, they found lower memory accuracy in the word-association test in those who had been intoxicated compared with sober participants. There were no statistically significant differences between the groups for the virtual reality scenarios, a result that Kloft says may indicate memory decay over time in all participants.

E-cigarette use poses a significant – and avoidable – health risk to young people in the United States. Besides increasing the possibility of addiction and long-term harm to brain development and respiratory health, e-cigarette use is associated with the use of other tobacco products that can do even more damage to the body. Even breathing e-cigarette aerosol that someone else has exhaled poses potential health risks.

But nicotine is not the only “wax” or “juice” that students consume with their devices. The legalization of cannabis products also opened a product line, with CBD and THC juices available for purchase online or in recreational marijuana dispensaries.

As an educator, you can play an active role in fighting the teen vaping epidemic. FDA research suggests that when teachers talk about the health consequences of e-cigarettes and schools enforce anti-vaping policies, students may be less likely to vape. Use these resources to start an honest conversation with your class and help to change social norms at your school.

CONCLUSIONS:
Drivers who test positive for marijuana are significantly more likely to test positive for prescription opioids. Longitudinal studies with rigorous designs and toxicological testing data are needed to further address the substitution hypothesis between marijuana and prescription opioids.

In the first nine months of 2019, the marijuana industry spent more than $3.8 million lobbying Congress, according to OpenSecrets — employing a total of 80 lobbyists. That put the industry on track to spend far more on lobbyists in 2019 than in the previous two years combined.

Yet it’s a modest investment considering the potential payout. If enacted, the SAFE Banking Act is expected to drive billions of dollars of new investment into this rapidly evolving sector.

THC pre-exposure increased responding for heroin and heroin intake under FR-3 and FR-5 as well as PR protocols and increased breaking point in PR schedules in LEW but not F344 rats. Drug cues and heroin priming reinstated responding in LEW and F344, but THC pre-exposure increased reinstatement by priming in LEW rats and by cues in F344 rats. These observations show that in genetically predisposed individuals, adolescent cannabis exposure increases heroin reinforcing properties, thus providing a mechanism for a causal role of adolescent cannabis use in heroin abuse.

Consumption of cannabis during pregnancy results in cannabinoid placental crossing and accumulation in the fetal brain, and other organs, where it interferes with neurodevelopment and the endocannabinoid system. Use during the postnatal period can also lead to secretion in breast milk for extended periods (up to a week) after last use. From retrospective studies, we know prenatal cannabis ingestion has been associated with anemia in the mothers as well as low birth weights, greater risk of preterm and stillbirths, as well as increased need for neonatal intensive care unit admissions.

Vaping - Data Highlights Strong correlation between vaping nicotine and vaping marijuana:

• 47.9% of current nicotine vapers are vaping marijuana
• 72.2% of current marijuana vapers are vaping nicotine.
• Most current nicotine vapers (72%) have NOT tried cigarettes.
• Majority nicotine vapers (92%) have NOT smoked cigarettes in past 30 days.

A previous study last March in the Lancet also showed that cannabis use increases psychotic disorders such as schizophrenia.
Two preliminary studies presented this November out of Oklahoma and Virginia at the American Heart Association’s Scientific Sessions in Philadelphia tentatively connect cannabis use with doubled stroke risk and heart rhythm disorders.

In a recent cohort study of alcohol consumption in Canada, marijuana use was found to increase demand for alcohol. In other words, those who reported marijuana and alcohol use consumed significantly more alcohol than those who reported only alcohol use. The mechanism for this association is not entirely clear. However, these findings have important implications for treatment and prevention, particularly in the context of changes in marijuana legalization. In the USA, greater alcohol consumption can only mean increases in traffic fatalities and injuries, violent crime, and all the other negative population-wide outcomes and costs associated with alcohol and marijuana use. Interestingly, in Colorado, where marijuana has been legal for recreational use since 2014, all these negative indicators have been on the rise along with a conspicuous increase in alcohol consumption.

