This ambiguity impedes the formation and establishment of a new universal meaning of legal cannabis

To a great extent, the press and television adopted the presidential definition of drugs: although some journalists and activists were critical of the government’s solution to the drug problem, they did not question the use of the “war” metaphor and thereby reinforced the existing perspective . Businesses, public organizations, and ordinary citizens have embraced the rhetoric of US presidents and mass media, holding urban ethnic minorities responsible for the creation of the drug problem and accountable for its resolution . The result of these rhetorical battles was more generous funding of law enforcement agencies and the growth of the prison population. Law enforcement agencies’ budgets increased.Nowadays, cannabis use for recreational and medical purposes is becoming more mainstream. According to Gallup, support for legalizing cannabis grew from 12% in 1970 to 68% in 2020.34 As Simon ironically comments, “We will perhaps have arrived at the ‘tipping point’ when baby boomers are more anxious about access to medical marijuana for their chemotherapy than if their kids are lighting up after school” . Even though cannabis has been to a great extent legitimate in the eyes of large parts of the population, the dynamics of governing through crime has not changed. While state cannabis laws gradually become more permissive, federal law enforcement remains punitive. According to FBI statistics, in 2017, cannabis was still responsible for over 40% of all drug arrests. The racial consequences also remained despite the advance of legalization: African Americans are more likely to be arrested for driving under the influence of cannabis, possession of cannabis by youths, and public consumption of cannabis indoor grow system. What can we take from the “told” history of cannabis? As I show above, the sociological and sociolegal literature presents the criminalization of cannabis as a moral issue.

Many studies provide evidence that the war on cannabis was a moral crusade that undermined the medical professionals, discredited scientific research, and spread fears among the population. In this constructivist approach to the drug problem, anti-cannabis rhetoric functions as a currency in political campaigns: the purpose of the war on cannabis was not to counter actual drug crime or drug abuse but to respond to white middle-class anxiety towards immigrants, minorities of color, or political activists. By performing a symbolic—rather than instrumental—role , anti-cannabis legislation drew a line between “normal” and “pathological” substances and between deserving and undeserving citizens. Sociology of deviance defines several essential characteristics of morality policies.First, moral laws are centered around controversial questions on which it is difficult to reach a compromise. These are a product of culture wars upon which individuals project their ideals of good life . Since different groups have opposing and even mutually exclusive concepts of virtue, moral issues tend to recur now and then and rarely come to an ultimate resolution. Second, moral laws seek to establish a set of values that dominate at their present time. According to James Hunter, laws are not just about what we can and cannot do; laws “contain a moral story that proclaims the ideals and principles of the people who live by them” . Through lawmaking, societies create “a particular nomos, a normative universe that draws distinctions, discriminates, judges, excludes and includes” . Third, passing moral laws involves the work of “moral entrepreneurs,” the rule creators and rule enforcers who invest their efforts in constructing a new meaning of goodness . Moral crusaders believe that what they do is good for others and that by improving morality, they help people live a better life . Moral entrepreneurs can have differing agendas—prohibitionist, abolitionist, humanitarian, traditionalist, liberal, etc.—but their ultimate goal is to change the existing rule. Fourth, morality policies are often difficult to enforce because the policy’s objective is symbolic and offers no clear operationalization . The application of moral laws does not affect actual behavior—for example, it does not decrease drug consumption rates—but instead shies it away from public display, encouraging the development of the black market.36

We tend to think about moral politics as banning certain activities rather than allowing them. This research, on the contrary, focuses on the legalization of cannabis as an example of permissive morality regulation. The moral dilemma that characterizes the current cannabis debate can be described as “social expectations vs. core individual rights.” As the history of cannabis criminalization shows, prohibition stood as a symbol of the general system of values with which the conservative white majority was identified. The Protestant ethics measured men’s moral worthiness in terms of productivity: any activity distracting an individual from being productive is a waste of time. Using cannabis for pleasure is immoral not only because it can affect an individual’s physical well-being but also because it represents a particular lifestyle and attitude toward work and social responsibilities. In turn, the legalization rhetoric centers on the discussion over the limits of state intervention in the private behavior of citizens.The US Constitution guarantees the right to privacy and non-interference by the state in personal matters, and the California Constitution lists a right to privacy among the inalienable rights .The history of cannabis criminalization shows that ideas and moral visions have been a decisive factor in the adoption of anti-cannabis legislation. Currently, California is in a transition period when cannabis use is slowly getting normalized in public perception but continues to be illegal and pathological from the federal government’s perspective.Analyzing the context of the war on drugs is important for understanding the departure point of this ideational change. However, as I argue in the next section, in order to apprehend today’s status of cannabis, we should turn away from the macro-level explanations and shift the attention to local actors and on-the-ground processes. The crime control paradigm is preponderant in the socio-legal literature on drugs.

The social history of cannabis in the US is often recorded as a top-down, event-based analysis, which focuses on capstone legislations, elite actors, and political intentions. From this perspective, the war on drugs results from the deliberate actions of the state officials and the mass media against marginalized groups. Although these views are extremely valuable for understanding the deep historical forces of mass incarceration, the focus on top-down processes may sometimes overshadow other possible interpretations of the drug problem. By devoting much attention to the public debates over the dangers of cannabis, these studies tell us a great deal about political agendas but relatively little about the role of medical professionals, pharmacists, manufacturers, associations, businesses, schools, families, local authorities, cannabis users and distributors in defining cannabis. Drugs are not only a criminal justice issue but also a societal problem, a medical problem, a moral problem, a market problem, and so on. As Joseph Spillane points out, much of the action happens “on the street, in the daily interactions among sellers, users, families, doctors, police, and jailers” . As I argue further, the prevailing orthodoxy often fails to understand criminalization as a complex dynamic process with several levels of action and thus casts aside many essential questions. One voice that is consistently missing in the constructivist approach to the drug problem is the voice of drug addicts and their immediate environments. As Michael Fortner argues, the existing perspectives on the war of crime tend to minimize the agency of African Americans who are typically portrayed as victims of the power of racial order and reactionary Republican politics. The New Jim Crow’s thesis focuses on white power and black powerlessness, which renders black politics invisible and obscures the causes of mass incarceration . According to Fortner, many scholars treat actual crime as fiction rather than lived experience. To cover the theoretical gaps, he investigates the role of the “black silent majority” in adopting punitive legislation, namely the Rockefeller drug laws in New York City in 1973. His study provides several critical analytical implications. First, we cannot study the drug problem out of context without exploring how local institutions and local processes influenced the framing of public concerns and policy responses . Second, aggregated statistics give little information about attitudes to crime and drugs. As Fortner demonstrates, white districts in New York City experienced significantly lower violent crime rates, drug addiction, and deaths due to drugs than black areas. The devastating effect of the drug and crime problem on black communities raised great concerns among the black population and led to higher support of anti-drug and anti-crime policies.

Evidence from California reveals similar patterns: in the 1970s, whites in Los Angeles were more concerned with pollution and noise than crime, while black citizens listed better crime control as the number one issue . This picture contradicts the popular notion in socio-legal studies that whites supported punitive policies more than blacks. By focusing on white victimization and black criminalization, researchers neglected the activism of the urban black middle class, which created incentives for local politicians to respond to demands for greater punitive policies .James Forman advances a similar argument showing that working- and middle-class black communities did not support the decriminalization of cannabis. The history of cannabis is often presented as a part of the war on drugs. However, as Forman righty notices, the anti-drug campaign aimed at heavier drugs. Nixon’s declaration of drugs as the nation’s largest enemy coincided with the first attempts to decriminalize cannabis at the state level by making possession of small amounts of cannabis a civil fraction rather than a criminal offense. The widespread knowledge about the minimal risks of cannabis use boosted decriminalization movements in many states. Since the pro-cannabis movements’ leaders were overwhelmingly white, cannabis equipment decriminalization was framed as a question of civil liberties and individual autonomy rather than racial justice. In Washington, D.C., the black community took cannabis decriminalization with skepticism as a policy that protects young whites and oppresses young blacks. White teenagers could smoke cannabis without jeopardizing their future because their middle-class cocoon could shield them from the consequences of drug use. But, poor black teenagers had much less room for error because they would risk graduating from school or finding a job . In other words, to the African American communities, the drug problem was not just a hypothetical threat. The 1960s the heroin epidemics had instilled a real sensibility for the drug problem and taught the members of black communities that addiction could destroy families, schools, and entire neighborhoods. Another particularity of the crime control perspective is the reliance on law and legislation as a sole historical marker of change . The “told” history of cannabis prohibition is often plotted as a sequence of events leadings from one capstone legislation to another. Such an approach overemphasizes the role of formal laws in triggering social and institutional change. In reality, legislation itself does not cause change; its scope, significance, and relevance are determined in the process of interpretation and further implementation. To understand when, where, and how change happens and what role the law plays in the process, we need to look at local phenomena and on-the-ground practices. The event-based perspective fails to recognize that the passage of legislation is the continuation of a process that begins before and lasts after its adoption . The legal prohibition of cannabis is not merely a political project organized by a cohesive group of elite actors but a multilevel, complex, and dynamic social process. Formal legislations affirm rather than cause social and cultural changes, especially when the primary function of law is symbolic. For example, the legalization of the medical use of cannabis in California in 1996 did not affect cannabis arrest rates. The number of arrests for cannabis possession was steadily growing until 2010 and decreased five-fold in one year after the passage of SB-1449, which reclassified the possession of small amounts of cannabis as a misdemeanor . Thus, the legalization of medical cannabis symbolized the public affirmation of new social norms and ideals, but it did not change law enforcement practices. The SB-1449, on the contrary, affected people’s behavior in a more direct and instrumental manner, but its adoption would not be thinkable without the preceding cultural shift. On Fig. 1, the legalization of the medical use of cannabis in California would be a constructed event, while the adoption of the SB-1449 would be on the level of observable occurrences that followed the event.

There is a broader acceptance of cannabis in the mainstream media and among the public

Nevertheless, it would be erroneous to assume that acceptance of cannabis arose with the same intensity across California counties and cities.At the moment, only one-third of California cities permit the distribution, cultivation, testing, manufacturing, or sale of cannabis, while the rest have passed ordinances forbidding any cannabis-related economic activities within city borders. This project is the first and the most comprehensive study of the unfolding process of cannabis legalization, which empirically addresses a set of interrelated questions. First, how is the legalization of cannabis for recreational use spreading across California cities? Second, what accounts for the uneven legalization of cannabis across California cities? And third, what does the case of cannabis legalization reveal about the relationship between legitimacy and legality more generally? Historically, the war on cannabis drew a line between “productive” members of society and “dangerous” elements , thereby serving normality judgments. Today, cannabis is in a transition state: although the law made it legal in California, large segments of the population and local governments still do not accept the idea of recreational cannabis and refuse its incorporation in the communities. I explore cannabis regulation as an example of moral laws, i.e., policies that deal with problems of moral order and deviance . According to Max Weber, certain laws, especially those relating to moral issues, are not accepted on the basis of their legality, but because they express legitimate moral values . The legalization of cannabis in California presents an ideal context to unpack the mechanisms that explain why some jurisdictions move toward more permissive moral policies, and others do not. The implementation of morality policies at the city level is a neglected area of research. Many writings focus on the nature of morality policies and whether or not the state should regulate certain individual practices. Still, little efforts have been directed toward understanding how these legislations are created and carried out. This study provides an empirical test of the morality of law and explains what drives the adoption of permissive cannabis regulation at the bottom level of US politics—cities.

There is a commonly held misconception that since most citizens supported the legalization of cannabis in California,vertical agriculture its use and sale is allowed throughout the state. However, a closer look at local political projects shows that public support cannot fully explain the adoption of pro-cannabis legislation. For example, in Santa Monica, 75 % of voters supported cannabis legalization in 2016, but the city government forbade all economic activities related to recreational cannabis. Meanwhile, most of Firebaugh’s citizens voted against the legalization of recreational cannabis, but the city government permitted cannabis businesses. By focusing on cannabis legalization in the cities of California, this project brings to the fore the importance of local actors and decisions. Despite the significance of local policies, we still lack a comprehensive body of theoretically driven research explaining variation in policy outcomes at the local level . Studying local policies can be beneficial for many reasons. First, the success or failure of state or federal regulations depends on how it is operationalized and put into effect by local jurisdictions . Local practices may change an idea laid by legislators. Second, the decisions produced by local governments have a direct impact on the well being of citizens and communities. Lastly, a large number of national initiatives have grown out of local activities . For example, San Francisco was the first American city that ignored state and federal laws and decided not to prosecute “underground cannabis pharmacies”, which eventually paved the way for legalizing cannabis across the state . This research delves into the complex nature of change. I purposely do not say “legal change”, for the term oversimplifies the dynamics inherent to the transition from illegal to legal cannabis. Legalization is not a mere outcome and does not happen overnight. It is, first of all, a gradual process of social, cultural, legal, and institutional transformation, which started in California well before Proposition 64 in 2016 and may extend long into the future. Therefore, I adopt a process-oriented approach that overcomes the limitations of the outcome-based perspective, widely used in sociolegal studies, and allows us to speak about legalizing cannabis in California as a project under construction. Socio-legal scholars examine the drug problem predominantly through the lens of control, prohibition, and punishment. Drugs are viewed as a card played within the bigger political project that is the creation of the penal state. Various studies have demonstrated how drugs became both a target and a source of the war on crime, and how by associating drug use to violent crimes, the federal government made the war on drugs an integral part of American life . These analyses present a causal explanation of penal change, which contains the following key elements: the intensification of state control as a response to the public’s fears incited by the mass media. Although such theorizing is essential for understanding the drug problem, it is not sufficient.

