Cannabis Grow

In 2014, over a one-month period, Twitter produced over 15 times as many pro-cannabis tweets as anti-cannabis ones .This trend of pro-cannabis information outweighing the anti-cannabis information online should contribute to a shift of cannabis attitudes in a more positive direction. Even so, there remains a gap between cannabis attitudes in the media and realized patient stigmas . As a result, public cannabis education efforts which emphasize the current scientific understanding and evidence for medical cannabis use are vital to meeting patient needs.Participants indicated strong support for patient access to medical cannabis in the scenario questions before viewing the educational lectures; and the support increased after viewing them. This support, though, was observed even when participants did not indicate a pro-medical cannabis stance in the absence of a personal patient scenario; participants seemed to be objectively opposed to medical cannabis grow system, but then supported it when provided with a personalized clinical need for it.

This is not dissimilar to research on individuals changing their attitudes toward LGTBQ rights and public policy when a friend or family member comes out as gay.Currently, there is a knowledge gap among health care providers as there is no standardized curriculum for medical cannabis across nursing or medical schools in the United States . Consequently, patient demand for medical cannabis vastly outweighs the number of qualified practitioners who have been properly educated about it . Research has shown that two-thirds of medical school curriculum deans believed that their graduates were “not at all” prepared to recommend medical cannabis to patients .This is especially troubling given the patient need of and clinical evidence for cannabis as a viable alternative to opioid use . The disconnect between medical cannabis patients and their providers’ understanding of medical cannabis contributes to significant treatment issues. A recent study in Michigan found that only 21% of medical cannabis patients were comfortable with their primary care physician’s ability to incorporate medical cannabis as a treatment option .

As medical cannabis legality continues to expand throughout the United States, it is essential that further research and education efforts go beyond public education and target healthcare professionals to ensure that they can be knowledgeable and comfortable recommending medical cannabis to patients and further reduce stigmas associated with this treatment option .The strengths of this study included presenting balanced information with both the benefits and risks of cannabis and focusing on the most relevant clinical applications. There were, though, some weaknesses. The study results may not be generalizable to the national population because of its lack of variety of participants from more politically conservative areas. A large portion of the sample size comprised individuals from the state of California,where the use of medical cannabis has been legalized since 1996.Though this sample over represents California, with full access to medical and recreational marijuana grow system, given the relative populations of the states with full access to cannabis versus the states with no access, the sample does not vary from the country’s population . Further, recent research demonstrated that states’ legal status of cannabis is not a predictor of resident’s attitudes on cannabis .

The sample contained a larger percentage than the national averages of participants who identified as White or female. There was also a high dropout rate; this likely was due to the requirement of watching nearly 1.5 h of educational sessions, a large commitment with only the potential for as mall monetary reward.Additionally, researchers were unable to verify if participants viewed the educational lectures. With there being no researcher monitoring the participants, any number of external factors could have prevented the participants from finishing, and those that did claim to finish the videos could have falsified their level of completion. However, a review of the videos on the primary author’s YouTube account showed that each video had been viewed more than 125 times. This is more than the total number of participants in the study. Though this does not confirm specific participant’s viewing of the education lectures, it supports engagement from the participants as the videos were only available on the main research website and set to be viewed only to those who had the link . Likewise, the level of participant engagement with the lectures was not verified.

Here, we define “driving scenarios” as the terrain, driving route, situations encountered, and environmental conditions  represented within a simulated drive. If not designed in an evidenced-informed manner, driving scenarios may not allow for a sensitive and reliable measurement of cannabis-related effects on safe driving performance. Driving simulators also provide the ability to introduce graded challenges to test driving abilities under typical and increasingly more difficult driving situations. Therefore, in this paper we offer a framework for developing simulated driving scenarios to test for cannabis-related impairment in a controlled, repeatable, safe way, and offer a prototype driving simulation scenario as an example of this approach. This approach takes into consideration the pharmacological effects of indoor cannabis grow system, the resulting effects on sensory, motor, and cognitive abilities, and how impairments in these abilities could negatively affect driving. Scenarios can be developed to strategically target particular abilities, such as the abilities that are most likely to be influenced by cannabis.

Numerous quantitative data variables can be measured over time and results can be compared between control and experimental groups and among experimental conditions. Driving simulators often also include either a passenger seat or an operator station, thereby allowing for real-time qualitative assessments by trained driving evaluators and/or post-drive evaluations conducted using playback modes. However, the advantages of simulators can only truly be realized for this purpose if the scenarios are designed in ways that, a) target the sensory, motor, and cognitive abilities predicted to be affected by cannabis by, b) design terrain elements, environmental conditions, and events that require these abilities, c) allows meaningful, reliable, and valid outcome measurements to be extracted. For example, cannabis is known to result in reduced speed of processing. Response time can be measured using braking performance. Therefore, introducing events within the driving scenario that require drivers to react quickly, such as a pedestrian entering the roadway or a leading car suddenly braking, will allow researchers to determine whether cannabis use results in poorer driving performance as evidenced through slower braking times.

