University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley) will observe human subjects in a study to determine if psilocybin, the active compound in magic mushrooms.The study marks UC Berkeley’s first study involving human subjects with a Schedule I substance—drugs with no currently accepted medical value. 

The study will examine how psilocybin changes the way our brain interprets information that we see and pushes us out of our normal state of mind. The UC Berkeley Center for the Science of Psychedelics (BCSP) is launching a new study designed to reveal the mechanisms behind how psychedelics shape human perception. 

In the experiment, healthy human participants will ingest psilocybin, a compound found in psychedelic mushrooms. All the while, researchers will observe how their brains light up. Each participant will then perform simple perceptual tasks while their visual cortex is monitored using functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI). 

“We have this incredible opportunity to characterize the psychedelic experience in real time—while it’s happening—using modern neuroimaging methods,” Michael Silver, director of the BCSP and the study’s leader, told Berkeley News. “Understanding the actions of psychedelics at a neuroscientific level will generate insights into how they’re working as medicines and will hopefully help us develop more effective treatments for mental health disorders. It will also shed light on some of the fundamental mysteries of the human brain, mind and consciousness and how they relate to each other.”

Before this study, UC Berkeley researchers had to rely on animal subjects, typically mouse models, in order to study psilocybin as a Schedule I substance. Going beyond that usually requires DEA approvals.

For the BCSP, they had to work for years to acquire federal, state, and campus-level regulatory approvals in order to use psilocybin, and they must follow stringent rules for handling of it.

How Psilocybin Shapes the Way We Perceive Visual Information

Silver explained to Berkeley News in detail what excites him about the way psilocybin changes the way we see and process visual information.

Silver explained that our retina pick up about as much info and/or resolution as a 2007 camera—but our brains fill in the blanks, providing rich detail. “The way that we perceive the world is very unlike a video camera,” Silver said. “While a camera just passively records whatever comes through the lens, our brain takes that sensory information from the eyes and combines it with previous experiences to generate our conscious experience of the world. We make implicit assumptions—for example, that objects that are in one place tend to stay in one place, or that objects that are moving tend to continue moving along that trajectory—to help construct our perceptions.”

“Our area of interest is the visual system in the brain,” Silver told CBS News. “Psychedelics are a wonderful tool for understanding this.”

UC Berkeley’s Center for the Science of Psychedelics is underway and staff are recruiting volunteers, center director and UC Berkeley professor Michael Silver said.

“My love is science, not the administrative part of it,” Silver said. “I understand the importance of that, but the reason I am personally motivated to do this is to learn about the brain and to learn about the visual system and how we create conscious experience.”

“Visual priors” help define how our brain interprets information we see. In the new experiment supported by the BCSP, researchers will observe how psilocybin impacts visual perception and how these perceptions are generated in the brain. They plan to test a hypothesis known as REBUS, or relaxed beliefs under psychedelics, which proposes that psychedelics work by “relaxing” assumptions, so that our perceptions are shaped less by visual priors and more by raw sensory information. 

Psychedelic-assisted therapy is gaining traction because of the ability of psychedelics to push people out of mental patterns.

“If you think about the disorders where we have the best evidence that psychedelics can be a useful therapy, including PTSD, depression, anxiety and various substance use disorders, they often involve a maladaptive prior or belief, such as a negative self-image,” Silver said. “The REBUS theory proposes that psychedelic-assisted therapy works by reducing the influence of these priors, followed by construction of healthier priors through psychotherapy.”

The team hopes that the information they glean will help to better understand how our minds perceive information and how psilocybin impacts those abilities.

“We know a great deal about the different structures and neural types in the visual system, and as a result, we have some understanding of what visual priors and sensory information look like in the brain, and how they interact with each other,” Silver said. “And so, using functional magnetic resonance imaging, we can test this theory in a very rigorous way.”

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Rhode Island will offer a cannabis training program that prepares workers for industry, providing the skills they will need to thrive in the workforce.

According to a May 29 announcement, Rhode Island’s labor department will fund a cannabis training program to accommodate the bustling industry. The Community College of Rhode Island (CCRI) is launching an eight-week Cannabis Training Program, working together with the state’s Division of Workforce Partnerships.

This 45-hour training program is free of charge, and it’s funded by the Rhode Island Department of Labor and Training’s Real Jobs RI initiative. The training program begins Tuesday, July 9 at CCRI’s Liston Campus in Providence. Classes are held online and in person with curriculum taught by skilled teachers to provide students with a foundational knowledge of the entry-level jobs. The classes will provide students with the skills they need, and the applicable regulations. Students can also visit local businesses and receive employment assistance. 

The pilot cohort program will first enroll 15 students. Those interested can sign up for an interview by filling out the program inquiry form. The flexibility of the course scheduling and free tuition ensures the program is “equitable and accessible to those from communities that have been impacted by the criminalization of cannabis,” according to CCRI Director of Industry Partnerships Stacy Sullivan. 

