Marijuana Blog

More states are jumping on the legal marijuana bandwagon. In 2014, Alaska, Washington DC, and Oregon all passed legalization measures, allowing their citizens to consume, possess, and cultivate marijuana. Recently, the US Justice Department passed legislature allowing American Indian tribes to join the legal marijuana market. But what has been learned over the course of the last year while everyone’s eyes remained locked on Colorado?

 

 

First off, it’s important to establish a legal framework for the sale and distribution of the plant. Considering it is still federally illegal, there are some grey areas when it comes to what’s legal and what’s not. While it isn’t allowed for the states to trump federal law, the US is a democracy and the citizens of these states voted to have these measures passed. But with the allure of such a large revenue to be made, states can’t help but work hard towards regulating the plant. 

 

 

The second lesson would be more strict regulations on things such as BHO extraction. There were a lot of issues with people in Colorado causing explosions while trying to extract the oil themselves. While it may seem easy to do while you’re watching it on YouTube, the process of extracting THC to make BHO is difficult and requires the know-how of a professional. Establishing somewhat stricter guidelines for the production of this form of concentrated cannabis is definitely something that newly legalized states and areas need to take in to consideration. 

 

 

Setting regulations for testing and contaminated marijuana is extremely important. People want to know that their legal marijuana is safe to consume. There have been many different contaminants found in cannabis, ranging from ecoli to mold and mildew. There should be testing of the marijuana before it is sold in stores to make sure that consumers are getting a safe and healthy product to smoke. Washington managed to tackle this problem head on but Colorado is still struggling to set up a system to test their weed for dangerous additives. 

 

 

The last lesson would be that there should be a more stable system to label edibles. The packing rules should be set forth before companies start packing their products and distributing them. There should be a way to label these products to say exactly how much THC they contain, dosing instructions, and suggested wait time before going to town on a bag of medicated brownies. There have been numerous questionable incidents involving medicated treats since legalization in Colorado and Washington so it’s important to let people know what they’re eating before they eat too much.

There has forever been a war between cigarettes and marijuana. While some stoners indulge in both, there are some that strictly do one or the other. Some people even use marijuana in order to help them quit smoking cigarettes, smoking a bowl every time they want a butt. Most people have found that it helps to deter them from actually smoking a cigarette. Big Tobacco is fully aware that their high profit market is about to be pulled out from under them and they are actively attempting to gear up their products in order to keep customers loyal. 

 

 

With marijuana legalization on it’s way, Big Tobacco is worried that the plant will become more desired than the traditional pack of cigarettes. Sure enough, many smokers will tell you, “If I could walk in to a store and buy a pack of joints, I’d never smoke a butt again.” Last month, two more states and the District of Columbia legalized the use of marijuana for recreational purposes, joining Colorado and Washington. 

 

 

Unfortunately for Big Tobacco, they’re giving the marijuana market a leg up. Back when cigarettes weren’t so popular, companies had to use serious marketing strategies to sell their products. Since the marijuana market is doing the same thing many years later, there is already a basic structure of how to sell, market, and produce the plant. While consuming tobacco pretty much stops at smoking it, the marijuana industry stands to grab more attention because it can be consumed in so many different ways. 

 

 

Cannabis isn’t nearly as addictive as tobacco and seems to have the opposite effect for many of the problems that come with smoking cigarettes. Tobacco and nicotine can cause cancer, lung issues, and other problems while marijuana doesn’t even need to be smoked necessarily but can be vaped, eaten, applied as a salve, or taken as a tincture. the industry is sure to evolve even more as time goes on and Big Tobacco better watch out for the blossoming marijuana business. 

Concentrates, dabs, BHO, hash oil – whatever you call it, it’s becoming more and more popular everyday. Due to the increase in popularity, more and more people are making hash oil at home, which is a two edged sword. One one hand, people that are responsible and know what they are doing should be allowed to do whatever they want with marijuana. On the other hand, there are a lot of stupid people out there that, if given the opportunity to work with volatile chemicals, can hurt themselves and others. I’m sure we have all read stories about BHO explosions in houses, garages, and apartments. It’s a case of a handful of people ruining it for the rest of us that are responsible.

 

A lot of hash oil is being made in private residences across Colorado, which is something that is illegal in Colorado according to the Attorney General. Per 9 News:

 

Attorney General John Suthers said in a press release Tuesday:

 

Amendment 64 expressly prohibits an individual from making marijuana oil and unfortunately, Colorado is experiencing a real public safety issue as a result of unsafe and unlicensed manufacturing and production. The Blue Book made it clear that Amendment 64 allowed for the responsible and safe use of marijuana, so to decriminalize dangerous and unreasonable behavior in which people are getting hurt and houses are blowing up, defies the intent of the voters.

 

If a person is caught making hash oil at home without a license in Colorado, they can be charged with a felony. That’s a legal fact that I don’t think a lot of people know about. I think we will see more and more states legalize marijuana cultivation and possession in the future, but most if not all of them will ban home production of hash oil without a license. That is the case in my home State of Oregon, which recently voted to legalize marijuana.

