Day: 07/15/2015

Study: Medical Marijuana Access Reduces Painkiller Abuse

http://www.hightimes.com/read/study-medical-marijuana-access-reduces-painkiller-abuse

Specifically, they found that overdose deaths from opioids decreased by an average of 20 percent one year after the law’s implementation, 25 percent after two years and up to 33 percent by years five and six…

A separate study published this month by the National Bureau of Economic Research, a non-partisan think-tank, shows that the JAMA data is not anomalous. Researchers from the RAND Corporation and the University of California, Irvine assessed the impact of medical marijuana laws on problematic opioid use, as measured by treatment admissions for opioid pain reliever addiction and by state-level opioid overdose deaths.

“[S]tates permitting medical marijuana dispensaries experience a relative decrease in both opioid addictions and opioid overdose deaths compared to states that do not,” they reported.

Researchers found that women over the age of 40 showed the most significant decrease in problematic opioid use…

The notion that chronic pain patients will choose pot over opiate pain relievers is hardly surprising. According to a series of clinical trials overseen by the University of California, San Diego, the inhalation of whole-plant cannabis is safe and efficacious in the treatment of various types of neuropathy—a type of pain that is poorly managed by opiates. Moreover, clinical data published in 2011 in the journal Clinical Pharmacology & Therapeutics showed that cannabis administration significantly augments the analgesic effects of opiates in patients with chronic pain…

Teenagers using less marijuana in age of legalization

http://www.drugwarrant.com/2015/07/what-about-the-children-3/

http://www.philly.com/philly/columnists/philly420/Philly420_

Teenagers_using_less_marijuana_in_age_of_legalization.html

A new study published The American Journal of Drug and Alcohol Abuse has found that teens are using marijuana less frequently and are less attracted to it now that it is decriminalized or legalized at the state level…

The study, conducted by the University of Texas at Austin, looked at data spanning from 2002 to 2013 in the federal National Home Survey on Drug Use and Health. They found that younger teens aged 12 to 14 years old showed an impressive 25 percent decline in cannabis use from 6 percent in 2002 to 4.5 percent in 2013…

Lying to kids has also been a very bad move. In 2009, the Annenberg School at the University of Pennsylvania found that government-funded anti-marijuana ads (remember the old eggs-in-the-frying-pan commercials?) actually made teens more likely to want to try a toke…

Casper the Ghost

Wed, Jul 15, 2015 7:04 am

From: painkills2@aol.com
To: JKatzman@salud.unm.edu
Re: Casper the Ghost

Dr. Katzman:

You know, there’s nothing quite like the feeling of being ignored. It’s a little like being invisible. Or maybe it’s like screaming in the middle of a forest — no one’s listening, and anyway, no one can hear you. Have you ever felt like Casper the Ghost, Dr. Katzman?

Being disabled by constant pain, there’s not much benefit I can offer — to anyone — stuck as I am in this prison. And yet, I thought if I could help other pain patients, then my life wouldn’t be totally useless.

Help me to understand your choice of ignoring my email (below). Because your silence just says to me that I’m not important enough for a response — and I just thought you should know how that feels.

Johnna Stahl

https://painkills2.wordpress.com/2015/06/28/a-proposal-for-dr-katzman-and-unm-pain-center/

Drug Free America Funds Sheriffs’ Challenge to Colorado Law

http://www.mjinews.com/dfa-funds-sheriffs-challenge-colorado-law/

Out-of-state participation and political connections are nothing new in the legalization struggle, but DFA has a particularly swampy past. The organization was founded by Mel Sembler, a Florida shopping center developer. He and his wife are long time Republican fundraisers… Former Gov. Jeb Bush and his wife Columba have served on DFA’s Advisory Board.

DFA and the Florida Sheriff’s Association, with backing from casino magnate Sheldon Adelson, worked to defeat Amendment 2, which would have legalized medical marijuana in Florida in 2014.

DFA is also closely linked to Straight, Inc., a coercive drug rehabilitation program that was successfully sued for falsely imprisoning, assaulting and denying medical care to adolescents at its treatment facilities during the 1980s…

https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/organizations/591662427

Drug Free America Foundation Inc.

St. Petersburg, Florida

Contributions:  $896,324

Percent of Total Revenue:  95.8%

Other salaries and wages:  $469,873

Percent of Total Expenses:  56.8%

https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/organizations/232883156

Straight Inc., Philadelphia, PA

Iraq War Veteran’s Service Dog Could Cost Him a Place to Live

http://patch.com/illinois/oakforest/veteran-says-hes-being-kicked-out-home-over-service-dog

Dogs aren’t allowed in the complex, said Jillian Jans, but a service dog is an exception, as stated by the property’s previous manager and as noted in a letter on the property door. That manager left in January, she said, and the new manager has seemingly disapproved of Alli on multiple occasions, including when she accompanied Jon into the management office.

