Potential Big Tobacco Acquisition Causes Cannabis Company\’s Stock to Soar
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Stagnant cigarette sales have forced Altria Group Inc.\’s Philip Morris USA to consider acquiring cannabis companies. 2003 file photo: Nell Redmond/Bloomberg NewsBLOOMBERG NEWS
Smart Approaches to Marijuana (SAM)\’s legalization opponent Kevin Sabetmay be right: like it or not Big Tobacco is invading cannabis. Altria, the company that invited unwitting consumers for decades to come to where the cancer is —Marlboro Country— may be looking to shore up stagnant cigarette sales by purchasing Canadian cannabis company Cronos Group.
Cronos Group\’s stock surged by 25% yesterday after Reuters reported the company might be an acquisition target for Altria.
Cronos confirmed in a statement that it was discussing a potential investment by Altria, but Cronos said an agreement has not yet been reached between both companies, nor does Cronos admit to agreeing to be acquired. However, acquisition talks between the two companies are expected
For complete article go to Who Will Pay the Price for WEED?
Don\’t worry, just munch, blaze and bong on!!!!
Pot laced chocolate chip cookies — and other products…..
https://www.globalcannabisdispensary.net/shop/buy-weed-edibles-online/buy-cannabis-chocolate-chip-cookies-online/
State and National Contexts in Evaluating Cannabis Laws – A Case Study in Washington State
Cannabis Use Among Patients at a Comprehensive Cancer Centre in Washington State
Doctors tell parents cannabis will NOT cure their children of epilepsy as demand for drug continues to soar
- Doctors say they are seeing massive upsurge in demand for cannabis medicine
- Medics put it down to high profile Alfie Dingley and Billy Caldwell cases
- Law was changed earlier this year to legalise medicinal use of the substance
By BY JONATHAN BUCKS FOR THE MAIL ON SUNDAY PUBLISHED: 23.12.18
Paediatricians are seeing a \’massive upsurge\’ in the number of parents demanding that psychoactive cannabis medicine be prescribed for their epileptic children.
Hundreds of parents are reported to have contacted doctors after the high-profile cases of epilepsy sufferers Alfie Dingley, six, and Billy Caldwell, 12, prompted Ministers to change the law on giving children the drug for medical reasons.
Both youngsters were treated with cannabis containing the non-psychoactive compound cannabidiol (CBD), as well as small amounts of the psychoactive substance tetrahydrocannabinol (THC).
THC is responsible for the \’high\’ experienced by recreational users of cannabis but can also trigger psychosis. Dr Symonds said some patients now mistakenly believed cannabis is a cure-all
In the UK, there are 20,000 children who suffer epilepsy that doesn\’t respond to conventional treatments. But leading paediatricians say they are horrified that many parents now see cannabis as a panacea for their child\’s fits.
Dr Joseph Symonds, a paediatrician at Glasgow\’s Royal Hospital for Children and research fellow in paediatric epilepsy genetics at the University of Glasgow, said: \’We have seen a massive upsurge in the number of parents asking for cannabis, and specifically cannabis with THC, because of the media interest around the children who have responded well to it.
\’But the fact remains that while CBD products have medical benefits, there is just not enough evidence to say that THC cannabis will help a child\’s epilepsy.\’
For complete story https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-6524023/Doctors-tell-parents-cannabis-NOT-cure-children-epilepsy.html
New and perhaps BETTER OPTION for Epilepsy Sufferers?
Stiripentol Decreases Seizure Frequency in Dravet Syndrome (non-cannabis based medication with better results than the new cannabis derived ‘medications’)
Is a Tobacco Giant Trying to Take Over the Vape Pen Market?
CHRIS ROBERTS December 11, 2018
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Altria, the parent company of tobacco giant Philip Morris whose $1.8 billion investment in a cannabis company was announced Friday, has over the past five years quietly patented dozens of devices that could be used to consume marijuana, a review of public documents at the US Patent and Trademark Office shows.
Altria’s patents and patent applications carry one of several generic descriptions, including “electronic cigarette,” “electronic smoking article,” “e-vaping” device, and “electronic vaping device.”
