Author: Matthew

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Ohio Lawmakers Vote to Allow Growing Hemp, Selling CBD Oil

“COLUMBUS, Ohio — The Republican-led Legislature has passed a measure that would allow Ohio farmers and university researchers to grow industrial hemp and would legalize sales of hemp-derived cannabidiol oil, or CBD.

Federal legislation last year removed hemp from the list of federally controlled substances and now treats the low-THC version of the cannabis plant like other agricultural crops. But existing Ohio law doesn’t differentiate between marijuana and hemp.

The newly passed Ohio legislation would allow for the cultivation of hemp as long as it contains less than 0.3% THC, the cannabis compound that gives marijuana its high. It would be regulated by the state.

Fox 8 Cleveland

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Could Magic Mushrooms Ever Replace Today’s Antidepressants?

“Interest in using hallucinogens, such as magic mushrooms, to treat depression is on the rise, fueled by the results of early clinical trials in people with cancer.

Researchers caution it will be several years before data is available from the first randomized trials of psilocybin — the hallucinogenic compound in magic mushrooms — for depression in those without cancer.

But advocates say psilocybin could provide an effective treatment for depression with fewer side effects than current antidepressants, which leave many people emotionally “blunted.”

“The work is very promising, with large effects shown for depression in the two largest studies in cancer patients, and large effects in the single published study outside of cancer,” said Matthew W. Johnson, Ph.D., associate professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at Johns Hopkins Medicine.

One of these studies — conducted in 2016 by researchers at Imperial College London and other institutions — found that a single dose of psilocybin had a long-lasting effect on people with moderate to severe major depression.

“This study showed an antidepressant effect after a week and enduring for a couple of months,” said Dr. Stephen Ross, co-director of the NYU Psychedelic Research Group in New York City.

However, he points out the study didn’t compare people taking psilocybin to people not taking the drug — the control group. So, the study results don’t necessarily show that psilocybin works for depression.

The strongest psilocybin data so far is for treating anxiety and depression in people with cancer, carried out in two clinical trials by Ross and other researchers at NYU and by Johnson and others at Johns Hopkins University.

These studies, which included 80 participants combined, showed that psilocybin worked better than a non-hallucinogenic placebo for treating cancer-related depression.

More of this story at Healthline

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U.K. Legalizing Cannabis Supported by Near-Majority of Voters

“Almost half of Britons support the legalization of cannabis, according to a survey commissioned by a group associated with the ruling Conservative Party.

Legalization is backed by 48% with only 24% opposed, based on a YouGov poll carried out for the Conservative Drug Policy Reform Group. Support is highest among 18-24 year-olds at 54% and lowest among people 65 or older at 39%. A separate YouGov poll last year found 43% support and 41% opposed.

The latest result “illustrates the widening gulf between the stubborn, decades-old policies of blanket prohibition and the developing attitude of millions of voters,” Rob Wilson, a former Tory minister, and now chief executive officer of the CDPRG wrote in an online article for the Sunday Times cited by the newspaper.

The U.K. legalized medicinal cannabis in 2018. The Church of England said in June it would consider investments in medical marijuana, according to the Financial Times.

Bloomberg

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Better Buy: Medical Marijuana vs. Canopy Growth

“The global cannabis market is no doubt an exciting one, and there are many companies auditioning for your investment dollars. Cannabis stocks range from penny stocks to multi-billion-dollar global companies, so there’s quite a lot to choose from when thinking about how to play the space.

Two companies on opposite ends of the cannabis spectrum are Canopy Growth Company (NYSE: CGC) and Medical Marijuana, Inc. (NASDAQOTH: MJNA). Canopy, based in Canada, is the largest cannabis company in the world by market capitalization, and has Constellation Brands (NYSE: STZ), the owner of beer brands such as Corona and Modelo, as its largest strategic investor. Constellation invested $4 billion in Canopy last August for a 38% stake, along with warrants that give it the option to potentially purchase a controlling stake in the company.

Meanwhile, Medical Marijuana is a very small stock that trades over-the-counter in the United States at a market capitalization of just $200 million. Unlike Canopy, which focuses on medical and recreational marijuana sales in non-U.S. countries where cannabis has been legalized, Medical Marijuana decided to focus on the cannabidiol (CBD) market in the U.S. Though THC products, which contain the psychoactive agent in cannabis, remain federally illegal, the 2018 Farm Bill, passed in December, legalized the cultivation of hemp in order to produce CBD without THC, the psychoactive agent in cannabis. Medical Marijuana did have about $20 million in sales last quarter, which means there is a real potential business there.

