Marijuana

NORML -   Former President Richard Nixon privately questioned his administration’s tough stance on marijuana and acknowledged that the substance posed limited public health risks, according to newly uncovered audio recordings. The recordings, first identified by Minnesota NORML co-founder Kurtis Hanna and highlighted by The New York Times on Saturday, archive conversations between Nixon and White House aides on March 6, 1973. Hanna says that the recordings reveal that Nixon was “not a true believer” in the drug war, despite being among its chief architects.

NORML - The Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee voted 9-5 to approve legislation which will eliminate the ability of federal agencies to disqualify applicants for federal jobs and security clearances solely for prior cannabis use. 

NORML - Adults who regularly consume medical cannabis products do not experience any significant adverse changes in either brain morphology or cognitive performance, according to longitudinal data published in the journal JAMA (Journal of the American Medical Association) Network Open.

Researchers affiliated with Harvard Medical School and the McGovern Institute for Brain Research at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology collected structural and functional brain imaging (fMRI) data from a cohort of newly authorized medical cannabis patients at baseline and one-year later. Similar data was also collected for healthy controls (non-cannabis consumers).

Investigators “did not observe functional differences between baseline and brain activation at one-year during working memory, reward processing, or inhibitory control tasks,” nor did they identify “an association between changes in cannabis use frequency and brain activation.”

The findings are consistent with numerous prior studies concluding that cannabis exposure is not negatively associated with significant changes in either brain morphology or cognitive functioning in either young people or adults. Other studies have determined that medical cannabis patients “exhibit enhanced rather than impaired executive function over time,” likely as a result of clinical improvements in their conditions. 

NPR -  More than half of the states In the U.S. have legalized the use of cannabis for medical or recreational purposes, with some states allowing both. However, the federal government still considers most types of cannabis to be illegal. A new report from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine, has found that a disconnect between states and the federal government is leading to fragmented politics and risks to the public.

🍃 More U.S. adults reported using cannabis than alcohol on a near-daily basis in 2022, marking the first time regular marijuana use surpassed regular alcohol use.
🍃 Some people believe that cannabis becomes less dangerous once legalized. The report suggests public health campaigns should describe the risks and cannabis retail staff should be trained to discuss the risks and benefits knowledgeably.