A growing body of research shows that cannabis can aid in prevention and mitigation of Covid symptoms.

The post Researchers say cannabis may help treat Covid-19 appeared first on Leafly.

The post Researchers say cannabis may help treat Covid-19 appeared first on Paradise Found.

The number of legal cannabis retailers has exploded in North America the last decade, but that hasn’t resulted in easier access for kids. 

That is the takeaway from newly published survey data that examined perceptions of cannabis among youth in Canada.

“Very little research has examined how perceptions of cannabis access among underage youth in Canada have changed since cannabis was legalized and since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. As such, this paper examines the effect of the early and ongoing stages of the COVID-19 pandemic period on youth perceptions of cannabis access over time since the onset of the Cannabis Act in 2018 in a large sample of Canadian youth,” the researchers wrote in the introduction of the study, which was published this month in Archives of Public Health.

The authors of the study said that they “used both repeat cross-sectional data [T1 (n = 38,890), T2 (n = 24,109), and T3 (n = 22,795)] to examine overall trends in perceptions of cannabis access, and sequential cohort longitudinal data [n = 4,677 students linked from T1 to T3] to examine the differential changes in perceptions of cannabis access among students over time.”

“In the cross-sectional sample, the frequency of students reporting that cannabis was easy to access decreased by 26.7% from T1 (51.0%) to T3 (37.4%), although respondents who have used cannabis were more likely to report access was easy. In the longitudinal sample, perceptions of cannabis access being easy increased over time, especially among cannabis users. Perceived ease of access appears to have been slightly impeded during the initial pandemic period but rebounded during the ongoing pandemic period,” they wrote in their summary of the results.

In conclusion, the researchers said that although “the prevalence of youth reporting that cannabis is easy to access has declined since legalization and throughout the early and ongoing pandemic periods, a substantial number of underage youth continue to report that cannabis is easy to access,” which they said suggests “that there is an ongoing need for continued cannabis control efforts to address this issue.”

“While there has been a growing number of studies focused on examining changes in cannabis use among Canadian youth since the onset of the Cannabis Act, and more recently since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, there appears to be a paucity of research dedicated to examining changes in youth perceptions of cannabis availability over the same period of time. In response, this study provides unique and novel evidence of how youth perceptions of cannabis access have changed since the onset of the Cannabis Act,” they said in their conclusion, as quoted by NORML, “Our data suggest that in our large samples of youth, perceptions of cannabis access as being easy has declined in prevalence since legalization and through the early and ongoing pandemic response period.”

The Cannabis Act in 2018 made Canada just the second country to legalize marijuana, following Uruguay, which legalized pot in 2013.

In the United States, legalization is a phenomenon that exists on the state and local level, as cannabis remains prohibited under federal law. 

But in states where adult-use cannabis has been made legal, there has been a similar trend as the one identified in the Canadian study.

A study last year found that recreational cannabis laws were not associated with a change in perception among marijuana among youth.

In the study, which was published in the journal Cannabis and Cannabinoid Research, the researchers “aimed to discover whether children in states with [recreational cannabis laws] had decreased perception of risk from cannabis compared with children in states with illicit cannabis,” noting that as “more states pass recreational cannabis laws (RCLs) for adults, there is concern that increasing (and state-sanctioned) cannabis acceptance will result in a reduced perception of risk of harm from cannabis among children.”

The researchers said they “analyzed data from the multisite multistate Adolescent Brain and Cognitive Development Study to determine how the perception of cannabis harm among children changes over time in states with and without [recreational cannabis laws].” 

“Using multilevel modeling, we assessed survey responses from children longitudinally across 3 years, adjusting for state-, family-, and participant-level clustering and child-level factors, including demographics (sex, race, and socioeconomic status), religiosity, and trait impulsivity,” they said in their explanation of the methodology. 

The researchers said that there “was no significant main effect of state [recreational cannabis laws] on perceived risk of cannabis use, and no differences in change over time by state [recreational cannabis laws], even after controlling for demographic factors and other risk (e.g., impulsivity) and protective (e.g., religiosity) factors.” 

“This analysis indicates that state-level [recreational cannabis laws] are not associated with differential perception of cannabis risk among children, even after controlling for demographics, trait impulsivity, and religiosity,” they said. “Future studies could assess how perception of risk from cannabis changes as children and adolescents continue to mature in states with and without [recreational cannabis laws].”

The post Despite Widespread Legalization, Fewer Young People Find it ‘Easy’ To Get Pot appeared first on High Times.

The post Despite Widespread Legalization, Fewer Young People Find it ‘Easy’ To Get Pot appeared first on Paradise Found.

According to government data released this week by the U.S. National Institutes of Health, teen cannabis use stands at historic lows, NORML reports. 