Comparing operating results
Canopy currently generates much more revenue than Medical Marijuana, but it’s not as much as you might think. Last quarter Canopy made just over CA$106 million in revenue, more than 400% growth over the prior-year quarter, while Medical Marijuana made just over $20 million in revenue, nearly double the amount in the prior-year quarter.

Canopy is certainly larger and growing faster than Medical Marijuana, but considering Canopy’s stock is valued at roughly 68 times that of Medical Marijuana’s it’s not a stretch to think the scrappy upstart could be the better bet.

Compare that with Canopy, which posted a staggering CA$335 million net loss just last quarter, and a loss of CA$670 million for the year. The losses were due to Canopy’s heavy spending on expansion in Canada and 15 countries around the world. Even after the end of the last quarter Canopy continued its spending spree, buying Germany’s C3 Cannabinoid Compound Company, the UK’s This Works Products, a CBD company, then paying $300 million for the right to purchase Acreage Holdings (NASDAQOTH: ACRGF) for $3.4 billion should the U.S. legalize cannabis at the federal level.

Read the full article at Yahoo Finance

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Can Cannabis Treat Anxiety? It’s Complicated

“Many cannabis users and businesses are invested in the idea of cannabis as an anxiety treatment. The position invites skepticism: marijuana companies have a financial interest in promoting a maximalist view of the drug’s benefits, and in patients, it can look like a rationalization for excessive use.

As with other health conditions, the available research is inconclusive and limited due to decades-old restrictions on medical marijuana research. To sort through some of the ambiguities surrounding cannabis and anxiety, I spoke to Jordan Tishler, a Boston-area doctor who has a cannabis-focused practice.

Anxiety, Tishler said, referred more to a disorder when feelings of worry or distress arise for no specific reason. Fewer people take medical marijuana for generalized anxiety disorder (GAD) than stress, and the research about whether it works “is all over the map”.

The little research that does exist on the topic lacks specific information such as how much cannabis people take (dosing) and when in the day they ingest it. Additionally, the proportion of THC and CBD content of the product the subjects use is not clear. This makes it very difficult to gauge the drug’s efficacy. “People are very bad at reporting this stuff accurately,” Tishler said.

One of the driving forces of US cannabis legalization is the hope among military veterans that cannabis may relieve PTSD. “PTSD and generalized anxiety disorder have a lot in common,” Tishler said, and based on his practice he believes cannabis can be an effective treatment for PTSD. However, there is an added concern that veterans, in his experience, seem more likely to become heavy cannabis users very quickly, in part because they’re relying more on advice from their peers than their doctors.

The Guardian

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Does the Legalization of Marijuana Make It Safe?

“Alcohol, tobacco and prescription drugs, though legal, are often abused. People can get these substances whether they are of age or not, and the same thing is happening with marijuana. Walking through almost any neighborhood, one can smell marijuana everywhere. Dena Gorkin, educator, founder, and principal of Bnos Chomesh Academy high school for girls recalls walking down the street with her twelve-year-old daughter and her daughter said, “Smell that, Mom? That’s marijuana.”

There was a time when twelve-year-olds did not know what marijuana was, but now they know what it is and how to recognize it. With any substance that is potentially addictive, it is important that adults give children information. Adults must teach children about real dangers.

At the same time, it is very important to not give them exaggerated information. If a child or teenager is warned, “One marijuana joint will melt your brains and you’ll never be able to concentrate in school again,” they may try it anyway to see what happens. When what they were told inevitably does not happen, the adult loses all credibility and from that point on, any information that adult tells a child about other drugs or substances is potentially ignored because it is deemed unreliable. False information is not an effective way of keeping children away from drugs and other harmful substances.

Different people react in different ways just as they do with alcohol. Not everybody has the same reaction. However, some common reactions have been observed. One common reaction is people becoming very desensitized. Clinically, this is called “Amotivational syndrome.” Amotivational syndrome means a person has little or no desire to do anything – whether it is working, socializing or even completing simple tasks.

