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CDC, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), state and local health departments, and other clinical and public health partners are investigating a national outbreak of e-cigarette, or vaping, product use-associated lung injury (EVALI).

Wild mass killings of this sort are a post-1960 phenomenon. So, applying the rules of logic, the availability of guns simply cannot be the significant variable.
It must be the single most successful rebranding in marketing history. Millions now associate a highly dangerous drug with miracle cures, health and wellbeing. Mr Stroup, understandably, has since denied the words, but the article is still sitting in the Emory library for anyone who wants to check.
Yet their product also ruins the lives of users and their families. And it kills. Often very terribly. Will this realization come too late to save us from a grave mistake?

People need to be educated that marijuana even 'medical' marijuana is not FDA approved and therefore is not a prescription.  Often contains mold, pesticides, fertilizers, unknown amounts of other chemicals and THC potency may be incorrect. 

Reason's Jacob Sullum and former New York Times reporter Alex Berenson debate eliminating laws that prohibit the use and sale of narcotics.

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 Holdings' lack of ANY sales in Florida sends a strong signal that it is adrift.

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.

According to the department's statistics , there's been 27 reported cases of lung injury connected to vaping in Florida in 2019 and one death.

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

The ABC7 I-Team has been given exclusive access to the largest set of test results and analysis on CBD products to date. Those tests reveal not only potential dangers, but also patently false claims plaguing the industry.

Teens who previously seemed impervious to smoking traditional cigarettes are now vaping at such a significant rate that the Surgeon General and FDA has declared youth use of e-cigarettes an epidemic.
 

The FCC (Forensic Chemistry Center) is currently prioritizing samples that are most likely to enhance our understanding of this outbreak, i.e., vaping samples that are associated with cases of patient lung injury. If you have identified product samples with direct-association to case-illnesses in your state as part of your ongoing investigations, please reach out your local FDA District Emergency Response Coordinator or write to FDAVapingSampleInquiries@fda.hhs.gov for follow-up, collection, and shipment of samples to FCC through the utilization of FDA field staff.

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.

Their observations and initial research show that marijuana use may affect patients’ responses to anesthesia on the operating table — and, depending on the patient’s history of using the drug, either help or hinder their symptoms afterward in the recovery room.
If pot users indeed need more anesthesia, are there increased risks for breathing problems during minor procedures? Are there higher costs with the use of more medication, if a second or third bottle of anesthesia must be routinely opened? And what does regular cannabis use mean for recovery post-surgery?

Conclusions: RWID and DUI are significantly associated with greater alcohol and marijuanause over time. This study highlights that teens may be at higher risk for problem substance use in the future even if they ride with someone who is impaired. Prevention and intervention efforts for adolescents need to address both driving under the influence and riding with an impaired driver to prevent downstream consequences.

FDA has determined that your “CBD Lotion,” “CBD Pain-Relief Patch,” “CBD Tincture,” and “CBD Disposable Vape Pen” products are unapproved new drugs sold in violation of sections 505(a) and 301(d) of the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act (the FD&C Act), 21 U.S.C. 355(a) and 331(d). Furthermore, these products are misbranded drugs under section 502(f)(1) of the FD&C Act, 21 U.S.C. 352(f)(1). FDA has also determined that your “Bido CBD for Pets” products are unapproved new animal drugs that are unsafe under section 512(a) of the FD&C Act, 21 U.S.C. 360b(a), and adulterated under section 501(a)(5) of the FD&C Act, 21 U.S.C. 351(a)(5)

Cannabis legalization has led to significant health consequences, particularly to patients in emergency departments and hospitals in Colorado. The most concerning include psychosis, suicide, and other substance abuse. Deleterious effects on the brain include decrements in complex decision-making, which may not be reversible with abstinence.

ED and urgent care (UC) visits with cannabis-associated International Classification of Diseases (ICD) codes or positive urine drug screens for teenagers and young adults have increased since legalization, and the majority require behavioral health evaluation. A subsequent retrospective review by Wang et al. from 2005–2015 identified 4202 such visits for patients 13 to <21 years old to a tertiary-care children’s hospital system. Behavioral health evaluation was obtained for 2813 (67%) and a psychiatric diagnosis was made for the majority (71%) of the visits. 

Cannabis is known to induce DNA damage by several mechanisms including damage to chromosomes at the time of cell division, dramatic reductions in histone formation which form the core of the nucleosomes around which DNA is twined and are crucially involved in signalling to the transcription and epigenetic machinery to regulate gene expression, alteration of DNA methylation and many other processes 2-6. And genotoxic stress of many types is known to trigger DNA checkpoints and interfere with the normal process of meiotic and mitotic cell division; and are also known to trigger ageing and cellular senescence pathways.
That it has been linked with all four areas, in the context of its many other known harms – respiratory, driving, impaired developmental trajectory, reduction in IQ, hippocampal shrinkage, brain disconnection and immunopathies - implies directly that the cannabis legalization debate itself is non-viable and profoundly and inherently misleading.

• Thousands of businesses, as well as local governments earning tax money off of sales, are now literally invested in that lie.
• “The mantra about how this is a harmless, natural, and non-addictive substance—it’s now known by everybody. And it’s a lie.”
• As for new risks: In many stores, budtenders are providing medical advice with no licensing or training whatsoever. “I’m most scared of the advice to smoke marijuana during pregnancy for cramps,” said Humphreys, arguing that sellers were providing recommendations with no scientific backing, good or bad, at all.
• “The reckless way that we are legalizing marijuana so far is mind-boggling from a public-health perspective,” Kevin Sabet, an Obama administration official and a founder of the nonprofit Smart Approaches to Marijuana, told me. 

