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 Arkansas Medical Marijuana Commission (AMMC) recently announced the benefits that the state’s medical cannabis program, with millions of dollars in cannabis tax funds helping to provide lunches for kids at school.

While the state has collected $115 million from cannabis taxes, $87 million went toward free or low-cost lunches for children. AMMC spokesperson Scott Hardin explained the breakdown. “A billion dollars has been spent to purchase medical marijuana but what that means for the state is that we’ve collected 115 million dollars in state tax revenue,” Hardin told ABC 7. “From that $115…$87 went to [University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences] specifically as they tried to obtain that National Cancer Institute designation. Now there’s a change. Now that funding is going to go specifically to food insecurity.”

The “low-cost” part of this means kids are paying very little for food. “What that’ll mean is, if someone is on a reduced school lunch, if they are now paying 50 cents to a dollar, that medical marijuana revenue steps in and pays that to ensure that a student gets that for free,” Hardin explained. “So really students in the state will be not having to pay whatever that burden is. 50 cents, a $1.50 to have reduced school lunch so it really is, it’s affecting Arkansans in a positive way.”

The state currently only has eight cultivators and 38 dispensaries, which Hardin said is plenty of storefronts to serve patients and address the current growth pattern. “Unless something changes, unless voters go back to the polls and either accept a modified program or a recreational program or something that’s really where we are,” he said. “The industry itself, you’re not going to see more dispensaries opening up all over the state. You’re not going to see more growers but what we are seeing is more patients. At the beginning of the year we had 89,000 patients. Now we are pushing 100,000.”

Current data, updated as of Dec. 9, shows that there are 98,099 patients with active medical cannabis ID cards. According to Hardin, the industry has far outpaced initial projections that the state’s mature market would only have approximately 50,000 active cardholders.

The most recent sales data for November 2023 shows that the state collected $257 million. Arkansas’ medical cannabis program launched in May 2019, and between then and October 2023, the state has collected a total of $988.3 million in sales. The combined sales per year breaks down sales from 2019 ($31.2 million), 2020 ($181.8 million), 2021 ($264.9 million), 2022 ($276.3 million), and 2023 ($234 million, but only between January 2023-October 2023).

According to a report from the Arkansas Times, the more accurate number for total sales since medical cannabis began has already surpassed $1 billion. “We’re totally confident we’ve surpassed that,” Hardin said.

According to Arkansas Cannabis Industry Association executive director, Bill Paschall, reaching that $1 billion mark is a sign that cannabis is doing a lot for patients in Arkansas. “It underscores the growing acceptance and recognition of the therapeutic benefits of cannabis and the commitment of the state’s medical cannabis licensees to providing safe, quality and innovative products that meet patients’ needs,” said Paschall. “The men and women employed by the marijuana industry look forward to continuing to positively impact the lives of Arkansans and contributing to the evolving cannabis landscape.”

Arkansas isn’t the only market hitting $1 billion for cannabis sales. A recent report shows that Arizona’s recreational cannabis market has also hit $1.1 billion in sales, but includes sales data from just 2023 (specifically, January 2023-September 2023). Arizona’s overall sales data shows a total of more than $billion since it began sales in January 2021.

In legal news, an Arkansas judge ruled in September that the 2018 Farm Bill takes legal precedence over the state’s ban on hemp-derived cannabinoid products like delta-8. Act 629 of 2023 that passed earlier this year banned delta-8, delta-9, and delta-10 THC products. The lawsuit was filed by four companies (Bio Gen LLC, Drippers Vape Shop LLC, The Cigarette Store LLC, and Sky Marketing Corp) whose lawyers alleged that the ban would harm their businesses. “Plaintiffs have been, and will be, harmed by Act 629, as they are unable to transport in and through Arkansas hemp-derived cannabinoid products that have been declared legal under federal law,” the lawsuit stated.

According to the Arkansas Times, a different ongoing case involves if restrictions on advertising for cannabis businesses is unconstitutional. The lawsuit was filed in 2022 by Good Day Farm, which argued that advertising restrictions violate its right to protected commercial speech. Circuit Judge Chip Welch heard arguments earlier this month, and plans to issue a ruling by the end of the year. Attorney General Tim Griffin already stated that he plans to appeal the decision, if Welch decides to rule in favor of advertising being too restrictive.

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Michigan students enrolled in K-12 schools might be allowed to consume their medical cannabis on school grounds soon (and on the bus, something anyone who was bullied on those tragic vehicles is likely jealous of), FOX 2 Detroit reports. That is if new legislation introduced last week passes. Michigan House Democratic representatives introduced the bill, which would allow students to take edibles, infused beverages, and other low-dose cannabis and CBD products.  

However, as much fun as some readers may have to imagine kids lighting up a joint on the back of a school bus and telling bullies where to shove it, teachers will be in charge of administering the cannabis (and not in the form of joints). Those prescribed medical marijuana will require written specific permission about when it can be taken. The legislation aims to make it easier for kids who use cannabis therapeutically to take their medicine. 

