Marijuana Majority: Americans Now Back Legalization

Marijuana has a strange legal status. In California, it’s been medically legal for almost two decades, but growing it and selling it for recreational purposes is in a gray area of law enforcement, with federal law prohibiting it altogether and state and local laws cobbled together in a patchwork of regulation. But according to a new study, this pseudo-legalization is bad news for the environment.

The $31 billion marijuana growing business is draining local streams and allowing pesticide runoff to poison fish and wildlife, and it’s “high time” to include environmental regulations in the legalization conversation, states the report, published this week by a team of scientists from the Nature Conservancy, the California Department of Fish and Wildlife, and University of California Berkeley.

“Illegal marijuana production in California is centered in sensitive watersheds with high biodiversity,” the authors write in the report, which appeared in the journal BioScience.

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After steadily accumulating anecdotes about how veterans use cannabis to treat their war wounds that understanding might finally be on the way. Following years of bureaucratic hurdles, the first Food and Drug Administration (FDA)-approved, randomized controlled trial on cannabis and PTSD is set to begin this summer. Many believe the study will spur increased acceptance of veterans using marijuana, a political shift that?s already led more and more states to add PTSD to their lists of conditions that qualify for medical marijuana.

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Researchers at Tel Aviv University have discovered that a component of marijuana “significantly helps heal bone fractures,” university officials announced Thursday.

The study, published in the Journal of Bone and Mineral Research, found that the non-psychotropic cannabidiol, or CBD, considerably sped up the healing process of rats’ broken leg bones. Those benefits were also present, even when the molecule was separated from THC, the major psychoactive component of cannabis.

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A comprehensive analysis of more than 400 men over a 20-year period casts new doubt on the idea of marijuana use, even when long-term, being associated with physical and mental health problems later on in life.

The authors of the study, published in Psychology of Addictive Behaviors, looked at data taken from the Pittsburgh Youth Study (PYS), a longitudinal study that attempted to track the development of antisocial and delinquent behavior among a selected group of first, third, and seventh grade boys attending public school in Pittsburgh from 1987 to 1988 (For the purposes of this current study, only data on the seventh grade boys, totaling 506 kids, was used).

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All of which is to say that this study, as the researchers themselves admit, isn’t the definitive answer to whether marijuana should become fully legalized, though it certainly is important.

“Indeed, marijuana policymakers and stakeholders need to consider the results of any single study in the context of the larger body of work on the potential adverse consequences of early onset chronic marijuana use,” they concluded.

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Two marijuana advocacy groups on Wednesday are set to submit proposed ballot initiatives that would allow Massachusetts voters to decide whether to legalize recreational pot smoking in the state.

The initiatives could become part of a wave of similar measures put before voters in a half-dozen U.S. states in 2016 as pro-marijuana groups follow a strategy that has already legalized the drug in four states plus the District of Columbia.

The proposals from the Campaign to Regulate Marijuana Like Alcohol and the Bay State Repeal say legalizing the drug in Massachusetts would bow to the reality that marijuana use is widespread in the United States. They say legalization would make it easier to regulate its sale and prevent people under 21 years of age from obtaining it.

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Earlier this year, music legends Willie Nelson and Merle Haggard teamed up to make a pro-marijuana video titled "It's All Going to Pot."

And, apparently they were right, for I've now learned that even the state fair is going to pot — literally. A press release from the organizers of the DC State Fair exclaims: "It's true! For the first time ever, we're hosting a new contest for local cannabis growers to show off their plants' finest buds." They're not just blowing smoke, for it turns out that Washington, D.C., voters passed a referendum in November to legalize marijuana — even to allow locals to grow up to six plants at their residences.

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The Aka — who some people call Pygmies — are among the world’s heaviest pot smokers. The Washington State team found that the Aka’s heavy cannabis use is a means of self-medicating for an otherwise-deadly group infestation of intestinal worms. However, the tribe members themselves will tell you that they use the drug for its psychoactive qualities.

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Drug use is distinct from drug abuse, Mueller says, and abusers and addicts are, in fact, rare among widespread drug users. In fact, he believes, “Understanding the everyday utility and the learning mechanisms of non-addictive psychotropic drug use may help to prevent abuse and the transition to drug addiction in the future.”

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With its proposed changes to Ley 20.000 (Law 20,000), Chile joins a growing list of Latin American countries decriminalizing marijuana. The initiative, which would grant Chileans the right to possess up to 10 grams of cannabis and grow up to six marijuana plants at a time, was passed in Chile’s Chamber of Deputies on July 7 with 68 voting in favor and 39 against.

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In Chilean society at large, those in favor of legalizing the use and cultivation of pot are also in the majority. Fifty percent of Chileans are in favor while 45 percent are against, according to a 2014 poll carried out by Cadem, a Chilean market and public opinion investigation company. When polls address the legalization of medical marijuana, this figure skyrockets to 86 percent in favor

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A new Canadian study seems to suggest that smoking marijuana like some kind of jazz criminal may prevent obesity and diabetes, at least among the Inuit population that was the subject of the study. Researchers at the Journal of Obesity found that marijuana use was “statistically associated with lower body mass index” and with “lower fasting insulin” levels compared to those who abstained from marijuana use. We love weed science! This is where we’d add a disclaimer that this is only one study that needs to be replicated before everyone takes it as gospel, but we also know that most of you damn hippies are already halfway out the door to your nearest dispensary. Don’t forget your Bob Marley t-shirt and Rasta beanie!

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Guests at a recent Oregon wedding reception were treated to something unusual in lieu of an open bar: marijuana. Newlyweds Whitney Alexander and John Elledge had a “budtender” in a “weed tent” who doled out 13 different strains to guests, among them an 81-year-old woman who hadn’t tried pot since the 1960s, according to local news outlet KGW.

The couple decided to have the weed bar given the passage of Oregon’s legalized marijuana initiative, Measure 91, ahead of their marriage on a Christmas tree farm. It’s illegal for caterers bearing liquor licenses to serve alcohol to guests where marijuana is also being provided, but a wedding planner from Lake Oswego’s Bridal Bliss was able to help out. It was the planner’s first request for a green bar.

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AllardChardon said:

JackLuis, I love all three of the posts you made in my extended absence. It was a crashed computer that caused my troubles, but it is all fixed now and I am back. Thanks for carrying on without me so nicely. xoxo

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“It’s crazy how much revenue our state used to flush down the drain by forcing marijuana sales into the underground market,” Tvert said. “It’s even crazier that so many states are still doing it. Tax revenue is just one of many good reasons to replace marijuana prohibition with a system of regulation.”

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