The data comes from the Substance Abuse Mental Health Services Administration’s (SAMHSA) latest National Survey on Drug Use and Health. And, apparently, just over 11% of kids between the ages of 12 and 17 admitted to having consumed a cannabis product within the last year. Of course, there is always a chance that this figure is higher (pun intended), given that the survey is self-reported. While this number is up from data in 202 and 2021, when teen cannabis use apparently reached historic lows, it clocks in below pre-pandemic (2019) levels.

Meanwhile, the same data shares that 23% of Americans ages 18 and over partook in cannabis during 2022. Over half admitted to having used marijuana at least once in their entire life. 

The data is consistent with findings from various other studies that have consistently shown that the implementation of statewide adult-use cannabis legalization has not led to increased rates of youth marijuana use, NORML reports. As High Times reported, recent data from Illinois found that teens who live near medical dispensaries are not more likely to partake in cannabis. Doug Smith, the director of the Center for Prevention Research and Development at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, said: “We need to combat the hysteria that legalizing cannabis is going to have a wild and resounding impact on teens in terms of substance use rates and prevalence,” Smith added. “That’s simply not the case.”

And according to a report released in May 2023 by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), there was a significant decline in cannabis consumption among high school students, with a 30% drop in usage from 2011 to 2021. 

This period is particularly notable as it coincides with the legalization of cannabis in nearly half of all U.S. states. Additionally, the report reveals a parallel decrease in the number of students who consider themselves current users of cannabis, with the percentage falling by a similar margin. All of such findings show that conservative fear-mongering about adult-use cannabis is wrong. Legalizing marijuana does not lead to increased consumption among teens. 

“These findings ought to reassure lawmakers and the public that cannabis access for adults can be legally regulated in a manner that is safe, effective, and that does not significantly impact young people’s consumption habits,” NORML Deputy Director Paul Armentano commented.

During the pandemic, sources say that cannabis use spiked. Everyone was locked inside, afraid, and with little to do but find a way to get by and manage. While there’s nothing wrong with using cannabis, the fact that numbers have reached pre-pandemic levels may indicate that public fears are somewhat calm and have returned to normal. However, there’s a troubling version of what “normal” means in America. Regarding news on cannabis and teens, while they may be using less cannabis than in the year prior, a recent study reveals that California cops are more likely to arrest Black teens. 

“Over the past four years, the data collected under the Racial and Identity Profiling Act has provided empirical evidence showing disparities in policing throughout California,” the report states. “This year’s data demonstrates the same trends in disparities for all aspects of law enforcement stops, from the reason for stop to actions taken during stop to results of stop.” 

While this data is not explicitly linked to cannabis, according to an October 2022 The Washington Post story, while the state may have legalized adult-use cannabis in July 2021, Virginia police are still more likely to arrest Black people than White folks for cannabis-related offenses. Crime and cannabis are inherently linked. As long as marijuana is illegal on a federal level cops will find a way to weaponize such laws into racist practices. 

Recently, around Halloween, headline after headline warned about the dangers of someone underage mistaking regular candy for THC-infused gummies, getting too stoned, and falling victim to everything that Reefer Madness warned about. As High Times reported, “nothing is scarier than cannabis-infused edibles ‘disguised’ as candy for some parents.” 

Citizens concerned about the effects of cannabis and teens would benefit from looking at racist arrest data rather than ruin the fun of Halloween with fear-mongering, in this reporter’s humble opinion. 

The post Survey Shows Post-Pandemic Teen Cannabis Use Has Not Surpassed Pre-COVID Levels appeared first on High Times.

The post Survey Shows Post-Pandemic Teen Cannabis Use Has Not Surpassed Pre-COVID Levels appeared first on Paradise Found.

The Japan Times reported this week on data published by the National Center of Neurology and Psychiatry, an agency under the national Ministry of Health, that illuminated how excessive “use of such over-the-counter drugs has grown more popular in recent years, with the number of cases of addiction involving them increasing sixfold between 2012 and 2020.”

But the outlet also touched on a “more recent study conducted by Saitama Medical University’s Clinical Toxicology Center found that among eight surveyed medical institutions, a total of 124 patients were taken to the hospital for overdosing on over-the-counter drugs between May 2021 and December 2022.”

According to the Japan Times, the “average age of patients was 22, and nearly 80% of them were female.”

“The majority of patients are young women in their 20s or younger,” said Ryoko Kyan, an instructor at the center and one of the lead researchers on the project, as quoted by the Japan Times. “As for the motive behind their overdose, around 70% of respondents said their intent was suicide or self-harm.”

“I think what we found in this research was that it’s not necessarily people that are alone and isolated,” added Kyan. “It’s a lot of people who are integrated into society, whether it be through family, school or work, but they nonetheless have worries that they cannot disclose to people around them and are finding it hard to live.”

The outlet NHK World-Japan said that roughly “34% of the people surveyed were school or university students, while 26.2% were full-time workers,” while more “than 80% were living with their families or partners at the time.”