“CCRI’s Division of Workforce Partnerships is always looking to be responsive to employer needs and we are proud and excited to create a training for this emerging industry,” said Division of Workforce Partnerships Vice President Jennie Johnson. “We look forward to having a hand in creating a robust cannabis workforce.”

More community colleges and four-year schools are offering cannabis certificates, so CCRI plans to help people interested in the state’s cannabis workforce industry. The United States’ cannabis labor market has grown exponentially each year since 2017 with the number of cannabis jobs increasing from 321,000 in 2021 to 428,059 in 2022. After adult-use recreational cannabis was legalized in Rhode Island in 2022, the number of available cannabis jobs in the state increased by 45 percent to 1,649 in 2023. There’s also 118 jobs in Rhode Island that list “familiarity with the cannabis industry” as a required skill with more than 100 cannabis-adjacent businesses, including CBD retailers, and 62 licensed cannabis cultivators currently in the market. By next year, cannabis is projected to become a $45 billion industry in the United States.

Founder and CEO of EZHire Cannabis Jacob Carlson and Certified Commercial Cannabis Expert Melissa Rutherford were instrumental in developing the curriculum and will teach courses in the program’s pilot cohort.

“Having the ability to learn job skills in a new industry is important and having CCRI embrace cannabis education is a boon to Rhode Island residents interested in determining if this emerging marketplace is right for them,” Rutherford said. “The class will introduce students to the legal cannabis industry and discuss how skills as varied as culinary, customer service, and risk management can all be applied in this growing field.”

“The question of how people are supposed to learn skills about jobs that didn’t exist legally in a highly-regulated industry always puzzled me. How are legal cannabis businesses supposed to find trained employees? That’s why this partnership with CCRI makes sense for us at EzHire Cannabis,” Carlson said. “We are seeing more need for entry-level workers, which aligns well with community college programs, both from a cost and training level.”

Rhode Island’s Cannabis Industry Grows

Adult-use cannabis sales in Rhode Island have been surging. During the state’s first year of adult-use sales, which ended last December, the Office of Cannabis Regulation says that sales “have steadily increased almost monthly over the past year, and the estimated sales for Fiscal Year 2024 is $76 million.”

“That sales estimate, if met, would translate into more than $15 million in state and local revenue: $7.6 million from the state’s 10% cannabis tax, $5.3 million from the 7% sales tax and $2.3 million from the 3% local tax,” the station reported, noting that the Office of Cannabis Regulation “estimates that, in October alone, more than $7 million worth of recreational cannabis products were sold statewide.”

Rhode Island lawmakers passed a bill in 2022 that legalized adult-use cannabis for people ages 21 and older, and it became the 19th state in the U.S. to do so.

The bill, which legalized possession of up to one ounce of cannabis for adults and also permitted possession by adults of up to 10 ounces is permitted in a private home, was approved by members of the state General Assembly in May of 2022. The measure also established the framework for legal, regulated recreational cannabis sales in Rhode Island. The new training program will help people decide where they fit in the industry.

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Since 2015, Louisiana State University (LSU) and Southern University (SU) are the only two public institutions in Louisiana that can legally cultivate medical cannabis. However, if Senate Bill 228 is signed into law, it would allow private contractors to take their place instead.

“They are the only two higher education systems in the country that are in the pot business right now, and it is my belief that it’s time we get them out of that business and let them focus on higher education,” said Sen. Patrick McMath, who is also the sponsor of the bill, told the Louisiana Illuminator.

Apparently, LSU and SU received help from two private growers, Good Day Farm and Ilera Holistic Healthcare, to get their own respective farms operational. If the bill becomes law, LSU and SU would transfer their respective cultivator licenses over to Good Day Farm and Ilera Holistic Healthcare, both of which will be permitted to hold on to their licenses for as long as they choose to renew them. As a result, no other cultivators would be allowed to apply for a license.

According to Louisiana Illuminator, Good Day Farm in particular has a relationship with legislators who may be attempting to control all cultivation within the state. Good Day Farm’s primary shareholder is Donald “Boysie” Bollinger, one of the richest people in the state, and company president John Davis’ wife, Paula Davis, is a House representative.

One of the key people who helped develop legislation for Louisiana’s medical cannabis law, former Rep. Joe Marino, told the news outlet that doing so would create a monopoly on cultivation. 

During his time in office, Marino introduced legislation to expand the number of cultivation licenses available for application, although it didn’t pass. In 2022, he also worked to expand the number of cannabis pharmacies, from 10 to 25, which was signed by former Gov. John Bel Edwards.

In March, McMath attended a committee hearing for SB-228, and claimed that the Louisiana medical cannabis industry was always meant to be private. He explained that including both LSU and SU was a late-hour floor amendment. “It was never really their intention to be put into this bill,” McMath said.

An earlier draft of SB-228 would have still provided a percentage of gross sales from Good Day Farms and Ilera Holistic Healthcare to the universities, but that has since been removed.

SB-228 was sent to Gov. Jeff Landry on May 16 for a signature or veto.

