MAP Drugnews

The State, 26 Apr 2018 - It's already used to treat epilepsy in some children -- and now researchers are examining whether a marijuana compound could also be helpful for those with autism. The University of California San Diego announced in a news release that it will be conducting a test on children with "severe" autism to see if cannabidiol, commonly referred to as CBD, can help treat some of their symptoms.

Daily Herald, 26 Apr 2018 - NEW YORK -- CNN's medical correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta has taken the unusual step of publicly urging Attorney General Jeff Sessions to reconsider his opposition to medical marijuana, particularly as a way to fight the opioid epidemic. Gupta wrote a public letter to Sessions, saying that he had changed his mind on the use of medical marijuana, and he's certain Sessions can, too. Research and talking to people who say marijuana has eased pain and weaned them off opioids convinced him.

Lexington Herald-Leader, 27 Apr 2018 - WASHINGTON - The massive farm bill that helps determine what farmers grow and Americans eat is poised to get some major momentum thanks to a not-yet-legal crop: Hemp. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, who has pushed hard to make hemp a legal product in the United States, is asking for his hemp legalization bill to be included in the sweeping farm bill. That would help give the farm bill, whose prospects have been considered iffy, more support in the Senate.

Forbes
Igniting A Powder Keg: Discussing Cannabis And Cryptocurrency With Dübercoin CEO Glenn Ballman
Forbes
Cannabis and cryptocurrencies are two of the hottest topics in the investing world, and a Seattle-based company called düber is looking to bridge the gap between them. The company is planning a new cryptocurrency called dübercoin (DBR) that will be ...

and more »

Globalnews.ca
Edmonton dogs fall ill after ingesting marijuana on walks
Globalnews.ca
“One of the first things they asked me was, 'Could he have gotten into marijuana?' and I said, 'No,' because I didn't think so.” The vet took some blood samples and then Ringo got sick again. It turns out Wilson was wrong. In the vomit, the vet found ...

Edmonton Journal
Paula Simons: Buzz kill: Will Sherwood Park be a legal cannabis desert?
Edmonton Journal
So perhaps it's not shocking that, so far at least, the Alberta Gaming, Liquor, and Cannabis Commission has received just one application to open a recreational marijuana store in Strathcona County. However, it does make Sherwood Park — with a ...

CBC.ca
Realtors warn legal cannabis home cultivation could undermine ...
CBC.ca
With the full legalization of cannabis expected in only matter of months, the country's real estate agents are warning provisions that allow for home cultivation of cannabis plants could undermine property values.
Real estate association calls for moratorium on homegrown recreational cannabisCTV News
The Canadian Real Estate Association doesn't want you to grow cannabis at homeStraight.com

all 63 news articles »

Vox
Medical marijuana may help combat the opioid crisis. But there are better solutions.
Vox
Perhaps the most compelling evidence to date, though, comes from a recent study by David Powell and Rosalie Pacula of the RAND Corporation and Mireille Jacobson of the University of California Irvine, who looked at how medical marijuana legalization ...
NFL player makes medical marijuana history: 'I have a life to live'CNN
Medical Marijuana in Spotlight in IllinoisChicago Tonight | WTTW

all 39 news articles »

CBC.ca
Sask. has lowest provincial rate of cannabis consumption per capita ...
CBC.ca
Saskatchewan people consume 16 grams of cannabis each per year on average, according to Statistics Canada. StatsCan released new region-specific information Monday about cannabis consumption and production across Canada. It included both the medical ...
Saskatchewan has lowest rate of marijuana use among provinces ...Regina Leader-Post

all 3 news articles »

CTV News
Construction industry worried about workers using cannabis on the job
CTV News
Construction companies, building owners, and unions are worried about what legalizing marijuana will mean for their industry. Representatives from several construction-related groups discussed the issue Monday at meetings taking place in Montreal ...

and more »

The Globe and Mail
Two top marijuana stock picks from an Echelon Wealth Partners analyst
The Globe and Mail
Marijuana stocks were market darlings, delivering spectacular returns for investors in recent years. However, many cannabis stocks saw their share prices peak at the start of this year. With the upcoming legalization of recreational marijuana just ...

The piece asks how many "second chances" are deserved.

Over the weekend, as the journalism world fiercely debated whether it’s OK to make fun of Sarah Huckabee Sanders, the New York Times—without stirring much controversy—asked if doctors should let people die if they’re addicted to drugs.

“Injecting Drugs Can Ruin a Heart. How Many Second Chances Should a User Get?” the headline of a large feature piece wonders. The article details the frustrations doctors face dealing with the fallout from the opioid crisis. That includes having patients doing drugs in the hospital, a phenomenon one doctor likens to “trying to do a liver transplant on someone who’s drinking a fifth of vodka on the stretcher.”

People who inject drugs are susceptible to blood infections, which can lead to endocarditis, a catastrophic condition that requires a surgeon to patch a heart back together with one or more artificial valves. The procedures are expensive, and doctors or hospitals are not happy to do them on repeat for people who continue to do drugs. So the piece seems to ask, in all earnestness, whether it makes sense to deny people with a deadly condition treatment if they seem likely to relapse.

The piece centers around 28- year-old Jerika Whitefield, a Tennessee mother who lands in the hospital half-dead from endocarditis after injecting meth. “Her whispered appeal to a skeptical nurse: “Please don’t let me die. I promise, I won’t ever do it again.”’ The article goes on to explain that doctors tell her this would be the last time they would operate on her if she keeps shooting up. Her step-father recalls that one doctor admitted he would not try very hard to save her life. “He said once someone’s been shooting up, you go through all this money and surgery and they go right back to shooting up again, so it’s not worth it,” Mr. Mignogna recalled. “I was just dumbfounded,” the article notes.

