CNN Poll: Majority Say Alcohol, Tobacco More Risky Than Marijuana

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Most Americans believe marijuana is less dangerous than alcohol and tobacco, and should be legal too.

For long, marijuana advocates have argued that other legally available substances pose more harm to one’s health.

A new poll of over 1,000 adults shows most Americans would agree.

Conducted by CNN and ORC International, the results, released on Monday, show that 73% of Americans think alcohol is more dangerous than marijuana. Only 12% say the opposite.

The poll also found 64% believe “tobacco products” pose more danger than marijuana, while 23% say the opposite.

CNN Polling Director Keating Holland said it was a “logical conclusion” to think that marijuana, if safer, should be legal too. Each year, cigarettes claim 440,000 lives in the U.S. and 88,000 die from alcohol-related causes.

Still, America’s stance on marijuana legalization remains strongly divided, with 55% in favor and 44% against.

A similar Gallup poll conducted in October found 58% in favor of legalization.

The CNN/ORC poll was conducted Jan 3-5, 2014 and had a margin of error of plus or minus 3%.

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Scientists Develop New Line Of Cooking Oil From Hemp

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A major breakthrough now allows hempseed oil to compete with other vegetable oils for cooking.

Scientists at the University of York have developed a new line of hemp that produces oil with a much longer shelf-life and higher temperature stability.

The breakthrough, published this week in Plant Biotechnology Journal, is believed to be a major step towards making hemp a commercially attractive oil crop.

“The new line represents a major improvement in hemp as an oil crop. Similar developments in soybean and oilseed rape have opened up new markets for these crops, due to the perceived healthiness and increased stability of their oil,” said study co-author Professor Ian Graham in a university release.

While standard hemp oil has a nutritional profile that tops other vegetable oils, its high polyunsaturated fat content makes it an unstable oil that turns rancid quickly. It is also unsuitable for frying due to its low smoke point.

But by using selective breeding processes, Graham and his team were able to develop a line of hemp plants that lacked the enzyme responsible for such high levels of polyunsaturated fats. The oil produced by these plants contained high levels of oleic acid, a monounsaturated fat, instead.

Oil from the new line, called “High Oleic Hemp”, was almost 80 percent oleic acid, compared with typical values of less than 10 percent.

This increases the oil’s shelf life by 5 times and also improves its usefulness for cooking and high temperature industrial processes, according to the team.

Trials conducted by the researchers found similar flowering time, yield and growth habits between the new line and the standard Finola hemp line.

The new line will begin trials across Europe this year in order to evaluate its cultivation performance and prepare for a commercial launch.

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Poll: One Month Later, More Coloradans Support Legal Marijuana

Colorado governor John Hickenlooper (Photo: Mike Johnston/Flickr)

A new poll suggests support for legal marijuana in Colorado has risen following the first month of retail sales.

Released on Monday, the Quinnipiac University poll shows 58 percent of Colorado residents support marijuana legalization. That number is up from 54 percent when the same poll was conducted last summer.

Amendment 64, the law that legalized recreational marijuana in Colorado, passed in November 2012 with 55 percent support.

On the other hand, 51 percent in the latest poll felt that marijuana legalization has hurt the state’s image. Only 10 percent said they had used recreational marijuana since sales began on January 1.

Indeed, even as the nationwide conversation begins to change tone, Colorado governor John Hickenlooper has shown little support for his own state’s position.

“I hate Colorado having to be the experiment,” he told local newspaper Durango Herald last month.

Ironically, Gov. Hickenlooper made a fortune as a cofounder of Wynkoop Brewing Company before entering a career in politics.

Still, Gov. Hickenlooper has acknowledged marijuana legalization in Colorado as “one of the great social experiments of this century” and, for his part, intends on seeing it done “properly.”

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Experts Want More Research On Medical Marijuana For Elderly

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More research is needed on the potential benefits of marijuana for older patients, according to a team of medical experts from Holland.