For pretty obvious reasons, steeped in our country’s drug war, the idea of kids taking cannabis at all, even with the blessing of a doctor, is pretty controversial. But if children were prescribed another medication yet unable to take it while at school, which takes up most of their day, communities would be in an uproar. This latest proposed legislation aims to treat cannabis as just another prescription. 

In Michigan, the use of medical cannabis by children requires approval from not just one, but two medical professionals. This rule sets Michigan apart from the majority of states where medical marijuana is legal, as many of these states do not impose a minimum age requirement of 18 for medical marijuana users. Conditions that can be treated by medical cannabis for children include epilepsy, autism, muscular dystrophy, attention deficit disorder, and pain and nausea due to cancer.

In other Michigan news, looking at adults, those past school age and part of the job market, as of Sunday, most government jobs will no longer drug test prospective employees for cannabis. It even has retroactive effects, as those who have been denied jobs regarding positive THC tests have a chance to get the same sanctions. John Gnodtke, State Personnel Director, proposed this change to the Michigan Civil Service Commission on May 12.

Following that, at a July 12 meeting, the Michigan Civil Service Commission approved the proposed additional changes while adopting rule amendments that would allow for revoking active sanctions for some applicants who tested positive for cannabis in drug tests since 2020. 

“When a drug test is required, an appointing authority shall require testing for marijuana, cocaine, opiates, amphetamines, and phencyclidine, except that marijuana testing is not authorized for a preemployment drug test for a new hire to a position that is not test‐designated and cannot be used to rescind a conditional offer of employment to such a position,” the amended rule reads. “Before 9f an agency requires testing for other drugs, it must first obtain written approval from the director. A request must include the agency’s proposed initial test methods, testing levels, and performance test program. When conducting reasonable‐suspicion or post‐accident testing, an agency may require testing for any drug listed in schedule 1 or 2.”

In late August, a leaked letter from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Assistant Secretary for Health Rachel Levine recommended reclassifying cannabis from a Schedule I drug to a Schedule III drug, as per the Controlled Substances Act. 

The DEA defines a Schedule III substance as “drugs with a moderate to low potential for physical and psychological dependence.” The DEA says that the potential for abuse of Schedule III drugs is less than that of Schedule I and Schedule II drugs—but more habit-forming than Schedule IV (which Xanax falls into) and Schedule V drugs (such as Robitussin AC). Other examples of Schedule III drugs include pills containing less than 90 mg of codeine per dosage unit, ketamine, and testosterone.

This move was directed to DEA’s Anne Milgram. While hailed as “historic,” it’s worth noting that while this reclassification would relax certain restrictions, cannabis would still be considered a controlled substance, leaving plenty of folks to argue that it falls far too short of fully ending cannabis prohibition and the ongoing War on Drugs.

Confirmation of this recommendation came shortly after the leak when HHS said that their representative had indeed passed along their findings to the DEA. An HHS spokesperson stated, “Following the data and science, HHS has expeditiously responded to President Biden’s directive to HHS Secretary Xavier Becerra and provided its scheduling recommendation for marijuana to the DEA on August 29, 2023.”

While most pro-cannabis activists think it’s not enough, the impact of the suggestion alone was enough to send cannabis stocks soaring. 

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Nine-year-old Krystal Mattis is unable to attend full days at school because she uses cannabis tincture to treat epilepsy and autism spectrum disorder. 

Sabrina and Tim Mattis, her parents, told CBS News they want their daughter to receive a full-time education, which up until now she has been unable to do because of her symptoms. In order to attend a full day at school, Sabrina and Tim said Krystal needs a dose of her tincture at lunchtime. The tincture is a mixture of CBD and THC mixed in with some juice.

The school, however, told Sabrina and Tim that Krystal has to consume her medicine away from school property and come back to class afterwards if she wants to use cannabis during the day.

“I feel it’s unfair. It’s unjust,” Sabrina Mattis said to CBS. “She just deserves to be at school a full day and have her medicine like any other kid.”

On top of her regular doctor visits and the various therapies required to treat her disorders, Krystal is nonverbal and uses a device to communicate, according to the CBS article. Sabrina and Tim Mattis said that taking her in and out of school would only serve to further disrupt their daughter’s schedule and unnecessarily confuse her. 

“To take her back, that just throws her out of her routine. The chances of her not understanding the whole situation and having discomfort more likely to not have a good rest of the day, as opposed to us just going there administering her dose and leaving and it’s barely an interruption,” Tim said to CBS.

Unable to sway the school and unwilling to take away what they described to CBS as a game changer medication for their daughter, Sabrina and Tim Mattis opted to keep Krystal in class for half-days. However, their fight would continue a bit higher up in the Minnesota state government. Sabrina reached out to Minnesota DFL Rep. Zack Stephenson, who authored the adult-use cannabis bill which was just recently passed in the state of Minnesota. 

