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What Will Legal Marijuana Cost Employers?
Next Board of Trustees Meeting: April 24th, 2015
Come join us for a light lunch starting at 11:30am at the Friday Harbor Presbyterian Church and the meeting starts at 12noon-2pm. Please RSVP 378-9683, so we can have enough food for everyone.
Interested in Prevention issues for our community? Here is a chance to get in the dialogue and see what the SJIPC is currently involved in, where we are headed and how you might get involved…Thank you!
Marijuana-It’s NOT so Natural…
Spread the Facts. Visit teens.drugabuse.gov
Natural Marijuana
- Rarely used and not desired
- Grows on its own in nature, with seeds
- Little-to-no intoxication
- Slang Terms: Crap, Garbage, Bad
- Approx. 1% THC, 1% CBD
Man-Made Marijuana
- Most used and desired
- Chemically manipulated, no seeds
- Significant intoxication high
- Slang terms: Bud, Sticky, Dank, Good
- Up to 37.2% THC, as low as 0.5% CBD
THC is the intoxicating component & has limited medicinal value for a smaller # of conditions. CBD is a non-intoxicating component & is valuable medicinal for a larger # of conditions.
Billboards to hit Seattle…StartTalkingNow.org
Starting next week 14 marijuana prevention billboards will post around Seattle with the theme “Talk to Your Kids” with 3 different versions featuring Seattle Children’s Hospital doctors. Here is one. We’ll continue to post the others, too. Talk to your Kids about substance use and abuse. They do listen.
Thanks so much to our partners for making this campaign possible: Seattle City Attorney’s Office, Clear Channel Outdoor, King County Alcohol and Other Drug Prevention Programs, DSHS/DBHR, Central Area Drug Free Communities Coalition, Coalition for Drug Free Youth/Navos, the Prevention WINS Coalition/Children’s Hospital, WAPI Community Services, Healthy King County Coalition, SE Seattle PEACE Coalition, Mercer Island Youth and Family Services, Lao Khmu Community, Rainier Vista Boys and Girls Club, Aki Kurose Middle School (apologies if I forgot anyone!).
New Study on Teens and Marijuana…Poor Long-Term Memory
Teen cannabis users have poor long-term memory in adulthood
The hippocampus is important to long-term memory (also known as episodic memory), which is the ability to remember autobiographical or life events.
The brain abnormalities and memory problems were observed during the individuals’ early twenties, two years after they stopped smoking marijuana.
Young adults who abused cannabis as teens performed about 18 percent worse on long-term memory tests than young adults who never abused cannabis.
“The memory processes that appear to be affected by cannabis are ones that we use every day to solve common problems and to sustain our relationships with friends and family,” said senior author Dr. John Csernansky, the Lizzie Gilman professor and chair of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine and Northwestern Memorial Hospital.
The study will be published March 12 in the journal Hippocampus.
The study is among the first to say the hippocampus is shaped differently in heavy marijuana smokers and the different looking shape is directly related to poor long-term memory performance. Previous studies of cannabis users have shown either the oddly shaped hippocampus or poor long-term memory but none have linked them.
Previous research by the same Northwestern team showed poor short-term and working memory performance and abnormal shapes of brain structures in the sub-cortex including the striatum, globus pallidus and thalamus.
“Both our recent studies link the chronic use of marijuana during adolescence to these differences in the shape of brain regions that are critical to memory and that appear to last for at least a few years after people stop using it,” said lead study author Matthew Smith, assistant professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at the Feinberg School of Medicine.
The longer the individuals were chronically using marijuana, the more abnormal the shape of their hippocampus, the study reports. The findings suggest that these regions related to memory may be more susceptible to the effects of the drug the longer the abuse occurs.
The abnormal shape likely reflects damage to the hippocampus and could include the structure’s neurons, axons or their supportive environments.
“Advanced brain mapping tools allowed us to examine detailed and sometimes subtle changes in small brain structures, including the hippocampus,” said Lei Wang, also a senior study author and an assistant professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at Feinberg. The scientists used computerized programs they developed with collaborators that performed fine mappings between structural MRIs of different individuals’ brains.
Subjects took a narrative memory test in which they listened to a series of stories for about one minute, then were asked to recall as much content as possible 20 to 30 minutes later. The test assessed their ability to encode, store, and recall details from the stories.
The groups in the study started using marijuana daily between 16 to 17 years of age for about three years. At the time of the study, they had been marijuana free for about two years. A total of 97 subjects participated, including matched groups of healthy controls, subjects with a marijuana use disorder, schizophrenia subjects with no history of substance use disorders, and schizophrenia subjects with a marijuana use disorder. The subjects who used marijuana did not abuse other drugs.
The study also found that young adults with schizophrenia who abused cannabis as teens performed about 26 percent more poorly on memory tests than young adults with schizophrenia who never abused cannabis.
