Insider 8 April 2020
Family First Comment: Yet another health hazard of smoking dope
“Lung health experts warn that smoking marijuana regularly could increase a person’s risk of contracting COVID-19, and also having more severe symptoms and complications from the disease, given evidence on tobacco and COVID-19, and what we already know about how heavy marijuana-smoking can impact the lungs.”
#saynopetodope

In the days and weeks leading up to stay-in-place orders and lockdowns, legal cannabis sales spiked.

Some studies and anecdotal reports suggest marijuana can help people cope with anxiety, which is being felt deeply across the world as the coronavirus pandemic continues.

But lung health experts warn that smoking marijuana regularly could increase a person’s risk of contracting COVID-19, and also having more severe symptoms and complications from the disease, given evidence on tobacco and COVID-19, and what we already know about how heavy marijuana-smoking can impact the lungs.

Most hospitalized coronavirus patients have underlying lung disease
Although there’s no data on marijuana use and COVID-19 patients, marijuana smokers — particularly ones who combine cannabis with tobacco — should be wary of their habits because of existing data on coronavirus patients in Italy and China, according to Dr. Barry J. Make, a pulmonologist at National Jewish Health.

“From China and Italy, we see people who developed COVID-19 and had underlying lung disease, [they] have more complications and die more often,” Make said. “So this is the perfect time to stop smoking.”

Preliminary CDC data found that chronic lung diseases including asthma, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease or COPD, and emphysema, were common underlying conditions in hospitalized patients in the US.

The CDC was able to analyze 7,162 laboratory-confirmed COVID-19 cases and found that 656 of them, or 9.2%, reported having a chronic lung condition.
READ MORE: https://www.insider.com/regular-cannabis-smoking-may-increase-covid-19-risk-lung-experts-2020-4

The Guardian 5 April 2020
Family First Comment: An accurate assessment – and a warning for NZ:
* Growers have gone bust, and the black market is still thriving.
* Statistics Canada, a state agency, reports that just 29% of cannabis users buy all of their product from a legal source.
* price was almost double that of illegal market. C$5.59 to C$10.23 per gram. That was caused by tax burdens & overheads: legal market has to comply with regulations on fungicide & pesticide residue levels, & draconian security requirements for grow sites
* “Why would anyone drive a few miles up the road to score bad weed from many of the government shops when your regular black-market dealer lives nearby, has better product and brings it to your door for half the price?”

Canada had permitted cannabis for medical use since 2001. Medical patients were allowed to grow four plants, and licensed producers cultivated larger crops for sale online to those with valid prescriptions. But most Canadian cities had illegal – but tolerated – dispensaries where the drug was sold completely indiscriminately. These stores made Amsterdam’s coffee shops look as prim as a WI cake stand. The quality and variety of cannabis on sale at these illegal outlets was outstanding, bewildering. Business was not just booming, but blazing.And it was all completely illegal.

Canada’s Cannabis Act of 2018 was a bold attempt to impose some order on this anarchic retail scene. It legalised the sale to adults of 30g of cannabis in austere packaging from government-licensed shops. Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau said: “The old approach to cannabis didn’t work. It was too easy for our kids to get it and gangs and drug dealers were reaping the profits. That changes from now on.”

Bill Blair, a former Toronto police chief, became an unlikely cheerleader for legalisation, arguing that to do so would “keep cannabis out of the hands of youth, and profits out of the hands of criminals”. Two other key goals of regulation were the protection of public health and the reduction in criminality associated with the illegal market. After 50 years of the unending, senseless drug war, peace had broken out.

Or so it seemed. Because while Canada may have lit the fuse on an ambitious experiment, every high has a low. Within a year the industry was experiencing mass layoffs, multi-billion-dollar stock-market losses, executive firings and corporate scandals as the overhyped new sector experienced a dramatic and humbling public correction.

What went wrong? Alastair Moore, co-founder of Hanway Associates, a London-based cannabis consultancy, says the Canadian industry has been driven by vulture capitalism and wishful thinking. “A mix of greed and naivety led this industry to great heights – and has left it on its knees. While some made lots of money, others lost their investments and now many others have lost their jobs.”

