Car crashes, psychosis, suicide: Is the drive to legalize marijuana ignoring major risks?

March 2019

(USA Today, March 6) As marijuana laws continue to change in states across the nation, experts are worried some may forget about the drug’s risks.

States that have legalized marijuana – Nevada, Colorado, Washington and Oregon — saw a 6 percent increase in car crashes between 2012 to 2017, according to the Highway Loss Data Institute. This was a higher increase than in states that didn’t legalize marijuana during that same time period.

\”It makes me very nervous about highway safety as many more are considering legalizing it for recreational use,\” Matt Moore, president at the Institute said.

In addition, schizophrenia is correlated with heavy marijuana use, according to 2017 findings from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine

For complete article go to GET SMART ABOUT DRUGS

Trudeau didn’t take on tobacco!

In its March 1 judgment, the Quebec Court of Appeal upheld the decision of the Quebec Superior Court in the class-action against three major tobacco companies, who now must pay $17 billion to $18 billion to the Quebec government. With this spectacular victory, it is likely other provinces and territories will win legal battles against Big Tobacco.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau chose to champion legalization of smoked marijuana products instead of taking on tobacco. Under his leadership, this country’s top anti-tobacco agencies have had to close their doors, fire staff and stop their important work due to a lack of federal funding while tobacco products remain the No. 1 cause of preventable, premature death and the biggest single cost to our health care system.

Tackling tobacco is a worthy and important cause that should be supported by all levels of government. The federal government is sitting on the sidelines of what is the biggest victory against the tobacco industry in Canadian history and Quebec deserved all the glory.

Pamela McColl, Vancouver

https://theprovince.com/opinion/letters/letters-march-6-jody-wilson-raybould-should-be-prime-minister-reader-says

In its M

Deaths From Drugs and Suicide Reach a Record in the U.S March 7, 2019

A look at an analysis of data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and what it means.

CreditTodd Heisler/The New York Times

The number of deaths from alcohol, drugs and suicide in 2017 hit the highest level since the collection of federal mortality data started in 1999, according to an analysis by two public health nonprofits, the Trust for America’s Health and the Well Being Trust. To reach their conclusion, the two groups parsed the latest available data from the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

These causes killed more than twice as many as they did in 1999.

More than 150,000 Americans died from alcohol and drug-induced fatalities and suicide in 2017. Nearly a third – 47,173 – were suicides.

“There are two crises unfolding in America right now,” said Dr. Benjamin Miller, the chief policy officer for Well Being Trust and the founding director of the Eugene S. Farley Jr. Health Policy Center in Aurora, Colo. “One is in health care, and one is in society.”

The grim statistics are fueled by synthetic opioid deaths.

Twenty years ago, less than 1,000 deaths a year were attributed to fentanyl and synthetic opioids. In 2017, more than 1,000 Americans died from synthetic opioid overdoses every two weeks, topping 28,000 for the year.

Most of the increase was concentrated in the preceding five years, when such deaths rose tenfold and the opioid epidemic became the leading cause of death for Americans under 55.

West Virginia and New Mexico had the highest number of deaths, the analysis showed, with Mississippi and Texas the lowest. By region, the Northeast had the highest opioid death rates followed by the Midwest. The South’s rate was nearly half that of the Northeast.

“The numbers are driven in no small way by pharmaceutical companies creating addicting drugs and clinicians inappropriately oversubscribing opioids,” said John Auerbach, president and chief executive of Trust for America’s Health.

Though doctors and drug companies have been taking steps to control opioid addictions, Mr. Auerbach said, patients who are addicted to prescription opioids often shift to synthetic ones, like fentanyl, which is 50 times more potent than heroin. Fentanyl has also snaked its way into other drugs like cocaine, Xanax and MDMA, widening the epidemic.

For complete article https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/07/us/deaths-drugs-suicide-record.html

Albert Edwards: \”I Was Quite Shocked By My Last Visit To San Francisco\”

by Tyler Durden Sun, February 2019

When it comes to foreigners visiting the US, while the general reaction is overall favorable, it appears that one city tends to draw a reaction of sheer shock if not disgust: San Francisco.