“The survey also found that more than half of the people who overdosed required intensive care in hospital,” the outlet reported. “One 15-year-old girl in Tokyo told NHK she consumed as many as 30 cold pills after becoming upset about problems in a personal relationship.”

According to the Japan Times, “in over 60% of the cases [the drugs] were bought in a normal pharmacy or store,” while in other cases “respondents said they either found medicines at home that their family had already bought or that they purchased them over the internet.”

Health officials in Japan have recently discussed proposals to legalize medical cannabis in the country. Reuters reported last fall that a panel organized by the country’s health ministry “recommended revising the nation’s drug laws to allow for the importation and use of medicinal marijuana products.”

“The recommendation was based on meeting medical needs and to harmonise Japan with international standards, the committee said in a report. The revision would apply to marijuana products whose safety and efficacy were confirmed under laws governing pharmaceuticals and medical devices,” Reuters reported at the time, noting that the country has “has very strict laws banning the importation, production, and use of illicit substances,” and that the health ministry committee’s report said “that only 1.4% of people in Japan had ever used marijuana, compared to 20-40% in Western countries.”

Japan’s strict prohibition on cannabis was enshrined in the 1948 Cannabis Control Act, a post-World War II law that was based largely on the United States’ own ban on pot. Importing marijuana into Japan can carry a punishment of as many as seven years in prison. (High Times published a handy guide in July for any would-be tokers who are traveling abroad in Japan. Spoiler alert: you are probably safer doing opium.)

In its report this week, the Japan Times cited Yoshito Kamijo, the head of the center and lead researcher on the project, who suggested that “it may come as no surprise that many turn to over-the-counter medicines that are both legal and easily accessible” given the strict prohibition on drugs.

Kamijo also noted the isolation induced by the COVID-19 pandemic as a factor in the trend.

“Traditionally, young people could go to school and talk about their worries and problems in life with their friends,” said Kamijo, as quoted by the Japan Times. “But when that becomes difficult, many turn to social media or the internet to discuss their issues and end up being exposed to information on how they can escape from it all using drugs.”

The Japan Times noted that Kyan, meanwhile, pointed out “that recently, it has become easier for young people to stumble upon information related to overdosing on over-the-counter drugs while searching the internet, and that there are online communities that support such behavior.”

“It’s not an issue that can be solved just by medical institutions,” said Kyan, as quoted by the outlet. “By having people become more aware that there are a lot of young people feeling isolated within society and their families, hopefully there will be more people both at home and in school keeping an eye on how their children are doing.”

The post Over-The-Counter Overdoses Largely Affect Women, the Young appeared first on High Times.

The post Over-The-Counter Overdoses Largely Affect Women, the Young appeared first on Paradise Found.

An employee of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) pleaded guilty to using COVID relief designed for small businesses to fund an illegal cannabis operation.

A NASA-Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) employee agreed to plead guilty to defrauding a government loan program developed during the COVID-19 pandemic. He admitted that he used part of the proceeds to fund an illegal cannabis grow operation, the Justice Department announced on July 24.

“Armen Hovanesian, 32, of Glendale, a cost-control and budget-planning resource analyst for the JPL, a federally funded research and development center operated by the California Institute of Technology for NASA, agreed to plead guilty to a single-count information charging him with wire fraud,” the Justice department wrote. “Both the information and a plea agreement were filed Thursday in United States District Court. Hovanesian is expected to make his initial court appearance on August 11.” 

Per the plea agreement, between June 2020 to October 2020, Hovanesian applied for three loans, using the names of business entities under his control to the Economic Injury Disaster Loan Program (EIDL), a program administered by the Small Business Administration (SBA) that provided low-interest financing to small businesses, renters, and homeowners, in this case, for businesses impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic. 

“Hovanesian admitted to making false and fraudulent statements in the loan applications concerning the gross revenues each of the businesses had generated in the preceding year as well as false and fraudulent statements concerning his intended use of loan proceeds.” 

The SBA requires—under penalty of perjury—that grantees “use all the proceeds” of the loans for which he applied and caused others to apply for “solely as working capital to alleviate economic injury caused by disaster” consistent with the terms and limitations of the EIDL program. 

But instead of using it for COVID relief, Hovanesian used the proceeds for his own benefit, repaying a personal real-estate debt and funding his illegal cannabis cultivation operation. 

The Justice Department says Hovanesian fraudulently used the SBA to transfer via interstate wire EIDL proceeds amounting to $151,900.

The punishment is serious: After Hovanesian pleads guilty, he will face a statutory maximum sentence of 20 years in federal prison.

Fraudsters Take Advantage of COVID Relief

Abusing COVID relief funding is commonplace. To combat this, the United States Attorney General established the COVID-19 Fraud Enforcement Task Force in May 2021, and hundreds of alleged criminals have been charged as part of the task force’s work.

