Fruit flavored gummies. tinctures creams
Cannabis today it’s not the dried flowers in plastic bags or the special ingredient in gela-gela brownies. Today, in candy form, suppositories, and even vaporizable waxes and wax concentrates. This new cannabis It is heavily engineered, cultivated and manufactured to reach THC concentrations of up to 90 percent (delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol), whereas early plants only had 2 to 4 percent. And while cannabis used to be something that required more under-the-radar action, today’s cannabis, mixed into a cornucopia of products, is easily available at a neighborhood grocery store, depending on where you live.
The ubiquity of cannabis suggests it is like an evening glass of wine or a nice IPA. That is misleading. The reality is that scientists, policy makers and public knowledge have not kept pace with the rapid expansion of the cannabis market; we don’t know if the products on drugstore shelves are actually safe or if they relieve the symptoms that cannabis retailers claim.
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I examine the beneficial and adverse health effects of cannabis, and ultimately the report Released by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (NASEM), my co-authors and I broke down the public health concerns we’ve seen with the commercialization and cultivation of high-THC cannabis in this country. As a result, our state’s patchwork of laws makes many users illegal. Knowledge of what high-potency cannabis does to the body is evolving. Treating it as a food, cosmetic, or over-the-counter drug as it is currently sold is misleading, if not dangerous. We need to do more to make what people consume uniform and safe.
The push to legalize cannabis in the US has created an unprecedented situation. The Food and Drug Administration mandates by law extensive safety and efficacy testing to determine whether new plants, drugs, or foods can be marketed to the public. When it comes to cannabis, voters and ballot measures have decided that cannabis is “medicinal” and “safe” for public use.
Thus, cannabis and cannabinoid-derived products, which are marketed as treatments for sleep, anxiety, and pain, and as ways to enhance creativity, have largely avoided this federal regulation. That leap has led to a series of state-by-state laws in the US, allowing new cannabis products to enter the market with minimal oversight. While these gummies and tinctures may tell consumers how much THC is in it or in what form, consumers don’t know if the product is safe. We don’t even know if it’s effective. We do not independently know if the “dose” on the label is actually correct.
This includes hemp-derived products that are sold with unsubstantiated claims that they are “THC-free.” Although these are intoxicating, consumers are told they are safer than traditional cannabis (hemp contains less than 0.3 percent THC). Until rigorous research is done on the different types of cannabis, uniformly classifying them as a safe drug is wrong.
Working as the Director of the Addiction Institute at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, I know that we still do not have enough understanding of how these modern, powerful and concentrated forms of cannabis affect our health. Very strong and concentrated cannabis and cannabinoid products are associated with significant mental and physical health risksincluding the development of schizophrenia or psychosis, including respiratory symptoms, including chronic bronchitis, and lower birth weight due to prenatal exposure. This is not adequately or fairly reflected in our legislation or public understanding
This means that states that fully legalize the use of cannabis are not taking into account the dangers of high potency and concentrated THC. Semi-synthetic products derived from hemp, incl delta-8-THCthey are far from the original plant, and in addition to drunken users, they 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 safe, effective and non-discriminatory, cannabis laws must be standardized at the national level, based on data. In many states, the use of cannabis plant products still arbitrarily leads to criminal charges. In other cases, while hemp products are legally sold from stylized brick-and-mortar dispensaries, the use of other types of cannabis is illegal.
The federal government must be proactive; rather than waiting to deal with more harm, which is how we developed our alcohol and tobacco policy, he can use that established policy to lay the groundwork for the safe use of cannabis.
In many ways, the legalization of cannabis has facilitated research into its use. What we now know is that cannabis use disorder is a growing concern likely due to the availability of highly potent products, as well as daily or near-daily use. Cannabis use in people over 12 years of age today it exceeds the consumption of alcohol. My researchalong with many other researchers, demonstrates that developmental THC exposure has long-term effects on the brain and behavior that are relevant to psychiatric risk in adulthood.
To frame cannabis as a general wellness product or as a benign recreational drug is a far-reaching departure from the fear-mongering days of being a “gateway drug.” While those fear-based campaigns caused real harm to our communities, today’s promotion of cannabis as completely harmless is also misleading. An evidence-based public education campaign, specifically targeting the most at-risk populations—children, adolescents, pregnant women, and those over 65—would significantly improve knowledge and encourage safer health choices of use.
Providing accurate information about reducing the risks associated with cannabis can empower individuals to make informed decisions about their health. Health equity must now also address the impact of the high density of cannabis dealers located in low-income communities and communities of color that have suffered from previous harsh cannabis laws. Additionally, while cannabis arrests decreased in states that legalized cannabis, the NASEM report indicates that this decline primarily benefited whites. The current landscape of state laws continues to promote racial disparities in justice and health care.
In addition to standardizing legalization policies, I encourage policymakers to remove barriers to effective research on the health effects of cannabis legalization. As noted in our report, improved population-level data collection by the CDC and the removal of the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy’s restrictions on considering legalization of cannabis would allow health researchers to better track the evolution of cannabis. the landscape This would ensure that cannabis products are safe and that there is data to inform consumers of their effectiveness.
The cannabis plant itself is not inherently good or bad, but its modern iterations are more varied and less understood. This knowledge gap should be a real concern; a In 2023, 42% of adults aged 19 to 30 and 29% of adults aged 35 to 50 had used cannabis in the previous year.. Without more nuanced and up-to-date data on cannabis, policy will unfortunately continue to be driven by public perception rather than public health. We owe it to the public to research the complex and evolving landscape of cannabis and develop evidence-based policies that prioritize people’s health.
This is an opinion and analysis article, and the views expressed by the author(s) are not necessarily their own. American scientific
