For marijuana businesses, it can be extremely challenging to utilize social media to its fullest marketing potential. Historically, social media companies have erred on the side of caution when establishing their community guidelines, siding with the feds’ prohibition of marijuana. However, a recent statement from Instagram could indicate a change in that company’s stance on marijuana advertising.

The critical language was noticed by Ganjapreneur after a recent Leafly report on the ongoing Instagram impersonation of Kiva Confections, a popular California-based edibles company.

As Leafly reported, a fake account using Kiva’s name suddenly began abusing people in comments and direct messages. Kiva contacted Instagram and successfully had the internet trolls’ account shut down. However, it was through this exchange that Instagram revealed some potentially critical changes to its existing policy on cannabis as it relates to advertising.

The statement reads in full:

Instagram does not allow people or organizations to use the platform to advertise or sell marijuana, regardless of the seller’s state or country. This is primarily because most federal laws, including those of the United States, treat marijuana as either an illegal substance or highly regulated good. Our policy prohibits any marijuana seller, including dispensaries, from promoting their business by providing contact information like phone numbers, street addresses, or by using the “contact us” tab in Instagram Business Accounts. We do however allow marijuana advocacy content as long as it is not promoting the sale of the drug. Dispensaries can promote the use and federal legalization of marijuana provided that they do not also promote its sale or provide contact information to their store.

As Ganjapreneur points out, the emphasized portion above leaves out any mention of “websites.” Therefore, “without listing your location’s contact info, you can drive customers to your website where your contact info, daily deals, and updated menus are all prominently displayed.” In other words, as long as companies don’t advertise or promote the sale of cannabis, they should be in the clear.

Instagram’s omission signals a progressive push for the social media platform, which was bought by Facebook in 2012. Facebook’s community standards specifically prohibit content that promotes marijuana sales–even in states where it’s legal–but Instagram has a history of not enforcing its vague policies uniformly.

“What’s so interesting is that you’ll see posts from other companies or users and it’s naked women and paraphernalia and guns and cash,” Kristi Knoblich, co-founder of Kiva, said. “But all the posts we had on our real page were about education. Things like how to keep edibles away from kids, how to store and lock your edibles, pointers and tips for how to use safely. The nature of what we were posting didn’t have anything to do with promoting sales, illegal use, shipping or distribution.”

Hopefully, Instagram’s updated guidelines will ensure more breathing room for legal companies looking to grow their businesses with innocuous marijuana posts.

Alexis Evans

Alexis Evans is an Assistant Editor at Law Street and a Buckeye State native. She has a Bachelor’s Degree in Journalism and a minor in Business from Ohio University. Contact Alexis at aevans@LawStreetMedia.com.

The post Did Instagram Change its Marijuana Marketing Policy? appeared first on Law Street.

While the United States remains locked in an impasse between state and federal law, Canada looks to pass nationwide marijuana legalization this year and begin recreational sales in 2018. How did Canada get to this point? The path to legalization in Canada has been a haphazard one, driven largely by legal decisions. To make the recent Canadian cannabis developments easier to understand, below are eight key court cases and regulations that shaped the current landscape:

1996: Controlled Drugs and Substances Act (“CDSA”)

Provided for limited exemptions for the medical use of cannabis in Section 56, but legal access to dried marijuana for medical purposes was not provided until 1999.

2000: R. v. Parker (Ontario Court of Appeals)

Section 4 of the CDSA was found to be unconstitutional because prohibiting cannabis possession forced people to choose between liberty and health. The medical marijuana exemption in place was found to be unconstitutional because of the Minister of Health’s discretionary power.

2001: Marihuana for Medical Access Regulations (“MMAR”)

R. v. Parker led to the MMAR, which enabled individuals with the practitioner authorization to access dried marijuana for medical purposes by producing their own marijuana plants, designating someone to produce for them, or purchasing Health Canada supply.

April 1, 2014: Marihuana for Medical Purposes Regulations (“MMPR”)

The MMPR replaced the MMAR, which was officially repealed on March 31, 2014. For the first time in Canada, the new system allowed for the production and distribution of cannabis for medical purposes, but still contained restrictions on certain types of marijuana.

June 2015: R. v. Smith (Supreme Court of Canada)

The Court decided the MMPR’s restrictions were unconstitutional and that individuals with a medical need have the right to use and make other cannabis products. To eliminate uncertainty, in July 2015 the Minister of Health issued section 56 class exemptions under the CDSA to allow licensed producers to produce and sell cannabis oil and fresh marijuana buds and leaves in addition to dried marijuana, and to allow authorized users to possess and alter different forms of cannabis.

February 2016: Allard v. Canada

A Canadian federal court found that restricting an individual’s right to home grow and requiring individuals to get their marijuana only from licensed producers violated liberty and security rights protected by section 7 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. The Court found that individuals who require marijuana for medical purposes did not have “reasonable access” under the MMPR’s restrictions. Instead of striking certain portions of the MMPR or reinstating the MMAR, the court called for a new legislative framework for accessing medical marijuana.

August 24, 2016: Access to Cannabis for Medical Purposes Regulations (“ACMPR”)

The ACMPR, similar to the MMPR, provided for commercial production and distribution of quality-controlled fresh or dried marijuana or cannabis oil or starting materials (i.e., marijuana seeds and plants) and allowed for limited production by individuals. The two types of licenses to be aware of are: (1) Dealers License, issued under the Narcotic Control Regulations and permits activities with cannabis, including analytic testing and (2) Licensed Producers who are authorized to produce and sell cannabis under the ACMPR.

April 13, 2017: The Cannabis Act, Bill C-45 (the “Cannabis Act”)

On April 13, 2017, the Cannabis Act was introduced. If passed, it will provide Canadians with legal access to recreational cannabis nationwide. On June 8, 2017, after the second reading of the bill, the Act passed the House at a vote of 200 for and 76 against. The bill has now been referred to the Standing Committee on Health. The bill is widely expected to pass Parliament and take effect in the summer of 2018.

Canada is already a worldwide leader in the growing cannabis industry, with last year’s sales reaching over one billion Canadian dollars. With the passage of the Cannabis Act, annual sales are expected to increase to between five and eight billion in the first-year post-recreational legalization. And the total estimated annual economic impact could be as high as $23 billion. Given the size of the new market, anyone with an interest in cannabis should pay special attention to Canada and the eight key events listed above.

Amber D. Lengacher also contributed to this post.

Charlie Alovisetti

Charles Alovisetti is a senior associate and co-chair of the corporate department at Vicente Sederberg LLC. Prior to joining Vicente Sederberg, Charlie worked as an associate in the New York offices of Latham & Watkins and Goodwin where he focused on representing private equity sponsors and their portfolio companies, as well as public companies, in a range of corporate transactions, including mergers, stock and asset acquisitions and divestitures, growth equity investments, venture capital investments, and debt financings. He is a graduate of McGill University and Columbia Law School. Charlie is admitted to practice in Colorado and New York.

The post The Path to Cannabis in Canada: Eight Crucial Events appeared first on Law Street.

As part of an effort to engage the Gardiner, Maine, community and clean up the town of roughly 5,000, a nearby marijuana dispensary is rolling out an innovative new program. Essentially, citizens who bring in a bag of collected trash can exchange it for some weed.

Dennis Meehan, owner of Summit Medical Marijuana, offered the marijuana as a gift to adults over the age of 21. Citizens would meet Meehan at the park and get two trash bags to explore the city and collect any garbage they found.

If residents collected a full bag of trash from around the city they could bring it back and pick up their gifted weed. The exchange rate was one full trash bag for one gram of marijuana. Gifting weed to others became legal in Maine after recreational marijuana was legalized in January. Across municipalities with legalized weed, gifting weed has become a common method to circumvent rules against selling the product on the street.

For more information on the status of legalization in Maine check out our “State of Weed” map here. 

He was inspired to put the event together by a similar weed exchange community event he heard about in Colorado. “[I heard of it in] Colorado – there was a town that did this,” Meehan told the local NBC affiliate. “They had a great response to this. So I was hoping to do the same thing in Maine.”

Meehan advertised the event on the dispensary’s Facebook page. After seeing its success, Meehan hopes to expand the program and make it statewide. While there are certainly some business interests at play here, Meehan also said that he wants to promote the “life-changing” aspects of marijuana, according to the Associated Press.

The nascent marijuana industry has been, so far, considered a success. One important aspect is the massive tax influxes that states that have legalized it have seen. For example, Colorado pulled in $200 million in just tax revenue in 2016, according to MarketWatch. Meehan’s actions prove that there are even more interactive ways for the marijuana industry to engage with the community.

For an industry that faces plenty of criticism, working with local communities could have a huge impact on public perception and how quickly critics shift their views. Now, it’s time to see if other marijuana businesses engage their communities in a similar way to Meehan and his Colorado inspiration.

Josh Schmidt

Josh Schmidt is an editorial intern and is a native of the Washington D.C Metropolitan area. He is working towards a degree in multi-platform journalism with a minor in history at nearby University of Maryland. Contact Josh at staff@LawStreetMedia.com.

The post Maine Dispensary Trades Weed for Trash in Community Clean Up Effort appeared first on Law Street.

Legalized cannabis. From California’s Proposition 215 in 1996 to West Virginia’s SB 386 in 2017, legalized cannabis is becoming the norm. And in Colorado, legalized cannabis is almost old news. But how did we get here? A mix of timing, trailblazers, economics, and politics.

The genesis of the Golden Age of the Ganjapreneuer in Colorado began in 2001, when Colorado voters amended the Colorado Constitution by adopting Amendment 20, which provides limited protection from criminal prosecution for medical cannabis patients, primary caregivers, and to a certain extent, physicians. For several years, Amendment 20 existed quietly and those governed by it operated largely under the radar. Slowly, medical cannabis dispensaries began to appear, as did large-scale home grows.

In 2004, the Colorado Department of Health attempted to begin serious regulation of medical cannabis. However, when adopting an administrative rule that attempted to limit a primary caregiver’s allowable activity, the department made procedural errors. Consequently, the rule was thrown out when challenged in district court in 2007.

In 2009, there were several factors that promoted substantial growth in the number of Colorado cannabis businesses. First, Deputy Attorney General David Ogden issued the Ogden Memo regarding investigation and prosecutions in states authorizing medical cannabis. The Ogden Memo encouraged U.S. Attorneys to not focus federal resources on individuals whose actions were in clear and unambiguous compliance with state medical cannabis laws. Second, the Department of Health unsuccessfully attempted to re-promulgate its failed rule, giving medical cannabis activists momentum and political clout. Third, consistent with other states, Colorado was in the midst of the Great Recession. Unemployment rates were high and empty retail space abounded. Businesses that could pay rent were welcome.

Consequently, the stars aligned for cannabis businesses in Colorado. The industry took off. The number of registered patients grew from approximately 5,000 to over 100,000, and the number of dispensaries grew proportionally. Without regulation, innovation in the marketplace was unfettered.

The cannabis industry could not be ignored and the Colorado General Assembly responded in 2010 by adopting the Colorado Medical Marijuana Code. The statute essentially grandfathered in the operating businesses, but subjected them to strict requirements, mandated eventual licensure to continue operating, and created the Medical Marijuana Enforcement Division, or MED. The MED was the first agency of its kind and was tasked with regulating every aspect of medical cannabis businesses from seed-to-sale.

As the new MED struggled to properly regulate the medical cannabis industry, in 2012 Colorado voters passed Amendment 64 to the Colorado Constitution. Amendment 64 both legalized personal use of marijuana for individuals over 21 (subject to certain restrictions) and established a basic regulatory structure for recreational cannabis businesses. In 2013, the MED was properly funded and full-scale regulation began.

The rest is history. Legal cannabis in Colorado is currently a billion dollar a year industry. The MED is a successful regulator and the cannabis industry is among the most regulated of all industries. And while there are certainly industry players that have been around for a decade, most are new and unaware of the history driving Colorado’s successful cannabis legalization experiment.

Corey Cox also contributed to this article. 

Kelly Rosenberg

Kelly Rosenberg, a Senior Associate at Vicente Sederberg, was central to the Colorado Department of Revenue’s efforts to regulate marijuana from when the Department embarked on the groundbreaking work in 2010 through March of 2016. As an attorney with the Colorado Department of Law, Kelly was assigned as the general and litigation counsel to the Colorado Medical Marijuana Enforcement Division. There, she played a key role in the MMED’s early work to craft its regulatory structure. In 2013, she became an even more integral part of the regulatory development process after recreational marijuana was legalized and the MMED became the Marijuana Enforcement Division. Ms. Rosenberg worked on and legally reviewed all rules adopted by the agency. In addition, she provided day-to-day legal counsel to the MED on a variety of matters including open records, requests for positions statements, subpoenas, policies, procedures, contracts, employment issues, and trademark concerns, and presided as general counsel over all of the MED’s emergency and permanent rule making processes. At Vicente Sederberg, Ms. Rosenberg serves as Chair of the Administrative and Regulatory Law Department and assists clients with regulatory and compliance issues as well as administrative matters. She is also a key member of the firm’s new Government Relations Department, which assists governmental entities in the process of drafting medical and retail marijuana laws, ordinances, and regulations.

The post How Did We Get Here? A Brief History of Cannabis Legalization in Colorado appeared first on Law Street.

In case you were wondering, no, Texas has not legalized marijuana.

Prank website React365 published a fake news story titled “Marijuana now legal in state of Texas” on Thursday that had many people believing the conservative state had switched its hardline stance on cannabis.

According to Texas CBS affiliate KHOU, the “news” article–which has since been deleted–was shared more than 71,000 times on Facebook.

Verify: Is marijuana legal in Texas? https://t.co/n8ENJElZcG pic.twitter.com/1S5tQqAhap

— KHOU 11 News Houston (@KHOU) April 14, 2017

The excerpt bellow the title of the link reads [sic]:

In a 10-2 vote marijuana has now been legalized in the state of Texas. Texas’ first marijuana dispensaries said to open up in Corpus Christi, TX April 12, 2017. We were out speaking with local resident of Corpus Christi today who were very excited to say the least of the legalization.

Unfortunately, recreational marijuana is still illegal in the lone star state. Medical marijuana is outlawed too, however, epilepsy patients have been granted an exception when it comes to CBD oil.

In December, State Sen. Jose Menendez filed Senate Bill 269 for 2017, that would increase the number of medical conditions that qualify for the Texas Compassionate Use Program. That bill is still in committee.