Writing this month in the journal Ageing Research Reviews, investigators at Radboud University Medical Center argue that not enough studies involving marijuana-based treatments, including a class of chemicals called cannabinoids, are focusing on seniors.

“Although trials studying medical cannabinoids included older subjects, there is a lack of evidence of its use specifically in older patients.”

But the need is strong, according to the report. In the Netherlands, one third of patients with a medical marijuana prescription are over 60. Israel’s program distributes marijuana directly to some nursing homes. Statistics from Canada and the U.S. also suggest a rise in cannabis use among the baby boomer demographic.

More importantly, marijuana-based treatments have proven to be effective at managing a variety of symptoms common in aging patients, the authors note, including neuropathic pain and nausea and loss of appetite in patients undergoing chemotherapy.

Marijuana shows promise in treating symptoms of dementia as well.

“It is highly worthwhile to conduct well designed studies on the efficacy of cannabinoids in symptom management in dementia, given the initial positive results on weight loss and agitation in this patient population, and the great lack of other effective and safe strategies in this field.”

However, elderly patients may be more vulnerable to side effects of marijuana treatment, which only large-scale studies can help reveal.

After reviewing the current body of evidence, the researchers found just five studies on marijuana-based therapies that provide results specifically on elderly patients. But the sample sizes were small, and none of the studies involved the use of medical cannabis in its herbal form.

In order for physicians to prescribe these treatments confidently, they explain, more evidence is required.

The team concludes: “Adequately powered trials are needed to assess the efficacy and safety of cannabinoids in older subjects, as the potential symptomatic benefit is especially attractive in this age group.”

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NIH Survey: More Teens Using Marijuana, Less See It As Harmful

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The latest national survey of drug use among U.S. teens shows that marijuana use has become more common, while its perception as a dangerous drug has not.

Published early this month, the 2013 Monitoring the Future Survey, conducted every year by the National Institutes of Health (NIH), found only 39.5% of high school seniors thought marijuana was harmful. Last year, 44.1% reported thinking of the substance as harmful, which was also in decline from previous years.

In a press statement, Lloyd Johnston, the principal investigator of this year’s survey, noted how drug perceptions can predict drug use, and suggested that both trends for marijuana may continue in the future.

“But more noteworthy is the fact that the proportion of adolescents seeing marijuana use as risky declined again sharply in all three grades. Perceived risk—namely the risk to the user that teenagers associate with a drug—has been a lead indicator of use, both for marijuana and other drugs, and it has continued its sharp decline in 2013 among teens. This could foretell further increases in use in the future.”

The survey also found 6.5% of high school seniors admitted using marijuana daily, reports TIME, up from 6% in 2003. Daily and annual use rates among other grades showed similarly slight or non-significant increases.

While government agencies like the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) have long voiced concerns about the negative impact of marijuana use among teens, rates of use have remained mostly stable over the past decade.

Interestingly, while marijuana has continued to be popular among high school students, both alcohol and cigarette use have declined.

Roughly 40% of high school seniors reported using alcohol in the past month, down from 53% in 1997, notes The New York Times. Daily cigarette use was reported by 8.5% of seniors and, for the first time in surveyed history, the percentage of seniors who reported smoking a cigarette in the past month also fell below 10%.

This year’s survey included responses from 41,675 students at 389 public and private schools across the U.S.

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B.C. Professor Claims Marijuana Facts Skewed By Police, Media For Years

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University of Victoria professor Susan Boyd, PhD, believes Canadians have received inaccurate information on marijuana policy for many years. Her findings will be revealed in an upcoming book.

In an interview with The Canadian Press, Dr. Boyd, a professor at UVic’s Faculty of Human and Social Development, linked Canada’s harsh marijuana laws to skewed messages presented by the media and police about those who supply the underground market.

