Law The Cannabis Chronicles - Misc Cannabis News

[momofthegoons]

BIG PHARMA WILL NOW HOLD PATENT FOR CBD/THC CANCER TREATMENT


It’s hard to believe that Big Pharma is the one making the most progress in proving that cannabis works! Well, maybe not so much ‘hard to believe’ as disheartening and depressing as heck.
British company, GW Pharmaceuticals, has been a big name in cannabis pharmaceuticals since 1998. They’ve broken through the iron gates surrounding cannabis medicine, so much so that they even got CBD-extract medications (made by Big Pharma) to be removed from Schedule I.

GW Pharma has developed cannabis-based drugs for multiple sclerosis and epilepsy, and now….cancer. That’s right. Big Pharma now holds the patent for cancer treatment using cannabis. Let. That. Sink. In. For. A. Moment.

In 2009, GW went forward with a patent application, alongside collaborator Otsuka Pharmaceutical. At the end of September, GW announced that they had received a Notice of Allowance from the U.S. Patent Office to go forward with production of their cannabis-based cancer treatment, Sativex.

The Treatment
Numerous studies have shown that cannabis can be used to treat cancer by eradicating cancer cells and stopping metastasis, in most types of cancer. The latest GW drug will harness the power of THC and CBD to treat gliomas, which are a rare form of brain cancer.

The now-patented pharmaceutical uses a ratio of THC and CBD ranging from 1:1 to 1:20 (THC:CBD) to “reduce cell viability, inhibit cell growth or reduce tumor volume”, according to the company. It is interesting to note that GW’s treatment, Sativex, grew out of a long history of pre-clinical trials and anecdotal evidence that show the use of cannabis and cannabis-based products for tumor reduction.

The company went ahead with clinical trials in August 2018 to test the efficacy of Sativex. This trial will look at efficacy of Sativex when combined with more traditional mainstream cancer treatments. Sativex and the chemotherapy drug, temozolomide, has been administered to 20 patients with recurrent glioblastoma multiforme (GBM). This is a rare and very deadly type of brain cancer.

The Patent

The original patent application was sent in 2009, but has been subsequently changed to accommodate FDA requirements. Changes would include specifics like THC and CBD ratios in the medication, as well as the forms of cancer that Sativex may be able to treat.

What Does This Mean for Cancer Research?
On the positive side, the patent recognizes the value of cannabis for cancer treatments, and not just as a way to counteract the effects of chemotherapy and radiation. Cannabis’ efficacy for killing cancer cells must now be recognized on a federal level. This also allows for more options for cancer patients in choosing their treatments.

It’s a potentially exciting time for cannabis research! Look out for more patents, more clinical trials, and even more cannabis-based medications hitting the market. Keep pushing for access to whole plant medicine.

Source:https://www.rxleaf.com/post/11432/big-pharma-cancer-patent

 

[Baron23]

The Reasonable Way to View Marijuana’s Risks
Cannabis has downsides, but speculation and fear should be replaced with the best evidence available.

Are we underestimating the harms of legalizing marijuana?

Those who hold this view have been in the news recently, saying that research shows we are moving too far too fast without understanding the damage.

America is in the midst of a sea change in policies on pot, and we should all be a bit nervous about unintended consequences.

Vigilance is required. But it should be reasoned and thoughtful. To tackle recent claims, we should use the best methods and evidence as a starting point.

Does Marijuana Increase Crime?
Crime has gone up in Colorado and Washington since those states legalized marijuana. It’s reasonable to wonder about the connection, but it’s also reasonable to be skeptical about causation.

synthetic controls. Researchers can use a weighted combination of similar groups (states that are like Colorado and Washington in a number of ways) to create a model of how those states might have been expected to perform with respect to crime without any changes in marijuana laws. Benjamin Hansen, a professor of economics at the University of Oregon, used this methodology to create a comparison group that most closely resembled the homicide trends and levels from 2000-12.

“I picked those years because they were after the tremendous crime drop in the early ’90s and most predictive of crime today,” he said. “I ended in 2012 because that’s when Colorado and Washington voted to legalize marijuana.”

This model showed that we might have predicted more of an increase in Colorado or Washington just based on trends seen in comparable states, even without legalization. When he compared the two states with the synthetic control, Colorado and Washington actually had lower rates after legalization than you’d expect given trends.

This is not evidence that legalization lowers crime rates. But it does suggest that we shouldn’t conclude that it increases them. A number of other studies agree.

What About Car Crashes?
A potential misperception involves automobile crashes. Drunken drivers are measurably impaired when their blood alcohol level is above a certain level. We can prove this in randomized controlled trials.

The tests we use for measuring the presence of THC, though, do not measure the level of impairment. They measure whether someone has used marijuana recently. If we legalize the drug, and more people use it, more people will register its recent use even when they are not impaired. So it should be expected that more people involved in car crashes will test positive even if no one is driving while high.

Using a synthetic control approach, Mr. Hansen and colleagues showed that marijuana-related fatality rates did not increase more after legalization than what you would expect from trends and other states.