FYI, a quick scan of React365’s homepage is a dead giveaway that the article was fake. The site’s header reads: “Prank your friends now! Write an article and prank your friends for fun. Bullying is forbidden.”

KHOU did a little snooping and uncovered that one Nicolas Gouriou registered the site under the organization name Mediavibes SARL. Gouriou currently resides in Binic, France.

So, when in doubt, do your due diligence before sharing suspicious–too good to be true–stories online!

For more information on each state’s marijuana legalization status, check out  our State of Weed: Marijuana Legalization State by State.

Alexis Evans

Alexis Evans is an Assistant Editor at Law Street and a Buckeye State native. She has a Bachelor’s Degree in Journalism and a minor in Business from Ohio University. Contact Alexis at aevans@LawStreetMedia.com.

The post No, Texas Has Not Legalized Marijuana appeared first on Law Street.

States where medical marijuana is legal have seen drops in opioid hospitalizations and overdoses, according to a new study published in the April issue of the Drug and Alcohol Dependence journal. And despite the loosening of marijuana laws across the country, states that have legalized medical marijuana have not seen an uptick in marijuana hospitalizations. Opioids have ravaged communities across the nation, and some researchers see marijuana as a viable alternative for treating certain ailments.

In states with medical marijuana laws in place, hospitalizations for opioid dependence and abuse dropped by an average of 23 percent, according to the study. In addition, treatment for overdoses decreased by an average of 13 percent. Yuyan Shi, the study’s author, told Reuters that legalizing medical marijuana “may have reduced hospitalization related to opioid pain relievers.” But Shi cautioned that the results are “still preliminary.”

Marijuana’s potential as a replacement for opioids stands in stark contrast to comments Attorney General Jeff Sessions made a few weeks ago. “I am astonished to hear people suggest that we can solve our heroin crisis by legalizing marijuana,” he said, “so people can trade one life-wrecking dependency for another.” Pro-marijuana activists and many others are concerned that Sessions, who once said “good people don’t smoke marijuana,” will crack down on marijuana use, even in states where it is legal.

Comparing the two substances is precarious. Heroin is highly addictive–and is upending communities all over the country–while there has never been a reported marijuana overdose, according to the Drug Enforcement Administration. But the DEA does classify both heroin and marijuana as Schedule I substances.

Despite Sessions’ fear mongering and the federal illegality of marijuana, doctors sometimes prescribe or recommend medical marijuana to patients as a substitute for treating side effects from certain diseases, in lieu of Vicodin or Oxycontin, two powerful opioids. Prescription pain medications or other opioids like heroin kill 91 Americans each day.

Roughly 60 percent of Americans live in an area–one of 28 states or D.C.–where medical marijuana is legal, and researchers are increasingly examining the drug’s medical utility. A report in January from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine found that marijuana does in fact have therapeutic properties. Still, the Drug and Alcohol Dependence study came to a restrained conclusion: “future investigation is needed to explore the causal pathways of these findings.”

Alec Siegel

Alec Siegel is a staff writer at Law Street Media. When he’s not working at Law Street he’s either cooking a mediocre tofu dish or enjoying a run in the woods. His passions include: gooey chocolate chips, black coffee, mountains, the Animal Kingdom in general, and John Lennon. Baklava is his achilles heel. Contact Alec at ASiegel@LawStreetMedia.com.

The post Study: Fewer Opioid-Related Hospitalizations in States Where Medical Pot is Legal appeared first on Law Street.

As Deryn Blackwell was dying of cancer, his mother, Callie, sought out something, anything, that could relieve his pain. Finally, after three excruciating years of watching Deryn suffer, she found a potential aid: marijuana.

Now, three years after illicitly providing marijuana to Deryn–his doctor would not prescribe him the drug–Callie claims it saved his life. She reveals Deryn’s story in a new tell-all book set for release next month in Britain titled “The Boy in 7 Billion.”

While Deryn’s story is indeed inspiring, researchers caution that it cannot be taken as evidence that marijuana can treat cancer. Anecdotal tales like Deryn’s exist, but clinical trials have not found concrete evidence that marijuana is an effective cancer treatment. It is also unclear if the cannabis tincture Deryn consumed was the direct cause of his recovery.

“It could have been a number of things,” Emma Smith, a science information manager for Cancer Research UK, told Britain’s online newspaper The Independent. “Perhaps cannabis did help, perhaps it didn’t.”

“Because it’s just one person’s story, without a doctor analyzing all the clinical evidence and comparing him to somebody that didn’t get cannabis, we still don’t know for certain it was the cannabis that helped him.”

Deryn’s ordeal began in 2010 when, at ten-years-old, he was diagnosed with leukemia. Eighteen months later he was diagnosed with a second rare form of cancer.

In an excerpt from Blackwell’s book printed in the Daily Mail, Callie writes:

By 2013, after nearly four years of hospital treatment, it seemed that the only thing left for him were opiate drugs to ease the pain as he reached the end of his life. Like any mother would be, I was desperate to find something to alleviate his suffering.

Marijuana has been shown to alleviate some side effects of cancer, including nausea. But according to the American Cancer Society, studies on cannabinoids have not shown that “they help control or cure the disease.”

Medical marijuana is still illegal in the United Kingdom. The only licensed marijuana-based medicine available is Sativex, which is used to treat patients with multiple sclerosis.

After conducting extensive research on the benefits of marijuana, Callie asked Deryn’s doctor if Bedrocan, a cannabis-based painkiller, would be a better alternative than her son’s “mind-numbing morphine.” The doctor said that while it was an effective painkiller, it had not been tested on children and she couldn’t prescribe it to him.

That’s when Callie and her husband, Simon, decided to take matters into their own hands. Simon traveled to a nearby service station and purchased cannabis illegally from a dealer. Back home, Callie whipped up a tincture that would be compatible for a vaporizer pen, which Deryn would later use when the doctors weren’t around.

“We felt like naughty schoolkids who were having a sneaky cigarette around the back of the bike sheds,” Callie wrote.

Devyn, now 17, made a gradual recovery and is currently attending school and working as a part-time chef of vegan food.

Callie said she’ll probably “never be totally free” of the fear that his cancer will return, but she is confident her son can endure. “I am reminded of my miracle boy every time I look at Deryn and I know deep in my heart that whatever the future may throw at us, we can cope,” she wrote. “We always do.”

Alec Siegel

Alec Siegel is a staff writer at Law Street Media. When he’s not working at Law Street he’s either cooking a mediocre tofu dish or enjoying a run in the woods. His passions include: gooey chocolate chips, black coffee, mountains, the Animal Kingdom in general, and John Lennon. Baklava is his achilles heel. Contact Alec at ASiegel@LawStreetMedia.com.

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Happy Monday Law Streeters! We hope you enjoyed your weekend. ICYMI, we had some pretty great stories last week. From cell phone plans that give to charity, to South Dakota passing discriminative laws against LGBT couples, check out Law Street’s best of the week below!

New Career, New Phone, New Cause: 5 Reasons to Check out TPO Mobile

Any change in life–whether it be a graduation, a new job, or a move, always comes with a hefty to do list. TPO Mobile wants to help make that to do list a little shorter–by helping you find the perfect cell phone plan. And not only will TPO Mobile help you save some money with a reasonably priced and reliable phone plan, it will also help you check off one other thing on that to do list: making sure you set aside some money for charity.

South Dakota Passes Law Legalizing Discrimination Against LGBT Couples

South Dakota Governor Dennis Daugaard signed SB-149 on Friday, a law that protects private foster and adoption agencies from being sued for refusing to place children with an LGBT couple. While other states have similar laws, South Dakota is the first to enact one since the SCOTUS decision that legalized gay marriage in 2015.

What’s Going on with Canada’s Cannabis Raids?

Months before lawmakers in Canada are expected to take up marijuana legalization legislation, police in Toronto have been raiding dispensaries; a number of individuals have been charged at this point. Just last week, police raided dispensaries across three cities. The targets were all Cannabis Culture branches, the popular chain owned by Canada’s so-call “Prince of Pot” Marc Emery. Emery and his wife were arrested at an airport last week and charged with drug trafficking, conspiracy, and possession. They were en route to a cannabis festival in Spain.

Alexis Evans

Alexis Evans is an Assistant Editor at Law Street and a Buckeye State native. She has a Bachelor’s Degree in Journalism and a minor in Business from Ohio University. Contact Alexis at aevans@LawStreetMedia.com.

The post ICYMI: Best of the Week appeared first on Law Street.

As soon as Jeff Sessions was nominated by President Donald Trump for the position of Attorney General, pro-medical marijuana advocates had reason to feel uneasy. Sessions has long been anti-marijuana, and while he has previously indicated that federal enforcement of marijuana law wouldn’t change too much, there are still concerns that under his tenure, the DOJ will decide to crack down. Sessions addressed law enforcement officials in Richmond, Virginia, earlier today, and his comments about marijuana should only heighten those concerns. But was Sessions right?

Let’s check out what he said:

He stated, “I think medical marijuana has been hyped, maybe too much.” He went on to say:

I realize this may be an unfashionable belief in a time of growing tolerance of drug use. But too many lives are at stake to worry about being fashionable. I reject the idea that America will be a better place if marijuana is sold in every corner store. And I am astonished to hear people suggest that we can solve our heroin crisis by legalizing marijuana–so people can trade one life-wrecking dependency for another that’s only slightly less awful. Our nation needs to say clearly once again that using drugs will destroy your life.

That’s a lot to unpack. Here are the three biggest issues with Sessions’s comments:

“Marijuana Sold in Every Corner Store”

That would be unfortunate, but no one is proposing anything like that. Every state that has legalized marijuana also puts in place a way to regulate sales–the only exception perhaps being the very grey area of D.C.’s sort-of legal marijuana laws that are still being blocked by Congress. Medical marijuana is similarly strictly regulated. And it’s also worth pointing out that two things that are arguably just as dangerous as weed, and certainly more addictive–alcohol and cigarettes–are available at corner stores. Sessions’s comment about “marijuana sold in every corner store” is clear fear-mongering. It paints pro-legalization efforts as extreme and impractical, and ignores the serious regulatory work that goes hand-in-hand with legalization.

Legalizing recreational marijuana and extending medical marijuana efforts are not to be taken lightly. Many considerations are paramount–for example, how marijuana affects young people, and how our DUI laws need to be altered. Those concerns are not to be downplayed. But they’re not to be fabricated either, and the idea that marijuana will suddenly be as easy to get as groceries is a falsehood.

“One Life-wrecking Dependency for Another That’s Only Slightly Less Awful” and “Using Drugs Will Destroy Your Life”

Heroin is absolutely a life-wrecking dependency. And given the huge rise in overdoses, particularly in rural areas of the United States, it’s heartening to hear a politician talk seriously about combatting it. But claiming that marijuana is a “life-wrecking dependency” is, once again, clear fear-mongering on Sessions’s part.

Marijuana dependence is certainly possible. Studies indicate that less than 10 percent of people who use marijuana become dependent on it, although that number rises to 17 percent if you look exclusively at people who begin using marijuana in their teens. Heroin, however, is one of the most addictive drugs out there. (And perhaps we should tell AG Sessions that alcohol and tobacco, available at your friendly neighborhood corner store, also rank in the top 10 most addictive drugs.)

Again, this is not to say that marijuana shouldn’t be strictly regulated, or that it’s impossible to become addicted to it. But to compare heroin addiction to marijuana does a serious disservice to the millions of Americans who have been affected by heroin. Fighting against marijuana–whether that be medical marijuana or recreational marijuana–is not going to do much to combat heroin addiction. Other factors, like prescription drug use, are significantly more pressing. Almost 80 percent of heroin addicts report having misused prescription drugs prior to getting hooked on heroin. While people who are addicted to marijuana are three times more likely to become addicted to heroin than non-addicts, people who abuse prescription opioid painkillers are a staggering 40 times more likely to become addicted to heroin.

“Medical Marijuana Has Been Hyped, Maybe Too Much”

Generally speaking, Sessions’s remarks today were confusing. While he said “medical marijuana has been hyped, maybe too much,” it’s unclear that he was speaking just about medical marijuana. His rhetoric–“legalizing marijuana” and “sold in every corner store” seemed to track more with arguments against recreational marijuana. And if he was talking about medical marijuana, that’s equally confusing, given that there’s evidence to suggest that opioid use does decrease in states that legalize medical marijuana. Given the deadliness of opioid overdoses compared to marijuana (note: there were zero overdoses on marijuana in 2015) that possibility seems at the very least worth exploring.

Sessions did roll back his comments during a question and answer segment after his remarks. He said that the Obama-era Cole Memo, which de-prioritizes the enforcement of federal anti-marijuana law in states where it has been legalized, was “valid.” But the fact that Sessions made the remarks in the first place indicate that pro-medical and recreational marijuana advocates have every reason to remain concerned.

Anneliese Mahoney

Anneliese Mahoney is Managing Editor at Law Street and a Connecticut transplant to Washington D.C. She has a Bachelor’s degree in International Affairs from the George Washington University, and a passion for law, politics, and social issues. Contact Anneliese at amahoney@LawStreetMedia.com.

The post Fact-Checking Jeff Sessions’s Claim that “Medical Marijuana Has Been Hyped, Maybe Too Much” appeared first on Law Street.

Months before lawmakers in Canada are expected to take up marijuana legalization legislation, police in Toronto have been raiding dispensaries; a number of individuals have been charged at this point. Just last week, police raided dispensaries across three cities. The targets were all Cannabis Culture branches, the popular chain owned by Canada’s so-call “Prince of Pot” Marc Emery. Emery and his wife were arrested at an airport last week and charged with drug trafficking, conspiracy, and possession. They were en route to a cannabis festival in Spain.

The cannabis raids have been going on for months, in what Toronto police are calling Project Gator, an effort to clamp down on dispensaries which, under the current law, are illegal. But opponents of the crackdown argue that Canada’s marijuana law is hardly black and white. The laws aren’t consistently enforced, leading to confusion and ambiguity for dispensaries and consumers.

“Just because there’s not a grey area when it comes to the law in the books doesn’t mean there’s not a grey area in practice in terms of what’s happening on the ground,” said lawyer Gerald Chan. Canada’s criminal justice system is “overburdened,” Chan said, and police should focus their attention on graver, potentially more dangerous crimes. In Ottawa, some people accused of committing murder were recently allowed to walk free after the justice system’s resources dried up.