“We can see from our drug-use statistics that Canadians use marijuana and a small percentage of people use it regularly. So one way to continue with the drug enforcement law-and-order mandate is to talk about the dangerousness of the growers, and that seems to have created some headway.”

In her forthcoming book, called ‘Killer Weed: Marijuana Grow Ops, Media and Justice,’ the professor reviews 2,500 articles published by four major newspapers in British Columbia between 1995 and 2009.

The book highlights the inaccuracies and exaggerations made by the media about the underground industry, grow-ops and connections to gangs.

Dr. Boyd claims that politicians and police were complicit in the misrepresentation of facts. In some cases, studies were withheld by the government, including a 2011 Justice Department study that found only 5% of grow-ops had links to organized crime.

“This study wasn’t released by our federal government, and you could see why.”

Canada, which has long been thought of as a liberal-minded country, revised its marijuana laws in 2012 to increase penalties for growers and traffickers, a move that Dr. Boyd sees as contrary to the rest of the world.

“This new law and our revived war on drugs in Canada is so contrary to what’s going on around the world. It seemed like Canada was veering towards a very punitive model while the rest of the world was taking a closer look at mandatory minimums and abandoning them.”

Under a controversial bill (Bill C-10) that came into effect November 2012, the federal government introduced mandatory minimums for those caught growing as few as six plants.

During Senate hearings, opponents argued that the sentences were unduly harsh on drug offenders. Bill C-10, they pointed out, assigns longer mandatory sentences to someone caught growing 201 marijuana plants than someone who sexually assaults a toddler.

Now, with the government retracting the right to cultivate medical marijuana at home, come April, Canadians with medical marijuana prescriptions could face mandatory jail time for continuing to produce their own plants.

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Canada’s Ban On Marijuana Dispensaries Will Hurt Patients Most

Plants waiting to be sold at Toronto dispensary CALM (Photo: Tyler Anderson/National Post)

Under new rules that take effect in April, medical marijuana dispensaries are being brushed aside in favor of a commercial mail-order system.

Rebecca Penn, a graduate student at the University of Toronto’s Dalla Lana School of Public Health, is one of many who believe the government has overlooked the role of dispensaries.

“When someone goes into a community-based cannabis dispensary,” she explains, “they have the potential of linking up to all kinds of additional resources that will help support their health and wellness.”

“Those things are being lost when you’re turning it into a mail-order, internet-based business. You don’t have that kind of personal connection.”

Dispensaries, also known as compassion clubs, have always operated in a grey area of the law, since Health Canada has never officially approved them. Yet today, they provide medical marijuana for roughly 50,000 patients across the country.

However, it’s not just marijuana that they offer, but access to resources and support networks as well.

“Dispensaries are a safe and empowering environment,” says Amy Brown, who conducts member orientations at Toronto-based dispensary CALM.

“It’s very crucial to the medicine itself.”

While Health Canada seems to have missed these qualities, in a paper published last month in theInternational Journal of Drug Policy, Penn highlights the role that medical marijuana dispensaries have long served in Canada.

Penn’s paper argues that dispensaries help form a community of support around a medicine that many still consider taboo. In fact, she believes this fits what social theorists call an ‘embodied health movement,’ which describes patients empowering one another through a treatment that challenges traditional science.

Indeed, the first dispensaries in Canada came years before medical marijuana was legalized. And over time, they’ve played a major part in shaping both policy and research that surrounds the treatment.

Penn notes that organizations like the Canadian Association of Medical Cannabis Dispensaries have also made efforts to integrate with government regulations. Yet for reasons unclear, Health Canada decided to reject the dispensary model in drafting the new MMPR program.

It’s unfortunate, Penn says, since she believes the best form of treatment often involves more than just the medicine itself.

“We know through research done around counselling and therapy that what matters most isn’t necessarily the model of therapy as much as the connection with the provider. That’s so important, and that’s going to be completely lost in the approach they’re taking now.”

