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Has COVID Added New Believers to our Reluctant Audience

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COVID is occupying our thoughts and time in 2022, so there is barely a moment to think about anything else. Family and friend relationships were put on hold or dissolved altogether. Lost jobs due to the economy or forced inoculation of an experimental drug found anxiety, depression, and suicides increase exponentially.

Negative Effects of Lockdowns

Pathirathna, M.L. et.al. researched over 1052 studies and published his analysis in BMC Psychiatry. Eighteen of the studies showed 12,746 suicidal attempts and 33,345 suicidal deaths. The mental health impact of social distancing, COVID-19 quarantine, and financial crises due to loss of employment was associated with risk factors for suicide and/or suicidal attempts during the COVID-19 pandemic. Six common thematic recommendations for preventing suicidal deaths and suicide attempts are identified.

As a consequence of these behavior problems, it is no surprise the pandemic created a new set of cannabis stoners. The Covid-19 nightmare sparked a number of shake-ups to the social order – a burgeoning anti-work movement, a sharp economic swoon, and tiresome new polarities in the culture war.

Reluctant Audience Turns to Cannabis

According to the data analytics firm Headset, legal marijuana sales increased by 120% in 2020, and 61% in 2021. Fortune reported that Americans bought $18bn worth of cannabis in our first coronavirus year, $7bn more compared with 2019 transactional figures. An increasing number of people are abstaining from alcohol, which is a rebound effect from early pandemic debauchery. As we come out of this COVID nightmare I wonder what is in store for cannabis in 2023.

The year started with the promise by a Democratic Congress to pass the MORE Act (Marijuana Opportunity Reinvestment and Expungement). This act would no longer make it a crime to be a cannabis consumer, a marijuana convict, or the expansion of the gay-market industry. The Senate did not take up the mantle. Consequently, the MORE Act went nowhere. The strategy of tacking a cannabis bill at the end of spending bills is proved to be a failure.

Research Expansion Act

What did happen however is Congress passed the Medical Marijuana and Cannabidiol Research Expansion Act. This was a stand-alone bill introduced by Senators Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), and Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii) to expand research into marijuana-derived medications. The medical community agrees that we need more research to learn about marijuana’s potential health benefits, but our federal laws today are standing in the way of us finding those answers.

This bill removes excessive barriers that make it difficult for researchers to study the effectiveness and safety of marijuana, and hopefully, give patients more treatment options. The strategy of a stand-alone cannabis bill proved successful.

Giving Compassion in 2023

Dr. Robert Malone, a famous COVID physician, reminds me of compassion in his thoughts daily on the pandemic. I look forward to his words of wisdom in my email every day. He summarizes the arc of this most disappointing of years. “The cognitive dissonance is almost overwhelming. Yet we must somehow come to terms with the profound widespread loss of integrity which has become a defining characteristic of both US and global governance (not to mention corporate media).”

He invites us to exercise compassion for our friends and family are enduring the brunt of being called crazy or conspiracy theorists. Consider the stress of being told relentlessly on TV, social media, or print media that the COVID restrictions are mitigating the spread of this deadly virus. Yet we see our athletes dropping dead on the playing field.  Our continence is frozen in place.

First, let us embrace our relationships with renewed hope notwithstanding the other person’s views pro or con regarding vaccines. I do pray that 2023 is a year of healing and renewal. Second, let us dissent without anger, discuss without ridicule, and forgive without regret our transgressions on one another while honoring the spirit of the baby Jesus’ birth.

My lectures on Marijuana Without the High will occur in a new timeframe. Join me on the 2nd and 4th Friday of every month from 6 PM to 9 PM at the Vault Dispensary Lounge. Call 760-866-9660

California Drug Cartel Crisis is the Corridor to America

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Border Patrol detectives warn how LA and southern California’s main hubs are corridors for bringing narcotics across the border. These main hubs, called stash houses, are in Fresno Sacramento, and San Jose. The illegal marijuana and narcotics are dropped at these hubs and then transported to the rest of the United States through the I-5 corridor that runs all the way up California. Then you have the corridors that run east from southern California.

The National Drug Threat Assessment reported that California has 10 cities where cartel operations do business. The different cartel groups are classified as Transitional Criminal Organizations, according to the DEA. “Mexican TCOs continue to control lucrative smuggling corridors, primarily across the SWB [southwest border], and maintain the greatest drug trafficking influence in the United States,” the report states. The wealth that is built off growing cannabis in CA, a safe place to grow without harsh penalties, furthers their organization in very large ways financially.