Toronto police are not backing down from Project Gator, however. “The dispensary advocates want you to believe … there’s a grey area,” said Mark Pugash, a spokesman for the Toronto police. “There isn’t.” Pugash added: “The fact is, however you try to shine this, it is against the law.”

Last week was not the first time Emery, the “Prince of Pot,” was arrested on marijuana-related charges. After he was convicted of selling marijuana seeds in the U.S. in 2007, Emery spent seven years in prison. On Friday, soon after they were arrested at the airport, the Emerys were released on bail. Jodie Emery, Marc’s wife, said the arrest was “appalling,” adding that she was “quite disturbed by the fact that we are innocent until proven guilty, yet Cannabis Culture, which is a magazine, head shop, vapor lounge, it’s a movement.”

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said recently that lawmakers will be looking at marijuana legalization legislation this summer. But, as the recent raids in Toronto indicate, that does not mean the current law will go unenforced. “Until we have a framework to control and regulate marijuana, the current laws apply,” Trudeau said.

Alec Siegel

Alec Siegel is a staff writer at Law Street Media. When he’s not working at Law Street he’s either cooking a mediocre tofu dish or enjoying a run in the woods. His passions include: gooey chocolate chips, black coffee, mountains, the Animal Kingdom in general, and John Lennon. Baklava is his achilles heel. Contact Alec at ASiegel@LawStreetMedia.com.

The post What’s Going on with Canada’s Cannabis Raids? appeared first on Law Street.

According to a new study by the U.S. Center for Disease Control and Prevention, teens who use synthetic marijuana are more likely to engage in risky behavior, have unprotected sex, and abuse other, potentially more harmful drugs. The study interpreted data from the 2015 Youth Risk Behavior Survey to come to its conclusions.

Researchers found that “nearly one in 10 high school students had used synthetic marijuana at some point in their lifetime,” said Heather Clayton, the lead researcher of the CDC study, and a scientist with the center’s Division of Adolescent and School Health.

“The findings indicate that students who report using synthetic marijuana are possibly on a very concerning health trajectory, which is particularly serious given that synthetic marijuana use is relatively common among adolescents,” Clayton added.

Those who use synthetic pot–also known as “fake weed”–are more likely to carry a gun or engage in violent behavior than those who use traditional marijuana, the researchers said, and are more likely to have begun using marijuana at an early age. Synthetic marijuana use is also linked to having unprotected sex. So why do people turn to synthetic marijuana rather than the natural plant? It’s readily available, it’s cheap, and it’s hard for authorities to detect, due to manufacturers’ ever-changing formulas and marketing techniques.

Like traditional marijuana, the synthetic variety is classified as a Schedule I drug by the Drug Enforcement Administration. Though often packaged and marketed in a colorful, almost innocent fashion (K2 and Spice are common strain varieties), synthetic marijuana is tied to a variety of adverse effects. According to the National Institute on Drug Abuse, synthetic marijuana, which usually consists of dried leaves sprayed with a menagerie of chemicals, can lead to “rapid heart rate, vomiting, violent behavior, and suicidal thoughts.”

The CDC researchers said that their findings were not meant to establish a causal relationship between synthetic marijuana use and risky behavior in teens. For instance, people who are more likely to engage in risky or violent behaviors are also more likely to try synthetic marijuana. But “it’s still important for health professionals and school-based substance-prevention programs to focus on strategies that reduce the initiation of marijuana and synthetic marijuana use,” Clayton said.

Alec Siegel

Alec Siegel is a staff writer at Law Street Media. When he’s not working at Law Street he’s either cooking a mediocre tofu dish or enjoying a run in the woods. His passions include: gooey chocolate chips, black coffee, mountains, the Animal Kingdom in general, and John Lennon. Baklava is his achilles heel. Contact Alec at ASiegel@LawStreetMedia.com.

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Israel is one step closer to exporting medical marijuana to countries that have legalized the drug for medical use. On Sunday, Yoav Kisch, a lawmaker from the ruling Likud party, introduced legislation that would allow Israel to export medical marijuana.

Medical marijuana is legal in Israel, but its local market isn’t exactly what you’d call a cash cow. Roughly 23,000 patients have permits to buy from the country’s nine licensed suppliers, and the market is projected to be worth between $15 million to $20 million.

“Exporting medical cannabis is pushing forward the economy and developing the agricultural sector,” Kisch said. “My bill defines for the first time the whole field of medical cannabis and allows regulating its export.”

Kisch also noted that Canada and Australia began exporting medical marijuana last year, and reaped the economic benefits. The bill, which could spend months navigating the Knesset (Israel’s lawmaking body), would likely expand Israel’s net marijuana profits. Citing recent research, Kisch said Israel stands to make over one billion NIS (or nearly $267 million) by exporting medical marijuana.

With its envelope-pushing research and relative government support for legalization, Israel is a beacon for marijuana investors around the world. As of 2016, the country had attracted roughly $100 million in investments. But it’s not just the scientists, business people, and lawmakers that place Israel at the forefront of a still nascent global industry–it’s the people.

In Tel Aviv Saturday night, thousands of Israelis showed up to encourage the Knesset to legalize recreational marijuana. Two members of parliament were also in attendance: MK Sharren Haskel of the Likud party, which is led by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and MK Tamar Zandberg of the opposing Meretz party.

“This is a health campaign, a campaign for quality of life,” Zandberg said.

Last month, Israel’s Public Security Minister Gilad Erdan announced that he would be adopting the “Portugal Model,” in which marijuana is treated as a health issue, not a criminal offense. The new model has yet to go into effect, but a majority of lawmakers support the policy shift.

As it fully implements its decriminalization laws and aims to begin exporting medical cannabis, Israel is poised to continue breaking ground in the cannabis field.

Alec Siegel

Alec Siegel is a staff writer at Law Street Media. When he’s not working at Law Street he’s either cooking a mediocre tofu dish or enjoying a run in the woods. His passions include: gooey chocolate chips, black coffee, mountains, the Animal Kingdom in general, and John Lennon. Baklava is his achilles heel. Contact Alec at ASiegel@LawStreetMedia.com.

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Israel’s Ministries of Agriculture and Health announced Monday that they will be collaborating to pour over $2 million in state funds into medical cannabis research. It is the first collaborative effort between the two departments. The cash infusion is projected to fund 13 studies, which range from developing new medical cannabis strands to investigating the plant’s effects on multiple sclerosis.

Israel, which greatly expanded its legal medical marijuana program last summer, is one of the world’s leading innovators in marijuana research. In fact, it was an Israeli professor, Raphael Mechoulam, who first discovered marijuana’s active ingredient, THC, in 1964. Today, Israel is a beacon of light for the global mission to further investigate the medical properties of the drug. Marijuana research in many countries–including the U.S., aside from a few exceptions–is barred.

In the U.S., 29 states and the District of Columbia have legalized marijuana in some form, either recreationally or medically. At the federal level, however, the drug is illegal and is classified as a Schedule I substance, which effectively means it cannot be used in scientific trials. Even though recreational marijuana use and possession is barred in Israel, the tiny country has made large strides in its medical program.

Last year, Israel drastically loosened its medical marijuana laws. More doctors could fill cannabis prescriptions. Limits on the number of marijuana growers were lifted. And cannabis could be sold at approved pharmacies. Now, as Israel’s number of medical marijuana patients hits 25,000, the government is looking for more ways to fill the international gap in marijuana research. Israel is even exploring ways to export its medical marijuana as a prescription medication to pharmacies around the world.

The 13 studies will have a number of biochemical and medical goals, including researching the effects of cannabis on vision, and if marijuana use can lead to colon cancer. There will also be studies into increasing crop yield. Developing new technologies for irrigating and fertilizing cannabis plants is another stated goal. Drug companies, universities, research institutes, and hospitals will conduct the research, which is expected to last five years. Uri Ariel, the Minister of Agriculture, said: “The program shows that agriculture is important in all aspects of life.”

Alec Siegel

Alec Siegel is a staff writer at Law Street Media. When he’s not working at Law Street he’s either cooking a mediocre tofu dish or enjoying a run in the woods. His passions include: gooey chocolate chips, black coffee, mountains, the Animal Kingdom in general, and John Lennon. Baklava is his achilles heel. Contact Alec at ASiegel@LawStreetMedia.com.

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A report released last week by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine detailed nearly 100 conclusions on marijuana’s health effects and the consumption of cannabis-derived substances. The conclusions were based on abstracts from 100,000 previous studies. The report’s conclusions touched on marijuana’s effects on a number of illnesses and maladies, from cancer to mental health to therapeutic efforts like pain relief. The report also called on the federal government to remove cannabis from its list of Schedule I drugs, which, it said, stifles deeper research into the substance.

“We conducted an in-depth and broad review of the most recent research to establish firmly what the science says and to highlight areas that still need further examination,” said Marie McCormick, chair of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. “As laws and policies continue to change, research must also.” 

The report’s findings were classified by the strength of the evidence found, ranging from conclusive to insufficient. Among the report’s conclusive findings was that smoking marijuana can help alleviate pain, but can also lead to an increased risk of “motor vehicle crashes.” There is also substantial evidence, according to the report, that marijuana use leads to a higher risk of schizophrenia, particularly among frequent users.

Unlike tobacco, the report concluded that there is scant evidence that smoking marijuana leads to an increased cancer risk. It also did not find conclusive evidence to support the argument that marijuana is a gateway drug to more dangerous and deadly substances. “However, the committee found moderate evidence to suggest that there is a link between cannabis use and the development of substance dependence and/or a substance abuse disorder for substances including alcohol, tobacco, and other illicit drugs,” the report found.

In addition to its empirical findings, the report’s authors called on the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) to reclassify marijuana. Last summer, the DEA affirmed its classification of marijuana as a Schedule I drug in a letter from its chief to a trio of governors who petitioned for the drug to be reclassified. “[Marijuana] does not have a currently accepted medical use in treatment in the United States, there is a lack of accepted safety for its use under medical supervision, and it has a high potential for abuse,” DEA Chief Chuck Rosenberg wrote.

But the report last week from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, a nonprofit group that includes 300 Nobel laureates, found that there are “several challenges and barriers in conducting [marijuana] research.” The authors added: “For instance, specific regulatory barriers, including the classification of cannabis as a Schedule I substance, impede the advancement of research.”

Alec Siegel

Alec Siegel is a staff writer at Law Street Media. When he’s not working at Law Street he’s either cooking a mediocre tofu dish or enjoying a run in the woods. His passions include: gooey chocolate chips, black coffee, mountains, the Animal Kingdom in general, and John Lennon. Baklava is his achilles heel. Contact Alec at ASiegel@LawStreetMedia.com.

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Next year could be the year that South Carolina establishes a legal medical marijuana program. Representative Todd Rutherford, a Democrat, recently pre-filed the “Put Patients First Act,” or H. 3128, which would allow people suffering from certain diseases to be prescribed medical cannabis by their doctors.

H. 3128 would permit marijuana to be provided to patients with cancer, glaucoma, HIV/AIDS, and potentially other medical conditions such as cachexia, severe pain or nausea, seizures, and muscle spasms. Patients could possess up to two ounces of marijuana and, while waiting for dispensaries to open, could grow up to six plants in their homes.

The most recent legal movement for marijuana in South Carolina came in 2014, when the state passed a bill that permitted hemp farms, and allowed children to use cannabidiol for medical trials. But the last time the state legislature took up a medical marijuana proposal was in 2007; that bill failed to pass.

“The time has come to put aside archaic misconceptions of medical marijuana and put patients first,” Rutherford said in a statement to Columbia-based news outlet WLTX. “I hear devastating stories every single day from people who are battling epilepsy or suffering from a brain tumor who desperately need medical marijuana to treat the debilitating symptoms.”

Rutherford pre-filed another medical marijuana bill, House Bill 3162, which would allow veterans with post-traumatic stress disorder to use marijuana. In order to reach a House vote, both bills would need to pass a committee vote. If the House passes the bills, they would move to the Senate, and finally, to the governor’s desk.

Cannabis remains illegal in much of the South, save for Florida, which passed a medical marijuana bill on Election Day, and Louisiana. The legalization flurry on November 8, when eight states legalized marijuana in some form, passed over South Carolina. And as 2016 comes to a close, more than a quarter of Americans live in a state where pot is at least medically available.

South Carolina, if Rutherford’s bill can garner enough traction and support, could join the legion of states whose marijuana laws are rapidly changing. South Carolinians are ready for a change in the law: in a poll conducted in October, 78 percent said they support medical marijuana.

Alec Siegel

Alec Siegel is a staff writer at Law Street Media. When he’s not working at Law Street he’s either cooking a mediocre tofu dish or enjoying a run in the woods. His passions include: gooey chocolate chips, black coffee, mountains, the Animal Kingdom in general, and John Lennon. Baklava is his achilles heel. Contact Alec at ASiegel@LawStreetMedia.com.

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Every year since 1992, the Monitoring the Future survey has asked 8th, 10th, and 12th graders how difficult it would be to procure drugs, from marijuana to meth, and how often they use them. In 2016 the survey found that, despite the growing number of states making it easier to obtain marijuana, not only is marijuana use down among teenagers, but so is its availability.

Most teens are obtaining marijuana at a lower rate than ever before, as 34.6 percent of 8th graders said pot would be “easy or very easy to get,” 2.4 percent lower than the rate in 2015. Students in 10th grade also recorded the lowest rate ever for the study, with 64 percent saying the drug is attainable, a 1.4 percent drop from 2015. Eighty-one percent of 12th graders said marijuana would be easy to get, up 1.5 percent from last year.

“I don’t have an explanation. This is somewhat surprising,” Dr. Nora Volkow, director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse, which commissions the survey, told U.S. News & World Report. “We had predicted based on the changes in legalization, culture in the U.S. as well as decreasing perceptions among teenagers that marijuana was harmful that [accessibility and usage rates] would go up. But it hasn’t gone up,” she said.

Eight states–including four last month–and D.C. have legalized recreational marijuana for people 21 and over. So why has accessibility and use gone down, even among those that are underage? One reason posited by Volkow and other experts is that younger people are more familiar with the harmful effects of inhaling smoke. Or perhaps it’s that their free time is being eaten up by watching TV or playing video games, rather than seeking out the high school pot dealer. Or, as some legalization advocates point out, maybe it’s that as pot laws loosen, the rebellious stigma of marijuana fades away.

