As Californians get ready to vote Nov. 8 on whether to legalize recreational marijuana, there are broader public health questions to consider. A pregnant woman has morning sickness so severe she can't keep food down, so she stirs some cannabis-infused oil into her morning tea to regain her appetite. An elderly man has chronic pain that keeps him up at night, so he smokes marijuana most nights before he and his wife go to bed. There's a growing body of research that suggests marijuana can help with conditions such as nausea and pain while posing only modest health risks for adults. But as Californians get ready to vote Nov. 8 on whether to legalize recreational marijuana, there are broader public health questions to consider, from whether it affects developing fetuses to the impacts of secondhand smoke. [continues 882 words]
Hallucinogenics May Ease Addictions, Mental Disorders Gordon McGlothlin, who took his first puff at age 12 behind his family's garage, tried to quit smoking for years, but no cessation technique worked until he used a psychedelic drug. Researchers with the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine gave the 69year-old a derivative of psychedelic mushrooms similar to LSD, or acid, and watched him "trip" in a therapy room during six-hour sessions. McGlothlin experienced wild hallucinations, including watching his body slowly unraveling until it disappeared into a puff of smoke. After researchers took his blood pressure, he imagined a red blood-like fluid covering him from head to toe. [continues 1353 words]
Medical-marijuana shops are flying under the radar as federal laws dispute their very existence. Health Canada's new Access to Cannabis for Medical Purposes Regulations (ACMPR) went into effect Thursday, essentially prohibiting storefront dispensaries from selling marijuana for medical or recreational use. "Storefront operations selling marijuana, commonly known as dispensaries and compassion clubs, are not authorized to sell cannabis for medical or any other purposes," said Anna Maddison, senior media relations advisor for Health Canada. "These operations are illegally supplied, and provide products that are unregulated and may be unsafe." [continues 621 words]
Who's Afraid of the Bulgarians? I get alarmed calls every week about the Bulgarians. They're paying exorbitant sums for property in Petrolia, Bridgeville and Alderpoint, I'm told. They're jogging along rural roads with automatic rifles strapped to their backs, according to one woman at a recent community meeting. They're buying out family ranches and slowly taking over the county. And - although absolutely no proof has been offered from either my tipsters or law enforcement - they're all somehow connected to an organized crime cartel. [continues 597 words]
Rancho Cordova Bans Dispensaries, Sacramento Allows Them and Other Cities Fall in the Middle Sometimes, Stephanie Raskin smokes marijuana to stop thinking about suicide. Diagnosed with bipolar disorder and depression, she remains stable through a blend of prescription pills that must be constantly tweaked to match her body chemistry. When the pharmaceuticals fall short, she supplements her treatment with medical marijuana. But her hometown, Rancho Cordova, bans dispensaries. And the closest one is 11 miles away. "It's frustrating," she said. "Especially with my condition, I get debilitatingly depressed to the point where everything is a monumental task. I only smoke because my depression can cause suicidal thoughts. And sativa can keep me from reaching those depths. I'm not one of those sit-on-the-couch stoners." [continues 781 words]
If a referendum was held on legalising cannabis for personal use, would you support it? You'd have to be off your scone. The New Zealand Drug Foundation (NZDF) has been crowing about the results of its self-selecting poll, indicating broad public support for decriminalising cannabis for personal use. Rebecca Reider made history over the weekend by bringing the first legal raw cannabis flower into New Zealand, campaigners say. The NZDF has steadily become a strident proponent for law reform, to the point that they now sound more like glorified pushers, campaigning for "the removal of criminal penalties for drug use, possession and social supply." [continues 544 words]
IF JOSE Rizal were alive today, he would probably be found dead on a Manila street with a crude cardboard sign identifying him as a drug user. Rizal, after all, admitted taking hashish when he was 18 years old. But someone should explain to the trigger-happy police or vigilantes that in Rizal's time, hashish, which we know today as marijuana, "Mary Jane," or "jutes," was not what it is now: a prohibited drug. It was considered medicine and was dispensed freely from a drugstore. [continues 902 words]
The Drug Enforcement Administration's decision last week not to reschedule marijuana highlights the absurdities of its pre-election limbo. Marijuana will remain a Schedule I drug, meaning that the federal government doesn't recognize any of its medical uses and considers it to have high potential for abuse. "This decision isn't based on danger," DEA chief Chuck Rosenberg told NPR. "This decision is based on whether marijuana, as determined by the FDA, is a safe and effective medicine ... and it's not." [continues 776 words]
'Shindig ' at Tweed plant celebrates medical marijuana's improved access SMITHS FALLS - Used internally and externally, marijuana has relieved some severe ills for Innisville's Robert Stevenson. Speaking from the 'vape-lounge' on a welcomed rainy Saturday at the Tweed marijuana plant's Front Yard Shindig here, Stevenson said traditional medicines didn't relieve his ailments. He credits a cannabis ointment for clearing up a cancerous growth on his chest and the relaxing qualities of CBD from a pot plant for relieving frequent back spasms. [continues 445 words]
To use the term marijuana as in being legalised, is deceptive and dangerous. One's use of medicinal marijuana to relieve pain is fully justifiable. The smoking of marijuana as a weed sold on the street is not. The latter, even with small usage, kills brain cells, is linked to deaths on the road, long term damage to the lungs and it accentuates depression from those already suffering from it. Any literature being promoted by the press needs to make a very clear distinction between the two. Gary Hollis, Mellons Bay. [end]
