The News
As more states have legalized the sale of cannabis, a fractured and inconsistent legal framework has emerged across the country that has prioritized sales income and tax revenue over public health, a new report finds.
The report, issued Thursday by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine, describes an “urgent need for a coordinated public health response.” The academies, a nonprofit advisory group of the nation’s leading scientists, said that such a response should include a federally led campaign to educate parents, children and others about the risks of a drug that is increasingly potent.
Among the other suggestions, the report also calls for a lifting of research restrictions on cannabis. In recent years, many claims have been made about the medicinal and other health effects of the drug but often without substantiation from science.
Potency
Currently 24 states, the District of Columbia and two U.S. territories have legalized the sale of cannabis for recreational use, according to the National Conference on State Legislatures. In 13 other states, cannabis is legal for medicinal use.
Even as a patchwork of laws and regulations have emerged, the potency of cannabis products has surged, as measured by the growing concentration of THC, the main psychoactive compound in cannabis. The rapid increases have left the public unaware of the health risks, particularly to young people, pregnant women and seniors, according to Yasmin Hurd, director of the Addiction Institute at the Icahn School of Medicine and the vice chair of the committee that issued the latest report.
Given the potency changes and the proliferation in varieties of products, “cannabis is no longer the same drug as what people thought they were voting on,” Dr. Hurd said. “There is a consensus that we need educational campaigns.”
Dr. Hurd emphasized a related key finding of the report: There is a booming industry for unregulated products derived from hemp, including ones containing delta-8 THC, another psychoactive substance that some manufacturers have learned to extract from hemp. The report calls on Congress to address what Ms. Hurd called “loopholes” that have led to the spread of such products.
Recommendations
The report was sponsored by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the National Institute on Drug Abuse and the National Cancer Institute, among other funders. The report, in addition to seeking action at the federal level, recommended action at the state level, including the adopting of product standards, like those for food, medicine and dietary supplements.
States that have decriminalized or legalized cannabis should follow suit by sealing criminal records or expunging cases of prior “low-level” cannabis-related offenses, the report noted. And, the report added, the states should better enforce minimum-age requirements to prevent access to the drug to young people, just as the states “would for alcohol or tobacco sales.”
The report also called for states to require “training and certification” for workers at cannabis retailers. The training, the report said, “should address the effects of cannabis on humans, prevention of sales to minors” and “warnings about cannabis-impaired driving.”
The post A Patchwork of Cannabis Laws Creates Health Risks, Study Finds appeared first on New York Times.