For 8th, 10th, and 12th graders alike, alcohol was said to be much easier to obtain than marijuana. Cigarettes also consistently ranked higher than marijuana in terms of ease of access, but lower than alcohol. Marijuana use is also down from last year among 8th and 10th graders, continuing a downward trend that began in 2010. In 2016, 8th grade marijuana use hit its lowest rate since 1993, with 9.4 percent of respondents saying they smoke pot. That figure is significantly higher for 10th graders, with 23.9 percent saying they smoke pot, but that number also saw a 1.5 percent decrease from 2015, and was the lowest usage rate since 2008.

“We’re seeing that more people in the U.S. except for teenagers are taking [marijuana],” Volkow said. “The rates of increases are highest among young adults 18-24, so one would expect that would translate to the adolescents, but apparently it has not.”

Alec Siegel

Alec Siegel is a staff writer at Law Street Media. When he’s not working at Law Street he’s either cooking a mediocre tofu dish or enjoying a run in the woods. His passions include: gooey chocolate chips, black coffee, mountains, the Animal Kingdom in general, and John Lennon. Baklava is his achilles heel. Contact Alec at ASiegel@LawStreetMedia.com.

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Cannabis and caffeine lovers rejoice: San Diego-based BrewBudz will soon be debuting a coffee, tea, and cocoa pod product, fit for Keurig machines, that are infused with marijuana. According to the company’s tagline, the hybrid product will be “good for you” and “good for the earth.” Its pods will be made of 100 percent compostable material, including the caps, which are made of coffee beans.

Calling cannabis and coffee “two important rituals,” the BrewBudz website says: “The merging of cannabis and coffee delivered in a sustainable and environmentally conscious way invests us in the responsibility of caring for both our customers and the earth.” The site adds: “Our goal is to provide full life-cycle recycling and composting from the plant harvest to the disposal of our coffee grounds and packaging.”

Entrepreneurs are seeing more openings in the cannabis market since Election Day, when nine states voted to legalize marijuana in some form; nearly a quarter of Americans now live in a state with legal marijuana laws. A number of Cannabis-infused products have hit the market: chocolate, candy, syrup, cocktails, and pet treats.

But what about the health effects of mixing two brain-altering drugs into one drink? Consuming coffee, a stimulant, and marijuana, a depressant, at the same time could make the user feel wired and tired at the same time. There is not a plethora of research on how combining THC and caffeine can affect a person’s health.

States that have legalized recreational marijuana have proven to be especially fertile grounds for new companies to spring up. In Colorado, where weed has been legal since 2012, sales for marijuana during the first half of 2016 neared half a billion dollars. By 2020, California, which legalized medical marijuana 20 years ago and recreational in November, is expected to have a legal weed market worth about $6.5 billion.

The pot pods will launch in January in Nevada, which legalized recreational marijuana in November, and Colorado. Washington, Oregon, California, and Arizona residents will be able to purchase BrewBudz products in March. Each pod will cost $7, and a cup of a brew for recreational purposes will consist of 10 milligrams of THC, while a medically-oriented brew will have 25 to 50 milligrams of the compound.

Alec Siegel

Alec Siegel is a staff writer at Law Street Media. When he’s not working at Law Street he’s either cooking a mediocre tofu dish or enjoying a run in the woods. His passions include: gooey chocolate chips, black coffee, mountains, the Animal Kingdom in general, and John Lennon. Baklava is his achilles heel. Contact Alec at ASiegel@LawStreetMedia.com.

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Officials in Maine on Monday morning began a recount of ballots from Election Day. Because the state’s recreational marijuana legalization measure, Question 1, passed by a narrow margin (about 4,000 votes), officials wanted to confirm the results of a measure that would have wide-ranging effects in the Pine Tree State. If the results are confirmed, Maine would join three other states–California, Massachusetts, and Nevada–that passed recreational legalization measures on November 8.

The Maine secretary of state’s office has signaled that the recount could take up to a month. The recount–which is taking place in the state capital of Augusta–could cost at least $500,000. State police will be transferring ballots, locked away in password-protected boxes, from 503 towns across the state.

Question 1 would allow Maine residents who are at least 21 years old to possess up to 2.5 ounces of marijuana. Home cultivation would be limited to up to six plants. If the measure passes, state officials would have nine months to construct a regulatory framework.

Governor Paul LePage, in a video released before the vote, said marijuana “can be deadly.” Likening it to heroin, he said, “we do not need to legalize a drug that could lead to more deaths.” LePage, a staunch opponent of the measure, added: “Before you vote, please educate yourself on this dangerous issue.”

The measure was passed by a slim margin, with 381,692 voters supporting Question 1, and 377,619 opposing it. LePage, a Republican, supports the recount, and has said that he would implore President-elect Donald Trump to enforce the federal ban on marijuana. If Trump did respect states’ wishes, however, LePage said he would respect that decision as well.

Election Day was a sizable victory for marijuana advocates, as eight states (nine if the Maine results are confirmed) passed marijuana measures in some form, though marijuana remains illegal at the federal level. Maine residents will have to wait at least a few more weeks to see if their state joins the growing list of states that have legalized the drug since 2012. Maine legalized medical marijuana in 2009.

Alec Siegel

Alec Siegel is a staff writer at Law Street Media. When he’s not working at Law Street he’s either cooking a mediocre tofu dish or enjoying a run in the woods. His passions include: gooey chocolate chips, black coffee, mountains, the Animal Kingdom in general, and John Lennon. Baklava is his achilles heel. Contact Alec at ASiegel@LawStreetMedia.com.

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In the 1960’s, an Israeli scientist, Dr. Raphael Mechoulam, was one of the first to discover CBD in a cannabis plant. Soon after, he unraveled the structure of THC, the psychoactive property of the plant. Now, two Israeli companies are breaking new ground, becoming the first in the world to develop an inhaler that will administer medical marijuana in precise, doctor-prescribed doses. Developed by Syqe Medical and marketed and distributed by Teva Pharmaceuticals, the inhaler is set to hit the market as soon as it’s approved by the Health Ministry. It has already been approved for hospital use. 

Syqe Medical, in a statement released Monday, said its groundbreaking product will “revolutionize the field of medical cannabis,” and “will allow medical professionals to prescribe an optimal dose of cannabis, alleviating the patient’s symptoms while minimizing the psychoactive effects.” Patients at Rambam Medical Center in the port city of Haifa have been using the inhaler for the past year, but now the product–the inhaler itself is a onetime purchase and the disposable cartridges last one month–is ready to hit the market.

Teva signs deal to market Syqe Medical’s cannabis inhaler https://t.co/YYjFulvaDq

— Remi L. Roy (@remilroy) November 28, 2016

Inhaling marijuana, in contrast to smoking or eating it, offers patients and doctors greater precision when ingesting and prescribing the drug for specific diseases. Other modes of ingestion are difficult to monitor and dose. According to a statement from Teva Pharmaceuticals, the world’s largest generic drugmaker, the inhaler would be the first in the world to deliver precise doses of cannabis. Plenty of people around the world use inhalers to deliver medical marijuana, but the doses are not measured or precise according to their diagnosis.

Israel legalized medical marijuana in 1992, and the latest statistics put its number of patients at 26,000, a number that is expected to double by 2018. Teva Pharmaceuticals, which is also one of the world’s top ten drug companies, said in a statement that its partnership with Syqe Medical “demonstrates the company’s commitment to improving the health of its patients and it is consistent with Teva Israel’s strategy of investing in — or partnering with — local startups and groundbreaking Israeli initiatives while providing access to innovative technologies and advanced medical devices.”

Editor’s Note: This post was updated on 11/29 to clarify that the Syqe inhaler has already been approved for hospital use. 

Alec Siegel

Alec Siegel is a staff writer at Law Street Media. When he’s not working at Law Street he’s either cooking a mediocre tofu dish or enjoying a run in the woods. His passions include: gooey chocolate chips, black coffee, mountains, the Animal Kingdom in general, and John Lennon. Baklava is his achilles heel. Contact Alec at ASiegel@LawStreetMedia.com.

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Hemp. It’s a word you have probably heard more than once, and probably had some questions about at the time. Is it marijuana? Is it legal? Why does my vegan friend preach its health prowess? In short, hemp is cannabis, but it is not marijuana, though marijuana is also cannabis. Confused? Read on to find out the details.

Endless Potential

Cannabis is a plant genus with two sub-species, indica and sativa. Both contain THC, the psychoactive chemical that results in a “high,” though they differ in appearance and effect. The fault line between hemp and marijuana is the THC content of an indica, sativa, or hybrid strain. If the THC concentration in a plant of any strain is under 0.3 percent, then it is classified as hemp (with the exception of West Virginia, which defines hemp as having a THC level below 1 percent). If it’s above that threshold, then it is classified as marijuana. The classification largely exists for legal purposes, as marijuana laws are much harsher than hemp laws.

Hemp grows around the world, most abundantly in Pakistan and China. China is also the crop’s largest exporter. An estimated 25,000 products are made from hemp, spanning nine different product markets. Its fibers are spun into a variety of goods: socks, shirts, pants, strong plastics, rope, and paper; a company in France even prints the Bible on hemp paper. Hemp seeds boast a nutritional profile unlike any other miracle seed (like chia or flax), with its perfect omega-3 and omega-6 fatty acids ratio and a host of vital vitamins and minerals. 

Persisting Taboos

In the U.S.–where marijuana taboos persist but are slowly crumbling–hemp is a nascent industry, even though its sturdy, long-lasting fibers are woven into the nation’s past. Colonial farmers cultivated the crop, including some famous ones: Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, and George Washington all grew hemp and sang its praises. The ropes of the Mayflower were made of hemp fiber.

But the abundance of hemp in colonial times soon became a siren for the demonizing of Mexican immigrants, and their supposed proclivity for the other side of the cannabis equation: marijuana. Marijuana–traditionally spelled “marihuana,” the modern spelling is a dig at Spanish-speaking Mexicans–became associated with all things evil and naughty, and of course, was banned. Hemp could not rid itself of the stigma of its more potent (and polarizing) cousin. That began to change in 2014.

A New Era

The Agricultural Act of 2014, also known as the 2014 Farm Bill, allowed states to pass legislation for the cultivation and study of hemp, with a requirement that growers must partner with researchers from a university to ensure cooperation between the scientific and commercial fields. As of this year, 16 states have passed laws that legalize industrial hemp for commercial purposes; 20 states are dipping into hemp more cautiously, allowing pilot programs that allow for collaborative research between growers and researchers.

One entrepreneur in New York is jumping on the state’s recently passed legislation allowing for hemp pilot programs. Aidan Woishnis is a part of an educational hemp outfit called WhatCannaDo. Aiming to educate prospective growers and consumers alike, Woishnis is passionate about the hemp movement, the importance of educating people on its potential powers, and deconstructing its marijuana-drenched stigma.

“In order to get any movement properly, people need to be educated and know what’s going on,” Woishnis, who dropped out of Prescott College in Arizona to stake his claim in hemp trade, told Law Street in a phone interview. His aim is to “build an educational platform, giving them a source of actual knowledge that’s been researched by a lab, not by someone taking something from the internet.”

State legislatures are showing a greater willingness to embrace hemp. But Woishnis said the greatest barrier to hemp taking off the way he thinks it could is competing private interests. Wealthy and powerful material industries–like plastics and timber–have pushed back on the young and frightening (for them) potential of hemp.

Some see hemp as an all-purpose answer to a green-conscious society’s infrastructure woes, a fix for the typical carbon-emitting materials that make up today’s cities and towns. Woishnis thinks hemp has the ability to remove the guilt from a culture built on consumption, but that is increasingly concerned with the longterm effects consumption will have on the environment. With hemp, people “can still be consumers and be in a capitalist system while not harming anything,” he said. “[Hemp] is a much better option.”

Editor’s Note: this piece has been updated to change the spelling of “WhatCannaDo.” 

Alec Siegel

Alec Siegel is a staff writer at Law Street Media. When he’s not working at Law Street he’s either cooking a mediocre tofu dish or enjoying a run in the woods. His passions include: gooey chocolate chips, black coffee, mountains, the Animal Kingdom in general, and John Lennon. Baklava is his achilles heel. Contact Alec at ASiegel@LawStreetMedia.com.

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Putting the “pot” in potency, marijuana in Colorado has a higher concentration of THC than ever before. A combination of lax regulations and an influx of growers selecting for desirable genes has led to the increased pop to Colorado’s pot.

“While we don’t do genetic engineering here, we’re constantly looking for better genetics. That means good, big, and fast. So, it’s been a constant evolution of our genetics over time,” Andy Williams, CEO of Denver-based dispensary Medicine Man Marijuana, told CNN in a recent interview.

Cross-breeding strains of cannabis has certainly played a role in the overall potency increase in the state’s crop. But Colorado’s regulatory framework, or lack of one, concerning limits on THC concentration in a flowering plant, has also had an effect. However, Colorado’s Marijuana Code does include stipulations regarding edibles: a packaged marijuana product can contain no more than 100 milligrams of active THC.

Academic studies–as well as mandatory tests conducted by state-licensed, third-party laboratories–have tracked the steady rise in THC levels in Colorado’s pot over the last few decades.

TEQ Analytical Laboratories is one of the state-licensed laboratories that tests producer’s products before they hit the market, a requirement for all growers in the state. They have examined over 100 strains from more than two dozen clients. JJ Slatkin, director of business development at TEQ, recently showed CNN the test results of a flower with a THC content of 32 percent, well above the average of 18.7 percent in .

“The biggest issue is protecting the public’s health and safety and making sure this industry is based on sound accurate science,” Slatkin said.

A study published in April of nearly 40,000 samples of marijuana–all from illicit material confiscated in raids by the Drug Enforcement Administration over the past two decades–reveals what might be a national trend: rising THC levels in illicit plants. In 1995, the average black market plant had a THC level of just 4 percent. That figure tripled by 2014, to 12 percent.

“This increase in potency poses higher risk of cannabis use, particularly among adolescents,” the authors of the study concluded.

Legislators concerned about THC’s effect on adolescent brains, and who would like to see caps on THC levels, introduced an amendment earlier this year that would bar producer’s from growing and selling cannabis with THC levels above 16 percent. That measure failed to pass.

Williams, the CEO of Medicine Man Marijuana, compared limiting THC levels to taking spirits and hard liquor off liquor store shelves. People who crave a stronger dose will simply “make it themselves,” he said.

