Vape Devices Like Juul \’Reversing\’ Efforts to Keep Youth From Tobacco: Study

The research, published Jan. 21 in JAMA Pediatrics, was conducted by the anti-tobacco advocacy group Truth Initiative.

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\”Youth tobacco use is at its highest in nearly 20 years, primarily driven by e-cigarettes resulting in over 5 million youth now vaping across America,\” Robin Koval, CEO and president of Truth Initiative, said in a news release.

\”Years of progress in the fight against youth tobacco [use] have been reversed,\” Koval added, \”with millions of teens, most of whom were not smokers, now using a high-nicotine tobacco product.\”

For complete article Another Harm Reduction method failing – Legalizing Cannabis & Promoting e-cigarettes is increasing tobacco use and creating more harms

States need to wake up to public health risks from cannabis

By ROSALIE LICCARDO PACULA     JANUARY 21, 2020

Cannabis is on the march. Thirty-three states and the District of Columbia have legalized medical marijuana. Eleven states and the District of Columbia have legalized recreational use of cannabis for adults over 21, and others are considering it. More than 37 million Americans use cannabis each year in one form or another: flowers, concentrates, edibles, and the like.

The Food and Drug Administration ensures the safety of only a handful of cannabis products, mostly those available by prescription. It does not oversee any of the plants, foods, oils, or tinctures sold in cannabis dispensaries throughout the U.S. This is a problem because the agency with the most expertise for monitoring food and medicals products in terms of their contents and consumer safety is not doing so, leaving the job to state agencies that lack experience and technical expertise.

Colorado, Oregon, California, and Nevada have had to use public health advisories and recall cannabis products after harmful pesticides were found in them, due to improper behavior of growers, producers, or testing labs. Emergency departments in states where cannabis use is legal are seeing a growing number of visits involving cannabis, including cases of “cannabinoid hyperemesis,” – nonstop vomiting related to cannabis use, even among experienced users.

State authorities urgently need to start pairing their desire for a new era of legal cannabis use with stronger regulations that inform and protect users.

I have seen the impact of unrestrained cannabis marketing firsthand in my work as president of the International Society for the Study of Drug Policy, a health economist at the University of Southern California, and former co-director of the RAND Corporation’s Drug Policy Research Center. The evidence for public health risks is clear, including increases in impaired driving, increases in adverse effects among pregnant and/or nursing women who use cannabis, increases in acute psychosis and emergency department visits, increases in cannabis use disorder and dependence, and increases in vaping-related lung injuries.

The notion that cannabis is not harmful – which is strongly promoted by the expanding cannabis industry – has taken particular root among the young, who are vaping nicotine and cannabis in record numbers. Even though use of cannabis among non-adults is illegal, a new study by the National Institute on Drug Abuse found that 21% of 12th graders had vaped cannabis in the past year, as had 19% of 10th graders and 7% of 8th graders.

States can step up their regulatory game in a number of ways. For starters, here are three trends that deserve high-priority attention.

Frequent users

In every year from 2000 to 2016, daily and near-daily users of cannabis represented at least 75% of all use, as measured in days of use. So as cannabis use in general is rising, cannabis use days among frequent users is also climbing, up from 1.4 billion days of use in 2000 to more than 3.5 billion days of use in 2016.

In the world of commerce, frequent customers sustain for-profit businesses. That is certainly true for cannabis, where sellers have clear incentives to develop more daily and near-daily users. To counter that trend, state legislatures that are contemplating legalization should consider alternative market models, including sole-source or government monopolies, nonprofits, social clubs, or public benefit corporations. These models reduce competition – which in turn reduces marketing and promotion – raise prices and, for some models, force companies to consider the community impacts of selling their product while making a safe product available to consumers.

Hospitalizations and emergency department visits

Cannabis-related emergency department visits have increased substantially, especially in states with more liberal policies. In Colorado, hospitalizations among cannabis users doubled after legalization of medical marijuana, and emergency visits doubled after legalization of recreational marijuana, notably for pediatric ingestion, acute intoxication, uncontrolled vomiting, acute psychosis, and burns from butane hash oil.

Most state regulatory agencies haven’t paid enough attention to the development of cannabis products that can be mistaken for non-cannabis merchandise or that target younger users. Edibles and extracts – cannabis oils, vape cartridges, and concentrates – are surging in recreational markets and deliver substantially more concentrated tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) (60% to 80% THC) than dried flowers (20% to 30% THC).

Pregnancy and nursing

Cannabis components easily cross the placenta and the blood-brain barrier. Newborns can also receive them through breast milk. Physicians agree that women who are pregnant or who are nursing infants should avoid using cannabis, but the trend line is going in the wrong direction. Increasing numbers of pregnant women report using cannabis to self-treat nausea, anxiety, depression and vomiting.