Border detectives find that a significant amount of money has gone to China, where the cartel members have bought the compounds and materials to make fentanyl. These materials are sent to Mexico, where the fentanyl pills are pressed and created in labs.

Ohio’s AG Dave Yost issued a warning about the prevalence of nitazenes added to the illicit drugs made in Mexico. A dangerous, new group of synthetic opioids called “nitazenes” is rapidly spreading across the U.S. The drugs, nicknamed “Frankestein opioids,” can be 1.5 to 40 times more potent than fentanyl, have not been approved for medical use anywhere in the world, and are currently being made in clandestine labs, according to a bulletin from the Ohio Bureau of Criminal Investigation (BCI). These drugs are produced as chemical experiments. In April, Ohio outlawed nitazenes and in December the DEA issued a notice of intent to classify nitazenes as Schedule I drugs. Ohio has a bill in the legislation to ban nitazenes. Canada and Florida also moved to ban nitazenes.

In some instances, nitazenes are being found in combination with other drugs, primarily fentanyl and fentanyl pharmacophores, but also tramadol, cocaine, heroin, methamphetamine, and PCP analogs. Frankestein opioids are even more lethal than the drugs already responsible for so many overdose deaths. Now cannabis nurses must also be knowledgeable in synthetics that interact with whole plant cannabis.

And what are our illustrious legislators in the California Assembly and Senate worried about? AB 1894 requires a label of a 150-word hazardous waste message onto the current densely packed cannabis warning labels on vape pens. The effect of these efforts cumulatively is to pile on massive amounts of information on products that are small, in most cases not much bigger than 2 by 3 inches. And do the naive legislators believe the user is going to worry about disposing of his/her vape cartridge in a hazardous waste container because it has a small battery?

Or SB 864 a bill that mandates a fentanyl test by the hospital physician on any person who comes to the ER with a suspected opiate overdose. Do the legislators really believe doctors in ERs do not know how to diagnose a fentanyl overdose? Are the California legislators doing anything about closing the border or the drug smuggling corridors?

There are over one hundred bills involving cannabis in the 2021-2022 legislative session. Many are to increase taxes on the already burdened medical user. When will the legislators realize that increasing the cost of cultivating, manufacturing, and labeling, incentivizes people to buy from illegally grown products? Are they even aware of what nitazenes are?

Hopefully, with this year’s election, we can remove the ineffective senators and assemblymen and vote for common sense people who put California First and actually solve the opiate crisis to which California contributes.

CannMed 2022 Inspiring Science, Community and Hope

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Medicinal Genomics, (MCG), founded by Kevin McKernan, developed trailblazing technologies to prioritize cannabis safety through genetics. MCG created CannMed Events, a yearly event to prioritize cannabis science, innovation, and collaboration – to advance the industry and improve patient care.  They showcase the greatest minds in cannabis science, medicine, cultivation, and safety.

Since 2016, Dr. Raphael Mechoulam, Dr. Bonni Goldstein, Dr. Dustin Sulak, Dr. Debra Kimless, and Mara Gordon, have chosen CannMed to announce their latest findings and breakthrough technologies to the world. The cannabis industry is anticipated to exceed $500 Billion by 2028. This year’s conference was held at the Pasadena Convention Center this past week.

To say I was in heaven at this conference last week is an understatement. Walking in the halls next to these great leaders in mentoring medical cannabis use was like walking in the halls of Teachers College, Columbia University (TCCU) New York City when I was in graduate school for nursing. TCCU has been the embodiment of nursing education since 1899. While I attended in 1976, I could feel the ghost of my nursing ancestors.

Dr. Raphael Mechoulam, the father of the endocannibal system (ECS), gave a lecture from Israel, on research into chemicals that mimic delta9 tetrahydrocannabinol, a topic way over my head. Dr. Bonnie Goldstein, pediatric cannabis specialist, discussed her research on children with Autism. She demonstrated how medical cannabis reduced symptoms by measuring the child’s biomarkers for pain, agitation, aggression, and social interaction with and without cannabis. Her research is groundbreaking.

Many authors of the cannabis books I have were present. Ethan Russo, MD founder/CEO of CReDO Science discussed Cannabis and Psychiatry: The Final Frontier. There are many pharmaceuticals that do not adequately treat PTSD, bipolar, schizophrenia, anxiety, and addiction. Can cannabis help? Cannabis coupled with a pharmaceutical enhances compliance.

