Alberta updates legislation to deal with cannabis legalization
May 2018 By DATAC
In preparation for the upcoming federal cannabis legalization, Alberta is planning to modernize its Gaming and Liquor Act. The act oversees three main areas; gaming, provincial lotteries and liqour, and now with the legalization of cannabis looming, that will be included in their purview.
“We remain focused on building a system for legal cannabis that prioritizes the safety and security of all Albertans,” says Kathleen Ganley, Minister of Justice and Solicitor General. “These amendments to the Gaming and Liquor Act represent another step in our continued work to prepare for the legalization of cannabis.”
The updates to the legislation would include:
- The maximum allowable administrative fines for infractions against the Gaming and Liqour act would go from $200,000 to $1 million.
- There would be rules with regard to what cannabis retailers would be able to call their sales establishments, as well as their products; prohibiting anything that would connote they they were “therapeutic” or “medicinal” in an effort to not lead consumers astray, thereby protecting public health.
- Permit a court to use the inference of law enforcement officers for the purpose of prosecution, allowing the officer to come to conclusions with regard to what is cannabis based on it’s odour, label or packaging.
- Create consumption regulations similar to existing rules for alcohol and tobacco to allow for the prosecution of owners of a premises that allows the smoking and/or vaping of marijuana where it is not permitted.
- Legally allow liquor blending and infusion to modernize liquor policies.
For more https://datac.ca/alberta-updates-legislation-to-deal-with-cannabis-legalization/
Snapshot of Colorado Cannabis Chaos!
In 2012, the State of Colorado voted on Amendment 64, which legalized marijuana for recreational use, which passed by 55% vote. It allowed anyone over the age of 21 to consume or possess limited amounts and allowed local governments to regulate or prohibit within their jurisdiction. 72% OF THE STATES MUNICIPALITIES OPTED OUT OF RECREATIONAL MARIJUANA IN THEIR COMMUNITY (COLORADO COUNTIES DATA)
It also enacted an excise tax, which would generate revenue for the State of Colorado.
IN 2017, COLORADO RECEIVED $247M IN TAX REVENUE COMPRISING ABOUT 1% OF THE STATES TOTAL BUDGET (COLORADO DEPARTMENT OF REVENUE) COLORADO’S GOVERNOR IS REPORTING A $500 MILLION SHORTFALL IN HIS 2018 BUDGET WITH SIGNIFICANT CUTS TO ROADS, SCHOOLS, HOSPITALS, AN INCREASE STATE TUITION, AND ELIMINATION OF A TAXPAYER REFUND
In 2013, the United States Department of Justice released the Cole Memo, allowing states with marijuana laws to develop regulatory schemes that protected eight (8) federal enforcement areas, and included:
1. Prevent the distribution to minors
BETWEEN 2005 AND 2015, THE PROPORTION OF EMERGENCY DEPARTMENT OR URGENT CARE VISITS IN COLORADO FOR THOSE BETWEEN 13 AND 20 YO INCREASED BY MORE THAN 100% (JOURNAL OF ADOLESCENT HEALTH)
PAST MONTH USE OF MARIJUANA AMONG COLORADO YOUTH 12-17 CONTINUED TO RISE ABOVE THE NATIONAL AVERAGE (NSDUH 2006-2017).