For many scenario elements, a range of difficulties should be included, since it may be that some measures are only sensitive to cannabis-related effects if the difficulty level is sufficiently high. This graded-difficulty process further highlights the advantages of customized simulation scenarios in that it allows researchers to safely test challenging situations and analyze performance patterns across different difficulty levels within individual participants and across participants. Factors such as route of administration and dosage of THC ,cannabis grow set up should be considered when developing driving simulation scenarios and experimental protocols. For example, the length of the driving scenario should target a time window within which impairment would most likely occur . Impairment of any magnitude in drivers’ sensory, cognitive, or motor abilities can potentially lead to unsafe driving . Michon’s hierarchical model classifies driving behaviors into three distinct levels of performance, namely the “operational level” , “tactical level” , and “strategic level”. Cannabinoids can affect all hierarchical levels of driving behaviours.

For instance, cannabinoids affect various parts of the central nervous system, including the basal ganglia , the hippocampus , and the neocortex. These effects can result in reduced abilities in the domains of visual acuity, coordination, reaction time, concentration, tracking of moving objects, divided attention, sustained attention, critical tracking, working memory, and decision-making ability . As such, simulated driving scenarios should incorporate elements that target each driving behavioural level . For instance, operational performance elements should be implemented to assess drivers with impaired sensory processing and motor coordination abilities, while strategic performance elements may be useful to assess higher-level cognitive impairments such as problems navigating to the desired destination. In order to present graded difficulty levels, increased sensory, motor, or cognitive loads can be introduced, such as by including, for example, low visibility environmental conditions , unexpected events , or multitasking requirements. Below we highlight several representative cannabis-related effects and corresponding scenario elements and driving measures that can be used to help quantify and characterize cannabis-related driving impairments. These effects and associated scenario elements are summarized in Table 1, although the examples listed are not mutually exclusive or exhaustive.

For example, smoked cannabis and use of concentrates among adolescents have been associated with a higher risk of continued use relative to other modes , and smoked cannabis may carry the greatest risks due to exposure to carbon monoxide  and other harmful by-products of combustion . Yet, little is known about the prevalence or correlates of different modes of cannabis administration during or before pregnancy. Previous research indicates that smoking is the most common mode of cannabis administration during pregnancy, followed by use of edibles and vaping . However, data on mode of cannabis administration in the preconception period is limited  and studies have not described sociodemographic characteristics associated with specific modes of cannabis administration. Further, the prevalence of some modes may have changed in recent years due to the perception of health risk  and the availability of new cannabis products. To address this knowledge gap, our study examined correlates of different modes of preconception cannabis use among pregnant patients in Northern California who self-reported preconception cannabis use in 2020 and 2021, during which time cannabis grow tray was legal for recreational and medical use.

We focused on racial/ethnic differences and associations with neighborhood deprivation, to examine use patterns among potentially under-served populations. Younger patients were more likely to smoke , smoke blunts, use dabs/wax, and they had a greater number of administration modes, while older patients were more likely to report using edibles/ oral and lotion/topicals . Smoking  was most common among Hispanic and Black patients and least common among Asian patients, while smoking blunts was most common among Black patients and least common among non-Hispanic White patients. Edibles/oral were most common among Asian patients and least common among Hispanic and Black patients. Use of lotion/topicals was least common among Black and Asian patients. Finally, Hispanic patients were the most likely and Black patients were the least likely to report more than one mode of administration. Examination and surveillance of cannabis use practices and modes of administration before pregnancy is an essential aspect of prevention. Using data from a large healthcare delivery system with routine preconception cannabis use screening, we found substantial variation in preconception use and co-use of different cannabis administration modes among patients who self-reported use.

While smoking was the most commonly endorsed mode, more than half of individuals with preconception cannabis use reported using edibles, more than a quarter reported vaping, 12% reported using high potency concentrates , and 10% reported using lotions/topicals. The prevalence of different modes of cannabis in our sample was similar to findings on modes of past-year cannabis administration in a nationally representative US sample of adult women  with a slightly lower prevalence of smoking and higher prevalence of edible use in the current study. The proliferation of cannabis administration options in the context of recreational legalization may entail evolving yet rarely studied risks to individuals who are pregnant or contemplating pregnancy . In our sample of patients who reported preconception cannabis use in Northern California where cannabis is legal for medical and recreational use, vertical grow system more than a quarter reported using daily and use of more than one mode was common. Notably, daily cannabis users were more likely to report each mode of administration and had a greater number of modes of administration than less frequent users, with the exception that daily users were less likely to use edibles.