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. 

Contrary to what you've been told over and over, it is not a preposterous assertion that marijuana is a gateway drug to cocaine, heroin, meth and such. Not everybody who smokes marijuana graduates to harder narcotics, true. But most of those who do go on to the harder stuff start off with weed.
Video on Snake Oil

A Paulding County student collapsed and nearly died after taking a hit off a vape pen. The dramatic scene unfolded in front of a class when the South Paulding High School student collapsed and stopped breathing.
 
*** This is exactly why we need to raise the age for purchasing these products to 21... give our youth a chance.

The study found that a number of brain disorders and behaviors predicted accelerated aging, especially schizophrenia, which showed an average of 4 years of premature aging, cannabis abuse (2.8 years of accelerated aging), bipolar disorder (1.6 years accelerated aging), ADHD (1.4 years accelerated aging) and alcohol abuse (0.6 years accelerated aging). Interestingly, the researchers did not observe accelerated aging in depression and aging, which they hypothesize may be due to different types of brain patterns for these disorders.

In 2011, just over 5,500 reports were logged by the San Francisco Department of Public Works; in 2018, the number increased to more than 28,000.

In conclusion, our findings confirm previous evidence of the harmful effect on mental health of daily use of cannabis, especially of high-potency types. Importantly, they indicate for the first time how cannabis use affects the incidence of psychotic disorder. Therefore, it is of public health importance to acknowledge alongside the potential medicinal properties of some cannabis constituents the potential adverse effects that are associated with daily cannabis use, especially of high-potency varieties.

• cannabis is safe and helpful for PTSD are limited by either anecdotal or poor quality evidence, are offset by studies reporting opposite conclusions, and the well-demonstrated potential harms of cannabis addiction and risk for psychosis are not adequately weighed in the decision to recommend medical cannabis treatment of chronic PTSD
• There is a consensus that multiple social harms associated with cannabis legalization are not being adequately addressed. These include concerns about youth exposure under age 25 (a time of highly active brain development) and youth-marketing of edible cannabis products (eg, gummy bears and other confections) and cannabis concentrates that are easily obtained and “vaped”; unintentional in utero exposure prior to a woman’s knowledge of pregnancy; increased rates of intentional cannabis use during pregnancy; driving impairment and the absence of appropriate technological and legal systems to detect and deter this (equivalent to the breathalyzer for alcohol impairment); and cannabis use in sensitive occupations such as public transportation, public protection, and health services. While the voting public and industry is moving cannabis expansion forward, state proceedings have not yet involved public health, neurodevelopmental experts, and experts in addiction psychiatry and medicine equally with industry and economy experts. This is anything but reassuring for all who keep in mind that the United States is by far the greatest demand population for psychoactive substances, worldwide.4

• The reality is that the medical marijuana argument is meant mostly to protect recreational users from legal problems.
• One in every 15 alcohol drinkers  drink every day while one in every five marijuana users do so daily.
• America is the Western country that uses the most marijuana and has the worst problem with opioids.

CONCLUSIONS:
Early cannabis use is associated with psychosis-related outcomes in young adults. The use of sibling pairs reduces the likelihood that unmeasured confounding explains these findings. This study provides further support for the hypothesis that early cannabis use is a risk-modifying factor for psychosis-related outcomes in young adults.

The authors discovered several interesting things. First, all elements of both alcohol and cannabis use increase annually across the various levels of frequency of use, with the exception of daily alcohol use. Second, the effects of cannabis are considerably greater than those of alcohol. Third, there appear to be both concurrent and lagged effects of cannabis use on several cognitive domains. Thus, use of cannabis has persistent effects that are also exacerbated by continued use.

Experts define addiction as continued marijuana use despite negative consequences in a person's life, such as issues relating to their family, job, or relationships.
People who use marijuana regularly and then stop abruptly can experience some withdrawal symptoms.

Given today's concerns about maintaining a healthy body eating organic foods, low carb diets, ... reading all the labels to verify safety and good health, it is ironic the same standards are not demanded by those that consume marijuana.  Dog food is safer than marijuana!

For example, smoking pot is widely supposed to diminish the nausea associated with chemotherapy. But, the panel pointed out, “there are no good-quality randomized trials investigating this option.” We have evidence for marijuana as a treatment for pain, but “very little is known about the efficacy, dose, routes of administration, or side effects of commonly used and commercially available cannabis products in the United States.” The caveats continue. Is it good for epilepsy? “Insufficient evidence.” Tourette’s syndrome? Limited evidence. A.L.S., Huntington’s, and Parkinson’s? Insufficient evidence. Irritable-bowel syndrome? Insufficient evidence. Dementia and glaucoma? Probably not. Anxiety? Maybe. Depression? Probably not.

“dose-response relationship”... non-existent!

Large-scale, longitudinal studies of humans whose mothers smoked marijuana once or more per week and experimental work on rodents exposed to cannabinoids in utero have yielded remarkably consistent intellectual and behavioral correlates of fetal exposure to this drug. Some exposed individuals exhibit deficits in memory, cognition, and measures of sociability. These aberrations appear during infancy and persist through adulthood and are tied to changes in the expression of multiple gene families, as well as more global measures of brain responsiveness and plasticity. Researchers currently consider these perturbations to be mediated by changes to the endocannabinoid system caused by the active compounds in cannabis. 

As state lawmakers continue hashing out a marijuana legalization bill, the list of towns in New Jersey saying no to legal weed just keeps growing.
There are now nearly 40 municipalities across the state that have either banned marijuana businesses or officially voiced opposition to legal weed.