Alec Siegel

Alec Siegel is a staff writer at Law Street Media. When he’s not working at Law Street he’s either cooking a mediocre tofu dish or enjoying a run in the woods. His passions include: gooey chocolate chips, black coffee, mountains, the Animal Kingdom in general, and John Lennon. Baklava is his achilles heel. Contact Alec at ASiegel@LawStreetMedia.com.

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Edible marijuana has a bit of a bad reputation. Take too little and expect to ask yourself “is anything happening?” about a thousand times for the next several hours, but take too much and well….you’ll be high as a kite. Relax, you likely won’t die; however, increased heart rate, paranoia, and  nausea are all possible side effects of “greening out.”

Hoping to help end some of the stigma surrounding baked goods like “pot brownies,” edible producers have begun to take the guess work out of  marijuana edibles with microdosing.

Microdosing aims to get people high–but not too high–by lowering the dose of THC, the psychoactive ingredient in marijuana, to small amounts typically ranging between 5 and 10 milligrams. The practice doesn’t just apply to baked goods. Aside from brownie bites, these marijuana-infused products also include chocolates, bottled water, and even barbecue sauce.

Seattle edibles producer Spot is one of the companies taking advantage of the trend in hopes of carving out a chunk of the $5.4 billion legal industry. Co-founder Tim Moxey claims his company’s five milligram indica brownie bites are the “right level to be at,” and  aren’t “going to make you lose control.”

“No one is going to get weirded out at five milligrams,” Moxey explained. “That’s why these products are selling so quickly.”

What often sets these microdosed products apart, is the clear labeling. In fact, only 17 percent of marijuana products have been found to be labeled properly. This can be especially problematic when, say, a marijuana-infused candy bar is meant to be split into 16 pieces instead of munched on, as Maureen Dowd famously found out.

Microdosing isn’t for everyone. The subtle “mood enhancing” dose is geared more toward novice pot users, or consumers looking for a more casual experience.

“It’s that person looking for a glass of wine or beer in the evening [type] experience,” said Kristi Knoblich, chief operating officer and cofounder of pot-infused chocolates company Kiva Confections.. “We’re looking for that person who isn’t looking to get blasted.”

As states continue to pass recreational and medical marijuana measures, more Americans will find themselves exposed to this growing marijuana market. If retailers continue to ensure edible users’ experiences go a little smoother, then these mini edibles very well may just be the future.

Alexis Evans

Alexis Evans is an Assistant Editor at Law Street and a Buckeye State native. She has a Bachelor’s Degree in Journalism and a minor in Business from Ohio University. Contact Alexis at aevans@LawStreetMedia.com.

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Arrests for small amounts of marijuana outnumbered arrests for all violent crimes combined last year, according to a new report released Wednesday by the American Civil Liberties Union and Human Rights Watch highlighting the abundance of drug possession crimes in America.

The 196-page report title “Every 25 Seconds: The Human Toll of Criminalizing Drug Use in the United States,” found that every 25 seconds in the U.S., someone is arrested possessing drugs for their personal use, and on any given day 137,000 men and women are behind bars in the U.S. for drug possession. In fact, one in nine arrests are for drug possession, amounting to over 1.25 million each year.

Interestingly enough, many of these people haven’t yet been convicted of a crime, but are being detained pretrial because they can’t afford to post bail–leading many defendants to “plead guilty simply to secure their release, in cases where they might otherwise want to go to trial.”

As a result, these convictions exclude them from job opportunities, public housing, quality education, welfare assistance, voting, and more, and subject them to discrimination and lifelong stigma.

“Rather than promoting health, criminalization can create new barriers to health for those who use drugs,” the report says. “Criminalization drives drug use underground; it discourages access to emergency medicine, overdose prevention services, and risk-reducing practices such as syringe exchanges.”

The authors of the report call for drug use to be treated as a public health issue, rather than a criminal issue. The report says:

Ending criminalization of simple drug possession does not mean turning a blind eye to the misery that drug dependence can cause in the lives of those who use and of their families. On the contrary, it requires a more direct focus on effective measures to prevent problematic drug use, reduce the harms associated with it, and support those who struggle with dependence. Ultimately, the criminal law does not achieve these important ends, and causes additional harm and loss instead. It is time for the US to rethink its approach to drug use.

Federal figures bolster the report’s findings. While drug-related arrests have drastically increased since 1979, drug use remains high. In 1979, less than 200 in 100,000 people were arrested on drug charges. By the mid-2000s, that ratio rose to 500 in 100,000, its peak. Today, federal figures estimate 400 in 100,000 people are arrested for drug use or possession.

Proponents of strict drug-use penalties argue that tough sentencing practices can deter use and will keep the public safe. For instance, since 1979, illegal drug use by children age 12 and up was at its highest rate in 2015, at just under 18 percent. That rate was much lower at the peak of drug-related arrests in the mid 2000s, but the full picture is much murkier than just that blip in time.

The report also found that while whites are more likely to use illicit drugs in general, black adults are more than two-and-a-half times as likely as white adults to be arrested for drug possession–furthering problems of racial discrimination.

 Alexis Evans also contributed to this story.

Alec Siegel

Alec Siegel is a staff writer at Law Street Media. When he’s not working at Law Street he’s either cooking a mediocre tofu dish or enjoying a run in the woods. His passions include: gooey chocolate chips, black coffee, mountains, the Animal Kingdom in general, and John Lennon. Baklava is his achilles heel. Contact Alec at ASiegel@LawStreetMedia.com.

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As marijuana is slowly legalized both for recreational and medicinal purposes in a variety of states across the United States, those states’ laws sometimes come head-to-head with already-existing federal legislation. These clashes are problematic, and they can create legal gray areas that courts then need to weigh in on. That’s exactly what happened recently in a federal appeals court in San Francisco, when the court ruled that the federal government’s prohibition on medical marijuana users obtaining a firearm does not violate the Second Amendment.

The case was sparked by a Nevada woman named S. Rowan Wilson, who in 2011 tried to purchase a gun. She had a medical marijuana card, which was legal given that Nevada had legalized medicinal weed over a decade before.  The store refused to sell her the gun, because in 1968 Congress passed a law prohibiting anyone who used illegal drugs from obtaining a firearm. While Wilson wasn’t exactly using an illegal drug–at least under Nevada law–marijuana is still illegal under federal law. That’s what makes this case a perfect example of the confusing interplay between state and federal law when it comes to marijuana, yet Wilson was upset by what she saw as a violation of her Second Amendment rights.

So, Wilson sued the government. According to Consumerist, she:

Filed a federal lawsuit alleging that this refusal to sell her a firearm violated her First and Second Amendment rights, along with the Equal Protection and Due Process Clauses of the Fifth Amendment. She subsequently claimed that the ATF notice that clarified the legality of selling firearms to medical marijuana users violated the Administrative Procedure Act by effectively making new rules without going through the necessary processes.

But the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals agreed 3-0 that “Congress reasonably concluded that marijuana and other drug use ‘raises the risk of irrational or unpredictable behavior with which gun use should not be associated.'”

Wilson now has the option to continue forward with the suit–it could hypothetically make its way to SCOTUS–but it’s unclear if she will do so. Yet as more states legalize marijuana, particularly for medical purposes, these are questions that courts are going to become increasingly familiar with.

Anneliese Mahoney

Anneliese Mahoney is Managing Editor at Law Street and a Connecticut transplant to Washington D.C. She has a Bachelor’s degree in International Affairs from the George Washington University, and a passion for law, politics, and social issues. Contact Anneliese at amahoney@LawStreetMedia.com.

The post Federal Appeals Court: Medical Marijuana Users Can’t Buy Firearms appeared first on Law Street.

New York officials are finally addressing concerns regarding the state’s fledgling medical marijuana program in order to better meet patients’ needs and improve accessibility. Per recommendations from the New York State Department of Health, the state will begin to offer home delivery services for patients too ill to travel, as well as enable nurse practitioners to prescribe the drug.

The changes come in response to a two-year report issued two weeks ago by the Health Department on medical marijuana use under the Compassionate Care Act. The Department of Health offered a list of 12 recommendations intended to grow the program, which has struggled to gain traction since it was first legalized in 2014.

Unlike some other states, New York does not allow medical marijuana to be smoked, but it can be consumed in a variety of other non-smokable forms including tinctures, liquids, oils, vapors, and capsules. While medical marijuana advocates have often criticized the limitations of the program, changes couldn’t be made until the state had sufficient information about the problems.

“We don’t want the federal government to come in and exercise an enormous amount of oversight and shut the entire program down,”Alphonso David, Governor Cuomo’s counsel, told the New York Times. “We’ve always been interested in expanding the program. We just wanted to make sure we had the data to support it.”

According to the Associated Press, the state intends to implement all 12 of the Health Department’s recommendations, which also include plans for more dispensaries around the state and reviewing whether to make chronic pain a condition eligible for marijuana. Only residents who suffer from severe, debilitating, or life-threatening medical conditions like cancer, AIDS, Parkinson’s disease, and epilepsy are currently eligible to qualify for the program.

Here is a list of all of the Health Department’s recommendations:

1. Authorizing nurse practitioners to certify medical marijuana patients.
2. Exploring ways to make it easier for healthcare facilities and schools to possess, secure, and administer medical marijuana products.
3. Making several general amendments to the regulations to enhance the program, including but not limited to: streamlining manufacturing requirements and broadening the capability for registered organizations to advertise their participation in the program.
4. Evaluating allowing distribution of Medical Marijuana to certified patients through home delivery services provided by registered organizations.
5. Working with the registered organizations to make more brands of medical marijuana products available to patients.
6. Continuing outreach to encourage the easing of federal restrictions on and impediments to scientific research on the potential benefits of medical marijuana, as well as the Registered Organizations’ ability to conduct financial transactions and establish traditional banking relationships.
7. Conducting a review of evidence for the medical use of marijuana in patients suffering from chronic intractable pain.
8. Identifying opportunities to enhance the practitioner, patient, and caregiver certification and registration system.
9. Meet additional patient demand and increase access to medical marijuana throughout New York State with five additional organizations over the next two years.
10. Making independent laboratories in NY apply for ELAP certification to perform testing of medical marijuana products for registered organizations.
11. Expanding the financial hardship waiver for the $50 patient and caregiver application fee for registration.
12. Streamlining and enhancing the practitioner registration process, to make it easier for practitioners to register with the program.

According to the Times, we can expect changes to the program as early as the end of next month.

Alexis Evans

Alexis Evans is an Assistant Editor at Law Street and a Buckeye State native. She has a Bachelor’s Degree in Journalism and a minor in Business from Ohio University. Contact Alexis at aevans@LawStreetMedia.com.

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Mass producing marijuana for the medical (or recreational) market is a weighty task. Most importantly, given that significant amounts of marijuana are produced in cultivation sites, it is an incredibly energy-intensive industry. In an attempt to reduce costs and impact on the environment, some marijuana growers are experimenting with using green energy–a pattern that seems likely to continue as more states legalize weed and America’s collective concern over the environment continues to worsen.

In order to grow marijuana indoors, grow rooms are constructed. They can range from small, household endeavors, to large warehouses. They require lights to mimic natural sunlight, and air conditioning to keep the temperatures at ideal levels. Both of those functions–lighting and AC–require a lot of energy, especially when you consider that at their largest level, some of these grow rooms could produce over 100 pounds of marijuana a month.

As a result, the overall drain on energy is large. A 2011 study by a California energy and environmental systems analyst yielded some of the following revelations:

U.S. cannabis production results in 15 million tons of greenhouse gas emissions per year, or the same as emitted by 3 million cars.

[…]

Cannabis production uses eight times as much energy per square foot as other commercial buildings, and 18 times more than an average home.

A recent Las Vegas Sun article by Daniel Rothberg features the efforts of one particular grow center in Clark County, Nevada. The center, owned by a company called The Grove, uses more energy-efficient LED lights in an attempt to slash power costs. The push to make the marijuana industry greener (and cheaper) isn’t just limited to Nevada, however. Rothberg quotes John Morris, who runs Resource Innovation Institute, saying: “The top priority is yield and product quality. When you can add a layer of energy efficiency on top of that, it lowers your operational cost.” At the end of the day, there’s a lot of potential for innovative energy efficiency when it comes to growing marijuana, and the two industries have the opportunity to grow and evolve together.

Anneliese Mahoney

Anneliese Mahoney is Managing Editor at Law Street and a Connecticut transplant to Washington D.C. She has a Bachelor’s degree in International Affairs from the George Washington University, and a passion for law, politics, and social issues. Contact Anneliese at amahoney@LawStreetMedia.com.

The post Are the Marijuana and Green Energy Industries a Perfect Match? appeared first on Law Street.

It has been nearly two years since Santa Fe, New Mexico decriminalized marijuana, but police officers are still arresting some for possession of the drug. A recent report from the Santa Fe Reporter counted 36 arrests over the past two years–the decriminalization ordinance passed on August 27, 2014–in instances where the possession of less than one ounce of marijuana should have amounted to a $25 fine, not jail time.

Of the 36 arrests, 12 led to convictions. The median age of the arrestees was 24, and 70 percent took place on the city’s Southside. Most of those arrested (20 of the 36) also qualified for a public defender, an indication that they likely fell below the poverty level. Decriminalization efforts at the state level have failed thus far, which has allowed for some officers to make marijuana-related arrests under the state code rather than the city of Santa Fe’s.

Santa Fe’s Mayor Javier Gonzalez told the Reporter in informal discussions that he has had with police officers, at least half of them–the city has 82 total officers–disagree with the ordinance, which considers possession of less than an ounce of marijuana to be the department’s “lowest priority.” Patrick Gallagher, the police chief of Santa Fe, echoed that sentiment, saying, “some of our officers are adamantly opposed to it,” adding, “but that shouldn’t change the way we enforce the law.”

According to the two-year old ordinance, possessing an ounce or less of marijuana and related paraphernalia results in a $25 fine. Under state law, that same offense carries a $50 to $100 fine and 15 days in jail. Subsequent arrests can incur heavier fines and increased jail time. But perhaps the most consequential aspect of an arrest is the fact that it will show up on background checks.

When the ordinance passed in August 2014, the fine print essentially amounts to allowing officers to use their discretion when deciding to arrest someone with an ounce of weed or less. For instance, two men could be carrying .08 ounces of pot on them each, and an officer can slap one of the men with a $25 fine, while another officer can arrest the other man, depending on his subjective assessment of the situation.

As more states begin to vote on legalization measures–including five in November–the ambiguity surrounding city and state law will clarify, and police officers would have a clear law to enforce. New Mexico, however, is not one of the five states to weigh marijuana legalization this fall.