One study found that more than two-thirds of cannabis stores called at random in Colorado recommended cannabis products for easing morning sickness. Dispensaries should not be the place where people get their information on the potential benefits or harms of cannabis.

To help protect pregnant women, their babies, and everyone else who uses cannabis, all states should do these three things:

  • Train board-certified pharmacists who are knowledgeable about cannabis products and require that they be on staff at dispensaries, as is the model now in Minnesota, Connecticut, and New York.
  • Require health departments to proactively engage in community education of physicians, parents, and patients about the known health benefits and risks of cannabis, providing a strong counter to the false information being provided by some cannabis dispensaries.
  • Impose significant financial penalties on producers and/or retailers – as well as their employees – who communicate inaccurate health information to consumers.

For complete article go to. https://www.statnews.com/2020/01/21/states-public-health-risks-cannabis/

 

 

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Dear Concerned Citizen

We have released an opinion piece I wrote this week for the Wall Street Journal laying out how the marijuana industry is to blame for more cases of this debilitating illness than was initially thought, using recent data from the Centers for Disease Control (CDC).

As you know, the marijuana industry has been working non-stop to push the fact that its \”regulated\” products are not involved in the ongoing marijuana vaping crisis. But as more data are released, and the picture becomes clearer, it becomes clearer that our efforts have never been more crucial.

Please share this far and wide to help combat Big Marijuana\’s spin.

You can read the Wall Street piece here .

Please consider chipping in a tax-deductible gift to SAM today to help keep us on the front lines in this fight for public health, safety, and commonsense.

Together, we can help save lives,

Dr K Sabet (Co-Founder SAM)

The role of alcohol, drugs, and despair in falling U.S. life expectancy

January 16, 2020 By Mark Gold, MD

After 2014, U.S. life expectancy fell for 3 straight years. This striking trend is not associated with other wealthy countries in the world and has given rise to a cottage industry of speculation on causes, with varied social, cultural, and political actors making use of the findings for preferred narratives. Some of this speculation arose after Princeton economists Anne Case and Angus Deaton coined the term “deaths of despair,” an easily misunderstood phrase. Case and Deaton used the term to refer to fatal drug overdoses, alcohol-related diseases, and suicides. “We think of all these deaths as suicides, by a very broad definition,” these economists have written,“and we attribute them to a broad deterioration in the lives of Americans without a college degree who entered adulthood after 1970.”

What did this study find about U.S. life expectancy?

This study found that U.S. life expectancy, between 1959 and 2016, rose to 78.9 years from 69.9 years. But, following 2014, life expectancy began declining. “A major contributor,” this study’s authors write, “has been an increase in mortality from specific causes (eg, drug overdoses, suicides, organ system diseases) among young and middle-aged adults of all racial groups, with an onset as early as the 1990s and with the largest relative increases occurring in the Ohio Valley and New England.”

This study also finds that:

  • Mortality increases are concentrated among Americans at “midlife”, or those between 25-64 years of age. The all-cause mortality rate rose by 6% between 2010-2017 for Americans between these ages.
  • Rising mortality between 2010-2017 led to 33,307 excess deaths.
  • More than 32 percent of these deaths happened in Kentucky, Indiana, Ohio, and West Virginia–or the Ohio Valley states. The upper New England states also had some of the largest mortality increases, though they account for a lower share of the overall total.
  • These rising mortality figures are found among all racial groups in the U.S.

These trends do not reflect significant changes in violent crime. The U.S. is much less violent than it used to be, and although it still has higher violent crime rates than other rich countries, things have gotten much better in the last 30 years. Other medical conditions, such as infectious diseases and cancers, were also not behind these changes, as outcomes for certain medical problems actually improved.

What’s going on?

It’s a tough question. The authors write, “The largest relative increases in midlife mortality occurred among adults with less education and in rural areas or other settings with evidence of economic distress or diminished social capital.” But these observations aren’t necessarily explanatory factors in our life expectancy decline. This review considers different explanations and evidence in their favor. Isn’t it really just our drug epidemics – the rising death toll from heroin in the sixties and seventies, cocaine in the eighties, and then the three-stage opioid epidemic of prescriptions, heroin, and synthetics? Well, the authors say, this is a significant part of the story, but far from complete. Suicides and alcohol-related liver diseases have also contributed substantially and the timing is off because our life expectancy divergence started in the eighties, “and involved multiple diseases and nondrug injuries.” They also point to 2 studies suggesting that only 15 percent of our life expectancy divergence can be explained by fatal overdoses.