In the U.S., marijuana is the most commonly used illicit drug, and young adults have the highest — and growing — prevalence of use. Decriminalization of the drug may lead to greater use. Four states have legalized marijuana for recreational use, and 23 states plus Washington D.C. have legalized it for medical use.
Because the study results examined one point in time, a longitudinal study is needed to definitively show if marijuana is responsible for the observed differences in the brain and memory impairment, Smith said.
“It is possible that the abnormal brain structures reveal a pre-existing vulnerability to marijuana abuse,” Smith said. “But evidence that the longer the participants were abusing marijuana, the greater the differences in hippocampus shape suggests marijuana may be the cause.”
Other Northwestern authors include senior author Hans C. Breiter and coauthors Derin J. Cobia, James L. Reilly, Andrea G. Roberts and Kathryn I. Alpert.
The study was funded by the National Institute of Mental Health of the National Institutes of Health, grants R01 MH056584 and P50 MH071616.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/03/150312082906.htm
Every 15 Minutes is Coming April 21-22, 2015 (Videos from 2009 Event in Friday Harbor)
PART 1 https://youtu.be/DAFF2i5kqeM
2009 Every 15 Minutes, a drunk driving prevention program, organized by San Juan Island EMS for the community of San Juan Island, WA.
Schools that participated: Friday Harbor High School & Spring Street International School.
Part 2 https://youtu.be/BvZ5oZVNF6g
Part 3 https://youtu.be/gfTrZ8P72y8
FDA Warning Letters sent out to CBD companies
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| Dear Friends,We recently got word that the FDA has sent warning letters to CBD companies about marketing an unapproved drug. This is the first time FDA has intervened to our knowledge in this way.
“Your products are not generally recognized as safe and effective for the above referenced uses and, therefore, these products are ‘new drugs,’“ the FDA wrote to CBD Life Holdings in Arizona. “New drugs may not be legally introduced or delivered for introduction into interstate commerce without prior approval from the FDA…You should take prompt action to correct the violations cited in this letter.”
Similar letters were sent to Hemp Oil Care in California, Twin Falls Bio Tech in South Carolina, and three Washington State companies: Purecdb.net, Canna Pet, and Canna Companion. Canna Companion http://www.fda.gov/ICECI/EnforcementActions/WarningLetters/ucm435671.htm Canna Pethttp://www.fda.gov/ICECI/EnforcementActions/WarningLetters/ucm435662.htm Pure CBD http://www.fda.gov/ICECI/EnforcementActions/WarningLetters/ucm436066.htm CBD Life Holdings http://www.fda.gov/ICECI/EnforcementActions/WarningLetters/ucm435778.htm Hemp Oil Care http://www.fda.gov/ICECI/EnforcementActions/WarningLetters/ucm436069.htm Twin Falls Bio Tech http://www.fda.gov/ICECI/EnforcementActions/WarningLetters/ucm435777.htm The warning letters can be found here. Let’s hope this is a sign of more intervention to come. Best, |
ACTION ALERT! Interested in learning more?
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Some Good Legislation Stuck–Advocacy Matters Now
Good news–there are several good bills that are moving through the legislature and will help substance abuse prevention efforts in Washington. However, many of these are “stuck” and need your support now.
Please go to Votility, our platform for prevention advocates, and login (or create a new confidential account) and consider “one click” advocacy and helping end the logjam that has some good legislation hung up:
Link to Votility: https://account.votility.com/enterprise/WASAVP/index.php
WASAVP would like to thank all the prevention advocates for their work to date as several bills supported by the prevention community are “still alive.”
Let’s not give up now, we have a good chance for some “wins” this session!
**SPECIAL ALERT** SSB 5915 is a piece of legislation that would require fiscal reports on bills to take into account the cost of not passing legislation and the financial ripple effect they would have on some human services–something that would be beneficial to prevention and other sectors, like our mental health partners. Advocates can comment to their Senators about 5915 in Votility, and also please check here to see the members of the Senate Rules Committee where the bill is “stuck” and needs to be passed out of committee. (These Senators are key–are you in their district?) |
Join our discussion list connect@wasavp.org to connect with prevention professionals. Please click here to sign up.
The Athena Forum is another great resource for prevention professionals to develop, update, and sustain their substance abuse prevention work.
Recovery Helpline
If someone you know is struggling with substance use, call:
Recovery Helpline at 1-866-789-1511
Marijuana: Know the Facts
The penalties for marijuana use for those under 21 can be severe. If you are under 21, you can be charged with Minor in Possession. If you have more than 40 grams, it is a Class “C” felony ($10,000 fine and/or 10 years in jail).
It is not okay for parents to share marijuana with their kids. It is a felony to provide marijuana to any minor.
www.LearnAboutMarijuanaWA.org