Resources
By: Robert Melamede
Cannabis has always been around. In the past, it was used for recreation and in medicine, agriculture, and even religion. But during the past century, cannabis growth has been prohibited. This prohibition has stemmed from worries over potential abuses of cannabis as a drug, however this should not cloud the fact that the hemp plant can play a role as an important resource in farming, fuel production and medicine.
By: Michael Lenné, Tom Triggs, Michael Regan
Cannabis is the most commonly used illicit drug in Australia and is used by a wide section of the community, particularly younger people. Contrary to data from the early to mid- 1990s, recent Victorian crash data suggest that the use of cannabis is associated with elevated culpability in crashes. It is therefore timely to draw together the international literature in regard to the issues around cannabis use and road safety. This report reviews the key issues concerning cannabis and road safety, including: patterns of cannabis use; the prevalence of cannabis in the driver population, drivers suspected of driving under the influence, and drivers killed or injured; effects on simulator and on-road driving; detection of cannabis in bodily samples; and measurement of impairment using performance tests such as the Standardized Field Sobriety Test. The report highlights the current gaps in knowledge and documents the specific areas of research that need to be pursued in future studies in order to further enhance our understanding of how cannabis influences driving skills.
By: Nichole Hunter
This Information Bulletin details the preliminary results from the Controlled Substances Amendment Act 1986 introduced in South Australia. The scheme allows adults detected by police for ?simple cannabis offenses? to be issued with an expiation notice. By paying the prescribed expiation fee within a certain time period, the alleged offender is able to avoid court proceedings and a criminal conviction for that offense.
By: Nancy L. Hamilton, Laura Bunch Brantley, Frank M. Tims, Nancy Angelovich, Barbara McDougall
This is volume three of a series of treatment manuals produced under the Cannabis Youth Treatment (CYT) Project Cooperative Agreement.
Pharmacological preparations of cannabinoid compounds have a variety of therapeutic uses in medicine, including different pain syndromes, but have not been previously reported as beneficial for cluster headache. We present a patient with cluster headache who was refractory to multiple acute and preventive medications but successfully aborted his attacks with recreational marijuana use; subsequent use of dronabinol provided equally effective pain relief. The beneficial effect may be related to the high concentration of cannabinoid receptors in the hypothalamus, which has been implicated as a site of dysfunction in neuroimaging studies of patients with cluster headache.
By: Thomas F. Densona, Mitchell Earleywine
Over 4400 adult internet users completed The Center for Epidemiologic Studies Depression scale and measures of marijuana use. We employed an internet survey in an effort to recruit the most depressed and marijuana involved participants, including those who might prove unwilling to travel to the laboratory or discuss drug use on the phone or in person. We compared those who consumed marijuana daily, once a week or less, or never in their lives. Despite comparable ranges of scores on all depression subscales, those who used once per week or less had less depressed mood, more positive effect, and fewer somatic complaints than non-users. Daily users reported less depressed mood and more positive affect than non-users. The three groups did not differ on interpersonal symptoms. Separate analyses for medical vs. recreational users demonstrated that medical users reported more depressed mood and more somatic complaints than recreational users, suggesting that medical conditions clearly contribute to depression scores and should be considered in studies of marijuana and depression. These data suggest that adults apparently do not increase their risk for depression by using marijuana.
By: Paul Rexton Kan
The presence of drugged fighters is not unknown in the history of warfare. Yet widespread drug use on the battlefield is now part of protracted conflicts largely fought by nonprofessional combatants that take place in an international system characterized by the process of globalization. From marijuana, khat, hallucinogenic mushrooms, cocaine, heroin, and methamphetamine to looted pharmaceuticals, irregular fighters have found a ready supply of narcotics to consume for a variety of combat purposes. Such consumption has led to unpredictable fighting, the commission of atrocities, and to the prolongation of internal violence. The presence of intoxicated combatants will continue to be a feature of armed conflict and requires a fuller accounting to adequately prepare policymakers and military planners for future conflicts.
By: National Highway Traffic Safety Administration
The use of psychoactive drugs followed by driving has been an issue of continual concern to law enforcement officers, physicians, attorneys, forensic toxicologists and traffic safety professionals in the U.S. and throughout the world. At issue are methods for identifying the impaired driver on the road, the assessment and documentation of the impairment they display, the availability of appropriate chemical tests, and the interpretation of the subsequent results. A panel of international experts on drug-related driving issues met to review developments in the field of drugs and human performance over the last 10 years; to identify the specific effects that both illicit and prescription drugs have on driving; and to develop guidance for others when dealing with drug impaired driving problems.
This guide covers the methods and techniques used to properly train your plants; low strength training, screen of green, screen of green, topping, and super cropping.
15-Passenger Child Care Van Run-Off-Road Accident Memphis, Tennessee April 4, 2002
By: Jim L. Bowyer
Consumption of wood is increasing worldwide as demand for paper, structural and nonstructural panels, and other products rise in response to population and economic growth. Interest in alternative sources of fiber is increasing as concerns about the adequacy of future supplies of wood fiber are growing. One potential source of industrial fiber is agricultural crops, either in the form of residues of food crops or plants grown specifically for fiber. One species that has generated interest as a fiber source is industrial hemp (Cannabis sativa L.). This report focuses on the potential use of industrial hemp as a source of paper making raw material in Minnesota. Environmental implications of commercial scale hemp production are also examined.
