{"id":147079,"date":"2022-11-25T18:08:53","date_gmt":"2022-11-25T22:08:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stateofthenation.co\/?p=147079"},"modified":"2022-11-25T18:08:53","modified_gmt":"2022-11-25T22:08:53","slug":"beware-of-the-medical-marijuana-addiction-scam","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stateofthenation.co\/?p=147079","title":{"rendered":"

BEWARE Of The Medical Marijuana Addiction Scam<\/b><\/h2>"},"content":{"rendered":"

How Weed Became the New OxyContin<\/strong><\/h1>\n

Big Pharma and Big Tobacco are helping market high-potency, psychosis-inducing THC products as your mother\u2019s \u2018medical marijuana\u2019<\/h3>\n

BY LEIGHTON WOODHOUSE<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

For 30 years, Dr. Libby Stuyt, a recently retired addiction psychiatrist in Pueblo, Colorado, treated patients with severe drug dependency. Typically, that meant alcohol, heroin, and methamphetamines. But about five years ago, she began to see something new.<\/p>\n

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\u201cI started seeing people with the worst psychosis symptoms that I have ever seen,\u201d she told me. \u201cAnd the worst delusions I have ever seen.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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These cases were even more acute than what she\u2019d seen from psychotic patients on meth. Some of the delusions were accompanied by \u201csevere violence.\u201d But these patients were coming up positive only for cannabis.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Stuyt wasn\u2019t alone: Health care professionals throughout Colorado and all over the country were seeing similar episodes.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Ben Cort, who runs an addiction recovery center in Steamboat Springs, Colorado, watched a young man jump up on the table in the emergency department and strip naked, claiming he was the God of thunder and threatening to kill everyone in the room, including two police officers. A collegiate athlete Cort worked with also had a psychotic episode and was shot five times by the police with a beanbag gun before he was subdued. In Los Angeles County, Blue Stohr, a psychiatric social worker, had a patient who climbed a 700-foot crane and considered jumping off of it, not because he was suicidal but because he thought he was in a computer simulation, like\u00a0The Matrix<\/em>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Those patients, too, were high only on cannabis.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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In 2012, Colorado legalized marijuana. In the decade since, 18 other states have followed suit. As billions of dollars have flowed into the new above-ground industry of smokable, edible, and drinkable cannabis-based products, the drug has been transformed into something unrecognizable to anyone who grew up around marijuana pre-legalization. Addiction medicine doctors and relatives of addicts say it has become a hardcore drug, like cocaine or methamphetamines. Chronic use leads to the same outcomes commonly associated with those harder substances: overdose, psychosis, suicidality. And yet it\u2019s been marketed as a kind of elixir and sold like candy for grown-ups.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\u201cI got into addiction medicine because of the opioid crisis,\u201d said Dr. Roneet Lev, an addiction medicine doctor in San Diego who hosts a\u00a0podcast<\/a> about drug abuse. Years ago, she advocated against the overprescription of opioid painkillers like OxyContin. Now, she believes she\u2019s seeing the same thing all over again: the specious claims of medical benefits, the denial of adverse effects. \u201cFrom Big Tobacco to Big Pharma to Big Marijuana\u2014it\u2019s the same people, and the same pattern.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Prior to legalization, marijuana plants were bred to produce higher and higher concentrations of THC, a naturally occuring chemical compound in the plant that induces euphoria and alters users\u2019 perceptions of reality. In the 1960s, the stuff the hippies were smoking was less than 2% THC. By the \u201990s, it was closer to 5%. By 2015, it was over 20%. \u201cIt\u2019s a freak plant that resembles nothing of what has existed in nature,\u201d said Laura Stack, a public speaker who has advocated against the industry since her son, Johnny, killed himself three years ago at 19 years old after years of cannabis abuse drove him into psychosis.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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In the era of legalized weed, the drug you think of as \u201ccannabis\u201d can hardly be called marijuana at all. The kinds of cannabis products that are sold online and at dispensaries contain no actual plant matter. They\u2019re made by putting pulverized marijuana into a tube and running butane, propane, ethanol, or carbon dioxide through it, which separates the THC from the rest of the plant. The end product is a wax that can be 70% to 80% THC. That wax can then be put in a vacuum oven and further concentrated into oils that are as much as 95% or even 99% THC. Known as \u201cdabs,\u201d this is what people put in their vape pens, and in states like California and Colorado it\u2019s totally legal and easily available to children. \u201cThere are no caps on potency,\u201d said Stack.