Based on studies in other populations, edibles are perceived to be less harmful than other modalities and they may be the modality of choice for those who use cannabis on specific occasions  and for reasons of discreetness . However, additional research is needed to better understand the higher prevalence of edibles among individuals who use cannabis less frequently. The high prevalence of blunt smoking among individuals with preconception cannabis use warrants special attention as tobacco is known to adversely affect maternal and fetal health . Co-use of cannabis and tobacco is associated with greater risk for cannabis use disorders and ongoing long-term cannabis use . National data indicate that rates of blunt smoking are increasing over time among reproductive-aged women, and continued surveillance of blunt use in this population is important . In addition, in clinical settings these individuals could potentially be targeted for additional assistance in quitting cannabis use during pregnancy.

Given the many toxicant components found in cannabis smokers, it is not surprising that cannabis smoking notably alters the oral microbial ecology. Importantly,long-term repeated oral inoculation of A. meyeri, which mimicked cannabis exposure-increased oral A. meyeri in humans, resulted in the development of CNS abnormalities.Recent studies have found correlations between Actinomyces and Alzheimer’s disease. For example, brains from patients with Alzheimer’s disease have been reported to have strikingly large bacterial loads compared to controls . Actinobacteria, a phylum of Actinomyces,were exclusively detected in the post mortem brain samples from patients with Alzheimer’s disease compared with those of normal brains . Actinobacteria were also found enriched in the gutmicrobiota of patients with Alzheimer’s disease . Another study using 16S rDNA sequencing in the brain cell lysates further found Actinomycetales, Prevotella, Treponema,cannabis grow system and Veillonella were exclusively present in the brain of patients with Alzheimer’s disease .

In a previous study, oral microbiome and resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging  scans were conducted in cannabis smokers; the enrichment of Actinomyces in the oral microbiome was positively correlated with brain resting-state functional networks which are significantly perturbed with Alzheimer’s disease.Neuropathological hallmarks of Alzheimer’s disease include loss of neurons, progressive impairments in synaptic function, and deposition of amyloid plaques within the neuropil. Although mice do not readily develop amyloid plaques, our results show Ab 42 deposition was increased in the brain from A. meyeri-treated mice compared with controls, suggesting oral microbiome-induced neuronal responses that have relevance to Alzheimer’s disease neuropathology.Previous studies have suggested that bacteria in the oral cavity were initially taken up by tissue macrophages which may facilitate CNS infection . In the current study, A. meyeri treatment resulted in increased myeloid cell migration and phagocytosis in vitro and elevated macrophage infiltration into the mouse brain in vivo, compared with those of N. elongata treatment.

The cytokines that differed in cannabis users and non-users and in A. meyeri-treated mice and control mice are related to monocyte/macrophage functions. The TNF super family cytokine promoted a compromised blood-brain barrier, and monocytes migrated across the BBB into the brain in response to MCP-1 . Although it is not clear if macrophage infiltration results in CNS abnormalities in the setting of disease-associated immune perturbations, macrophage infiltration into the brain has been demonstrated in the pathogenesis of several diseases.In the current study, A. meyeri administration increased plasma levels of MIP-1a in some mice. However, cannabis smoking altered oral microbiome notlimited to A. meyeri; thus, marijuana grow system the decreased plasma levels of MIP-1a in cannabis users may stem from myeloid cell activation by other bacteria or by reduced total bacterial translocation due to cannabis reduced barrier permeability . In general, bacterial stimulation reduces phagocytosis and promotes proinflammatory cytokine production by myeloid cells. Unexpectedly, A. meyeridid not affect phagocytosis and did not induce prion flammatory cytokines but did increase myeloid cell infiltration and amyloid production in the brain.