Seth Crawford, Ph.D., and Grace Bandong discussed organic cultivation and testing for contaminants. These discussions were also over my head, but the science of growing and testing cannabis is advancing like in other plants we eat daily. Cynthia Bryant, Chief Business Officer of Demetrix, uses biotechnology to produce high-purity cannabinoids for consumer and R&D applications. She discussed their first product to market and how cannabinoids are safe and efficacious (a medical term for effectiveness).

Dr. Jeff Chen’s research studied thirteen cannabinol (CBD) products involved with nearly 3000 diverse participants and assessed validated outcome measures of well-being, quality of life, pain, sleep, and anxiety, while tracking usage behavior and side effects. Dustin Sulak, DO, founder of Healer.com, Eloise Theisen NP AGPCNP-BC, Co-Founder and Chief Vision Officer of Radicle Health, discussed their experiences educating, and consulting patients on how to take medical cannabis for a plethora of symptoms and diseases.

Staci Gruber. Ph.D., from McLean Hospital Brain Imaging Center Harvard Medical School, recognized the importance of examining the impact of medical marijuana use on the brain, as there are many inherent differences between recreational and medical marijuana users. In 2014, Dr. Gruber launched Marijuana Investigations for Neuroscientific Discovery (MIND), the first ever program of its kind designed to clarify the specific effects of medical marijuana use.

Michelle L. Shuffett, MD Consultant, Scientific Research & Clinical Communications, was concerned about the high frequency of opioid use in the peripheral neuropathy population. Dr. Shuffett’s research tracked patients and showed a reduction in narcotic use with medical use of cannabis. Patients who reduced narcotics did not increase their THC dosage over this time period, which indicates physicians are not replacing one psychoactive product for another.

I could go on and on with Martin A Lee the Director, of Project CBD, Dr. Sid Taubenfeld

Registered Pharmacist, David Meiri, Ph.D. who heads the Laboratory of Cancer Biology &

Cannabinoid Research – Technion, but would not have room for everything I saw and heard. Suffice it to say cannabis research is markedly advanced and expanding. We have children out there with intractable (a medical term for no treatment) seizures taking 1000 mg of THC to reduce their seizures from 40/day to 2/month. Is anyone left out there who thinks cannabis is addictive and harmful?

Bong Smoking is More Dangerous than Cigarette Smoking and Other Fake Research

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It does not stretch credulity to assume the bias in discussing the harms of cannabis while reading research papers. Just like the media journalist are no longer investigating the truth about masks, vaccines, mandates, and natural therapeutics as a treatment for all sorts of disease manifestations, they ponce on all manner of harm legitimate or fake. This article will illustrate some of those fake accusations.

I was always taught that marijuana fried my brain. It was not until I needed marijuana due to the inadequacy of opioids for chronic pain that I delved into the science of cannabis hidden from medical curricula. I found how the legacy media seems to be in favor of both the alcohol and pharmaceutical industry.

Let us first look at the publication in JAMA Network Open. A study recently published concluded that secondhand cannabis smoke released from bong hits contains fine particulate matter at a concentration dangerously higher than secondhand smoke from tobacco cigarettes.

Subjects smoked their own weed, used their own bong (clean or dirty, as a dirty bong means they are inhaling tar), unknown home conditions, unknown number of people in home, unknown if anyone smoked cigarettes, and unknown air flow which is critical for determining secondhand smoke. No controls, no peer review, yet the author claims secondhand cannabis smoke is more dangerous than secondhand smoke from tobacco cigarettes. Fake science.

A Harvard study on cannabis and driving risk published in Drug and Alcohol Dependence, the article unequivocally states in the title: “Recreational cannabis use impairs driving performance in the absence of acute intoxication.” The researchers (Mary Kathryn Dahlgren et al) state their results may be related to other factors. You think. The cannabis-using group was 82% male, while the control population was only 38% male. Men are more likely to smoke cannabis than women. Male teens normally have a higher accident rate as evidenced by insurance rates. Yet the study did not control for sex. Fake science.

Adrian Devitt-Lee, from projectcbd.org,  highlights how to spot faulty research data and misinformation. “ Time and time again, diehard prohibitionist have argued that cannabis legalization should be forestalled because stoned drivers will cause fatal accidents. The Harvard study will provide more fodder for their feckless arguments. But closer inspection shows that blood levels of THC are not correlated with driving risk.

