Tag: Fight for Botanicals

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Greek Official Calls For Marijuana Legalization

On Greek TV, a Greek official calls for marijuana legalization for recreational purposes. The official in question is Yiannis Tsironis. He’s the Deputy Minister for Agriculture, originating from Greece’s Green Party. Yeah, we figured as much.

The Green in Green

Like many other countries, our own included, Greek federal policy outlaws cannabis.

Despite the country’s history of producing hashish, authorities officially criminalized the plant in 1890. Although the cultivation and possession of hashish were illegal, Greek citizens continued to use it. Particularly after the first World War.

This year, the Greek Prime Minister, Alexis Tsipras, legalized marijuana for medicinal purposes, thus becoming the latest European country to implement a nation-wide medical marijuana program. At the moment, weed is still illegal for recreational purposes.

But will it always be?

Continue Reading at High Times

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Magic Mushrooms’ Might Ease Depression Symptoms

Psilocybin, the main ingredient in “magic mushrooms,” may soothe symptoms of depression, according to a very preliminary study.

The research had a small sample size — only 20 patients — and no control group who got a placebo for comparison’s sake. That makes it hard to draw firm conclusions about if or how well the hallucinogenic compound really works at fighting depression. But brain-scan data from the new research suggests that psilocybin does impact brain networks that are associated with depression.

Stubborn Depression

The researchers focused on 20 people who had tried standard depression treatments and found them lacking. Each participant, classified as having treatment-resistant depression, took a 10-milligram dose of psilocybin, followed by another 25 milligrams one week later, enough to cause hallucinogenic effects.

The immediately striking finding was that taking psilocybin, which occurs naturally in hundreds of mushroom species, decreased depression symptoms significantly.

A new form of treatment?

“Based on what we know from various brain-imaging studies with psychedelics, as well as taking heed of what people say about their experiences, it may be that psychedelics do indeed ‘reset’ the brain networks associated with depression, effectively enabling them to be lifted from the depressed state,” study leader Robin Carhart-Harris, the head of psychedelic research at Imperial College, said in a statement.

Read the full article at Live Science

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Magic Mushroom Chemical Appears to Physically Change Depressed Brains

Magic mushrooms are a strange drug. They’re one part illegal music festival enhancer, one part promising treatment that could have important medical applications. That second use continues to look more and more promising.

A new study from researchers in the United Kingdom and South Africa monitored the brains of folks trying psilocybin, the magic mushroom chemical, for depression that wasn’t kicked by the usual treatments. The psychedelic not only reduced the symptoms of depression but seemed to have a noticeable physical effect.

The study followed 15 male and four female depressed patients (which ultimately became 12 and then 11 male patients) receiving two doses of the drug over two weeks, who were then monitored for five weeks after. All of the patients had fewer symptoms of depression in the first week, and around half showed improvement at five weeks.

The paper points out that this is a tiny study with no control, and the researchers reminded New Scientist that you shouldn’t try to self-medicate with psychedelics. But it’s also promising. “This is further evidence that psilocybin may turn out to be effective for the most stubborn depression,” Paul Morrison from King’s College London told them.

Read the full article at Gizmodo

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Cannabis Oil Dabbing Might Expose You To Malign Toxins

American Chemical Society’s ACS Omega has published a study which claims to be groundbreaking in terms of how we view a very specific type of cannabis consumption, the so-called cannabis oil dabbing.

The study which was published this month finds that dabbing cannabis oil through glass rigs may expose users to elevated toxin levels as compared to other methods, such as smoking dried cannabis or even vaping it for that matter.

In an effort to explain how the chemicals in concentrated cannabis break down under heat, a team of scientists from Portland State University has discovered that concentrates exposed to the high heat common to dab setups produced elevated levels of carcinogenic and toxic compounds.

Dabbing at low temperatures might be the way out

Researchers from PSU said that the key factor in which chemicals get released is the degree of heat used to activate cannabinoids in the oil.

Researchers also found that the higher the temperature that a substance’s flavoring terpenes are subjected to, the more carcinogens, toxins, and potential irritants are produced — meaning that you should dab on as low as possible temperatures.

Read the full article at Greencamp

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Surprising Medical Marijuana Side Effect: More People Claiming Disability

Medical marijuana laws are becoming more popular across the country, but legalizing the drug for medicinal purposes can have a major unintended consequence.

