With more states legalizing medicinal marijuana, some may think illegal consumption among adolescents is also increasing. Luckily, this is simply not the case according to recent data published in the Journal of Addiction Medicine, which shows that while medicinal marijuana use is increasing among adults, adolescents use has not been impacted.
“Data from the National Survey on Drug Use and Health suggest that, over the past decade, marijuana use has increased significantly among adults aged 18 to 25 and those aged 26 years and older. These trends appear to have begun before 2012, when Colorado and Washington became the first states to legalize marijuana.
Meanwhile, marijuana use by youth aged 12 to 17 has not increased significantly. However, young people’s perceptions of the risks of using marijuana have decreased, suggesting that they may be more likely to start using marijuana in the future.”
“The review by Jane C. Maxwell, PhD, of The University of Texas at Austin and Bruce Mendelson, MPA, of the Denver Office of Drug Strategy gives insights into the initial impact of legalizing or decriminalizing marijuana in some states.”
Read the full study, Published in the Journal of Addiction Medicine titled, “What do we know now about the impact of the laws related to marijuana?”
How much coffee is consumed may impact relationship with THC, according to two recent studies. In the first study, consuming cannabis and caffeine resulted in memory deficits. The second study, funded by the National Institutes of Health, showed that consuming low doses of caffeine lowered THC cravings while higher doses increased THC cravings.
“This appears to be because coffee triggers activity at the endocannabinoid CB1 receptor site, the same one that THC interacts with to cause psychoactivity and create feelings of euphoria. If you ever wondered why people seem to perk up and get happier when they drink coffee, this is why.”
In the study on memory, published in the British Journal of Pharmacology, study authors indicated that THC “induces deficits in short-term memory,” but found that caffeine served to selectively improve memory function. When consumed together, however, THC and caffeine resulted in memory loss.
Still, several caffeine-infused edibles entered the market last year tailored to patients who find benefits by combining THC with caffeine.
“Three new brands entered the market in 2015 – Chocowaska, Jane’s Brew and Pot-O-Coffee. Chocowaska has various flavors of medicated drinks all based off hemp milk, and their “Mocha” variety has 43 mg of caffeine from organic espresso concentrate, which also packs 150mg of THC (nearly four times the amount in THCafe). Chocowaska is the only brand that currently uses organic coffee (though it is from a concentrate). Jane’s Brew has medicated coffees and teas, in both THC and CBD-rich options, and varying potencies ranging up to 200mg for THC and 20mg of CBD. Jane’s Brew features both pre-brewed and brew-it-yourself options.”
Read the full study, Published in the British Journal of Pharmacology, and titled “Combined effects of THC and caffeine on working memory in rats.”
Read the full study, Published in The Journal of Neuroscience, and titled “Differential Effects of Presynaptic versus Postsynaptic Adenosine Receptor Blockade on Tetrahydrocannabinol.”
Many have heard that smoking marijuana makes you stupid – at least that’s the image that’s often portrayed by the media. A new study released by JAMA Internal Medicine shows that indeed smoking marijuana can cause permanent damage to your short-term memory – however to experience these effects one must smoke daily for several years.
“The study found that people who smoked marijuana on a daily basis for a long period of time – five years or more – had poorer verbal memory in middle age than people who didn’t’ smoke, or who smoked less … The relationship between marijuana exposure and memory problems was essentially linear. The more people smoked, the worse they performed on the memory tests. But just how much worse?
To understand how memory was impacted, participants were asked to remember a series of words. The performance of regular marijuana smokers was compared to those who smoke less frequently or not at all.
“Let’s say we have two groups of 10 people each. You tell each of them a list of 15 words and ask them to memorize them. Then 25 minutes later, you ask them to recall all the words to the best of their ability.
The first group consists of 10 people who don’t smoke marijuna or only do so occasionally. Let’s say on average, people in this group would be able to remember nine out of the 15 words. The second group consists of people who smoked pot every single day over a period of five years. On average, they’d be able to recall 8.5 out of the 15 words.
That doesn’t seem like a huge cognitive difference, and by and large it’s not.”
Read the full study, published in the journal JAMA Internal Medicine, and titled “Association Between Lifetime Marijuana Use and Cognitive Function in Middle Age”.
How much THC are patients getting when they ingest medicinal marijuana edibles? Likely more or less than is labeled on the product’s package according to a study from researchers at Johns Hopkins University and the University of Pennsylvania which showed that THC in edibles can vary from 1 percent to 155 percent the amount listed.
“Of the 75 products analyzed, only 17 percent contained the labeled amount of THC (allowing for minor statistical variations). Another 23 percent contained more than what was listed on the label while 60 percent had less THC than labeled.”
“About one-fifth of medical users depend on edibles nationwide, while nearly half of Colorado’s recreational sales have been for the products. While alleviating the need to smoke the plant material, edible products suffer from erratic absorption and delayed time to the onset of medicinal effects. Hence, aiming to start with a standardized, verified dose is an important step in predictable clinical treatment and research validity.”
Read the full study, published in JAMA: The Journal of the American Medical Association, and titled “Cannabinoid Dose and Label Accuracy in Edible Medical Cannabis Products.”
Americans spent $5.4 billion on legal medical marijuana last year, according to a recent article published in the Washington Post, more than the combined total spent on Doritos, Cheetos and Funyuns, which was $4.9 billion.
“The total includes over $1 billion in medical marijuana sales in California, nearly $1 billion in legal marijuana sales in Colorado, and more than a half-billion dollars in sales in Washington state.”
ArcView, the research firm that conducted the study, anticipates legal sales to grow 30 percent annually over the next five years as more states legalize marijuana for medicinal use.
“A 30 percent annual growth would put the legal marijuana industry at something like $22 billion in annual revenue, according to ArcView. ArcView is encouraging investors to jump in: ‘Legalization of cannabis is one of the greatest business opportunities of our time, and it’s still early enough to see huge growth,’ the group writes in the introduction to it’s report on new marijuana sales estimates.