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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If you\u2019re over 30 years old and you used to smoke weed when you were a teenager, the strongest you were smoking was probably 20% THC. Today, teenagers are \u201cdabbing\u201d a product that\u2019s three, four, or five times stronger, and are often doing so multiple times a day. At that level of potency, the impact of the drug on a user\u2019s brain belongs to an entirely different category of risk than smoking a joint or taking a bong rip of even an intensively bred marijuana flower. It\u2019s highly addictive, and over time, there\u2019s a significant chance it can drive you insane.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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If you\u2019ve ever smoked a bowl and become irrationally anxious that everyone is staring at you and knows you\u2019re high, what you experienced was a mild symptom of cannabis-induced psychosis. According to one\u00a0study<\/a>, about 40% of people react this way. If you experience that paranoia and keep smoking on a regular basis nonetheless\u2014especially with today\u2019s high-potency THC products, and especially if you\u2019re young\u2014there\u2019s a good chance you\u2019ll eventually suffer a full psychotic break; 35%\u00a0of young people who experience\u00a0psychotic\u00a0symptoms, according to\u00a0another study<\/a>,\u00a0eventually have such an episode. If you keep using after that, you run a decent risk of ending up permanently schizophrenic or bipolar. Cannabis has by far the highest conversion rate to schizophrenia of any substance\u2014higher than meth, higher than opioids, higher than LSD.\u00a0Two\u00a0Danish<\/a>\u00a0studies<\/a>, as well as a massive\u00a0study<\/a> from Finland, put your chances at close to 50%.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\u201cOne out of every 20 daily users can expect to develop schizophrenia if they don\u2019t quit,\u201d Dr. Christine Miller, an expert on psychotic disorders,\u00a0told me.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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But quitting THC products of that potency is \u201calmost impossible,\u201d Stuyt said, comparing its addictive power to tobacco. The days of marijuana addiction being merely \u201cpsychological\u201d are over. \u201cThere is a definite withdrawal syndrome that includes irritability, anger, anxiety, massive cravings, can\u2019t sleep, can\u2019t eat,\u201d said Stuyt.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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And it\u2019s even harder because so many users believe it\u2019s\u00a0good\u00a0<\/em>for them.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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As a teenager, Kevin Bright suffered from depression and anxiety. He started smoking pot at around 15 years old to self-medicate. As his tolerance built up, he started using THC concentrates\u2014the stuff made from those high-potency waxes and oils\u2014which was legal and easily available in the Bay Area suburb where he grew up. His personality began to unravel, his father, Bart, told me. He was constantly irate. He attempted suicide several times\u2014once by ingesting pills, once by trying to hang himself, and another time by driving his car into the Bay. Then he began developing full-blown delusions, imagining that the FBI was after him. When he called his parents, he would scream at them in gibberish. Eventually, at 29 years old, he put a plastic bag over his head and breathed nitrous oxide through a tube until he suffocated to death.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Kevin had a hardcore drug addiction, but in his imagination, he was just taking medicine\u2014and a $13 billion industry was telling him he was right.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\u201cThe line about it being medicine\u2014he bought that,\u201d Bright said about his son. \u201cI told people, what medicine do you get from a doctor that\u2019s 100% always approved, that you can get within 10 to 15 minutes online, you can take as much as you want per year, you never have to come back to renew it?\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Since marijuana is still considered a Schedule I Controlled Substance by the federal government, there\u2019s no such thing as a \u201cprescription\u201d for medical cannabis. Instead, you can get a \u201crecommendation\u201d from a physician.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\u201cThis doctor\u2019s recommendation typically has no expiration, has no dose, has no duration, and no change across state lines,\u201d Ben Cort said. \u201cIt\u2019s basically, \u2018Take as much as you want as often as you want until you feel what you want.\u2019\u201d (Colorado has tightened rules around medical cards, but only for 18- to 20-year-olds, in an effort to mitigate drug dealing in high schools.)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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To get a recommendation, you can go to websites with names like \u201cNuggMD\u201d and get approved in less than 10 minutes. With that recommendation, you can acquire a state-licensed medical marijuana card. In states where recreational use of cannabis is legal, you don\u2019t need a medical marijuana card to buy cannabis products, but the card exempts you from certain taxes\u2014it\u2019s basically a discount card for high-frequency users.