Alec Siegel

Alec Siegel is a staff writer at Law Street Media. When he’s not working at Law Street he’s either cooking a mediocre tofu dish or enjoying a run in the woods. His passions include: gooey chocolate chips, black coffee, mountains, the Animal Kingdom in general, and John Lennon. Baklava is his achilles heel. Contact Alec at ASiegel@LawStreetMedia.com.

The post Ounce of Pot in Santa Fe Can Still Lead to an Arrest, Despite Decriminalization appeared first on Law Street.

Maryland officials announced the recipients of preliminary licenses to grow and process medical marijuana Monday, two years after then-Governor Martin O’Malley passed Maryland’s first workable medical marijuana law. The licenses are expected to be extremely lucrative in the state based on the limited number of businesses that can participate in the industry, as well as the few restrictions on who can buy the drug.

The Natalie M. LaPrade Medical Cannabis Commission was placed in charge of the selection process,  choosing 15 growers and 15 processors out of the more than 1,000 overall applicants.

According to Baltimore ABC affiliate, the selections for grower entities and locations are:

• Curio Cultivation LLC – Baltimore County
• Doctors Orders Maryland LLC – Dorchester County
• Forward Gro LLC – Anne Arundel County
• Freestate Wellness LLC – Howard County
• Green Leaf Medical LLC – Frederick County
• Grow West MD LLC – Garrett County
• Harvest of Maryland LLC – Washington County
• HMS Health LLC – Frederick County
• Holistic Industries LLC – Prince George’s County
• Kind Therapeutics USA LLC – Washington County
• Maryland Compassionate Care and Wellness LLC – Carroll County
• MaryMed LLC – Dorchester County
• Shore Natural Rx LLC – Worcester County
• SunMed Growers LLC – Cecil County
• Temescal Wellness of MD LLC – Baltimore City

The processor entities and locations are:

• AFS Maryland LLC – Wicomico County
• Blair Wellness Center LLC – Worcester County
• Chesapeake Alternatives LLC – Queen Anne’s County
• Curio Manufacturing LLC – Baltimore County
• Doctors Orders Maryland LLC – Dorchester County
• FGM Processing LLC – Charles County
• Holistic Industries LLC – Prince George’s County
• Kind Therapeutics USA LLC – Washington County
• Maryland Compassionate Care and Wellness – Carroll County
• MaryMed LLC – Dorchester County
• Pharmaculture Corporation – Alleghany County
• Pro Green Medical LLC – Frederick County
• Rosebud Organics LLC – Montgomery County
• Seven Points Agro-Therapeutics LLC – Prince George’s County
• Temescal Wellness of MD – Baltimore City

The top applicants were selected on August 5; however, the commission waited more than a week to release the names to the public. Some of the names on the list include companies with ties to politicians and law enforcement, as well as growers from other states including Colorado, New York, and Illinois.

The number of growers and processors was capped at 15 each due to a stipulation in Maryland’s medical marijuana law, but some applicants received licenses in both categories. Aside from the 30 winners, the panel also chose five applicants to be alternates in each category, in case any of the top 15 fail to be licensed after another round of inspections, reviews, and background checks.

In total, the commission received 145 grower applications and 124 processor applications. According to the Baltimore Sun, 800 applicants also applied for 94 dispensary licenses to sell the legalized cannabis product; however, medical cannabis won’t be available for purchase in dispensaries until 2017.

Patients suffering from medical conditions that cause severe or chronic pain, nausea, seizures, severe muscle spasms, and severe appetite loss, as well as people with glaucoma or post-traumatic stress disorder will have access to the medical marijuana cards once the program takes off. In the meantime, marijuana advocates frustrated with Maryland’s slower than average implementation of the law will have to wait just a little longer before they see the changes in full effect.

Alexis Evans

Alexis Evans is an Assistant Editor at Law Street and a Buckeye State native. She has a Bachelor’s Degree in Journalism and a minor in Business from Ohio University. Contact Alexis at aevans@LawStreetMedia.com.

The post Preliminary Licenses to Grow and Process Marijuana Named in Maryland appeared first on Law Street.

Sex under the influence is a complicated topic–one rife with questions of consent and the spread of STIs or unwanted pregnancy. Traditionally, that “influence” has been alcohol, but as the legalization of recreational marijuana becomes increasingly the norm in some states, will the same concerns extend to sex while stoned? New York University researchers recently set out to weigh the differences between stoned sex and drunk sex, and their results shed some light on that question.

The researchers, led by Joseph Palamar, PhD, MPH, an affiliate of NYU’s Center for Drug Use and HIV Research and an assistant professor of Population Health at NYU Langone Medical Center (NYULMC), studied 12 heterosexual men and 12 heterosexual women. They conducted in-depth interviews about their sexual experiences while under the two different influences.

The results? Both alcohol and weed lead to riskier sexual behavior overall. But, at the end of the day, drunk sex was riskier than stoned sex. Sex after consuming lots of booze was more likely to lead to negative feelings of regret, shame, and embarrassment afterwards. According to the Washington Post’s analysis of the study:

The most commonly reported feeling after sex on alcohol was regret. Both males and females commonly reported that regret, shame, and embarrassment were associated with alcohol use, but this was rarely reported for marijuana.

However, the study also acknowledged that those feelings may come from the situations in which alcohol and marijuana are likely to be consumed. Given the fact that marijuana is still illegal in most states, it’s more likely to be consumed in intimate settings; alcohol is often consumed at larger parties and in more social situations.

The study also found that sex under either influence led to some technical difficulties for both men and women–the study’s writeup stated: “marijuana use was linked to vaginal dryness and alcohol was commonly described as increasing the likelihood of impotence among males.”

Put simply, sex under the influence–alcohol or weed–has its risks. But drunk sex is riskier than stoned sex, an important distinction as recreational marijuana becomes more and more socially acceptable (and legal).

Anneliese Mahoney

Anneliese Mahoney is Managing Editor at Law Street and a Connecticut transplant to Washington D.C. She has a Bachelor’s degree in International Affairs from the George Washington University, and a passion for law, politics, and social issues. Contact Anneliese at amahoney@LawStreetMedia.com.

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A new study shows a link between recreational marijuana legalization in Colorado and the incidence of children who need medical treatment for ingesting the drug. The study, released Monday by pediatricians at Children’s Hospital Colorado (CHC) in Aurora, retroactively reviewed 163 cases involving marijuana treatment in toddlers ages zero to nine. The cases spanned between 2009 and 2015. Recreational marijuana was legalized in Colorado in 2014.

In 2009, the CHC’s emergency room admitted one child seeking treatment for marijuana ingestion. In 2015, a year after Colorado legalized marijuana entirely: 16 children were treated for a marijuana-related emergency. Forty-eight percent of the 163 cases during that period involved children who ingested marijuana in its edible form: candies, baked goods, and other sweet treats that contain THC, the psychedelic component of marijuana.

The rate of children visiting the hospital for marijuana ingestion increased after weed became legal in Colorado. During the two years prior to the legalization, 1.2 in 100,000 children visited the children’s hospital for marijuana-related issues. That figure increased to 2.3 per 100,000 children during the two years post-legalization. Additionally, the regional poison center in Aurora received nine calls in 2009 regarding children who had ingested marijuana, compared to 47 calls in 2014.

Dr. George Sam Wong, the study’s lead author, said his team’s findings help shed light on the impact state-wide legalization can have on children, and hopes it will lead to smarter regulations. In a video on the JAMA Pediatrics journal website, where his study was published, Wong said:

As more states decide to legalize both medical and/or retail recreational marijuana, we need to be cognizant about the public health impacts in all ages, but also in the young children, and think about proper regulations and rules to help prevent some of these exposures and ingestions.

Current requirements in Colorado require edible manufacturers to use packaging that is difficult for children to get into. Colorado, the first state to legalize recreational marijuana, also introduced new dosing regulations in 2015. Dr. Wong said the next step will be to analyze how other states change as they legalize marijuana. He also said the impacts of regulations that are already in place should be evaluated.

Alec Siegel

Alec Siegel is a staff writer at Law Street Media. When he’s not working at Law Street he’s either cooking a mediocre tofu dish or enjoying a run in the woods. His passions include: gooey chocolate chips, black coffee, mountains, the Animal Kingdom in general, and John Lennon. Baklava is his achilles heel. Contact Alec at ASiegel@LawStreetMedia.com.

The post Since Legalizing Marijuana, More Colorado Children Are Ingesting Edibles appeared first on Law Street.

It is a foregone conclusion, less a question of if than when: marijuana will be legalized for recreational use across all 50 states. Three states–Washington, Colorado, and Oregon–have already done so. Medical marijuana is legal in 25 states and the District of Columbia. This fall, five states–including California, a heavily populated pot playground–will vote on measures to legalize the long demonized plant.

Marijuana is less stigmatized in popular culture and society than ever before. Studies of weed–though stymied due to federal classification of marijuana as a Schedule I drug, reserved for the most dangerous substances–have largely hinted at its curative properties. Weed is inevitably headed toward a legal, taxed, regulated market in the vein of tobacco and alcohol. What effects could that have on consumers? What dangers could it cause? How will consumers benefit from marijuana shifting from an unchecked black market to one that is legal and perhaps beholden to powerful interests? Law Street investigates:

The State-Level Model

In a 1932 case, Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis famously called states the “laboratories of democracy.” And so far, in the twilight years of marijuana legalization, states are the testing grounds for setting standards and establishing norms. Colorado and Washington were the first states to fully legalize recreational marijuana in 2012. Oregon passed a similar measure last fall. At the Brookings Institute in Washington D.C. last week, the authors of a paper on how special interest groups will shape the legal marijuana landscape presented their findings. They concluded, “the emerging model of state-level regulation provides valuable insulation against interest-group depredations.”

Philip Wallach, a senior fellow at Brookings and co-author of the paper, believes states can act as a bulwark against the potentially self-serving, damaging motivations of special interest groups, and sort through what works and what does not. During a panel discussion that followed the presentation of his paper, Wallach ticked off the benefits of a state-level model versus a federal one. A state model would “[offer] room for experimentation, limit the stakes of any misstep, and spread out the resources of interest groups, preventing them from concentrating their firepower,” he said. Decentralization, according to Wallach and his colleague Jonathan Rauch, co-author of the paper and moderator of last week’s panel, would make for a healthier and more robust legal marijuana market.

But Kathleen Frydl, a history professor at the University of California, Berkeley and author of “The Drug Wars in America, 1940-1973,” questions the ability of the state-level model to act as a decentralizing mechanism. She worries the best practices formed within states would be co-opted by interest groups regardless. Frydl argues that these groups might “then promote those best practices, or what they see as best practices, and the other states kind of fall as dominoes,” without taking statewide “indigenous concerns” into account. Interest groups would be, in effect, “ordering from a legislative menu.”

A member on one of two panels at Brookings last week and a “full-throated advocate” of legalizing marijuana, Frydl also expressed concern over the lack of watchdogs at the state level. But, she conceded, “state taxation is the principle way in which states can regulate marijuana” and regulation is “best maintained by a variety of state experiences.”

Misregulation vs. Overregulation

For Andrew Freedman, the last few years have been a “regulatory honeymoon period.” Freedman is the Director of Marijuana Coordination in Colorado, a role that did not exist until a few years ago. As the “marijuana czar” of the first state to legalize pot, Freedman has dealt firsthand with the trial and error regulatory process of marijuana legalization. He participated in both panels last week and provided insight into how easy it was for Colorado to pass new legislation to shape the rules of its growing marijuana market.

Good regulations are key to a thriving legal marijuana market, he said, but the challenge is “how to draw the line between what is overregulation and what’s running as fast as possible, as smart as possible to create a good guideline later on.” Since Colorado legalized recreational marijuana in 2012, the trailblazing state has tweaked rules and amended the initial legislation in an effort to find a regulatory sweet spot.

Originally, tourists in Colorado were only allowed to purchase seven grams of weed while residents could buy up to 28 grams. Now, both tourists and residents can purchase up to 28 grams. And after a number of incidents involving edibles and children, Colorado is lowering the concentration of THC–the compound in marijuana that has psychological effects–allowed in edibles sold for purchase. That measure will go into effect in October.

But Freedman understands the freedom to adjust and establish new norms will likely be short lived. In five years, as a legal framework is established and interest groups consolidate, he sees pushing new regulations as “day to day battles versus big pieces being moved.” A consolidated marijuana industry with increased regulations would create obstacles for new entrants and more hurdles for existing businesses. But according to Alexander Tabarrok, professor of economics at George Mason University and a member of last week’s panel,  stifling regulatory measures and barriers to entry could be a good thing for the marijuana industry. “Capitalism plus an addictive drug—is this really the best combination?” he said, “maybe sometimes efficiency is not the best thing, maybe innovation in all things is not always good.”

Big Marijuana

Like the tobacco and alcohol industries before it, some experts say the marijuana industry is headed down a road of narrow interest groups and concentrated power. Big Marijuana: where rules of the road are set by only a handful of national actors. In their new paper, Wallach and Rauch conclude: “Over time, multiple interests will coalesce and colonize the regulatory process.” But Big Marijuana does not have to be an inherent evil, said John Hudak, who also presented a paper at the Brookings event. “This idea that big is always bad is wrong, and that differently sized is good is also wrong.”

Big Marijuana has its advantages, he said. Powerful actors have more to lose, and thus more incentive to play by the rules. They also have a reputation to uphold, since consumers buy into their brands and care about their actions, forcing them to act with the public’s spending power in mind. Hudak, who wrote a book called “Marijuana: A Short History,” said that big firms will also have the advantage of pairing business acumen with marijuana know-how. “Not every marijuana grower should run a business, and not every businessman should be growing marijuana,” he said.

That business acumen could come with costs, however. Freedman is concerned that as national marijuana brands accrue capital and influence, they will follow in the footsteps of tobacco and alcohol brands that market to underage users and exploit people with abuse problems. “Those who have access to capital know how to do that in a much better way than those who don’t have capital,” Freedman said. He wasn’t the only panelist who expressed caution at the exploitative potential of powerful marijuana companies. Jeff Zinsmeister, vice president of Smart Approaches to Marijuana, opposes legalizing weed because legalization would “inevitably push marijuana into a model that is constantly going to be pushing the limits when it comes to targeting children and heavy users.”