Family therapist Dr. Miriam Gross explains that when we combine this syndrome with a teenager’s developing brain, serious developmental issues arise. Teenage marijuana use affects memory, learning, and interpersonal relationships. Teenagers are still learning how to perform in life as they are discovering what they are good at. They need to put significant effort into their studies. They are learning how friendships work and are beginning to understand the dynamics of healthy friendships. These are the building blocks for a successful life. When a person becomes unmotivated, life becomes difficult, and this is particularly true for a teenager.

Marijuana use that begins in the teenage years has been associated with lower career success and income, as well as an increase in problems with interpersonal relationships. When teenagers use marijuana, it permanently affects their developing brain, which, in turn, impacts the rest of their lives.

Read the full article at BK Reader

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CBD As A Superbug Antibiotic?

June 24, 2019 — Cannabidiol, or CBD, already being researched and used for anxiety, insomnia, epilepsy, and pain, maybe the next superbug fighter for resistant infections, a new study suggests.

The researchers tested CBD against a wide variety of bacteria, “including bacteria that have become resistant to the most commonly used antibiotics,” says Mark Blaskovich, Ph.D., senior research officer at the Centre for Superbug Solutions at the Institute for Molecular Bioscience at the University of Queensland in Australia.

The development is important, as antibiotic resistance is reaching dangerously high levels, according to the World Health Organization.

What the Research Shows
CBD is a non-psychoactive compound taken from cannabis and hemp; it does not produce the high that regular marijuana does. To date, the FDA has only approved CBD for treating rare and severe forms of seizure, although it is promoted for many other health benefits.

Blaskovich presented the research Sunday at the American Society for Microbiology annual meeting. The research includes work in test tubes and animal models. Research presented at meetings should be viewed as preliminary until published in a peer-reviewed medical journal.

They compared how effective CBD was compared to common antibiotics, such as vancomycin and daptomycin. “We looked at how quickly the CBD killed the bacteria. It’s quite fast, within 3 hours, which is pretty good. Vancomycin (Vancocin) kills over 6 to 8 hours.”

The CBD also disrupted the biofilm, the layer of ”goop” around bacteria that makes it more difficult for the antibiotic to penetrate and kill.

Finally, the lab studies showed that “CBD is much less likely to cause resistance than the existing antibiotics,” Blaskovich says.

The CBD ”is selective for the type of bacteria,” he says.

He found it effective against gram-positive bacteria but not gram-negative. Gram-positive bacteria cause serious skin infections and pneumonia, among other conditions. Gram-negative bacteria include salmonella (found in undercooked foods) and E. coli (the cause of urinary tract infections, diarrhea, and other ailments), among other bacteria.

In another study, also presented at the meeting, the researchers tested topical CBD to treat a skin infection on mice. It cut the number of bacteria after 48 hours, Blaskovich says, although it did not clear the infection. That research is ongoing.

Continue Reading at WebMD

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Is CBD Really the Marijuana Molecule That Cures All?

Wonder drug or modern-day snake oil? Appearing in stores and online in the form of body lotions, capsules, tinctures, edible gummies, and bottled water, CBD has exploded in popularity as a way to reap the supposed health benefits of marijuana without the high that comes with it. All this is in spite of the paucity of evidence of its merits so far.

1. What is CBD?

CBD, or cannabidiol, is one of more than 100 molecules called cannabinoids that are found in cannabis. Unlike the nearly identical THC (tetrahydrocannabinol), which is the main active ingredient in pot, CBD doesn’t produce a buzz. According to a report by the World Health Organization, it hasn’t exhibited any potential for abuse or dependence, and there is no evidence of any public health-related problems associated with its use.

2. What does it do?

CBD has been touted as a potential treatment for any number of ailments, among them depression, insomnia, brain injury, opioid addiction, diabetes, arthritis, and graft versus host disease. Pre-clinical trials suggest CBD may have anti-inflammatory and analgesic properties, but there have been few human trials to substantiate the claims. Several clinical trials are in the works, including one testing its use to combat nausea during chemotherapy, and another on how it affects mood. For now, its only approved medical use in the U.S. is as a treatment of two rare forms of childhood epilepsy.

3. How many people are using it?

Almost 7% of Americans polled in January by investment bank Cowen & Co. reported using CBD as a supplement. Big chains such as CVS, Walgreens, and Kroger are now selling CBD lotions and other products. Cowen estimated that U.S. retail sales were as high as $2 billion in 2018, and analysts at Piper Jaffray & Co. estimated that the U.S. CBD market could be worth as much as $15 billion in five years. The research firm Brightfield Group estimated that CBD was a $318 million market in Europe in 2018.

