Tag Archives: National Academy of Sciences

Drug Policy, Uncategorized

National Academy of Sciences Report Reveals that Legalization isn’t Working

On September 26th, the National Academy of Sciences presented its latest report on marijuana. A distinguished group of scholars and panelists, which included Dr. Steven Teutsch of UCLA, Neuroscientist Yasmin Hurd of the Icahn School of Medicine and Rosalie Pacula of USC, went public in a webinar.

The panel implied that states have done a terrible job of legalizing marijuana, particularly in terms of public health.

This specific report involved health policy and health equity, as opposed to the 2017 NAS Report on the health effects of cannabis and cannabinoids.   We caution that the copy available to the public is a prepublication copy.

In short, the committee was asked to assess the regulatory framework for cannabis.  The 312-page report was divided into six chapters. The webinar panel reported on Chapters 2 through 6, saying that cannabis is “very challenging to regulate.”

The committee was critical of the 2018 Farm Bill which allowed growing hemp with .03 percent THC.  This bill resulted in producers converting hemp into other types of THC (Delta-8 THC, Delta-10 THC which we’ve written about previously.)  A panelist stated:   “Each hybrid has unique and inconsistent effects.”  The implication was that Congress should close this loophole quickly.

Should the federal government step in?

It seems as if Committee Chair, Dr. Steven Teutsch, believes that the federal government needs to step in and regulate the state  legalization programs.

How is it possible that the federal government would be able to regulate cannabis while state governments have failed?  (Although the press sometimes reports of failures, the overwhelming bias of the press is to laud the effort and talk about the potential for tax money.)

During the question-and-answer period, someone asked what other countries do, wondering if other places have been more successful.

The answer came back. Uruguay does the best job in terms of regulation for public safety because the market is centralized and the government controls the market.

We note that Uruguay has a population of 3.4 million, fewer people than most states!  It’s no comparison for the United States.  Because the US is a capitalist country, the safety nets provided by Uruguay will never be imitated in the United States!

Health Impacts Covered in the Report

Panelists noted lots disturbing trends: higher potency, new products and more pregnant women using cannabis, with dispensary workers recommend cannabis to pregnant women.  Increases of use were most remarkable the categories of young adults, males, American Indians/Native Alaskans and those below the poverty line.

As the cannabis industry hoped, daily marijuana use surpassed daily alcohol use in 2022. There were approximately 17.7 daily or near-daily users of marijuana compared to 14.7 daily drinkers of alcohol.  Although far more Americans report drinking alcohol, the frequency of use is less among drinkers than cannabis users 

Chapter 6 covered harmful health impacts of legalization with descriptions by Laura Stack of Johnny’s Ambassadors and Aubree Adams of Every Brain Matters.  Both women lived in Colorado at the outset of cannabis commercialization, and their families suffered because of it.  Stack “highlighted the alarming ease with which teens can access high-potency cannabis, using medical marijuana cards obtained without legitimate medical conditions.” (p. 224) Laura Stack’s son Johnny lost his life in a suicide due to psychosis related to his cannabis use. She’s written two books about it, but the story is not unique or unusual in this new cannabis landscape.

Gabriel Mondragon, who has schizophrenia related to cannabis use and his genetics also spoke to the committee. “The committee heard from more than 20 people, all of whom expressed concerns about the increased cannabis use that follows policy changes and the health impacts of this increased use.” (p. 225)

Social Equity isn’t working either

Since so many believe that millions are in jail for simple marijuana possession alone, the jail argument and its disproportionate effects on minorities motivate voters.

Social equity is a recent aim of legalization programs, as the earliest programs didn’t try to solve that problem.  The report said, “While these initiatives hold promise for mitigating the harms of cannabis prohibition, challenges remain in implementation and effectiveness.”

It also stated that “The data needed to evaluate whether changes in cannabis policy have reduced inequities associated with criminal justice entanglement are lacking.” (p. 209)

In other words, the social equity arguments and claims for legalization haven’t made a difference.  Arrests for cannabis are down in legalization states, but minorities are still arrested at higher rates than whites.

Remember what Hillary Clinton said

 In 2015, Hillary Clinton was asked about marijuana legalization.  She replied that the states are “laboratories for democracy” and suggested a wait-and-see attitude.  Well, now the country seems to be recognizing what we’ve always known all along:  Marijuana legalization is FAILED POLICY!

Although this report recommends federal leadership to clear up the many problems, we do not believe it’s possible.  There’s no roadmap to making a program that has failed consistently start working successfully.  The committee’s recommendations can be found in a summary on pp 4-16.

The bigger the state, the bigger the failure in the US.

(Of course, each state program is different, and all state marijuana programs are inconsistent with federal law.)

California and New York are perhaps the two biggest failures – and the two largest states to legalize pot!

California Governor Gavin Newsom was Lieutenant Governor when California voted to legalize cannabis in 2016. He led a blue-ribbon committee of scholars and scientists to study how to best legalize in California. Backed by the ACLU, the California model hasn’t worked.  Despite the best intentions, California still struggles to control its illegal market.  After 8 years, 70-80% of all sales are still illegal.  (Californians would probably vote to undo legalization if the ballot came up again, but such ballots are very expensive.)