COVID relief programs including SBA funding and Paycheck Protection Program, or PPP, were commonly abused. COVID relief loan schemes dominated the years following the pandemic.

NBC News reported how COVID relief funds were abused to buy Lamborghinis, Ferraris, Teslas, and Bentleys.

​​Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz, who oversees COVID relief spending, told NBC anchor Lester Holt that COVID relief programs were structured in ways that made them especially easy to take advantage of, and businesspeople were caught buying expensive sports cars and other luxuries using the money.

“The Small Business Administration, in sending that money out, basically said to people, ‘Apply and sign and tell us that you’re really entitled to the money,’” said Horowitz, the chair of the Pandemic Response Accountability Committee. “And, of course, for fraudsters, that’s an invitation. … What didn’t happen was even minimal checks to make sure that the money was getting to the right people at the right time.”

“Nothing like this has ever happened before,” said Matthew Schneider, a former U.S. attorney. “It is the biggest fraud in a generation.”

The post NASA Employee Used COVID Small Business Relief to Fund Illegal Pot Operation appeared first on High Times.

The post NASA Employee Used COVID Small Business Relief to Fund Illegal Pot Operation appeared first on Paradise Found.

A new report on the U.S. cannabis market is making the rounds, and paints a pretty dire picture of where the industry is today economically, with just 24.4% of survey respondents saying their business is profitable. High Times recently sat down with Beau Whitney, the CEO of Whitney Economics, who headed up the economic analysis of the data their survey found to get a more complete picture. 

No Longer Able to ‘Work from Stoned’ Harms Cannabis Economy

You might remember when the COVID-19 pandemic started in the spring of 2020, many states said cannabis was an essential industry that couldn’t be closed down and cannabis sales were “booming.” Unfortunately, behavioral changes after the pandemic have taken a toll. “People could no longer Work from Stoned,” which Beau said “hurt the industry at a time when they needed more revenue but [received] less.” While Whitney’s data found that just ten out of 36 state markets were not growing, “The growth is coming from states that just launched, and while they are growing, it is a much smaller chunk of the total cannabis market.” The ten states that weren’t growing included large, mature markets like Colorado, California, Oregon, and Washington. 

Oregon: Regional Bias or a Harbinger of Things to Come?

The report admits there was a “strong regional bias, as Oregon-based respondents made up nearly 90% of the total.” That means that out of the 224 responses received, just 24 were from operators outside of Oregon. As any longtime observer of cannabis markets will note, Oregon’s cannabis economy has been struggling for over half a decade, to the point where many cannabis cultivators jumped into the hemp market. As Beau lives in Oregon, he is no stranger to the struggles of their local cannabis industry and made many attempts to control for the regional bias in the responses they received by triangulating the data – using more than one data point. 

“I do a lot of expert witness testimony and have been doing individual state-level research,’ said Beau, which is why he knows “Michigan is mirroring Oregon, with too much capacity, too much supply, and a strong illicit market.” Beyond his research, Beau followed up on the survey by “calling business leaders.” All of the data from states less represented in the survey “indicated that Oregon was a harbinger of things to come.”

Plans for Next Year’s Survey

Their first two years, Whitney created an annual report, but they are trying “to go from an annual to a quarterly survey.” As a result, Beau said they “will likely trim down the number of questions.” 

The reason why there was such a strong representation of Oregon-based operators is that Oregon’s cannabis regulators sent the survey out directly to their licensees. Other than Oregon, the only two states where they had such strong regulator participation were Washington and, surprisingly, South Dakota. Next year will be a different story. Beau now has stronger relations with the Michigan regulators, expects more support from Colorado regulators, and has better relationships with business leaders in Florida; all states that were notable omissions in this year’s data. Beau also mentioned that “the Cannabis Regulators Association (CANNRA) sees a lot more value in this data and supports me more than they did previously,” and their support could help expand his available pool of data significantly. 

Necessary Reforms to Save the Industry

The key factors limiting growth are IRS tax code 280E, “a lack of access to banking, a limited demand market because supply and demand are all in one state, and the influence of the illicit market.” Whitney’s survey data and Beau’s personal research have revealed some policy reforms that could save the cannabis industry. Beau’s top policy solutions are safe banking, which “lowers the cost of capital,” 280E reform, which would relieve “up to 70% taxes in some cases,” and opening up interstate commerce to deal with imbalances of supply and demand. Beau did an analysis of 280E taxes earlier this year and found that “the cannabis industry paid $1.8 billion more in taxes than if they had been treated like any other business.” 