A Norwegian epidemiologist, Ole Rogeberg, deconstructs how the metrics used in traffic research exaggerate the danger of cannabis. “The average person who gets high on cannabis before driving appears to have a 30% increase in the likelihood of crashing. (By comparison, driving with a passenger increases the crash risk by 60%, twice as much as cannabis.) Fear about cannabis and driving seem to be more motivated by a political ideology of criminalizing cannabis use rather than genuine concerns for safety.” Fake science.

A May 2014 article in Pharmacology, Biochemistry and Behavior examined the addictive potential of cannabinoids. Using rats or mice as a subject infers injecting ∆9-tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) or other cannabinoids intravenously or force-feeding with a syringe. The excessive dosages/kg used are never applicable to humans. Also, the solvent used to extract the cannabis is neurotoxic, not what the cannabis industry uses.

Animal models of disease are created, for the mice and then treated with cannabinoids (rarely cannabis itself). But a disease model is not the same as an actual disease, and data from animal studies are not always applicable to humans. Animals don’t have the exact same proteins, anatomy, and brains as people. Fake science.

Research on cannabis and pregnancy, where women who drink alcohol while pregnant are rarely excluded from studies. Instead of comparing pregnant cannabis smokers who don’t drink to other pregnant women who don’t drink, scientists may attempt to statistically control for the effect of alcohol on the fetus. But some cannabinoids, in fact, exacerbate fetal alcohol syndrome. Fake science.

The dangers of cannabis require a deep dive into alternate sources of information which have become more prevalent since COVID. The public is learning how the government lies about science and how biased our medical research publications have become.

California and Federal Legislation for or Against Cannabis

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The California legislature entered over 2000 bills for 2022. Do you think these bills are meant to be read or to just get rubberstamped by the democratic controlled Assembly and Senate? Following the bills’ journey through the California legislature is arduous at worse and confusing at best. Can they be any more complicated?

Sometimes duplicate senate and assembly bills have very different goals. Legislators are trying to reduce or increase excise taxes, reduce cultivation taxes, enable social justice reforms, and enable tax credits for expenses, to name a few. The cannabis industry is the only business that is prohibited from using expenses against income on their tax returns. Bills flow in both directions but must be eventually reconciled or tabled. Often, it seems the members just throw something against the wall and hope it sticks.

The Bureau of Cannabis Control (BCC), the California Department of Food and Agriculture (CDFA), CA Cannabis Cultivation Licensing Division, and the California Department of Public Health’s (CDPH) Manufactured Cannabis Safety Branch will now all be in one department. This has created confusion on how a newly created category of cannabis beverages is to be tested, labeled, and packaged. The Cannabis Beverage Association is trying to rectify this with AB2155. It creates a separate label for cannabis beverages that is specific for liquids.

If the California Legislature makes my eyes cross, head, ache, and brain explode, I now go ballistic looking at the federal bills on cannabis. Do not rejoice yet for the April 1st passing by Congress of H.R.3617 – Marijuana Opportunity Reinvestment and Expungement Act (MORE Act), which would deschedule marijuana by removing it from the list of federally banned drugs under the Controlled Substances Act. It is an April fools’ joke. Have a seat before you read further. Better yet get a joint to smoke to ease the lack of air collapsing from your lungs.

Descheduling cannabis comes with a federal excise tax, starting at 5% for the first two years after enactment and rising to 8% by the fifth year of implementation. An “Opportunity Trust Fund” would be created, where half of the tax revenue would support a “Community Reinvestment Grant Program,” ten percent would support substance abuse programs, and forty percent would go to the federal Small Business Administration to support implementation of a newly created equitable licensing grant program. Marijuana producers and importers would need to obtain a federal permit, and they would also need to pay $1,000 per year in federal taxes for each premises they operate.

Can you see how our illustrious thinkers created a slush fund for any one of their pet projects? CA consumers already have a 45% tax to absorb. Senator Schumer’s draft would create a federal cannabis excise tax of 24% that aims to disincentivize use, particularly by minors, while ensuring small businesses can compete with larger operations. Revenue would flow into a trust fund for communities impacted by the war on drugs.

Ryan Vandrey, a professor at the Behavioral Pharmacology Research Unit at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, told Newsweek, he believes that there is an “urgency” for the cannabis industry to be regulated by the federal government. (Can you hear the cash register cha-ching, cha-ching, cha-ching?). The FDA’s War on Drugs is a failure, and we now want the federal government to regulate cannabis instead of the states? I am not a conspiracy theorist, but it seems to me there is a concerted effort to put the cannabis industry out of business. I have heard Biden say he only wants pharmacy-grade cannabis.