It is possible that A. meyeri maybe a new exposure to mice which induces the immune responses and CNS effect. However,there is no evidence on the causal link between a new bacterial exposure in the oral cavity and neuropathology in mice. Thus, we believe that A. meyeri is a unique oral bacterium that is linked to CNS function.We have tested novel object recognition in C57/B6 mice after 6-month exposure to A. meyeri, but did not find significant memory deficits.The reasons for the null finding are as follows: 1) more than 6-month exposure is necessary to see memory changes, 2) the nature of wild type C57/B6 mice, and 3) the age of mice might play an important role with our mice being too young to detect any changes. Todate, there were few to no published studies measuring effects of a specific oral microbial dysbiosis pathobiont on behavior in wildty pemice. In 2018, the study of P. gingivalis found that this pathobiont induces memory impairment in 13-month-old mice and not 2-month-oldmice suggesting an age-related effect, but without enough age cross sections to determine when susceptibility occurred. Thus, we have refined our future strategy to analyze other neurological defects or pathological signs  and started to conduct studies that use mice at different ages and include memory-related longitudinal measures, such as the Novel Object Recognition  task that focuses on the hippocampus and prefrontal cortex memory functions, the Novel Tactile Recognition task that focuses on the hippocampus and parietal cortex memory functions, and finally the Water radial arm maze that focuses on spatial memory and cognitive flexibility.

Our findings could serve as baseline data for future ad campaigns. According to Snapchat’s policy, ads that “promote cigarettes , cigars, vaping products, tobacco, nicotine, or related products of any kind” are prohibited.  Leveraging Snapchat’s platform features can help monitor and amplify the reach of health education campaigns. For instance, incorporating Snapcodes  in health messages can link members of the audience to additional evidence-based resources related to cessation. As indicated by past work, use of geofencing to deliver tailored messages to adolescents and young adults in specific geographic locations could improve the impact of the messages.  More generally, ad targeting features are available on most social media platforms suggesting that communication strategists could deploy similar messaging across platforms and evaluate exposure and engagement by target population . This may be crucial while considering hard-to-reach populations or those who may be priority populations for tobacco or cannabis use prevention.

Government and advocacy organizations may turn to Snapchat for targeted reach for their tobacco and cannabis-related ads cannabis grow equipment. Using a public dataset, the present study demonstrated how a communication strategist could collect and analyze ad metrics to inform future efforts. For example, a campaign may find that highlighting health consequences of poly-use of cannabis and tobacco  may outperform a campaign that highlights legal consequences. Future research should explore determining factors shaping ad performance metrics on the adoption of sponsored social media health education campaigns. Findings may not generalize to other social media platforms or other time periods. This study could not determine if each ad was viewed in its entirety or viewed passively. This study was unable to determine whether all tobacco or cannabis-related ads were captured in the library or perform significance testing between themes and other categories of acteristics of ads sponsored on Snapchat and other platforms during 2019, which limits the interpretability of the findings. However, a prior study suggests that a million views or impressions is considered large on social media platforms.

Cannabis legalization is rapidly spreading throughout the United States . In 2010, approximately 27% of Americans lived in states with legal recreational and medical cannabis or medical cannabis only . By 2019, this figure had increased to 58% . In this rapidly changing legal environment, cannabis use has shifted. According to the National Survey on Drug Use and Health ,weed grow table for adults, past-month cannabis use increased significantly between 2002 and 2016 among 18-to-25-year-olds  and adults 26 years of age and older. Conflicting data on cannabis legalization’s impact on public health has led to a quarrelsome debate regarding the relationship between cannabis use and traffic safety. Driving simulation data suggest that cannabis use impairs driving ability . However, national Fatal Accident Reporting System  data has produced conflicting results on the effects of cannabis use on traffic safety. While one analysis of 2006-2008 FARS data found no relationship between testing positive for cannabis and traffic fatalities , an analysis of 2007 data did find a relationship .

A third analysis  found a significant positive relationship between testing positive for cannabis and the severity of the injuries from crashes . Research on the effects of cannabis legalization on traffic safety are similarly complex. Although two analyses of FARS data from the 1990 s and 2000 s found fewer traffic fatalities in medical cannabis states , another analysis  found no association between medical cannabis legalization and testing positive for THC. The only exception was in states with medical cannabis dispensaries; those states showed an increase in cannabis-positive drivers . Analyses in two recreational cannabis states, Colorado and Washington, suggest an association between recreational legalization and increases in self-reported driving under the influence of cannabis, the number of drivers testing positive for THC , and cannabis-related traffic deaths . Similarly, insurance claims data showed 3% more collisions over time in states that legalized recreational cannabis than in neighboring control states . Several reasons exist for variable findings. In addition, tests for cannabis impairment are limited in terms of their ability to account for frequency or dosage of use, both of which affect impairment while driving . Given the limitations of other data sources on DUIC, several studies have examined self-report data . For example, Fink et al.  combined multiple national data sources to examine changes in the prevalence of self-reported DUIC between 1991 and 1992 and 2012 to 2013.

