Fruit flavored gummies. tincture. cream.
Today’s cannabis isn’t just dried flowers in a plastic bag or a special ingredient in dorm brownies. Nowadays, it comes in candy form, suppositories, and even small amounts of vaporizable wax concentrates. This new cannabis strain has been highly engineered, grown and manufactured to reach THC concentrations of up to 90% (delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol). In contrast, older plants accounted for only 2-4%. While cannabis in the past required more hidden measures, today’s cannabis is mixed into a variety of products and can be easily purchased at your local store, depending on where you live.
Because cannabis is so ubiquitous, it gives the impression that it’s akin to an evening glass of wine or a nice IPA. That’s misleading. The reality is that scientists, policymakers, and public knowledge are not keeping up with the rapid expansion of the cannabis market. We don’t know if the products on dispensary shelves are actually safe or even relieve the specific symptoms that retail cannabis sellers claim.
About science journalism support
If you like this article, please consider supporting our award-winning journalism. You are subscribing. By purchasing a subscription, you help ensure the future of influential stories about the discoveries and ideas that shape our world today.
I have studied both the beneficial and harmful effects of cannabis on health, and recently report In a presentation presented by the National Academy of Science, Engineering and Medicine (NASEM), my co-authors and I analyzed the public health problems we have seen due to the commercialization and high-THC cultivation of cannabis in this country. The bottom line is that our state’s patchy laws are leaving many users in legal trouble. Knowledge of how high-potency cannabis affects the body is evolving. Simply treating them as if they were currently sold food, cosmetics or over-the-counter drugs is misleading, if not dangerous. We must do more to ensure that the products people consume are uniform and safe.
The push for cannabis legalization in the United States has created an unprecedented situation. The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is required by law to conduct thorough safety and efficacy testing to determine whether a new plant, drug, or food can be sold to the public. In the case of cannabis, voters and ballot measures have decided that cannabis is “medicinal” and “safe” for public use.
Therefore, cannabis and derived cannabis products marketed as treatments for sleep, anxiety, and pain, and as a way to boost creativity, have largely circumvented this federal regulation. This legislative leap has resulted in a patchwork of laws across states in the United States, allowing new cannabis products to hit the market with minimal oversight. These gummies and tinctures may tell consumers the amount or form of THC, but consumers have no way of knowing whether the product is safe. It also might be effective. We don’t even know independently whether the “dosage” on the label is actually correct.
This includes hemp-derived products sold with the unsubstantiated claim that they are “THC-light.” Although these are addictive, consumers have been told that they are safer than traditional cannabis (hemp has less than 0.3% THC). Until rigorous research is conducted on the various forms of cannabis, it would be wrong to uniformly classify it as a safe drug.
In my work as director of the Addiction Research Institute at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, I have realized that we still do not fully understand how these modern, highly potent, concentrated forms of cannabis affect our health. I know that you do. Highly potent and concentrated cannabis and cannabinoid products are associated with significant efficacy. mental and physical health risksThese include the development of schizophrenia or psychosis, respiratory symptoms including chronic bronchitis, and reduced birth weight due to prenatal exposure. This does not adequately or fairly reflect our laws or public understanding.
What this means is that states that fully legalize cannabis use do not take into account the risks of high potency and concentrated THC. Semi-synthetic products derived from hemp, including: Delta-8-THCIt is far from the original plant and, in addition to making users intoxicated, it may contain harmful chemicals that are by-products of processing. Marketing these products as safe is dishonest and not supported by data.
If we want the public use of cannabis to be not only safe, but also effective and non-discriminatory, laws regarding cannabis must be standardized across the country based on data. In many states, arbitrary use of products from the cannabis plant still carries criminal charges. Elsewhere, cannabis products are sold legally in stylized brick-and-mortar stores, but the use of other forms of cannabis is illegal.
The federal government must take action. Rather than waiting to address further harm, which is how we developed our alcohol and tobacco policies, we can use established policies to lay the foundation for safe cannabis use.
In many ways, the legalization of cannabis has made it easier to conduct research on cannabis use. What we know now is that cannabis use disorder is a growing concern, not only due to daily or near-daily use, but also due to the availability of highly potent products. Cannabis use by people 12 years and older Exceeding current alcohol consumption. my researchalong with the work of many other researchers, show that THC exposure during development has long-term effects on both the brain and behavior that are associated with psychiatric risk well into adulthood.
Categorizing cannabis as a general health product or recreational drug is an overcorrection from the days when cannabis sparked fears that it was a “gateway drug.” These fear-based campaigns have caused real harm to our communities, but the current promotion of cannabis as completely harmless is equally misleading. Evidence-based public education campaigns, especially those targeting those most at risk, such as children, adolescents, pregnant women, and people over 65 years of age, will significantly improve knowledge and encourage safer health choices regarding their use.
Providing accurate information about how to reduce the risks associated with cannabis can help individuals make informed decisions about their health. Health equity must also address the impact of the high density of cannabis retailers currently located in low-income communities and communities of color already struggling under previous harsh cannabis laws. Additionally, states that legalized marijuana saw a decline in marijuana arrests, but those declines primarily benefited white people, according to the NASEM report. The current state legal environment continues to foster racial inequities in justice and health.
In addition to standardizing legalization policies, I strongly urge policymakers to remove barriers to effective research on the health impacts of cannabis legalization. As noted in the report, strengthening CDC’s population-level data collection and removing restrictions on cannabis legalization research by the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy would allow health researchers to better keep pace with the evolving landscape of cannabis. sight. This helps ensure that cannabis products are safe and that we have data to inform consumers about their effects.
The cannabis plant itself is not inherently good or bad, but modern iterations are more diverse and less understood. This knowledge gap is a real cause for concern. no way Historically, by 2023, 42% of adults ages 19 to 30 and 29% of adults ages 35 to 50 had used cannabis in the previous year.. Without more nuanced and updated data on cannabis, policy will unfortunately continue to be driven by public perception rather than public health. It is up to the public to examine this complex and evolving cannabis landscape and develop evidence-based policies that prioritize people’s health.
This article is an opinion and analysis piece, and the views expressed by the author or authors do not necessarily reflect those of the author. Scientific American.