Brown, who has spent the last 4 years working at CALM, agrees that dispensaries in Canada now face an uncertain future.

“It’s very up in the air. According to the MMPR, dispensaries or storefronts are not allowed.”

She suspects most dispensaries haven’t made a final decision on what to do come April. However, her experiences lend weight to concerns about the ban – for patients.

“There’s a lot of people who are new to cannabis, who’ve never used it in their life,” says Brown of the patients who visit CALM. “Cannabis has such a stigma attached to it that a lot of people, who are new coming into using it, are a bit scared in the first place.”

“Having a conversation over the phone and placing an order for a medicine that you’ve never tried is a little disheartening. It’s not empowering at all.”

Source Leaf Science

U.S. On The Verge Of Relaxing Hemp Ban

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A provision that allows hemp research to be conducted in states where the crop is legal has a good chance of being passed as part of the new farm bill.

Congress released the final version of the five-year farm bill on Monday, which is set for a final House and Senate vote on Wednesday.

If passed, federal law would allow research institutes in 11 different states to import hemp seed and study its cultivation, explains Tom Murphy of Washington-based advocacy group Vote Hemp.

Climate differences between countries make this type of research essential, he adds.

“Agriculture colleges and other educational research institutions in states that have passed hemp farming laws would then be able to import seed from other places in the world, do research, and develop varieties that are well-suited to that state and to the United States in general.”

But what the farm bill won’t do is give farmers federal approval to grow the crop.

“We would still need to pass the Industrial Hemp Farming Act or have hemp removed from the definition of marijuana in the Controlled Substances Act.”

Murphy explains that industrial hemp is still defined as marijuana under federal law, even though it lacks the chemical that gets you high.

A bill introduced last year in both the House and the Senate, titled the Industrial Hemp Farming Act, aims to solve this problem by defining hemp as varieties of cannabis that contain less than 0.3 percent THC.

But while the bills sit in Congress, a number of states have already taken measures into their own hands.

In 1997, North Dakota became the first state to legalize hemp farming. Since then, the state has been joined by 10 others, Colorado, Hawaii, Kentucky, Maine, Maryland, Montana, Oregon, Vermont, Washington and West Virginia.

Yet only one farmer in the country, Ryan Loflin of Colorado, has been brave enough to plant a hemp crop, which he did last year.

According to Murphy, most farmers interested in growing hemp are still wary of the federal ban. Some have even been warned by the DEA of the consequences.

“If marijuana is defined as all varieties, then you would still have the mandatory minimums and you would still have the asset forfeiture proceedings that could be brought against a farmer for growing a crop that is illegal on the federal level.”

“So there’s still a whole lot of other things that need to be done,” he says.

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How Drugs Like Marijuana Can Save Psychiatry

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Research on drugs like marijuana, LSD and psilocybin may be the path to better psychiatric treatments, according to the editors of Scientific American magazine.

Breakthroughs in mental health treatment are at a “virtual standstill,” the editors of America’s most influential science magazine argue in a recent essay.

“As just one example, the antidepressants on the market today are no more effective at reversing the mood disorder than those that first became available in the 1950s.”

But, they note, drugs that have long been banned for their potent psychoactive effects actually show promise in treating a variety of these disorders.

For example, MDMA has been suggested as a treatment for PTSD. LSD and psychedelic mushrooms (psilocybin) have been reported to help with cluster headaches and OCD. And marijuana has shown promise in all of these conditions, plus many more.

Unfortunately, much of this evidence is decades old.

“Through the mid-1960s, more than 1,000 scientific publications chronicled the ways that LSD could be used as an aid to make psychotherapy more effective. Similarly, MDMA began to be used as a complement to talk therapy in the 1970s. Marijuana has logged thousands of years as a medicament for diseases and conditions ranging from malaria to rheumatism.”

The problem today is, the legal status of these drugs prevents researchers from proving their potential in modern medicine. The essay refers to U.S. law as an example, which classifies marijuana, MDMA, LSD, and psilocybin as having no medical use.