A third assemblage corresponds to cultivated Cannabis, which is usually found together with cultivated cereals such as Avena , Hordeum , Secale  and Triticum , as well weeds such as Centaurea  or Scleranthus  species. Using these phytosociological affinities, McPartland et al.  attributed the Cannabis-like pollen types recorded in the literature to wild Cannabis if this pollen occurred together with steppe assemblages; to cultivated Cannabis when it was part of crop assemblages; or to Humulus if the dominant pollen assemblage corresponded to temperate deciduous forests. Based on these premises, these authors developed a more complicated identification algorithm that also considers the relationship between arboreal and non-arboreal  pollen . Using these criteria, the oldest known pollen compatible with Cannabis was found in 19.6 Ma-old rocks from the NE Tibetan Plateau , vertical grow system which was proposed as the center of origin of Cannabis .

Interestingly, this proposal roughly coincides with the former hypothesis based on indirect biogeographic evidence. The use of DNA molecular phylogenies calibrated with fossils of related genera such as Humulus, Celtis, Morus and Ficus allowed to estimate the age of divergence of Cannabis and Humulus to 27.8 Ma . Using the same DNA phylogeny and the associated molecular clock, the divergence between C. indica  and C. sativa  would have occurred in the Middle Pleistocene approximately 1 Ma . These authors noted that there is a gap of ca. 8 million years between the age of origin estimated by the molecular clock and the first fossil pollen encountered. In spite of this, they favored the mid-Oligocene age for the origin of Cannabis on the NE Tibetan Plateau , assuming that, as demonstrated by the presence of Artemisia and other steppe elements, the region was covered by this type of vegetation, which would have been particularly well suited for the development of Cannabis. A previous study using Bayesian calibration estimated the divergence between Cannabis and Humulus to have occurred 21 Ma , which is closer to the age  of the first fossil pollen evidence mentioned above . According to pollen and seed fossil records, mobile grow systems Cannabis would have experienced some expansion from its center of origin to Europe and East Asia well before the evolutionary appearance of the genus Homo .

The suggested dispersal agents are water  and animals. Most parts of the Asian continent were colonized by Cannabis during the Pleistocene , before the onset of the Neolithic, when humans domesticated the first plants. During the Pleistocene, glacial-interglacial recurrence could have contributed to Cannabis diversification without human intervention. It has been suggested that Cannabis underwent recurrent range contractions  and expansions  that facilitated allopatric processes, possibly leading to the differentiation between the European  and Asian  subspecies, which would have diverged nearly 1 Ma . The first is considered the putative hemp ancestor , and the second is the putative drug ancestor. In addition to fossils and DNA phylogenies, archeological evidence is of paramount importance to reconstruct domestication and anthropogenic diffusion trends within Cannabis. The main types of evidence of Cannabis from archeological sites are pollen, seeds, fibers, fiber/seed impressions, carbonized remains, phytoliths and chemical remains. During the historical period, written and graphic documents are also of fundamental help . Pollen identification has some additional clues related to its abundance in sediments, as Cannabis produces much more pollen than Humulus, which is usually underrepresented .

This is especially useful in cases of very high percentages of this pollen type, which are difficult to explain unless the sediments come from a former hemp-retting site. Indeed, when flowering male hemp plants are soaked in a retting pond to separate the fibers from the stalk, large quantities of pollen settle into pond sediments. In these situations, the percentages of Cannabis pollen in sediments may reach 80–90% of the total, but percentages over 15% or 25% have been considered sufficient to infer hemp retting . The anemophylous pollen of Cannabis may be transported long distances; therefore, the finding of a few grains or their scattered occurrence throughout a stratigraphic section is not necessarily evidence for the local presence of the parent plant. Recent developments in molecular DNA analytical methods have increased the probability of identifying Cannabis sativa in lake sediments and comparing these results with the abundance of Cannabis/Humulus pollen. For example, in lake sediments from the French Alps, Giguet-Covex et al.  found a good agreement between DNA and pollen records for the period 1500–1000 yr BP but significant inconsistencies for the periods 2000–1500 yr BP and 500 yr BP-present.

Chronic exposure to THC reduces cannabinoid CB1 receptor sensitivity and/or efficacy at GABAergic, but not glutamatergic terminals in the CA1 region . This reduced sensitivity is accompanied by a down regulation of CB1 receptors, likely contributing to reduced receptor sensitivity . In the hippocampus, eCBs facilitate the induction of LTP through the transient suppression of GABAergic transmission, as mentioned previously . However, after chronic THC exposure, the suppression of GABAergic inhibition onto glutamatergic synapses is lost, possibly resulting in LTP impairments. However, this has not been directly tested. Repeated THC exposure also results in the reduction of dendritic spine density in CA1 hippocampal neurons . These results demonstrate that chronic cannabinoid exposure can induce cellular and synaptic changes that alter plasticity to affect behaviors, such as spatial learning and working memory. Generally, drugs of abuse often impair the induction of LTP and LTD in reward-related drug seeking and taking circuits .

