Medical cannabis unlikely to benefit most chronic pain patients, international researchers say

Medical cannabis unlikely to benefit most chronic pain patients, international researchers say

“So medical cannabis is not likely to be a panacea. It is not likely to work for the majority of individuals who live with chronic pain. We do have evidence that it does appear to provide important benefits for a minority of individuals,” said Busse, who is also a chiropractic doctor.

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Legalizing marijuana is a step backwards for social justice

Legalizing marijuana is a step backwards for social justice

When it comes to marijuana commercialization, the new robber barons have arrived. They are wealthy investors in freshly tailored suits that pay lip service to social justice while putting marijuana stores on every street corner in Black communities.

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Sen. Rice: Legalizing pot won’t stop social injustice in the black and brown community

Sen. Rice: Legalizing pot won’t stop social injustice in the black and brown community

When I hear my colleagues pushing for legalization “in the name of social justice,” I can’t apologize for my instinct to suspect that it’s really about helping political friends profit from an industry that should not be allowed a foothold in our state.

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Failure to legalize weed is blessing in disguise for New York

Failure to legalize weed is blessing in disguise for New York

The real social injustice of legalizing weed arises from how the explosive growth of the cannabis industry enables it to escape government regulation in states with legal weed, while rectifying the harms of the War on Drugs is relegated to the back burner.

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How state officials snuck themselves into Georgia’s Hope Act, sticking taxpayers with the cost of regulating medical marijuana so officials can profit from its production

How state officials snuck themselves into Georgia’s Hope Act, sticking taxpayers with the cost of regulating medical marijuana so officials can profit from its production

Because no tax was levied to pay for the costs of regulating a medical marijuana industry in Georgia, taxpayers will bear that burden so that state-wide public officials and legislators – maybe even some who were actually all in that same room – can make money growing and processing medical pot.

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Legal? Illegal? Some players still work both sides of state marijuana industry

Legal? Illegal? Some players still work both sides of state marijuana industry

During the 21 years that California’s multibillion-dollar unregulated medical marijuana market thrived, cannabis operators learned to create elaborate schemes to disguise their connections to unlicensed shops. And now that some operators are also tied to valuable licensed businesses, Montes said, double dippers have become even more careful about burying their identities.

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CBD Is Everywhere, but Scientists Still Don’t Know Much About It

CBD Is Everywhere, but Scientists Still Don’t Know Much About It

“It might be available at the local 7-11 in Pennsylvania,” said Dr. Lee “but any product you get on the market is not federally regulated by the F.D.A, so the purity and safety and quality are questionable.”

Indeed, a recent study that evaluated dozens of CBD products ordered online found that nearly 70 percent were not labeled accurately and had either higher or lower concentrations of the ingredient than indicated on the label. Some also contained THC.

Dr. Hurd, who has been studying CBD for nearly 10 years, warns that the expectations around the substance are unrealistic. “People are making it out to be a nirvana kind of drug, and that’s a problem,” she said. “One compound cannot cure everything.”

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Oregon marijuana regulators fail to meet even basic standards, state audit finds

Oregon marijuana regulators fail to meet even basic standards, state audit finds

Auditors concluded that regulators have failed to meet even basic promises. It found, for instance, that just 3 percent of recreational marijuana retailers had been inspected and only about a third of growers. It said the state’s medical marijuana program, long a source of black market diversion both in the state and nationally, has “structural weaknesses” that “greatly increase the risk of diversion.”

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If Weed Is Medicine, So Is Budweiser

If Weed Is Medicine, So Is Budweiser

Claims that marijuana relieves pain may be true. But the clinical studies that have been done compare it with a placebo, not even a pain reliever like ibuprofen. That’s not the type of rigorous evaluation we pursue for medications. What’s more, every intoxicant would pass that sort of test because you don’t experience pain as acutely when you are high. If weed is a pain reliever, so is Budweiser.

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Dr. Sanjay Gupta misleads: No evidence marijuana helps curb opioid addiction

Dr. Sanjay Gupta misleads: No evidence marijuana helps curb opioid addiction

I have been practicing pain medicine in Colorado for 24 years and I have seen patients referred to me on very high-dose opioids, reporting very high levels of pain, and using marijuana for pain control. In discussions with these patients, and overall, more than 95 percent report that their use of marijuana does not help with their presenting pain symptoms.


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Why America will regret legalizing marijuana

Why America will regret legalizing marijuana

Chuck Schumer is trotting out old canards about how cannabis "doesn't hurt anybody else." Hearing him tout the virtues of legalization in Colorado and Washington ("lots of good and no harm!"), one is reminded of Purdue Pharma, the pharmaceutical company that spent years (and millions) telling doctors that opioids weren't seriously addictive when prescribed to pain patients. It's stunning that educated people ever believed this, but many did. Today, many are equally anxious to believe that legal pot probably has little to do with Colorado's sharp increase in auto accidents. And there are homeless people everywhere, right? Correlation doesn't equal causation.

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Why Marijuana is Not Medicine

Why Marijuana is Not Medicine

To reside in Schedules II-V and be approved for diagnosing, mitigating, treating or curing a specific medical condition, a substance or botanical must proceed through a rigorous FDA scientific process proving safety and efficacy. Not one form of “dispensary marijuana” with a wide range of THC levels — butane hash oil, smokables, vapors, edibles, liquids — has gone through this rigorous process for a single medical condition.

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