There has been plenty of other cannabis legislation introduced in the most recent legislative session. The Louisiana legislature initially legalized hemp-based edibles containing delta-9-THC back in 2022, with the knowledge presented by former House Speaker Clay Schexnayder who said it would require a person to consume “tractor-trailer loads” for a person to get high from it. Senate Bill 237 attempts to limit the law, and would make it illegal to sell or manufacture any cannabis products containing THC unless it’s included in a license medical cannabis product. During a committee hearing on May 14, many business owners claimed that such a bill would eliminate the consumable hemp industry that has been built so far, as well as any jobs that have developed from its success.

Louisiana Hemp Extractors owner Paige Melancon expressed his frustration about spending the last two years building up his business. “I feel like I’m being fired right now and I want you guys to come with me and fire my employees when we leave here, if you choose to do that,” Melancon said.

Supporters of SB-237 such as lobbyist Gene Mills, president Louisiana Family Forum, also spoke about putting an end to consumable hemp products. “Our vision is to build a Louisiana where God is honored, life is respected, families flourish and liberties reign,” Mills said at the hearing.

Most recently, SB-237 was heard on the House floor for debate on May 22.

Conversely, House Bill 707 seeks to establish a regulatory framework for adult-use cannabis legalization, although it doesn’t outright legalize recreational cannabis. “This is a very simple bill,” said bill sponsor Rep. Edmond Jordan. “What it does…it is for the adult use of cannabis. It sets up the retail side with dispensaries and how we would do that.” If passed, it would permit adults over 21 to purchase one ounce of cannabis per day and pay $75 per year to cultivate up to six plants per adult, or 12 plants per household.

House Bill 978 also would not legalize adult-use cannabis but sought to establish a foundation for legalization in the event that the federal government chose to legalize cannabis. “The bill does not legalize recreational marijuana,” said bill sponsor Rep. Candace Newell. “This is a regulation structure that I would like to see Louisiana put in place in preparation for having recreational marijuana legalized on the federal level or on the state level.” However, as of May 20 the bill was rejected in the House.

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States where recreational marijuana has been made legal are seeing upticks in college applications, including from elite students. 

That is the takeaway of a study published late last year in the peer-reviewed journal Contemporary Economic Policy. 

“Using a two-way fixed effects difference-in-differences model, we investigate the effects of local recreational marijuana (RMJ) policy changes on college applications and find that the three largest state public schools reaped, on average, an almost 54% increase in applications,” the authors of the study said in the abstract. 

Recreational cannabis is currently legal for adults in 24 states and the District of Columbia, according to Pew Research Center. It is also legal in the U.S. territories of the U.S. British Islands, Guam and the Northern Mariana Islands. According to Pew, which cited census data, “more than half of Americans (54%) live in a state where both recreational and medical marijuana are legal, and 74% live in a state where it’s legal either for both purposes or medical use only.” 

“About eight-in-ten Americans (79%) live in a county with at least one cannabis dispensary, according to the February analysis. There are nearly 15,000 marijuana dispensaries nationwide, and 76% are in states (including D.C.) where recreational use is legal. Another 23% are in medical marijuana-only states, and 1% are in states that have made legal allowances for low-percentage THC or CBD-only products,” Pew explained. “The states with the largest number of dispensaries include California, Oklahoma, Florida, Colorado and Michigan.”

Pew also noted that Americans’ attitudes toward marijuana use have shifted dramatically since 2012, when Colorado and Washington became the first two states to legalize recreational pot use.

“Around nine-in-ten Americans say marijuana should be legal for medical or recreational use, according to a January 2024 Pew Research Center survey. An overwhelming majority of U.S. adults (88%) say either that marijuana should be legal for medical use only (32%) or that it should be legal for medical and recreational use (57%). Just 11% say the drug should not be legal in any form. These views have held relatively steady over the past five years,” Pew explained.

The wave of legalization has, apparently, had an effect on college admissions. 

According to the study published in Contemporary Economic Policy, the increase in applications “does not appear to come solely from low-ability students as both first and third quartiles of admitted student composite SAT scores to the largest three public schools do not decrease.”

“Rather, they both increase by almost 3.8% though these estimates are not statistically significant. Robust difference-in-difference and event study models support the signs and magnitudes of these gains and show they diminish over time,” the authors of the study wrote. 

The outlet PsyPost, which published analysis of the college applications study by one of the researchers, reported that in “the year that a particular state legalized recreational marijuana, the number of applications for that state’s colleges grew by about 5.5% more than colleges in states that did not legalize.” 

“This means that colleges in legal-marijuana states received a temporary boost in applications. We didn’t detect any increase beyond the initial spike. Our results control for school quality, tuition prices and labor market conditions that may affect student application decisions,” the researcher wrote. 

“As researchers continue to assess the risks and rewards of recreational marijuana, our results show that institutions of higher learning benefit when their home states allow their citizens to get high. One benefit is that schools had a larger and higher-achieving applicant pool to choose from. This in turn creates the potential to improve a school’s academic profile,” wrote the author, Christopher Blake.