Jon was told the dog couldn’t be there, but the Americans with Disabilities Act permits service animals into any public space where he is. But according to the apartment supervisor, it’s not where the dog walks but where she “goes” that’s the problem…

During Operation Iraqi Freedom, Jon worked nine-day rotations. Three days would be spent on patrol in Ramadi, a city 68 miles west of Baghdad. He’d spend another three days training the Iraqi army, and he was stationed inside the American military compound for three days. He and his men would patrol the city four times each day on their slotted shifts, with Jans behind the wheel of a Humvee. During one of those patrols on March 9, 2006, an explosive detonated near his vehicle. He was knocked unconscious.

His lasting symptoms include a constant dull headache, seizures, blackouts, short-term memory loss and post-traumatic stress disorder. In social situations, Jon’s combat reflexives are triggered. Alli is trained to walk a perimeter around him, to keep space between Jans and the people around him. She is trained to position herself between her owner and someone who approaches him unexpectedly, to prevent a physical reaction. She can sense an impending seizure, and is trained to recognize when a blackout might be brought on by the pinched artery in his brain. Oftentimes, her mere presence puts him at ease and helps him sleep through a night.

She has been “a godsend,” Jillian said.

“It’s so hard to put it down on paper what she does for him,” she said. “When he came home, he was on 18 medications when he got out of the Marines. He was on nine when we first got her. He’s on six now.” …

Evidence of Marijuana’s Medical Usefulness Mounts

http://www.newsweek.com/evidence-marijuanas-medical-usefulness-mounts-351293

The current issue of The Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) includes two articles that review studies of marijuana’s medical utility and come to similar conclusions about the applications that are best supported by the existing evidence: treatment of chronic pain, neuropathic pain and spasticity.

There is also substantial evidence that THC, marijuana’s main active ingredient, is effective at relieving nausea and restoring appetite…

Researcher investigates use of marijuana for arthritis pain

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/nova-scotia/dalhousie-researcher-investigates-use-of-marijuana-for-arthritis-pain-1.3142592

Dr. Jason McDougall, a professor in the department of pharmacology and anesthesia at the Halifax university, is using a three-year research grant from the Arthritis Society to study how cannabis compounds can manage arthritis pain…

The nerves of an arthritis sufferer are like “wires that have been stripped of their coating,” McDougall told CBC Radio’s Information Morning.

“They’re all bare, they’re all raw and responsible for feeling a lot of pain. What we hypothesize is that by locally administering these cannabis-like molecules to those nerves, we’d actually be able to repair them and reduce the pain of arthritis.”

His research is breaking down how cannabis molecules are easing pain for patients. He says it appears cannabis is not just dampening the pain in the brain, it’s actually working on the joint itself…

THC in Medical Marijuana Helps Stop the Spread of HIV/AIDS

http://inspireamaze.com/thc-in-medical-marijuana-helps-stop-the-spread-of-hivaids/

A group of researchers from Louisiana State University published a study last week in the journal AIDS Research and Human Retroviruses which suggests that cannabis/marijuana can help stop the progression of the AIDS/HIV disease, and its associated symptoms of chronic pain, nausea, fatigue, and more. The specific compound that halts the spread of HIV compounds into other healthy cells is none other than tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), or the principle psychoactive constituent in cannabis plants…

Cannabis certifier in New Mexico

https://www.facebook.com/nmmcpa

Anita Briscoe
July 11 at 8:20pm
Hello, I am a provider/prescriber! I have just set up a practice at CG Corrigan on Gulton Ct, and would like to attend your meetings, and present for you. Anita Briscoe, MS, APRN-BC

http://www.sfreporter.com/santafe/article-10632-secrets-suck.html

The state shouldn’t be able to keep secrets about who’s been awarded licenses from the state to grow and sell cannabis, argues a lawsuit filed this week in district court.

Independent journalist Peter St. Cyr and the New Mexico Foundation for Open Government say the New Mexico Department of Health has violated the state Inspection of Public Records Act by repeatedly refusing to identify license holders or applicants for the licenses.

“Plaintiffs believe that secreting the identities of medical-marijuana producers distorts the market for the medicine, deprives New Mexicans of important information about their neighborhoods, and has the potential to promote cronyism and corruption in the awarding of valuable state licenses,” reads a complaint filed by attorney Kip Purcell in Second Judicial District Court in Albuquerque on Thursday.

The Department of Health adopted an administrative rule keeping information about producers confidential, but Purcell argues that’s not permissible under state law…

Further, he says, patients in the program “want to know if the folks who want to make a living selling pot actually have horticultural experience or if they’re just out to make money,” he says.

Plus, journalists want access to the information to evaluate the fairness of the application and selection process for growers.

“We want to see if the licenses are being awarded to political donors or cronies or to well-qualified growers,” he says. “We’re also interested in seeing if the licenses are distributed in a diverse manner. For decades, we’ve been locking up African Americans for selling cannabis, but now that we’ve made it legal for medicinal purposes, we want to see if all the licenses were awarded to white men.”

Other states have made their medical marijuana licensing process more transparent. Massachusetts, for instance, requires its producers to agree to be publicly identified.

I Need A Haircut

I figured out how to send emails to myself whenever I make a post, and come to find out, my photos don’t show up within the emails.  I just spent a really long time trying to figure out how to make this happen, but was unsuccessful.  If anyone can show me where the directions are located for this WordPress phenomenon, I would really appreciate it.

(Photo taken 7/14/2015.)