Recall two weeks ago, when discussing his latest \”luxury ski trip\”, the UK\’s Bill Blain said that he hopes his American hosts will forgive him for raising this, \”but the squalor we saw in The City was frightful. San Francisco has always been one of favourite US cities, but the degree of homelessness, mental illness and drug abuse we saw on this trip was truly shocking. Walking round SF on a Sunday Morning and we saw sights we couldn’t believe. This must be one of the richest cities in the world — home to 4 of the 10 richest people on the planet according to Wiki. I asked friends about it, and they shrugged it off.. “The City has always attracted the homeless because of the mild weather,”.. “It’s a drug thing”.. “its too difficult”… “you get used to it..” Well, I didn’t.\”
Now, it is the turn of another prominent financial strategist to lament the increasingly sordid reality of everyday life in the liberal capital of the West.

In his latest note to client, \”Stoned on free money\”, SocGen\’s Albert Edwards picks up where Blain left off, and writes the he too \”was really quite shocked by my visit last year to San Francisco by the sheer quantities of men (yes it is virtually 100% men) who were clearly off their heads on drugs (and drink) and putting both themselves and other road users at risk.\” Edwards continues his lurid recollection of his trip to this liberal utopia overrun by homeless people and junkies:

Most surprising was the pungent smell of cannabis skunk that pervaded the streets almost everywhere – something that isn\’t the case in somewhere like Amsterdam where legal consumption of marijuana is mainly confined to designated cafes. But the smell doesn\’t seem to bother everyone. In a startling admission, the UK’s most senior police officer and head of London\’s Metropolitan Police, Cressida Dick, admitted she could not smell the pungent aroma of skunk – link. Like San Francisco, the area of London I live in, Bethnal Green, also has a heavy smell of skunk as drugs are sold and consumed openly on the streets, despite residents\’ best efforts to shame the authorities into action.

Having bashed San Francisco and its generous drug culture, Edwards then turns to a totally different topic: surging pedestrian fatalities and the \”epidemic\” of marijuana use that is allegedly behind them: \”I was shocked to see the latest data showing US pedestrian fatalities have soared some 25% since 2012! Very few stats surprise me, but this is one of them

\”But why has this happened?\” Edwards ponders, and then provides the following answer:

The annual Spotlight on Pedestrian Traffic Fatalities, explores potential reasons for the surge in fatalities, considering factors including the dramatic growth in smartphone use and state legalization of recreational marijuana. The report notes, \”“The seven states (Alaska, Colorado, Maine, Massachusetts, Nevada, Oregon, Washington) and DC that legalized recreational use of marijuana between since 2012 reported a collective 16.4% yoy rise in pedestrian fatalities, whereas all other states reported a collective 5.8% yoy decrease in pedestrian fatalities.”\” It appears the US is gripped by an epidemic of stoned pedestrians stepping into traffic. The same might be said for investors befuddled by QE, for the risk is they are about to step off the sidewalk in front of a rapidly deteriorating economic cycle.

The surprised Edwards then goes on to add that he also found the report \”quite shocking\” most especially \”because of the very clear evidence that the surge in fatalities is primarily due to the legalisation of marijuana in some states.\”

Because most pedestrian fatalities occur in urban areas, the study also examined changes in the number of pedestrian fatalities for the 10 most populous U.S. cities. In the largest city, New York, deaths were unchanged yoy. But in the US’s second biggest city, Los Angeles, deaths rose 50%, while they fell 10% in the third largest city, Chicago. There is a clear causal relationship between surging fatalities of pedestrians and legalising marijuana.

Tying it all together – San Francisco hobos, stoned people getting peeled off the sidewalks, and the US economy – Albert has some advice for his readers: \”Free money may have numbed our senses, but at this very late stage of the economic cycle, think very hard before stepping off the sidewalk.\”

For complete story https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2019-02-24/albert-edwards-i-was-quite-shocked-my-last-visit-san-francisco

Liberal Hawaii decides again not to legalize marijuana

by Audrey Mcavoy

Hawaii is among the bluest of states, but when it comes to legalizing marijuana, it is out of step with liberal stalwarts such as California and Vermont. A bill that would legalize marijuana in the islands faces significant obstacles from leaders worried about contradicting federal law and jeopardizing Hawaii\’s existing medical marijuana program. It faces a Friday, March 1, 2019, deadline to pass committee. (AP Photo/Marina Riker, File)

On the political spectrum, Hawaii is among the bluest of states. Democrats control all the levers of power at the state and federal levels, and voters back Democratic presidential candidates over Republicans by some of the widest margins in the U.S.

The state has committed to the Paris climate agreement that President Donald Trump rejected and was the first state to require people to be 21 to buy cigarettes. The tourist haven even banned certain types of sunscreen because they can harm coral reefs.