The Concerns About Schizophrenia
Dr. Ziva Cooper is one of the authors of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine’s comprehensive report on cannabis.

She says some have misinterpreted the report to state that the report’s committee concluded that cannabis causes schizophrenia. It did not.

“This was stated as an association, not causation,” she said. “We do not yet have the supporting evidence to state the direction of this association.”

Dr. Cooper, research director of the U.C.L.A. Cannabis Research Initiative, went further: “We as a committee also concluded that a history of cannabis use is associated with better cognitive outcomes in people diagnosed with psychotic disorders. The blatant omission of this conclusion exemplifies the one-sided nature of some articles. Nonetheless, the strong association between cannabis use and schizophrenia means that people with predisposing risk factors for schizophrenia should most certainly abstain from using cannabis.”

Marijuana Has Downsides
No one should be under the impression that marijuana is harmless. The potential downsides are well known, and I’ve covered them. Nor should anyone be irrationally exuberant about its upsides. It’s not a wonder drug, and the proven benefits are also minimal (as I discussed here).

We should be honest about what we do and don’t know. We need more research. It’s true that much of the literature around marijuana focuses on the negative, but that’s “largely due to funding priorities over the last several decades,” Dr. Cooper said.

In the report she worked on, only 40 of the 450 pages were about the therapeutic effects of cannabis and cannabinoids, she said, while the other sections were related largely to the negative health outcomes.

She added, “With increased awareness of the clinical potential of cannabinoids, research priorities have shifted to include studying this area” in the last few years.

It’s perfectly natural to be concerned that as cannabis products become legal in more states, they will affect more people.

Many of the experts who have done the work highlighted here are still nervous about how we might proceed. No one thinks that children or adolescents should use marijuana. There’s little regulation right now, and there’s potential for the drug to be mixed with other substances to increase its addictive properties. Advertising will probably make claims that will be out of line with reality.

We should be clear about what we’re talking about here, though. Adults will make decisions on how to use it just as they do with similar products like alcohol and tobacco. Both are more dangerous than marijuana, and it’s not even close.

Anecdotes can make compelling cases, but they don’t necessarily lead to thoughtful outcomes.

 

[Baron23]

Multistate cannabis operators rapidly expanding into new markets

The fragmented, state-by-state nature of the marijuana industry historically has been dominated by small, local players, but larger, publicly traded companies with multistate operations are becoming an increasingly prevalent force.

Rapid consolidation and expansion among cannabis companies dominated 2018 with more than 300 mergers and acquisitions and a rash of reverse takeovers that allowed U.S. companies to go public in Canada, where marijuana is federally legal.
As of Jan. 9, the five publicly traded plant-touching multistate operators with the greatest market capitalization were Curaleaf, Green Thumb Industries, MedMen, Acreage Holdings and Trulieve.

A closer look at the individual footprints of these companies reveals some strategy behind state expansion choices.

These multistate operators (MSOs) tend to consider:

• Tightly controlled markets with limited license availability. States such as Arizona, Florida, Connecticut, Maryland and North Dakota are prime for MSO expansion because of high barriers to entry and limited competition. In Florida, a few operators have a significant presence across the state. Green Thumb Industries entered the Connecticut market through an acquisition earlier this month, and MedMen moved into Florida through an acquisition last summer.
• States that have – or are expected to have – both medical marijuana and adult use. Markets such as Massachusetts and Nevada gave existing MMJ businesses first crack at recreational licenses, a model that will soon be implemented in Michigan (expected to exceed $1 billion in sales) and could very well be carried out in other states in the near future. New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo has expressed interest in legalizing recreational marijuana, while New Jersey is in the process of becoming the first state to legalize adult use via legislation (rather than by ballot initiative).
• States that are on the speculative end of the spectrum, such as Iowa (whose financial viability is under question), CBD-only Virginia and highly competitive Oklahoma (which has some of the lowest barriers to entry in the U.S.)

George Allen, president of Acreage Holdings, reinforced several of these points in a recent statement: “Continuing to expand our footprint is a core growth strategy for us, both in terms of expanding our presence in states that are considering transitioning to adult use, as well as those states considering a medical program for the first time.

“We want to be wherever there is demand and advocacy for safe, predictable and affordable cannabis.”

Here’s what else you need to know about these multistate operators:

• Curaleaf (CSE: CURA) operates in 11 states including 42 dispensaries, 12 cultivation facilities and 10 processing facilities. Curaleaf’s Jan. 9 market capitalization was $2.6 billion.
• Green Thumb Industries (CSE: GTII) operates in 11 states with 12 manufacturing licenses and 85 dispensaries. As of Jan. 9, GTI had a market cap of $1.8 billion.
• MedMen (CSE: MMEN) is preparing to close its acquisition of PharmaCann this month, at which point the company will have a footprint of 12 states through 16 cultivation and processing facilities and 76 retail stores. MedMen had a market cap of $1.5 billion as of Jan. 9.
• Acreage Holdings (CSE: ACRG.U) has the largest footprint of MSOs in the U.S., operating 15 cultivation facilities and 78 dispensaries in 19 states. Acreage had a market cap of $1.3 billion.
• With the smallest state footprint of companies on this list, Trulieve (CSE: TRUL) is in only three states but operates 23 dispensaries in Florida alone. The company recently acquired operations in California and Massachusetts. As of Jan. 9, Trulieve had a market cap of $994 million.

