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YOUNGSTOWN - The medical marijuana business in Ohio has been so good to Youngstown’s Riviera Creek that it’s doubling the size of its grow facility on Crescent Street near downtown.

The expansion includes a new dry room where an employee could be seen Tuesday propping up some buds from the latest marijuana harvest. But the expansion goes way beyond a new dry room. The millions of dollars being spent are simply keeping up with demand.

Brian and Daniel Kessler are the two men behind Riviera Creek — Youngstown’s medical marijuana grow facility.

“So this is going to be one of those areas where we do the mother rooms and also those little clones,” said Brian.

By Jan., Riviera Creek will have expanded from four grow rooms to eight.

“And our stores can’t keep our product on the shelves so our job is to be in a position that people when they walk in, when patients want to go to the stores to find our product, it’ll be there,” said Brian.

Clark County is looking to make it easier for people who have old, low-level cannabis convictions on their records — years after the state legalized recreational marijuana use — to keep that information out of the public domain where it could still have consequences for their jobs and housing searches.

At a Clark County Commission meeting earlier this month, officials awarded three nonprofits grants totaling $1.2 million from cannabis tax revenue. Both the Legal Aid Center of Southern Nevada and Nevada Legal Services received $500,000 to continue sealing records to address cannabis conviction injustices, while Code for America, a technology nonprofit, was awarded $200,000 to explore bringing automatic record sealing to Nevada.

“There was a woman who couldn't go see her son graduate on an Air Force base because she had a felony record [for cannabis],” said Venicia Considine, the director of development and community relations at Legal Aid Center of Southern Nevada, who is also a Democratic Assembly member. “There's a lot of people that live here in Las Vegas that couldn't get jobs, simply because they had something on their record from a decade, two decades ago, that was eligible for record sealing, but there was no real way to get it done.”

Most states have a petition-based process that requires money and multiple actions in each jurisdiction where convictions are filed, and according to experts, less than 10 percent of people who are eligible, get their records cleared. Coders, lawyers and technology professionals want to help state entities conduct a mass record sealing of cannabis convictions, circumventing the tedious process that includes first petitioning a judge, and, if granted, manually sealing the record in each jurisdiction throughout the state.

Policy experts at Code for America, a Bay Area-based organization that uses technology to empower government agencies, have nine months to investigate the scale of digital investment needed to carry out automatic record sealing in Nevada. Lawmakers and legal experts hope Code for America will bring a second wind to the Nevada Second Chance Act, or AB192, a cannabis conviction record-sealing bill passed in 2019 and sponsored by then-Assemblyman William McCurdy II.

“I wanted [AB192] to be an automatic seal, but that was impossible, because we currently still have records that are not digitized,” said McCurdy, who is now a Clark County commissioner.

Aussie basketball legend Lauren Jackson was a pain-riddled 'zombie' before medicinal cannabis allowed her to make a remarkable comeback aged 41​​

Researchers believe that CBDA could be the next big medication for treating and maintaining overall mental and physical well-being.

Cannabidiolic acid (CBDA) is a minor cannabinoid with significant medicinal promise. Recent research suggests that CBDA could be an alternative treatment for managing or curing inflammation, anxiety, cancer, and seizures. The therapeutic potential of CBDA is the newest discovery of cannabinoid-based drugs.

Introduction to CBDA

Although research is still in the infant stage, researchers believe that CBDA could be the next big medication for treating and maintaining overall mental and physical well-being. Many cannabis-based scientists are optimistic that CBDA would reduce the need for conventional drugs with long-term side effects.

CBDA is mainly found in cannabis plant material. Like other major and minor cannabinoids, it reacts with the body’s endocannabinoid system and receptors in the central nervous system and immune system.

Conversion of CBGA to CBDA

CBGA is converted into CBDA by an enzymatic process. Once formed, it remains this way until the decarboxylation process takes place. Decarboxylation is the conversion of acidic cannabinoids to their decarboxylated forms. CBDA is converted to CBD, THCA to THC, and CBCA to CBC. When cannabis is heated, the decarboxylation process takes place. Cannabinoids’ molecular structure changes when they are heated, dried, or treated. The method alters the substance’s chemical structure by removing one acidic carboxyl group.