Rep. Stephenson told CBS he spoke with the family and told them an exemption exists to the adult-use cannabis statute in Minnesota state law for using medical cannabis on school grounds as long as it was not ingested through smoking or vaporization, the language of which CBS said they emailed to Krystal’s school district asking for comment but they only received a brief statement saying that the district “cannot comment on a student’s medical interactions with our schools.” The district cited data privacy laws which almost all American educators, doctors and social workers are universally bound by.

Rep. Stephenson also said that keeping the Minnesota medical cannabis program intact would remain a top priority for him while helping to write and draft laws about Minnesota’s blooming adult-use market, saying the following:

“There is a strong distinction between medical and adult-use cannabis,” Rep. Stephenson said to CBS. 

According to the Minnesota Medical Cannabis Dashboard, the Minnesota medical cannabis program currently has a little over 18,000 participants which include 452 patients between the ages of five and 17. The vast majority of Minnesota medical patients use cannabis to treat chronic pain (59.3%) and Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (32.3%) but the next most reported use is for severe and persistent muscle spasm disorders like epilepsy with 2,217 patients statewide. Another 802 Minnesota patients use cannabis to treat autism spectrum disorder.

The Mattis’ fight will continue as the school district has yet to change their decision regarding Krystal. As cannabis legislation progresses state by state, individual cases like this will undoubtedly be making headlines a bit more often and the line between patient’s rights and illegal activity will undoubtedly continue to blur while legislation at both the state and federal level attempts to rewrite and undo decades of cannabis prohibition laws.

“We hope to bring justice for children on medical cannabis, so they can be allowed to take their medicine at school, just the same as any other child in the state of Minnesota. That’s what we’re hoping,” Sabrina said to CBS.

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According to local news station WCCO, the proposed Minnesota legislation “would require each school building to keep two doses of the nasal spray version” of Narcan, with the station noting that the “policy and funding to support it are tucked inside two House and Senate spending packages subject to end-of-session budget negotiations.”

“We simply cannot tolerate more needless loss of life. We have to act with urgency and we have to act now,” said Democratic state Sen. Kelly Morrison, as quoted by WCCO. “We are thrilled that finally our bill is close to making it all the way to becoming law in Minnesota.”

The station reported that Morrison was joined at a Thursday news conference in St. Paul by other advocates and Minnesota Congressman Dean Phillips, a Democrat, who touted “a new bill he’s co-authored in Congress designed to incentivize states to make similar moves as Minnesota.”

“At the federal level, not every state is doing that, so this is complementary more than anything else,” Phillips said, as quoted by WCCO. “It… just simply allows schools to apply for dollars that currently exist. And it’s actually quite easy and easily accessible, but right now they are precluded from doing so.”

The last decade has seen an alarming spike in deadly overdoses in the United States from opioids such as fentanyl. 

A report this week from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found that deadly overdoses from fentanyl nearly quadrupled between 2016 and 2021, going from 18,499 deaths and a rate of 5.7 to 69,943 deaths at a rate of 21.6.

The CDC’s report also found a rise in other drug-related overdoses:

“The age-adjusted rate of drug overdose deaths involving fentanyl more than tripled over the study period, from 5.7 per 100,000 standard population in 2016 to 21.6 in 2021, with a 55.0% increase from 2019 (11.2) to 2020 (17.4), and a 24.1% increase from 2020 to 2021 (21.6). The rate of drug overdose deaths involving methamphetamine more than quadrupled, from 2.1 in 2016 to 9.6 in 2021,” the report said. The rate of drug overdose deaths involving cocaine more than doubled, from 3.5 in 2016 to 7.9 per 100,000 in 2021. The rate of drug overdose deaths involving heroin decreased by 40.8%, from 4.9 in 2016 to 2.9 in 2021, although this decrease was not statistically significant. The rate of drug overdose deaths involving oxycodone decreased 21.0%, from 1.9 in 2016 to 1.5 in 2021.” 

The CDC said that, between 2016 and 2021, “age-adjusted drug overdose death rates involving fentanyl, methamphetamine, and cocaine increased, while drug overdose death rates involving oxycodone decreased.”

“In 2021, the age-adjusted death rates for males were higher than the rates for females for all drugs analyzed. Among those aged 25–64, the highest rate of drug overdose deaths involved fentanyl; although a similar pattern was observed among those aged 0–24 years and 65 and over, no significant differences were observed between the rates. Fentanyl was also the most frequent opioid or stimulant drug involved in drug overdose deaths for the race and Hispanic-origin groups analyzed,” the CDC reported.

Those troubling statistics have prompted policymakers to take action. In 2021, New York City opened the first overdose prevention center in the country. The facilities are defined as “safe places where people who use drugs can receive medical care and be connected to treatment and social services.”

“New York City has led the nation’s battle against COVID-19, and the fight to keep our community safe doesn’t stop there. After exhaustive study, we know the right path forward to protect the most vulnerable people in our city. And we will not hesitate to take it,” then-New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio said in the announcement at the time. “Overdose Prevention Centers are a safe and effective way to address the opioid crisis. I’m proud to show cities in this country that after decades of failure, a smarter approach is possible.”

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