Marijuana is just one of many issues in which the government is so far behind the people, it's beyond funny. The Drug Enforcement Administration proved this again just last week when it announced that after weeks of reviewing a petition to reclassify marijuana so it's no longer a Schedule 1 drug, along with heroin, Quaaludes and various psychedelics. Some who follow this issue were optimistic that the DEA might might actually reverse its long-held ironclad Reefer Madness policy. Perhaps the DEA would would reclassify marijuana as a Schedule 2 drug - along with cocaine and methamphetamine - or even lower. [continues 630 words]
Medical cannabis use is very much in the news, but not without some enormous challenges, particularly for the family physician. The government has been forced to provide access and has off-loaded this access to doctors, but Health Canada still says that they have not reviewed the data and refuses to provide approval for use. Now, Ontario doctors have to find a way to deal with patients looking for relief from chronic pain. Dr. John Hanlon, the inaugural program director of the University of Toronto Pain Medicine Residency spoke to area doctors by invitation of Canadian Cannabis Clinics. A medical cannabis clinic recently opened in Collingwood, headed by Thornbury physician Dr. Linda Morel. [continues 471 words]
President Rodrigo Duterte's campaign promise to eradicate the menace of illegal drugs in the country from three to six months may soon be realized at the rate the police are cracking the whip on drug lords and pushers. As of the latest count, there are already 312 dead, 3,228 arrested, 120,209 who surrendered and 63,972 houses raided. The government is turning the tide on its bloody war against drugs. "This will be a fight to the death," said PNP chief Ronald "Bato" dela Rosa, who declared total war on drugs. He also warned police officers who are involved in drugs not to push their luck too much or else suffer the same fate as the drug lords. [continues 324 words]
I am a 37-year-old mom that suffers from bipolar and major depressive disorder. I am on prescription meds but they don't always work. Sometimes the only thing that will pull me out of a deep, suicidal depression is smoking a pure sativa strain of medical marijuana. I have my recommendation from a doctor and am able to obtain it from dispensaries. However, I live in Rancho Cordova and have realized there are zero dispensaries to be found in my city. City council has deemed that medical marijuana dispensaries are "a public nuisance in that many violent crimes have been committed that can be traced back to the proliferation of marijuana dispensaries, including armed robberies and murders." I did some minor fact checking and found that this simply is not true. ... Are you able to steer me in the right direction of whom to talk to or how to go about getting a city council to change an ordinance? [continues 369 words]
Prescription Drug Rates Drop As More Patients Turn to Cannabis Recent findings show that medical marijuana not only saves state and federal governments millions of dollars on Medicare but it may help curb prescription drug use too. A new study reports that in states where medical marijuana is available, prescriptions for painkillers have dipped drastically. There's been a spate of studies on how overdose and painkiller abuse - - particularly among chronic pain patients - are lower in medical marijuana states, but the researchers have largely hypothesized that these patients are picking pot over prescription drugs. Now, a recent report in the journal Health Affairs suggests that the link between prescriptions and marijuana is no longer just a hypothesis. [continues 950 words]
WHEN MEASURE 91 passed, I heard more than one prohibitionist sneer at the idea and ask, "What's next, legalizing all the other drugs?" And certainly there is a small, albeit growing, movement to decriminalize all drugs, and to treat the use of them more as a public health issue than a criminal one. But this being 'Murica, how would that work? What would it look like? Sweet Jesus, I'm glad you asked, because that's what this week's column is about. Welcome to... [continues 640 words]
Marijuana For Trauma wellness centre opens in Charlottetown Veteran Jim Grant of Brackley credits a medical marijuana support service with giving him a fresh, energetic new lease on life. The 78-year-old Grant failed to access medical marijuana until he turned to Marijuana For Trauma (MFT) in New Brunswick for assistance. The company helped guide him through the hoops and hurdles to get on the federal medical marijuana program. The positive impact was immediate and major when Grant started using the drug three months ago to help address the PTSD he links to "a number of tragic events'' during his lengthy career with the Canadian navy. [continues 349 words]
Two of the most well-known cannabis activists in the country were in town today to help a local dispensary in their fight to remain open. Marc and Jodie Emery each took the stage at Spirit Square this afternoon to profess their appreciation for what WeeMedical is undergoing right now - which they say is nothing short of police harassment - and to celebrate cannabis in all its forms. Joel Wilson, operator of WeeMedical, who organized what was called the "Rally for Reasonable Access," says the point of the event was mainly to educate, but he also wanted to make it known that, despite being raided by the RCMP numerous times since opening up shop three months ago - most recently on June 30 - they're not going anywhere. [continues 964 words]
A Story of Truth, Lies and an American Addiction She had already made it through one last night alone under the freeway bridge, through the vomiting and shakes of withdrawal, through cravings so intense she'd scraped a bathroom floor searching for leftover traces of heroin. It had now been 12 days since the last time Amanda Wendler used a drug of any kind, her longest stretch in years. "Clear-eyed and sober," read a report from one drug counselor, and so Amanda, 31, had moved back in with her mother to begin the stage of recovery she feared most. [continues 5637 words]
Amputee's Plea to Legalise Medical Marijuana A WAR hero who lost both legs in an Afghan bomb blast is forced to break the law to get cannabis to ease his pain. Lance Corporal Callum Brown is now leading calls to legalise the drug for medical use. He wants to see cannabis made available to patients like him who suffer agonising pain 24 hours a day. Callum, 28, also shattered his pelvis in the huge explosion after he stepped on a boobytrap bomb while on patrol in Helmand five years ago. Speaking exclusively to the Record, he said: "As well as my other injuries, I have no skin on my backside it's just thin scar tissue so the nerve damage and the phantom pains are the main reason for smoking. [continues 883 words]