According to Moore’s fellow founder, George McBride: “The key thing is that Canada did actually get the reforms through. In and of itself, that is a huge feat. It’s the first time any major developed country has done so. And so, kudos. However, getting it through has involved a lot of politicians who didn’t understand what they’re talking about designing a really complicated system.”

So just how does a state create and regulate an entirely new business of intoxication that has always existed, essentially, in a countercultural, outlaw space? Canada, it turns out, did so cautiously, with every decision deliberated over by a centralised government Task Force.

Added to the complexity of the policy and its implementation, the needle of international capital’s wonky moral compass swung straight at these lucrative new markets. Hundreds of millions of dollars were raised on global capital markets and the Canadian landscape was quickly dotted with massive new grow sites.

The so-called “green rush” had started and production went into overdrive. Stock prices soared and fortunes were staked, made, doubled and tripled in an atmosphere reminiscent of the 90s dotcom boom, or the Yukon gold rush of the 19th century, when 100,000 prospectors headed into the Canadian hinterlands in search of riches. Many firms hoped to corner the Canadian market by throwing millions of dollars of shareholders’ money into massive grow sites. This time, the gold was green. But soon, things started to fall apart.

The main problem Canada’s smokers and growers faced was access: too few retail shops were able to open to serve the eager new market. Canada is a country of 38 million people, divided into 10 provinces that are similar to US states, with provincial governments producing a patchwork of varying regulations. Over a third – 13.5 million – of all Canadians live in the state of Ontario. But as of 2 March this year, Ontario had just 41 retail cannabis stores. The province of Alberta, home to 4.4 million, has 423 stores.

And where there was product available, the price was almost double that of the illegal market. C$5.59 to C$10.23 per gram (or over £40 a quarter ounce). That was caused by tax burdens and overheads: the legal market has to comply with regulations on fungicide and pesticide residue levels, and draconian security requirements for grow sites, such as huge vaults in which to store the cannabis and record-keeping for every person who enters these vaults.

The illegal market, meanwhile, is completely unregulated – and thriving because of this. Statistics Canada, a state agency, reports that just 29% of cannabis users buy all of their product from a legal source. Four in 10 Canadians told the organisation that they bought at least some cannabis from illegal sources in 2019.

The next problem was that many stores sold poor-quality grass, with smokers complaining that it had been poorly dried and cured, and tasted bad. Modern cannabis users are accustomed to a range of flavours, from lemon to mango, pineapple, strawberry and pine. These flavours are derived from the plant’s natural aroma profile, which skilled growers preserve by careful breeding, correct harvesting and slow, cautious curing of the fragrant flowers.

Many players in the new mass market often skipped these steps in the pursuit of profit, says David Brown, a British Columbia-based cannabis industry analyst. “Many consumers have had complaints about high prices and what is perceived as lower quality, especially the tendency of many of the legal dried flower products to be overly dried, often from a rushed or improper curing and drying process.”

Why would anyone drive a few miles up the road to score bad weed from many of the government shops when your regular black-market dealer lives nearby, has better product and brings it to your door for half the price?

It’s worth reflecting, also, on the psychology of some of these users. “For a long time, cannabis has been the mark of the rebel, the outsider, the outlaw,” says Brown. “A lot of the people who complain about ‘bad weed’ and so-called ‘fake legalisation’ are doing so because parts of their countercultural identity have been altered forever by this law change. Canada has made cannabis boring – and that was kind of the point.”

With few shops to sell to and customers clinging to their traditional dealers, the new cannabis corporations found themselves holding a glut of product. There is a stockpile of grass weighing in at 400 tonnes, at last count, according to official government inventory figures.

The rollout of retail shops was left, in many cases, to inexperienced officials in provincial government departments, says McBride. “Ontario authorities said, ‘We don’t trust private organisations to run cannabis shops. We’re going to do it all ourselves.’ Then they tried to do it, but they squandered about $80 million trying to figure out how to do it, and got absolutely nowhere. They had to cancel it and invite private tenders. All these big, shiny grow facilities that cost C$10m, C$20m or C$30m to build, and which all grew loads of cannabis – there was nowhere to sell it, because there weren’t any shops,” he says.