Within the ventral tegmental area , chronic THC or CB1 agonist induces LTD at glutamatergic terminals that is dependent on NMDA and AMPA GluA2 receptor endocytosis and CB1 receptor signaling 4×8 grow table with wheels. The VTA is an integral brain region involved in the reward pathway and sends projections to NAc and mPFC, brain regions involved in regulating the cognitive and motivational aspects of behaviors . Chronic drug use can result in long-term changes in synaptic plasticity that persist long after drug cessation. LTD impairments are observed following the self-administration of THC and CBD and a withdrawal period , as well as after chronic exposure  of THC . It is reported that CB1 receptor downregulation can persist for a short period of time following termination of cannabinoid exposure . Some of the neurobiological alterations that occur with prolonged cannabinoid use are reversible. More work is needed to determine which of these changes are reversible or how long this reversal process might take. For example, in human cannabis users, CB1 receptor binding function returns to normal levels after a period of abstinence . There is also a partial recovery of LTP after the cessation of THC exposure in rodents, suggesting that the cognitive and reward-processing deficits are not permanent .

The overall net effects of chronic cannabinoid drug use are the loss of synaptic plasticity that may contribute to tolerance and stabilize drug-oriented behaviors. Only one study to date has examined synaptic plasticity in the brain of humans diagnosed with CUD . In this study, continuous theta burst stimulation  delivered via transcranial magnetic stimulation of the motor cortex was used to examine plasticity of motor evoked potentials measured in a contralateral muscle. Decreased MEP persisting for 10s of minutes was induced by cTBS in non-cannabis-users and in cannabis users that did not meet CUD criteria. In contrast this decrease was not observed in individuals with CUD. This finding indicates that high levels of cannabis use can reduce plasticity in the human brain.This reduction is likely to contribute to alternations in functional connectivity and cognitive impairments associated with chronic cannabis use . Interestingly, grow table tray prolonged CBD usage has been implicated in restoring hippocampal volume in a region-specific manner and improving cognitive function in chronic cannabis users. More studies examining THC, CB1 agonist effects, and other cannabis derivatives on plasticity, as well as alterations in plasticity and acute drug effects on plasticity in individuals with CUD would help in assessing the translatability of findings in laboratory animals and in back-translating studies from humans to animal models.

There is limited evidence to date of the effects of acute and chronic cannabis use on markers of synaptic function in human brain, but imaging techniques have provided some intriguing findings. Ligands for positron emission tomography -based imaging of CB1 receptors have been developed over the last 10-15 years . Studies employing these PET ligands in humans have revealed evidence of a small but significant decrease in CB1 receptor availability in several cortical and limbic brain regions . As mentioned above, the receptor levels return to near baseline values following cessation of cannabis use . Many psychoactive drugs, including all drugs that give rise to SUDs, alter brain dopamine levels . In general, acute exposure to these drugs increases DA release in the NAc and other brain regions implicated in reward and behavioral actions of these drug . Cannabis and THC have similar acute DA-increasing actions thought to arise from decreased inhibition of midbrain dopaminergic neurons . Thus, it is important to understand cannabis effects on DA in the human brain. To this end, several recent studies have used brain imaging and spectroscopy approaches to estimate changes in brain DA levels, DA receptor density and other molecules involved in dopaminergic transmission following acute of chronic cannabis use.

The handful of existing attempts to model outcomes from cannabis law reform in New Zealand have faced significant domestic and international data limitations, most importantly the limited data on cannabis legalization implemented over- seas . As described earlier, we utilized the NZ-DHI estimates of the health and social harm of cannabis as the starting point for our MCDA model. While this report had access to national statistics on cannabis use and harm, there remained gaps in data and, as a result, simplifying assumptions had to be made to complete the estimates . A number of these assumptions are controversial, such as the decision to split the remaining 64 drug related deaths that could not be assigned to opioid overdose or psychedelics evenly between amphetamines and cannabinoids . This decision may be linked to the inability at the time to separate natural cannabis from synthetic cannabinoids in official statistics, as synthetic cannabinoids have been linked to a number of over- doses in New Zealand .