pot will kill you

I have never represented a heroin junkie or a meth head who didn’t start with marijuana.  Legalization of it is now all the rage in Democrat controlled states like Illinois, and it is a stupid mistake.  From Rod Dreher:
Berenson’s book is a game-changer. In his New Yorker piece, Malcolm Gladwell writes straightforwardly about the overwhelming scientific evidence that marijuana is a hell of a lot more problematic than many of us think. Excerpt:

Berenson begins his book with an account of a conversation he had with his wife, a psychiatrist who specializes in treating mentally ill criminals. They were discussing one of the many grim cases that cross her desk—“the usual horror story, somebody who’d cut up his grandmother or set fire to his apartment.” Then his wife said something like “Of course, he was high, been smoking pot his whole life.”
Of course? I said.
Yeah, they all smoke.
Well . . . other things too, right?
Sometimes. But they all smoke.

View the Dragnet video... same story for 50 years.  More research isn't going to change the outcome actually the outcomes with the stronger pot are getting worse and worse.  Did you know if research projects aren't going the way the funder desires they don't have to be published... How many studies have been scrapped because the results are negative, harmful, longlasting.... ?

The Hillsborough County Board of County Commissioners has determined that the prohibition on the sale, possession, and use of vapor‐generating electronic devices and vapor products should be extended to include young adults under the age of 21.

While the total number of suicides is accurate (1,145), the number of toxicology results is likely higher than 888 – it’s just difficult/impossible for the state to obtain all the available toxicology results. For these reasons, an exact percentage of suicides with toxicology results can’t be calculated.

The new SANDAG report, Marijuana Use Among San Diego Arrestees: Two Years of Data Post–Proposition 64 found that in 2018, 71% of adults and 53% of juveniles felt the potency of marijuana had increased since they started using, up from 63% and 39% respectively in 2017.

The SAFE Banking Act (H.R. 1595/S. 1200) contains no public health guardrails to deal with the pot vaping crisis or incredibly potent flavored marijuana vapes that have been warned about by the Surgeon General. • The SAFE Banking Act would allow billions in investment into the same illegal marijuana companies that are creating marijuana vapes like those that are causing this crisis.

The Doctor Is In: Answering Your Marijuana Questions

The Nation's Doctor, VADM Jerome M. Adams, M.D., answers top questions about marijuana. The U.S. Surgeon General addresses marijuana-related questions he often receives including those related to the chemical composition and potency of today’s marijuana, associated risks, and what parents and teachers can say to young people about marijuana.

In the past three years, teen suicide in Colorado rose from 12.9 to 20.4 deaths per 100,000 adolescents ages 15-19, according to the report. Overall, that rate put Colorado as the sixth worst state.
Nationally, the teen suicide rate is up 25 percent. Colorado's 2019 rate is nearly double that nationwide, 20.4 compared to 10.5

The Florida medical marijuana market continues to expand at a rapid pace.
The two publicly held companies with the largest presence in the state are Trulieve followed by Curaleaf.
Extensive Florida operations have allowed Trulieve and Curaleaf to avoid the bear market that has engulfed multi-state operators MedMen, Acreage Holdings and Harvest Health.
Acreage Hold

There they found an illegal cannabis product manufacturing operation apparently operated by Kushy Punch, a legal state-licensed company. Authorities seized a number of finished products, including gummies in Kushy Punch packaging and disposable vaporizers in Kushy Vape packaging.

A new study finds that approximately one in three adolescents were exposed to marijuana promotions on social media or had a favorite marijuana brand.
 
Those who did had five times higher odds of past-year marijuana use.
 
Researchers recommend future studies might want to find ways to restrict marijuana marketing to young people.

The lung damage in some people who have become ill after vaping nicotine or marijuana products resembles a chemical burn, doctors from the Mayo Clinic reported on Wednesday.

The report also shows that the tax revenue from state-authorized marijuana sales, far from being a game-changer like pot pushers said it would be, amounted to around nine-tenths of 1% (000.9%) of Colorado’s fiscal year 2018 budget. Previous reports are just as bad. 