Whatever forces end up governing the legalized marijuana market–a handful of powerful brands and interest groups; a smattering of smaller, statewide actors; or something else entirely–there will be a time in the not so distant future where the entire country recognizes the drug as a legal substance. And like tobacco and alcohol before it, marijuana will pose difficult questions for society, government, and industry to answer.

Alec Siegel

Alec Siegel is a staff writer at Law Street Media. When he’s not working at Law Street he’s either cooking a mediocre tofu dish or enjoying a run in the woods. His passions include: gooey chocolate chips, black coffee, mountains, the Animal Kingdom in general, and John Lennon. Baklava is his achilles heel. Contact Alec at ASiegel@LawStreetMedia.com.

The post Once Marijuana Is Legal, Who Sets the Rules? appeared first on Law Street.

In an America where marijuana laws are being liberalized and the drug itself de-stigmatized, drivers who are found with traces of a cannabinoid in their blood can incur similar punishments in some states to those who drive under the influence of alcohol, a much deadlier exercise.

Marijuana researchers have been publishing studies over the past few years that have found marijuana to be a less dangerous substance than alcohol, and a recent study by the AAA Foundation for Public Safety appears to substantiate those claims when it comes to criminalizing drivers: “Legal limits, also known as per se limits, for marijuana and driving are arbitrary and unsupported by science.”

At the moment, drivers in Montana, Washington, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Nevada, and Colorado are convicted of a DUI if they are found with a certain amount of a cannabinoid–THC, hydroxy-THC or carboy-THC–in their bloodstream. And similar to a DUI involving alcohol, this can result in hefty fines or even a lengthy prison stay. The problem is that THC can linger in a user’s bloodstream for days after actively ingesting the drug, whether for recreation or medical purposes, so a driver can be perfectly safe and sober while driving yet convicted of a crime because of an action taken a day or more prior. 

Michael L. Becker of the Las Vegas Defense Group and one of Nevada’s top criminal defense lawyers called the law “hypocritical”; that in a state where medical marijuana is legal it is possible for someone who uses the drug as a medicine one day and then is found with it in his or her bloodstream days later can be found guilty of a DUI offense.

“I’ve had cases where prosecutors have said to me ‘I know your client wasn’t under the influence, but I can prove he has metabolized marijuana in his system’,” Becker said in a phone interview with Law Street, pointing to cases in which a client’s body is still processing marijuana from a dose taken a day or more prior to when an arrest is made. “People are literally being prosecuted where everybody knows they weren’t even high.”

The current threshold for what is considered above the legal limit in Nevada is two nanograms of THC per milliliter of blood, lower than the five milliliter threshold in Colorado and Washington, both of which have legalized marijuana completely. The new study by the AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety used psychophysical tests (walk-and-turn, finger-to-nose) and physical indicators (bloodshot eyes, pupil dilation) on drivers who had consumed marijuana and those who had not, and determined quantifiable thresholds for THC “cannot be scientifically supported.”

That’s not to say driving high poses no danger whatsoever. Being under the influence of marijuana while driving doubles the chances of a crash, a figure most researchers accept. But according to a study from 2014, 20-year-olds who drive with an illegal amount of alcohol in their system (above 0.08 percent) are twenty times as likely to crash. The researcher who conducted that study, Eduardo Romano, told The New York Times, “Despite our results, I still think that marijuana contributes to crash risk, only that its contribution is not as important as it was expected.”

So how can THC levels be accurately quantified in determining whether a driver is under the influence of cannabis, and above the legal threshold, if not by blood-THC content?

There is hardly a consensus among researchers, partially because they are limited in their research since cannabis is classified as a Schedule I drug in the U.S., meaning any research into it requires a special permit. Experts see saliva sampling as a promising alternative to blood testing, but the jury is out until more research is conducted.

While scientists try to figure out more reasonable ways of measuring the dangers of driving stoned, Becker, the lawyer in Las Vegas, continues to help his clients navigate the ironic situation of being legally allowed to use a drug that could put them in jail days after using it, if it’s in their system while they’re later behind the wheel. Becker wasn’t able to give an exact number of clients he represents who find themselves in this quandary, but he said it does happen.

And as marijuana is decriminalized and used more frequently, “[the law] is going to impact more people,” he said. Nevada’s law–drafted at a time when “communities were fearful and anti-marijuana”–has been examined for a repeal, but according to Becker, real change has been resisted because it’s not a “politically expedient” issue.

Becker hopes change is on the horizon: “The Nevada legislature is finally deciding to have an honest look at things. That’s the bright side,” he said.

Alec Siegel

Alec Siegel is a staff writer at Law Street Media. When he’s not working at Law Street he’s either cooking a mediocre tofu dish or enjoying a run in the woods. His passions include: gooey chocolate chips, black coffee, mountains, the Animal Kingdom in general, and John Lennon. Baklava is his achilles heel. Contact Alec at ASiegel@LawStreetMedia.com.

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I’m a little late for the gathering of the parade, but can still smell it from at least two blocks away. The cloudy New York sky matches the fumes from the joints as the 17th annual NYC Cannabis Parade marches south on Broadway toward Union Square. An enormous hot air balloon in the shape of a lit joint is carried along to the chanting of classic rock songs, with the lyrics replaced by one word–‘marijuana’.

The group in the parade was as diverse as New York itself–people of all ages, ethnicities and backgrounds, people wearing all green, people in one-pieces with weed patterns, and one group wearing t-shirts saying “Law enforcement for legalization.”

Image courtesy of Evershed Mattingly

“I’m in the long-term care field, and I see way too many people in jail for just using,” said Jeanette McDonald, one of the t-shirt wearers. She’s not a user herself, but is all for the medical use of marijuana for pain management. “To arrest them doesn’t make any sense, go after the terrorists instead.”

The medical use of weed to ease pain seemed to be the most important aspect for many people at the event. Beata Kosmik, dressed in a green creation with a crown of tulle on her head, is in a band that performs to raise awareness about the medical benefits of marijuana. She’s an eco educator–campaigning for a natural, green way of life. Her granddaughter has Dravet syndrome, a kind of infant epilepsy that can be alleviated by a drug containing cannabis but is still in the research stage here in the U.S., so she lives in London.

Image courtesy of Evershed Mattingly

Steven, who wore American Flag overalls and carried a Pride flag, told me he wants decriminalization of all drugs. “It’s corrupt–all these people that are incarcerated for using, it breaks up families, people go to jail for this. Weed doesn’t kill.” Steven also pointed out that so many Afro-American youths get locked up for something that now is considered cool by young white hipsters.

Marijuana was legalized for medical use in New York almost a year ago, and the law came into effect in January. But among the states that allow some kind of marijuana use, it’s one of the most restrictive, and it’s really hard for patients to gain access to legal pot. Classic smoking is actually still forbidden. But if the participants of the Cannabis Parade get their way, that will soon be changed.

To sum up the situation, Steven said: “America has bad fucking karma. The roller coaster is going downhill, and now it’s time to deal with it.”

Emma Von Zeipel

Emma Von Zeipel is a staff writer at Law Street Media. She is originally from one of the islands of Stockholm, Sweden. After working for Democratic Voice of Burma in Thailand, she ended up in New York City. She has a BA in journalism from Stockholm University and is passionate about human rights, good books, horses, and European chocolate. Contact Emma at EVonZeipel@LawStreetMedia.com.

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Ireland is taking a radical approach to dealing with drugs. The nation plans on decriminalizing small amounts of marijuana, heroin, and cocaine in what’s being called a “radical cultural shift.”

Ireland’s approach comes from a public health angle; Aodhán Ó Ríordáin, the Minister in charge of the National Drugs Strategy stated:

Too often those with drug problems suffer from stigma, due to a lack of understanding or public education about the nature of addiction. This stigma can be compounded for those who end up with a criminal record due to possession of drugs for their own use. Addiction is not a choice, it’s a healthcare issue. This is why I believe it is imperative that we approach our drug problem in a more compassionate and sensitive way.

In addition to decriminalizing the drugs, Ireland will set up supervised injection facilities, where users are monitored by medical professionals. The aim there is to keep users from consuming drugs on the street, where they can be a harm to themselves and others, for example, by using dirty syringes that could spread disease.

Ireland isn’t the first country to take this approach. Portugal undertook similar steps in 2001, when it decriminalized all drugs, and emphasized the need for public health spending and efforts. Since then, the rates of drug use among both young people and adults have been dropping.

The logic behind this approach is simple–if the illegality and stigma of possessing drugs are minimized, people will be more likely to get help. A study by the Cato Institute after Portugal took similar steps found that the biggest deterrent to addicts coming forward to receive treatment was the fear of arrest. Additionally, eliminating the costly burden of prosecuting and incarcerating individuals frees up that money to be used for rehabilitation efforts.

While the possession of drugs will be decriminalized, it will still be against the law to sell, distribute, or profit from drugs. This measure aims to only help those who have fallen victim to the disease of addiction. Ó Ríordáin further explained:

Above all the mode must be person-centred and involve an integrated approach to treatment and rehabilitation based on a continuum of care with clearly defined referral pathways.

It’s become almost overwhelmingly clear that a tough-on-drugs approach doesn’t necessarily work–the United States alone provides a depressing case study to that effect. If Ireland sees successful results along the lines of Portugal, other countries may follow suit.

Anneliese Mahoney

Anneliese Mahoney is Managing Editor at Law Street and a Connecticut transplant to Washington D.C. She has a Bachelor’s degree in International Affairs from the George Washington University, and a passion for law, politics, and social issues. Contact Anneliese at amahoney@LawStreetMedia.com.

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On New Year’s Day 2014, it became legal in Colorado to sell marijuana in specially licensed dispensaries to adults 21 years and older. Much like any liquor store, you can walk in, show your ID, and make your purchase. But the dispensaries don’t just sell marijuana you smoke; you can also buy edibles, as well–marijuana you eat. As a newly legal product, the state was in uncharted territory. As we fast forward a little more than a year later, what are the state regulations on edibles, what effects have the sale of edibles had, and are other states following suit?

What is edible Marijuana?

The Science

Cannabis, or marijuana, has three primary active compounds: THC, CBD, and CBG. THC is the only psychoactive ingredient. CBD and CBG have medicinal properties and alter the effects of THC. The drug reacts with the body’s endocannabinoid system, a “regulatory mechanism that modulates the release of compounds produced throughout the body,” and causes humans to experience a high. Marijuana can be vaporized, smoked, or consumed orally.

When marijuana is smoked or vaporized, delta-9-THC is absorbed through the lungs and heads straight to the brain. The onset high is relatively quicker and shorter than if marijuana is eaten. When the marijuana is consumed and digested by the liver, the delta-9-THC turns into 11-hydroxy-THC. The transformation causes the THC to quickly bypass the blood-brain barrier and produce a more psychedelic effect than smoked THC. Smoked and vaporized marijuana completely sidestep the liver and the THC never converts.

While the high from smoking marijuana is faster, edible highs last longer. When smoking marijuana, 50 to 60 percent of the THC in a joint can reach the blood plasma. The peak of the high can come after five to 10 minutes of smoking. In comparison, only ten to 20 percent of the THC in edibles hit the blood plasma and the high takes effect an hour or two later. The high from edible marijuana is described as a “whole body” high and can last from six to ten hours. Essentially, people experience the highs from smoking eating marijuana differently.

Why would someone choose edibles over smoking?

Although the high from edibles lasts longer, it isn’t necessarily stronger. The high from smoking is rapid and strong, and the effects wear off rather quickly. It is also relatively easy to know when you’ve reached a limit since the high is so immediate. One answer could be personal choice–some people prefer the experience of edibles. Edibles could also alleviate any problems a person has with consuming smoke, and coughing fits are essentially eliminated.

Also, edibles are inconspicuous. A person eating won’t invite attention the way someone smoking will. This is probably most important to medicinal marijuana patients. Amanda Reiman, policy manager of the California Drug Policy Alliance, explains that “people using marijuana medicinally for long-lasting chronic pain often prefer oral ingestion because it lasts longer and they don’t have to consume as often.” Bob Eschino, a partner at Medically Correct, says “They’re discreet, and it’s an easy way to dose the medication…especially here in Colorado, where you can’t smoke in public, you can still medicate with edibles.”

Edible Products

The sky seems to be the limit. Marijuana comes in the form of cookies, gummies, brownies, caramels, hard candies, chocolate bars, Rice Krispies treats, and beyond. Colorado dispensaries estimate edibles account for 20-40 percent of sales. Nearly five million edibles were sold in Colorado in 2014. For example, Dixie Elixirs, a popular cannabis products store, sold THC-infused mints, truffles, dew drops, whipped cream, coffee, and tea all in a variety of flavors. There are plenty of companies getting onboard. In an interview just this past February, Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield of Ben & Jerry’s Ice Cream even stated they would experiment with cannabis-infused ice cream if legal hurdles were removed.

Health Concerns

A major issue when ingesting marijuana is a person’s inability to predict the right amount to take. In order to receive the intended effect, there are many factors to take into consideration. Dosage is based on the type of marijuana, tolerance, body weight, gender, body chemistry, and more. The issue is further exacerbated by the fact that an edible’s effect can take an hour to two hours to reach its height. This prompts impatient people to ingest more.

The Cannabist, which seeks to educate readers about marijuana, recommends the following steps to be safe. First, a user must acknowledge his or her drug history and tolerance and recognize body factors like body type and gender when ascertaining the proper dosage. Also, it’s recommended when eating an edible to have a full stomach or to do so while also consuming food. Next, a user should measure by milligrams. A unit is generally ten milligrams of cannabinoids. A user should stick to a brand that works for him after lightly experimenting with a variety. Be patient, and cautious.

Controversy arose after a string of tragic incidents occurred involving edible marijuana. Levy Thamba, a Wyoming college student, committed suicide by jumping from a hotel balcony after eating an entire marijuana-infused cookie. The recommend dosage was probably only a portion of that cookie. Lack of portion control knowledge is a problem. Al Bronstein, a physician and medical director of the Rocky Mountain Poison and Drug Center, explains “[portion control is] difficult to do, practically. I know, myself: I wish I could only eat one-eighth of a Snickers bar and leave the rest for later.” Another concern is that consumers don’t realize that ten milligrams refers to one-tenth of a candy bar, for example, as opposed to the entire thing.

A Colorado man was accused of killing his wife after consuming pot candy. This man is thought to also have been on prescription drugs. As with alcohol, it is extremely dangerous to mix marijuana and prescription drugs.