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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At a dispensary, there\u2019s no distinction between cannabis products made to be consumed for fun and ones created for their supposed healing properties. \u201cYou walk into a store, it\u2019s the exact same product,\u201d Cort said. \u201cIf you have a med card, you pay less tax.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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The array of products on offer is dazzling. On WeedMaps.com, you can buy your cannabis in the form of a joint, flower, vape, concentrate (budder, crumble, or crystalline), cookie, brownie, corn nut, caramel corn, jalape\u00f1o cheese cracker, rice crispie bar, macaron, pretzel bite, cereal, tincture, syrup, seltzer, iced tea, herbal tea, tonic, apple juice, punch, mocktail, root beer, cream soda, lemonade, agua fresca, powder, gummy, mint, chocolate, gum, balm, salve, bath bomb, salt, oil, shower gel, or soap, and have it delivered to your doorstep.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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These products are all sold as \u201cmedicine,\u201d even though none of them is FDA-approved. (There are only\u00a0four<\/a>\u00a0cannabis-based drugs that have received FDA authorization, all of which require prescriptions.) And although it\u2019s illegal for anyone without a medical degree to offer medical advice, dispensary \u201cbudtenders\u201d do it all the time. Their advice is completely evidence-free, because no evidence exists that the specific products they sell have any medicinal value.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\u201cDrug companies are forever doing drug trials to see if this new drug helps or doesn\u2019t help,\u201d said Dr. Robin Murray, a psychiatric researcher at King\u2019s College London who specializes in cannabis-induced schizophrenia. \u201cWhy would cannabis companies do this? They\u2019re doing so well without the trials. The trial might show that it\u00a0wasn\u2019t\u00a0<\/em>helpful. So they\u2019ve got no incentive to do these trials.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\u201cThere is research out there supporting the use of cannabis for some medical conditions,\u201d said Stuyt, \u201cBut it\u2019s all less than 10% THC. Nothing has been studied greater than 10%. But we have all this research showing that greater than 10% puts you at risk for psychosis, addiction, suicide, cannabis hyperemesis syndrome [constant, severe vomiting]\u2014all these things that high-potency THC is doing.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\u201cHigh-potency\u201d describes almost all of the cannabis products sold in the United States today, the vast majority of which are\u00a0over 15% THC<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Dr. David Smith, an addiction medicine doctor who founded the Haight Ashbury Free Clinic in 1967, is highly optimistic about the prospects of cannabis research for medical purposes, as well as the medical potential of psilocybin and other psychedelics. \u201cThere\u2019s a lot of promise in cannabis medicine,\u201d he told me. \u201cBut you\u2019re not going to get that by vaping in a classroom.\u201d The pantomime version of drug prescription that characterizes the cannabis market today \u201cis not the way medicine\u2019s supposed to be practiced,\u201d he told me.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\u201cIt\u2019s insulting to the medical profession,\u201d said Dr. Lev. \u201cThey\u2019ve hijacked the word \u2018medical.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\u201cThis is not medicine,\u201d said Stuyt. \u201cThis high-potency THC has not been studied as medicine. But because it\u2019s allowed to be heavily marketed and advertised as medicine, people believe it\u2019s safe. And so they believe it\u2019s medicine. And when you take medicine for a chronic problem, you take it every day. Sometimes you take it all day long. And that makes you addicted to it. And so then you\u2019re in constant withdrawal.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Look at the industries that pioneered the addiction business: tobacco, alcohol, and pharmaceuticals. Today, all three are heavily invested in cannabis.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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To imagine the market potential for a legal, highly addictive drug, all you have to do is look at the colossal success of the industries that pioneered the addiction business: tobacco, alcohol, and pharmaceuticals. Today, all three are heavily invested in cannabis. In 2019, Altria, the parent company of Marlboro cigarettes,\u00a0acquired<\/a>\u00a045% of Cronos, one of the world\u2019s biggest cannabis companies. Constellation Brands, a major alcohol conglomerate, has billions\u00a0invested<\/a>\u00a0in Canopy, another cannabis company. Last year, Jazz Pharmaceuticals\u00a0acquired<\/a>\u00a0GW Pharmaceuticals, the company that\u00a0makes<\/a>\u00a0one of the four FDA-approved, cannabis-derived drugs. Even a former CEO of Purdue Pharma, the company that made OxyContin,\u00a0co-founded<\/a>\u00a0a medical marijuana company called Emblem after helping to create the modern opioid epidemic.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\u201cPeople think it\u2019s a miracle drug, that it\u2019s nonaddictive, that it helps with cancer and anxiety,\u201d said Jordan Davidson, who recovered from cannabis addiction and now works for Smart Approaches to Marijuana, which advocates against the expansion of the cannabis industry. \u201cIt\u2019s more like Big Tobacco 2.0.