State medical marijuana laws lead to an increase in the probability that people will make Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI) claims, according to a new working paper from researchers at Temple University, Johns Hopkins University and the University of Cincinnati. The tendency to make a SSDI claim rose 9.9% following the passage of a medical marijuana law, while actual SSDI benefits rose by 2.6%. The report, which was distributed by the National Bureau of Economic Research, used data from the Current Population Survey by the Bureau of Labor Statistics to produce its findings.

The researchers also studied the effect state laws on medical marijuana had on workers’ compensation (WC) claims. While their analysis did not produce any statistically significant evidence for these claims, the researchers said the data suggested generally that the laws do cause an increase. “Expanding marijuana access has negative spillover effects to costly social programs that disincentive work,” the researchers wrote.

More of this news at Marketwatch

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How Weed Affects Women Differently Than Men

Everyone’s endocannabinoid system is different, and therefore everyone responds to weed differently. In fact, according to recent research, estrogen might make you more sensitive to the effects of cannabis.

A study from Washington State University found that women are most receptive to the effects of THC when their estrogen has peaked and is on the descent, which happens about a day or two before ovulation.

“What we’re finding with THC is that you get a very clear spike in drug sensitivity right when the females are ovulating, right when their estrogen levels have peaked and are coming down,” says lead researcher Rebecca Craft.

Other research has shown that women also tend to experience an increased libido from cannabis more so than men do. If a heterosexual couple is going to use cannabis to enhance sex, it’s best for the man to stop smoking about half an hour beforehand and for the women to keep on smoking. However, increased libido only works for moderate amounts of cannabis. If the dose is too high, the consumer might get too tired.

According to the study from Washington State University, increased appetite is a side effect of cannabis more likely to be found in men than in women.

Read the full article at Jane Street

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Opioid Addiction: Humanizing A Crisis

Serious, chronic health conditions such as diabetes, heart disease, and cancer, represent just a few of the staple diagnoses in developed countries, but few are as stigmatized as addiction. The opioid epidemic is at the forefront of public health issues capturing national attention in the United States, affecting communities from Hollywood to small town USA.

The term opiate is a classification for a drug that contains the highly addictive drug opium, a narcotic derived from the Papaver somniferum poppy plant. Opioids are appealing because the user feels a great sense of euphoria, followed by both decreased pain and increased drowsiness.

Adding to the complexity of this epidemic is the availability of similar, and often illicit, drugs that produce the same euphoric feelings of prescription pain medications. The abuse of, and addiction to, illicit versions of opiates, such as heroin, is growing as regulations and costs make it more difficult to obtain legally prescribed opiates.

It makes sense, then, that the United States consumes 80% of the global opioid supply. Individuals hit hardest by this epidemic are between the ages of 25 to 54, with higher overdose rates seen in non-Hispanic whites and Native Americans or Alaskan Natives. Men die from overdoses at higher rates than women, but that gap is said to be closing.

Continue Reading at Crixeo

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Powerful Hallucinogen Could bring Relief To Chronic Itching

People who suffer from chronic itching say it’s more unbearable than pain. I’ll never forget a 2008 story called The Itch in The New Yorker.

Chemical and Engineering News reports that a compound in the popular psychedelic plant Salvia divinorum was found to contain a compound that is found to provide itch relief to mice.

Salvinorin A, a hallucinogen produced by the Mexican plant Salvia divinorum, holds promise for treating itch and pain because it activates the κ-opioid receptor while avoiding the μ-opioid receptor, a sister receptor that’s been associated with opioid abuse.

Chemists have tried to synthesize salvinorin A so that they could alter the structure to sidestep the compound’s psychoactive effects while preserving its analgesic properties.

More of this news at Boing Boing

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Study: Cannabis May Reduce Number Of Premature Deaths In The United States

According to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) ‘nearly 900,000 Americans die prematurely from the five leading causes of death.’ Those five leading causes of death are heart disease, cancer, chronic lower respiratory diseases, stroke, and unintentional injuries. According to the CDC, 20 to 40 percent of those premature deaths could be prevented. And according to a study from last month conducted by Indiana University, cannabis could play a big part in significantly reducing the number of premature deaths in America if medical cannabis was legalized nationwide.