Another major concern is children accidentally ingesting edibles that look like their non-marijuana-infused counterparts. According to a 2013 JAMA Pediatrics study, Children’s Hospital Colorado saw a “significant spike in the number of children treated for accidentally eating marijuana-laced treats” after the new marijuana-based laws were set in place. In one month, three seventh graders were hospitalized after ingesting marijuana-infused brownies.

The culmination of these events prompted public outcry that inspired new and stricter regulations on the selling and packaging of edible marijuana

Laws and Regulations

Stricter laws and regulations in Colorado went into effect on February 1, 2015 aimed at standardizing the labeling, packaging, and potency of edibles.

The recommend amount to take is one unit or ten milligrams. According to the new law, to avoid any consumer confusion, the serving portion must be transparently clear and marked “in a way that enables a reasonable person to intuitively determine how much of the product constitutes a single serving of active THC.” For example, Dixie Elixir’s marijuana-infused mints used to come in a loose tin of ten, with ten milligrams of THC each. They are now wrapped individually and sold at 16 mints of five milligrams apiece.

Packaging must now be child-resistant. Packages must be “constructed to be significantly difficult for children under five years of age to open…opaque so that the packaging does not allow the product to be seen without opening the packaging material…[and] resealable for any product intended for more than a single use.”

Labels must be more informative and give clear warning signs such as “This product is unlawful outside the State of Colorado” and/or “The intoxicating effects of this product may be delayed by two or more hours.” This specifically targets overdoses caused by impatience and overconsumption while a user is waiting for the drug to take effect.

The Marijuana Enforcement Agency now provides incentives for companies to sell ten milligram-portioned products. Manufacturers will face larger obstacles for production of ten to 100 milligram products.

Other Laws

Marijuana is still prohibited under federal law. This means you can still be fired for recreational use, and it can also lead to the loss of benefits, public housing, and financial aid.

Driving under the influence of marijuana will always be illegal, like alcohol. In Colorado, you can transport an unopened original package, but never across state lines. It is also forbidden to fly with marijuana even if you are traveling to another state with legalized marijuana.

You can obtain marijuana from a licensed dispensary or another adult over 21 as long as no money is exchanged. It is illegal to sell or resell any marijuana.

Alaska and Washington have also legalized marijuana for adult use with similar regulations. Washington D.C. and Oregon are following suit, but certain aspects of regulation have yet to go into effect. A total of 23 states allow marijuana for medical necessity.

Conclusion

Education and clear information are both vital. The tragedies surrounding edible marijuana seem like they most likely could have been avoided if these regulations were initially set in place, but it is hard to say for sure. Legalized marijuana, including edibles and other products, remains a new territory. New consumers need to learn what is safe and right for them as a learning curve is involved. If you are going to try it, it is important to be as informed as possible and in a safe environment. In the future, additional states may follow suit and legalize marijuana, and these questions will remain essential to keeping everyone as safe as possible.

Resources

Primary

Colorado Department of Revenue: Retail Marijuana Regulations

Additional

ABC News: Why Marijuana Edibles Might Be More Dangerous Than Smoking

Cannabist: Get Educated About Edibles: Eight Tips For Getting the Right Dose

Cannabist: New Rules in Effect for Colorado Marijuana Edibles Feb. 1

CBS: Colorado Moves to Curb Dangers of Edible Pot Products

BoingBoing: Everything You Need to Know about Marijuana Edibles

Consumer Responsibly: Know the Law

Denver Post: More Than 15 Months in, Pot-infused Edibles Still Confound

Dixie Elixirs: Products

Huffington Post: Ben & Jerry’s Founders Are Totally Down With Weed Ice Cream When It’s Legal

Jessica McLaughlin

Jessica McLaughlin is a graduate of the University of Maryland with a degree in English Literature and Spanish. She works in the publishing industry and recently moved back to the DC area after living in NYC. Contact Jessica at staff@LawStreetMedia.com.

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How do you avoid getting arrested overseas?

While the most obvious answer would be by not breaking any laws, it’s hard enough to know the legal minutia in America, let alone the rest of the world. When you travel to another country, you are subject to its laws and are under its jurisdiction, not the protection of the U.S. Constitution. Therefore you may be expelled, fined, arrested, or imprisoned if found in violation of foreign laws, even unknowingly.

Can I hold hands with my same-sex partner? Can I take a picture of this building? Is this outfit acceptable to wear in public? These are all important questions that you may not have considered before. Read on to learn about the ways you can protect yourself while traveling, and what to do if you do find yourself on the wrong side of a foreign law.

Before You Go

Before booking your boarding pass, first tour your country of interest’s available online resources, such as tourism sites, for valuable travel information. It’s also a good idea for travelers to research what crime trends are happening in that country as well to get an idea of what to stay away from. The U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of Consular Affairs provides a convenient resource that allows travelers to research specific countries and learn key facts, entry and exit requirements, embassy locations, and important local laws of which to take note. The British government actually offers a better resource than the U.S. government does; Britain provides extensive country-specific “prisoner packs” on its website containing step-by-step information for those arrested, including arrest procedures, legal representation, and prison conditions and regulations.

While in a Foreign Country

Once you’ve made it safely to the country of your choice, there’s the matter of staying out of trouble. Here are a few tips on what to avoid and how to ward off unnecessary suspicion.

Keep Identification on You at All Times

The last thing you want to do is be caught in a foreign country without proper papers. In Russia, for example, traveling without identification could possibly lead to a tourist becoming detained. In the event that you are arrested you want to be able to prove that you are who you say you are, that you’re in the country legally, the purpose of your visit, and what kind of visa you have. The more information you can provide the easier it is for police officers to deduce whether or not you are a threat.

Beware of Drugs, Booze, and Ammunitions

It’s estimated that more than 7,000 Americans are locked up overseas every year and 2,500 are in jail at any given time. Attorney Dick Atkins, who’s spent the last 33 years helping Americans get out of legal trouble abroad, names drugs, booze, and ammunition as the three biggest culprits when it comes to overseas arrests. Even though some countries may have younger legal drinking ages, drunk and disorderly conduct is almost always still considered a punishable offense. He also advises not to leave leftover bullets in your suitcase even if you obtained them legally in the U.S., because in countries like Mexico it could get you locked up.

Illegal drugs have both alcohol and ammunitions offenses beat. According to the Bureau of Consular Affairs more than one-third of Americans incarcerated abroad are held on drug charges. That’s not surprising considering that most countries have a zero-tolerance policy for drug trafficking and recreational use, and apply hefty fines and lengthy prison sentences for those found in violation. For many, Amsterdam stands out as a novelty soft-drug destination due to its famed “coffee shops,” which serve small amounts of cannabis products over the counter to tourists who are 18 and up. In 2004, the Netherlands passed a law requiring people to have membership cards, known as “weed-passes,” to gain entry to the coffee shops, which are only available to Netherlands residents. Amsterdam’s mayor and the coffee shop owners fought back however, rejecting the cards and keeping the entry to their shops permissible to all of-age patrons. While the Dutch try to decriminalize drug use as much as possible, production, trading, and stocking drugs remain a serious criminal offense.

So, what do I do if I am arrested?

The first thing you should do if arrested is immediately ask the officials to notify the closest U.S. embassy of your arrest. Most countries are required to do so within a certain time window, but it varies, so it’s always better to be safe than sorry. Embassies don’t provide you with a get-out-of-jail-free card, though. Once you’ve been arrested, you must go through the foreign legal process for being charged or indicted, prosecuted, potentially convicted, and sentenced, and for any subsequent appeals process. Here are a few things that embassies can help with:

• Contact family members, friends, or employers.
• Explain to you the local legal procedures as well as provide a list of attorneys and translators who speak English.
• Establish a trust for detainees to receive funds when permissible under prison regulations (embassies are also prohibited from paying for your legal or medical fees or representing you in court).
• Work with prison officials to ensure treatment is consistent with internationally recognized human rights standards.
• Protest any allegations of abuse against American inmates.

There are also some overseas organizations, depending on your nationality, such as Britain’s Prisoners Abroad, that specialize in helping to lobby for the release of prisoners abroad as well as provide some monetary support in the form of grants.

Strange Laws Abroad

While some foreign laws only differ slightly from those in the U.S., some are just downright unexpected. For your benefit, here are a list of some particularly surprising offenses that if you aren’t cautious could land you in legal trouble.

 Overseas Prison Horror Stories

Once tangled in a foreign legal web, it’s hard to get out. It potentially takes cases months or even years to be resolved. Here are a few notable travelers’ horror stories to consider as cautionary tales.

Alan Gross

On December 17, 2014, 65-year-old Alan Gross, a subcontractor working for the U.S. Agency of International Development (USAID), was released from a Cuban prison after five years. While working on a project to improve wireless access to small communities in Cuba, Gross was arrested after allegedly smuggling electronic equipment and a satellite phone capable of bypassing Cuban restrictions on Internet and telecommunications to a small Jewish community.

While imprisoned, his health deteriorated and he underwent a hunger strike. After years of waiting, he was released in exchange for three members of the Cuban Five agents who were being held in U.S. prisons, paving the way for better relations between the U.S. and Cuba, easing travel restrictions, and including plans for a new U.S. embassy in Havana.

ARMA 3 Developers

In September 2012, Ivan Buchta and Martin Pezlar, two Czech Bohemia Interactive ARMA 3 video game developers were jailed in Greece for 218 days, accused of espionage after being caught photographing Greek military installations. The pair, actually vacationing on the isle of Lemnos, were presumed to be scouting locations for their upcoming military tactical shooting game. They were released from the Greek prison after four months and are still awaiting trial.

Merrill Newman 

On December 7, 2013, 85-year-old Korean war veteran Merrill Newman was released from a North Korean prison after being held for more than a month. At the conclusion of a ten-day guided tour of North Korea, Newman was pulled from his plane and held in connection to alleged war crimes he was said to have committed more than 60 years prior during his 1953 tour of duty. He was later forced to confess in a jailer-fabricated statement televised on North Korean State TV, which he read and signed.

Upon his release Newman later stated:

Anyone who has read the text of it or who has seen the video of me reading it knows that the words were not mine and were not delivered voluntarily. Anyone who knows me knows that I could not have done the things they had me ‘confess’ to.

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Conclusion

Touring internationally is a cultural luxury that relatively few Americans are able to experience. That luxury can swiftly turn into a nightmare when ignorant mishaps land unsuspecting tourists in cuffs. So if you’re planning to travel soon, begin by researching your destination, heed the warnings, and most of all just be smart.

Resources

Primary

U.S. Department of State: Bureau of Consular Affairs 

Bureau of Consular Affairs :’A Safe Trip Abroad’ PDF 

British Gov: Passports, Travel, and Living Abroad 

Additional

Reader’s Digest: 13 Funny International Laws You’d Never Know Were Real

TRIP: Legal Advice For Americans Traveling Abroad 

Prisoners Abroad Website: Homepage 

Amsterdam: Amsterdam Drug Policy

Polygon: Arma 3 Developers Arrested

Daily Beast: Americans Locked Up Abroad

Washington Post: Korean War Veteran Merrill Newman Gives Detail of Detention by Pyongyang

Alexis Evans

Alexis Evans is an Assistant Editor at Law Street and a Buckeye State native. She has a Bachelor’s Degree in Journalism and a minor in Business from Ohio University. Contact Alexis at aevans@LawStreetMedia.com.

The post Arrested Overseas: What Travelers Need to Know appeared first on Law Street.

The Hershey Company has settled a lawsuit and simultaneously protected millions of little children across the country from becoming future cannabis users.

The maker of the legendary chocolate Kiss, Peppermint Patty, and (my personal favorite) Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup settled a suit against marijuana candy manufacturer TinctureBelle LLC. Filed this summer, the suit was in response to TinctureBelle’s “medicated gourmet edibles,” many of which boast names allegedly mimicking those of the Hershey Company’s treats.

TinctureBelle is clever, I’ll give them that. Some of its product names included “Hashees,” “Ganga Joy,” and “Hashheath.” Who doesn’t enjoy a good pun? Well, Hershey. The Pennsylvania-based company wasn’t laughing when it sued the Colorado-based company for trademark infringement.

The purpose of a trademark is to avoid confusion among consumers between two products. Hershey argued that similarities in product names would do just that and expressed concern over maintaining their wholesome reputation as a company whose biggest fans are children.

“The Hershey Company’s trademarks are iconic and among our company’s most important assets,” explained Hershey’s spokesman Jeff Beckman. “They are recognized by consumers around the world, and our company has spent as many as 120 years building the trust and equity in these iconic brands. Consumers depend on our brand names to represent a level of quality and dependability. These entities have used Hershey’s trademarks, without authorization, to trade on Hershey’s goodwill and reputation, and to draw greater attention to their products; these unauthorized uses of Hershey’s trademarks also make the products more appealing to children.”

TinctureBelle must now refrain from using names that infringe on Hershey products. According to the Denver Business Journal, this includes the destruction of “all remaining specimens of each product, including without limitation cartons, containers, packaging, wrappers, labels, displays and any other material.”

TinctureBelle owner Char Mayes released a statement asserting that “the lawsuit from Hershey came as a huge surprise to us, because we changed our entire label line approximately six months ago, long before these allegations surfaced.”

With one Google search of TinctureBelle’s products, you will find that the packaging does resemble that of Hershey’s delicious treats. It’s pretty obvious.

TinctureBelle now begins the walk of shame with this settlement. It has agreed to disable an Internet site that had been designed to raise money for the legal battle against Hershey. It promised not to register trademark for the names involved in the suit and will have to pay $25,000 per trademark breach of the settlement going forward.

It seems as though Hershey’s legal department is actually quite busy lately. TinctureBelle isn’t the only company in its path of legal destruction. In June it filed a suit against Conscious Care Cooperative over a similar marijuana-based candy issue. And in September, the Hershey Company filed a lawsuit against LBB Imports LCC over trademark infringement of foreign candy.

Meanwhile, Hershey is playing defense against Mars, which accused the candy company of copying its red-colored packaging.

October’s Halloween holiday can mean many things — spookiness and fear, high candy sales, and now salty executives caught up in some sweet trademark hell.

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Alexandra Badalamenti (@AlexBadalamenti) is a Jersey girl and soon-to-be graduate of Fordham University in Lincoln Center. She plans to enroll in law school next year to study Entertainment Law. On any given day, you’ll find her with big blonde hair, high heels, tall Nashville dreams, and holding a newspaper or venti latte.

Featured image courtesy of [slgckgc via Flikr]

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