Whitefield gets a redemption narrative. She appears to have stopped doing illegal drugs, even as she continues to suffer from the serious health complications of endocarditis and the anxiety of being treated like a pariah by the medical establishment. Others, who are nameless in the piece, aren’t as lucky.

“A little over a year ago, [Dr. Pollard] replaced a heart valve in a 25-year-old man who had injected drugs, only to see him return a few months later. Now two valves, including the new one, were badly infected, and his urine tested positive for illicit drugs. Dr. Pollard declined to operate a second time, and the patient died at a hospice. It was one of the hardest things I’ve ever had to do,” he said.

It’s not entirely clear if the doctor opted out of operating on the 25-year-old man because he thought he was too sick to make it through the procedure, or if he chose to let him die because he assumed he’d keep doing drugs. It’s also not clear if Jerika Whitefield’s doctors really meant to follow through on their threat not to operate on her in the future or if the warning was a tactic to scare her straight. But the idea that medical professionals should refuse to treat a patient who fails to curb their addiction is highly questionable.

Dr. Jana Burson runs a MAT (medically assisted treatment) clinic in Wilkes County, North Carolina, where she administers buprenorphine and methadone to over 500 patients. She sees the struggles people go through to kick their addictions and she doesn’t think medical professionals should treat people battling addiction any differently than other patients.

“I think it’s a horrible idea,” Dr. Burson tells Raw Story. “Same as refusing to prescribe insulin for a diabetic who may not follow her diet. I don’t think we want to start down that road. Could we refuse to treat emphysema in patients who are still smoking? Where would it end?”

Widney Brown, Managing Director at the Drug Policy Alliance, points out how irrational it is to deny people treatment as some sort of tough love approach to addiction, when there policies that work to help people.

“The simplest point is that if we had comprehensive harm reduction practices for people who inject drugs—like sterile needle exchanges and safe consumption sites—they wouldn’t be getting heart infections. With harm reduction, you reduce the risk of complications.”

Also, why single out people who use drugs? “People engage in risky behavior all the time. Everytime you get in a car, you put on a seat belt and have an air bag (which is harm reduction) because driving is risky. Yet we stigmatize drug use as the kind of risk where we don’t want to allow people access to what can reduce harm. We’re more into stigmatizing this group of people rather than help them figure out how to not have bad health outcomes as a result of drug use.”

Brown, who previously worked for the medical ethics organization Physicians for Human Rights in conflict zones like Afghanistan and Syria, says physicians shouldn’t be arbiters of morality.  “They’re there to heal. At a minimum do no harm, at a maximum help people live in the best way. They’re not the ones who should be deciding that this person is not worthy of medical treatment because of what they do.” In war zones, doctors are ethically bound to treat people based on need, not based on whose side they’re on, Brown says. “If an enemy is shot up, they’re compelled to treat the person who needs it most, not based on whether they’re a good or bad person.”

America’s war on drugs continues to rely on judgmental, punitive approaches, rather than public health strategies—with poor outcomes.  “So you drive people underground, and you’ve got them using drugs in the most dangerous way—at the same time you’re not funding treatment. In that context of doing nothing to ensure people are making good choices about drugs—whether to do them in a safer way or to quit—and then we decide not to save this person’s life because they do drugs?”

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CBC.ca
Sahtu chiefs disappointed after being 'shot down' on cannabis ownership proposal
CBC.ca
Some Sahtu chiefs in the Northwest Territories are disappointed the territorial government won't let their First Nations sell cannabis when it becomes legalized. Colville Lake Chief Wilbert Kochon said he and other leaders in the region had a property ...

ijpr.org (US) Some Think Legal Cannabis Might Be Dragging Down Craft Beer Sales ! Jefferson Public Radio Some Think Legal Cannabis Might Be Dragging Down Cr... (Mon Apr 30 21:44:56 2018 PDT)

kldr.com (US) Following field sobriety tests and a drug recognition evaluation, she was charged with Driving Under the Influence of both Alcohol and Controlled Substances. Upon contact, she admitted to both alcohol and marijuana use, performed poorly in field sobriety testing and was charged with DUII. (Mon Apr 30 21:41:15 2018 PDT)

kldr.com (US) Charges of Possession of Methamphetamine and Tampering with Physical Evidence against the defendant were dismissed. (Mon Apr 30 21:41:15 2018 PDT)

CBC.ca
How much marijuana is too much? Legalization means new questions for police
CBC.ca
Pop quiz: what does 30 grams of marijuana look like? It's not an abstract question. Under the federal government's proposed cannabis legalization plan, 30 grams of dried marijuana is the maximum a person can legally possess in a public place. Carry any ...

kdrv.com (US) Oregon Regulators Suggest Higher Penalties for Marijuana Sales to Minors Oregon Marijuana: Lots of Data, Few... (Mon Apr 30 21:31:58 2018 PDT)

kxl.com Deschutes County and State Still Clashing Over Marijuana Changes Possible for Deschutes County's Marijuana Policy Herb London b Should Trump Be Awarded Th... (Mon Apr 30 22:00:23 2018 PDT)

kxl.com Changes Possible for Deschutes County's Marijuana Policy - KXL Changes Possible for Deschutes County's Marijuana Policy Marijuana Herb London b Sh... (Mon Apr 30 22:00:23 2018 PDT)