 

[Baron23]

“Let’s hope the old Democrats in charge today are more open minded than the old Republicans recently tossed from power on cannabis reform,” Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) told Rolling Stone.​

Indeed. And let's hope the old Democrats are more opened minded than they were the last time they controlled the Executive Branch and both chambers of Congress.....or did I miss where they legalized MJ or took any action whatsoever to mitigate the terrible social costs of this misguided prohibition??????

Cannabis in Congress: Why Federally Legal Weed Could Soon Be a Reality

Pro-marijuana bills introduced to congress used to be largely symbolic — now they have a chance to actually reach the floor if the House and come to a vote


Even with the government shutdown that’s been ominously hovering over Washington these past three weeks, there’s still a fresh Congress in town. That means the nation’s 535 lawmakers are in the first stages of trying to get their favored pet issues on the radar of party leaders. That focused energy and flowery optimism that marks the start of any new Congress is different this year for marijuana proponents, because this time around they believe they can actually pass some sweeping cannabis reforms.

At this time two years ago, while then-Speaker Paul Ryan was adamantly keeping any marijuana amendment from ever getting to the House floor, the rollout of most any marijuana bill was basically all symbolism.

Today’s a new day in the swamp, and supportive lawmakers are coming out of the gates swinging, signaling to marijuana supporters across the nation that this time around what was formerly just viewed as rhetoric now has a strong chance of becoming reality.

That’s why the founder of the Congressional Cannabis Caucus, Rep. Earl Blumenauer (D-OR), is excited — giddy, even — in this new year. He dropped the third purely marijuana-focused bill in the 116th Congress. Named the Regulate Marijuana Like Alcohol Act, it would explicitly do what its title states.

Rep. Earl Blumenauer, D-Ore., in February 2018. Credit: Jacquelyn Martin/AP/Shutterstock

The lofty proposal basically represents a wholesale reimagining of how marijuana is treated nationwide. It would put marijuana under the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, and not the Drug Enforcement Agency. It would also allow marijuana businesses to access the banking system and allow long delayed research on the plant to go forward without the constraints currently imposed on cannabis by the federal prohibition that currently views marijuana as the same as heroine.

The legislation also snagged the slot of H.R. 420 – yeah, that 420 – a symbolic title that’s perfectly suited for this aspirational bill.

“We wanted to focus people’s attention so that, although it’s not probably the top priority for very many people — maybe not the top priority for anyone — it is in fact important to a wide range of people, and it’s something this Congress can do,” Blumenauer tells Rolling Stone.

While still just a dream now, Blumenauer contends the bill isn’t a gimmick. He says outright legalization is coming the near future, whether opponents admit it or not. That’s why the measure’s number is memorable, and its title — the Regulate Marijuana Like Alcohol Act — is almost too straightforward.

“It is important to sort of raise the profile a little bit early, and this is one of the things that’s pretty simple to comprehend,” Blumenauer continued. “And ultimately, I think it’s likely to be something, as we work our way through, that this is maybe one of the most likely outcomes. Is just to regulate it like alcohol.”

To reach that help reach that goal, Blumenauer gathered a clan of new leaders in his Cannabis Caucus. The team is historic because it now includes Rep. Barbara Lee (D-CA) — the first black woman to ever co-chair the caucus. It also still includes Rep. Don Young (R-AK) — a cagey old timer who is currently the longest serving member of the House and isn’t really known for marijuana policy, but is senior enough to do basically whatever he wants in the House — and then there’s Rep. Dave Joyce (R-OH) — the only leader in the group who isn’t from a state where recreational marijuana is legal.

While some in the Cannabis Caucus support drastic overhauls of the nation’s marijuana laws, they’re also vowing to focus their attention on undoing the most tangible, truly mind-numbing areas of the nation’s drug policies.

The top of their list — and those with the best chances of gaining broad, bipartisan support — are bills to allow marijuana business owners to use the nation’s banking system instead of the all-cash businesses they’re forced to run now because the federal government still views marijuana as an illicit drug.

The other measures that are widely seen as having the best chances of becoming law are proposals to expand federally condoned research on marijuana, and others to allow the nation’s many PTSD-scarred veterans to access weed without the repercussions or hurdles they currently face,.

The cannabis caucus, along with the growing ranks of pot-friendly lawmakers on the Hill, are already pushing national party leaders and the chairs of important committees with jurisdiction over the issue to make these a priority in the coming weeks and months.

“They’re all bipartisan, they’re all relatively straightforward and simple and they all speak to real problems,” Blumenauer contends.

The pressure campaign seems to be working, according to Blumenauer and others. Even though Pelosi’s been lukewarm on marijuana reform, she also has had to promise to give her members more input on legislation. And the thing is, most of her members are clamoring for marijuana reforms.