THERE HAS BEEN A 65% INCREASE IN FIRST TIME USE AMONG COLORADO YOUTH SINCE LEGALIZATION, NOW RANKED FIRST IN THE NATION (NSDUH 2006-2017)
MARIJUANA IS THE MOST PREVALENT SUBSTANCE FOUND IN COMPLETED COLORADO TEEN SUICIDE (CDPHE)
MARIJUANA-RELATED EXPOSURES TO CHILDREN (AGES 0-5) NEARLY TRIPLED IN THE 4 YEAR AVERAGE SINCE LEGALIZATION, COMPARED TO THE 4 YEAR AVERAGE PRIOR TO LEGALIZATION (ROCKY MOUNTAIN POISON AND DRUG CENTER)
THERE WAS A 19% INCREASE IN MARIJUANA RELATED SCHOOL SUSPENSIONS IN THE 2016-17 SCHOOL YEAR (COLORADO DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION) 88% OF COLORADO STUDENTS REPORT GETTING MARIJUANA FROM PARENTS, FRIENDS, OR THE BLACK MARKET (COLORADO ASSOCIATION OF SCHOOL RESOURCE OFFICERS)
2. Prevent revenue from the sale of marijuana from going to criminal enterprises, gangs, and cartels
THE NUMBER OF ILLEGAL MARIJUANA GROWS IN COLORADO HAS SIGNIFICANTLY INCREASED SINCE LEGALIZATION WITH OVER 500 ALONE IN EL PASO COUNTY, WHICH INCLUDES COLORADO SPRINGS WHICH OPTED OUT OF LEGALIZED MARIJUANA (EL PASO COUNTY SHERIFFS DEPARTMENT) LAW ENFORCEMENT IS SPENDING INCREASING TIME ON ILLEGAL GROWS WITH LIMITED FUNDING AND RESOURCES (EL PASO COUNTY SHERIFFS DEPARTMENT)
3. Prevent the diversion of marijuana from states where it is legal under state law in some form to other states
IN 2016 ALONE, COLORADO LAW ENFORCEMENT CONFISCATED 7,116 POUNDS OF MARIJUANA, CARRIED OUT 252 FELONY ARRESTS, AND MADE 346 HIGHWAY INTERDICTIONS OF MARIJUANA HEADED TO 36 DIFFERENT U.S. STATES (EL PASO INTELLIGENCE CENTER)
THE U.S. MAIL SYSTEM SAW AN 844% INCREASE IN POSTAL MARIJUANA SEIZURES OUT OF COLORADO SINCE LEGALIZATION (US POSTAL INSPECTION SERVICE)
4. Prevent state-authorized marijuana activity from being a cover or pretext for the trafficking of other illegal drugs or illegal activity
COLORADO’S LARGEST POT BUST SINCE LEGALIZATION IN JUNE 2017, INCLUDED VIOLATION OF THE COLORADO ORGANIZED CRIME ACT, MONEY LAUNDERING, TAX EVASION, THEFT, MORTGAGE AND SECURITIES FRAUD INCLUDED A FORMER COLORADO MARIJUANA ENFORCEMENT OFFICER AND A DENVERBASED MARIJUANA ENTREPRENEUR
5. Prevent violence and the use of firearms in the cultivation and distribution of marijuana
COLORADO SPRINGS HAD A RECORD NUMBER OF TOTAL HOMICIDES SINCE LEGALIZATION IN 2017 AND A RECORD NUMBER OF MARIJUANA RELATED HOMICIDES SINCE LEGALIZATION IN 2017 (COLORADO SPRINGS POLICE DEPARTMENT) COLORADO HAS NOTED AN 11% INCREASE IN MARIJUANA RELATED CRIMES FROM 2013 TO 2016 (COLORADO BUREAU OF INVESTIGATION)
6. Prevent drugged driving and the exacerbation of other adverse health consequences associated with marijuana use