“Our results fit into a larger body of research analyzing what affects a student’s application choices. We found that, similar to how schools see a spike in applications and SAT scores when those schools have winning sports teams, schools see spikes when they are located in states that legalize marijuana. While our data cannot prove it explicitly, this suggests that students do factor local policies into their college choice, a key result of interest for scholars and policymakers alike.”

But Blake also acknowledged some limitations to the research.

“Our data cannot pinpoint why freshmen who are often coming straight out of high school – and thus not of legal age (21) to buy recreational marijuana – might base their application decisions on recreational marijuana’s availability,” he wrote. “It could be the case that legal sales create a perception for prospective applicants that underage consumption is less risky. It could be simply because widespread news coverage made certain states seem more popular. Or it could be because more permissive public policies in one area, such as marijuana laws, might suggest more attractive and liberalized policies in other areas important to students, such as abortion. It’s hard to say without talking directly to students themselves.”

He added, “We also don’t know how much of the application boosts that occur after legalization are being driven by out-of-state students. For example, did legalization in Colorado cause students from other states to apply to Colorado schools in higher numbers? Alternatively, in-state students may have elected to apply to even more Colorado schools than they would have in the absence of recreational marijuana as a way to stay in their home state.”

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Officials at Naropa University in Boulder, Colorado announced last week that the college will offer a minor in psychedelics studies to prepare students for careers related to the class of drugs, which show great therapeutic potential. The new program, which is slated to launch in the fall, is designed to give students a humanities and social science approach to studying psychedelics.

The new minor was created for students who wish to study the historical and current applications of psychedelics and other natural medicines. The program will also explore the growing field of psychedelic therapy, which has the potential to treat a number of serious mental health issues including depression, post-traumatic stress disorder, anxiety and substance misuse disorders. 

The Bachelor of Arts minor in Psychedelics Studies entails a total of 12 course credits earned from classes such as Herbal Medicine and Theories of Psychedelic Assisted Therapies. In addition to exploring the clinical applications of psychedelic medicines, the curriculum “emphasizes religious and ceremonial contexts, cultural practices, policy implications and healing justice frameworks,” the university explained last week.

“Psychedelic minor graduates will be well prepared for a career in psychedelic-assisted therapy, with both Naropa University’s rigorous academic education and our singularly unique contemplative pedagogy woven throughout the curriculum,” Naropa University president Charles G. Lief, J.D. said in a statement about the new program. “Naropa is a higher education leader when it comes to incorporating justice, equity, anti-oppression, and understanding lineage and indigenous community relationships with plant medicines.” 

Naropa University was founded in 1974 by Tibetan Buddhist teacher Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche. The institution’s name and inspiration are derived from the teachings of the 11th-century Indian Buddhist sage Naropa. The university is internationally known for its unique educational program, which integrates Eastern knowledge and traditions with traditional Western scholarly pursuits.

“This minor will integrate well with the range of undergraduate majors offered at Naropa including Psychology, Interdisciplinary Studies, Art Therapy, Religious Studies, Creative Writing and Literature, Yoga Studies or Visual Arts,” Lief added. “Several of these majors have an online option, making the new minor very accessible to students in North America and beyond.”

New Opportunites for Careers in Psychedelics Therapy

The new minor in Psychedelics Studies will serve as a foundational curriculum for undergraduate students to learn and apply the mindfulness and compassion skills that are key to successful psychedelic therapy. Scholarships are available to support equitable access for students with fewer economic resources to increase opportunities for those who may be from marginalized communities or underserved geographic locations in order to create a more diverse field of practitioners.

“The emerging field of legal psychedelic-assisted therapy will require trained facilitators to meet the demand for these services,” said Joseph Harrison, M.S., executive director of the Naropa Center for Psychedelic Studies (NCPS). “Naropa’s psychedelic studies minor will provide primary education for students interested in working in this emerging field. We are creating a pathway for students that begins with the BA Psychedelic Studies Minor. Serious students can further their learning through Naropa’s Graduate School of Counseling Psychology and then our postgraduate training programs to become licensed practitioners in states such as Colorado and Oregon.”

Clinical research and other studies into psychedelics such as LSD, psilocybin and MDMA have shown that the drugs have potential therapeutic benefits, particularly for serious mental health conditions such as depression, PTSD, substance misuse disorders and anxiety. Early last year, a California biopharmaceutical company announced positive results from a clinical trial testing MDMA as a treatment for PTSD. Research published in the peer-reviewed journal JAMA Psychiatry in 2020 found that psilocybin-assisted psychotherapy was an effective and quick-acting treatment for a group of 24 participants with major depressive disorder. A separate study published in 2016 determined that psilocybin treatment produced substantial and sustained decreases in depression and anxiety in patients with life-threatening cancer.

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services projects that the Food and Drug Administration will eventually approve MDMA and psilocybin mental health treatments, according to a letter from the department in May 2022. In 2017, the FDA granted MDMA-assisted therapy Breakthrough Therapy designation, indicating that the therapy is a significant improvement over existing treatments. Last month, the agency took similar action with an LSD drug that is being studied as a treatment for anxiety.