What about smoking? Americans smoke less than we used to, but smoking more decades ago could still kill more people today. And Americans are often more obese than their peer country counterparts, so could that account for the differences? This review points to research on other countries, like Australia, that resemble the U.S. in smoking and obesity but haven’t followed our marked life expectancy divergence. Health care? The U.S. famously spends more to cover fewer people than its peers, and Americans also face higher costs of care, but the authors note that this wouldn’t account for why we have more deaths from some diseases and not others, and from suicides or obesity-related deaths “which originate outside the clinic.” Might the problem be “deaths of despair” after all, then, or a large increase in psychological distress? There’s “inconclusive evidence” that depression and anxiety, which can also harm physical health, rose over the relevant time period, and, the authors say, it’s also hard to figure out the link between conditions like depression and all the rising specific causes of death.

The authors say these various possible causes “are not independent and collectively shape mortality patterns.” They call for the accumulation of more rigorous evidence, gathered from machine learning, migration research, and cohort studies, and interdisciplinary research, given how many different areas may contribute, and attempts to answer comparative questions about why some states and regions have worse life expectancy than others, and why other rich countries do better. These are sensibly modest conclusions but gravely important – they affect our view of the most important challenge we face.

Many death certificates tell a different story. Around 75,000 people died in the U.S. in 2017 from liver disease and alcohol-related conditions, a steep rise from 1999, when 36,000 died from those causes. Women used to die at lower rates from these conditions, but that gap has closed.2 As reported first by Case and Deaton and reiterated in their upcoming book, rising morbidity and mortality among whites due to accidents, drug overdoses, alcoholism, liver disease, and suicides means reduced overall longevity. These deaths are alarming businesses, too, as there are more suicides in the workplace than in the past.3 I expect that suicides, as well as overdose deaths, are undercounted. The most recent Florida data suggests that 1 out of 3 opioid overdose deaths, and an even greater share of cocaine deaths, are not reported.

For complete article go to Addiction Policy Forum

Trump drug policy director touts first decline in overdose-related deaths in 30 years

1/18/2020

Jim Carroll, director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy, said Friday that the United States has seen a drop in drug overdose deaths for the first time in nearly three decades.

“[For the] first time in almost 30 years, we’ve seen a decline in the number of Americans dying from an overdose – it’s a 5 percent reduction,” Carroll, who was appointed by President Trump in 2018, told Hill.TV.

\”It’s a result of everything – it’s working on the supply of drugs that are coming in but it’s also working on demand. It’s getting more people into treatment and it’s spreading the message on prevention,\” he added.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) estimated that 70,237 people died of a drug overdose in 2017, with synthetic opioids such as fentanyl being the main driver behind those deaths. On average, the CDC estimates that 130 Americans die every day from an opioid overdose.

The states with the highest rates of drug overdoses in 2017 were West Virginia, Ohio, Pennsylvania, the District of Columbia and Kentucky.

In response to the opioid epidemic, some states that have been particularly ravaged have started programs to address the issue head-on…

Trump has made combating the opioid crisis one of his signature issues. After declaring the nation’s opioid crisis a public health emergency, the president signed the Substance Use—Disorder Prevention that Promotes Opioid Recovery and Treatment for Patients and Communities Act. The bipartisan legislation directs funding to federal agencies and states to help expand access to addiction treatment.

According to U.S. Customs and Border Protection statistics, 89,207 pounds of cocaine were seized along the border along with 5,427 pounds of heroin, 68,585 pounds of methamphetamine and 2,545 of fentanyl.

Carroll said the U.S. needs to better secure its southern border, predicting that the number of seizures will go up even more.

“Border patrol has been able to focus in on what they’re supposed to do – it says on their patch, ‘border patrol’ that’s what they need to do, now that they’re back doing that, that the humanitarian part of that is over, we’re seeing seizures come up,” he said.

Last summer, border patrol authorities faced a record influx of undocumented immigrants at the southern border, topping 144,000 at one point.

For complete article https://thehill.com/hilltv/rising/478768-trump-drug-policy-director-touts-decline-in-overdose-related-deaths-in-30-years

WASHINGTON LEGISLATORS PROPOSE CURB ON HIGH POTENCY MARIJUANA CONCENTRATES

A bipartisan group of 22 Washington state legislators introduced a bill to curb the potency of marijuana concentrates.

Citing concerns about the connection between cannabis and psychosis, the lawmakers want to slash the potency of cannabis products, limiting THC levels to no more than 10%.    The ban would be limited, because it  doesn’t cover products sold as “medical.”

House Bill 2546, would outlaw the vast majority of state-licensed vape cartridges, dabs, wax, extracts and other concentrates. These products account for nearly 40% of state-regulated marijuana sales in 2019.