Per the study:

To date, no studies have attempted to estimate impacts of Cannabis use on premature death that include both adverse and beneficial effects on physical health. Marijuana use is estimated to reduce premature deaths from diabetes mellitus, cancer, and traumatic brain injury by 989 to 2,511 deaths for each 1% of the population using Cannabis. The analysis predicts an estimated 23,500 to 47,500 deaths prevented annually if medical marijuana were legal nationwide.

Full article at Weed News

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Why Michigan’s Marijuana Regulators Want to Shut the Pot Industry Down

Michigan’s medical marijuana industry has had a licensing authority—in this case, the Michigan Medical Marijuana Licensing Board—for less than three months. It took two meetings before the licensing board, in charge of overseeing and regulating the state’s cannabis landscape, suggested shutting it all down.

Medical marijuana has been legal in Michigan since 2008. Under state law, a caregiver is allowed to cultivate up to 72 marijuana plants—no more than 12 plants for no more than six patients.

Retail outlets offering cannabis in Michigan are technically illegal—and will be until the state starts issuing licenses, a development expected to come as soon as later this year—yet dispensaries have been operating with varying levels of transparency in select cities for years.

In Detroit, there are more than 70 dispensaries offering marijuana for sale that has completed or at least started the city licensing process, according to the Detroit Free Press.

“Every dispensary out there is open in violation of the Michigan Medical Marijuana Act,” Bailey said during a recent board meeting, according to the Detroit Free Press. “It’s a felony for every sale that occurs from a dispensary.”

Continue Reading at High Times

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Californians Might Vote on ‘Magic Mushroom’ Legalization in 2018

Californians might vote on whether to decriminalize the use of hallucinogenic mushrooms as early as 2018, under a newly proposed ballot measure.

The measure — which was filed on Friday (Aug. 25) with the state Attorney General’s office — would exempt people ages 21 and over from criminal penalties for using, possessing, selling, transporting or cultivating psilocybin, a hallucinogenic compound found in certain mushroom species.

The measure is not currently on the ballot — supporters need to get at least 365,880 signatures to qualify for the 2018 ballot, according to the Sacramento Bee, a newspaper in Northern California.

Continue reading at LiveScience

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It’s Time to Cut the Oil Syringe Some Slack

Cannabis oils are contained, transported, and dispensed from a variety of vessels. “Pucks” and different types of parchments are the most common containers used to package cannabis oils, but the syringe remains the only oil container that can dispense measured doses of cannabis concentrate by design.

The syringe, however, holds an especially loaded place in drug culture for its apparent relationship to intravenous drug use, which is amplified against the backdrop of the opioid epidemic in the United States. The optics of the syringe are challenging to overcome because society shares the preconceived notation that syringes belong in the responsible hands of science and medicine professionals, yet are being abused by hard drug users.

Benefits of Cannabis Oil Syringes

It’s time to push your concerns aside and give this implement a chance. There are myriad benefits of cannabis oil syringes. First, syringes usually come in a variety of volumes. Many have their volume indicated in marks on the body of the syringe, giving you relative measurements for dosage.

Another benefit of the syringe is its minimal to non-existent loss of oil. The plunger in my oil syringe pressed the oil through without losing much to the container. With a puck or parchment, over time oil can get thin and difficult to fully collect. There are different techniques to gather this residual oil, but the syringe requires neither the time nor effort to do so. The full volume is available, measurable, and usable without the fuss of a heating element and tools.

Read the full article at Leafly

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How Much Does Cannabis Cost Where You Live?

Cannabis has intrigued me since the first time I consumed it in the early 1990’s. Since that time I, as many others had before me, got particularly fascinated in the types of cannabis that people consume across the country, as well as how much cannabis costs in each state. 

It’s one of the most talked about things in the cannabis world. I find that type of web chatter is more insightful for gauging a state’s cannabis scene than looking at databases.

Perhaps it will change over time, but as of this posting, they have grams for $3.75. As far as I know, that includes tax. That’s an eighth for less than $15, and it’s been lab tested and perfectly legal to anyone over the age of 21. To be clear, I don’t have any affiliation with the linked to the dispensary, but I have consumed the $3.75 gram and it was some decent stuff. I have heard of dispensary ounces being as low as $79 in Oregon.