“The resulting restrictions create a de facto ban on their use in both laboratories and clinical trials, setting up a catch-22: these drugs are banned because they have no accepted medical use, but researchers cannot explore their therapeutic potential because they are banned.”

Overall, the editors at Scientific American seem to agree with what David J. Nutt, a psychopharmacologist at Imperial College London, concludes in a recent paper on ending the ban on psychedelic drugs.

“Only then,” he writes, “will it be possible to judge whether LSD, ecstasy, marijuana and other highly regulated compounds – subjected to the gauntlet of clinical testing for safety and efficacy – can actually yield effective new treatments for devastating psychiatric illnesses.”

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9 Surprising Health Benefits of Hemp Seeds

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Hemp seeds, or hempseed, have drawn more attention in recent years from researchers and health advocates alike.

Hempseed is considered a ‘superfood’ for many reasons. And while its link to the cannabis plant remains a barrier, scientists are continuing to discover new benefits of the seed and its derivatives.

Last month, the American Chemical Society published a paper that revealed “just how many healthful compounds hempseed oil contains.”

But while research may still be evolving, it turns out that hempseed has had a long history as a health food. Here are 9 of the most notable and surprising health benefits that hemp seeds may offer.

1. Used as food and medicine for at least 3000 years

The Ancient Chinese relied on hempseed and hempseed oil as both a food and medicine. However, evidence suggests the seed was used in prehistory as well.

Though hempseed is only starting to gain popularity in the West, it remains an important grain in traditional Asiatic food and medicines.

2. Rich in fiber, vitamins and minerals

Hempseed has high levels of fiber and vitamins A, C, and E. It is also rich in minerals, including phosphorus, potassium, magnesium, sulfur, calcium, and has modest levels of iron and zinc.

3. Rich in antioxidants

Hempseed contains high levels of vitamin E, which is one of the most important antioxidants. It also contains tocopherol, which is known to have benefits in Alzheimer’s and atherosclerosis, and phytol, which has both anticancer and antioxidant properties.

4. Fights bad cholesterol

Studies suggest hempseed and hempseed oil can help break down cholesterol as well as prevent problems caused by high cholesterol, including blood clotting.

5. Improves skin conditions

Dietary hempseed oil has also been shown to improve clinical symptoms of atopic dermatitis. A study published in 2005 concluded that its cholesterol and skin benefits were both due to “the balanced and abundant supply of PUFAs in this hempseed oil.”

6. Contains perfect balance of fatty acids

Hempseed oil contains a 3:1 ratio of the two essential fats (PUFAs), omega-6 and omega-3. This is the ideal ratio recommended by WHO and Health Canada for cardiovascular health. No other nut or vegetable oil contains this ratio.

7. Prevents heart disease

Hempseed’s fat profile is believed to help prevent a variety of heart conditions.

A study published in 2007 concluded hempseed can prevent blood clotting, which “may be of benefit in the protection against clot-induced strokes and myocardial infarctions.” Another study concluded that hempseed may offer significant protection against stroke.

Finally, the American Chemical Society analysis concluded that the high levels of α-linolenic acid (an omega-3 fat) in hempseed “may have favorable nutritional implications and beneficial physiological effects on the prevention of coronary heart disease and cancer.”

8. Beneficial in degenerative diseases

The same analysis concluded that the level of γ-linolenic acid (an omega-6 fat) in hempseed “provides it with a high pharmaceutical value for degenerative chronic diseases.” According to the authors, these may include atherosclerosis, cardiovascular disease, Alzheimer’s disease, or certain types of cancer.

9. Reduces inflammation

Hempseed contains a variety of plant sterols and alcohols that are known to reduce inflammation, which is a known factor in a wide range of diseases.