The preponderance of the “crime and punishment” framework stifles other possible research angles and reduces the perimeter of the drug problem. Drugs are not only a criminal justice issue but also a societal problem, a medical problem, a moral problem, a market problem, and so on. Another limitation of the existing socio-legal literature on the drug problem is its outcome based and top-down orientation. The research heavily relies on causal explanations and focuses on macro-level trends, elite political actors, class conflicts, federal policies, and national mass media. At the same time, it neglects other layers of interpretation, such as local-level processes, institutional practices, and social relations. As Andrew Abbott notes, the vast majority of sociological studies aim to evaluate the causes of “what happens” but lack a reflective concept of how to temporarily conceptualize “what happens” . Instead of focusing on where we ended up, Abbott says, we should look at the walk itself. The outcome-based theorizing may be problematic since it reinforces a “normal” and “objective” view of life . By explicating the causal relationship between crime and drugs, socio-legal scholars conceptualize the drug problem in the same inadequate way as policymakers and therefore run the risk of exacerbating intolerance and prejudices . Currently, socio-legal scholarship lacks an alternative language to speak about the drug problem and continues investing in the criminal justice approach . Cannabis legalization raises interest among various social science disciplines—jurisprudence, sociology, criminology, political science—which focus on a narrow range of topics, such as the discrepancy between federal and state regulation, or the effect of legalization on crime rates, drug use, and driving under the influence. Much of this scholarship defines law in instrumental terms: legal change simply ensues from broader policy and regulatory shifts, such as the passage of the Controlled Substance Act in 1970 or Proposition 64 in 2016. However, the law is not a direct reflection of collective consciousness; neither is it the immediate result of lawyers’ work. The alternative way to study law is to look at it as a communicative practice that directs attention to the law’s power in constructing meanings, legal discourses, symbols, interpretations, and knowledge. In short, to understand the nature of the legalization process, it is necessary to employ a bottom-up perspective and move from the enactment of federal and state legislation to local political projects, from the patent outcomes to latent everyday practices, and from the direct impacts to negotiated agreements.Many intricacies of the legalization process become apparent only when we apply a processual view and focus on local political projects.

What do we mean when we say that cannabis became legal in California? From a strictly juridical point of view, it means that possession, cultivation, distribution, and sale of cannabis do not represent a criminal act anymore. Individuals who consume, grow, or sell cannabis cannot be arrested or prosecuted. From a market point of view, it means that the state oversees the operation of the legal cannabis market. Namely, it creates a legal infrastructure for market development, enforces contracts, safeguards competition, protects property rights, and provides standards. Finally,hydroponics flood table from a cultural perspective, legalization means a cultural shift reflecting the broader public acceptance of cannabis. Some scholars call this process “normalization” , arguing that today, cannabis use is more tolerated, and cannabis users are less stigmatized. But how do all these processes evolve in practice? First, even though de jure cannabis is legal throughout California, de facto its status is controversial. Under the Controlled Substances Act , cannabis is classified as a Schedule I drug, along with such potent substances as heroin and LSD. Thereby, the federal government has the authority to prohibit and prosecute any use of cannabis. As separate sovereigns, the states may decide whether to cooperate with the federal government or not, but they cannot prevent the federal agencies from enforcing the law. Therefore, cannabis is legal in a state that has voted to allow it, but only to the extent the federal government chooses not to enforce the CSA . Despite several attempts to resolve the conflict between federal and state laws, cannabis is still in a legal limbo. In 2013, the Department of Justice issued a memo notifying that prosecuting local cannabis cases is not a priority.3 However, under the Trump administration, US Attorney General Jeff Sessions rescinded all Obama-era lenient policies towards cannabis, including the memo limiting federal prosecution of local cannabis cases.4 Currently, Congress is debating over the Marijuana Opportunity and Reinvestment and Expungement Act , which decriminalizes cannabis and completely removes it from the list of controlled substances.5 On December 4, 2020, the House of Representatives approved the ACT, but many experts are pessimistic about its passing in the Senate. Second, the continued status of marijuana as a federally prohibited substance significantly hampers the states’ capacity to implement new regulatory policies effectively and creates legal jeopardy for those in the legal cannabis market .

As Sam Kamin notes, “federal prohibition acts as a brake on an industry that otherwise might grow with unhealthy pace” . Cannabis dispensaries cannot obtain banking services since financial institutions are not ready to support companies selling a product that the federal government treats as an illegal drug. They have to rely mostly on cash and thus become an easy target for robberies . Additional obstacles for legal cannabis companies are associated with high taxes, difficulties with obtaining legal aid, and unavailability of property rights protection and other business necessities . The adversity of the business environment induces some cannabis distributors to stay outside of the legal market. In 2018, California legal dispensaries sold fewer products than a year before, when only medical cannabis was allowed6 , a picture which many specialists associated with the persistence of illegal or semi-legal economic activities.7 Third, in the last decades, cannabis use has undergone a transition from a largely marginal activity to a more prevalent and tolerated one . California issued more than 20,000 cannabis licenses within the first two years of the legalization of recreational cannabis. The number of professional associations, networks, business-related newspapers, websites, and the variety of cannabis products is continually growing.According to Gallup, the support of cannabis legalization grew from 12% in 1969 to 66% in 2018.8 After the possession of less than an ounce of cannabis was reclassified as a misdemeanor9 in 2010, the number of arrests for cannabis possession has dropped considerably—from 56,000 in 2010 to 10,000 in 2011 . The evidence indicates that cultural attitudes to cannabis have changed. However, there is still a certain stigma associated with cannabis. Despite its normalization, cannabis use continues to be perceived as risky, marginal, and deviant and is often kept private to escape conflicts with family, landlords, employers, or police . The war on drugs generated various misconceptions about cannabis, which detrimentally affect the image of current cannabis users and cannabis dispensaries. For example, under Proposition 64, public and private companies have a right to ask job candidates and current employees to pass a test on cannabis to “maintain a drug and alcohol-free workplace.” If a drug test shows traces of cannabis, a person can lose a job. 10The legal status and the meaning of specific products vary over time and space .

Several studies have analyzed cannabis use among pregnant and non-pregnant women

One other study has utilized results from TAG to predict cannabis involvement in an independent sample. Vink and colleagues used polygenic scores created by aggregating SNPs at varying p-value thresholds, up to p = 0.5, to predict tobacco, alcohol and cannabis phenotypes in an independent Dutch sample. Such an approach has the advantage of utilizing effects, even those that are not statistically significant, to create a genetic predictor that is more consistent with the polygenic view of complex behavioral traits. The TAG polygenic scores for CPD were associated with CPD and cannabis use but the extent to which the most significant SNPs contributed to these findings is unclear. Our analyses studied these highly significant individual SNPs that were part of the polygenic scores and while we note a similar degree of association with rs1051730, we do not see any association with other TAG SNPs . We also extended the association to cannabis abuse/dependence, a phenotype that was not studied by Vink et al. . It is also worth noting that, for both tobacco smoking and cannabis involvement, SNPs associated with initiation were not associated with later stages of CPD or abuse/dependence. Prior twin analyses have suggested substantial overlap across genetic factors influencing initiation and problem use of both tobacco and cannabis . Nonetheless, evidence for genetic factors that only influence later stages of tobacco dependence have also been identified and is consistent with our results and those from the prior smoking meta-analyses . Some limitations of this study are worth noting. First, the evaluations focused only on European American subjects as the meta-analyses were restricted to similar samples. Second, these data did not have a quantitative “CPD-like” measure of cannabis use. Third, as the sample was enriched for alcohol dependence, rates of cigarette smoking and cannabis involvement are higher than those noted in the general population. This enrichment, particularly as one of the contributing samples was ascertained for nicotine dependence , may have influenced our ability to detect these associations. Importantly,grow rack the associations with cannabis involvement should be viewed as preliminary and pending replication.

In conclusion, while analyses revealed some promising relationships of SNPs previously implicated in tobacco smoking with cannabis measures, these associations did not appear to be independent of their effects on smoking. As large meta-analyses of tobacco smoking have shown, by increasing sample sizes, common variants associated with cannabis involvement can also be successfully identified. Such discoveries will enhance our ability to identify such cross-disorder SNPs with greater precision, as has been witnessed for phenotypes such as schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, major depressive disorder and autism .Previous literature shows a link between the passage of laws legalizing the use of cannabis for medical or recreational purposes and the possible effect on use rates, especially among youth. However, research into the impact of cannabis laws among pregnant women is limited. This study finds consistent associations of legalization of recreational cannabis is associated with cannabis use throughout the reproductive cycle; medical cannabis legalization was also associated with cannabis use, but only in the preconception period.These findings suggested legalization may play a role in cannabis use during pregnancy and providers may want to consider how and when the council pregnant women about substance use in states with legalization.In 1996, California became the first state to legalize cannabis for medical use and 28 other states have since followed suit, with eight also allowing recreational cannabis use . Today, cannabis is the most used illicit drug in the past year among all adults; 10–34% report use and among pregnant women 4–9% of report use . Cannabis use during pregnancy may have adverse effects on perinatal and child health outcomes including low infant birth weight and child mental health concerns . Moreover, the perception of harm of cannabis use among pregnant women may be decreasing along with legalization, given that some dispensaries “recommend” cannabis to pregnant women to alleviate pregnancy-related symptoms . Additionally, studies show that women who use cannabis during pregnancy are also more likely to use it in conjunction with tobacco, the most used substance during pregnancy.The concurrent use of two substances is a potentially dangerous combination since tobacco and cannabis use together is associated with an increased risk of adverse birth outcomes including stillbirth and small-for-gestational age when compared to using one substance alone.Researchers reported that low education levels, being unmarried, and using other substances all correlate with cannabis use, and very few studies examine state legalization status as a potential factor.

Studies of the general population and the limited studies including pregnant women show that cannabis legalization may affect patterns of substance use behavior and in recreationally legal states show a direct correlation between cannabis legalization and increased use of cannabis . Studies of pregnant women specifically found, those who use cannabis tend to enter prenatal care later and to use other substances along with cannabis, including tobacco . Importantly, these studies did not account for electronic cigarette use, even though studies show known health risks and use has increased markedly in the U.S. among pregnant women . Therefore, studies are needed that account for e-cigarette use when evaluating prenatal and postnatal concurrent tobacco and cannabis use. Furthermore, given the evolving cannabis policy in the U.S. and negative health impacts of both cannabis and tobacco on fetal and women’s health, current data specific to pregnant women that also account for state legalization status are crucial for advancing prenatal care and education. The current study was designed to address these gaps. Using the Pregnancy Risk Assessment Monitoring System survey, the sample included respondents from 16 states with varying types of cannabis legalization to: Examine the prevalence of cannabis use during the preconception, prenatal and postpartum periods Determine prevalence of co-occurring use of tobacco before and during pregnancy Identify factors associated with preconception, prenatal, and postpartum use of cannabis including state legalization status. We hypothesized that factors associated with cannabis use during the three time periods will be like those in the general population including a higher use among women living in states with recreational cannabis legalization. Additionally, we predicted women using cannabis would be more likely to co-use other substances, particularly, tobacco.The study is a secondary analysis of cross-sectional survey data collected in the 2016 through 2018 Pregnancy Risk Assessment Monitoring System by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and state health departments. Based on a stratifed sampling frame which selects from recent live births with complete birth certifcate data, the PRAMS survey is sent to pregnant women six weeks to three months post-partum throughout the United States as a way of monitoring perinatal health behaviors and experiences and their subsequent impact on infant health outcomes.