How much does cannabis cost where you live, and what is the quality level? Some parts of America are still picking seeds out of bricks, while some states have regulated dispensaries. If you live in a state that has prohibition, do your part and fight for reform so that you can enjoy the freedoms that people in legal states do. No state left behind!

Weed News

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Could This Back-pain Device End Need For Opioids?

A new pain pellet that scientists are developing in Columbus is about half the size of a grain of rice, but researchers say it delivers a big dose of relief that could one day help fight the opioid epidemic.

The tiny rod holds a nonaddictive painkiller that doctors could insert in the lower back, much like an epidural, to give a patient a break from the chronic or acute pain, said Dr. Ali Rezai, director of the Neurological Institute at Ohio State University’s Wexner Medical Center. He would not reveal the painkiller, saying only that it is a drug that already has been used successfully as a cardiovascular medication.

A small trial of 55 people with sciatica — pain in the lower back and legs — showed that the pellet stopped the pain for up to one year and was safe and easy to use, Fiore said. Researchers will next seek to perform a large clinical trial, hoping to confirm effectiveness and safety. The trial will involve a broader group of people culled from pain centers across Ohio.

Opioids are commonly used to treat chronic pain, Rezai said.

But the highly addictive nature of the medications, Fiore said, is a reason to find alternatives. Someone who takes opioids for a single day, for example, has a 6 percent chance of being addicted a year later.

Read more at The Columbus Dispatch

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‘Magic Mushroom’ Enzyme Mystery Solved

Researchers unravel the biosynthesis of the psychoactive drug psilocybin, making the large-scale production a possibility…

The euphoria and hallucinations induced from eating Psilocybe “magic mushrooms” have earned the fungi a cult following. Sandoz chemist Albert Hofmann isolated and determined the structure of psilocybin, the main ingredient in mushrooms that leads to the psychedelic effects, nearly 60 years ago. That discovery and subsequent mind-altering experiments by Harvard University psychologist Timothy F. Leary have left scientists longing to develop a large-scale synthesis of the compound for medical uses, which include treating anxiety and depression in terminal cancer patients and treating nicotine addiction. Yet no one has been able to unravel the enzymatic pathway the mushrooms use to make psilocybin, until now.

During their study, Hoffmeister and co-workers sequenced the genomes of two mushroom species to identify the genes that govern the fungal enzymatic production of psilocybin. They further used engineered bacteria and fungi to confirm the gene activity and exact order of synthetic steps. This process includes a newly discovered enzyme that decarboxylates tryptophan, an enzyme that adds a hydroxyl group, an enzyme that catalyzes phosphorylation, and an enzyme that mediates two sequential amine methylation steps. With that knowledge in hand, the team designed a one-pot reaction using three of the enzymes to prepare psilocybin from 4-hydroxy-L-tryptophan.

“The publication by Hoffmeister and colleagues highlights a terrific example of genomics-based biocatalyst-pathway discovery,” adds natural products researcher Jon S. Thorson of the University of Kentucky. “While psilocybin biosynthesis derives from a series of fairly simple chemical transformations, this new study identifies the contributing genes and biocatalysts for the first time and, importantly, provides strong evidence to support a revision of the order of the key steps proposed more than five decades ago. This work clearly sets the stage for bioengineered psilocybin production and/or for analogs that may serve as compelling alternatives to existing synthetic strategies.”

C&En News

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Is Marijuana Worse Than Tobacco For Cardiovascular Health?

If you consume cannabis, you are three times more likely to die from high blood pressure than those who abstain, according to a shocking new study. What does this mean to your cardiovascular health?

The study, published on Tuesday in the European Journal of Preventive Cardiology, found:

“Compared with subjects who had never used marijuana, the results revealed that marijuana users were 3.42 times more likely to die from high blood pressure. For each year of marijuana use, the risk of death from hypertension increased by 1.04 times.”

“We found higher estimated cardiovascular risks associated with marijuana use than cigarette smoking,” said study author Barbara A. Yankey from Georgia State University. “This indicates that marijuana use may carry even heavier consequences on the cardiovascular system than that already established for cigarette smoking.”