But when it comes to legalizing recreational marijuana for adult use, the islands are out of step with liberal stalwarts such as California and Vermont that have already done so, and other left-leaning states such as New York and New Jersey that are racing toward joining them. On Friday, a legalization bill that made it farther in the legislative process than previous efforts died when lawmakers failed to consider it in time for a deadline.

Senate Majority Leader J. Kalani English has introduced marijuana legalization bills for the past 15 years–but Hawaii has a track record of moving slowly on social issues. For example, other states moved far more quickly to sanction gay marriage and medically assisted suicide.

Half the Democrats in the state Senate co-sponsored English\’s measure, helping spur speculation this would be the year legalization becomes reality.

But the effort fizzled as other leaders worried about contradicting federal law, which continues to classify marijuana as an illegal drug, and jeopardizing Hawaii\’s existing medical marijuana program.

For complete article https://medicalxpress.com/news/2019-03-liberal-hawaii-legalize-marijuana.html

Industrial Hemp:  Active ignorance is terrible

Jeanette McDougal, MM, CCDP June 2018

To quote German poet, Goethe, \”there is nothing more terrible than active ignorance.\”

Senator Mitch McConnell is in its throws.  He has included language to legalize Industrial Hemp in the 2018 Farm Bill. He has proudly (but ignorantly) taught his Senate Ag Committee that Industrial Hemp is a highly lucrative crop, and emphatically tells them that, “hemp is not ‘that other plant’ (marijuana).”

Hemp is low-grade marijuana. Both are Cannabis sativa – the only difference being the levels of each cannabinoid, e.g. THC, CBD, CBN, et al.  If they’re not same, why was there a need for McConnell’s 2018 Farm Bill to remove hemp from the Controlled Substance Act (CSA) list.

Regarding “the plant,” Senator McConnell is at odds with the founder of the hemp movement, former paraphernalia dealer and marijuana activist Jack Herer, whose vision of the hemp movement was hatched one night while he was high on an acid trip (LSD).  [1]

Herer made it clear to co-mingled marijuana and hemp advocatesattending the formal founding meeting of the HIA  (Hemp Industries Association),  “Don\’t forget that the joints you smoke and the fiber you make into clothes are the same plant,” That 1995 meeting was  the beginning of the Hemp Movement, as reported by High Times magazine, a militantly pro-pot publication.  [2]

For years the hemp movement has been spearheaded by current McConnell hemp adviser, Vote Hemp and HIA’s Eric Steenstra, former NORML employee, who, with High Times Magazine, co-produced two pro-marijuana/hemp CD albums.  Closing remarks on the pro-pot CD liner notes read, “Isn’t it time we reconsider marijuana prohibition? … We all need to … demand the end of hemp prohibition now.” Listen to “I Wanna Get High” from Steenstra’s album. [3]    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F7z3hEIFGi0

The industrial hemp movement\’s provable drug connections are only one of its many problems.  The impact on law enforcement is another.

The key objection to hemp production in the USA is that hemp and regular cannabis (marijuana) are indistinguishable. Legalizing one automatically legalizes the other since a police officer’s observations no longer can be used as probable cause for a warrant or any other legal instrument for intervention. Thus, you legalize hemp, you legalize marijuana, period.  (Dr. John Coleman, DEA Operations Ret.)

To seemingly accommodate pot growers, the new hemp bill language allows a hemp producer to get caught three times in five years growing pot instead of hemp.  He would get a corrective plan from the state and possibly be suspended for five years from growing hemp. (How can a hemp plant grow marijuana from a non-marijuana plant?)

Hemp economics is another driving issue.  McConnell introduced a Senate resolution stating: \”Industrial hemp holds great potential to bolster the agricultural economy of the United States.\” That is blatantly false.  Hemp acreage, per UN statistics has been under 500,000 acres worldwide for 30 years – every year since 1988. Hemp acreage worldwide in 2016 was 252,187acres.    [4]         FAOSTAT,http://www.fao.org/faostat/en/#data/QC)

To put hemp’s 252,187 worldwide 2016 acreage in perspective, Arkansas farmers planted 3,102,677 acres of soybeans that year.  Mississippi County Arkansas (900 sq miles) planted 281,000 of those soybean acres.  Arkansas has 13,700,000 farmland acres, the US 910 million acres.