Pot Is a Schedule I Controlled Dangerous Substance for Good Reason

Passed in 1970, the Controlled Substances Act places marijuana in Schedule I, a category reserved for drugs that are medically unhelpful and dangerous. Schedule I drugs have a high potential for abuse, have no currently accepted medical use in treatment, and a lack of accepted safety for use even under medical supervision.

States have passed so-called medical marijuana laws under the theory that pot has medicinal benefits that can’t be produced by other legal means. In making those claims, pot pushers want us to ignore the fact that today’s marijuana is one of the most genetically modified substances on the earth, has over 500 known carcinogens, has THC levels that dwarf the 1% or 2% levels from the 1970s (levels are now at 20-90% THC), and that there is zero quality, content, or dosage control in their products. 

They are also counting on you not knowing that there are already three FDA-approved THC drugs, and at least five more on the way.   

The dirty little secret they hide from you is that you don’t have to smoke marijuana, eat it in a brownie, or chew it in a marijuana-laced gummy bear to reap the medicinal benefits of THC. A doctor can write you a prescription for those drugs. They can’t write one for marijuana, because it is not a medicine

The three FDA-approved drugs are Marinol, Cesamet, and Syndros. Drugs like Syndros show great promise for countering today’s dangerous “medical marijuana” movement. The companies that sell those FDA-approved drugs do, and should have access to the federal banking system. But those who peddle pot, with sky-high genetically manipulated THC levels that have no medical benefit, shouldn’t.

But vaping has its own problems: Nicotine or THC, the high-inducing chemical in marijuana, is mixed with solvents that dissolve and deliver the drugs. The solvents, or oils, heat up during aerosolization to become vapor. But some oil droplets may be left over as the liquid cools back down, and inhaling those drops may cause breathing problems and lung inflammation.

• JUUL is a brand of e-cigarette that is shaped like a USB flash drive. Like other e-cigarettes, JUUL is a battery-powered device that heats a nicotine-containing liquid to produce an aerosol that is inhaled. 

• All JUUL e-cigarettes have a high level of nicotine. According to the manufacturer, a single JUUL pod contains as much nicotine as a pack of 20 regular cigarettes.2

• News outlets and social media sites report widespread use of JUUL by students in schools, including classrooms and bathrooms.

• Although JUUL is currently the top-selling e-cigarette brand in the United States, other companies sell e-cigarettes that look like USB flash drives. Examples include the MarkTen Elite, a nicotine delivery device, and the PAX Era, a marijuana delivery device that looks like JUUL.

• Additional information about USB-shaped e-cigarettes and actions that parents, educators, and health care  

• CDC’s Infographic

Hacking the Juul- opening the pods to reload marijuana.  very potent. 

Healthy Kids Link- Spanish version

Another video

Servicemembers are being told to avoid vaping after the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said the habit may be linked to hundreds of cases of severe lung disease, and at least six deaths, in dozens of states.

At high, but not low levels of PTSD symptoms, more days using marijuana predicted increased PTSD symptoms over time and the likelihood of suicidal behavior.
Conclusions
Results suggest marijuana, especially for military personnel experiencing elevated PTSD symptoms may negatively impact suicidal thoughts and behavior. 

• 7 people have died from severe respiratory complications associated with vaping. At least 380 cases have been reported across the United States.
• Early reports link marijuana vapes to 84 percent of the lung illnesses being reported in the wake of the vaping epidemic.
• 84% of the cases of illness and at least 2 of the 7 deaths have been connected to THC oils.