Comparison between states is possible through standardization of procedures and survey instruments. The sample for the current study included women 18 and older who provided an answer to the questions about cannabis use. Women under 18 were excluded due to the potential confounding factors associated with adolescent pregnancy and their lack of legal access to cannabis. The fnal sample included 36,391 women living in 16 states in the United States who were administered questions specific to cannabis use on the PRAMS survey and who gave birth between January 1st 2016 and December 31st 2018 for a weighted sample reflecting 15,486,000 women. Given the study design and possibility that women answered the survey for multiple pregnancies, prior to analysis we searched for duplicate participant identifiers and did not find repeat ids. Women agreed to participate in the survey with the knowledge and consent that the data may be used for scientific study . The study was reviewed and deemed exempt from further review by the University Institutional Review Board based on use of deidentified data. Therefore, the study was completed in accordance with the ethical standards in the 1964 Declaration of Helsinki and its later amendments.Individuals were classified either as cannabis users if they answered “yes” or nonusers if they answered “no” during three time periods: before pregnancy , during the last three months of pregnancy , and 6–12 weeks after delivery . Three prevalence outcomes were examined. Cannabis use during the last three months of pregnancy based on the question, “At any time during the last 3 months of your recent pregnancy, did you use marijuana or hash in any form”?; Cannabis use in the 12 months before pregnancy , based on the question, “At any time during the 12 months before your recent pregnancy, did you use marijuana or hash in any form”?; and cannabis use since delivery based on the question, “At any time during the 3 months since delivery,greenhouse grow tables did you use marijuana or hash in any form”? The final question regarding use after delivery was only asked in 8 of the 16 states analyzed .All analyses were conducted using Stata version 14 with PRAMS weights applied to account for the complex sampling design and generate estimates generalizable to pregnant women across the United States.

The PRAMS weights are determined by multiplying the sampling, non-response, and non-coverage of the weight yields and more detailed is available elsewhere . Less than 1% of respondents were missing data for any covariate; therefore, variables with missing data were imputed with the mode. All analysis was repeated with complete cases only with no substantive differences in the findings; results presented include imputed values. The prevalence of cannabis use was estimated in each of the three time periods . All socio-demographic and prenatal care characteristics were summarized and compared with chi-square tests for cannabis users and non-users during each time . Logistic regression was used to examine each cannabis use outcome as a function of state cannabis legalization status and the socio-demographic and health covariates. As a sensitivity analysis the three models were also repeated with clustering at the state-level, with no substantive differences to the reported results.In a large sample of pregnant women in 16 states, we contribute estimates of the prevalence of cannabis use in the preconception, prenatal and post-partum periods finding associations with use in recreationally legal states and some associations with residence in medically legal states. The rate of cannabis use before pregnancy reported here is consistent with nationally reported rates of 10.5% of the general population using cannabis but lower than recent rates of 34% in 2020, reported by the National Institute on Drug Abuse . To date, few studies include both recreational and medical cannabis legalization status as factors potentially influencing perinatal cannabis use.Studies that include legalization were typically limited to only one state and only addressed recreational legalization.Several factors could account for the state legalization status and association with use found in the study. First, as states legalize cannabis, women’s perception of harm of cannabis decreases, resulting in an increase in use rates as noted in the general population . To support this point, findings from a qualitative study where in-depth interviews were conducted found that 62% of women using cannabis reported that they would increase their use during pregnancy if cannabis was legalized . Similarly, another study found that women who used cannabis during pregnancy did not believe the substance harmful . Second, the opening of dispensaries following state legalization allows for better access to and promotion of cannabis use, possibly leading to use during pregnancy. In Colorado, a study of dispensaries found 69% recommended cannabis to the researcher who was claiming to be pregnant and asking for a recommendation on the use of cannabis during pregnancy . Future studies are needed to test the proposed mechanisms as drivers of use among pregnant women in recreationally legal states. The finding in this study of a higher odds of using cannabis during the preconception period in recreationally legal states and medically legal states are of particular concern given 45% of pregnancies in the United States are unplanned . In the cases of unplanned pregnancy, women using cannabis could unknowingly expose the embryo to cannabis derivatives like tetrahydrocannabinol during a critical period of fetal development. However, given that the preconception data for this study were collected up to twelve months before pregnancy to the study cannot accurately measure how close to conception women were using cannabis.

The minimum capital investment in testing equipment needed to satisfy regulations is substantial

To complement licensed testing lab data, we also drew on personal interviews, phone calls, and email exchanges with sales representatives of three large equipment suppliers. Table 3 summarizes capital costs, other one-time expenses, and annual operational and maintenance costs used in our calculations. We report average cost and standard deviation for each estimate. We assume that medium-sized and large labs receive discounted prices on equipment, given the larger scale of their purchases. Based on information provided by equipment suppliers, we expect these discounts to be between 1.5% and 2.5%. Different-sized labs have different capacities based on their scale. We assume that larger labs have made larger capital investments and are better able to optimize processes when supplying a larger volume of testing . On the other hand, small testing labs require less equipment and less capital investment, and operate with low annual costs, but their testing capacities are also low. Table 4 summarizes our estimates of running time for tests, the main consumables used by testing machines, and the expected cost of running a specific test per sample. In addition, we include a range of $80 to $120 per sample to cover general material and labor apparel used while preparing and processing samples. We estimate that in small labs , capital investment in equipment is about $1.1 million; in the medium-sized labs , capital investment in equipment is about $1.8 million; and in large-scale labs , capital investment in equipment is about $2.8 million. These capital costs,grow rack system amortized over a 10-year time span with a 7.5% rate of depreciation and interest, represent less than 15% of total annual expenses.

Annual costs of operating range from $1.4 to $2.2 million for small labs, $2.7 to $3.7 million for medium-sized labs, and $6.2 to $8.1 million for large labs. Consumables are the largest share of total annual costs in large-scale labs, whereas labor is the largest share of costs in small-scale labs. In medium-scale labs, consumables and labor have about equal shares of annual costs. Different-sized labs differ in their capacity and efficiency. The highest possible sampling cost we assume for small labs is about $35 per sample if the distributor is located 156 miles away . On average, costs of collection, handling, and transportation represents a small share of total lab costs per sample. Fig 4 shows the distribution of full testing cost per sample from 1,000 Monte Carlo simulations assuming 49 labs. Variability of the cost per sample within small labs is high, with the highest and lowest cost within that group differing by $463. The difference between the highest and lowest costs in large labs is $88, with a lowest cost per sample of about $273. The average full cost per sample tested is about $313 for large labs, $537 for medium labs, and about $778 for small labs . Large cost differences per test and per batch document the large-scale economies and differences in operational efficiencies across labs of difference sizes. The aggregate amount of cannabis flowing through licensed labs in 2019 remains relatively small relative to the anticipated amounts expected in the future. That means labs that may anticipate growth, operate well below capacity. Substantial scale economies suggest that,grow rack system as the market settles, the smallest labs must either expand to use their capital investment more fully, leave the industry, or provide some specialized services to distributors that are not accounted for in the analysis presented here.

Simply put, the average cost differences shown in Table 6 or the simulated ranges displayed in Fig 4 should not be understood as a long run equilibrium in the cannabis testing laboratory industry.Based on the shares developed based on current information, a few large labs are likely to supply almost half the testing services for cannabis sold through licensed retailers in California, while medium labs will test about 24% of cannabis and small labs about 30% of cannabis. Using these shares and the cost information documented, the weighted average of testing cost from our simulations is about $504 per sample.In 2018, the first year of mandatory testing enforcement, according to official data published by the California Bureau of Cannabis Control and posted publicly on its website, failure rates in California averaged about 5.6% . Failure rates for the first seven months of 2019, the second year of the testing regime, have averaged 4.1%. We assume a 4% failure rate for the current market in California. By comparison, in Washington State, in 2017, the second year after the testing began, 8% of the total samples failed one or more tests. The Colorado Marijuana Enforcement Division reported that during the first six months of 2018, 8.9% of batches of adult-use cannabis failed testing, with infused edibles and microbial tests for flower accounting for the most failures. Batch size significantly affects the per-pound testing cost of cannabis marketed, especially when batch size is smaller than 10 pounds. Fig 5 shows the costs of one pound of cannabis marketed coming from different sizes of batch flowers using 0%, 4%, and 8% rejection rates. As rejection rates increase, the differences between the costs per pound of testing different batch sizes decreases. For example, given a 0% rejection rate, the cost of testing per pound of cannabis marketed from a one-pound batch is about 27 times higher than the cost of a 48-pound batch; on the other hand, given an 8% rejection rate, the cost of testing per pound of cannabis marketed from a one-pound batch size is only seven times higher than the cost from a 48-pound batch size.Table 7 shows costs per pound of cannabis testing itemized into laboratory cost, the value of lost inventory, and the cost of remediating failed batches, given different rejection rates and batch sizes. For small batch sizes, laboratory costs are a higher share of total testing costs than they are for large batch sizes. For a one-pound batch size, the total cost of testing of a pound of cannabis that reaches the market is about $641 when the expected rejection rate is equal to zero. The cost increases to $714 if the expected rejection rate is equivalent to 4%, and to $791 if the expected rejection rate is 8% . The share of laboratory cost from total cost decreases as the rejection rate increases and the value of lost inventory therefore increases.

Under an 8% expected rejection rate, the share of lost inventory is half of the total cost for eight-pound batches .In this paper, we use a simulation model to estimate the costs per pound of mandatory cannabis testing in California. To do this, we make assumptions about the cost structure and estimated the testing capabilities of labs in three different size categories, based on information collected from market participants across the supply chain. For each lab, we estimate testing cost per sample and its share, based on testing capacity, of California’s overall testing supply. We then estimate a weighted average of the cost per sample and translate that value into the cost per pound of cannabis that reaches the market.We use data-based assumptions about expected rejection rates in the first and second round of testing, pre-testing, and the remediation or processing of samples that fail testing. Our simulations rely on information collected from several sources, including direct information from testing labs in California, price quotes from companies that supply testing equipment,rolling flood tables interviews with cannabis testing experts, data on testing outcomes for cannabis and other agricultural products from California and other states, data on pesticide detection in California crops, and data on average wholesale cannabis batch sizes.As lab scale rises, testing capacity rises faster than do input costs, so average costs fall with scale. We find that a large lab has four times the total costs of a small lab but 10 times the testing capacity, in part because large labs are able to use their resources more efficiently. Testing cost per pound of cannabis marketed is particularly sensitive to batch size,rolling flood tables especially for batch sizes under 10 pounds. Testing labs report that batch size varies widely. The maximum batch size allowed in California is 50 pounds, but many batches are smaller than 15 pounds. We assume an eight-pound average batch size in the 2019 California market, but we expect that the average batch size will increase in the future as cultivators become larger and more efficient and take advantage of the opportunity to save on testing costs .Testing itself is costly, but losses inflicted by destroying cannabis that fails testing is a major component of overall costs. Low or zero tolerance levels for pesticide residues are the most demanding requirement, and result in the greatest share of safety compliance testing failures. Cannabis standards are very tight compared to those for food products in California. A significant share of tested samples from California crops have pesticide residues that would be over the tolerance levels established for California cannabis . Some foods that meet pesticide tolerance established by California EPA may be combined with dried cannabis flowers to generate processed cannabis products . Pesticide residues coming from the food inputs may generate detection levels of pesticide over the tolerance levels set by cannabis law and regulation, even if they are otherwise compliant as food products.

Cannabis testing regulation is strict compared to tobacco, another inhalable crop. Tobacco has no pesticide tolerance limits because it is considered to be an inedible crop used for recreational purposes.Cannabis has multiple pathways of intake, such as edibles, inhalable, patches, etc., and also may be prescribed for people with a health condition, searching for alternatives to traditional medicine. Some labs report that when samples barely fail one test, they have a policy of re-testing that sample to reduce the probability of false positives. Some labs have reported up to 10% in variation in test results from the same sample. Some labs indicate that about 25% of samples need to be re-tested to be sure that results are accurate. Such concerns have been widely reported. In July 2018, some producers voluntarily recalled cannabis products after receiving inconsistent results of contaminant residues from different laboratories; and some California labs have also been sanctioned by the Bureau of Cannabis Control for failing state audits on pesticide residue tests. A major issue for legal, taxed and licensed cannabis market is competition with cannabis marketed through untaxed and unlicensed segment. Higher testing costs translate into higher prices in the licensed segment. Safety regulations and testing may improve the perceived safety and quality of cannabis in the licensed segment, thus adding value for some consumers. However, price-sensitive consumers move to the unlicensed segment when licensed cannabis gets too expensive. A useful avenue for further research is to investigate cannabis testing regulations and standards across states to assess implications for consumer and community well being and competition with unlicensed cannabis. Compared with other agricultural and food industries, the licensed cannabis industry in California has relatively little data. Banking is still done in cash, and sources of government financial data are less available for cannabis than they are for other industries. As the licensed cannabis segment develops, we expect that increased access to data on the market for testing services, including on prices, quantities, and batch sizes. Data from tax authorities, the track and-trace system, and the licensing system will then help clarify the costs and implications of mandatory cannabis testing.Assessing the environmental impacts of the cannabis industry in Northern California has been notoriously difficult . The federally illegal status of cannabis has prevented researchers from obtaining funding and authorization to study cultivation practices . Fear of federal enforcement has also driven the industry into one of the most sparsely populated and rugged regions of the state , further limiting opportunities for research. The result has been a shortage of data on cultivation practices and their environmental risks . An improved understanding of cannabis cultivators’ water use practices is a particularly pressing need. Given the propensity of cannabis growers to establish farms in small, upper watersheds, where streams that support salmonids and other sensitive species are vulnerable to de watering , significant concerns have been raised over the potential impacts of diverting surface water for cannabis cultivation.

