On Nov. 8, 2016 voters in California, Maine, Massachusetts and Nevada approved ballot measures to legalize recreational cannabis. It is now legal in a total of eight states. And this creates potential problems for road safety. How do we determine who's impaired and who's not? The effects of alcohol vary based on a person's size and weight, metabolism rate, related food intake and the type and amount of beverage consumed. Even so, alcohol consumption produces fairly straightforward results: The more you drink, the worse you drive. Factors like body size and drinking experience can shift the correlation slightly, but the relationship is still pretty linear, enough to be able to confidently develop a blood alcohol content scale for legally determining drunk driving. Not so with marijuana. [continues 833 words]
The debate over Proposition 19 -- the Nov. 2 initiative to legalize marijuana in California -- proves once again that where there's smoke, there's ire. But lost perhaps in the overheated haze of political rhetoric and culture clash is an ongoing scientific effort to elucidate marijuana's potential as a powerful pain killer for people with HIV, diabetes, spinal cord injuries and other life-altering conditions. That effort, I fear, may go up in smoke. For the last decade, the Center for Medicinal Cannabis Research (CMCR), based at the University of California San Diego but drawing upon scientists throughout the UC system, has conducted preclinical and clinical trials of cannabinoids, the chemical compounds active in cannabis plants like marijuana. [continues 574 words]