Read the full article at Bloomberg

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Could Magic Mushrooms Ever Replace Today’s Antidepressants?

“Interest in using hallucinogens, such as magic mushrooms, to treat depression is on the rise, fueled by the results of early clinical trials in people with cancer.

Researchers caution it will be several years before data is available from the first randomized trials of psilocybin — the hallucinogenic compound in magic mushrooms — for depression in those without cancer.

But advocates say psilocybin could provide an effective treatment for depression with fewer side effects than current antidepressants, which leave many people emotionally “blunted.”

“The work is very promising, with large effects shown for depression in the two largest studies in cancer patients, and large effects in the single published study outside of cancer,” said Matthew W. Johnson, Ph.D., associate professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at Johns Hopkins Medicine.

Promising results of early clinical trials

One of these studies — conducted in 2016 by researchers at Imperial College London and other institutions — found that a single dose of psilocybin had a long-lasting effect on people with moderate to severe major depression.

“This study showed an antidepressant effect after a week and enduring for a couple of months,” said Dr. Stephen Ross, co-director of the NYU Psychedelic Research Group in New York City.

However, he points out the study didn’t compare people taking psilocybin to people not taking the drug — the control group. So, the study results don’t necessarily show that psilocybin works for depression.

The strongest psilocybin data so far is for treating anxiety and depression in people with cancer, carried out in two clinical trials by Ross and other researchers at NYU and by Johnson and others at Johns Hopkins University.

Interest in psilocybin research, but also hurdles

In addition to the research being done at NYU, Johns Hopkins, and other universities, two pharma like companies is also doing psilocybin research.

Usona Institute in Madison, Wisconsin, is planning a multisite phase II study of psilocybin for major depression. This kind of early clinical trial focuses on determining the best dose of psilocybin to use and its safety.

Ross will be the lead investigator for the NYU site. He says the hope is that this research, once completed, will go on to a full randomized clinical trial, also known as phase III.

The other company is U.K.-based COMPASS Pathways. It’s beginning a randomized clinical trial looking at psilocybin therapy for treatment-resistant depression.

In 2018, the company received breakthrough therapy designation from the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for this therapy.

Continue reading at Healthline

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First Medical Marijuana Edibles for Sale in Ohio

“Limited quantities of marijuana-infused gummy candy hit Ohio medical marijuana dispensary shelves late last week.

The initial price for Ohio’s first legal edible is steep: $80 for 11 gummies. Each candy contains 10 mg of THC. THC, short for tetrahydrocannabinol, is a marijuana compound that generates a “high.”

Similar strength gummies sell for about $25 for a pack of 10 in Illinois, which has a highly-regulated medical marijuana program similar to Ohio’s.

Prices are expected to remain high as the program ramps up. Fewer than half of the state-licensed 29 growers have marijuana flower or other products on retail dispensary store shelves.

Ohio Cannabis Company in Coshocton sold out of the gummies within days of receiving its first shipment. Dispensary employee Missy Bethel said customers have been asking for alternatives to dried bud, which can be vaped but not smoked in Ohio.

Ohio’s medical marijuana law, passed in May 2016, prohibits medical marijuana products that are “attractive to children.” So you won’t see any gummy bears, worms or fruit shapes for sale.

Gummies have to be imprinted with the letters THC. Edible products also contain a warning label that their effects may be delayed.

Smoking or vaping cannabis delivers quick effects because it enters the bloodstream through the lungs. Eating cannabis takes longer and can have different effects because it is absorbed as it is digested.

Read the full article at Cincinnati.com

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The Heady Thorny Journey To Decriminalize Magic Mushrooms

“Denver café populated almost entirely by young people staring at laptops, Travis Tyler Fluck—dressed in an orange velour jacket, over which is draped a thin braided lock of hair—takes out his phone and pulls up Craigslist.

A quick search lands him on a post advertising $10 magic mushrooms, with a poorly lit photo of said mushrooms. A good deal for anyone but Fluck, who helped leads the ballot campaign to essentially decriminalize magic mushrooms in this city by making enforcement an extremely low priority, a measure that passed by the slimmest of margins early last month.

Instead of reaching out to the seller, he flags the post. After all, the measure says you can grow and possess mushrooms for personal use, but that doesn’t mean you can sell them. Selling on Craigslist is a bad look for a measure that a small majority of voters approved.

