“I’m okay to drive.” But, in reality are you and how do you know for sure? A new report in JAMA Psychiatry (January 26, 2022) examines a person self-perception of feeling high after using marijuana. Authors Marcotte (et.al.) point out that the impairment felt after using marijuana can last for hours, even well after when a […]
Some people believe that using marijuana during a pregnancy represents little to no risk to the unborn child, which is not the case. Authors of a new meta-analysis report (G. Marchand et.al) noted that marijuana use, during a pregnancy, has increased health risks to the unborn child. Risks such as low birth weight, small gestational […]
Pediatric cannabis exposures have increased by nearly 300 percent in Ontario Canada since 2016. Canada legalized marijuana (raw flower only) in 2018. This was expanded in 2020 to include sales of cannabis infused edible products. In turn, Emergency Department (ED) health care providers in Ontario have seen an increase in child patients, ages 0 -9 years […]
The rate of fatal motor vehicle crashes, involving only marijuana or marijuana with alcohol has doubled from 2000 to 2018. During this same time, many states legalized marijuana, first for medical use and later for commercial adult use. In a recent peer reviewed study published in the American Journal of Public Health (AJPH November 2021, […]
In the October 11th, 2021 edition of Contemporary OB/GYN, authors (Lo, Hanna & Hedges) offer guidance to medical providers working with women who use marijuana and specific concerns for those patients that are perinatal or prenatal. The authors cite concerns over the increased levels of THC potency in recent years. Specifically, the lack of understanding […]
Pain is the leading reason cited why people use medical marijuana in the United States. Marijuana with low potency levels of tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), i.e. under 5-10%, has shown some efficacy in pain management. However, that’s in stark contrast to the advertised high THC potency levels of marijuana products sold both in medical & recreational dispensaries. […]
In America, every 52 minutes a person dies in an alcohol-related collision. When a driver has a blood alcohol level (BAC) of .08, they have a nearly 4 times greater crash risk. Many people falsely believe that driving after using marijuana is less impairing than after drinking alcohol. In Colorado, in the years following legalization […]
JAMA Psychiatry just released a new longitudinal study from Denmark regarding the association of between a diagnosis of a cannabis use disorder (CUD) and a diagnosis of Schizophrenia in patients. The nationwide study, “Development Over Time of the Population-Attributable Risk Fraction for Cannabis Use Disorder in Schizophrenia in Denmark” (C. Hjorthøj et.al.) conducted an analysis […]
An analysis of national data by the Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health, “Joint perceptions of the risk and availability of Cannabis in the United States, 2002-2018” (Levy et.al.) examines the influence that the perception of risk has upon the use rates of cannabis. Using national survey results from over 900,000 people, from 2002 – […]
A study funded by the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA), “The Associations between prenatal cannabis use disorder and neonatal outcomes” (Y. Shi et.al) examines potential health issues of newborns of mothers with a cannabis use disorder (CUD) at the time of delivery. Researchers reviewed over 4.8 million California birth records from 2001 – 2012. […]