In a stinging irony, medical patients – the very people whose decades of activism had driven the wider reforms, faced cannabis shortages and a steep increase in price after legalisation as suppliers diverted their medical product in bulk to the new recreational market rather than in hundreds of smaller deals to medical patients.
READ MORE: https://www.theguardian.com/society/2020/apr/05/stoners-cheered-when-canada-legalised-cannabis-how-did-it-all-go-wrong

EurekaAlert 2 April 2020
Family First Comment: Female eggs exposed to THC, the psychoactive ingredient in marijuana, have an impaired ability to produce viable embryos, and are significantly less likely to result in a viable pregnancy

Female eggs exposed to THC, the psychoactive ingredient in marijuana, have an impaired ability to produce viable embryos, and are significantly less likely to result in a viable pregnancy, according to an animal study accepted for presentation at ENDO 2020, the Endocrine Society’s annual meeting. The abstract will be published in the Journal of the Endocrine Society.

Marijuana, or cannabis, is the most commonly used recreational drug by people of reproductive age. The rise in marijuana use has occurred at the same time that THC percentages in the drug have increased. “Currently, patients seeking infertility treatments are advised against cannabis use, but the scientific evidence backing this statement is weak,” said Master student Megan Misner, part of the research laboratory led by Laura Favetta, Ph.D., in the Department of Biomedical Sciences at the University of Guelph in Canada. “This makes it difficult for physicians to properly advise patients undergoing in vitro fertilization.”

In the new study, researchers treated cow oocytes, or female eggs, with concentrations of THC equivalent to therapeutic and recreational doses. The oocytes were collected and matured into five groups: untreated, control, low THC, mid THC and high THC.

The eggs’ developmental rates and gene expression were measured. The researchers evaluated the ability of embryos to reach critical stages of development at specific time points. With higher concentrations of THC, they found a significant decrease and delay in the ability of the treated oocytes to reach these checkpoints. “This is a key indicator in determining the quality and developmental potential of the egg,” Misner said.

THC exposure led to a significant decrease in the expression of genes called connexins, which are present at increased levels in higher quality oocytes. Poorer quality oocytes, with lower connexin expression levels, have been shown to lead to a poorer embryo development. “This embryo would be less likely to proceed past the first week of development, and thus lead to infertility,” Misner said.
READ MORE: https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2020-04/tes-ssm040220.php

Technology Networks 31 March 2020
Family First Comment: Good news – especially if NZ makes foolish decision to legalise dope.

“Scientists now report that they are one step closer to a convenient saliva test for measuring cannabis levels at roadside stops. “People have the perception that driving after smoking marijuana is safer than driving drunk, but both substances can have similar effects, such as slowed reaction time, diminished alertness and reduced self-awareness. This is an emerging field, but preliminary clinical reports suggest that anywhere above 1 to 15 nanograms of THC per milliliter of blood is considered a level of impairment.””

In the U.S., those who consume alcohol and drive are often subjected to roadside stops, breathalyzer tests and stiff penalties if their blood alcohol content exceeds certain limits. Currently, no such test exists for cannabis intoxication, although the substance is known to impair driving, among other activities. Scientists now report that they are one step closer to a convenient saliva test for measuring cannabis levels at roadside stops.

The researchers are presenting their results through the American Chemical Society (ACS) SciMeetings online platform.

A brand-new video on the research is available at www.acs.org/philly-2020-thc.

“People have the perception that driving after smoking marijuana is safer than driving drunk, but both substances can have similar effects, such as slowed reaction time, diminished alertness and reduced self-awareness,” says Shalini Prasad, Ph.D., who led the study. However, unlike alcohol, the blood level of the psychoactive compound in marijuana, tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), that constitutes impairment has not been well characterized. “This is an emerging field, but preliminary clinical reports suggest that anywhere above 1 to 15 nanograms of THC per milliliter of blood is considered a level of impairment,” Prasad says.

