Latest Entry
May 20, 2013 Online Issue
For people suffering from bipolar disorder, relief from the condition might be as simple as smoking a little marijuana. New research reveals that cannabis use among patients with bipolar 1 disorder showed an improvement in their “cognitive functioning.” Researchers studied 50 patients with a history of pot use over nine years, as well as 150 patients without said history. The patients who had gotten high showed improvement in areas such as processing speed, attention and working memory. Though pot use has also been shown to make bipolar patients less likely to comply with treatment regimens, researchers suggest developing a treatment that mimics the effects of pot in order to be most effective.
Recent Entries
May 20, 2013 Online Issue
The magical weed that helps us stay trim, be less crazy, control seizures, cure Crohn’s, rescue the economy and make watching TV game shows more enjoyable is now being credited for possibly reducing the risk of diabetes, too. Analyzing statistics from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s ”National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey,” researchers uncovered the good news that current marijuana users had 16 percent lower fasting insulin levels and 17 percent lower levels of insulin resistance than their nonstoner friends. Bonus: Scientists found that pot users also had slimmer waistlines and higher levels of “good” cholesterol.
May 18, 2013 Online Issue
Schools that institute student drug testing programs are likely to experience a rise in students’ consumption of ‘hard’ drugs, according to observational trial data published this week in the Journal of Adolescent Health.
Researchers at the University of Michigan, Institute for Social Research analyzed the impact of student drug testing programs in some 250,000 high-school and middle-school students over a 14 year period. Investigators reported that random drug testing programs of the student body and programs specifically targeting student athletes were associated with “moderately lower marijuana use,” but cautioned that drug testing programs overall were “associated with increased use of illicit drugs other than marijuana.”
An estimated 14 percent of middle school students and 28 per cent of US high school students are now subject to some form of drug testing.
Urinalysis, the most common form of student drug testing, screens for the presence of inert drug metabolites (breakdown products), not the actual parent drug. Because marijuana’s primary metabolite, carboxy-THC, is fat soluble, it may be present in urine for days, weeks, or in some cases even months after past use. By contrast, most other illicit drug metabolites are water soluble and will exit the body within a matter of hours. Authors of the study speculated that students subjected to drug screens were switching from cannabis to other illicit drugs which possessed shorter detection times.
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May 18, 2013 Online Issue
DURANGO, Colo.—Durango police say they still don’t know why two men were giving away marijuana at a downtown street corner.
Joseph Bires and Daniel McKnight are facing charges of disturbing the peace and being in possession of more than 1 ounce of marijuana after they were arrested on Monday.
Colorado law now allows people age 21 or older to possess less than 1 ounce of marijuana. It can be consumed in a private residence, but it is illegal to consume or display the drug in public.
According to the Durango Herald (http://tinyurl.com/b7mmnrf), the men were given a municipal citation and released.
May 17, 2013 Online Issue
If those behind the idea of turning the arena in MacTier into a legal marijuana grow-op thought they had a fight on their hands before, No. 4 has just jumped over the boards.
Bobby Orr was famous for scoring big goals and, if necessary, dropping the gloves, too.
This time he’s prepared to do both.
In his more than half century of celebrity, Orr rarely speaks out or steps into controversy.
However, when it comes to closing down an arena and community centre on his home turf to rent out to a company so they can grow medicinal marijuana, it brings out the anger in the Hockey Hall of Famer.
When he first heard of it, the two-time Stanley Cup winner who also led Canada to the 1976 Canada Cup, thought somebody must be smoking something.
But it turns out, there really is a move to shut the MacTier Community Centre and lease the space out it to grow pot.
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May 15, 2013 Online Issue
By Paul Armentano, NORML Deputy Director
Inhaling cannabis reduces symptoms of Crohn’s disease compared to placebo in patients non-responsive to traditional therapies, according to clinical trial data published online ahead of print in the journal Clinical Gastroenterology and Hepatology.
Researchers at the Meir Medical Center, Department of Gastroenterology and Hepatology in Israel assessed the safety and efficacy of inhaled cannabis versus placebo in 21 subjects with Crohn’s disease who were nonresponsive to conventional treatments.
Eleven participants smoked standardized cannabis cigarettes containing 23 percent THC and 0.5 percent CBD (cannabidiol) twice daily over a period of eight weeks. The other ten subjects smoked placebo cigarettes containing no active cannabinoids.
Investigators reported, “Our data show that 8-weeks treatment with THC-rich cannabis, but not placebo, was associated with a significant decrease of 100 points in CDAI (Crohn’s Disease and activity index) scores.” (The CDIA is a research tool used to quantify the symptoms of Crohn’s disease patients.) Five of the eleven patients in the study group also reported achieving disease remission (defined as a reduction in patient CDAI score by more than 150 points).
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May 14, 2013 Online Issue
By Zach Howard
(Reuters) – Vermont’s legislature on Monday approved a bill that would decriminalize the possession of small amounts of marijuana, a measure the state’s governor expects to sign into law in the coming weeks.
The move sets up the New England state to be the 17th in the United States to remove criminal penalties for having small amounts of pot. It does not go as far as Colorado and Washington, which in November became the first states to legalize possession, cultivation and use of marijuana by adults for recreational use.
Vermont’s House of Representatives on Monday gave final approval to a proposal to remove criminal penalties for adult possession of up to one ounce (28.3 grams) of marijuana and instead penalize with a civil fine, similar to a traffic ticket. Persons under age 21 caught with pot would be required to undergo substance abuse screening.
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