By: Rosalie Liccardo Pacula, Beau Kilmer
We examine the relationship between marijuana use and non-drug related crime using data on arrests from the Arrestee Drug Abuse Monitoring (ADAM) Program and Uniform Crime Reports. There is a positive association between self-reported use at the time of the offense and non-drug related violent, property and income-producing crime even after accounting for other substance use in the ADAM data. Reduced form equations using both data sets only provide evidence supporting a causal mechanism for property and income-producing crime. In the case of violent crime, we find a statistically significant association with arrests but not reported crime, suggesting that marijuana use may just influence the likelihood of getting caught committing these crimes.
By: Rosalie Liccardo Pacula, Michael Grossman, Frank J. Chaloupka, Patrick M. O?Malley, Lloyd D. Johnston, Matthew C. Farrelly
This paper contains the first estimates of the price sensitivity of the prevalence of youth marijuana use. Survey data on marijuana use by high school seniors from the Monitoring the Future Project are combined with data on marijuana prices and potency from the Drug Enforcement Administration Office of Intelligence or Intelligence Division. Our estimates of the price elasticity of annual marijuana participation range from ?0.06 to ?0.47, while those for thirty day participation range from ?0.002 to ?0.69. These estimates clearly imply that changes in the real, quality adjusted price of marijuana contributed significantly to the trends in youth marijuana use between 1982 and 1998, particularly during the contraction in use from 1982 to 1992. Similarly, changes in youth perceptions of the harms associated with regular marijuana use had a substantial impact on both the contraction in use during the 1982 though 1992 period and the subsequent expansion in use after 1992. These findings underscore the usefulness of considering price in addition to more traditional determinants in any analysis of marijuana consumption decisions made by youths.
By: Daniel F. McCaffrey, Rosalie Liccardo Pacula, Bing Han, Phyllis Ellickson
In this study we reconsider the relationship between heavy and persistent marijuana use and high school dropout status using a unique prospective panel study of over 4500 7th grade students from South Dakota who are followed up through high school. Propensity score weighting is used to adjust for baseline differences that are found to exist before marijuana initiation occurs (7th grade). Weighted logistic regression incorporating these propensity score weights is then used to examine the extent to which time-varying factors, including substance use, also influence the likelihood of dropping out of school. We find a positive association between marijuana use and dropping out (OR=5.68), over half of which can be explained by prior differences in observational characteristics and behaviors. The remaining association (OR=2.31) is made statistically insignificant when measures of cigarette smoking are included in the analysis. Because no physiological justification can be provided for why cigarette smoking would reduce the cognitive effects of marijuana on schooling, we interpret this as evidence that the association is due to other factors. We then use the rich data to explore which constructs are driving this result, determining that it is time-varying parental and peer influences.
By: Douglas Wright, Michael Pemberton
This report presents detailed information about risk and protective factors for substance use among youths aged 12 to 17, using data from the 1999 National Household Survey on Drug Abuse (NHSDA). Risk factors include those individual characteristics or social environments associated with an increased likelihood of substance use, while protective factors are related to decreased likelihood of substance use or of nonuse. These analyses update and expand upon a previous report on risk and protective factors for adolescent drug use based on the 1997 NHSDA.
THE DEVELOPMENT of a quick and simple electrochemical test that can detect whether someone has been smoking cannabis has led to the spin-out of a dedicated drug-testing technology company from Oxford University.
By: Jack Herer
Jack has done it. With incredible precision, backed by voluminous research, he has placed his finger on the point where all the trends that threaten to overwhelm the world come together. And at the core of these complexities, he has found HEMP. The premise of Jack Herer?s book, The Emperor Wears No Clothes, is fanciful in the extreme: That the diverse properties of the scorned and condemned marijuana plant could provide sufficient clothing, oil, medicine, fuel, food, and shelter for all the peoples of the world, if completely legalized and commercialized; and that hemp might prove to be the means of saving the planet (us) from acid rain, global warming, and the depletion of our precious forests and fossil fuels. Further?that the alleged dangers of marijuana smoking pale before the many advantages that are potential in the free commerce in hemp and its byproducts.
By: Margaret Melrose, Penny Turner, John Pitts, David Barrett
The issue of cannabis use has been a matter of some controversy and debate in the UK for a number of years (Jenkins, 2005) and public debate has intensified since 2004 when the new Labour Government took the decision to reclassify cannabis from a Class B to a Class C drug.
By: Kris Christen
A new method for analyzing raw waste water flowing into treatment plants can detect cocaine use spiking on weekends. If the method pans out as its developers think it will, wastewater treatment plants could one day be used as surveillance in the war against drugs.
By: ete Guithe
Many people are under the false context that marijuana was made illegal to protect citizens from what was determined to be a dangerous drug, when in actuality the history of marijuana’s criminalization is filled with racism, fear, protection of corporate profits, yellow journalism, ignorant/incompetent/corrupt legislator, and greed/personal interests.