“Under the new leadership in Congress, I think, there’s an understanding that these bills will be coming to the floor for a vote,” Rep. Lou Correa (D-CA) tells Rolling Stone.

Correa’s planning to introduce his own bipartisan marijuana bill aimed at veterans shortly. His proposal would force — not merely request or advise — the Department of Veterans Affairs to conduct studies on how pot could help veterans. But Democrats are still trying to get a true sense of where the House will stand on marijuana.

“I think right now it’s a matter of testing the waters,” Correa continued. “Cannabis policy in this country is changing faster than most people can gauge.”

Some Republicans are on board too, but they’re worried because the top Democratic leaders in the House are all in their seventies and have dismissed marijuana policy as a second- or third-tier issue, even as others in those Democratic leadership ranks have dismissed it out of hand.

“Let’s hope the old Democrats in charge today are more open minded than the old Republicans recently tossed from power on cannabis reform,” Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) told Rolling Stone.

Gaetz has been in talks with some Democrats on how to best address the glaring disparity between federal and local marijuana laws. “The key question is whether to attack cannabis reform piecemeal,” he says.

While Blumenauer’s new bill would mean a wholesale change that would reverse a huge portion of the war on drugs, proponents like Gaetz fear Democratic leaders will opt for that piecemeal approach that would merely nibble around the edges of the disparity between increasingly open state marijuana laws and the federal governments lingering prohibition on the plant.

Either way, proponents agree that the growing number of states that approved marijuana for either recreational or medicinal use in 2018 — which included blue-ish Michigan, red-as-hell Oklahoma and staunchly independent Vermont — shows voters nationwide have outpaced the federal government, once again.

The national conversation around marijuana will change this year too, in part because most of the handful of sitting Democrats who are now either running in 2020 or preparing their White House bids have endorsed decriminalizing marijuana in one form or another. But proponents also say that’s because voters on the ground in more than have the nation have already spoken and legalized marijuana for medicinal or recreational use in their states. It seems it’s only a matter of time now for Washington to catch up to the states.

“We are going to win this. It’s not a matter of if, it’s a matter of when,” Sen. Cory Booker (D-NJ) told Rolling Stone. “The American people have already spoken in state after state; red state to blue state.”

 

[Baron23]

"She laughed that year when a reporter asked if she would support the legalization of marijuana for recreational use. Ms. Harris finally reversed course in 2018, long after public opinion had shifted on the topic."​

I decided to post this article because I think its important to know what the core values of the politicians who are advocating for legal MJ and soliciting our support. As I have often said, I will take any vote from any politician for MJ legalization....but that does not mean that I think that they share my libertarian outlook or even my core values on MJ legalization. Ms. Harris is a case in point. She says her positions have suddenly "evolved"....yeah, they evolved when she started thinking about running for higher office. Just another empty suit....they use us, so I'm fine with using them to push forward the legalization agenda. By the by, this article is from that bastion of conservative journalism....the NY Times! haha



Kamala Harris Was Not a ‘Progressive Prosecutor’
The senator was often on the wrong side of history when she served as California’s attorney general.

SAN FRANCISCO — With the growing recognition that prosecutors hold the keys to a fairer criminal justice system, the term “progressive prosecutor” has almost become trendy. This is how Senator Kamala Harris of California, a likely presidential candidate and a former prosecutor, describes herself.

But she’s not.

Time after time, when progressives urged her to embrace criminal justice reforms as a district attorney and then the state’s attorney general, Ms. Harris opposed them or stayed silent. Most troubling, Ms. Harris fought tooth and nail to uphold wrongful convictions that had been secured through official misconduct that included evidence tampering, false testimony and the suppression of crucial information by prosecutors.

Consider her record as San Francisco’s district attorney from 2004 to 2011. Ms. Harris was criticized in 2010 for withholding information about a police laboratory technician who had been accused of “intentionally sabotaging” her work and stealing drugs from the lab. After a memo surfaced showing that Ms. Harris’s deputies knew about the technician’s wrongdoing and recent conviction, but failed to alert defense lawyers, a judge condemned Ms. Harris’s indifference to the systemic violation of the defendants’ constitutional rights.

Ms. Harris contested the ruling by arguing that the judge, whose husband was a defense attorney and had spoken publicly about the importance of disclosing evidence, had a conflict of interest. Ms. Harris lost. More than 600 cases handled by the corrupt technician were dismissed.

habitually truant in elementary school could be prosecuted, despite concerns that it would disproportionately affect low-income people of color.

Ms. Harris was similarly regressive as the state’s attorney general. When a federal judge in Orange County ruled that the death penalty was unconstitutional in 2014, Ms. Harris appealed. In a public statement, she made the bizarre argument that the decision “undermines important protections that our courts provide to defendants.” (The approximately 740 men and women awaiting execution in California might disagree).

In 2014, she declined to take a position on Proposition 47, a ballot initiative approved by voters, that reduced certain low-level felonies to misdemeanors. She laughed that year when a reporter asked if she would support the legalization of marijuana for recreational use. Ms. Harris finally reversed course in 2018, long after public opinion had shifted on the topic.