Beau put in practical terms, “There is a threshold for economic viability that must be met to account for product acquisition, labor, and federal taxes.” He pegged that threshold at around $2.5 million a year currently, but with 280E reform that threshold goes down to $1.5 million, which greatly raises the chance for success. “280E is doing exactly what it was supposed to do when it was designed 40 years ago,” said Beau, which is to make it impossible to run a business profiting from the sale of federally illegal drugs. Beau cautions that “while it sounds doom and gloom,” and he doesn’t anticipate growth until the Federal Reserve cuts interest rates, the businesses that survive “will thrive in 2025 when growth takes off again.”

The post Only 24.4% of Cannabis Operators Profitable Due to 280E, Other Challenges appeared first on High Times.

The post Only 24.4% of Cannabis Operators Profitable Due to 280E, Other Challenges appeared first on Paradise Found.

The Marijuana Policy Project (MPP) released a report on May 1 with data regarding cannabis tax revenue generated by states with legalization. Between 2014 and the end of 2022, the report shows that states had collected over $15.1 billion in tax revenue.

According to MPP President and CEO Toi Hutchinson, states with legalization are seeing great benefits from cannabis sales. “States that have made the decision to legalize and regulate cannabis are benefiting from hundreds of millions in tax revenue each year,” Hutchinson said in a press release. “These new streams of revenue are helping to fund crucial social services and programs across the country, such as education, alcohol and drug treatment, veterans’ services, job training, and reinvestment in communities that have been disproportionately affected by the war on cannabis. The states that lag behind will not only be doing a disservice to their constituents—they will also be leaving money on the table.”

Tax revenue from 2022 alone showed more than $3.77 billion collected, which was actually the first year that total state cannabis tax revenues decreased in comparison to 2021 with $3.86 billion. Even with seeing mature cannabis states collecting a decreased amount in cannabis tax revenue and newer states collecting an increased amount, MPP notes that the numbers are influenced by sales comparisons from the pandemic. “It is important to note that while ’22 figures were down from ’21 in more mature markets, they were still higher than any year pre-COVID for each state.”

MPP cited Vicente LLP Director of Economics and Research Andrew Livingston, who elaborated on the demand of cannabis during the pandemic. “While 2022 cannabis taxes are lower in some established markets than they were in 2021, it’s important to know how COVID-19 and pandemic initiated lockdown orders increased cannabis demand,” Livingston stated. “People could not spend their money going to concerts, going out to dinner, or vacation travel. So many people increased their consumption of consumer packaged goods. Cannabis was a product that could still be purchased and made the difficulty of staying at home for months on end watching TV shows and movies a bit more enjoyable.”

MPP’s tax revenue report shows the individual 2022 tax revenue for 16 states. Among the highest amounts included California ($1,074,560,287), Illinois ($562,119,019), Washington ($529,443,420), Michigan ($326,049,074), and Colorado ($305,034,034). On the lower end were states including Rhode Island ($579,439), Vermont ($2,363,000), New Jersey ($20,139,655), Maine ($25,329,534), New Mexico ($36,684,235), Montana ($41,989,466).

The report also includes a year-by-year total of collected tax revenue as well. In 2014, tax revenue reached $68,503,980 and 2018 was the first year that cannabis tax revenue passed the million mark at $1,308,693,928. During the pandemic, tax revenue soared to $2,814,837,199 in 2020, $3,866,974,690 in 2021, and dipped slightly to $3,774,783,548 in 2022.

While cannabis tax revenue is at an all-time high, the topic of taxes has long been a concern for consumers and business owners. Most recently on April 17, Oregon Rep. Earl Blumenauer introduced legislation called the Small Business Tax Equity Act which would allow cannabis businesses to remain in compliance with state law by creating an exception to Internal Revenue Code Section 280e.

“State-legal cannabis businesses are denied equal treatment under 280E. They cannot fully deduct the cost of doing business which means they pay two or three times as much as a similar non-cannabis business,” Blumenauer said. “This grotesquely unfair treatment incentivizes people to cut corners. If Congress wants to get serious about supporting small businesses and ending the illicit cannabis market, it is commonsense that we allow legal cannabis operations to deduct business expenses, just like any other industry.”

The post New Report From Marijuana Policy Project Examines Eight Years of Cannabis Tax Revenue appeared first on High Times.

The post New Report From Marijuana Policy Project Examines Eight Years of Cannabis Tax Revenue appeared first on Paradise Found.

According to a report from the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), “The COVID-19 pandemic had a disruptive effect on drug markets. With international travel severely curtailed, producers struggled to get their product to market. Night clubs and bars were shut as officials ramped up their attempts to control the virus, causing demand to slump for drugs like cocaine that are often associated with those settings.

“However, the most recent data suggests this slump has had little impact on longer-term trends. The global supply of cocaine is at record levels. Almost 2,000 tons was produced in 2020, continuing a dramatic uptick in manufacture that began in 2014, when the total was less than half of today’s levels.”

According to The Guardian, production “of coca, the drug’s base ingredient, spiked 35% in 2020-21, surpassing pre-pandemic levels.”