In Washington, as in Colorado, typical strains of raw cannabis flower average around 20% THC. However, this bill only applies to extracts, and it would still allow the high-potency raw marijuana.

Hamza Warsame, a Seattle teen, jumped 6 stories to his death after smoking pot for the first time.  An older friend purchased the high-potency marijuana at a legal pot shop.  Investigators on the case called the 16-year-old’s death an accident, not a crime.

In 2016, Colorado citizens introduced a ballot to cap the THC at 16%.   The industry objected and used hundreds of thousands of dollars to buy off the petitioners of this sensible public safety suggestion.

Alex Berenson’s concerns about marijuana and psychosis

A year ago, writer Alex Berenson published Tell Your Children the Truth about Marijuana, Mental Illness and Violence.   The book will become available in paperback on February 18, 2020.

USA Today has published a provocative series on the links between marijuana and psychosis, as well as the problems related to vaping THC.   Although Washington did not ban vaping products, this bill would affect marijuana vapes.

For more go to Stop the Pot Rot

American Dystopia: San Francisco in decline –

Drug use not just permitted – it is enabled and endorsed #preventdontpromote \”We have insanity, it is disgusting and it has got to stop!\”

 

Marijuana detected in homicide victims nearly doubles: Over two-thirds of adolescent victims aged 15-20 tested positive in 2016

Date: January 8, 2020 Source: Columbia University\’s Mailman School of Public Health

Summary: Researchers assessed the time trends in alcohol and marijuana detected in homicide victims and found that the prevalence of marijuana almost doubled, increasing from 22 percent in 2004 to 42 percent in 2016. Alternately, the prevalence of alcohol declined slightly from 40 percent in 2004 to 35 percent in 2016.

\”Our findings are of public health significance because previous research has established marijuana use as an important risk factor for homicide victimization. The impact of increased permissibility and availability of marijuana on violence and injuries needs to be closely monitored and rigorously studied,\” said Dr. Li.

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/01/200108160300.htm

Police forced to take drugs policy into their own hands by Government failings, says ex-Met police chief

Charles Hymas, Home Affairs Editor Telegraph16 January 2020

Police are being forced to take drugs policy into their own hands because of failings by Government and Parliament, says a former Scotland Yard Commissioner.

Lord Stevens said the apparent “backdoor decriminalisation” of cannabis by police revealed by The Daily Telegraph yesterday (Thur) was taking place “without proper discussion and proper decision-making in Parliament.”

He said: “The police should not be making the law, it’s Parliament that makes the law. I would be very worried if this kind of thing went on in terms of decriminalising by the backdoor.

“I believe in a Parliamentary democracy and Parliament needs to be involved in it although I can understand why it is happening because of a [lack of] resource.”

Lord Stevens, who was Metropolitan Police Commissioner from 2000 to 2005, urged the Government to set up a six-month inquiry to develop a drugs strategy that would include giving a clear direction to police on how Parliament wanted cannabis users tackled.

He was backed by Hugh Order, a former President of the Association of Chief Police Officers and Northern Ireland chief constable, and Lord Blunkett, a former Home Secretary, who both criticised the current “ad hoc” approach to drugs.

Their comments follow the disclosure yesterday by The Telegraph that up to two-thirds of users in parts of Britain are being let off with informal “community resolutions” without getting a criminal record.

Community resolutions provide an alternative to formal charges, fines, cautions or police warnings and have increased more than ten-fold in just three years in some forces.

Lord Stevens said he was opposed to legalising cannabis having carried out research in Amsterdam where he had seen people become addicted due to the availability of cannabis and hard drugs including one young girl of 17 who died as a result.

However, he was also against the criminalising of young first time offenders and people who might need cannabis for medical reasons including a friend whose multiple sclerosis had been eased by taking the drug.

“It’s a complex business but it is not beyond the wit of working parties or Government or the proposed royal commission to come up with an answer,” said Lord Stevens.

Mr Orde said laws on cannabis needed to be reviewed because of the current “ad hoc” approach but he was opposed to decriminalisation because of its risk as a gateway to harder drugs. “It’s the thin end of the wedge, there are progressively stronger strains and it is a real issue in prisons,” he said.

Lord Blunkett said: “It is long overdue to have an overhaul of the whole system and to give very much clearer guidance not just to the police but to health and social services on the whole issue of drugs and related substances.

“The test has to be how do you reduce harm, how do you stop usage leading to transfer to class A drugs and how do you get consistency in the approach across the country. If we can address those three elements, we make a coherent policy.

“At the moment we are staggering from one revelation about a new substance to another. It is almost as if we are following the market, which is not the right approach.”

For complete story https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2020/01/16/police-forced-take-drugs-policy-hands-government-failings-says/

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