“The minor in psychedelic studies integrates existing contemplative coursework across diverse disciplines with the latest scholarship on psychedelic studies,” said Betsy Gonzalez Blohm, dean of Naropa College and the Graduate Collective. “Contemplative pedagogy centering diverse perspectives to support inner and outer transformation is core to Naropa’s mission, and offering academic study about the history, policy and current research on psychedelics supported by our unique approach to education is an extension of that mission.”

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The Cleveland School of Cannabis (CSC), located in Independence, Ohio, announced on March 6 that it is the first cannabis school in the U.S. to be recognized through the Middle States Association-CESS. “The accreditation of CSC by Middle States Association-CESS (MSA-CESS) marks a significant step forward for the cannabis industry, driven by a broader acceptance of cannabis and its related fields within the formal education system,” CSC wrote in a press release. “With over 1,100 graduates, CSC has already made substantial contributions to the workforce and knowledge base of the cannabis industry. This formal recognition could pave the way for further advancements in cannabis research, education, and professional development, bridging the gap between the burgeoning cannabis market and academic legitimacy.” Technically, the college received accreditation in December 2023, but the school only recently published the announcement.

For more than 130 years, Middle States Association-CESS has been operating as a voluntary non-profit association that evaluates and performs accreditation of both public and private schools. Accreditation demonstrates if a school is maintaining a specific level of quality and performance through five categories: foundations, governance and organization, student well-being, resources, and teaching and learning.

The press release explained that this decision was made in part because the federal government is researching and discussing cannabis rescheduling. “Following a recommendation by the U.S. Department of Health to reschedule cannabis as a Schedule III substance, CSC’s recognition by the Department of Education could be an early indicator of changing attitudes within the federal government towards cannabis,” CSC wrote. “Rescheduling cannabis would acknowledge its medical benefits and could notably impact the regulatory landscape. This could potentially ease restrictions on research, banking, and taxation within the cannabis industry.”

CSC’s accreditation was awarded in part because it recently moved into a new building with access to a grow lab, processing lab, kitchen, mock dispensary, and virtual reality lab. “CSC’s newest additions were developed to upgrade the learning experience for students to enhance student learning through practical, hands-on education in cannabis cultivation, processing, cooking, and sales,” the press release stated. “This approach not only readies students for the cannabis industry’s intricacies but also boosts their job prospects by offering a deep dive into the sector.”

Additionally, CSC utilizes more recent technological innovations such as VR and gaming engines to create digital versions of their labs for remote students to utilize. For example, it hosts a 16-week “My First Plant” virtual course to teach consumers how to grow cannabis at home.

A spokesperson from the U.S. Department of Education told The Canton Repository in a statement that while CSC is accredited, the school “is not approved by the Department to participate in Title IV or other programs under the Higher Education Act.” Students attending accredited schools are eligible for financial aid, but in this case it’s not clear that CSC would qualify.

CSC has been operating since 2017 and has had 1,100 students graduate through its various programs. On Feb. 29, Cannabis Business Times published an interview with CSC founder Austin Briggs. “It hasn’t been easy running a cannabis business in Ohio,” Briggs said. “For things as little as occupancy permits, we had to fight tooth and nail. For a largely conservative state, Ohio citizens have shown wide support for cannabis, both medical and recreational. But there still seems to be a tremendous amount of resistance from the government in supporting cannabis programs in Ohio. With the passing of Issue 2 and our accreditation, I’m hoping this will be a turning point for Ohio policy.”

CSC President Tyrone Russell also provided a statement regarding how the school trains students and connects them with jobs in the industry. “Workforce development and education is the key to socioeconomic mobility,” said Russell. “Companies have to hire people from their communities, and that only happens if those community members have access to education. In Ohio, you can go to your Ohio means jobs office, and get a grant to be a barber, welder, truck driver, contractor, or nail technician, but not to work in cannabis.”

Other educational institutions have been increasing cannabis education over the past few years.

Back in 2019, the University of Maryland announced one of the first medical cannabis Master’s degree programs. Since then, many other institutions have introduced some form of education program or degree revolving around cannabis. Last November, the University of Mississippi School of Pharmacy announced a new medical degree in medical cannabis and dietary supplements.

Earlier this year in January, Roanoke College in Virginia announced its launch of a new cannabis studies program. I commend the faculty for developing a transdisciplinary academic program that fills a significant educational gap,” said vice president for academic affairs and dean of Roanoke College, Kathy Wolfe. “With this program, Roanoke College continues to lead in science, policy, business and community engagement.” 

Professor DorothyBelle “DB” Poli helped to establish the new program. “Students are interested in this industry,” Poli said. “Being the first in the state to approach cannabis from a scholarly perspective is inventive and entrepreneurial. We hope to help bring clarity to tough problems by creating a truly multidisciplinary think tank.”

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Seventeen percent of Americans aged 18 and older reported smoking pot in 2023. That is largely unchanged from Gallup’s most recent findings on the matter. In 2022, 16% of American adults said they smoke marijuana. 