“The pandemic was a bit of a blip for the expansion of cocaine production, but now it has rebounded and is even higher than what it was before,” said Antoine Vella, a researcher at the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime and who contributed to the report on cocaine.

The UN report says that the “surge is partly a result of an expansion in coca bush cultivation, which doubled between 2013 and 2017, hit a peak in 2018, and rose sharply again in 2021.

“But it is also due to improvements in the process of conversion from coca bush to cocaine hydrochloride. In parallel, there has been a continuing growth in demand, with most regions showing steadily rising numbers of users over the past decade. Although these increases can be partly explained by population growth, there is also a rising prevalence of cocaine use. Interceptions by law enforcement have also been on the rise, at a higher speed than production, meaning that interdiction has contained the growth of the global amount of cocaine available for consumption,” the report continues. 

While the cocaine trade has long been concentrated in major hubs like Colombia, that might be changing. As Vella told The Guardian, “I think we need to shift away from thinking of cocaine as being a European/North American problem because it’s also very much a South American problem.” 

“The cocaine trade in Colombia was once controlled by just a few major players. As a result of a fragmentation of the criminal landscape following the demobilization of the Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia (FARC) in 2016, it now involves criminal groups of all sizes, structures and objectives. But, signs of consolidation of some of these groups have recently emerged. These developments have led to an increasing presence of foreign actors in Colombia. Mexican and Balkan criminal groups have moved closer to the centre of production to gain access to supplies and wholesale quantities of cocaine,” the report says. “These foreign groups are not aiming to take control of territory. Instead, they are trying to make supply lines more efficient. Their presence is helping to incentivize coca bush cultivation and finance all stages of the supply chain.” 

The report continues: “In established cocaine markets, the proportion of the general population using the drug is high. But these markets only cover around one-fifth of the global population. If the prevalence in other regions increases to match established markets, the number of users globally would increase tremendously because of the large underlying population. This type of market convergence has already been happening in the case of Western and Central Europe, where purity levels and prices have harmonised with the United States, although prevalence of cocaine use in Western and Central Europe has not yet reached the level in the United States.”

The post Cocaine Production Soars to Record Levels, UN Reports appeared first on High Times.

The post Cocaine Production Soars to Record Levels, UN Reports appeared first on Paradise Found.

The World Health Organization (WHO), recently citing one of their fresh, dark-timeline COVID-19 pandemic stats, alerted the world that there’s been a shocking/not-shocking 25% increase in prevalence of anxiety and depression in adults across the world. A number which, frankly, begins to feel light when taking into context the various ugly aspects of these increasingly dystopian times.

Adults are hardly in solo sad company. Data from a youth charity The Prince’s Trust, says 23% of young people in the U.K. claim they are seeking psychedelic experiences and will “never emotionally recover from the emotional impact of the pandemic.” Existence itself, it seems, is more a burden emotionally than ever before.

Kevin Bourke agrees: “Global mental health has deteriorated and people need perspective and balance.” Bourke, co-founder of Patoo—Jamaica’s first legal psychedelic CPG line of psilocybin products—has a particularly astute vantage point to witness both the trending explosive interest and use of psychedelics as well as the return of tourism culture on his home turf after the devastation of COVID on the travel industry at large.

Particularly hard hit were places like the island’s longtime beach and cliff-lined bohemian playground of Negril in the West End, where I caught up with him in the spring of 2022 while on the island for my own physical and spiritual recharging of sorts. Patoo is quickly gaining traction around the island with dozens of retail partners all across Jamaica carrying their products, from legal cannabis dispensaries like Jacana, through to locally infamous mushroom cafes, weed huts, right up to posh resorts like Skylark along the beach, or Rockhouse in the cliffs, where Patoo is also hosting “Psilocybin Soundbath” experiences for guests.

In the gift shops, the eye-catching Patoo packaging is right at home alongside tanning oils and sun hats. Think: gluten-free, direct trade and locally-farmed dark chocolate bars, dosed Jamaican honey, microdosed mushroom capsules, and more strain-based products being developed with Patoo’s R+D team. 

“The vibe in Negril and the whole island is bringing people seeking experiential tourism and wellness after COVID, and the Caribbean has bounced back. It’s the perfect time for Jamaica to step up in this realm and be a leader for adults seeking these products,” says Bourke.

Patoo’s other co-founder Charles Lazarus, a twenty-year veteran of touring roots-reggae band Rootz Underground Movement says: “We didn’t come up with mushroom-dosed chocolate, they just go well together in nature, and both are medicine,” he says. “The dark chocolate provides oxytocin, the love transmitter, and then you have the Jamaican mushrooms with a very expansive personality.”