While certain cannabis plants have been cultivated to contain balanced quantities of CBDA and THCA, CBDA is often only found in very small concentrations in cannabis plants. Mainly hemp plants are well-known for having significant levels of CBDA and traces of THCA.

Cannabis affects blood pressure through the ECS, which plays an interesting role in maintaining healthy cardiovascular function.

This article originally appeared on Jointly and has been reposted with permission.

Millions of people suffer from high blood pressure, so it’s no wonder that many want to know if their cannabis habit has the potential to make it better or worse. Cannabis does have some effects on blood pressure, we’ll get to that in a bit, but first:

Blood pressure refers to the force of blood pushing against the walls of arteries while the heart pumps. Blood pressure is measured using two numbers: systolic blood pressure and diastolic blood pressure.

Systolic blood pressure is “the pressure caused by your heart contracting and pushing out blood” and diastolic blood pressure is “the pressure when your heart relaxes and fills with blood.” In other words, systolic blood pressure is the force exerted against your arteries when your heart contracts, and diastolic blood pressure is the pressure against your arteries between heartbeats.

New research in the field of medical cannabis is being published all the time, we’ve rounded up four of the latest papers to catch up on from the past two weeks.

The last month has seen the publication of several new medical cannabis studies, exploring conditions including fibromyalgia, Covid-19 and multiple sclerosis.

Here we outline some of the recent studies you should know about, authored by scientists from the likes of McGill University, the University of Milan and Imperial College London.

CBD’s impact on nerve cells in the brain

Several scientists from the University of Milan worked with Mikael Sodergren of Imperial College London and Curaleaf, to evaluate the potential of CBD as a treatment for psychiatric and neurodegenerative disorders.

Specifically, the scientists looked at CBD’s effect on the brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) gene, a protein that promotes the growth and maturation of nerve cells.

Low levels of BDNF in the brain have been linked with conditions such as schizophrenia, depression, Alzheimer’s disease and epilepsy.

Did you know that medical cannabis is legal in Australia? Prescribed in oil, capsule, cream and flower form, there is a multitude of conditions that medical cannabis can help with, Dr Suzanne Graham explains.

FLORIDA - Nearly six years ago, the Florida Legislature set aside a medical marijuana license for a Black farmer like John Allen to join the burgeoning industry.

But the license still has not been issued by the Florida Department of Health, which regulates the industry.

aim of the Legislature in 2016. In the intervening years, the licenses have generated enormous revenues from some of the license holders — frustrating the Black farmers who wonder how they can catch up.

‘The license should have been released going on five, now six years ago, where a lot of the white farmers are now $150 million to $175 million ahead of the game versus the Black farmers that have to start over at zero and are behind the ball again and the medical marijuana industry,” said Raymond Warthen, co-founder and president of Orlando-based Zion Infinite Farms, which has applied for a license. “It’s unfortunate.”

Meanwhile, several top marijuana cultivators have gained sizable market share within Florida’s $1.2 billion medical marijuana treatment center (MMTC) industry, which is poised to reach $2 billion in annual sales by 2025.

A report in MJBiz Daily in June 2021 said, “The 14 active MMTC license holders operate 347 dispensaries with three — Trulieve, Surterra, Curaleaf — controlling more than two-thirds of the market.”

Consumers now have the liberty of choosing from so many products and methods of consumption that you can tailor your dose and experience just the way you like it.

Microdosing is a form of consuming drugs in such a way that you avoid getting extremely high. Once associated with psychedelic and hallucinogenic drugs such as magic mushrooms and LSD, more people have discovered the benefits of microdosing marijuana over the last few years. As opposed to macrodosing or getting as high as you possibly can, the point of microdosing is to enable the user to still stay productive and focused in a task.

There really is no right or wrong way to consume marijuana. Whether you prefer to microdose to up your creativity or medicate, or macrodose because you want to feel extremely relaxed or buzzed, it’s all down to personal preferences. There are also many ways you can consume marijuana these days — some are better suited for microdosing while others are best for macrodosing.

Microdosing Marijuana

A microdose of marijuana is considered between 1 to 2.5 mg of tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), the psychoactive substance of the plant. This is considered the minimum effective dose.

