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Study Finds Fewer Cannabis Consumers View Cigarette Use as Harmful
The findings of a new study show that with the increase in acceptability and normalization of cannabis also comes an altered perception of tobacco use.
A new study, entitled “Everything old is new again: Creating and maintaining a population-level ‘shared reality’ of health risks associated with cigarette use toward both reducing the prevalence and eliminating disparities in cigarette use among all Americans,” was released in the journal Nicotine & Tobacco Research. Research was led by Dr. Renee Goodwin, a CUNY Graduate School of Public Health & Health Policy professor, and also adjunct professor at Columbia Mailman School of Public Health in New York.
Goodwin explained in a press release that more questions are always being developed as cannabis legalization expands across the United States. “Tobacco control has done a tremendous job in public education on the physical health risks associated with tobacco use, and cigarette smoking in particular, over the past several decades,” Goodwin said.
In this most recent study, researchers analyzed data pulled from the 2020 National Survey on Drug Use and Health. “Participants’ responses to a question asking how much people risk harming themselves physically and in other ways by smoking one or more packs of cigarettes per day were compared between those who use cannabis daily and those who did not use cannabis in the past year,” a press release explained. “Sixty-two percent of adults who use cannabis daily perceived pack a day cigarette use to be of ‘great’ risk to health, compared with 73% of those who did not use cannabis in the past year.”
Previous studies Goodwin has conducted show evidence that cigarette use is more common in consumers who also use cannabis. “We wondered why that might be,” Goodwin said. “Our findings suggest that diminished risk perception of pack a day cigarette use might be one contributing factor.”
“Most Americans who use cigarettes have at least one mental health or substance use issue considered a barrier to smoking cessation and sustained abstinence from cigarette use. Based on our analysis of 2020 nationally representative data from the National Survey of Drug Use and Health (NSDUH)…” the study manuscript states. “…51.7% of Americans ages 12 and older who reported past 30-day cigarette use met criteria for at least one of the following: serious psychological distress, major depressive episode, heavy alcohol use or daily cannabis use…”
Goodwin recently spoke at a public hearing in New York on the topic of Introductory Resolution 1417, which was proposed by Legislator Kara Hahn of Suffolk County and would ban cannabis packaging that appeals to children. Goodwin explained that studies in Canada, through some of her peers, suggest that cannabis legalization hasn’t led to increase in consumption by minors. “Data from Canada suggests that plain packaging is one measure that can maximize the safe and effective rollout of cannabis legalization and protect the health, safety and wellbeing of all members of our community, including those most vulnerable: children,” Goodwin said at the hearing.
“Enacting legislation on the local and state level that reduces the appeal of cannabis products to youth vis-à-vis prohibiting product packaging that mimics foods and candies that are traditionally marketed to children (e.g., pop-tarts, Oreos) may reduce potential unintended harms to the most vulnerable members of our community via accidental ingestion/poisonings, which have exploded in number in recent years in the U.S., with child and adolescent intentional use of these products,” Goodwin said, according to an interview with Columbia Mailman School of Public Health.
Cigarette consumption has been known to cause many harmful side effects. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention states that more than 480,000 people die from tobacco-related deaths every year, which includes those exposed to second-hand smoking. But cannabis legalization has definitely played a part in reducing cigarette and e-cigarette consumption. A poll in 2019 found that many Americans believe e-cigarettes are more dangerous than cannabis. The EVALI vape crisis of late 2019 and early 2020, which led to 2,807 hospitalizations or deaths, also led to increased restrictions and testing requirements for e-cigarettes.
Source: https://hightimes.com/news/study-finds-fewer-cannabis-consumers-view-cigarette-use-as-harmful/
New Mexico regulators fined a cannabis operator nearly $300,000 and revoked its license after the company allegedly created fake reports in the state’s traceability software.
The New Mexico Cannabis Control Division (CCD) accused marijuana manufacturer and retailer Golden Roots of 11 violations, according to Albuquerque Business First.
Golden Roots operates the The Cannabis Revolution Dispensary.
The majority of the violations are related to the Albuquerque company’s improper use of BioTrack, which has been New Mexico’s track-and-trace vendor since 2015.
The CCD alleges Golden Roots reported marijuana production only two months after it had received its vertically integrated license, according to Albuquerque Business First.
Because cannabis takes longer than two months to be cultivated, the CCD was suspicious of the report.
After inspecting the company’s premises, the CCD alleged Golden Roots reported cultivation, transportation and sales in BioTrack but wasn’t able to provide officers who inspected the site evidence that the operator was cultivating cannabis.
In April, the CCD revoked Golden Roots’ license and issued a $10,000 fine, according to the news outlet.
The company requested a hearing, which the regulator scheduled for Sept. 1.