A Jamaican owl—Patoo—greets you as the brand mascot and spiritual talisman to the public, and as a brand the team says they seek to be a bridge builder between the natural world, research, and commerce. Besides partnering with island farmers for all-local chocolate and a greater harmony with their proprietary indigenious hybrid genetics, their main Patoo 4-gram dark chocolate bar uses a wild Jamaican strain they cross-cultivated the mycelium with in order to be consistent and shelf-stable. It also allows them to tightly and accurately control even-dosing across the product (read: you can anticipate the effects for a better experience). And yet, their biggest cost is the Jamaican cacao, which is regarded as one of the best on the planet. 

In an even more impressive move, Bourke, along with Lazarus and their team worked to execute the first legal shipment of Jamaican psilocybin using native genetics cultivated by the Patoo team to the University of Alberta and Health Canada for research on PTSD in the Canadian Military.

That image of psychedelics as both therapy and a fun time for responsible adults is changing, if the ongoing legalization movement is any indicator. The FDA has proclaimed psilocybin to be a “breakthrough medicine” and that perspective is increasingly being found at the end of a micro or macro dose of plant-based psychedelics like magic mushrooms. While on the island for my own restorative trip to Negril, I too wanted to sample the indigenious and proprietary genetics unique to Jamaica. 

In the case of Patoo, they offer a means to try mushrooms naturally harvested in controlled environments—knowing the diet of the cows producing the substrate growing manure to ensure the integrity of the mycelium, as well as the metabolites, which influence and direct the effects the way terpenes interact with cannabinoids in cannabis. 

With all that in mind, it’s no surprise to find accessibility and professional, safe psilocybin products being at the forefront of the experiential tourism trend that is growing in Negril, and greater Jamaica. Legality means greater diversity and standards of CPG goods, in psychedelics just as it did with weed. “[Psychedelics] are moving extremely fast, it feels different than cannabis,” says Lazarus. “Cannabis definitely led the path and highlighted the right way, also the wrong ways, of progressing an industry like this. Psilocybin will challenge the wine and spirits space in ten years.”

As a brand, Patoo is already creating a buzz on social media as an easy and reliably-dosed access point to the island’s psychedelic mushroom culture, which already has been strong for years. But Bourke brings a different element of connectivity and understanding the market. A seasoned branding creative, he helped create Blackwell Rum with his mentor Chris Blackwell (English-born founder of Island Records and the first person to put reggae music out on a pro label), worked with Usain Bolt’s Tracks & Records restaurant brand, and is the co-founder of the music and wellness cultural festival TmrwTday. 

In other words, he was the choice of choices to connect me and be my guide to Patoo. I was staying at Tensing Pen, a small independent resort in the cliffs that is what I’d like to think resides in the afterlife for people who love dogs (they have a few Rhodesian Ridgebacks that roam the area). Having grown up hanging out in Negril, Bourke effortlessly manifested at the table my girlfriend and I were at, adjusting to the island vibes after the flight in from Boston. I was supplied with some gratis Social Dose bars (.7g of locally grown Hawaiian cubensis) and the flagship Patoo Bar, dosed with 4g their proprietary Jamaican Cyanescens strain crossed with APE (Albino Penis Envy). 

Each Patoo bar has three squares to it, each dosed at 1.33g. One square, Bourke said, and “it’s dancing time”. Two and we get into fractals and visual distortion and a sense of being connected. Three, and he said “it’s time to chill out and have a friend nearby because you going on a journey”. I had already had one big journey that day, I was just looking for the lift.

I also just decided to eat a full Social dose after that long day of travel and a few months between psilocybin consumption. Scene and setting was set. Hadn’t even begun the four days on, three days off regiment suggested by psychonauts for your brain and system to reset (and deal with increased tolerance). The effect of the whole bar left me like I’d been hit upside the head by a wet rowing oar (I hadn’t had a full meal yet, violating one of Patoo’s suggestions for consumption). 

After I adjusted a bit on the frantic energy and overwhelming sensations, I slid into a great pocket of euphoria and social connectedness to everything around me, but I was never out of range or uncomfortable in my surroundings (nothing gets you weirder than putting your hand through your phone while going to change up your playlist). It was also robust in earthy mushroom flavor. 

The dogs and my girlfriend at sunset. The saltfish at the restaurant overlooking the moonrise. The cove at Tensing Pen, smashed by ancient waves on old pirate coral. The restoration to my body and mixing with local ganja consumed in great quantities from both the local dispensary circuit (Jacana) and some local farmers as well. Helluva first day.

The next evening I dove into a 1.33g square while cruising the long beachfront road down from the cliffs, with drums of jerk chicken being smoked along the way and the party looked like it was outside the venue more than inside. Plenty of shady corners away from the streetlights and drum fires where typically one ducks into for the gamblers’ choice of local fungi. A dicey situation any way you slice it.