Kevin Matthews—director of Decriminalize Denver, which led the ballot campaign—arrives and sits down on a couch opposite Fluck, who shows him the post on his screen.

Meanwhile, the psilocybin decriminalization movement is snowballing at an incredible clip. Last week, the Oakland, California, city council voted unanimously to decriminalize a range of psychedelic plants, including mushrooms and cacti. And Oregon is considering a measure in 2020 to allow access to “guided psilocybin services,” while lowering penalties for possession.

How quickly is the push to decriminalize psilocybin progressing, exactly? So quickly that it’s even surprised psychedelics advocates. “The fact that it’s happening so fast is kind of amazing,” says Brad Burge, spokesperson for the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies (MAPS), which leads studies of psychedelic therapies, including the aforementioned MDMA trial. “Here we have some of the very first policy measures ever to be proposed around the decriminalization of psychedelic substances and they’re passing. This is so surprising, I’ve only just had a chance to start thinking about it.”

Read the full article at Wired

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Can you carry CBD oil on a plane? Here’s what new TSA rules

“Hey, did you hear that the Transportation Security Administration is going to allow you to carry CBD oil in your carry-on bag and your suitcase? That’s a wow.

It also may be wrong. At least, for now.

In what may be one of the more confounding changes for travelers, CBD oil can be carried on a plane — if it meets certain requirements. No one seems quite clear how those requirements work.

What has happened

Sometime around Memorial Day, the TSA changed its stance on carrying onboard a plane a medication that treats childhood epilepsy and on CBD oil, which WebMD calls “the hot new product in states that have legalized medical marijuana.” CBD oil is said to relieve pain and is especially popular among those who suffer aches, which is pretty much everyone who ever walked (or limped) the Earth. It’s easy to obtain even if you do not live in a state where marijuana is legal.

Under TSA’s “What Can I Bring” answer program that lets passengers ask about items that may or may not be allowed on planes, its previous advice on medical marijuana, including CBD oil, was no and no for carry-on bags and checked bags.

“Possession of marijuana and cannabis-infused products, such as cannabidiol (CBD) oil, is illegal under federal law,” the old TSA page said. “TSA officers are required to report any suspected violations of law, including possession of marijuana and cannabis-infused products.” If you followed the letter of the law, CBD oil was a nonstarter.

But if you look at the page today, it says medical marijuana can be transported in carry-on bags and checked bags, with the proviso of “special instructions.”

As clear as mud

As Californians know, marijuana, for medical or recreational use, is legal in this state and several others, plus the District of Columbia. Many states allow the use of medical marijuana only, according to Governing.com

Although you may be free to use cannabis products in your home state, the use and possession of such products are illegal under federal law.

Thus, you can walk around LAX with cannabis if you choose to, but you cannot carry it through TSA security because that is a federal entity and marijuana is illegal under federal law.

Continue reading at Los Angeles Times

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We Can Make It Safer To Inject Drugs. Will We?

“Close the bathroom door at Supportive Place for Observation and Treatment (SPOT), and you have two minutes and 50 seconds. Then the alarm sounds, warning staff to check on the person inside. People sometimes inject drugs in SPOT’s bathroom, just as they do in the bathrooms of Starbucks or McDonald’s.

The longer you wait to reverse an overdose, the harder it gets. SPOT, run by Boston Health Care for the Homeless, has had to shorten that window, from five minutes to four, to three, and now, to two minutes and 50 seconds — even a 10-second margin means life or death.

Many people use drugs far from the clinicians who could save their lives if they overdose. And the drugs they use have become more lethal — fentanyl, a synthetic opioid many times more potent than heroin, is now common throughout Massachusetts.

Supervised injection facilities (SIFs) would provide people more support and clinical care in those most vulnerable moments. SIFs are facilities where people can use drugs under clinical supervision. None currently exist in the United States (with the exception of one underground SIF), but they’ve operated for years in Canada, Europe and Australia. Advocates and lawmakers in the U.S. want to establish SIFs here, too. They meet a need that facilities like SPOT can’t.

Public opinion is shifting in favor of SIFs. Data from a new WBUR poll shows that 50% of respondents support SIFs. And many of SIFs’ once-vocal critics, including Boston Mayor Marty Walsh, have become supporters.