New York’s model of legalization, implemented by the state legislature also failed badly.  Florida, the nation’s 3rd most populous state, could end up with the same issues as New York, if Florida’s legalization ballot, Amendment 3, passes this year.

Americans should learn how to cut their losses and go no further into the tangle of cannabis problems.  We don’t need a bureaucracy of public health experts to attempt correcting something that can’t be corrected.

Addiction, Gateway Drug

Marijuana and Other Drugs: A Link We Can’t Ignore

by SAM (Smart Approaches to Marijuana)   Smart Approaches to Marijuana’s 2017 publication references academic studies which suggest that marijuana primes the brain for other types of drug usage.  Here’s the summary on that subject from page 4, Marijuana and Other Drugs: A Link We Can’t Ignore :

MORE THAN FOUR in 10 people who ever use marijuana will go on to use other illicit drugs, per a large, nationally representative sample of U.S. adults.(1) The CDC also says that marijuana users are three times more likely to become addicted to heroin.(2)

Although 92% of heroin users first used marijuana before going to heroin, less than half used painkillers before going to heroin.

And according to the seminal 2017 National Academy of Sciences report, “There is moderate evidence of a statistical association between cannabis use and the development of substance dependence and/or a substance abuse disorder for substances including alcohol, tobacco, and other illicit drugs.”(3)

RECENT STUDIES WITH animals also indicate that marijuana use is connected to use and abuse of other drugs. A 2007 Journal of Neuropsychopharmacology study found that rats given THC later self administered heroin as adults, and increased their heroin usage, while those rats that had not been treated with THC maintained a steady level of heroin intake.(4) Another 2014 study found that adolescent THC exposure in rats seemed to change the rodents’ brains, as they subsequently displayed “heroin-seeking” behavior. Youth marijuana use could thus lead to “increased vulnerability to drug relapse in adulthood.”(5)

National Institutes of Health Report

The National Institutes of Health says that research in this area is “consistent with animal experiments showing THC’s ability to ‘prime’ the brain for enhanced responses to other drugs. For example, rats previously administered THC show heightened behavioral response not only when further exposed to THC, but also when exposed to other drugs such as morphine—a phenomenon called cross-sensitization.”(6)

Suggestions that one addictive substance replaces another ignores the problem of polysubstance abuse, the common addiction of today.

ADDITIONALLY, THE MAJORITY of studies find that marijuana users are often polysubstance users, despite a few studies finding limited evidence that some people substitute marijuana for opiate medication. That is, people generally do not substitute marijuana for other drugs. Indeed, the National Academy of Sciences report found that “with regard to opioids, cannabis use predicted continued opioid prescriptions 1 year after injury.  Finally, cannabis use was associated with reduced odds of achieving abstinence from alcohol, cocaine, or polysubstance use after inpatient hospitalization and treatment for substance use disorders” [emphasis added].(7)

Moreover, a three-year 2016 study of adults also found that marijuana compounds problems with alcohol. Those who reported marijuana use during the first wave of the survey were more likely than adults who did not use marijuana to develop an alcohol use disorder within three years.(8) Similarly, alcohol consumption in Colorado has increased slightly since legalization. (9)

Data on Marijuana Policy for 2017

Here’s the complete Data on Marijuana Policy for 2017 in pdf form.

FOOTNOTES:

  1. Secades-Villa R, Garcia-Rodríguez O, Jin CJ, Wang S, Blanco C Probability and predictors of the cannabis gateway effect: a national study. Int J Drug Policy. 2015;26(2):135-142

2. Centers for Disease Control. Today’s heroin epidemic Infographics more people at risk, multiple drugs abused. CDC, 7 July 2015.

3. National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine; Health and Medicine Division; Board on Population Health andPublic Health Practice; Committee on the Health Effects of Marijuana: An Evidence Review and Research Agenda (“2017 NAS Report”).

4. Ellgren, Maria et al. “Adolescent Cannabis Exposure Alters Opiate Intake and Opioid Limbic Neuronal Populations in Adult Rats.”Neuropsychopharmacology 32.3 (2006): 607–615.

5. Stropponi, Serena et al. Chronic THC during adolescence increases the vulnerability to stress-induced relapse to heroin seeking in adult rats. European Neuropsychopharmacology Volume 24 , Issue 7 (2014), 1037 – 1045.

6. “Is marijuana a gateway drug?” National Institute on Drug Abuse. Jan. 2017. See also Panlilio LV, Zanettini C, Barnes C, Solinas M, Goldberg SR. Prior exposure to THC increases the addictive effects of nicotine in rats. Neuropsychopharmacol Off Publ Am Coll Neuropsychopharmacol. 2013;38(7):1198-1208; Cadoni C, Pisanu A, Solinas M, Acquas E, Di Chiara G. Behavioural sensitization after repeated exposure to Delta 9-tetrahydrocannabinol and cross-sensitization with morphine. Psychopharmacology (Berl). 2001;158(3):259-266.

7.  2017 NAS report.

8.  Weinberger AH, Platt J, Goodwin RD. Is cannabis use associated with an increased risk of onset and persistence of alcohol use disorders? A three-year prospective study among adults in the United States. Drug Alcohol Depend. February 2016.

This is the second recent article on the gateway effects of marijuana use.   Since marijuana has already primed the brains of most people who get addicted to opioids, marijuana cannot replace pain pills.