But the 17% figure represents a marked increase since 2013, when Gallup first added the question to its annual survey measuring Americans’ consumption habits.

That year, a mere seven percent of American adults identified as marijuana smokers. 

“Age is a significant driver of the likelihood of smoking marijuana. About a quarter of young adults, those aged 18 to 34, say they smoke marijuana (26%), but reported use falls to 18% among adults aged 35 to 54 and is even lower, 11%, among adults aged 55 and older,” Gallup said in its analysis. 

Gallup noted other divides in the responses along gender, education level and party identification. 

“Men (19%) are more likely than women (14%) to use marijuana,” the pollster explained. “College graduates (9%) are about half as likely as those without a college degree (21%) to smoke marijuana. Democrats (22%) are more likely than Republicans (12%) to report smoking marijuana, with independents’ rate (17%) falling between them.”

The survey also included a separate question concerning previous marijuana use. On this, half of American adults––50%––said they have tried cannabis.

“Gallup’s much longer trend on ever having tried marijuana shows that experimentation increased sharply in the first decade after the initial measure. Between 1969 and 1977, it jumped 20 percentage points, from 4% to 24%. It rose another nine points by 1985, to 33%, but thereafter stalled at under 40% until 2015, when it ticked up to 44%. It remained at about that level through 2019 but then rose to 49% in 2021, roughly where it is today,” Gallup said.

Gallup’s polling on Americans’ attitudes toward marijuana has captured a country undergoing a seachange when it comes to drug policy.

In November, Gallup published a poll revealing that seven in 10 Americans believe marijuana use should be legal, which was “the highest level yet after holding steady at 68% for three years.”

Gallup explained that only 12% of Americans supported legalization when it asked about it in 1969. 

But ever since states took the lead and ended pot prohibition nearly 12 years ago, public opinion has shifted dramatically.

“Support cracked the 50% threshold in 2013, jumping 10 percentage points to 58% after Colorado and Washington became the first states to legalize the recreational use of marijuana,” Gallup said in its analysis. “Support has since increased by another 12 points, paralleling the rise in Americans’ self-reported use of the drug. According to Gallup’s July Consumption Habits survey, the percentage saying they personally smoke marijuana has risen 10 points to 17% since 2013, and the percentage who have ever tried it has increased 12 points to 50%.”

The poll also marked the second consecutive year in which “majority support for legalization is found among all major subgroups, including by age, political party and ideology,” Gallup said.

“Self-identified conservatives were the last major subgroup to express majority support, reaching 51% in 2022. Republicans first gave marijuana majority-level backing in 2017. As of today, support for legal marijuana use is highest among self-identified liberals (91%) and Democrats (87%) and lowest among conservatives (52%) and Republicans (55%). Support is inversely correlated with age, reaching 79% among 18- to 34-year-olds. However, even among the oldest age group, nearly two-thirds (64%) are in favor,” Gallup reported. “There are no significant differences in support by gender, race or education. While most of the regional differences seen this year are also not statistically significant, the lower support for legalization in the East than in the West and Midwest is consistent with the recent trend.”

But another finding released by Gallup around that same time showed that, for the first time, “a majority of U.S. adults, 52%, say the U.S. has lost ground in coping with the illegal drug problem, while a record-low 24% say it has made progress.”

Those findings, per Gallup, “mark a sharp reversal from the prior reading in 2019.”

“At that time, more Americans were optimistic that progress was being made (41%) than believed the U.S. was losing ground (30%) in the effort. For most other recent readings, Americans were divided as to whether things were improving or getting worse,” Gallup said.

“The public was most optimistic about the nation’s coping with illegal drugs in 1999 and 2000, when an average of 47% believed the U.S. was making progress on the issue.”

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The National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA)—the organization that administers intercollegiate athletics in the U.S.—is making drastic changes to its drug policy for cannabis.

Changes were announced at the 2024 NCAA Convention that took place on Jan. 10-13, in Phoenix, Arizona. NCAA Division I proposed ending the practice of drug testing athletes for cannabinoids. The NCAA released a news release on Jan. 10, announcing that Division I is proposing removing cannabis from its drug-testing policy and will be voting on implementing the change shortly.

The White Mountain Independent reports that during the NCAA Convention on Jan. 11, a group of panelists discussed the recent cannabinoid drug testing policy updates and what needs to be done in order to incorporate those changes. NCAA Division I leaders decided cannabis is not in fact a performance-enhancing drug and that the organization’s drug testing policy should focus on other drugs instead.

“Cannabis is not a performance-enhancing drug, and we determined that the drug testing conducted at NCAA championships should focus on substances that impact competitive outcomes,” said Pat Chun, athletics director at Washington State and chair of the Strategic Vision and Planning Committee. “To be clear, this does not mean that NCAA members condone or promote use of cannabinoids. However, rather than focus on testing and subsequently penalizing student-athletes who use cannabis, NCAA efforts should focus on a harm reduction strategy, similar to substances like alcohol.”