Microdosing small amounts such as these provide the user with the plant’s medicinal and therapeutic benefits without getting too high that you can no longer function. People microdose for many reasons.

The authors stated that “the better results could be due to the medicinal properties, including anti-inflammatory effects, of some cannabinoids.”

A new study found that “cannabis consumption is associated with lower COVID-19 severity among hospitalized patients.” (Benzinga)

According to the researchers “cannabis may actually lead to reduced disease severity and better outcomes despite a five-fold greater concomitant use of tobacco amongst cannabis users compared to non-users in our study population.”

Researchers aimed to assess whether cannabis users hospitalized for COVID-19 had improved outcomes compared to non-users.

The study published in the Journal of Cannabis Research showed that cannabis users had better outcomes, including a decreased need for ICU admission or mechanical ventilation.

A post on Facebook, shared hundreds of times, claims that a “60 gram supply of Cannabis Oil” is “enough to treat one cancer patient”. It also includes an image of several plastic syringes which it claims contain cannabis oil, with the caption “Cancer Cure”.

While there is evidence some cannabis products can be beneficial to cancer patients, and research on this is ongoing, there is no current proof that cannabis oil can cure cancer. 

Claims that cannabis products can cure cancer are ‘misleading’

The Facebook post doesn’t provide any source for its claim that 60g of cannabis oil would be enough to treat one cancer patient, nor does it include any specific information about what types or stages of cancer could allegedly be treated with cannabis oil. 

First, there are many different types of drug tests. The most common is a urine test, but there are also blood tests, hair follicle tests, and saliva tests. Delta 8 THC can technically show up on all of these types of tests, but it's much more likely to show up on a urine test.

The reason for this is that Delta 8 THC is metabolized differently than other types of THC. When you consume Delta 8, it's broken down into different metabolites in your body. One of those metabolites is called THCCOOH, which is the metabolite that urine tests are designed to detect. If you're concerned about passing a drug test, your best bet is to avoid consuming any products that have any level of THC in them.

What is Delta 8? 

Delta 8 is a cannabinoid that is similar to THC, the main psychoactive compound in cannabis. However, Delta 8 has different effects on the body and mind than THC does. For example, Delta 8 is known to cause less anxiety and paranoia than THC does. 

Why do some people need to pass drug tests?

There are many reasons why people may need to pass a drug test. Some people are required to take drug tests for their job, especially if they work in safety-sensitive positions. Others may be required to take drug tests as part of a court order or probation agreement.

For a study, researchers sought to assess cross-sectional relationships between current and former marijuana use and arrhythmias in 1,485 participants of the Multiethnic Study of Atherosclerosis who underwent comprehensive ambulatory electrocardiographic monitoring with the Zio Patch XT.

Incidences of premature atrial contractions, supraventricular tachycardia, premature ventricular contractions, and nonsustained ventricular tachycardia (NSVT) were observed.

Compared with never users, participants reporting current marijuana use (n=40, 3%) had more supraventricular tachycardia/day (adjusted geometric mean ratio [GMR] 1.42, 95% CI 0.87 to 2.32), more premature atrial contractions/hour (GMR 1.22, 95% CI 0.72 to 2.13), and more NSVT/day (GMR 1.28, 95% CI 0.95 to 1.28).

Additionally, greater marijuana usage was associated with more NSVT episodes each day (GMR 1.56, 95% CI 1.13, 2.17). In conclusion, the outcomes suggested that current marijuana use might be connected to a higher prevalence of arrhythmias. The findings of the study supported this hypothesis.

Therefore, it was necessary to conduct an additional prospective study to ascertain whether or not the use of marijuana led to atrial and ventricular arrhythmias and other cardiovascular issues in older people.

The acquisition was announced in March this year, and APIRx stakeholders received almost 218.17 million new Incannex shares at a notional value of $0.573 each. The new shares are subject to a 12-month escrow for the vendors.

As part of the deal, APIRx founders Dr George Anastassov and Lekhram Changoer have joined Incannex as non-executive director and chief technical officer, respectively.

Commenting on the acquisition, Incannex chief executive officer and managing director Joel Latham said it follows a long relationship with Dr Anastassov and Mr Changoer that began in 2018.