At the hearing, the CCD testified that the company’s dried-cannabis weights in BioTrack were suspicious because they didn’t seem to accurately reflect how much weight marijuana loses as it dries.
Company employees also poorly accounted for why they were making adjustments in the system of up to 24 pounds of cannabis, making comments such as “bad” or “mistake” in the software, Albuquerque Business First reported.
Golden Roots was fined $298,972.05 – the amount regulators allege the company made selling products that weren’t properly accounted for in BioTrack.
The CCD has been cracking down on cannabis operators accused of selling products procured from out-of-state or not grown legally:
- Regulators alleged in August that Albuquerque dispensary Sawmill Sweet Leaf sold out-of-state products and didn’t have a license for extraction.
- Paradise Exotics Distro lost its license in July after regulators alleged the company sold products made in California.
Golden Roots was the first alleged rulebreaker in New Mexico to be asked to pay a large fine.
Source: https://mjbizdaily.com/new-mexico-cannabis-operator-fined-loses-license-for-alleged-biotrack-fraud/
Four marijuana companies, including a multistate operator, have filed a lawsuit against U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland in which they allege the federal MJ prohibition under the Controlled Substances Act is no longer constitutional.
According to the complaint, filed Thursday in U.S. District Court in Massachusetts, retailer Canna Provisions, Treevit delivery service CEO Gyasi Sellers, cultivator Wiseacre Farm and MSO Verano Holdings Corp. are all harmed by “the federal government’s unconstitutional ban on cultivating, manufacturing, distributing, or possessing intrastate marijuana.”
Verano is headquartered in Chicago but has operations in Massachusetts; the other three operators are based in Massachusetts.
The lawsuit seeks a ruling that the “Controlled Substances Act is unconstitutional as applied to the intrastate cultivation, manufacture, possession, and distribution of marijuana pursuant to state law.”
The companies want the case to go before the U.S. Supreme Court.
They hired prominent law firm Boies Schiller Flexner to represent them.
The New York-based firm’s principal is David Boies, whose former clients include Microsoft, former presidential candidate Al Gore and Elizabeth Holmes’ disgraced startup Theranos.
Similar challenges to the federal Controlled Substances Act (CSA) have failed.
One such challenge led to a landmark Supreme Court decision in 2005.
In Gonzalez vs. Raich, the highest court in the United States ruled in a 6-3 decision that the commerce clause of the U.S. Constitution gave Congress the power to outlaw marijuana federally, even though state laws allow the cultivation and sale of cannabis.
In the 18 years since that ruling, 23 states and the District of Columbia have legalized adult-use marijuana and the federal government has allowed a multibillion-dollar cannabis industry to thrive.
Since both Congress and the U.S. Department of Justice, currently headed by Garland, have declined to intervene in state-licensed marijuana markets, the key facts that led to the Supreme Court’s 2005 ruling “no longer apply,” Boies said in a statement Thursday.
“The Supreme Court has since made clear that the federal government lacks the authority to regulate purely intrastate commerce,” Boies said.
“Moreover, the facts on which those precedents are based are no longer true.”
Verano President Darren Weiss said in a statement the company is “prepared to bring this case all the way to the Supreme Court in order to align federal law with how Congress has acted for years.”
While the Biden administration’s push to reschedule marijuana would help solve marijuana operators’ federal tax woes, neither rescheduling nor modest Congressional reforms such as the SAFER Banking Act “solve the fundamental issue,” Weiss added.
“The application of the CSA to lawful state-run cannabis business is an unconstitutional overreach on state sovereignty that has led to decades of harm, failed businesses, lost jobs, and unsafe working conditions.”
Alabama regulators are targeting Dec. 1 to award the first batch of medical cannabis business licenses after the agency’s first two attempts were scrapped because of scoring errors and litigation.
The first licenses will be awarded to individual cultivators, delivery providers, processors, dispensaries and state testing labs, according to the Alabama Medical Cannabis Commission (AMCC).
Then, on Dec. 12, the AMCC will award licenses for vertically integrated operations, a designation set primarily for multistate operators.
Licenses are expected to be handed out 28 days after they have been awarded, so MMJ production could begin in early January, according to the Alabama Daily News.
That means MMJ products could be available for patients around early March, an AMCC spokesperson told the media outlet.
Regulators initially awarded 21 business licenses in June, only to void them after applicants alleged inconsistencies with how the applications were scored.
Then, in August, the state awarded 24 different licenses – 19 went to June recipients – only to reverse themselves again and scratch those licenses after spurned applicants filed lawsuits.
A state judge dismissed a lawsuit filed by Chicago-based MSO Verano Holdings Corp., but another lawsuit is pending.
Source: https://mjbizdaily.com/alabama-plans-to-award-medical-cannabis-licenses-dec-1/
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