As more U.S. states decriminalize marijuana, law enforcement agencies are grappling with how to keep the roads safe from drivers who are high. Blood tests for THC, while accurate, are time-consuming and invasive, and many police officers lack the skills to perform such tests at roadside stops. Some researchers are working on devices that measure THC levels in breath (similar to a breathalyzer for alcohol), but according to Prasad, levels of the substance are low in breath, requiring extensive, error-prone data processing to filter out effects of other compounds. Because THC in saliva correlates closely with that in blood, Prasad and colleagues wanted to develop a simple, quick and accurate saliva test for the compound.

To do so, the researchers, who are at the University of Texas at Dallas, engineered THC sensor strips and an electronic reader. The sensor strips, which contained two electrodes, were coated with an antibody that binds THC so that the substance could be isolated from the many other compounds in saliva. “We used the antibody so that we could really only look at the needle in the haystack,” Prasad says. To perform the test, the researchers added a tiny drop of human saliva spiked with THC to the strip and inserted it into the electronic reader, which applied a specific voltage. When THC attached to the antibody, the electrical current changed because of polarization that occurred between the interacting antibody and THC surfaces. The e-reader converted these data into THC concentration.
READ MORE: https://www.technologynetworks.com/applied-sciences/news/step-closer-to-roadside-cannabis-testing-332741

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NewsHub 31 March 2020
Family First Comment: The health risks were already there before the coronavirus! Users are now just more at risk. Time to go DrugFree – for health’s sake.

Stoners are being told to ease up on the weed over the duration of the COVID-19 pandemic, with scientists saying the health risks are significant.

Dr Marta Rychert, a senior research officer at Massey University’s SHORE and Whariki Research Centre says around five percent of New Zealand’s population uses cannabis as medication.

“People who self-medicate with cannabis are the most vulnerable in the terms of COVID-19,” she said in a statement on Tuesday.

“They are older than recreational users and often suffer from multiple health problems.”

A recent survey by SHORE showed the most popular way to use marijuana was to smoke it.

“Smoking presents unique risks in the context of COVID-19 due to the impacts on lung function.”

People who self medicate using oils or tinctures will not suffer the same ill effects.
READ MORE: https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/new-zealand/2020/03/cannabis-users-encouraged-to-take-a-break-over-lockdown-period-due-to-covid-19-health-risks.html

TVNZ One News 31 March 2020
Family First Comment: And if we legalise cannabis and put out the welcome mat to the marijuana vaping market, we’ll be in big trouble!
Teenagers are being attracted to products such as vaping and dabbing high THC products.
#addiction #healthharms #saynopetodope

A new study shows about a third of Kiwi high school students have tried vaping, but two thirds of those had never smoked tobacco.

National Families in Action 25 March 2020
Family First Comment: Last week’s issue of The Lancet Psychiatry published a meta-analysis of 15 studies that demonstrate a single dose of THC induces positive (including delusions and hallucinations), negative (such as blunted affect and amotivation), and general (including depression and anxiety) psychiatric symptoms. “These findings highlight the acute risks of cannabis use, which are highly relevant as medical, societal, and political interest in cannabinoids continues to grow,” say the researchers.

Last week’s issue of The Lancet Psychiatry published a meta-analysis of 15 studies that demonstrate a single dose of THC induces positive (including delusions and hallucinations), negative (such as blunted affect and amotivation), and general (including depression and anxiety) psychiatric symptoms.

CBD does not induce such symptoms, nor does it moderate the effects of THC as is commonly believed.

“These findings highlight the acute risks of cannabis use, which are highly relevant as medical, societal, and political interest in cannabinoids continues to grow,” say the researchers. The findings “highlight the potential risks associated with the use of cannabis and other cannabinoids that contain THC for recreational or therapeutic purposes.”

This week’s issue contains a commentary which concludes, “There is sufficient evidence to warn people that using THC could increase their risk of developing psychiatric symptoms or even a psychotic illness.”

Read “Psychiatric symptoms caused by cannabis constituents: A systematic review and meta-analysis,” (full text) in The Lancet Psychiatry here.
Read “THC – Harmful even at low doses?” in this week’s issue here.