COLORADO HAD A RECORD NUMBER OF MARIJUANA RELATED DRIVING FATALITIES IN 2016, WITH MORE THAN 20% BEING MARIJUANA RELATED (CDOT)
IN 2017, COLORADO HAD A NEW RECORD NUMBER OF TOTAL FATALITIES (MARIJUANA DATA PENDING) EMERGENCY DEPARTMENTS ARE SEEING PROBLEMS ASSOICATED WIHT HIGH POTENCY PRODUCTS INCLUDING SEVERE MENTAL ILLNESS, PSYCHOSIS AND SCHIZOPHRENIA, AND VIOLENCE
MARIJUANA USE HAD NOT CURBED COLORADO’S OPIOID EPIDEMIC AND COLORADO HAD A RECORD YEAR OF OPIOID OVERDOSE DEATHS IN 2017 AND COLORADO IS SEEING AN INCREASE IN OTHER DRUG RELATED DEATHS FROM METHAMPHETAMINE AND COCAINE COINCIDING WITH MASS COMMERCIALIZATION (COLORADO CONSORTIUM FOR PRESCRIPTION DRUG PREVENTION)
LEGALIZATION HAS BEEN ASSOCIATED WITH INCREASED MARIJUANA USE CAUSING AN INCREASE IN ED VISITS AND HOSPITALIZATIONS RELATED TO ACUTE MARIJUANA INTOXICATION, CANNABINOID HYPEREMESIS SYNDROME, PSYCHOSIS, AND PEDIATRIC EXPOSURE AT UNCERTAIN COSTS (UNIVERSITY OF COLORADO, DEPARTMENT OF EMERGENCY MEDICINE, COLORADO HOSPITAL ASSOCIATION, CDPHE) ONE HOSPITAL, IN A COMMUNITY WHICH OPTED OUT OF LEGAL MARIJUANA, EXPERIENCED $20 MILLION LOSS IN HEALTH CARE DOLLARS BETWEEN 2009 AND 2014 DUE TO MARIJUANA RELATED EMERGENCY ROOM VISITS.
THERE ARE MULTIPLE OTHER NEGATIVE MEDICAL AND HEALTH EFFECTS INCLUDING CARDIAC, PULMONARY, GASTROINTESTINAL, FETAL, NEONATAL, MATERNAL-FETAL, PEDIATRIC, NEUROLOGICAL, REPRODUCTIVE, AND PSYCHIATRIC
7. Prevent the growing of marijuana on public lands and the attendant public safety and
environmental dangers posed by marijuana production on public lands. ERADICATION OF ILLEGAL MARIJUANA PLANTS FROM COLORADO’S ROCKY MOUNTAINS INCREASED OVER 2,200% SINCE 2014 WITH A STREET VALUE OF $177 MILLION (US FOREST SERVICE, ROCKY MOUNTAIN REGION)
8. Prevent marijuana possession or use on federal property.
IN 2012, A 20 ACRE ILLEGAL MARIJUANA GROW WAS FOUND IN THE BURN SCAR OF ONE OF COLORADO SPRINGS LARGEST WILDFIRES IN THE PIKE NATIONAL FOREST
SUMMARY:
COLORADO HAS DONE A POOR JOB SINCE MASS COMMERCIALIZATION, EXPANSION, AND LEGALIZATION OF MARIJUANA CREATING SIGNIFICANT PUBLIC HEALTH AND SAFETY CONCERNS AT UNKNOWN SOCIETAL COSTS REMINISCENT OF TOBACCO AND ALCOHOL.
DON’T FLY THE PLANE BEFORE BUILDING IT. FOLLOW THE SCIENCE, NOT THE MONEY AS THIS COULD BE THE LARGEST TROJAN HORSE OF ALL TIME. I INVITE YOU TO VISIT COLORADO AND SEE FIRST HAND THE MARIJUANA REFUGEES, SPEND A SHIFT IN AN EMERGENCY ROOM WHERE MARIJUANA RELATED ILLNESSES ARE SEEN EVERY SINGLE DAY, TALK TO THE FIRST RESPONDERS WHO NEED TO SHOWER AND CLEAN THEIR CLOTHES AFTER EVERY SHIFT BECAUSE THEY SMELL LIKE MARIJUANA, MEET THE FAMILIES THAT HAVE BEEN EFFECTED OR LOST LOVED ONES RELATED TO MARIJUANA.