Furthermore, mobile grow systems all the acquisitive crime committed by people with cannabis dependence is as- signed to cannabis harm without determining the causal role cannabis use may have played in motivating these offences. Second, as noted at the beginning of this paper, one of the recommendations from the recent MCDA of drug policy is to broaden the decision- making group . Our MCDA achieved this objective to an extent by including officials from a range of government agencies and NGO workers concerned with drug and health issues, including M āori, cannabis legalization activists, medicinal cannabis industry, drug treatment and mental health, and law enforcement organizations. This could be taken further to include those most affected by the current cannabis prohibition and reform options, including youth, M āori, Pasifika, parents of adolescents, and those living in high deprivation communities. To ensure the views of these affected groups are not swamped by the majority view in a combined workshop, a series of MCDA workshops could be conducted with each entirely com- promising members of one of the affected groups . While we were not able to convince the main anti-cannabis legalization activist group to attend the MCDA, we had a range of government and NGO stakeholder participants who may have been am- bivalent, or even opposed, legalization .

The refusal of the main antileglization group to attend may reflect their view, wrongly held in this case, that the forum is not interested in their perspective or values. Indeed, the rejection of the NZ cannabis referendum has in part been explained by a failure to engage with conservative right-wing voters about how cannabis legalization may align with their political values cannabis grow supplies. Anti-legalization groups may well have supported the current prohibition approach and more in- vestment in drug treatment and prevention. This option was not part of our MCDA policy options as we were primarily aiming to inform the de- bate around the cannabis referendum which was specifically concerned with the legal status of cannabis use and supply, not wider policy set- tings addressing cannabis harm under the current prohibition, such as increasing the level of funding of treatment and prevention. Third, MCDA is an instrumental group decision making tool that focuses on tangible outcomes of policy decisions. Moral views of cannabis use were found to play an important part in how people voted in the NZ cannabis referendum and likely influenced how stakeholders voted in the MCDA trade-offs. Yet, as outlined earlier in this paper, the purpose of MCDA is to facilitate group decision making concerning controversial policy issues by asking participants to consider tangible trade-offs in outcomes to reach pragmatic compromises. The closeness of the final NZ cannabis referendum result  illustrated both significant support for reform and concern about the specific reform proposal put forward for the referendum vote .

The CLCB most closely resembled the “strict market like tobacco ”option in our MCDA. Our MCDA results suggest a higher stakeholder support for two even more restrictive legal market options, “government monopoly ”and “not-for-profit ”trusts. According to the 2021 World Drug Report, it is estimated that over 200 million people have used cannabis globally, likely increasing amid the global COVID-19 pandemic . However, efforts to decriminalize, legalize, and reclassify the scheduling of these drugs are fast transforming the landscape of cannabis use and research. Despite the UN’s reclassification of cannabis and its derivatives, these drugs remain classified as schedule I by the US Drug Enforcement Administration together with other drugs such as heroin, and ecstasy . Moreover, the perceived decrease in the risks associated with cannabis use has contributed to its popularity and increased usage, already exacerbating a global health problem .

The longer timeframe of cannabis legalization in Uruguay has allowed more evaluation, utilizing neighboring countries as control groups, and has found only minimal impacts on adolescent use and perceived risk of use to date . Drawing on the extensive research literature of effective public health regulation of alcohol and tobacco markets , we assumed that more restrictive regulatory approaches, such as government monopoly, non-commercial supply and strict market regulation, are likely to be more effective at reducing the health and social harms of legal cannabis use than lightly regulated commercial markets. Proponents of cannabis legalization have argued that a legal cannabis market could reduce the overall harm of cannabis,rolling bench even if the total number of users increase, by improving the safety of legal cannabis products  and by reducing barriers related to help seeking for dependent users.

This may well be the case, but at the time of writing this article, we do not yet have the data, either from overseas jurisdictions or New Zealand, to support this argument. All of the legalization options in our MCDA model projected large reductions in cannabis arrests following legalization regardless of the strictness of the regulatory framework. This is based on the understanding that following legalization cannabis related arrests would be limited to underage use, illegal supply, public disorder, and drug driving. This assumption is supported by evidence from U.S. states that have legalized cannabis where substantial reductions in arrest rates for cannabis have been achieved. Drawing on official New Zealand Police apprehension statistics, we used a baseline figure of 10,500 arrests per year for cannabis under prohibition in New Zealand . Note, this number includes all situations where police have contact with cannabis offenders regardless of whether this results in a formal arrest, prosecution, or conviction. Criteria 3 –Reduce the size of the illegal market All the legalization options in our MCDA projected significant reductions in the illegal cannabis market, while not entirely eliminating the illegal trade.