You can be joyful that this bill, H.R.5657 – Medical Marijuana Research Act, passed Congress and went to the Senate. H.R. 5657 would allow facilitating clinical cannabis research whereby authorized scientists may access flowers and other products manufactured in accordance with state-approved marijuana programs. The bill also expedites approval timelines. For decades, scientists wishing to work with marijuana have complained it takes years before their research protocols are approved by the DEA, and that the quality of cannabis provided by the University of Mississippi’s cultivation program is of inferior quality.

The Year 2021 in Review: The Senate Continues to Sabotage the M.O.R.E. Act

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On December 4th, 2020, the U.S. House of Representatives passed the Marijuana Opportunity Reinvestment and Expungement (MORE) Act, H.R. 3884, to remove cannabis from the U.S. Controlled Substances Act. What does this mean for cannabis consumers, pot convicts, and the ever-expanding gray-market industry? The law changes make marijuana [possession, cultivation, sales] no longer a crime. Thus, we no longer discriminate against our citizens who are burdened by the criminal records they received under prohibition.

               The MORE Act is the most revolutionary and socially conscious federal marijuana reform bill ever passed. It reflects the views of 62 percent of Americans who favor legalizing the adult use of marijuana, while over 90 percent want access to medical cannabis. It completely removes marijuana from the Controlled Substances Act. Schedule I is the most restrictive category, reserved for the most deadly and addictive drugs that have no accepted medical use.

CannaAngel wrote the above in the January 2021 edition of the Cannabis Corner, one year ago. We are still waiting for the democrats to get this passed. Votes are tied to how much the pharmaceutical industry is bankrolling our legislators and senators. The leadership in Congress attached an amendment to the defense bill but Schumer and McConnell removed it in the Senate.

There are no champions of marijuana/cannabis in the Federal Government. While the FDA and the CDC are lying to us about the Wuhan virus, they are lying to us about marijuana. The cannabis industry has erroneously put their faith in the democrats every election hoping marijuana will become legal. As usual our feckless legislators’ campaign by promising to legalize marijuana, then get into congress, and cave to the pharmaceutical industry. Cannabis is inexpensive. It has already replaced numerous pharmaceuticals, thereby decreasing the profits from a plethora of drugs. While opiates are inexpensive, other drugs can cost much more. Drugs like gabapentin, Lexapro, oxycodone, seizure medications, antianxiety drugs, and many more, can be reduced or eliminated with a medical cannabis drug. Numerous expensive new pharmaceuticals administered by veinous or subcutaneous route for epilepsy, multiple sclerosis, Crohn’s disease, osteoarthritis, rheumatoid arthritis, are being approved and on the market. All of these diseases can be ameliorated by a planned medical regimen, monitored by a medical professional expert in cannabis therapeutics.

A vivid example is the FDA approving Epidiolex, pharmaceutical-grade cannabidiol (CBD), manufactured by a United Kingdom drug company, costing $30,000/year, and designated as a Schedule V drug. Besides being expensive, this pharmaceutical form of legal CBD can cause liver damage. However, plant-based cannabis, found in a local, legal dispensary is around $2,000/year. Can you see why the drug industry wants to delay changing cannabis into a legal plant? To support the M.O.R.E. Act in the Senate, and move it to President Biden’s desk, YOU need to demand it.

Do this by going to NormL website https://norml.org/act/federal-support-the-historic-more-act/ and become active in pressuring Schumer and McConnell to do their job. Bombard them with emails, calls, or letters. These measures do work. How do you think the Build Back Better bill was defeated? By pressure from voters. Make 2022 the year you become actively engaged.

According to the CDC, drug overdose deaths in the United States rose 29.4% in 2020 to an estimated 93,331, including 69,710 involving opioids, mostly due to the lockdowns preventing treatments, and fentanyl dumped on the American soil from China. Now the pharmaceutical industry wants to develop a “vaccine” for opiate addiction, and you know how much that will cost. Are you kidding me? There is no end to their greed. Like all our vaccines, it will be paid for by the federal government. Will they mandate this if an addict gets arrested? If there are lethal side effects from this opiate vaccine, is there accountability? NO. Like all vaccines currently used or in the pipeline, the industry is protected from lawsuits, by federal laws, just like the Covid-19 vaccines. We are in a fight to protect our freedom to choose or refuse treatment. We do not need the government telling us how to medicate ourselves. Make 2022 the year you become a cannabis activist.