THERE IS SUBSTANTIAL EVIDENCE THAT MARIJUANA USE CAN HAVE NEGATIVE HEALTH EFFECTS ON MULTIPLE ORGAN SYSTEMS AND IS ASSOCIATED WITH PUBLIC HEALTH AND SAFETY CONCERNS:
- BRAIN (END ORGAN)
- ADDICTION
- CANNABIS USE DISORDER
- PSYCHOSIS (PARTICULARLY WITH HIGH POTENCY PRODUCTS)
- SCHIZOPHRENIA
- BEHAVIORAL PROBLEMS INCLUDING VIOLENCE
- IMPAIRED DRIVING CAPACITY
- DEPRESSION
- ANXIETY
- CARDIAC: MYOCARDIAL INFARCTION — TACHYCARDIA — ARRHYTHMIA
- PERIPHERAL VASCULAR DISEASE
- HYPERTENSION
- STROKE
- LUNG
- BRONCHITIS
- LUNG INFLAMMATION
- POSSIBLY IMPAIRED LUNG FUNCTION
- PREGNANCY
- EFFECTS ON THE DEVELOPING HUMAN BRAIN IN UTERO
- EFFECTS DURING BREAST FEEDING DURING IN
- ASSOCIATION WITH SEVERAL BIRTH DEFECTS
- GASTROINTESTINAL
- CANNABIS HYPEREMESIS SYNDROME
- REPRODUCTIVE HEALTH
- LOW SPERM COUNT
- TESTICULAR CANCER
RECOMMENDATIONS:
1. Monitor individual and population health data over time
2. Track health effects and costs over time
3. Provide funding for scientific study and public education on health risks
4. Limit potency to 15%
5. Limit the variety of products and mechanisms of delivery
6. Discourage smoking
7. Provide funding for prevention in adolescents
8. Determine and develop better means to prevent youth access
9. Provide resources and funding for mental health treatment
10. Provide resources and funding for law enforcement
11. Do not allow home grows
12. Assure you protect your natural resources and environment
Colorado schools report nearly 19 percent increase in marijuana suspensions
Impact on Marijuana Legalisation in Colorado on Adolescent Emergency and Urgent Care admissions:
https://www.jahonline.org/article/S1054-139X(18)30004-1/abstract
Vaping tied to higher risk that teens will try marijuana (Reuters Health) – Teens who use e-cigarettes may be twice as likely to smoke pot as their peers who never try vaping, a U.S. study suggests.
The results, from surveys of more than 10,000 youth ages 12 to 17, add to earlier evidence suggesting that e-cigarettes may be a gateway to smoking tobacco and experimenting with drugs. In the current study, younger teens aged 12 to 14 were 2.7 times more likely to smoke pot once they tried vaping, while the odds of marijuana use were 1.6 times higher for older adolescents who used e-cigarettes.
E-Cigs Are Risky–Whatever They Look Like (NIDA Blog Team May, 2018)
You may have heard of JUUL. It’s one brand of e-cigarette that has gotten very popular lately–so popular that the term “JUULing” is becoming common. While we usually don’t discuss brand names on the blog, some experts think the name “JUUL” might become like “Kleenex” or “Xerox”; these brands became so popular that people often use those names instead of “tissue” or “copy.”
Quitting–or starting? The company that makes JUUL says they designed the device for adults who are trying to quit smoking regular cigarettes; the company has educational programs for teens about waiting until they’re adults to use these devices. But JUUL is still being used by teens, who think teachers and other adults won’t notice because the JUUL doesn’t look like a regular e-cig.
A JUUL is a small, rectangular, box-shaped device that looks more like a flash drive than a cigarette. Like most e-cigs, they come in flavors that appeal to young people.
For more https://teens.drugabuse.gov/blog/post/e-cigs-are-risky-whatever-they-look-like
The true cost of legalising drugs
May 1, 2018
We hear an awful lot about the virtues of legalising drugs, but rarely about the costs of such an experiment.