The study’s methodology has been questioned by other cannabis researchers. One significant shortcoming in the study is that the researchers did not control for diet and exercise as a factor in cardiovascular risk. It also did not assess whether test subjects ate, vaporized or smoked cannabis.

Read the full article at The Fresh Toast

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Are Pain Management Devices An Alternative to Opioids?

“People are afraid of opioids right now. There’s a stigma. Patients don’t want to be on opioids,” Michael Leong, a pain specialist at the Stanford University School of Medicine, told Technology Review. Using pain relief devices can reportedly drastically reduce or eliminate a patient’s need for pain medication, particularly powerful opioids.

Terri Bryant was on fentanyl for her back pain until she took part in a clinical trial of a spinal cord stimulator that was implanted under her skin at the base of her spine. After getting the implant her pain decreased almost immediately and she was able to stop taking fentanyl, which was a relief to her.

The medical community is now looking to develop devices that provide the same sort of relief without needing to be surgically implanted. One such device, Neuro-Stim System Bridge, is placed behind a patient’s ear and gives off electrical pulses to certain areas of the brain.

The device has proved very effective for helping people overcome the pain of withdrawing from opioids and is now used in 30 states to support detox. Patients wear the bridge for the first five days after they stop taking opioids in order to get them through the toughest part of withdrawing.

Yet not everyone is convinced that pain management devices are the answer to America’s chronic pain problem. Edward Michna, a pain management specialist at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, said that we need more long-term research into their effectiveness.

The Fix

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Study: Magic mushrooms May Be Among The Safest Illicit Drugs

A GLOBAL study has assessed the health dangers of all illicit drugs, revealing the substances that carry the most – and least – risk.

The study, which canvassed 120,000 people worldwide, found 79.3 per cent of its sample had taken drugs in their lives. Some 37 per cent of respondents had used in the prior month.

By far the most heavily used illegal drug was cannabis, with a 77.8 per cent take-up rate. While the report highlights growing issues caused by newer and purer varieties of drugs, it says more traditional drugs are still a serious cause for concern.

But the Global Drug Survey 2017 study says that if you insist on using illicit substances, perhaps magic mushrooms was the best pick of a bad bunch.

Magic mushrooms came in as the ninth most heavily used illicit drug, with 29.4 per cent of respondents saying it was their drug of choice. Magic mushrooms directly affect serotonin receptors in the brain. Other drugs also stimulate many others. And taking more ‘shrooms doesn’t increase a high — which makes them less addictive.

This is a very real risk as many magic mushroom users tend to scour fields and reserves for varieties growing naturally. The alternative — growing them yourself — is illegal. The Global Drug Survey is administered by an independent research company based in London.

News.com

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Is It Legal to Mail CBD Oil?

As you are likely aware, cannabis is federally illegal under the Controlled Substances Act. This means that transporting any form of cannabis across state lines is considered a felony trafficking offense. Sending cannabis through the mail is no exception and can result in a prison sentence of up to five years for the first offense.

However, more and more often, there have been advertisements offering to ship CBD oil to your home, whether you live in Colorado or Kentucky, across state and federal lines.

The Cannabis sativa L. plant has several different varieties. The non-psychoactive variety is what we commonly refer to as industrial hemp, and contains little to no THC content and small amounts of CBD.

Industrial hemp is legal to import and ship across state lines and process into various products, including the fabled CBD oils, so long as they contain less than 0.3% delta-9 tetrahydrocannabinol.

Continue Reading at Leafly

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Concentrate Shelf Life: How Long Does Cannabis Oil Last?

Finding a long-lost cannabis concentrate is a bittersweet moment. Your discovered concentrate was left stranded in a pair of jeans that had been stuffed in the far reaches of your dresser, untouched since that last camping trip.

The good news: no mold. The bad news: it doesn’t look like the translucent and golden “shatter” you once had. What’s before you now looks like a collection of off-yellow sugar crystals. Has this hash oil gone past its shelf life? Can you still enjoy it?

While some extracts and infusions can experience quality degradation in a very short time span, others may stay fresh and usable indefinitely.

The Impact of Extraction Method on Concentrates

“Gold in, gold out; Garbage in, garbage out.” There’s a direct correlation between the quality of the starting material and what remains post-extraction. Inferior products containing compromised cannabinoid profiles will, in every case, result in an inferior extract.

Continue Reading at Leafly