In 2015, she opposed a bill requiring her office to investigate shootings involving officers. And she refused to support statewide standards regulating the use of body-worn cameras by police officers. For this, she incurred criticism from an array of left-leaning reformers, including Democratic state senators, the A.C.L.U. and San Francisco’s elected public defender. The activist Phelicia Jones, who had supported Ms. Harris for years, asked, “How many more people need to die before she steps in?”

Worst of all, though, is Ms. Harris’s record in wrongful conviction cases. Consider George Gage, an electrician with no criminal record who was charged in 1999 with sexually abusing his stepdaughter, who reported the allegations years later. The case largely hinged on the stepdaughter’s testimony and Mr. Gage was convicted.

Afterward, the judge discovered that the prosecutor had unlawfully held back potentially exculpatory evidence, including medical reports indicating that the stepdaughter had been repeatedly untruthful with law enforcement. Her mother even described her as “a pathological liar” who “lives her lies.”

In 2015, when the case reached the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit in San Francisco, Ms. Harris’s prosecutors defended the conviction. They pointed out that Mr. Gage, while forced to act as his own lawyer, had not properly raised the legal issue in the lower court, as the law required.

The appellate judges acknowledged this impediment and sent the case to mediation, a clear signal for Ms. Harris to dismiss the case. When she refused to budge, the court upheld the conviction on that technicality. Mr. Gage is still in prison serving a 70-year sentence.

That case is not an outlier. Ms. Harris also fought to keep Daniel Larsen in prison on a 28-year-to-life sentence for possession of a concealed weapon even though his trial lawyer was incompetent and there was compelling evidence of his innocence. Relying on a technicality again, Ms. Harris argued that Mr. Larsen failed to raise his legal arguments in a timely fashion. (This time, she lost.)

She also defended Johnny Baca’s conviction for murder even though judges found a prosecutor presented false testimony at the trial. She relented only after a video of the oral argument received national attention and embarrassed her office.

And then there’s Kevin Cooper, the death row inmate whose trial was infected by racism and corruption. He sought advanced DNA testing to prove his innocence, but Ms. Harris opposed it. (After The New York Times’s exposé of the case went viral, she reversed her position.)

All this is a shame because the state’s top prosecutor has the power and the imperative to seek justice. In cases of tainted convictions, that means conceding error and overturning them. Rather than fulfilling that obligation, Ms. Harris turned legal technicalities into weapons so she could cement injustices.

Harris’s recently published memoir, she writes: “America has a deep and dark history of people using the power of the prosecutor as an instrument of injustice.”

She adds, “I know this history well — of innocent men framed, of charges brought against people without sufficient evidence, of prosecutors hiding information that would exonerate defendants, of the disproportionate application of the law.”

All too often, she was on the wrong side of that history.

It is true that politicians must make concessions to get the support of key interest groups. The fierce, collective opposition of law enforcement and local district attorney associations can be hard to overcome at the ballot box. But in her career, Ms. Harris did not barter or trade to get the support of more conservative law-and-order types; she gave it all away.

Of course, the full picture is more complicated. During her tenure as district attorney, Ms. Harris refused to seek the death penalty in a case involving the murder of a police officer. And she started a successful program that offered first-time nonviolent offenders a chance to have their charges dismissed if they completed a rigorous vocational training. As attorney general, she mandated implicit bias training and was awarded for her work in correcting a backlog in the testing of rape kits.

But if Kamala Harris wants people who care about dismantling mass incarceration and correcting miscarriages of justice to vote for her, she needs to radically break with her past.

A good first step would be to apologize to the wrongfully convicted people she has fought to keep in prison and to do what she can to make sure they get justice. She should start with George Gage.

 

[Baron23]

CBS rejects Super Bowl ad on benefits of medical marijuana


CBS rejected a Super Bowl ad that makes a case for medical marijuana.

Acreage Holdings, which is in the cannabis cultivation, processing and dispensing business, said it produced a 60-second ad that shows three people suffering from varying health issues who say their lives were made better by use of medical marijuana.

Acreage said its ad agency sent storyboards for the ad to the network and received a return email that said: “CBS will not be accepting any ads for medical marijuana at this time.”

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A CBS spokesperson told USA TODAY Sports that under CBS broadcast standards it does not currently accept cannabis-related advertising.

Thirty states and the District of Columbia allow varying forms of marijuana use while the federal government classifies marijuana as a Schedule I drug under the Controlled Substances Act. (Photo: Richard Vogel, AP)

“We’re not particularly surprised that CBS and/or the NFL rejected the content,” Acreage president George Allen said. “And that is actually less a statement about them and more we think a statement about where we stand right now in this country.”

Allen said the issue is that 30 states and the District of Columbia allow varying forms of marijuana use while the federal government classifies marijuana as a Schedule I drug under the Controlled Substances Act.

More: The funniest Super Bowl commercials of all time: Betty White, Terry Tate and a Tide ad

“One of the hardest parts about this business is the ambiguity that we operate within,” Allen said. “We do the best we can to navigate a complex fabric of state and federal policy, much of which conflicts.”