The three panelists are members of the Committee on Competitive Safeguards and Medical Aspects of Sports (CSMAS), which recommended in September 2023 that each NCAA division introduce and adopt legislation to remove cannabinoids from the association’s banned list.

In order for cannabis to be removed from the NCAA substance list, Divisions I, II, and III must introduce and adopt legislation.The CSMAS committee suggested that NCAA Divisions I, II, and III remove cannabinoids from the NCAA’s banned drug list. Beyond the obvious tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), this would also remove less common cannabinoids, including cannabidiol (CBD), cannabigerol (CBG), and cannabinol (CBN).

Division I programs offer the highest level of competition between the NCAA’s three divisions and is the hardest division to get into and compete in.

The recommendation dates back to a December 2022 Summit on Cannabinoids in College Athletics, which concluded that “the consensus opinion that cannabis is not a performance-enhancing drug and that a harm reduction approach to cannabis is best implemented at the school level,” the NCAA wrote in a June 16, 2023 news release.

In February 2022, CSMAS slowly recognized the need for change, raising the THC testing threshold from 35 to 150 nanograms per milliliter and proposing a new penalty structure that incorporated treatment and education plans.

“One of the things we know about college students specifically is that treatment and education strategies work better than penalties,” CSMAS member Nadine Mastroleo, an associate professor in the department of psychology and faculty athletics representative at New York’s Binghamton University. “The last piece of this is really testing within a campus or at the local level. That is the best approach to using and finding individuals who actually might have a problem and could really use some support to reduce their use and to recover from whatever problems they may be having from that.”

According to a 2023 NCAA Student-Athlete Health and Wellness Study, 43% of college athletes are using marijuana in states where it is legal for recreational and medical use.

“Harm-reduction interventions, meaning meeting individuals where they are, are likely to be more effective in reducing cannabis-related health consequences than abstinence-only approaches,” said CSMAS member Deena Casiero, the senior associate athletics director for sports medicine and the head team physician at the University of Connecticut. “We know that randomly testing small groups of individuals at championships is not likely going to be as effective a deterrent as educating athletes about what this substance is actually doing to their bodies.

She continued, “How is this affecting your injury risk? How is this affecting your recovery? How is this affecting your performance? How is it affecting your sleep, your mental health? Pushing those agendas are going to be way more effective than randomly testing a group of individuals and then punishing them when they test positive.”

“So for those of you that will be getting emails from your student-athletes’ parents, we will hopefully be offering the information to you to help with that conversation,” Mastroleo said. “What we’re going to create ideally will be a really good toolkit of opportunities to really help with dispelling myths and also letting them know that we are out there for the athletes. Will we help everybody walk away from it? No, but I mean, how many of us can actually make everybody happy?”

A vote is scheduled to formally implement the drug testing policy change for Division I colleges is expected in June.

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Aspiring entrepreneurs and workers in Ohio’s upcoming legal recreational marijuana market have a new path to success with the launch of cannabis certification courses at Kent State University. Designed to give students a solid educational footing in the ins and outs of regulated adult-use cannabis, the first classes in Kent State’s cannabis certification program began this month.

Ohio voters legalized recreational marijuana late last year with the passage of Question 2, a ballot measure that passed with 57% of the vote. State lawmakers are currently debating how and when adult-use cannabis sales will begin in the state, with some legislators calling for a quick launch of recreational weed sales at existing medical marijuana dispensaries.

Kent State is offering the new cannabis certification program to prepare workers and potential business owners to fill job openings and open new businesses as the industry expands to serve a recreational market. The program was developed in collaboration with Green Flower, a California-based company that specializes in developing cannabis education programs. 

“This is an important opportunity for Kent State University to collaborate with a recognized private education provider for training related to the emerging cannabis industry,” Peggy Shadduck, Kent State’s vice president for regional campuses and dean of the College of Applied and Technical Studies, said in a statement from the university. “These on-demand online certificate programs will enable individuals to develop specialized knowledge and skills related to the cannabis industry at their own pace.”

“Trained professionals are needed to fill the jobs that are being created now and that will be created in the future,” Shadduck added.

Kent State’s cannabis training includes four different non-credit certification programs, each consisting of about six months of instruction. All classes are asynchronous and held online.

The Cannabis Healthcare and Medicine Certificate educates healthcare professionals and retail workers so that they can give accurate and helpful information to medical marijuana patients. The Cannabis Agriculture and Horticulture Certificate trainers students who wish to gain employment in weed cultivation.

The Business of Cannabis Certificate gives aspiring business owners and employees knowledge about the particulars of operating an enterprise in the regulated cannabis industry. The Cannabis Compliance and Risk Management Certificate is designed to train regulatory compliance professionals, who are responsible for ensuring businesses follow all relevant laws and regulations. Each program costs $2,950, with enrollment in the programs available online.

Students who complete the program will receive a digital certificate and badge, as well as membership in a cannabis industry employer network. Benefits of membership in the network include virtual career events, priority for new job postings, and other networking opportunities, according to a release from the university cited by the Akron Beacon Journal. 