BMJ 18 March 2020
Family First Comment: The British Medical Journal has uncovered links between companies, campaign groups, and individuals lobbying for wider patient access to cannabis for medical use and a parallel campaign to create a lucrative recreational market for the drug in the UK.

We always said to ‘follow the money’.

We need a similar investigation in New Zealand.

When Charlotte Caldwell arrived at Heathrow on 11 June 2018 with a six month supply of cannabis medication to treat her son Billy’s epilepsy, it was no coincidence that journalists and TV crews were on hand for the press conference that followed the inevitable seizure of the drug by customs officers.
READ MORE: https://www.bmj.com/content/368/bmj.m1002

Why is the tobacco industry supporting wider access to medical cannabis?
News Medical 18 March 2020
A new study published in the BMJ reveals disturbing connections between organizations and groups that are lobbying for broader access to medical cannabis and those who are fighting for the legalization of recreational cannabis. This raises questions as to the reasons behind the industry’s support for measures that will make it easier for patients to gain access to medical cannabis – is it because of the knowledge that by so doing, they will also be able to market the drug for recreational use in the UK?

The projected market for medical cannabis in the UK is estimated to be $1.3 billion, while that of recreational cannabis is thought to be still more significant, at about $1.7 billion.

Linkages between recreational and medical cannabis promoters
The study report has two parts and is authored by investigative journalist Jonathan Gornall for the BMJ. The first part deals with the nexus between the commercial groups that are campaigning to allow new markets to be opened for recreational cannabis and those individuals or patient groups that are working for a broader range of access to cannabis for medical use.

One such example he cites is that of Steve Moore, who was formerly the CEO of the Big Society Initiative headed by David Cameron. Moore helped Charlotte Caldwell, the mother of a severely epileptic boy called Billy Caldwell, to fly to Canada to obtain medical cannabis for her son from a company called Tilray. However, when she flew back, the drug was seized at customs – a predictable outcome that was duly captured in the press and used to promote the legalization argument. Moore has helped to promote Caldwell’s case. However, his interest in cannabis is not just to ensure it can be used medically in a broader setting.

Moore is also a strategic counsel for the Center for Medicinal Cannabis, which is a trade organization representing businesses and investors that deal with medicinal cannabis products. It has members such as the Supreme Cannabis Company, a Canada-based organization. Again, he is strategic counsel for Volteface, which is an advocacy group that was founded in 2017, to campaign for the legalization of recreational cannabis. Volteface and the Center for Medicinal Cannabis are the brainchildren of and are funded by Paul Birch, while Tilray’s chief executive was once an advisor to Volteface. Birch has said he supports both medicinal and recreational cannabis use. At the same time, Moore suggests the legalization of cannabis would not benefit any legal cannabis companies, nor is the government considering such reforms. However, the moves made by their organizations and by big cannabis companies do not support this view.

The implications of these connections
Ian Gilmore, who directs the Liverpool Centre for Alcohol Research, has sympathy for the plight of patients who would like to exploit the medical effects of cannabis and cannabis extracts in their particular situations, but cannot because it is not legally available.

On the other hand, says Gilmore, there is the ever-present danger that false arguments from third parties will prompt such a move to legalize recreational cannabis. In his words, “We must not drift into the situation we found ourselves in with tobacco and alcohol, where global companies seeking to maximize their markets distorted the arguments, often through third parties. We must protect patients from having groups with conflicts of interest, building up unrealistic hopes.”

Psychiatrist Marta Di Forti, who serves on the government task force to review the safety and effectiveness of cannabis in the treatment of pain, says she is unhappy about this association of patient cannabis groups and commercial cannabis companies. Her main concern is that this kind of lobbying could result in obtaining medicinal cannabis for many more medical conditions for which there is limited or no evidence of its efficacy.