But  the  lives  of  vulnerable  people  may  be  put  at  risk when  science  is  distorted  for corporate  or  ideological  ends.  As  noted,  several  USstates  responded  to the  much-hypedoriginal study of cannabis and opioid overdosesby authorizing the use of medical cannabis to treat  heroin-addicted  individuals.  Advice  that  opioid  users  should use medical  cannabis toreplace  opioid  agonist  therapies  (e.g.,  methadone,  buprenorphine) poses significant  risk because abrupt cessation of these medications dramatically increases the risks of an overdose death if users return to opioid use 

America is getting pooped, thanks to trend-setting California. There is no getting around the fact that the Golden State is at the forefront of a defecation crisis which is already overflowing into neighboring states. The Left Coast has become the home of the homeless, the nation’s lost souls who apparently have settled for simply existing rather than really living. Sleeping out in the open spaces and pooping in public places are jarring signs that a segment of society has given up. The demoralizing, downward spiral is likely to accelerate unless Americans resolve to clean up their act.

Colorado's violent crime rate continues to climb

Conclusions and Relevance  This meta-analysis found a significant increase in the odds of past or current and subsequent marijuana use in adolescents and young adults who used e-cigarettes. These findings highlight the importance of addressing the rapid increases in e-cigarette use among youths as a means to help limit marijuana use in this population.

“No amount of marijuana use during pregnancy or adolescence is safe,” said Surgeon General Jerome Adams at a press conference.

DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSIONS:
Medical and non-medical cannabis use both were both associated with increased risks of prescription opioid misuse. Medical cannabis use, however, was not associated with prescription opioid use disorder, and non-medical cannabis was. There appeared to be differential associations between cannabis use and prescription opioid use disorder by cannabis use purpose.

Conclusions: Marijuana use varied in association with beliefs about its beneficial and harmful health properties. Clinical interventions that target specific marijuana-related health beliefs including unfounded claims of benefit may provide robust talking points for centering provider guidance and public health messaging.

Today, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration announced that it has issued a warning letter to Curaleaf Inc., of Wakefield, Massachusetts, for illegally selling unapproved products containing cannabidiol (CBD) online with unsubstantiated claims that the products treat cancer, Alzheimer’s disease, opioid withdrawal, pain and pet anxiety, among other conditions or diseases.

The AES believes that these compounds need to be under the full regulatory control of the FDA and that distribution should be limited to the well-developed legend drug process. While drug regulation is desired, in the interim, the following equally important steps should be taken to assure continuous and safe access to CBD products for patients who are currently benefiting from them.

The study looked at 1991-2017 U.S. federal health data on more than 200,000 high school students. It found that the number who said they'd used pot at least once over the past month rose 10-fold -- from 0.6% in 1991 to 6.3% by 2017.

In 2016 surveys, just 9% of medical schools had documented content on medical marijuana in the Association of American Medical Colleges Curriculum Inventory, and 85% of 258 surveyed residents and fellows reported having no education about medical marijuana in medical school or residency. Presented at a 2017 meeting, a single-site study of 51 resident physicians found that 76% did not know which category marijuana belonged to under the Controlled Substances Act (marijuana is currently categorized as a Schedule I drug, signifying a high potential for abuse and no accepted medical uses), and 38% believed that medical marijuana was a prescription drug approved by the US Food and Drug Administration. Other studies indicate that practicing physicians often have limited knowledge about marijuana’s health effects and want more training.”
That more than a third of the doctors surveyed in the small sample cited by Dr. Morris believed that marijuana is FDA-approved is shocking. I submitted a comment that was immediately published by JAMA. 
 

Alcohol is rapidly expelled from the system and is addictive only in large doses — at least to those … whose genetic make-up has been influenced by the millennia of winemaking.” Furthermore, “the effects of cannabis remain for days, and it is both more addictive and more radical, leading not just to temporary alterations of the mind but to permanent or semi-permanent transformations of personality, and in particular to a widely observed loss of moral sense.” 

It also has many physical effects, such as greater carcinogenic harm than smoking cigarettes. Unlike consuming a foodstuff in moderation, the consumption of cannabis immediately affects the functioning of the brain, an effect compounded over time, especially for adolescents. In fact, marijuana usage can permanently alter the brain, leading to a great risk of psychosis, psychological problems, and lower I.Q. scores. Further, one of the most frightening discoveries shows that consuming marijuana alters DNA, creating harmful mutations that will be passed down to children and future generations.