 

Read more: http://www.theweedblog.com/colorado-attorney-general-home-hash-oil-production-is-illegal/

Recently, the Denver Post reported on a study done by the National Survey on Drug Use and Health found that 1 out of 8 Colorado residents older than twelve had used marijuana in the last month. The only state that reported a higher ratio was the tiny state of Rhode Island, located on the east coast. Done over two year periods, the study found that for the 2011-2012 period, 10.4% of Colorado residents 12 and older said they had used pot in the month prior to being surveyed. In 2012-2013, that number jumped to 12.7%, meaning that about 530,000 people in Colorado use marijuana at least once a month.

 

 

Since the survey is one of the first that has recorded the pot use in Colorado since later in 2012, it’s definitely something that people are paying attention to. But the survey didn’t analyze data from 2014, which is when the recreational shops began to open in the state. This means that the survey isn’t the best indication of the effects of legal marijuana in Colorado. “I don’t think this tells us about the long term impacts of legalization,” said University of California professor Mark Kleiman. Additionally, the number of medical marijuana patients in Colorado rose over the same time period so the results of the survey aren’t surprising. 

 

 

Even though the survey says that people have been using marijuana more since the laws in Colorado loosened, there are other surveys that point to the teen use of marijuana declining. It would seem that more adults are just using the plant, rather than everyone going crazy and getting stoned. Besides a few scattered reports of negative events, it would seem that Colorado isn’t suffering from the legalization in their state. Rather, they are benefiting from the immense profits that the taxes have been bringing in, along with the increased revenue from other businesses due to marijuana tourism. 

Carly Chandler is three years old and suffers from severe seizures that leave her parents at a loss. She is the child that inspired the medical marijuana law that is currently being implemented in the state of Alabama. Carly currently has over a hundred small seizures a day. At night, the seizures worsen in to gran mal. These convulsions are so severe that her parents worry that the condition will kill their little girl. Sometimes, the episodes last for longer than ten minutes. Dustin Chandler, her father, says that sometimes, all he can do is bow his head.

 

 

Starting in early 2015, families like the Chandlers will be able to treat their children with medical marijuana. They hope that it will provide immense relief for their suffering children. “Carly’s Law” was funded from the University of Alabama at Birmingham to study the marijuana derivative, CBD oil, in order to treat seizures. Governor Robert Bently signed the legislation in to law nine months ago but the university had to wait for federal approval to actually begin the study. 

 

 

Carly started having her seizures when she was just eight weeks old. Ten days after her first birthday, she was diagnosed with CDKL5, a very rare genetic disorder that causes severe neurodevelopment impairment. The symptoms? Frequent seizures. “We worry every day that she could die from what is called SUDEP, sudden unexplained death in epilepsy,” says Amy Chandler, her mother. “The brain literally stops and shuts everything down.” Right now, the little girl can’t speak or walk. She sits in a specially made rocking chair and rocks her head from side to side when she wants to go in her infant swing. In some ways, she is a normal three year old. She loves grilled chicken nuggets, although they have to be spoon fed to her. She laughs when her father plays with her and she especially loves the festive lights of Christmas.

 

 

Hoping that Carly’s brain can get a rest from her constant convulsions, the family would die just to hear their daughter speak. “Her voice would be priceless. Just to hear her talk to us,” Amy said. The Chandlers started their fight for cannabis after they saw a little girl in Colorado using CBD oil for her seizures. “We thought ‘Why can they have it and we can’t? Because they live in a different zip code?’”

 

 

Even though the scientific research regarding the CBD oil is limited, many parents have said that they see an extreme improvement in their children when put on oil regimens. There are many children around the United States that benefit from the use of CBD oil and hopefully, there will be many more as more parents work towards getting a real cure for their children. 

Finally, some doctors have been given the OK to research something that could potentially help thousands of people, including children, world wide. The doctors in the UK have been allowed to start trails for the drug Epidiolex, for the very first time since there were promising trials released in the US. The treatment doesn’t contain any of the psychoactive ingredients of cannabis which cause the high. The medicine can reduce both the frequency and severity of seizures in children. 

 

 

“Many children with serious forms of epilepsy do not respond to the medications that we currently have available. We need new means of treating these conditions so that we can give back some quality of life to these children and their families,” says Dr. Richard Chin, a doctor at the Maxwell Epilepsy Center. Dr. Richard Maxwell, director of the Muir Maxwell Epilepsy Centere said that the trials would only involve those children that didn’t respond to the existing medications. The trials will also involve a control group given a placebo. 

 

 

The focus of the study will be primarily on a potentially deadly form of epilepsy called Dravet Syndrome. This affliction causes prolonged seizures that can cause other seizure types that hamper the development of the child. In some cases, it can even cause death. After the study with the children suffering from Dravet Syndrome is completed, there will be a second phase of children that will undergo the tests that have Lennox-Gastaut Syndrome. 

 

 

Epiodiolex is based on the compound of cannabis known as CBD. It was developed by the British biotechnology company GW Pharmaceuticals, who is also responsible for funding and sponsoring the entire trial. The Royal Hospital For Sick Children in Glasgow and the Alder Hey Children’s Hospital in Liverpool are also pushing the study. There are more centers that are working towards doing the same research in the US, Poland, and France. With 40,000 children in the UK suffering from epilepsy, let’s keep our fingers crossed that these studies yield a glimmer of hope for these children and their families.