Since ordinary hemp products made of seed and stalks (the only part of the Cannabis plant which the CSA defines as hemp) are not really lucrative, the entire hemp movement has shifted its focus and attention to the illegal and dangerous, but highly lucrative CBD production and market. [6]  https://mjbizdaily.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/Hemp-Report_Top-10-US-States.pdf

Even if the growing of Cannabis’ hemp’s flowering tops is made legal, any CBD product must be manufactured under FDA guidelines to be legal.  The FDA has clearly stated that CBD is NOT a supplement nor is it to be marketed as an unapproved drug. At present the only legal CBD products are the two plant derived cannabidiol medications approved by the FDA — Sativex and Epidiolex.

Unlike other potentially harmful but useful pharmaceuticals, CBD is relatively simple to produce from organic cannabis, sometime referred to as artisanal products.  At present hemp proponents are illegally bi-passing the Pure Food and Drug (FDA) regulations by producing artisanal -\”Homemade\” – concoctions made to their own specifications — containing unknown levels of CBD, THC, other cannabinoids, and probable contaminants.

Thus far experimental evidence indicates that CBD is even more toxic to tissues than THC.”  [5]   Dr. Gabriel Nahas, Research Professor, New York University, states that cannabinoids other than THC (e.g., CBN and CBD) also impair dividing cells, and “are even more potent than THC when it comes to inhibiting DNA production.”  [7]

Australian researcher and Professor of Addiction Medicine Dr. Stuart Reece states, “I have been becoming increasingly concerned at the implications of cannabis legalization across USA for patterns of congenital anomalies both in USA and across the world.” He congratulates the US for “having avoided the horrors of thalidomide directly due to the due diligence of your FDA staff at the time.”

However, he went on to say,  “It is of the greatest concern to me that the carefully orchestrated US cannabis legalization campaign seems to be operating is such a manner as to at once bypass and simultaneously intimidate the FDA quality control and checks and safety balances processes.”

These are important and grave matters.  Farmers, lawmakers, business leaders, and others should stick with the provable facts and protect what they hold most dear, the safety and security of their families, communities, and country.  We should actively oppose the  Industrial Hemp portion of the Farm Bill.

Jeanette McDougal, MM, CCPD
Chair, Hemp Committee, Drug Watch, Intl.
Director, NAHAS – National Alliance for Health and Safety

P.O. BOX 862, Osceola, AR 72370

Ph 870-822+2030

[email protected]

BIO: Jeanette McDougal is Chair of the Hemp Committee of Drug Watch, International; Director, National Alliance for Health and Safety (NAHAS); grew up on a farm;  lived in Murray, KY for 13 years, and graduated from Murray State University..is a member of Arkansas Farm Bureau; was a member of Minnesota Farm Bureau and a former officer on the Board of Ramsey/Washington County Farm Bureau, Minnesota; has studied the industrial hemp issue and movement since 1993; Awarded the PRIDE international Youth program, Connie and Otto Moulton Drug Fighter of the Decade Award (April 2005, Cincinnati, Ohio). recipient, Freedom of Information Award, 1982, MN-SPJ for helping keep MN public records open; .and was a drug-abuse prevention teacher, (ret 2001).

References

1. http://www.latimes.com/news/local/valley/la-tm-hemp03jan18,1,7758705.story?coll=la-editions-valley

2. HIGH TIMES APRIL 1995 DESERT SHOWDOWN  JACK HERER CLAIMS THE TITLE OF LEADER OF THE HEMP MOVEMENT.

3. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F7z3hEIFGi0

4.  FAOSTAT,http://www.fao.org/faostat/en/#data/QC)

5. https://mjbizdaily.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/Hemp-Report_Top-10-US-States.pdf

6. Hart, R.H.: Bitter Grass, The Bitter Truth About Marijuana, April 1980, p 18.
7.    Nahas, GG, M.D., PhD., D.Sc., Keep Off The Grass; Paul S. Ericksson, Publisher, 1990, p148

Alesha MacPhail: Murder leads to calls to get tough on cannabis

THE abduction, rape and murder of Alesha MacPhail has prompted calls for ministers at Westminster and Holyrood to change their soft-touch stance on cannabis.

Campaigner Ross Grainger has compiled a “catalogue of suicide and psychopathic violence committed by cannabis smokers in the UK and Ireland” over the past two decades including 200 murders, rapes and savage assaults.

He said: “In this case, as in all such cases, I do not say that cannabis \’caused\’ the perpetrator to do what he did, but rather that it would not have happened if he had not smoked cannabis.

