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posted by janrinok on Tuesday January 03 2017, @05:54AM   Printer-friendly
from the better-than-we-thought dept.

Weeks after cannabis legalization was passed by voters in California and other states, pranksters edited the famous Los Angeles Hollywood Sign to read "Hollyweed". This previously occurred in 1976 following the passage of a California law decriminalizing cannabis.

Researchers have found (DOI: 10.2105/AJPH.2016.303577) (DX) that legalization of medical cannabis led to an overall decrease in traffic fatalities among 19 states:

The happy side-effect wasn't uniform, however; only seven states saw significant reductions, while two states saw increases. Nevertheless, the authors of the new report in the American Journal of Public Health argue that the data bucks the common criticism that more pot access should increase car crashes and injuries.

Drops in traffic deaths may, in part, be explained by people swapping alcohol for pot, leading to reduced drunk driving, the study's authors speculated. To back that up, the authors note that the lives spared tended to belong to younger people, particularly 25- to 44-year-olds—an age group frequently involved in alcohol-related traffic deaths.

[Continues...]

The Washington Post is reporting on the use of high-cannabidiol (CBD) strains of cannabis to treat epilepsy, PTSD, anxiety, and other disorders "without the high":

What makes CBD especially appealing is that it doesn't get the user high. Most recreational marijuana users want this effect, of course, but many patients would rather avoid it. This has allowed CBD to sidestep many of the political, legal and medical concerns that have hindered the spread of medical marijuana. "CBD has been a game-changer for medical marijuana," says Martin Lee, the director of Project CBD, a Northern California nonprofit that promotes use of the compound. "Its safety and lack of psychoactivity undermines any argument that it should be illegal. It's really shifted the national discussion on this issue."

As more scientists recognize the compound's potential, there has been an "explosion of research," according to Pal Pacher, a pharmacologist and cardiologist at the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda. He has been studying the chemical for more than a decade; his work has shown that CBD may have benefits in both heart disease and diabetes.

CBS is running what some may consider a "fake news" piece about a "mysterious illness" tied to cannabis use: cannabinoid hyperemesis syndrome. According to FreeThoughtProject.com:

[CBS Evening News chief medical correspondent] Dr. LaPook writes: "He co-authored a study showing that since 2009, when medical marijuana became widely available, emergency room visits diagnoses for CHS in two Colorado hospitals nearly doubled. In 2012, the state legalized recreational marijuana." Dr. LaPook equivocates CHS with cyclic vomiting syndrome (CVS), but the two are not the same. CVS is caused by any number of things. [...] "The authors reviewed 2,574 visits and identified 36 patients diagnosed with cyclic vomiting over 128 visits. The prevalence of cyclic vomiting visits increased from 41 per 113,262 ED visits to 87 per 125,095 ED visits after marijuana liberalization..." This corresponds to an increase from 0.036 percent of visits to 0.07 percent of visits. This seems hardly significant to warrant concern, especially since the data comes from two hospitals and there is no indication of controlling for other factors, such as migraines or childhood history. In other words, this 'study' appears to be manufactured to make its point.

Finally, the United Nations is beginning a process that may lead to the alteration of the 1961 Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs:

The World Health Organization (WHO) Expert Committee on Drug Dependence (ECDD) recently met and initiated the first steps in a long process that could lead to the rescheduling of medical marijuana under international law, and has committed to hold a special session to discuss medical marijuana in the next eighteen months.

[...] According to an extract from the 38th Expert Committee on Drug Dependence that convened from November 14-18 in Geneva, the committee recognized an increase in the use of cannabis and its components for medical purposes, the emergence of new cannabis-related pharmaceutical preparations for therapeutic use, and that cannabis has never been subject to a formal pre-review or critical review by the ECDD. Over the next eighteen months, the committee has requested pre-reviews for cannabis plant matter, extracts and tinctures, delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), cannabidiol (CBD), and stereoisomers of THC. This pre-review is a preliminary analysis used to determine if a more in-depth critical review will be undertaken by the ECDD, and will represent the first new scientific guidance on marijuana to the United Nations since 1935, when cannabis was first classified as a Schedule I/IV substance by the Health Committee of the League of Nations.


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  • (Score: 3, Touché) by bob_super on Tuesday January 03 2017, @06:15PM

    by bob_super (1357) on Tuesday January 03 2017, @06:15PM (#448998)

    That's my fault. They just want to keep me from using the "I'm an old fart" excuse for my general grumbliness.

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