We hypothesized that cannabis exposures would increase significantly following each of these changes, especially among children

Marked increases in cannabis sales were reported by industry and business sources during the COVID-19 pandemic,1 and studies of cannabis users in the U.S.,2 the Netherlands,and Canada reported increased cannabis use during the pandemic. Content analyses of Twitter and other social media and online sources during the pandemic found increased discussion of cannabis as treatment for COVID-19. The number of cannabis dispensaries is increasing with legalization and dispensaries are an important source of marketing messages,but it is unknown to what extent online cannabis dispensary marketing activities may have contributed to increased pandemic sales. We analyzed cannabis dispensary websites to gain insight into cannabis marketing practices at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, leveraging an existing study of a small geographic area with two different historical policy contexts. The region from the San Francisco/Bay Area extending east to the Reno area of Nevada is readily accessible by car, but includes two states with contrasting regulatory contexts: California has a long history of acceptance of cannabis including the counterculture of the 1960-1970s, medical marijuana legalization in 1996, and a longstanding cannabis cultivation.In contrast, Nevada’s medical marijuana policy was implemented fairly recently in 2015. Both states approved adult use cannabis in 2016, and deemed cannabis dispensaries essential during the pandemic. Dispensaries remained open in California; in Nevada, dispensaries were initially limited to delivery, but in May 2020 allowed curbside pick-up and in-store purchases.An August 2020 cannabis industry report found that sales rose overall during the COVID-19 pandemic, and stated that “e-commerce solutions were the key to success”.As part of an ongoing surveillance study comparing dispensary websites in San Francisco, Alameda and Washoe Counties, we noted special COVID-19 announcements appeared days to weeks following lockdown and analyzed these to gain insight into industry marketing responses to the pandemic.

We conducted a content analysis of website announcements, comparing dispensaries in San Francisco/Alameda Counties and those within a 30 mile radius of Reno, Nevada, between April-May 2020. We obtained lists of all licensed dispensaries from local health departments and verified the businesses were open using online resources . We included all dispensaries with functional websites . Three trained researchers reviewed all websites and recorded all content related to COVID-19 with screenshots. COVID-19 announcements appeared on websites shortly after the stay-at-home orders were announced, often as pop-up windows appearing on top of the home page, or as an extra web page. We coded only content from the dispensary, not unrelated pop-up ads. The content code book was adapted from a prior website content analysis instrument,and the team iteratively reviewed, discussed,best trimming trays and revised codes, including six new codes specific to the COVID-19 pandemic . Two authors double coded all COVID-19 announcements for the presence of each theme; the unit of analysis was the website. The team met weekly to review and discuss discrepancies in coding and to resolve conflicts, using a fourth investigator to adjudicate if needed. Inter rater reliability measured by Krippendorff’s alpha was 0.77 – 1.0 for COVID-19 variables. COVID-19 announcements were present on 25/32 of dispensary websites in San Francisco/Alameda counties and on 9/15 of websites in the Reno area. Of the websites with COVID-19 content, almost all announced operational changes.72% of San Francisco/Alameda and 56% of Reno websites announced safety measures like wearing masks, hand washing, cleaning surfaces, temperature checks, physical distancing, notouch payment or eliminating smell samples. Some asked patrons not to come to the dispensary if feeling ill, with reference to sick or immuno compromised clients. The majority of websites made references to, or provided links to, government or public health resources, either as the explanation for changes in operations, or to demonstrate that the dispensary was cooperating with health authorities. The look and feel of COVID-19 website announcements varied widely; most dispensaries utilized simple “pop up” windows on the site home page with text announcements to customers of altered hours, access or pick up policies. However a few created custom graphics for promotions or discounts, and one dispensary adorned their logo with a mask. Health-related announcements were present in several forms. Of San Francisco/Alameda County dispensary websites, 36% referred to their status as an essential service, a theme not found on Reno area websites. The status as an essential service was often accompanied by references to cannabis as a medicine, or a connection to health authorities. For example, one San Francisco dispensary posted a quote “Cannabis is an essential medicine for many San Francisco residents.

Dispensaries can continue to operate as essential businesses during this time, while practicing social distancing and other public health recommendations” that was attributed to the San Francisco Department of Health. Another announcement stated, “So, what are the essentials? Groceries, prescription drugs, gas, urgent medical care, and weed. This list is what’s necessary for the health and safety of us all during this time.” More frequently, COVID-19 announcements included more general health statements such as, “The health and safety of our staff and customers is of the utmost importance to us.” A few dispensaries gave advice about ways to use cannabis, implicitly to avoid COVID-19 infection, such as, “Opt for non-invasive forms of ingestion – edibles, tinctures, drinks, soft gels” and “Do not share cannabis joints, vapes or edibles.” One dispensary suggested cannabis use for anxiety, “If you are experiencing anxiety, consider using products with CBD, THCA, CBN, or low doses of THC” and this dispensary also suggested bulk purchases as a way to mitigate COVID-19 infection risk, “Limit your need to travel by stocking up on your supply. We are offering a 10% discount when you buy 4 eighths or 4 extracts , stackable with our senior and veteran discounts.” 44% of Reno websites included general statements about the importance of their patrons’ health, while general statements were found on only 16% of Bay Area websites. However, all announcements that recommended specific ways to use cannabis to mitigate COVID-19 risk or anxiety were from Bay Area dispensaries. One Bay Area dispensary asked patrons to contact local county supervisors to advocate for cannabis as an essential service and provided links. A minority of sites in San Francisco/Alameda Counties offered COVID-19 discounts or specials, including a “heroes discount” for health workers, and discounts for those laid-off from work. One San Francisco dispensary sold surgical masks and hand sanitizer. This is, to the best of our knowledge, the first study describing the novel COVID-19- related marketing communications from cannabis dispensaries during stay-at-home orders. We found that like other businesses, most cannabis dispensaries implemented operational changes, including delivery, pickup, and sanitation measures and made general statements that health and safety was important to them. In addition, however, we found some announcements on dispensary websites that were more unique to cannabis sales, such as those that linked cannabis and health, either by referring to cannabis as medicine, making references to government or health authorities, and utilizing rhetoric similar to healthcare providers, including making recommendations for cannabis forms to reduce disease transmission risk or strains to use if one was experiencing anxiety. The study’s strength is that it provides a novel and timely snapshot of practices that may influence cannabis consumption in a rapidly evolving context. Surveillance of cannabis websites can complement and help to explain findings of the behavioral studies reporting increased cannabis use. This aspect of cannabis marketing may be more agile and difficult to capture with traditional marketing surveillance; the COVID-19 announcements appeared soon after lock downs. By October 2021, all of these announcements had disappeared from all but one of the dispensary websites . This study captured a unique transient marketing activity, suggesting that during future societal events or stressors that might impact cannabis consumption, rapid surveillance of cannabis dispensary websites is warranted.

The study has several limitations: it has a small sample size, this cross-sectional analysis of dispensary websites does not represent other types of cannabis websites or places without legal cannabis,trimming tray and it addresses only dispensary COVID-19 announcements, not consumer behavior. This study adds perspectives on new COVID-19 related content to prior analyses of cannabis advertising,which also found retailers positioning themselves as healthcare providers. While we did not find explicit claims that cannabis could treat COVID-19, some announcements suggested ways to use cannabis to avoid infection, or suggested cannabis products to use if experiencing anxiety; these implicit connections between cannabis and health are consistent with prior studies finding cannabis dispensary health benefit claims.This analysis was limited only to the COVID-19 announcements; a subsequent analysis of the full website content found that anxiety was the most common mental health claim, present on 80% of websites in this sample.This limited analysis of the COVID-19 announcements from a single time point early in the pandemic likely underestimates the potential influence dispensary marketing could have on cannabis consumption. While COVID-19 announcements had largely disappeared from dispensary websites by October 2021, an informal review of the dispensary websites included in this analysis in October 2021 found that one featured a blog post on the topic, “Can marijuana cure coronavirus?” and several websites featured blog posts about using cannabis for anxiety, a topic indirectly relevant to the stress of the ongoing pandemic. While this study does not address consumer behavior, another study found in states where cannabis is legally sold, people with mood or anxiety disorders were more likely to use cannabis to selfmedicate.The marketing tactics we observed to maintain cannabis availability and align with health authorities might contribute to increased cannabis use, particularly since other studies show stress and decreased access to medical services were associated with the pandemic. This study demonstrates that cannabis dispensary websites are a timely source of data on industry responses to rapidly changing events and public health policies that may impact cannabis consumption.

The study identified two tactics in the COVID-19 announcements preserved which might contribute to increased cannabis consumption: preserving ready access to cannabis as an essential service, and reinforcing perceptions of cannabis as a medicine and dispensaries as health services. While use of online ordering and delivery services has been documented in prior analyses of cannabis websites we found these services became nearly universal after stay-at-home orders. The increase in home delivery of cannabis and other intoxicants that accompanied the COVID-19 pandemic may persist, posing new challenges for surveillance research.Future studies should address the impact of cannabis marketing and messaging on consumer cannabis consumption and health-care seeking behavior during stressful events. In 1996, California became the first state to legalize the use of medical cannabis. Children’s exposures to cannabis increased by a factor of three from 2010 to 2016. For children under 6 these exposures were primarily accidental; for adolescents these exposures were more commonly related to cannabis misuse. In November 2016, two decades after the medical legalization, Californians passed a ballot measure legalizing recreational cannabis. Recreational cannabis legalization has been associated with increased exposures, and these disproportionately affect vulnerable groups, particularly children, young adults, and older adults. As of 2021, eighteen states and the District of Columbia had legalized recreational cannabis and cannabis had been decriminalized in 27 states. In the first two years after recreational legalization in Oregon and Alaska, local poison control centers reported increased accidental cannabis exposures among children, commonly leading to sedation. Children were also more likely to be admitted to intensive care after exposure. After Colorado legalized recreational cannabis in 2012, unintended health consequences included increased healthcare visits due to ingestion, cyclic vomiting syndrome due to frequent use of high THC concentration products, and burns from THC extraction-related explosions. Colorado also reported increased healthcare visits due to accidental ingestion of edible products by children and increased unintentional overdoses, while among adults, concentrated products such as resins and liquid concentrates resulted in increased toxic exposures. In 2013, there had been a 16 percent increase in hospitalizations in Colorado due to cannabis in pediatric patients and a 30 percent annual increase in call rates to poison control. COVID-19 shelter-in-place orders may also have affected cannabis exposures; with increased cannabis use anticipated in response to lock downs. Mental health stress associated with the COVID-19 pandemic has been associated with increased desire to use recreational substances, especially in states where cannabis is legal.

The SF extract of hemp seed effectively scavenged the DPPH and ABTS radicals than ethanol extract

Accordingly, the ethanol and SF extracts hemp seed appears to both scavenge the free radicals and also restore the expression of antioxidant enzymes. Hence, the expression of antioxidant enzymes activity by hemp seed is might be ascribed to the presence of bio-active metabolites. This study is the first report on the expression of antioxidant enzymes by hemp seeds in HepG2 cells.It also up-regulate the expressions of SOD, GPx and CAT enzymes in concentration dependent manner. These findings strongly suggest that ethanol and SF extracts of hemp seed may participate in cellular protection as an antioxidant molecule and stimulate the expression of antioxidant enzymes. It could be concluded that hemp seeds appear to be a useful of source of a therapeutic agent for the treatment of oxidative stress mediated disorders. Recreational marijuana has been legalized for adults 21 years of age or older in several states beginning with Colorado and Washington in 2012. In 2014, Alaska, Oregon, and the District of Columbia voted to legalize recreational marijuana, followed by California, Massachusetts, Nevada, and Maine in 2016. We use data for students at Washington State University to explore the role legalization plays in marijuana use among college students, a population generally thought to be predisposed towards risky behavior, including marijuana use. Our main hypothesis is that legalization of recreational marijuana induces more students to use marijuana by lowering one or more of the costs of using it. These costs may include the threat of punishment, the price and/or availability of marijuana, a lack of social acceptability, and an inherent desire to be law-abiding. Throughout the U.S., marijuana access has been relaxed in three general ways: decriminalization, medical marijuana legalization , and recreational marijuana legalization . In the early 1970s, eleven states officially decriminalized the possession of small amounts of marijuana.Though there is some evidence that use may increase with decriminalization ,hydroponic grow tent most research finds no evidence for such an increase .