“They see a downturn in the tobacco industry, and they see this humongous upside in the cannabis industry.”
Michael Cohen, intellectual property lawyer
Many of them bear striking similarities to vape pens and other devices used to consume cannabis that are already on the market, according to patent attorneys and an independent product manufacturer who reviewed the patent filings at the request of Leafly News.
Exactly what Altria plans to do with its new intellectual property is uncertain. The company did not respond to multiple requests for comment for this story. But intellectual property experts noted that the number and breadth of the patents involved mean Altria could conceivably seek to charge competitors licensing fees or knock them out of the market entirely.
“What’s clear is that they’re making a play at the vaporizer market,” said Larry Sandell, a Washington, DC—based patent attorney. “This will be a good way to achieve dominance in that market.”
As early as the late 1960s and early 1970s, Philip Morris executives have eyed marijuana as a potential growth opportunity. In a confidential 1969 letter to Philip Morris’s research laboratories, Alfred Berger, a professor overseeing the Phillip Morris Fellowship in Chemistry at the University of Virginia, wrote: “The company that will bring out the first marihuana smoking devices, be a cigarette or some other form, will capture the market and be in a better position than its competitors to satisfy the legal public demand for such products.”
For complete article https://www.leafly.com/news/industry/is-tobacco-giant-altria-philip-morris-taking-over-marijuana-vape-pens
JOURNEY OF A BUDTENDER: A LITTLE DAB WILL DO YOU
Part 3 of 5 parts of Journey of a Budtender. Read Part 1, Part 2: Burn thru it
Our Corporation’s buds were harsh and unappealing. Plus, I had seen the mold on marijuana buds in both the cultivation center and in the dispensary. When the Colorado ex-CEO, now a “consultant,” announced that the dispensary would be selling high potency THC concentrates, I immediately switched exclusively to concentrates. People call the concentrates wax, shatter, BHO or dabs. A little dab went a long way. Dabs promised to be a far “cleaner” product, and they were a “a more ‘medicinal’ way to medicate.”
I’m embarrassed to admit that I believed it would be a much safer and palatable way to ingest my Corporation’s marijuana. So gullible was I! I believed what our “Consultant” said and did not conduct any online research whatsoever.
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hard, moldy marijuanaI bought one of the dispensary’s side-car dab rigs, a butane torch, and shatter testing at over 94% THC. Though I had consumed our dispensary’s high THC flower, doing a dab was a sensation that I had never attained with marijuana before in my entire life, or from any drug for that matter, including cocaine. It was extremely powerful. The phrase is “a little dab will do you,” but that’s not the mindset when one is consuming a drug that instantaneously floods your dopamine receptors in split-second, napalm upon the brain.
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How a little dab works
A little dab won’t do you. In fact “a little dab” is quite addicting and it will do you in.
I became a great fan of high potency THC concentrates and recommended them, especially if patients told me that the flower was harsh or causing adverse effects. To this day, I feel such guilt and shame for having sold concentrates to individuals under 18 years old. They would come in with their parents or guardians, who would have to calm them down at my counter. I should have realized from how overexcited they became at the prospects of getting more wax or shatter, that something was wrong.
What I did may have been legal, but that didn’t make it right. I was promoting addiction. (Read previous poppot articles about dabbing,)
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We have always been told marijuana should have a calming, peaceful, happy effect on people. However, my patients and co-workers were describing being ill, they were looking unhappy and angry. I noticed that patients who consumed dabs would be prone to IED (Intermittent Explosive Disorder) outbursts in the dispensary. As for me, as my concentrate usage continued and escalated, my physical and mental health declined.
My physical symptoms worsened to nausea, abdominal bloating, pain in my abdomen and GI tract and urinary incontinence. I started to experience extremely painful spasms in my calves, up to 10 times a night. Then came the onset of constant electrical sensation and twitches in my calves. Though these symptoms were alarming, I thought that they were due to dehydration and pre-menopause and would subside.
Getting into a dark place before the light
I could perceive that my psyche had changed in a very bad way. I was no longer desiring to do activities that once provided pleasure and joy, such as mountain biking. My mind was hijacked. I could feel nothing whatsoever unless I was dabbing, doing it more and more but powerless to stop. My friends detected that something was really wrong with me, later telling me “that dab had a hold of you.” But no one knew how dark and disturbed my thoughts had become.