Allen said the company had not decided whether to run its 60-second ad or a 30-second version when it learned that CBS would not accept any ads for medical marijuana.

CBS is charging an average of $5.2 million for a 30-second ad in this year's game between the Los Angeles Rams and New England Patriots on Feb. 3.

“It’s a public service announcement really more than it is an advertisement,” said Harris Damashek, Acreage’s chief marketing officer. “We’re not marketing any of our products or retail in this spot.”

An unfinished version of the 60-second ad introduces a Colorado boy who suffers from Dravet syndrome; his mother says her son would have dozens to hundreds of seizures a day and medical marijuana saved his life. A Buffalo man says he was on opioids for 15 years after three back surgeries and that medical marijuana gave him his life back. An Oakland man who lost part of his leg in military service says his pain was unbearable until medical marijuana.

“The time is now,” say words on the screen near the end of the ad. Then the screen shifts and viewers are asked to call on their representatives in the U.S. House and Senate to advocate for change. Fine print at the bottom says the testimonials in the ad come from the experiences of the individuals and have not been evaluated by the FDA. The fine print also says marijuana is a Schedule I controlled substance and medical use has not been approved in some states.

“Look, from my third-grade government class, we live in a representative democracy,” Allen said. “In theory, our elected officials are supposed to support legislative action that is in keeping with the will of the people.”

Acreage expects to post the ad online at some point so people can see it, even if they can’t see it on the Super Bowl.

“It’s not quite ready yet,” Damashek said, “but we anticipate and look forward to getting the message out far and wide.”

 

[Baron23]

Most U.S. Mayors Support Legalizing Marijuana, Survey Shows

A majority of American mayors want marijuana to be legalized and sold in their cities.

That’s according to a new poll released on Tuesday by Boston University.

Fifty-five percent of mayors in the survey agreed with the statement that “marijuana should be legalized, regulated and legally sold in your city.”

Only 35 percent disagreed with the idea of allowing cannabis sales in the cities they govern.

“Many mayors suggested that their views on marijuana were less about philosophy or values and more about practical challenges related to policy implementation,” the survey’s organizers said in summary of the key findings.

That said, the results showed a stark partisan divide on marijuana among the municipal elected officials.

While 62 percent of Democratic mayors were on board with legalization, only 25 percent of Republicans agreed. Meanwhile, less than a quarter—22 percent— of Democrats holding mayoral offices oppose ending cannabis prohibition, while more than two-thirds—67 percent of GOP mayors say they are against it.

Boston University

The survey polled 110 mayors to generate a representative sample of those running U.S. cities with populations over 75,000.

The U.S. Conference of Mayors has for several years supported resolutions calling on the federal government to end prohibition and respect state and local marijuana laws.

At its conference last year, for example, it approved a measure calling on Congress and the Trump administration to “immediately remove cannabis from the schedule of the [Controlled Substances Act] to enable U.S. federal banking regulators to permanently authorize financial institutions to provide services to commercial cannabis businesses, and increase the safety of the public.”

Another resolution approved by the group of mayors last year highlights the racially “discriminatory enforcement” of cannabis prohibition and “calls on local governments, where marijuana has been legalized, to act, moving with urgency to vacate misdemeanor marijuana convictions for conduct that is now deemed legal.”

 

[momofthegoons]

CBS BLOCKED A MEDICAL MARIJUANA COMMERCIAL FROM PLAYING DURING THE SUPER BOWL

Acreage Holdings, the multi-state cannabis company backed by John Boehner, says CBS rejected a television advertisement that calls for the legalization of medical marijuana. The network, which is airing the game on Feb. 3, nixed the proposed spot after seeing a rough outline, according to the company.

While medical marijuana is now legal in more than 30 states, the federal prohibition on cannabis has restricted research and made it difficult for some potential patients to get their hands on a drug that proponents say helps treat seizures, pain and other ailments.

The advertisement aimed to “create an advocacy campaign for constituents who are being lost in the dialogue,” Acreage President George Allen said. Super Bowl airtime would have been the best way to achieve this, he added.

“It’s hard to compete with the amount of attention something gets when it airs during the Super Bowl,” Allen said in a telephone interview.

CBS didn’t immediately reply to a request for comment on Monday, which was a federal holiday.

The Super Bowl is typically the most-watched television program of the year, and it’s an opportunity for brands to get in front of millions of Americans. Companies typically debut new publicity campaigns and air their most creative commercials during the event. Some viewers eagerly anticipate the advertisements that run during stoppages in play.

In past years, some advertisers have also grabbed the spotlight for offering up commercials that weren’t likely to be approved.

Injuries, Seizures
Acreage, one of the most valuable U.S. weed companies with a market value of more than $2.4 billion, had hoped to raise its profile and push for increased access to medical marijuana. The proposed ad features two subjects who have benefited from medicinal cannabis: a veteran with combat injuries and a child with seizures.