Since 1996, 28 states have legalized medical marijuana, which still prohibits recreational use. Most evidence shows that MML has not increased marijuana use among people younger than 21 , although Pacula, Powell, Heaton, and Sevigny find that MML increased use and abuse by those under and over the age of 21. Other studies find MML is associated with more non-medical use and abuse , more marijuana-related arrests and marijuana rehabilitation treatments , and a decrease in the price of illegal marijuana . There have been no direct assessments of the impact of RML on marijuana use of college students, though Cerdá et al. find some evidence that RML is associated with lower perceived risk and higher use for youth. Pacula predicts that use will increase. Hall and Lynskey predict that the price of marijuana will drop and heavy use will increase. Anderson, Hansen and Rees find evidence that RML has decreased the price of marijuana. Our population of interest in this paper is students at WSU in Pullman, Washington. Many changes with respect to marijuana law and availability have occurred in Washington in the past two decades. In 1998, Washington decriminalized marijuana for adult medical use, with qualifying conditions expanding in 2007, 2010, and 2011. In November 2012, Washington passed Initiative 502, which legalized the possession of marijuana for personal recreational use by people aged 21 and older and established a structure for licensing and taxing the production and distribution of recreational marijuana. Legal possession and use of marijuana took effect in December 2012. The first licensed retail stores opened in July 2014. In this paper, we investigate whether the 2012 legalization of recreational marijuana is associated with an increase in use above the long-term trend toward more use in Washington. We hypothesize that marijuana use at WSU increased after RML because both the direct and social costs of using went down. RML increases the availability of marijuana for those 21 and older, and likely for those under 21 as well. It is expected that RML lowers the price of marijuana , increasing demand. Legalization eliminates the threat of punishment to legal-age users, and sends a strong message about changing norms, lowering the social costs of marijuana use. Also, Moreno, Whitehill, Quach, Midamba, and Manskopf find that legalization may have caused some Washington college students to perceive marijuana as safer. The first indication that marijuana use may have changed in Washington after Initiative 502 is observed in the trend of reported marijuana use. Fig. 1 shows the proportion of students who reported using marijuana in the past 30 days across years. For comparison, we also include the proportions over time of students who reported using tobacco, alcohol, or illegal drugs other than marijuana.

To facilitate comparisons, proportions for use of each substance are presented as deviations from the 2012-use levels. We observe a substantial increase over a general upward trend in marijuana users after 2012. Use of the other substances does not show a similar increase. More rigorously, we test for changes against a linear trend in the reported use of marijuana at WSU after RML at the end of 2012 and after legal sales began in Pullman in October 2014. We find that the probability of having used marijuana in the past 30 days increased after RML and remained high though did not increase significantly again after the first marijuana stores opened. We also test for these same changes within specific subgroups of the population. First, we compare the change in use for legal-age students to those under 21, who are not directly affected by RML. We find that for those under 21, the probability of using marijuana increased both after RML and after legal sales began. For students age 21 and over we find no increase at either juncture that is statistically significant at conventional levels. Among other subgroups, we find consistent evidence of an especially large increase in the probability of use for females and for Black and Hispanic students . RML may also affect the use of tobacco, alcohol, or other drugs, either as a substitute or complement. Moreover, factors other than RML that affect marijuana use likely also change the use of other substances. We find no evidence for any systematic changes in the use of other substances that correspond directly with the changes in marijuana use after RML. We are also interested in the intensity of marijuana use, so we test whether the average frequency of marijuana use increased after RML or legal sales. These results show the intensity of marijuana increased after RML, but decreased again after legal sales commenced. Data limitations prevent us from including a reliable control group in the regressions.2 Thus, the estimated effect of RML from the above tests represents the actual treatment effect of RML only to the extent that the linear trend is a good proxy for what marijuana use would have been like without RML. We provide an alternative evaluation by comparing marijuana use at WSU to two national datasets. Although we are unable to include any co-variate controls in the national data after 2011, we calculate simple difference-in-differences estimations of the impact of RML at WSU using two national samples as counterfactuals.We use repeated cross-sectional data of undergraduate students at Washington State University , collected for the National College Health Assessment , a comprehensive health survey collected and made available by the American College Health Association.

WSU has participated in the NCHA in seven different survey years: 2005, 2006, 2008, 2010, 2012, 2014, and 2015. The total number of survey responses available is 14,485, with a mean of 2,069 students surveyed each year. Participants were randomly selected from the student population for all survey years except for 2012 and 2014; in those years, invitations were distributed to the entire student population. After eliminating observations for missing values, our sample contains 13,335 observations. The first column of Table 1 shows the number of students in each year of the WSU sample. The distribution of surveys across years for the excluded observations is nearly identical to the distribution for the whole sample. The NCHA surveys contain questions about students’ use of marijuana, tobacco, alcohol,cheap grow tents and other drugs. Our main variable of interest is a count of how many times a student used marijuana in the past 30 days. For tests 1 and 2, this variable is modified into a binary indicator of whether a student used marijuana at all in the past 30 days. Variables included as controls in our regressions include age, sex, race, and year in school. In other specifications, we also include respondents’ grade point average , type of residence, membership in a fraternity or sorority, and whether a student is international or if they have used tobacco, alcohol, or illegal drugs other than marijuana in the past 30 days. Table 2 provides summary statistics for these variables.Also included in this table are mean values for all variables both before and after the passage of Initiative 502, and summary statistics for the same variables in the national sample of NCHA data and in the NSDUH sample as available. The student population at WSU is about 53-percent male, 68-percent white, 3-percent Black, 5-percent Asian, 10-percent Hispanic, and 5-percent international. The distribution across years for undergraduates is about 23-percent first-year, 23-percent second-year, 24- percent third-year, and 31-percent fourth-year or more . The average GPA for students is about 3.08 . In 2014, the average age across all six campuses was 23 for undergraduate students .

Between 2013 and 2015, 21- to 24-percent of undergraduate students were in fraternities or sororities . Because the cited WSU population statistics are measured after 2012, we compare the NCHA sample statistics to the WSU population for observations after 2012. It appears that the NCHA sample is representative of the WSU population, except for an oversampling of white and Asian students and an under sampling of male and older students. In the NCHA surveys, students are encouraged to select all races that apply to them, which may explain the oversampling of white and Asian students.WSU population data for race is available from 2009 and the NCHA sample closely matches with respect to trends in race composition over time. specifically, the proportion of white students decreases, Black and Hispanic students increase, and Asian students remain constant since 2009. The average age of students in the NCHA sample is lower in part because it only includes students from the Pullman campus, which is WSU’s main undergraduate campus. Finally, there is a small difference in the proportion of male-to-female students in the sample, though this proportion is consistent before and after RML. For difference-in-differences calculations, we use two national-level data sources on marijuana use. First, we use a national sample from the NCHA survey beginning in 2005 that contains surveys from the spring and fall of each year until 2011 and from only fall in 2012 and 2013. Only schools that survey a random sample of students are included in the national dataset. According to the ACHA, the NCHA’s national data is reliable, valid, and suitable for use as a national reference group . We also use data from the National Survey on Drug Use and Health for 18–25-year-old college students from 2005 to 2015. Both national samples contain the same measures as the WSU sample for whether and how many times a respondent had used marijuana in the past 30 days. To more closely match the WSU sample, observations are excluded from the national samples that have missing values for any variables matching those included in the regressions. Table 1 displays the number of students, the number of schools, and the average number of students per school in each year of the national NCHA sample and the number of students in each year of the NSDUH sample. The difference-in-differences calculations are only a valid estimate of the effect of RML to the extent that the national data is a sufficient counterfactual to what we would see at WSU in the absence of RML. We evaluate the extent to which the WSU sample matches the national samples in the pre-RML period by first comparing the means in Table 2.

Models for each sub-cortical structure are based on a training set of manually traced images

Voxel-wise statistics were corrected at the cluster-level using Threshold-Free Cluster Enhancement to a Family-Wise Error rate of p b 0.05, with 5000 permutations. Nevertheless, as a further control for heritability, we conducted follow-up analyses by randomly selecting one user from each family such that there were no siblings within the sub-sample, resulting in 272 marijuana users. Identical analyses were performed using the full user sample and the unrelated sub-sample. These analyses were conducted using FSL’s randomise package, which performs permutation methods, without using exchange ability blocks. Following the PALM analyses, 5000 permutations were performed. Likewise, voxel wise results were corrected using Threshold-Free Cluster Enhancement to a FWE-corrected p b 0.05.We further processed the pre-processed diffusion images using FSL’s FDT toolbox and Tract-Based Spatial Statistics . Briefly, the diffusion tensor model was fit at each voxel yielding maps for fractional anisotropy , axial diffusivity , radial diffusivity , and mean diffusivity . These maps were then nonlinearly aligned to the FMRIB 1 mm FA template and skeletonized. This last step creates a skeleton which represents the centers of all fiber bundles that are generally common to all participants in the study. The skeleton was thresholded at FA b 0.3. The skeleton and nonlinear registration parameters were generated using the FA maps, and these transformations were subsequently applied to the other diffusion parameter maps. Voxel-wise statistics were then performed in this skeleton space.The effect of marijuana use on white matter was assessed with a linear parametric analysis across level of marijuana use. Participants reported a wide-range of levels of marijuana use in terms of age of first use as well as the number of times used over the lifetime, as shown in Fig. 1. Age of first use and times used were included as factors of interest and, as described above, all analyses included alcohol and tobacco use, age, gender, years of education, and Total Motion Index as co-variates. For a table of correlations between all co-variates see Table 1.Analyses of voxel wise gray matter morphometry were carried out with FSL-VBM an optimized VBM protocol carried out with FSL tools . First, structural images were brain-extracted and gray matter-segmented before being registered to the MNI 152 standard space using non-linear registration.

The resulting images were averaged and flipped along the x-axis to create a left-right symmetric,trimming tray study-specific gray matter template. Second, all native gray matter images were non-linearly registered to this study-specific template and “modulated” to correct for local expansion due to the non-linear component of the spatial transformation. The modulated gray matter images were then smoothed with an isotropic Gaussian kernel with a sigma of 3 mm. Finally, voxel wise GLM was applied using permutation-based non-parametric testing, correcting for multiple comparisons across space, using Threshold-Free Cluster Enhancement . Following Weiland et al. , we also performed a multivariate analysis on the effects of marijuana use on sub-cortical and cortical volumes and cortical thickness extracted with FreeSurfer.Rather than analyzing whether marijuana showed a multivariate effect across all 35 cortical regions contained in this table as did Weiland et al. , we chose an a priori approach, focusing on prefrontal regions and sub-cortical regions where marijuana has been shown to have significant effects . Regions of interest included 15 prefrontal cortical regions : medial and lateral orbitofrontal cortex, caudal anterior cingulate, caudal middle frontal, inferior frontal gyrus , rostral middle frontal, superior frontal, and frontal pole. Subcortical regions included nucleus accumbens, hippocampus, cerebellum cortex and white matter, thalamus, and amygdala. White matter volumes were included for the anterior and mid anterior corpus callosum.Shape analyses of sub-cortical ROIs were carried out using FSL’s FIRST tool . FIRST allows for a model-based segmentation and registration of anatomical images, where volumetric labels are parameterized as surface meshes.Vertex locations from each participant were projected onto the surface of the average shape , resulting in scalar projection values. This approach normalizes for brain size.

The same models of marijuana use generated for the white matter analyses were used here. Again, PALM was used to perform multi-level block permutation analyses. In order to identify which, if any, sub-region of the hippocampus, amygdala, or nucleus accumbens exhibited a shape difference, we referred to the Jülich histological atlas contained in FSL. Because FIRST only reports changes at the surface of the structure and does not contain information about which deep levels of a structure are impacted, these sub-region labels represent approximations.We then examined the effects of marijuana use on white matter diffusion parameters . The group comparison showed no significant effects, possibly suggesting that the frequency of marijuana use in the HCP sample is not severe enough to replicate previous studies, which largely focused on comparisons of non-users and daily marijuana users. In line with this possibility, there were no linear effects of the number of times used on white matter coherence in users. As shown in Fig. 2, age of first use had a positive association with FA as well as a negative association with RD, such that an earlier age of first use was associated with lower FA and greater RD in a large cluster of right hemisphere white matter. These tracts primarily subsisted of the Superior Longitudinal Fasciculus , Inferior Longitudinal Fasciculus , and Forceps Major and Minor. The SLF connects the prefrontal cortex and parietal cortex and is involved in executive functions , and the ILF connects the temporal and occipital cortices, has been shown to affected byadolescent marijuana abuse . The Forceps Major and Minor are extensions of the corpus callosum connecting the left and right occipital and frontal lobes, respectively. Thus, even though most of the effects on FA and RD were found in the right hemisphere, communication between the left and right hemispheres may be impacted by marijuana age of onset.When examining the subset of unrelated marijuana users, we confirmed the negative effect of an earlier age of first use on FA and RD in the SLF, as shown in Fig. 3. Increased RD has been related to demyelination in neurodegenerative diseases such as multiple sclerosis , suggestive of a neurotoxic effect with early age of first use of marijuana. These findings taken together, and in line with previous studies , suggest that an earlier age of onset is associated with decreased coherence of white matter. Moreover, these results suggest that marijuana use has an impact on the development of these white matter tracts during adolescence.We then investigated whether the shape of the hippocampus, amygdala, or accumbens was impacted by marijuana use. For the full sample of users, the results are shown in Fig. 4. There was a trend for a significant negative relationship between the number of times used and scalar values in the left amygdala .