“There is copious evidence, going back decades, of the immense harm cannabis can do to an adolescent mind, and it is, in my view, the only possible explanation for this young man\’s depravity and savagery.”…Mr Grainger said: “This may have given him a grudge. But many people have grudges and are full of bitterness. To act on this in the way he did, inflicting 117 injuries on the girl, requires a warped mind, and in my view only cannabis could have damaged it so.

“Abusing and raping children is not unique to cannabis smokers, but when I read of the 117 injuries he inflicted, I knew there must be cannabis behind it; a sustained, frenzied, brutal and psychopathic murder of this kind nearly always does.

“Cases involving more than 100 stab wounds are far from uncommon. In one of the cases I\’ve compiled, a man stabbed another man 143 times because he thought he was the devil.”…Drugs expert Professor Neil McKeganey, director of the Centre for Substance Use Research in Glasgow, said Alesha\’s murder was \”shocking in every respect except one – the killer had a history of extensive cannabis use\”.

He explained: \”Nobody would suggest murderous actions are an inevitable consequence of such drug use but there is now a long list of murders where the perpetrators have been using cannabis – both on a long-term basis and just prior to their murderous actions.

\”Cannabis served to distance these individuals from the horror of their actions and almost certainly contributes to their murderous mindset.\”

https://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/1091611/alesha-macphail-murder-cannabis-mps-westminster (Feb 2019)

DR MAX: After seeing too many young lives blighted, why I\’m sickened that we\’re still so soft on cannabis

By DR MAX PEMBERTON FOR THE DAILY MAIL PUBLISHED: 16 February 2019

We will, in years to come, look back and wonder how we could have been so foolish – so incredibly blind to the dangers of cannabis.

We will be horrified at our reckless disregard for young minds. We will berate our liberally-minded politicians for their weakness, and the police for allowing, what is, in effect, its decriminalisation.

And we will feel justifiable fury towards those who demanded the liberalisation of drug laws; who denied the mountain of evidence that this is a highly damaging intoxicant with a profound effect on the structure and function of the brain, and a ‘gateway’ to other illegal drugs….

It all began, his mother told me, when he started ‘dabbling’ with cannabis. As his habit grew, they pleaded with him to stop – but a vicious cycle was established.

The more dope he smoked, the more depressed he was. So he smoked even more to escape his despairing mood.

Robert is just one of countless young people I’ve seen over 15 years of working in mental health, their minds broken by cannabis….

I am sickened by campaigners and politicians who tell us that the only way to deal with this scourge is to decriminalise the drug, as several U.S. states have done. And this despite reports of increasing violence and of a mental health crisis that’s followed in the wake of liberalisation.

What I’d like to see right now is a major public education campaign that tells youngsters the truth about cannabis and spares them none of its horror. We owe it to the generations to come.

For complete story https://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-6710181/DR-MAX-Im-sickened-soft-cannabis.html

America Is Now One of the Most Expensive Places on Earth to Get High

This all seems to run counter to the longstanding narrative that drugs are getting cheaper and more potent over time. In fact, the New York Times reported around this time last year that even meth was \”purer, cheaper, and more lethal\” than ever before. But according to Greg Midgette, an assistant professor of criminology and criminal justice at the University of Maryland and expert on drug markets, there are a number of reasons the drug market may be behaving differently than we thought.

VICE: I feel as if the common conception is that drugs are cheaper and stronger than ever, thanks in part to trends toward legalization. What\’s going on with these numbers? Forty percent in a year is astounding.
Greg Midgette: Yeah, 40 percent is astounding. I think there is a good chance that the index is capturing volatility in the underlying data for the US. If cities providing price data change over time, or if the average size of the purchase changes over time, either could swing prices dramatically. Prices can vary a lot from city to city, and quantity discounts can be really large for illegal drugs.

Prices have been declining in states\’ recreational marijuana markets, and it would be tough to argue illicit market prices would increase substantially while states\’ legal market prices were dropping. From the most recent publicly-available data from DEA through the end of 2016, cocaine and meth prices were decreasing. Heroin prices were up in 2016, but not by 40 percent. Other indicators of cocaine and meth use were up in 2017, which suggests prices might have increased. The 40 percent is still astounding though, especially if marijuana prices are flat or decreasing.

For complete article https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/59xwwx/america-is-now-one-of-the-most-expensive-places-on-earth-to-get-high