Again, this reflects experience from legal cannabis jurisdictions in the U.S. and Canada where the illegal cannabis trade has been much reduced, but nonetheless has persisted . The NZ-DHI estimated the annual revenue of the illegal market for cannabis to be $548M based on aggregate cannabis consumption ebb and flow bench. The tax earnings figures in our MCDA assumed that the more heavily regulated legal market options are likely to impose higher excise rates and other taxes and hence collect more total tax revenue. Estimates of the magnitude of the economic benefits of a legal cannabis sector in New Zealand have varied. For example, an economic consultancy firm estimated the government revenues from cannabis legalization in New Zealand would be $191-$249M. The New Zealand Institute of Economic Research , projected annual tax revenues from legal cannabis sales in New Zealand of $490M  2020. Most recently, the economic consultants BERL has advised the New Zealand Ministry of Justice that a legal cannabis sector in New Zealand would generate $923M annually in taxation and licensing fees . Our projections are based on the actual tax earnings reported from legal cannabis sales in Colorado , which has a comparable population to New Zealand . It is also important to note these are estimates of gross tax income and public expenditure is required to implement, regulate and enforce legal cannabis markets .

First, while we incorporated extensive checks to prevent multiple registrations by one person, we relied on self-report regarding cannabis use both at the time of recruitment and at follow-up. Second, the outcome measures employed were fairly crude. Perhaps, in an environment where cannabis is legal, the variable number of days used cannabis in the past 30 might suffer from a ceiling effect if a substantial proportion of participants are using cannabis every day. Finally, while the trial was powered to detect a small effect, it is certainly possible that the intervention, if effective, would only ever have an impact that is very small; especially among heavy users of cannabis. Given that this is a low-cost intervention that can be distributed widely, having a very small impact is not necessarily a rule-out of the intervention’s utility. It just implies that a much larger sample would be needed to establish efficacy,vertical grow rack system perhaps across a wider range of cannabis users.

Participants were college students recruited to participate in an online survey from 7 countries  between February 2019 and March 2020 . In the present study, participants that reported consuming cannabis at least once in their lifetime and completed the CUDIT-R  were included in the psychometric analyses. Analyses examining correlations between the CUDIT-R and non-CUDIT-R measures were limited to 2402 students that reported cannabis consumption during the last 30 days . For the U.S., Canadian, England, and South African sites, students were recruited from psychology department pools and received research participation credits. In Argentina and Uruguay, students were recruited through online social networks, e-mail listings and flyers , and those who completed the survey were entered into a raffle for prizes. In Spain an email was sent to all the students of the university inviting them to participate in the research. The participants received 5 euros for completing the survey. Study procedures were approved by the institutional review boards at the participating universities.

However, limited research has tested the measurement invariance of the questionnaire across different countries. Thus,vertical rack grow a main aim of the present research was to test the measurement invariance of the CUDIT-R among college students from seven countries. The results showed that the measure was invariant at different levels  among the U.S., Canada, Argentina, Spain, and South African samples suggesting that the CUDIT-R is a suitable measure to compare cannabis-related problems among students from these five countries. Due to their low item endorsement, it was not possible to the test the invariance of the questionnaire in Uruguay and England. Future studies with a higher sample size of students from these two countries are required. In addition, measurement invariance of the questionnaire across males and females was explored. A previous study performed with a large sample of undergraduates from the U.S. found configural and metric invariance of the measure across gender groups . Our results extend previous findings, showing that the structure , the factor loadings  and the thresholds  were similar across a sample of males and females from different nationalities and languages.

Scalar invariance of the questionnaire across groups is relevant, as differences in the CUDIT-R scores across countries and gender groups can be interpreted as differences in problematic cannabis use, rather than merely artifacts of other processes, such as the interpretation of items . To this end, when mean comparisons of the CUDIT-R total score were examined, as it is usually found, males showed higher problematic cannabis use than females . We also found lower problematic cannabis use in the Spain and Argentina than in U.S., and also in Spain compared with the rest of the countries. These differences could be related to cannabis polices, as lower rates of CUDIT-R were found in countries in which the access to cannabis is more difficult . The present research also provided reliability evidence of the CUDIT-R scores, showing that both Cronbach’s alphas and ordinal omegas were higher than the standard cut-off of 0.70, and similar to those found in previous studies that have explored the unidimensional structure of the questionnaire . Convergent validity evidence was also provided in five countries, as the CUDIT-R showed large correlations in magnitude with the B-MACQ. The magnitude of these associations was similar to that found in previous studies with undergraduates from the U.S. , suggesting that the Spanish version provided similar convergent validity evidence with the B-MACQ as the English version. Finally, criterion validity evidence of the CUDIT-R scores was provided using different measures of cannabis consumption and cannabis-related motives.