But there’s a notable exception: U.S. Attorney for Massachusetts Andrew Lelling, who published an op-ed decrying SIFs in The Boston Globe in January. Lelling is a Trump appointee whose nomination didn’t cause immediate outrage — he had, if not bipartisan support, at least bipartisan respect — but that changed recently, when he was accused of being “overzealous, grandstanding, and politically motivated,” after he indicted a sitting Massachusetts judge for not being sufficiently harsh to an undocumented immigrant.

Continue Reading at WBUR

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Oregon Bill Allowing Interstate Weed Exports Passes Senate Vote

”A bill that could eventually allow Oregon to import and export cannabis across state lines—and give the state’s pot industry a head start when national cannabis laws change in the future—passed a vote in the Oregon Senate Wednesday. It will now move on to the House floor.

Currently, Oregon’s legal weed market is a closed system: no pot is supposed to cross state lines, even into other states where it is legal. Senate Bill 582 would change that by giving Oregon’s government the go-ahead to work with other states to determine policies and regulations for cross-state cannabis imports and exports—that is, after federal laws governing cannabis catch up to state laws.

The bill, which passed the Senate 19-9 in a mostly party-line vote, has been touted as a potential solution to Oregon’s oversaturated pot market, and as a way to prevent growers from turning to the black market in order to make a profit.

But the bill won’t be a quick fix. Because the US Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) classifies cannabis as a Schedule 1 substance, it’s currently illegal to cross state lines with it. In fact, SB 582 includes the provision that it won’t go into effect until one of two things happen: Either federal law is changed to allow interstate cannabis trading, or the US Department of Justice issues guidance allowing it.

Read the full article at Portland Mercury

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Denver Just Voted to Decriminalize Psychedelic Mushrooms

“Denver will become the first US city to effectively decriminalize mushrooms containing the psychedelic psilocybin, also known as “magic mushrooms.”

Initiative 301 makes the personal use and possession of psilocybin mushrooms among people 21 and older the lowest possible law enforcement priority in Denver. It also prohibits the city from spending resources to pursue criminal penalties related to the use or possession of psilocybin mushrooms among people 21 and older.

And the initiative sets up “the psilocybin mushroom policy review panel to assess and report on the effects of the ordinance.”

The initiative doesn’t legalize magic mushrooms; they remain illegal under state and federal law. And it doesn’t decriminalize or deprioritize enforcement against the distribution and sales of psilocybin mushrooms — all of that could still be pursued by police.

According to the Washington Post, Denver police arrested about 50 people a year over the past three years for possession or sale of psilocybin, and prosecutors acted on just 11 of the cases. That’s out of thousands of arrests overall in the city each year.

Voting began in Colorado, which does mail-in voting, last month and mostly concluded Tuesday (although a very small number of overseas and military votes can still come in). Things looked bad for the initiative late Tuesday, as it trailed behind in the results. But on Wednesday, the final tally came in — and showed Initiative 301 narrowly won with nearly 51 percent of the vote, according to the Denver Post and New York Times.

One potential source of real-world evidence on this: Portugal. After the country decriminalized all drugs, it saw a decrease in drug-related deaths and drops in reported past-year and past-month drug use, according to a 2014 report from the Transform Drug Policy Foundation. But it also saw an increase in lifetime prevalence of drug use, as well as an uptick in reported use among teens after 2007.

What effects psilocybin decriminalization will have in the US, Colorado, or Denver, however, remain to be seen. Even more so than marijuana legalization, this is an area of policy that’s largely untested in modern America.

Continue Reading at Vox

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CBD: A Marijuana Miracle or just Another Health Fad?

“Aaron Horn first came across cannabidiol, or CBD, about three years ago in Glastonbury – the town, not the festival. “I found it at this amazing hemp shop, Hemp in Avalon,” recalls Horn, a musician who is now 35. “It’s run by a guy called Free. His last name is Cannabis. He changed his name by deed poll to Free Cannabis.” Horn bought a tube of high-concentration CBD paste – “it comes out like a brown toothpaste, almost” – and it was recommended he put a tiny dot on his finger and pop it in his mouth.

Horn’s adult life had been spent in the shadow of a horrific accident that took place when he was 22. In June 2006, he had been shooting at a target with an air rifle in the garden of his family home; his parents are the music producers Jill Sinclair and Trevor Horn. Horn didn’t realize his mother was nearby, and a stray pellet lodged in her neck and severed an artery. Sinclair experienced hypoxia, which caused irreversible brain damage, and she spent years in a coma before dying in 2014.