Participants with a higher number of times used showed more inward deflection in the superficial group of the left amygdala. In the right nucleus accumbens, there was a significant positive relationship between age of first use and shape, such that participants with an earlier age of onset of use showed greater outward deflection. This finding suggests that a later age of first use is related to more outward deflection of the right anterior nucleus accumbens. In the left hippocampus cornu ammonis and posterior hippocampus subiculum, a greater number of times used was associated with greater inward deflection . The effects of the number of times used marijuana in the restricted sample closely mirrored those in the full sample. In the left superficial amygdala there was a trend for participants with a higher number of times used to show more inward deflection . Likewise, the same pattern was observed in the left hippocampus cornu ammonis . For age of first use, however, there was the opposite pattern , albeit in the left posterior nucleus accumbens , suggesting that a later age of first age is associated with a more inward deflection of the left posterior nucleus accumbens. This latter finding is similar to that observed by Gilman et al. who found that more frequent use was associated with an inward deflection of the nucleus accumbens. When comparing users and non-users,trim tray pollen significant effects on shape were discovered in the right amygdala and left hippocampus. There were two clusters in the right amygdala, one in the dorsal superficial group and another in the ventral laterobasal group, that showed more outward deflection in users compared to non-users. Similarly, in the left ventral anterior hippocampus , users showed more outward deflection compared to non-users. This region was more ventral and anterior to the cluster in the subiculum that showed a negative association with times used in users. These group results are somewhat surprising, as the correlational analyses within users showed inward deflections in more heavy users. However, the left and right nucleus accumbens also showed opposite patterns of inward and outward deflections with greater use, respectively. Thus, one possibility is that marijuana has differential effects in the left and right hemispheres. Nevertheless, Gilman et al. found more inward deflections for heavy users in both left and right nucleus accumbens and the right amygdala.Despite a trend of de-criminalization and softening societal views, the scientific literature on the effects of marijuana on the brain has not yet reached a consensus. Work with adolescents has consistently shown that heavy marijuana use leads to disruptions in the integrity of white matter . However, work investigating the effects of marijuana on the morphometry of gray matter and sub-cortical regions has yielded inconsistent findings, with several papers even providing strong evidence that heavy marijuana has no effects on brain morphometry . The current study took a broad look at this question using a multi-modal neuroimaging approach on data from almost 500 participants reporting varying levels of recreational marijuana use. These data from the HCP include the highest quality neuroimaging data publically available, with almost twice the resolution for structural images , and using state of the art diffusion imaging . This large dataset enabled us to investigate parametric associations between marijuana use and cortical and sub-cortical brain morphometry and white matter integrity. An advantage of this dataset is that it represents a representative community sample, with great variability in race,ethnicity, gender, education level, mental health symptoms, and drug use . Moreover, such ‘big data’ sets like the HCP are becoming more and more commonplace , and it will be important to mine these datasets to discover new insights about the functions and organization of the human brain. Importantly, this data set provided information on age of first use providing information on whether or not use occurred during early adolescence. Adolescence is a time of critical brain development for white matter tracts, with white matter volume increasing into young adulthood . Heavy marijuana use during this critical period may impact development , and specifically, a number of frontal and association white matter tracts show decreased white matter integrity with heavy adolescent use. Recently, Becker et al. found that over the course of two years, young adults with an adolescent onset of marijuana use showed reduced longitudinal development of FA in key frontal, central, and parietal white matter tracts. The current findings are largely consistent with those reports. We found that an earlier age of first use was associated with decreased FA and increased RD in long-range tracts including the forceps minor, Superior Longitudinal Fasciculus, and Inferior Longitudinal Fasciculus. Given that the average age of participants in the current study was 29.2, the effects of marijuana on white matter appear to be long lasting, persisting 10–20 years after the first use of marijuana. Future, studies should examine the effects of duration of use on the trajectory of brain development. With regards to shape, a recent meta-analysis has suggested that the sub-cortical structure most consistently implicated in showing an effect of marijuana use is the hippocampus . Consistent with that finding, we observed that anterior aspects of the hippocampus showed shape differences due to the number of times marijuana has been used. This finding is interesting as anterior and posterior sub-regions of the hippocampus have dissociable roles in memory, with the anterior portion being involved more in memory encoding and the posterior portion being involved more in memory retrieval ; however, an exploratory analysis revealed no connection between hippo-campal or amygdala shape and memory performance in these participants .

The issue of marijuana legalization has been divided and debated across political stances

In recent years,however,the public health policy regarding marijuana legalization has been swiftly changing in the United States.As of April 2018,nine states – Alaska,California,Colorado,Maine,Massachusetts,Nevada,Oregon,Vermont,and Washington – and the District of Columbia have enacted laws to authorize the production,distribution,and possession of marijuana.A total of 29 states and DC have allowed medical use of marijuana for patients with approved health conditions.States with medical marijuana laws have an evident form of patient registry,and they provide protection against arrest for possession up to a limited amount of marijuana for medical use.In the U.S.,marijuana legalization may be one of the most controversial issues including legal,policy,health,and economic considerations.For example,marijuana legalization has been a highly contested public health issue between state and federal drug laws.Also,the essential question may be whether marijuana has medical value.The national controversy over marijuana legalization has included discussion of both the benefits and risks of non-medical marijuana use.Additionally,it is important to consider economic effects of marijuana legalization.Communication researchers have examined how the news media can influence public perceptions or attitudes toward certain issues by using the notion of framing.According to Gamson and Modigliani,a frame refers to a key organizing theme or idea that provides meaning to issues or events reported in a news story.A frame is an idea organizer that packages an issue in a specific way,telling what the issue is about.Media frames suggest how the public can interpret an issue or event,and framing involves selection and salience.Thus,news framing can influence the public’s perceptions about public health policy including marijuana legalization.

Drugs have been described mainly as objects of government enforcement and negative connotations of use in the mainstream news outlets.In the issue of marijuana legalization,roll bench a variety of organizing themes can be presented.For example,a marijuana legalization story can be framed as a legislation issue,in which news stories primarily emphasize the legislative proceedings regarding marijuana use and marijuana legalization.Previous studies have explored how American news media frame the marijuana policy,including medical use of marijuana and recreational use of marijuana.Analyzing newspaper articles between June 2008 and June 2009,Vickovic and Fradella found that U.S.newspapers mainly discussed medical marijuana as legal and regulatory issues and passage of medical marijuana news.Although it is very prominently discussed in terms of public health,legal,policy,and economic perspectives,researchers had paid little attention to how the media presented this issue.In order to reduce the gap in the literature,we make an attempt to comprehensively investigate media frames about marijuana legalization.First,we examine the organizing theme of marijuana legalization stories.More specifically,this study investigates how U.S.newspapers present the issue of marijuana legalization from 1995 to 2014.Also,we look at whether the frequency of organizing themes remains steady or not over time.As a recent survey shows,public opinion on legalizing marijuana has dramatically changed.Second,we explore the tone of each news article.specifically,this study examines how the tones of marijuana legalization are presented and changed over time between 1995 and 2014.Coleman et al.suggest that story tone assumes affective perspective,providing the story a positive,neutral,or negative connotation.affective attributes consider audience’s emotional responses to media stories.Examining the tone of ethanol stories in U.S.newspapers,for example,Kim et al.categorized story tone into pro-ethanol,anti-ethanol or neutral.They found that 48% of stories described a bio-fuel issue as neutral.In this study,the story tone refers to answering the question of whether the story is overall in support of or in opposition to marijuana legalization.

Additionally,the political orientation of news outlets has been considered as a major factor that can influence the tone of news stories.Thus,it can be predicated that liberal newspapers tend to describe marijuana legalization with a positive tone more often than conservative newspapers.To select newspapers from both states where marijuana is allowed and illegal,we analyzed a total of 10 newspapers published in the United States.Considering the location,circulation,and political orientation of newspapers,three categories were selected for analysis: national newspapers,newspapers in states where marijuana is illegal,and newspapers in states where medical marijuana is legal.These newspapers were available at the search databases.According to the 2008 and 2012 presidential endorsements,liberal newspapers include the New York Times,the Washington Post,the Denver Post,the Seattle Times,and the San Francisco Chronicle,while others are conservative newspapers.News articles were retrieved using a key word search of three search engines: the Lexis-Nexis,the News Bank,and the Factiva databases.The keywords “medical marijuana” OR “marijuana use” OR “marijuana legalization” OR “legal marijuana,” appearing in the headline or the lead paragraph of the Lexis-Nexis database,in the lead or first paragraph of the News Bank database,and in the text of the Factiva database were used to find articles of coverage selected for this study between 1995 and 2014.This search yielded a total of 4186 articles – including editorials – from the 10 newspapers,and we produced a manageable systematic random sample of about 75 articles from each paper.This study excluded unrelated stories where marijuana was simply mentioned without being the main focus or where reported marijuana related crimes.After excluding these unrelated articles,a total of 640 articles were analyzed.The coding instrument was developed through a comprehensive review of news stories and previous studies.

Coding was conducted by one of the authors and one graduate student.Coders first read a story carefully,and then decided an organizing theme of each story by examining what was the main focus.Because researchers paid little attention to examining news frames of marijuana legalization,more than 100 news articles were carefully reviewed to find out organizing themes in stories related to marijuana legalization and medical marijuana.Then,six organizing themes were identified after examining marijuana legalization stories and previous studies.Each story was categorized into one of the six organizing themes: legislation,law enforcement,youth drug use,economy,patients,and medical effects.When coders found more than two themes in an article,they checked both.The description of organizing themes is presented in Table 1.Coders then coded overall tones of a story.This study used the way to indicate overall tones examined by the previous studies.Coders first decided that each paragraph was positive,neutral,or negative toward medical or recreational use of marijuana.There were three major considerations to examine: what was emphasized in the headline and lead,how the balance or imbalance of the pros and cons of marijuana use were described,and how the metaphor mentioned in each story were related to positive or negative social norms.Coders then decided story tone as an ordinal category by classifying 1 to a negative,2 to a neutral,or 3 to a positive story.When at least two-thirds of the paragraphs could be considered as either negative or positive,coders selected one of either category.Otherwise,the story was coded as neutral.Two coders coded articles after having conducted a series of training and pilot-test sessions.Intercoder reliability was calculated by double coding a random sub-sample of the data.Intercoder reliability corrected for agreement by chance ranged between 0.79 and 1.00 with an average reliability of 0.88.This study aims to answer the question of how U.S.newspapers have presented the issue of marijuana legalization between 1995 and 2014.Newspapers have largely described marijuana legalization as a law enforcement issue rather than an economic issue or a medical issue.Taken together,our findings are consistent with previous studies that have revealed that marijuana has been mainly discussed as a legal and policy issue.Framing can affect the way the readers evaluate a certain issue,influencing their judgment.Thus,it can be argued that Americans are more likely to evaluate marijuana legalization as a public policy issue,rather than a public health issue.There can be several explanations for these findings.First,marijuana legalization is essentially the theme about the legislative acts.A number of legislative measures that allow for recreational use of marijuana have been passed since 2012.Second,marijuana stories often involved conflicts between federal and state governments,between enforcement agencies and citizens,and between governors and congresses.