Ohio’s Growing Weed Industry

Ohio’s medical marijuana program currently has about 179,000 patients, according to data from state cannabis regulators. According to the Vangst 2023 Jobs Report, which tracks cannabis industry employment trends by state and nationwide, Ohio’s legal medical marijuana industry grew by 24% last year, creating more than 1,300 new jobs in the state.

“Even before legalization even took place, Kent State said this is an industry they wanted to help develop the new workforce,” said Max Simon, CEO of Green Flower.

“If you want to play a role as an entrepreneur, a manager, or if you want to play a role servicing these businesses,” Simon told local news media. “I think the timing is perfect for this Kent State program. It’s six months, entirely online. And they will allow people to have an enormous leg up when this industry shapes up, which is planned for next summer.”

Daniel Kalef, chief growth officer at Green Flower, said Kent State is one of the first nonprofit universities in Ohio to offer a cannabis certification program.

“There’s been a tremendous response already,” he said. “More than 40 students have enrolled already after launching two weeks ago. We talked to a lot of schools. Kent State was tremendous. They understood it could be controversial, but they understood the need in the industry.”

Kalef noted that with cannabis still a federally illegal substance, businesses are not allowed to order products produced outside of Ohio. Because of the ban on interstate cannabis commerce, production availability and selection may be limited when the regulated recreational market opens in the state.

“If I sell anything in a dispensary in Ohio, I have to have everything grown and made in Ohio,” he said. “I can’t get marijuana from Kentucky or gummies from Illinois. … It’s a complicated process to take a plant to turn it into something else.”

Last year’s passage of Question 2 made Ohio the 24th state to legalize recreational marijuana for adults. And as more states take the same step, the regulated cannabis industry will continue to grow.

“There are over half a million people working in legal cannabis today [nationwide],” Kalef said. “With the state of Ohio, this will grow even more.”

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A new multi-million dollar study at Johns Hopkins University aims to analyze how patients nationwide respond to medical cannabis treatments. 

Johns Hopkins University, which championed one of the largest and most widely referenced studies on medical applications of psilocybin mushrooms, announced the launch of a medical cannabis study in the winter edition of their Brainwise newsletter. 

According to the newsletter, the study will take a nationally representative sample of about 10,000 medical cannabis patients in an attempt to “fill [the] information gap” that exists when comparing medical cannabis knowledge to other elements of modern medicine. In other words, they are attempting to learn just as much about cannabis and how it can be used to treat medical maladies as other potential treatments which have all typically undergone extensive peer-reviewed scrutiny before ever being used in a medical setting. Cannabis is already used nationwide to treat a range of ailments like pain management, anxiety and ADHD but little is certain about long-term practical efficacy of such treatments other than anecdotal information from people who say it helps them. 

“We have the availability of cannabis as a therapeutic, but we’re lacking the quality of data that we have with other medicines,” said a written statement by Ryan Vandrey, one of the initiative’s creators and a professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. “Our mission with this research is to understand the health impacts of therapeutic cannabis use,”Vandrey said. “We hope to provide some starting points for understanding what types of products may or may not be helpful and what types of products may be more risky for use in certain populations or for certain therapeutic purposes.”

The initiative is supported by a five-year, $10 million grant from the National Institute on Drug Abuse and plans to collect data from patients such as methods of ingestion (smoking, edibles, vaping etc.), dosage, interactions with other medications and the chemical composition of different products. 

 “We’re tracking them with multiple assessments over the course of their first year with more tightly spaced assessments toward the beginning because our assumption is that as people are starting their medical cannabis journey, they’re likely going to try different products until they find the products that best help them with their symptoms,” said Johannes Thrul, associate professor of mental health at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health who is collaborating on this project with Vandrey. 

One of the issues with quantifying, analyzing or studying cannabis in general is that it’s such a versatile plant that can be ingested and used in so many different fashions that it has somewhat puzzled medical and pharmaceutical professionals in the past who tend to rely on cut-and-dry medications which can be easily patented. This is not the case with cannabis products or cannabis users which tend to vary greatly. How does one compare the experience of dabbing to combustion of flower or distillate gummies to hash gummies without extensive study that, up until recently, was ineligible for any form of federal funding. The new Johns Hopkins study aims to put a dent in that research deficit. 

“Under the umbrella term of cannabis exist hundreds of products that are all different in very important and significant ways,” Vandrey said. “We’re trying to narrow the scope a little bit, find areas of real promise and focus the science on those.”

Vandrey said that the data from this study could have practical applications across the board from guiding decisions made in clinical settings, to legislative policy decisions, to providing regulations for additional clinical trials. This is even more evident based on the policy and clinical decisions which have already been made from the aforementioned psilocybin study which paved the way for decriminalization in several cities across the country as well as additional clinical trials and direct legalization for medical use in states like Oregon. 

The researchers at Johns Hopkins will be working closely with the National Institute on Drug Abuse as well as Realm of Caring, a Colorado-based nonprofit that provides information about cannabinoid therapies. The researchers will analyze and track data from patients over a year or more of their own respective cannabis-based treatments.

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