“After extensive due diligence and corporate strategy assessments of the APIRx assets, we are excited and ready to commence development activities over our newly acquired portfolio of drug candidates.”

World’s largest medicinal cannabis drug portfolio

In 2012, Colorado legalized marijuana for recreational use. Since then, our state has been a leader when it comes to responsible regulation, as evidenced by the astounding 95%-97% compliance rate when it comes to preventing underage marijuana consumption.

We basically wrote the book on how to have a safe, legal cannabis industry. So, why are we failing to exhibit the same leadership when it comes to hemp intoxicants?

Over the years, hemp has been presented to the public as a harmless plant used in lotions and textiles. In fact, its highly renewable nature makes it an incredible and inexpensive solution in a wide range of industries. However, like most things, it can have a dark side if misused.

For those who haven’t been following this situation closely, hemp was made legal at the federal level by the 2018 Farm Bill. Unfortunately, the bill also left an open door for retailers to sell hemp-derived intoxicants with little to no oversight or regulatory standards. Meaning that there are virtually no protections for consumer safety or anything preventing it from being sold to underage buyers.

The result? Hemp-derived products soared in popularity. Without any restrictions on who can buy them or how they’re distributed, bad actors began infusing these products with delta-8 THC. This psychoactive cannabinoid can be extracted from hemp, which contains very low concentrations of THC.

Although harmless in its natural state, when concentrated into delta-8 and other cannabinoids, hemp derived THC can be infused into gummies, vapes, and other products that appeal to teens. On the surface, these items mimic the products sold in marijuana dispensaries. However, they are manufactured and distributed with no oversight. So, any child with access to a cell phone can buy them.

The Township of Ocean’s governing body is further weeding through the details in making changes to its cannabis business ordinance.

The first reading of the proposed amendments and supplements to the ordinance passed unanimously at this month’s committee meeting. Residents will have the opportunity to discuss the changes at the second reading of the ordinance at the August 2 Township Committee meeting.

“The Township of Ocean is now putting in place the criteria for cannabis in the Township of Ocean,” said Mayor Ben LoParo, adding that the governing body will review it before the vote in a public meeting. “The applicant will need to provide the ownership of the business, business plan, and community benefits.” The proposed ordinance requires applicants to pay a $2,500 non-refundable application fee. Additionally, the Township of Ocean plans to collect a $10,000 annual fee for businesses that operate cultivation, manufacturing or medical cannabis facilities in the municipality.

Four types of licenses will be available withing the municipality if the ordinance is approved. A Class 1 License is for Cannabis Cultivation; Class 2, Cannabis Manufacturing, Class 3, Cannabis Wholesale; and Class 4, Cannabis Distribution. A separate license covers medical dispensaries. LoParo pointed out that the ordinance excludes the retail sale of recreational marijuana even though 57 percent of the municipality’s voters were in favor of the legalization of adult recreational cannabis use.

“I don’t think that’s right,” said LoParo. “I think we should include it because our voters said yes. We’re doing our people a disservice by not giving them what they voted for…We’re also giving up two percent of the recreational income, which could wind up to be hundreds of thousands of dollars in our tax account.”

LoParo pressed for feedback from the two other members of the township committee. Deputy Mayor Ken Baulderstone said he first wanted to see how the medical dispensary “worked out” before considering recreational retail sales. “The steps that we have taken are already more than eighty percent of the municipalities in the state,” Baulderstone stated.

At a series of town halls with Texas Veterans, Beto O’Rourke said he’ll fight to legalize marijuana if elected governor.

While continuing his visits across Texas, at a series of earlier town halls O’Rourke has said he has received positive support from Veterans on the marijuana issue.

O’Rourke tweeted on Wednesday: "Veterans say it’s time for this state to legalize marijuana. The people of Texas agree. Now we just need a governor who will get it done."

In Texas, veterans account for about 157,761 people as of 2019 according to Texas Workforce Investment Council.

As early as March, O’Rourke voiced his support in Austin at a dinner for the South by Southwest panel.

O’Rourke said: “I’ll let you in on a secret: Republicans like to get high just as much as Democrats.”