The conflict perspective is a popular frame because conflict is a recognized news value.Thus,this conflict may influence journalists to report marijuana stories as a law enforcement theme.Third,a medical effect theme and a patients theme might appear less often because we examined stories related to recreational use as well as medical use.Nonetheless,criticism of newspapers’ tendency to define marijuana stories as legislation or law enforcement stories may be justified.Because these themes were clearly dominant,the issues surrounding medical marijuana were not commonly highlighted in the news.Although the issue of marijuana is important in terms of public health approach,our findings indicated that journalists paid little attention to the medical effect theme when covering marijuana stories.Our findings also revealed that organizing themes appeared differently according to the presidential periods.First,newspapers frequently described marijuana stories with a legislation theme during the Obama administration period.Since Colorado and Washington initially allowed for recreational use of marijuana in 2012,other seven more states have followed.As Griffin et al.pointed out,the passage of drying rack cannabis laws significantly increased news stories.During this period,frequent legislative activities caused media attention.Second,an economy theme more frequently appeared since 2009.Block also found that marijuana legalization was discussed mainly as a business issue in 2014.In particular,many news stories reported the expected and actual economic effects of legalization during those years.Third,a youth drug use theme peaked during the first Clinton administration period,and then it has decreased.Interestingly,according to Monitoring the Future survey,the actual use among youth was somewhat declined between 1995 and 2008.Thus,newspapers probably reflected this trend.Although more than half articles described the issue of marijuana with a neutral tone,positive stories were published more frequently than negative stories.These findings can be explained by two-sided framed stories,which often result in a neutral tone.As Sniderman and Theriault indicate,the public should make choices between several competing values in real politics.In a two-sided frame,a story presents both frames of an issue.For example,the media may present reasons to both support and oppose marijuana legalization in the same story.Over the past decade,the political discourse around marijuana legalization has been dominated by competing frames over the legal,law enforcement,economic,and public health consequences of proposed state and federal government policies.These two-sided or non-framed articles likely present the issue with a neutral tone.Our findings have several limitations.First,we examined only newspapers.If marijuana stories were retrieved from other sources for 20 years,1995 to 2014,it could be very hard to manage the sample.Thus,one of the major reasons to analyze only newspapers was to obtain a manageable sample size.Also,newspapers still provide a useful channel to deliver information,as they can play a key role in setting the agenda for other news media.

In addition,many mainstream newspapers have provided their online versions through their own web pages and social media.Thus,news stories from these newspapers can be widely exposed to Americans.Future research should include other news sources.Second,the selection of newspapers has limitations.Because some newspapers were not available through online search engines,we examined less representative newspapers,which can cause concerns regarding the generalizability of the findings.Thus,it is necessary for future research to include more representative newspapers as much as possible.Third,it can be pointed out that the categories of themes were inductively determined because there have been only a few previous studies on the topic of marijuana legalization.The coding categories used in this study may raise questions about the results in terms of validity and reliability.Thus,future studies should test the same categories that this study used and then develop more correct coding categories.Lastly,the time period for this study was between 1995 and 2014.Although marijuana was initially legalized in 2012,the first recreational sales were in 2014.Thus,news stories during 2014 could be quite different than stories from previous years.The development of high-performance materials made from natural resources is increasing worldwide due to their abundant source in the nature,low cost,light weight and high specific modulus in contrast to the synthetic fibers.In addition,they are biodegradable,renewable,have low specific weight,high specific strength and stiffness than glass fibers,ease of processing,reduced wear,good thermal and acoustic insulating properties.Hemp fiber is recently gaining attention as diversified reinforcing applications in composite industry,housing,railways and aerospace applications due to its high specific strength and stiffness.Hemp offers excellent mechanical strength and Young’s modulus.However,the foremost limitation of natural fibers used as reinforcement is the poor interfacial adhesion between polar hydrophilic natural fibers and non-polar hydrophobic polymers.Different coupling agents have been used to increase compatibility between natural fibers and thermoplastic matrices,thereby augmenting the composite’s performance.The increasing use of polyethylene in number of applications is posing a serious environmental threat and thus the researchers are motivated to undertake studies concerning recycling of polymer waste.The literature consulted so far reveals that the studies pertaining to mechanical characterization of hemp fiber reinforced polyethylene composites,especially containing recycled PE,are rather scant.In the light of these facts,it is decided to investigate the mechanical behavior of hemp fiber-recycled PE composites.

Amygdala activation was lower to both negative and positive words in heavy users compared with controls

Average beta weights from eight clusters showing a significant difference between groups were extracted using MarsBaR and imported into IBM SPSS Statistics v22 for further analysis.In addition,amygdala activation was examined based on a prior study of marijuana use and emotional processing.A mask of left and right amygdala was created using the automated anatomical labeling atlas in Wake Forest University Pickatlas.A threshold of p <.05 was used.In the whole-brain two-sample t-test,the heavy marijuana users had less activation compared with controls during NEG in four clusters: right middle frontal and dorsolateral superior frontal gyri,right middle and superior temporal gyri,right calcarine fissure and surrounding cortex,including cuneus and lingual gyri,and right superior temporal gyrus and insula.During POS,heavy users had less activation in the right inferior parietal lobe and increased activation in the right dorsolateral superior frontal gyrus relative to controls.In the amygdala region of-interest analyses,ebb flow heavy users had less activation in the right and left amygdalae during NEG and in the right and left amygdalae during POS compared with controls.See Table 3 for all whole brain and region of interest results.To determine whether differences in activation to neutral words were impacting these group differences,we conducted an independent samples t-test in SPM8 using the contrast of neutral words vs.rest.Partial correlations between brain activation and emotional functioning at scan time and at follow-up are reported in Table 4.There were negative correlations between negative emotionality measured at scan time and activation in right STG/insula and left amygdala during NEG.There was also a negative correlation between negative emotionality at scan time and activation in right amygdala during POS.

Positive correlations were observed between resiliency measured at follow-up and activation in caudal dlPFC and cuneus/lingual gyrus during NEG.A negative correlation was observed between negative emotionality at follow-up and activation in caudal dlPFC during NEG.No other correlations passed correction for multiple comparisons.Mediation analyses therefore focused on these two brain regions and resiliency and negative emotionality at follow-up.The goal of this work was to investigate the impact of heavy marijuana use during adolescence on later emotional functioning,as well as potential brain function mediators of this effect.Using a prospective design,we investigated two outcomes related to emotional functioning: negative emotionality and resiliency.We found that heavy marijuana users did not differ from controls in emotional functioning early in adolescence when marijuana use was initiated,whereas in late adolescence/early adulthood,heavy users had more negative emotionality and less resiliency than controls.To investigate the impact of adolescent marijuana use on emotion-related brain functioning,we compared neural responses to emotional words in heavy marijuana users and controls.Compared with controls,heavy users had less activation in emotion processing and integration regions,including the right insula,prefrontal cortex,and occipital cortex during the viewing of negative words,and in a region involved in attentional control during the viewing of positive words.Further,we found heightened activation to positive words in the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex among heavy users.Activation in prefrontal cortex during the viewing of negative stimuli mediated an association between marijuana use and both negative emotionality and resiliency at follow-up.

Activation in visual association regions of the occipital cortex mediated an association between marijuana use and later resiliency,but not negative emotionality.A main finding of this prospective study is that marijuana use in adolescence may impact later emotional functioning.Heavy marijuana users scored higher on negative emotionality than controls at the approximate ages of 20 and 23,whereas groups did not differ at approximately age 13,when heavy users initiated use.Furthermore,exploratory analyses revealed that negative emotionality decreased from early adolescence to young adulthood in controls—consistent with normative changes —but not in heavy users.Importantly,we observed an association between greater lifetime marijuana use occasions and higher negative emotionality at age 20,after controlling for early levels of negative emotionality.These findings are in line with other longitudinal work showing that adolescent marijuana users had increased depression,anxiety,and suicidality in young adulthood,but marijuana use was not associated with premorbid differences in negative affect.Thus,the current results add to previous work supporting an association between early marijuana use and later negative affectivity.We also investigated the impact of marijuana use on resiliency,as self-regulation plays a critical role in emotional functioning.We found no difference between groups in resiliency at the age of marijuana initiation,whereas differences emerged in late adolescence/early adulthood,with lower resiliency in the heavy use group.Although conceptualized as a temperament/personality trait,evidence indicates that resiliency improves throughout adolescence and into adulthood in healthy individuals.Furthermore,lifetime occasions of marijuana use was negatively correlated with resiliency,even after taking into account early level of resiliency.Resiliency is inversely related to depression and internalizing problems in children and emerging adults,and positively related to effective social interaction and social status.A reciprocal longitudinal relationship has been demonstrated between resiliency and positive emotionality from adolescence to early adulthood,as well as with the effective management of negative emotions.

It is possible,therefore,that adolescent marijuana use may impact emotional functioning partially through an influence on resiliency; however further work in a larger sample is required to determine these longitudinal relationships.A central goal of this study was to characterize the neural mechanisms through which adolescent marijuana use exerts its effects on later emotional functioning.We found that activation in the right prefrontal cortex to negative words mediated the association between heavy marijuana use and both negative emotionality and resiliency at follow-up.Specifically,activation in the right middle frontal gyrus and dorsolateral superior frontal gyrus was lower in heavy users than controls,an effect that was associated with decreased resiliency and increased negative emotionality at follow-up.This area of the prefrontal cortex has been referred to as the caudal dorsolateral prefrontal region and is closely connected with motor and supplementary motor regions.Prior work has found activation of the caudal dlPFC and associated regions during the reading of high-arousal emotional words.The supplementary motor and premotor regions are important for emotion processing and empathy and may regulate approach-withdrawal tendencies to emotional stimuli by integrating limbic and motor responses.A recent meta-analysis found that activation in these regions decreased to negative stimuli in alexithymia,a trait characterized by difficulties with experiencing and processing emotions.The current findings suggest that heavy marijuana use during adolescence may impact caudal dlPFC functioning,impairing the processing and integration of emotional stimuli and lead to increased negative emotionality.Additionally,we found that activation in the occipital cortex to negative emotional stimuli mediated the relationship between marijuana use and later resiliency.specifically,activation in the cortical region surrounding the calcarine fissure,including portions of the right cuneus and lingual gyrus,was lower in heavy marijuana users than controls.This activation was further associated with decreased resiliency at follow-up,when controlling for resiliency at the time of scan.Although the cuneus and lingual gyrus are classically considered as visual processing and integration regions,there is a large literature associating both regions with aspects of emotion functioning,including the processing of emotional faces,high-arousal emotional words,and emotional film clips,pot drying as well as the evaluation of one’s own emotional state.Cuneus activation has also been associated with the ability to attribute mental states to others,termed “theory of mind”.

A recent study reported that adult marijuana users had differences in brain activation compared with controls during a ToM task,including lower activation in the right cuneus.Therefore,an impact of heavy marijuana use during adolescence on the functioning of occipital regions involved in the evaluation of emotional stimuli with respect to oneself and to others may impair self-regulation of emotional processes.In addition to the regions found to mediate later outcome,heavy marijuana users had less activation than controls in the insula to negative words.These findings are consistent with previous work showing adolescent marijuana users had reduced cerebral blood flow in the insula compared with controls.Furthermore,studies of adult marijuana users found less activation in the insula to loss outcomes during a monetary incentive task and to errors in an inhibitory control task compared with controls.The insula is critical to the integration of emotional and homeostatic information,and may be involved in translating interoceptive signals into conscious feelings.For example,the magnitude of insula activation while participants evaluated their own emotional and bodily states was found to be associated with social anxiety and neuroticism.Insula activation has also been associated with self-report measures of anxiety and anticipation of aversive exposure in anxiety-prone individuals.Here we found less insula activity to negative words in heavy marijuana users compared with controls,which was further associated with more negative emotionality at the time of scan.Together,this evidence suggests that heavy marijuana use may lead to impairment in the integration of emotional experience.Activation of the amygdala was also reduced in heavy marijuana users compared to controls—an effect observed for both negative and positive words.Along with the insula,the amygdala is part of a network involved in translating interoceptive responses to emotional stimuli into emotional experience.Blunted amygdala response has been observed in individuals with difficulties experiencing and processing emotions.Acutely,cannabidiol,a psychoactive component of cannabis,has been shown to decrease amygdala activation to anxiety-inducing emotional stimuli; this effect was further associated with a reduction in electrodermal activity,supporting links among marijuana,amygdala functioning,and interoceptive response to emotion.Furthermore,prior evidence indicates that the impact of marijuana use on amygdala-mediated emotional responding is not restricted to negative stimuli.Gruber et al.reported less amygdala activation in adult heavy marijuana smokers compared with controls to both happy and angry faces presented below the level of conscious processing.Here we found less amygdala activation to both positive and negative words in heavy marijuana users compared with controls,which further correlated with negative emotionality.Therefore,marijuana may have an impact on amygdala functioning that impairs general emotional arousal and integration.