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I had started to experience escalating thoughts of committing violent actions. First I was vividly daydreaming about vandalizing cars, then beating people with a baseball bat, then shooting people with a gun. After dabbing for 9 months, I felt completely devoid of spirit, truly despising myself and on the brink of suicide. Non-violent person by nature and a yoga practitioner for 20 years, I would rather end my life than take another.
So close was I to falling off the cliff of sanity. I was teetering on the precipice of a psychotic break or suicide until that fateful day in the dispensary, when I watched a co-worker. I saw the look of sheer worry and concern in her eyes when interacting with patients describing adverse effects from products. At long last it woke me up that something was really wrong. A little dab will never satisfy you, as you want and crave more. When you dab, you’re incapable of perceiving its great harm upon your body, mind and spirit.
(To read how the story continues, see Part 4 and Part 5).
(We have two other testimonies specifically about dabbing, My 16-year-old son died from marijuana and Dabbing is addictive.)
We must study marijuana\’s impact on the environment before it\’s too late
While all admirable and necessary warnings, this focus on human health has highlighted the notable lack of public or governmental discussion on the potential impact of cannabis on the environment, and in particular on North America’s abundant supplies of fresh water.
Often featuring in the lower rungs of priority when it comes to determining the safety of a drug, the impact of a pharmaceutical on the freshwater environment can be significant on the health of lakes, rivers and those who reside nearby.
The gamut is wide and worrying — from limpets in the UK no longer able to cling on to rocks for survival as they “bathe in a soup” of antidepressants to Canadian male fish growing eggs in their testes after being exposed to the synthetic estrogen found in birth control pills.
‘When it comes to marijuana, a lot of the research and legislation is patchy and regionally specific.’ Photograph: Chris Wattie/Reuters
These examples should serve as a reminder that when deeming a drug fit for market, we should research and factor in its impact on the environment and water systems.
As the tide of marijuana legalization seems to be steadily sweeping North America, it also highlights how the USA and Canada, with our shared watersheds and borderless water movement, need to put our heads together on this issue.
When it comes to marijuana, a lot of the research and legislation is patchy and regionally specific. In Canada, some legislation exists to limit the use of more than 95 pesticides that can be used by licensed cannabis producers. There is also guidance to prevent these compounds from leeching into nearby water bodies and reaching its flora and fauna.
It’s hard to overstate the importance of fresh water to North America’s economy and peoples. The five mammoth Great Lakes alone account for 21% of the globe’s freshwater supplies and no fewer than 35 million Americans and Canadians depend on them for their drinking water.
For complete article Toxic Cannabis in ALL Food Chains!
Most Americans would legalize MARIJUANA and ban alcohol because they think weed is safer – but experts warn weed may be just as dangerous and addictive
- A survey of 1,000 Americans found most had concerns about alcohol use
- Very few had any concerns about marijuana use, whether they used it or not
- Most believed alcohol is addictive and cannabis is not, the survey found
- But in 2015, 4 million Americans had cannabis use disorder (15 million had alcohol use disorder)
By MIA DE GRAAF HEALTH EDITOR FOR DAILYMAIL.COM
PUBLISHED: 09:56 AEDT, 8 December 2018 | UPDATED: 15:39 AEDT, 8 December 2018
Most Americans would sooner ban alcohol than marijuana because they see the herb as safer, a new survey found.
In a survey of over 1,000 people, 57 percent said that, if they could only legalize one, it would be cannabis, while the remaining 43 percent picked alcohol.
Digging deeper, the researchers at American Addiction Centers found this is largely driven by the fact that people see cannabis as much safer than alcohol.
Even people who didn\’t consume weed believed it to be 25 percent safer than booze, and much less addictive.
But experts warn that just because marijuana isn\’t as deadly as alcohol, its effects can be debilitating, from disrupting memory, mood stability, muscle control, and motivation.
For more https://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-6472761/Most-Americans-think-marijuana-safer-alcohol.html