The problem with the current conversation on the medical use of cannabis is that it is making it easier and more normal to talk about cannabis in all kinds of settings where it would have been unacceptable earlier. This shift is acknowledged and welcomed by Stephen Murray, the executive director of Prohibition Partners. This is a private investment organization based in the UK, bent on making cannabis “more accessible and acceptable.” Murray observes that big investors in the corporate world are now becoming more and more involved in the spectrum of business opportunities that cannabis offers.

The parent company of Murray’s firm, European Cannabis Holdings, recently split into a media wing and the Lyphe group of medical cannabis clinics, besides a medical cannabis ‘academy’ for clinicians, and an import-distribution company. The Lyphe group is also involved with Drug Science, headed by David Nutt, a sacked chairperson of the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs. Drug Science is behind Project Twenty21, a huge trial of cannabis for seven different conditions from anxiety disorder to Tourette’s syndrome, to provide “largest body of evidence for the effectiveness and tolerability of medical cannabis” – but without a randomized controlled trial format, rather a general health questionnaire.

Links between tobacco and medical cannabis research
The second part of the report deals with the investigation of how the tobacco industry is funding research into medicinal cannabis. Here, Gornall examines the intricate network that has been woven between big commercial firms and the drive to legalize medical cannabis.

In this second part, he uses Gavin Sathianathan as an example of the “new breed of cannabis entrepreneur.” Sathianathan is both the founder and the main shareholder of a private limited company based out of London, called Alta Flora, which markets “wellness products from natural sources.” In addition, he is one of the trustees managing United Patients Alliance (UPA), which is a cannabis support group led by patients; the chief executive of Forma Holdings which is an investment fund specializing in cannabis; and co-founder as well as director of Oxford Cannabinoid Technologies, which is a collaborative research effort including Oxford Universities.

Among these companies, Oxford Cannabinoid Technologies is funded in part by Casa Verde Capital; an American venture capital firm co-founded by Snoop Dogg, US rapper, and influential promoter of recreational cannabis, and Imperial Brands (formerly known as Imperial Tobacco), the giant tobacco company. In defense, Oxford Cannabinoid Technologies’ spokesperson says that Imperial Brands holds only a small percentage of the company’s value and that the firm will not be interested in the UK recreational cannabis market even if restrictions in that country are relaxed.

Twisting the narrative
However, Marta Di Forti is not convinced. She remembers the story of how tobacco and alcohol companies fed their own skewed version of facts to the public and the medical establishment through paid research and managed to get away with actively peddling deadly and addictive substances to young and old alike for decades before their bluff was called.

Calling the fact that Imperial owns any stock in this cannabis research firm “dreadful and shocking”, Di Forti says, “It is always very dangerous to forget history and we are now seeing the sort of connections that we have seen happening before. We are lacking in funding for cannabis research from independent organizations such as the Wellcome Trust or the Medical Research Council. The result will be that more and more, you are going to see even prestigious and reputable academic institutions accepting money from some of these companies.”

Ian Gilmore supports this stance: “It is vital that there is complete transparency in those making the case and supporting patient groups. We must not drift into the situation we found ourselves in with tobacco and alcohol, where global companies seeking to maximize their markets distorted the arguments, often through third parties. We must protect patients from having groups with conflicts of interest, building up unrealistic hopes.”
https://www.news-medical.net/news/20200318/Why-is-the-tobacco-industry-supporting-wider-access-to-medical-cannabis.aspx

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Starting off with cannabis as a young person in West Auckland, Vincent’s weekend use became everyday use. And then became all day use. He’d do what was called wake and bake & go to work high. And then get high at lunchtime. And get high when he got home. It was a gateway drug to LSD, methamphetamine, cocaine, synthetic cannabis and opioid abuse.

“As an ex cannabis user, I’ll be voting no. I do want this cycle to stop. I don’t want my children to have to go through what I had. I don’t want my children to be told that cannabis is safe. I want my kids to have every opportunity that I should have got.”

“The destruction of relationships, the laziness & procrastination, the loss of dreams & ambitions & opportunities that go with it. I love being drug free – I wish I’d done it a lot sooner.”

“I’d encourage everybody else that doesn’t use cannabis and doesn’t want to see the detrimental effects on society to vote no.”
#saynopetodope
VoteNO.nz