Almost immediately, Horn found using CBD lifted his mood. Cannabidiol is a non-psychoactive chemical found in marijuana and hemp plants. It will be present if you smoke a joint but is often overwhelmed by one of the other 100-plus cannabinoids found in cannabis: THC (tetrahydrocannabinol). This is the ingredient that mainly has mind-altering properties, but also now has worrying links with mental illness and violence. CBD products are allowed to contain only traces of THC, which makes them legal, and devotees claim that they have many of the benefits of cannabis with none of the drawbacks.

“CBD has helped me across the spectrum,” says Horn. “It definitely helped in social situations, if I was finding it hard to be around people. It brings you more into the moment. I felt more relaxed.”

“CBD will change a culture,” he predicts. “People are less interested in drinking in bars, getting really drunk, feeling shit the next day, letting their body down, having issues with their body because of that. The shift is happening: more people are interested in eating healthier, living healthier, and this is part of that. It changes it a lot more than the new iPhone or another pair of trainers, or everything we’ve had since the 90s that’s just different versions.

“It will drastically affect the way the world looks in 20 or 30 years and the way we live.”

Read the complete article at The Guardian

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Opium, Coffee and the Politics of Foreign Aid

“IT LOOKS like a fairly standard development project photo op: United States ambassador Mr. Scot Marciel, pushing a coffee seedling into the ground. The May 2018 image shows the diplomat, dressed in leather shoes and a white shirt, kneeling on the distinctive pinkish-red soil of Shan State, surrounded by curious-looking farmers, one of whom is capturing the moment with a smartphone camera.

Myanmar is the second-largest producer of opium globally, after Afghanistan. Although Myanmar produces significantly less than at its 1990s peak, when the Golden Triangle region was the global center of illicit drug production, the UN still estimates that 520 tonnes of opium were produced in 2018. The production and sale of opium generate billions of dollars in profits each year.

Little of it though ends up with the estimated 70,000 smallholder farmers in remote and inaccessible areas of the country who make their living from the latex obtained from the plant. The average income of a household in a poppy-growing village in southern Shan is less than US$3,000 a year, which is just enough to make ends meet. At the same time, there is a high degree of risk involved: police officers conduct regular campaigns to destroy poppy fields and farmers are occasionally prosecuted.

Many opium farmers have few alternatives, due to conflict and insecurity, lack of infrastructure, and the terrain and climactic conditions. But on the slopes of mountainous Shan State, you can cultivate surprisingly high-quality coffee. Such is the quality that its sale could generate income similar to that of opium cultivation, exciting development agencies that see it as a viable alternative crop.

This is what brought Marciel to Shan: the planting was staged in aid of a US Agency for International Development-financed project that is supporting coffee production in the region. It sounds like a positive development, but not everyone is happy.

“Like a conquistador ramming the Spanish flag into the soil of South America.” That’s how Mr. Jaime Eduardo Perez Mayorga describes the photo of the kneeling ambassador. The Colombian sits with rolled up sleeves at his desk, the sweat on his forehead making his short, black hair shine. Mayorga works for UNODC, the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime. What bothers him is that the place where the ambassador planted the coffee tree, in Hopong Township within the Pa-O Self-Administered Zone, is in the middle of his project area. With support from German and Finnish taxpayers, UNODC has been working there for 10 years.

Continue Reading at Frontier Mynmar

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How to get the health benefits of cannabis without getting high

“For many of us who came of age in the 1960s and 1970s, smoking pot (also called marijuana or cannabis) was an integral part of the social scene. But whether we never touched the stuff, gave it up decades ago or still maintain a relationship with the plant, many boomers today are eagerly exploring cannabis in its various forms to address a whole host of conditions, including chronic pain, anxiety, and insomnia.

Microdosing’ cannabis for medicinal benefits

Still, many people who could benefit from cannabis are reluctant to do so out of concern over “getting high.” This aversion to intoxication is one of the factors driving the meteoric popularity of hemp-based cannabidiol (CBD) products, which contain only trace amounts of tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), the psychoactive compound in cannabis. Yet CBD alone is considered to be less effective for medicinal purposes without the presence of THC.

The good news is that it takes very little THC to safely achieve significant therapeutic effects. This is the rationale behind “microdosing,” an approach to using medicinal cannabis in very small doses to achieve medicinal benefits without the high.