Last week we were told that we should stop treating addiction as a crime (though we don’t) and start treating it as health problem (which we do already, to the tune of hundreds of millions of pounds a year for mainly methadone treatment, questionable though this synthetic heroin substitute is, and some other interventions).
The Times reported, somewhat misleadingly, that hospital doctors, in the form of the Royal College of Physicians, were calling for all drugs to decriminalised — prompting the questions: even ketamine? Even the dangerous heroin substitute krokodil? Would they would be handing out medically prescribed and supervised diamorphine? Such are the dilemmas lurking in the Pandora’s Box of legalisation.
Further down the text you find that the RCP is not quite so gung-ho about legalisation after all. What it really had ‘thrown its weight behind’ was a campaign by nameless ‘public health leaders’ to give priority ‘to tackling the harm caused by drugs rather than attempts at reducing their use’.
Possessing drugs for personal use, the College thinks, should no longer be a crime, but it stops short of advocating legalisation, and believes that dealers should still be prosecuted. Which is pretty much a description of the Government’s current drug policy.
Exactly what hospital doctors are facing on a daily basis in A&E is the de facto decriminalisation of all sorts of illegal drugs, and a country overrun with drugs and drugs crime because of the laissez-faire approach of the police.
For complete article What drug policy?
Harmless? Never
Would highly recommend reading Peter Hitchens’s The War We Never Fought which is an insightful analysis of Britain’s failed experiment in drug liberalisation.
I myself used to abuse cannabis regularly when I was younger, partly due to being told by the police that it was harmless during school drugs talks in the late 1990s. The waste of money, time and potential harm to my education is hard to quantify, but I know it is immense. Fortunately I was eventually able to steer myself away from this path of self-destruction, but telling children drugs are harmless is unbelievably stupid policy.
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STUDY: Washington, D.C. Has the Worst Drug Use and Addiction of Anywhere in the U. S.
May 2018 by Anders Hagstrom
Washington, D.C., has the highest rate of drug use and addiction of any state in the country, according to a WalletHub study released Monday.
Drug addiction has become an epidemic in the U.S., claiming the lives of more than 60,000 Americans in 2016 – more than during the Vietnam War. The eastern U.S. has been hardest hit, with state and federal lawmakers scrambling for a solution. Some have proposed legal “injection sites” where addicts can shoot heroin safely to cut down on overdose deaths.
The District of Columbia, Missouri, New Hampshire, Michigan, and West Virginia have been most ravaged by the crisis, while Minnesota is faring better than any other state, according to the WalletHub study.
WalletHub ranked the jurisdictions based on three factors: rate of drug use and addiction, how law enforcement treats the drug trade, and the amount of drug health issues as well as the availability of rehab. D.C. was rated the worst in the country for both the drug addiction rate and drug health issues, while coming in 22nd in law enforcement, with one being the worst.
For complete article https://tennesseestar.com/2018/05/15/study-washington-d-c-has-the-worst-drug-use-and-addiction-of-anywhere-in-the-u-s/
Xanax: The cult drug engulfing anxious young Brits
Xanax is rapidly becoming the \”cult\” drug of choice among young people and requires an immediate inquiry, parents, doctors and MPs have warned.
Teenagers and young adults – seduced by its popularity in rap lyrics and American culture – are experimenting with the potent tranquilliser, also known as alprazolam, as a party drug or even to self-medicate against their anxiety.
Many we spoke to for our story spoke of \”popping Xans\” or \”Xannies\” – which is around 10 times stronger than Valium – as if it is the equivalent of drinking alcohol or smoking.
Some obtain it from local dealers, others from the dark web or US pharmacies, but there is also a booming market on social media.
Within a matter of minutes, we were able to contact a dealer on Instagram and was offered 10 Xanax pills. Ten minutes later, a second seller offered us 100.
So what is fuelling this craze? How prevalent is it? And why are doctors so worried?
For complete article http://www.itv.com/news/2018-05-03/xanax-the-cult-drug-engulfing-anxious-young-brits/