Super Bowl ads are expensive, reportedly costing more than $5 million for an average 30-second spot last year. Acreage, which went public in Canada last year, was prepared to pony up, and created the ad thinking it had a legitimate chance of getting onto the air. The company said it was careful to position the spot as a “call to political action” rather than a pitch for its brand, which now has cannabis operations in roughly 15 states.

“We certainly thought there was a chance,” Allen said. “You strike when the chance of your strike has the probability of success — this isn’t a doomed mission.”

 

[elykpeace]

legalize it and cbs will advertise it lol

 

[Baron23]

CBS BLOCKED A MEDICAL MARIJUANA COMMERCIAL FROM PLAYING DURING THE SUPER BOWL

Acreage Holdings, the multi-state cannabis company backed by John Boehner, says CBS rejected a television advertisement that calls for the legalization of medical marijuana. The network, which is airing the game on Feb. 3, nixed the proposed spot after seeing a rough outline, according to the company.

While medical marijuana is now legal in more than 30 states, the federal prohibition on cannabis has restricted research and made it difficult for some potential patients to get their hands on a drug that proponents say helps treat seizures, pain and other ailments.

The advertisement aimed to “create an advocacy campaign for constituents who are being lost in the dialogue,” Acreage President George Allen said. Super Bowl airtime would have been the best way to achieve this, he added.

“It’s hard to compete with the amount of attention something gets when it airs during the Super Bowl,” Allen said in a telephone interview.

CBS didn’t immediately reply to a request for comment on Monday, which was a federal holiday.

The Super Bowl is typically the most-watched television program of the year, and it’s an opportunity for brands to get in front of millions of Americans. Companies typically debut new publicity campaigns and air their most creative commercials during the event. Some viewers eagerly anticipate the advertisements that run during stoppages in play.

In past years, some advertisers have also grabbed the spotlight for offering up commercials that weren’t likely to be approved.

Injuries, Seizures
Acreage, one of the most valuable U.S. weed companies with a market value of more than $2.4 billion, had hoped to raise its profile and push for increased access to medical marijuana. The proposed ad features two subjects who have benefited from medicinal cannabis: a veteran with combat injuries and a child with seizures.

Super Bowl ads are expensive, reportedly costing more than $5 million for an average 30-second spot last year. Acreage, which went public in Canada last year, was prepared to pony up, and created the ad thinking it had a legitimate chance of getting onto the air. The company said it was careful to position the spot as a “call to political action” rather than a pitch for its brand, which now has cannabis operations in roughly 15 states.

“We certainly thought there was a chance,” Allen said. “You strike when the chance of your strike has the probability of success — this isn’t a doomed mission.”

Yes, but you will sure see beer commercials and pharma commercials ("common side effects include you dick dropping off, rectal incontinence, and sudden death!" haha).

 

[Shredder]

Acreage holding made a smart move. CBS by canceling the add made acreage holdings as much publicity as the add would at zero cost.

 

[elykpeace]

right @Baron23 sick of the big pharma commericals and usa is one of the only countries that even allow ads like those.

rather get the munchies than have my pecker fall off

 

[momofthegoons]

For those interested in what the advertisement that CBS was..... here you go.



And a little more about it:

Here's the Medical Cannabis Super Bowl Ad CBS Refused to Run

 

[momofthegoons]

Pot website offers free medical marijuana to government workers amid shutdown

© Getty Images


Another business is joining those aiming to ease the pain of the partial government shutdown for federal workers — a marijuana marketplace says it’s giving away free weed.

BudTrader.com, which describes itself as the “largest online cannabis marketplace” and has been dubbed the "Craigslist of weed," will offer free medical marijuana to government workers who can’t pay because of the shutdown.

The shutdown — which affects an estimated 800,000 federal workers and has stretched on for more than a month — stems from disagreements between President Trump and congressional Democrats over his request for more than $5 billion in funding for a border wall separating the United States and Mexico.

“I don’t think federal employees are getting enough love and support, in these tough times, we want to extend the offer of a donation of medical cannabis to any federal worker affected by the shutdown,” BudTrader CEO Brad McLaughlin said in a Tuesday news release.

The company said it’s working with an attorney to “ensure that all cannabis donations given to federal employees are confidential and compliant with California Cannabis adult use laws and regulations.”

The site said it will donate “the maximum legal allowable amount of cannabis” to any affected government employees.

Several companies and organizations have offered free goods and services to government employees struggling during the partial shutdown. Celebrity chef José Andrés opened up a pop-up restaurantoffering free meals, while Kraft announced a grocery store pop-up filled with its products.

Crowdfunding website GoFundMe said last week that federal worker have launched more than 1,500 campaigns since the shutdown began.

 

[Helios]

For those interested in what the advertisement that CBS was..... here you go.



And a little more about it:

Here's the Medical Cannabis Super Bowl Ad CBS Refused to Run

saw this last night, would have been interesting to see actual NFL athletes in the Ad as well.

 

[Whisper]

Maybe the C in CBS stands for Cowards ?