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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The future of the industry that these investors are now betting on is focused on families like Aubree Adams\u2019 in Pueblo, Colorado.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Aubree\u2019s older son started using legal cannabis products in the eighth grade. By his freshman year in high school, he was addicted. He became psychotic: \u201cSelf-harming, violent behaviors, couldn\u2019t even regulate any moods\u2014crying obsessively, inconsolable, paranoid over things, thinking people were after us,\u201d his mother recounted. He tried to kill his little brother several times. Once Aubree\u2019s younger son had to run away from his brother barefoot in the snow. Aubree had to quit her job to stay home to protect him. Her older son attempted suicide. He started selling marijuana, and ended up on the streets. He got beat up. Someone threatened to shoot up the family\u2019s house.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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On one occasion, Aubree found herself trying to calm down her son as he frantically searched the house for the key to the lock on the family\u2019s gun, believing people were coming after him. \u201cThere were many moments when I had to tell my younger son, \u2018Get out of the house,\u2019\u201d Aubree said. \u201cThere were moments when I said, \u2018Get the dog. Lock yourself in my bedroom.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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When Aubree tried to get her son to stop he would say, \u201cIt\u2019s medicine, Mom. You\u2019re the only one not using it, Mom. Maybe you need to start using it, Mom. You\u2019ll feel better. What you\u2019re saying is a lie, Mom. It\u2019s all propaganda, Mom.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Even while watching all of this unfold, Aubree\u2019s husband began secretly using cannabis as well, believing it would calm his anxiety. He went to a dispensary and complained about panic attacks. The budtender readily offered him spurious medical advice, recommending marijuana flowers that were 24% THC. Aubree\u2019s husband began regularly consuming cannabis as his family was falling apart, and fell into a pattern of depression and suicidal ideation.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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It\u2019s a common pattern: People start consuming cannabis to fix their anxiety, but the withdrawal from the THC instigates anxiety instead of alleviating it. \u201cPeople think, \u2018Oh, it\u2019s my symptoms. That\u2019s why I need it. I\u2019m anxious and it\u2019s treating my anxiety,\u2019\u201d said Stuyt. \u201cNo: It\u2019s the\u00a0withdrawal\u00a0<\/em>that\u2019s\u00a0causing\u00a0<\/em>your anxiety.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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It\u2019s a vicious cycle that\u2019s great for business. At the root of the misconception is the myth that \u201ccannabis\u201d as it exists today is a safe, natural, medicinal substance. But if people thought of today\u2019s high-potency THC products the way they think of hard drugs, far fewer people would fall under its influence\u2014which is why it\u2019s so important to the industry that they don\u2019t.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\u201cEverybody knows meth is bad,\u201d Cort said. \u201cThere\u2019s not a user who does not think meth is bad. You survey America, about 65% of them are going to tell you there\u2019s nothing wrong with weed.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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And now those Americans are facing a tidal wave of corporate advertising telling them they\u2019re right.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\u201cThis is a for-profit industry,\u201d said Stuyt. \u201cAnd they profit off of addiction.\u201d<\/p>\n

___
\nhttps:\/\/www.tabletmag.com\/sections\/news\/articles\/how-weed-became-new-oxycontin-marijuana-psychosis-addiction<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

How Weed Became the New OxyContin Big Pharma and Big Tobacco are helping market high-potency, psychosis-inducing THC products as your mother\u2019s \u2018medical marijuana\u2019 BY LEIGHTON WOODHOUSE<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-147079","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation.co\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/147079","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation.co\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation.co\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation.co\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation.co\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=147079"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation.co\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/147079\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation.co\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=147079"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation.co\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=147079"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation.co\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=147079"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}