Cannabis for acute and chronic conditions

Dr. Jordan Tishler, a cannabis physician and instructor of medicine at Harvard with a practice in Boston, also treats his patients for pain and other chronic conditions using very low doses of THC. For Tishler, the preferred mode of delivery for fast treatment of acute conditions, such as migraine headaches, is inhalation of very small quantities of vaporized flower — a part of the cannabis plant. Vaporization is achieved using a technologically sophisticated portable convection device, better known as a vaping device.

For chronic conditions that need ongoing maintenance, including amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, multiple sclerosis, and Parkinson’s disease, Tishler’s treatment plan may center around low-dose gummy chews.

Dr. Laurie Vollen, a cannabis physician in the San Francisco Bay Area, also recommends vaping very small, controlled quantities of a flower. But she cautions patients to avoid disposable vape pens, which can contain toxic chemicals and have not been proven clinically safe over long-term use. Vollen teaches her patients, whose average age is in the 70s, how to use a vaporizer in a special “Inhalation 101” course she developed.

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CBD Oil vs. Hemp Oil: What’s the Difference in 2019?

”With marijuana usage rising as more U.S. states legalize the controversial but commercially available herb, a cottage industry has developed around the use of marijuana with various claims of healthy attributes on multiple medical fronts.

Officially, marijuana is deemed as Schedule I herbal substance by the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, meaning the drug offers “no currently accepted medical use and a high potential for abuse,” according to the federal government. That categorization was adjusted after the passage of the 2018 Farm Bill, which included a provision that separated hemp from marijuana, as noted in the Controlled Subject Act.

According to the National Institute on Drug Abuse, “marijuana refers to the dried leaves, flowers, stems, and seeds from the hemp plant, Cannabis sativa. The plant contains the mind-altering chemical delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) and other related compounds. Extracts can also be made from the cannabis plant.”

Virtually all of the health care products derived from the cannabis plant centers around two primary components – CBD (Cannabidiol) oil and hemp oil. Each is used and sold as natural health remedies and, even as they share certain characteristics, they have some important differences, too.

What Is CBD Oil?

CBD oil is derived from the Cannabis sativa plant and is known scientifically as cannabidiol. CBD is one of 120 known chemical compounds embedded in marijuana plants and differs from hemp in that it contains Tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), which is the primary psychoactive cannabinoid found in cannabis.

What Is Hemp Oil?

Hemp oil is also derived from Cannabis sativa, which contains the chemical element trans-delta9-tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), the cannabis component that gives marijuana its psychosomatic kick. Hemp oil is extracted from the leaves, petals, and seeds from a hemp plant.

What both CBD oil and hemp oil do have in common is neither is linked to THC and therefore won’t provide that psychological “high” so often attributed to THC.

Instead, the human body manages cannabinoids through its endocannabinoid system, also known as ECS, which can process CBD and hemp oil through the body and is managed by the human brain, which uses cannabinoids to regulate the body’s physiological reactions to the herb, and help better manage key human elements like eating, sleeping, dealing with pains and illnesses, and improving mood.
Hemp
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Magic Mushrooms Could Be Decriminalized in Denver

“Now that marijuana is legal for recreational and medical use in Colorado, a portion of the public has turned its attention to decriminalizing psilocybin in Denver, the hallucinogen/psychedelic known as “magic mushrooms.” Initiative 301 will appear on municipal ballots on May 7, alongside another initiative that would legalize urban camping. The psilocybin question asks voters whether they support a change to city code “that would make the personal use and personal possession of psilocybin mushrooms by person twenty-one (21) years of age and older the city’s lowest law-enforcement priority.”

In his 2018 book How To Change Your Mind, Michael Pollan—yes, he of the Omnivore’s Dilemma—explores whether science and the pharmaceutical industry can ever surmount psilocybin’s fraught countercultural history to examine it as a potential therapeutic treatment. Pollan’s book is lengthy, but a fascinating read for supporters and skeptics of psychedelics alike. I highly recommend it. He writes that since this mushroom’s discovery (by the West) in the mid-1950s, psilocybin has been shown by brain-imaging studies to create a “high-entropy brain,” in which “new connections spring up among regions that ordinarily kept mainly to themselves.” Researchers, led by Robin Carhartt-Harris of the Imperial College London, wrote in a 2014 paper that this temporary reconfiguring of the brain could potentially be useful in treating psychological disorders marked by mental rigidity such as addiction.

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