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Canadians Won’t Be Able To Afford Medical Marijuana Anymore

Joanne Crowther uses 15 grams a day to treat her cancer (Photo: CBC)

A new system of commercial production will make medical marijuana too expensive for many of the Canadians who are allowed to use it.

By April, commercial producers will be the only legal source of medical marijuana in Canada. These large-scale operations are expected to churn out marijuana at an average price of $7.50 per gram.

But for the majority of patients authorized to use medical marijuana, paying that amount is out of the question.

Joanne Crowther is one of over 20,000 Canadians who have a license to grow marijuana at home.

She currently uses 15 grams a day to make a concentrated oil that she takes for her lymphoma. But come April 1, Crowther’s personal production license will expire and she will be expected to pay over $3,000 a month to get her medicine by mail.

“I’m fighting for my life. I want to live and the government wants to kill me,” she tells CBC News.

Many are in a similar situation, according to John Conroy, a B.C. lawyer who is helping patients take Health Canada to court over the changes.

Conroy says 60-70% of patients are on fixed disability pensions, which makes growing at home the only affordable option. But the new rules would turn them into criminals, he says, and thus violate their constitutional right to liberty and security of health.

The case will begin this summer. But Conroy is seeking an injunction before the new rules come into effect, which will hopefully grant current license holders an extension on their right to grow.

A hearing is set for March 18, and a decision is expected before April. If an injunction isn’t granted, patients will be left with little choice but to break the law.

No Cost Coverage

Some commercial producers say they will give price reductions to low-income patients, but none have offered to cover the cost completely.

And because marijuana is not an officially authorized drug, most private and public insurers are unwilling to reimburse for it.

A spokesperson for the B.C. Ministry of Health says PharmaCare, the province’s drug subsidy program, is not considering coverage at this time.

“PharmaCare restricts its drug coverage to medications which Health Canada have assigned Drug Identification Numbers (DINs) and are available by prescription only. Medicinal marijuana does not have a DIN,” she wrote in an email.

The dilemma seems to stem from Health Canada, she later explained over the phone.

DINs are assigned by the federal government, which still maintains that marijuana lacks the proof of safety and efficacy required to be authorized as a drug.

So like many others, Crowther, whose cancer went into remission after switching from chemotherapy to marijuana, says she will continue to grow her own medicine past April 1.

“If they want to charge me,” she says, “they basically are going to write my death sentence, because if they throw me in jail I will not be able to get the oil, my cancer will come back, and I will die.”

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Medical Marijuana May Prevent Suicides, Study Finds

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A new study shows a decline in suicide rates in states that have legalized medical marijuana.

Published last week in the American Journal of Public Health, a group of economics researchers found that medical marijuana laws led to a sharp drop in suicide rates among young men.

The results seem to support the belief that marijuana can be used to cope with stressful life events, says study co-author Daniel Rees, PhD, professor of economics at the University of Colorado Denver.

“In keeping with what advocates of medical marijuana would argue, that is, if you’re depressed, if you have to cope with a stressful situation, marijuana actually helps.”

Rees notes that some research suggests marijuana works as an anti-depressant, but the evidence isn’t conclusive. On the other hand, medical marijuana laws have also been linked to less alcohol consumption – particularly among young men.

Less alcohol consumption following medical marijuana legalization could also explain the drop in suicide rates, he says.

But the study was the first time researchers have looked at medical marijuana laws and suicide rates. Rees believes more research needs to be done to be sure.

“The relationship really does seem to exist. But we don’t have a lot to say about mechanism.”

Rees, along with co-authors D. Mark Anderson of Montana State University and Joseph Sabia of San Diego State University, compared changes in annual suicide rates between 1990-2007 of states that legalized medical marijuana and states that did not.

Suicide rates seemed to decline overall among the 12 states that passed laws during this period. But the only statistically significant decrease was in men 20-39 years old.

The team’s previous research has also shown a strong correlation between medical marijuana laws and reduced traffic fatalities.

Source Leaf Science