 

[elykpeace]

Maybe the C in CBS stands for Cowards ?

corporate bull- shit

 

[Baron23]

Yes, but remember....our Federal Government has determined that MJ has absolutely no medical benefit (while licensing big phara versions) and our politicians are firmly leading from behind.

Study shows more people using medical marijuana in place of pharmaceuticals

A University of Michigan study has found that many medical marijuana users were able to replace their use of pharmaceutical drugs with cannabis. The research, which was published this month in the Journal of Psychoactive Drugs, showed that 44 percent of those who used medical cannabis were able to stop taking a pharmaceutical drug, use less of one, or both.

The study was conducted by Daniel Kruger of the University of Michigan Institute for Social Research and co-authored by Jessica Kruger, a clinical assistant professor at the University of Buffalo. The researchers aimed to assess attitudes and use of medical cannabis and the mainstream health care system, which they defined as either a doctor or hospital, among marijuana users.

To conduct the study, researchers surveyed 450 adult attendees of an event advocating for cannabis law reform held at the university each year. Among the 392 usable completed surveys, 78 percent said that they used cannabis to treat a medical or health condition. The study also revealed that 42 percent of survey respondents had stopped taking a prescription drug due to their use of medicinal cannabis. Also, 38 percent reported that they had reduced their use of prescription medications. Those who responded to the survey reported using medical marijuana to treat pain, back problems, depression, and headaches and 30 percent reported that they were using cannabis without the knowledge of their healthcare provider.

The researchers also found that “medical cannabis users reported a greater degree of use of medical cannabis and a greater degree of trust in medical cannabis compared to mainstream healthcare. In comparison to pharmaceutical drugs, medical cannabis users rated cannabis better on effectiveness, side effects, safety, addictiveness, availability, and cost,” according to their report.

Patients Using a Variety of Cannabis Products
The study’s participants were 58 percent men and 40 percent women, with 2 percent giving no gender or listing it as “other.” The age of respondents varied from 18 to 71 with a mean age of 29. Those who took the survey reported a wide variety of ingestion methods including “smoking bud/flower (95%); smoking concentrates or extracts (hash, wax, oil, etc.; 57%); using a vaporizer with bud/flower (38%); using a vaporizer with concentrates or extracts (e.g., hash, wax, oil; 37%); ingesting cannabis edibles (65%); smoking dabs (51%); using a topical lotion, cream, or oil (19%); and other methods (4%).” Participants reported that they obtained 47 percent of their cannabis from medical marijuana dispensaries and 40 percent of it was received directly from someone who grew it.

Daniel Kruger, who is a member of the University of Michigan Institute for Healthcare Policy and Innovation, said that the research illuminated trends in cannabis use that should be acknowledged by the healthcare system.

“This study advances knowledge in the evidence-based approach to harm reduction and benefit promotion regarding medical cannabis,” he said. “Given the growing use of cannabis for medical purposes and the widespread use for recreation purposes despite criminalization, the current public health framework focusing primarily on cannabis abstinence appears obsolete.”

 

[Baron23]

Like I give a flying f*ck about how Michael "I'll tell you how big a soda you can buy" Bloomberg thinks I should live my life. Screw this guy (see Mom...I almost choked keeping the name I was going to call him inside....this is not healthy! I'm all vreklempt hahaha)

I mean, why would anybody listen to a guy ignorant enough to say: "incidentally, we are trying to legalize another addictive narcotic"

Michael Bloomberg: Legalizing marijuana ‘perhaps stupidest thing anybody has ever done’

Former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, a potential 2020 Democratic presidential candidate, is not a fan of marijuana legalization. In a speech at U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland Tuesday, Bloomberg called the drive to legalize recreational cannabis “perhaps the stupidest thing anybody has ever done.”

“Last year, in 2017, 72,000 Americans OD’d [overdosed] on drugs. In 2018, more people than that are OD’ing on drugs, have OD’d on drugs, and today, incidentally, we are trying to legalize another addictive narcotic, which is perhaps the stupidest thing anybody has ever done,” Bloomberg told the crowd.

“We’ve got to fight that, and that’s another thing that Bloomberg Philanthropies will work on it in public health,” he added.

Bloomberg’s anti-legalization comments stand in stark contrast to most Democratic presidential candidates who have begun their 2020 campaigns. Current New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo has reversed his policy on cannabis legalization as well, pushing hard for adult-use marijuana legislation in 2019.

“The fact is, we have had two criminal justice systems: one for the wealthy and the well-off, and one for everyone else,” Cuomo said in a speech last December. “And that’s going to end. We must also end the needless and unjust criminal convictions and the debilitating criminal stigma, and let’s legalize the adult use of recreational marijuana once and for all.”

Though Bloomberg’s statements Tuesday night have drawn widespread media attention, this is not the first time the former governor has railed against cannabis legalization. As Marijuana Moment first reported, Bloomberg said that legalization “doesn’t make any sense at all,” during a speech at the University of Toronto last week.

 

[just_tHe_fLu]

Yes, but remember....our Federal Government has determined that MJ has absolutely no medical benefit (while licensing big phara versions)

...made me think of this ...