The finding of an association between negative emotionality and reduced activation of the insula and amygdala is opposite to effects described in the depression and anxiety literature,which reports enhanced activation to negative stimuli.However,a longitudinal study of individuals with comorbid major depression and marijuana dependence found that greater marijuana use was associated with reduced amygdala activation to emotional stimuli.This suggests that the mechanism through which marijuana impacts negative emotionality differs from the mechanism underlying depression and anxiety.For example,the associations between insula and amygdala functioning and negative emotionality in the current study may be more pertinent to differences in the experience and processing of emotions rather than depression and anxiety.Finally,heavy marijuana users showed reduced activity in the right inferior parietal lobule and greater activation in the right dlPFC during the viewing of positive words.The inferior parietal cortex is part of an attentional system involved in the automatic allocation of attention to task-relevant information,whereas the dlPFC is involved in more effortful attentional control.Thus,the current results suggest a decrease in automatic attention to positive words in heavy users with a corresponding increase in effortful attentional control necessary to attend to the task.This is consistent with prior work demonstrating heightened activation of right-hemisphere prefrontal attentional control circuitry in adolescent marijuana users,which may reflect the need for increased effort in attending to task-related stimuli.The results of this study should be considered with a few limitations in mind.First is the relatively small sample size,suggesting that results should be interpreted as somewhat preliminary,and further,that additional differences between groups may have been missed.Furthermore,although there is evidence of sex differences in the impact of marijuana on emotional functioning,this study was not adequately powered to investigate sex as a moderator.It will be important to address this issue in future work.Second,the control group included individuals who had occasional marijuana use in adolescence.The impact of low levels of marijuana use on brain development is not known; therefore an ideal control group would have no marijuana use.However,given the high levels of comorbid alcohol and marijuana use in adolescence,it was infeasible to create a marijuana-naïve control group while maintaining similar levels of alcohol use across groups.Third,the majority of participants in this study had a family history of AUD,which may limit the generalizability of results to those at heightened risk for behavioral and emotional problems.Using aprospective design,we found that heavy marijuana users who began using in adolescence had higher negative emotionality and lower resiliency in their early twenties.Furthermore,differences in neural responses to emotionally-laden words mediated the associations between marijuana use and later negative emotionality and resiliency in these subjects.Because marijuana use is on the rise while perceptions of harm are decreasing,this is timely work.It adds to a growing body of evidence pointing to adverse effects of adolescent marijuana use on emotional functioning and is the first to characterize the functional neural correlates of these effects prospectively.

Hemp hurds are commonly used as a filler in the manufacture of hemp concrete

Measurements show that values of thermal conductivity coefficient for composites are in a range 0.125- 0.065 W·m-1·K-1.In the paper,it was reported,that the thermal conductivity coefficients of hardened composites based on MgO-cement and unmodified hemp shives of another origin were 0.111- 0.23 W·m-1·K-1 and comparable to other building materials such as aerated autoclaved concrete.The obtained values of absorbability of composites made with chemically treated hemp shives are higher than in the case of referential composite.According to the measurements,bulk density of composites was found to be in the range of 1220-1440 kg·m-3.As shown,only chemical treatment of hemp shives with NaOH leads to slightly higher density value of composite compared to composite based on unmodified hemp shives.In the case of composites with modified hemp shives,the highest value of compressive strength was recorded for composite made from hemp shives treated by Ca2.Decrease in compressive strength values for all samples with chemically treated hemp shives in comparison to referential composite was observed.This fact is contrary to previously published data on lime composites based chemically treated hemp fibres >23@.The obtained results are difficult to interpret.It is most likely that many factors could cause this phenomen.Various unfavourable factors acting when processing the hemp shives and mixture could be considered in clarifying of this fact,e.g.short time of hardening,content of crystalline cellulose,varying polymerization degrees of cellulose and degradation of hemp fibres surface,heterogeneity of hemp shive slices in comparison to fibres as well as used binder MgO-cement,grow cannabis in containers mainly the action of alkaline components combination.

Measurements show that values of thermal conductivity coefficient for composites are in a range 0.125- 0.065 W·m-1·K-1.In the paper,it was reported,that the thermal conductivity coefficients of hardened composites based on MgO-cement and unmodified hemp shives of another origin were 0.111- 0.23 W·m-1·K-1 and comparable to other building materials such as aerated autoclaved concrete.The obtained values of absorbability of composites made with chemically treated hemp shives are higher than in the case of referential composite.According to the measurements,bulk density of composites was found to be in the range of 1220-1440 kg·m-3.As shown,only chemical treatment of hemp shives with NaOH leads to slightly higher density value of composite compared to composite based on unmodified hemp shives.In the case of composites with modified hemp shives,the highest value of compressive strength was recorded for composite made from hemp shives treated by Ca2.Decrease in compressive strength values for all samples with chemically treated hemp shives in Maximum power consumption comes to building heating,which depends on the efficiency of building envelopes.Building sector energy consumption covers 50% of the total energy consumption.Reducing building energy cost it is necessary to increase the energy efficiency of complex elements in envelopes,both in their production and operational conditions.In order to build environmentally friendly,energy efficient and affordable buildings,it is appropriate to link the agricultural and construction industries.Environmentally friendly buildings can only be built when there is the use of renewable resources.Insulation materials are increasingly used in the production of renewable resources such as hemp,flax,jute straw,various kinds of wood.Hemp is one of the most rational plant because all of its parts are used in industry.Hemp seeds are used for the edible oil extraction and bio-diesel production,bast fibers are used in special paper production,cars,construction and other industries.Fiber is obtained by soaking the hemp stalks in order to separate the fibers and non-fibrous components called hurds.Hemp hurds are ligneous woody tissues,which are considered as fiber products obtained by secondary manufacturing.Although the usage of new hemp hurds is being developed,but most of them are used for animal litter and in construction only 5%.The hemp fiber insulation is made of composite materials.

Scientists investigated the material from hemp fibers,hurds and a binder,they exhibited low thermal conductivity which varied from 0.0393 W/ to 0.0486 W/,when density was from 40.3 kg/m3 to 77.9 kg/m3 respectively.Conducted analysis by Finnish scientists has showed that the thermal insulation materials made from hemp or hemp and flax fiber mixture with density varying from 5 kg/m3 to 100 kg/m3 have the thermal conductivity ranging from 0,033 W/ to 0.094 W/.Hemp hurds are suitable for the production of thermal insulation composites due to their porous structure consisting of small pores,and due to this good strength and thermal properties can be achieved.Hemp hurds are loose-fill material,so it can be characterized by two types of porosity,i.e.internal particles porosity and porosity of the particles formed between particles.By the method of 3D tomography foreign scientists had determined that porosity of hemp hurds was of 57%.The size of pores formed between the particles depends on the texture of hurds and it is about 1 mm.The inner porosity of hemp hurds consists of 15% of 70 μm sized pores and 85% of 400 μm pores.Foreign scientists studied hemp concrete,in which the binding material was lime.The results showed that compressive strength was from 0.2 to 1.2 MPa and the modulus of elasticity – from 3 to 90 MPa.Elford 2008 also investigated the thermal conductivity of hemp concrete with lime binder.The thermal conductivity of specimens with a density ranging from 417 kg/m3 to 551 kg/m3 varied from 0.179 W/ to 0.485 W/.Swedish scientists studied the mechanical properties of composite materials from hemp hurds,fibers and several different binding materials.Compressive strength of mixture of cement and lime and only cement,varied from 0.15 MPa to 0.83 MPa,and the modulus of elasticity varied from 12.6 MPa to 28.0 MPa respectively when the density of the specimens ranged from 587 kg/m3 to 733 kg/m3.Literature analysis has shown that lime is usually used as a binding material for tests of composites from hemp hurds.The usage of other binding materials has been barely studied,so the aim of this work is to figure out how to use binder in order to obtain omptimal strength and thermal insulating properties.Now-a-days,natural fibers reinforced composites exhibit the superior mechanical properties than synthetic fiber reinforced polymer composites due to its inherent properties.

The mechanical properties such as tensile strength,flexural and impact strengths of natural and synthetic fibers reinforced polymer composites with different fiber volume were evaluated by Ramesh et al..The result indicated that,there is the significant improvement in mechanical properties and the process of hybridization reduces the risks related to the environmental concern.Sapuan et al. fabricated the composites by using banana fiber is a waste product of banana cultivation and which is easily available in tropical countries like malaysia and south india.This fiber has many advantages and holding high mechanical strength when compared to the synthetic fibers.They have prepared three samples with different geometries and evaluated the maximum stress value and young’s modulus along two directions and found the maximum deflection under the maximum load conditions.Ramesh et al. carried out an experiment to evaluate the tensile and flexural properties of hybrid composites and the results are compared.Form the experiment,they found that the incorporation of natural fibers such as sisal/jute with glass fiber improve the tensile and flexural strength and these composites play a vital role in the field of engineering and technology.They suggested that these hybrid composites can be used for medium strength applications.Venkateshwaran et al. studied the mechanical properties such as tensile strength,flexural strength,impact strength and water absorption rate of sisal and banana fibers reinforced epoxy composite materials.They have observed that there is the significant improvement in mechanical strength and reduction in water absorption rate while hybridizing the sisal fiber up to 50% by weight with banana fiber reinforced epoxy composites.The banana and GFRP composites have good tensile property with minimum deflection when compared to the flax and GFRP composites.Also the banana and flax fiber reinforced composites holds more flexural and impact strengths when compared to the flax and glass fiber reinforced polymer composites.Natural fiber reinforced composites are renewable,biodegradable,environment friendly,light weight material when compared to the synthetic fiber reinforced composites.The potential applications of these composites are growing rapidly in many engineering fields especially the cost of the material is main factor and to improve erosive environment.The mechanical properties of sodium hydroxide treated natural fiber composites under saturation pressure can be improved without any major changes in mechanical behavior.Yuanjian and Isaac have investigated the impact and fatigue behavior of non-woven hemp fiber composites which is reinforced with polyester and found that there is the remarkable improvement in such properties.Li have evaluated and correlated the compressive strength,flexural strength,toughness,pot for cannabis specific gravity and water absorption rate of hemp fiber reinforced composites with different compositions.

The water absorbing ratio and the linear specific gravity of the composites are gradually reduced by adding the hemp fiber with concrete matrix.They have observed that the fiber content by weight is the important factor which affects the compressive and flexural strength of HFRC.Hemp fiber has superior reinforcement property while increasing tensile property and strong toughness in an alkali environment.Kobayashi et al. investigated the processing and characterization of hemp fiber textile composites with micro-braiding technique and found that the hemp fiber is suitable reinforcement for textile composites.Kabir et al. studied the mechanical property of chemically treated hemp fiber reinforced composites.They found that due to the rapid climate changes in environment,the physical and geometrical characteristics of natural fiber and synthetic fiber components are affected and the fibers are undergoes some irregularities and lose the maximum load carrying capacity of the materials in engineering applications.For better surface finish of the hemp fiber composites the chemical treatment process like alkali,acetyl and silane treatments are carried out.From this study they have found that the tensile strength of untreated fiber composites is much greater than the chemically treated fiber composites.The natural fiber reinforced composites were fabricated with hemp/paper/epoxy and flax/paper/epoxy by adding the paper on the both surfaces of hemp or flax unidirectional fibers and the composites are tested under tensile loading conditions.These tensile properties are compared with unidirectional composites with absence of paper between layers of composites.They found that the unidirectional natural fiber composite with one or two layers of thin paper holds the minimum variability in tensile strength and elastic modulus.The tensile strength and delamination properties of laminated composites with paper were improved when compared to without paper unidirectional composites and the modulus are slightly reduced when compared to epoxy composites.Banerjee et al. have conducted the micro-mechanics analysis of hybrid composites by using FEA software.The different hybrid laminates are prepared by using short carbon fibers and glass fibers which is reinforced with polypropylene.In this study,the elastic constant and strength properties have evaluated by using analytical formula and the results are compared with FEA results.They have observed that the negligible variability in elastic constants and longitudinal strength properties.They also found that the significant variability in transverse strength properties.Many researchers have reviewed the experimental data about hybrid composites and they observed that rule of hybrid mixtures is the prime factor to predict the mechanical properties of unidirectional interplay hybrid composites.In the present experimental study,the mechanical properties of banana–hemp–glass fiber reinforced composite materials are evaluated.The banana–hemp–glass fiber reinforced composite materials are fabricated by hand lay-up process.The properties such as tensile,flexural and impact strengths are studied and presented in detail.The results indicated that the addition of banana and hemp fibers in the glass fiber composite materials improve the mechanical properties.The base plate was cleaned of rust by scrubbing with an abrasive paper.Then the surface was allowed to dry after cleaning it with a thinner solution.After drying,the surface was coated with silicon gel.The surface was given a few minutes to get it set for the mold lay-up.The epoxy resin and the hardener are mixed in the proportion of 10:1.The curing time or the pot life,which is how it is usually notified in the laboratory charts,was 20 minutes once mixed.The care must be taken so that the resin does not cure in the curing pot itself.A constant watch over the blend in the pot was made with the aid of a stop watch.Initially the natural fibers are dried with sunlight for 3 to 5 hours.The first laminate is fabricated by using banana and glass fibers with epoxy resin over the base plate.This laminate consists of three layers glass fiber and two layers banana fiber was fabricated by hand lay process.The size of the fabricated laminate is restricted to 300×300×4 mm.The top,middle and bottom layers of each laminate are consist of glass fiber and the second and fourth layers are filled with natural fibers.Similarly the hemp-glass fiber and banana-hemp-glass fibers with epoxy resin laminates are prepared by same hand lay method.Then the three sets hybrid laminate was cured under the loaded condition for 12 hours with the help of the weight press.