“If you buy mushrooms and don’t fully know the source, it can affect your mindset going in. And scene and setting is so key when experiencing psilocybin, and commercially it doesn’t make sense to create a product that gives people a negative episode,” says Bourke. “Charles and our team have worked out our consistency and dosing so we can approach this product as a CPG as well as a plant medicine. You can take some Patoo and then return to it a month later seeking that groove and those sensations (and knowing your limits), and find it’s repeatable. Dosage is huge for us and Patoo.”

That dosage was what I was relying on given the visual and auditory overload I was about to step into. Namely, the first Negril nighttime beach party where everyone comes in from the hills in Westmoreland and surrounding parishes to attend a massive DJ set of everything from the Beatles to traphouse beats, with locals dressed like they were heading to the club, only to be met with fire ants in front of the stage and lounge area that would beat back the surging crowd and leave an awkward negative space in the crowd… where I was standing. 

Not wanting to be rude—and with all 1.33g surging through me—I enjoyed the evening with my new friends and executed four straight hours of dancing for a guy who doesn’t dance. Admittedly the fire ants would maul me the moment I stopped, and the dancing was the white-man’s two-step rocking back and forth and pounding water all night. All in all, the dosage for me was just right. And best of all, repeatable. The next night. And the afternoon after. 

And then back home just as spring flipped into summer, after walking through the Ukrainian sculpture park I live near, alone on my back in the sun with my dog scurrying nearby and not a soul around. 

“The paradigm has shifted and evolved and a whole generation is upset that they have been deceived, to their detriment, over the broken narrative around psychedelics as a therapeutic option,” says Lazarus. “With the attention in the press, the ground-swell around the holistic approach to life and a return to organic food, places of high energy and legal psilocybin medicine such as Jamaica have become a travel focus for people that are seeking inner healing,” says Lazarus. “We are proud of this offering to the world.” 

The post The Great Jamaican Patoo Trip appeared first on High Times.

The post The Great Jamaican Patoo Trip appeared first on Paradise Found.

Anyone who is prescribed the ADHD and narcolepsy medication Adderall has been advised to seek alternative medication after a nationwide shortage was confirmed by the FDA last week, but the reasons behind the shortage remain a bit of a mystery.

The FDA didn’t give much of an explanation for the shortage other than to say one of the main manufacturers of Adderall (which is the brand name given to a particular combination of amphetamine and dextroamphetamine salts), Teva, was experiencing “ongoing intermittent manufacturing delays” and “other manufacturers continue to produce amphetamine mixed salts, but there is not sufficient supply to continue to meet U.S. market demand through those producers.”

The good news is, at the moment most of those delays are scheduled to be resolved by October or November, which is an updated ETA originally slated for March of 2023. This means we will likely avoid running out entirely. Nonetheless, the FDA did advise patients to seek alternative treatments all the same. 

A New York Times article cited the nationwide rise in ADHD as the main cause of the shortage, and it cannot be overstated that reported cases of ADHD are indeed on the rise. As a heavily regulated Schedule 2 drug, Adderall manufacture is often slow in response to demand because of the red tape required in order to produce it, so the rise in ADHD may indeed be to blame but in terms of the shortage of Adderall itself, it is likely a bit of a mixed bag.

The usual suspects when things are in short supply lately are COVID-related supply chain issues or the ongoing war in Ukraine, but Hamilton Morris, a journalist and scientific researcher known for his TV show Hamilton’s Pharmacopeia, indicated on Twitter that the Adderall shortage could be due to a shortage of nitroethane, one of the potential raw ingredients used to make it. One of the main distributors of nitroethane, Sigma Aldrich, has it listed as unavailable on their website. A phone call to the media department at Sigma Aldrich was, alas, not returned fast enough to meet my deadline.

Others disagreed, saying there’s no reason to believe there is a nitroethane shortage quite yet, but it would certainly explain things if it turns out to be true. Chemjobber, a blog dedicated to chemistry news and chemistry jobs, told High Times that while low nitroethane supply may be a potential factor, it’s essentially way more complicated than that.

“I strongly believe it is rarely API (active pharmaceutical ingredient) manufacturing that is the problem,” Chemjobber said. “That is a problem at the back of the chain, and there are 4-5 steps in front of it i.e. you could have a problem with tableting, or shipping, or labor etc.”

To that point, Teva did report earlier this year that they were having issues with labor shortages, a common complaint in the era of COVID-19. Thus, it’s not necessarily a shortage of one chemical as much as it seems to be a perfect storm of bad luck and the basic production limitations of any heavily regulated industry.

In terms of whether or not America will run out of Adderall, Chemjobber likened it to the toilet paper craze of early COVID and projected this too shall pass. It does also appear to be a good sign that Teva moved up its ETA by several months in the span of a week. Unfortunately, they didn’t call me back either.

The post Need for Speed: FDA Issues Notice on Adderall Shortages appeared first on High Times.

The post Need for Speed: FDA Issues Notice on Adderall Shortages appeared first on Paradise Found.