Years of smoking pot may have an effect on a person’s verbal memory, which is the ability to remember certain words, a new study finds.
For every five years of marijuana use, researchers found that, on average, one out of two people remembered one word fewer from a list of 15 words, according to the study.
Long-term use was not, however, significantly associated with decreases in other measures of cognitive function, such as processing speed or executive function, the researchers wrote in the study, published today (Feb. 1) in the journal JAMA Internal Medicine. Executive function includes skills such as planning and focusing.
To examine the effects of long-term marijuana use, the researchers studied participants who were enrolled in the long-running Coronary Artery Risk Development in Young Adults (CARDIA) study. The CARDIA study included more than 5,000 adults who initially enrolled in the study between ages 18 and 30. During a series of follow-up visits, the participants reported if they had used marijuana in the previous month. At the 25-year follow-up, the participants were given a series of cognitive tests that looked at verbal memory, processing speed and executive function.
While long-term marijuana use was associated with worse performance in all three tests, after the researchers adjusted for other factors (such as use of other substances and depression), they found that only the association between long-term use and verbal memory was statistically significant (meaning the associations between marijuana use and both processing speed and executive function may have been due to chance). (Read more from “What’s That Word? Marijuana May Affect Verbal Memory” HERE)
More students in the 12th grade said they smoked pot every day, compared to those who smoke daily cigarettes, finds a new federal report. It’s the first time since the survey began in 1975 that daily marijuana use surpassed cigarettes.
The “Monitoring the Future” survey released on Wednesday shows that 6% of 12th graders used marijuana every day—about the same rate as last year—while 5.5% of seniors reported smoking cigarettes daily. (That’s a drop from 2014, when 6.7% of high school seniors smoked cigarettes every day.)
Their perceptions of pot also changed; fewer students think it’s dangerous. Almost 32% of seniors said they thought regular marijuana use could be harmful, compared to 36% who felt that way last year. “The sense that marijuana has medicinal purposes and that doctors are prescribing it creates a sense that this drug cannot be so harmful,” says Dr. Nora D. Volkow, director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse at the National Institutes of Health (the group that funded the research).
Volkow says she is surprised that marijuana rates didn’t rise from 2014, after the past year’s attitude and policy changes surrounding the legalization of marijuana. “All of those factors have led many to predict that there would be an increase in the pattern of use of marijuana among teenagers, and we are not seeing it,” she says. Still, it was one of the only substances in the report that did not decline in usage. (Read more from “High School Seniors Now Prefer Marijuana to Cigarettes” HERE)
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.png00Joe Millerhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngJoe Miller2015-12-16 21:36:332016-04-11 10:55:00High School Seniors Now Prefer Marijuana to Cigarettes
At least a dozen people became sick in San Diego Sunday after they apparently ingested a batch of synthetic marijuana, also known as “spice”, police said.
San Diego Fire Rescue Capt. Joe Amador told Fox 5 that the victims were mainly young people, including a 13-year-old. Amador said it was not immediately clear whether the victims took the drug voluntarily.
The station reported that the victims experienced symptoms varying from a bloody nose to seizures. Medical officers responded to multiple calls reporting sick patients in at least three locations in downtown San Diego . . .
San Diego police said the drug was being sold in black packages with blue dragons on the side. A police spokesman told the San Diego Union-Tribune that officers were trying to track down victims and witnesses, and were also warning the public about the overdoses in case others had purchased the drug in the downtown area. (Read more from “At Least 12 People Overdose on Synthetic Marijuana in San Diego” HERE)
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.png00Joe Millerhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngJoe Miller2015-11-23 01:30:292016-04-11 10:55:52At Least 12 People Overdose on Synthetic Marijuana in San Diego
On a September day in 2014, Leandro Banks saw his money disappear in an instant.
Banks, an independent contractor, left the bank with $1,858 in his pocket. The money came from his paycheck of nearly $5,000, Banks says.
Some of it he deposited, some he shared with an employee, and the rest—the $1,858—he says he intended to keep at home.
But in between the bank and his house, Banks stopped on the street to talk with some friends. Police said they saw him make a “transaction” by passing marijuana to another man in exchange for cash.
In an interview with The Daily Signal more than a year later, Banks, 46, says he simply was exchanging a handshake.
When officers with the Philadelphia Police Department approached Banks, though, he took off running.
They caught him three blocks away and said they found two ounces of marijuana and nearly $2,000 in a pocket of his blue shorts.
The officers seized the cash under Pennsylvania’s civil asset forfeiture laws, believing that it was connected to the marijuana. Banks contended that the money came from his paycheck.
“I was upset,” Banks recalls. “Even though it was a year ago, that’s my money. I worked hard for that. I said, ‘I got to fight it.’”
So Banks began his foray into Philadelphia’s civil asset forfeiture machine, beginning in a small, rectangular room in City Hall called Courtroom 478.
There, the Philadelphia District Attorney’s Office attempted to settle with Banks, first offering him $1,500 and then lowering its bid to $500. The contractor says he declined.
Banks told the city he would be happy to go to court to show the cash came from honest work. And he had the pay stub to prove it.
Inside Courtroom 478
Civil asset forfeiture is a tool that gives law enforcement the power to seize property and money suspected of being related to a crime. Originally, it was a way for police to target drug trafficking and money laundering.
Law enforcement officials in Philadelphia contend today that asset forfeiture is vital for eliminating the profit incentive for those in the drug trade.
Over the past few years, though, law enforcement agencies across the nation have faced growing criticism for what is seen as their abuse of forfeiture. Philadelphia, in particular, is the target of substantial backlash.
For citizens such as Banks whose cash, houses, or motor vehicles are seized by police in Philadelphia, the journey to get their property back begins in Courtroom 478, located halfway down a long hallway.
On a Thursday morning in July, the dimly lit hallway is nearly empty. A man passes by, his footsteps echoing, and he ducks into another courtroom further along.
Every so often, one of the city’s assistant district attorneys walks through the doorway of Courtroom 478 and into the hall, followed by a confused-looking property owner gripping paperwork.
The prosecutors sometimes converse with the property owners in hushed tones, discussing the details of proposed settlements or instructing them on what additional forms they need to fill out.
Inside the courtroom, wooden chairs are arranged in rows along the back wall. On this day, half the seats are filled. The occupants sit with their arms tightly crossed against their chests.
Courtroom 478 typically is busy on Wednesdays, when people whose vehicles were seized are summoned to appear.
Fridays, by contrast, are much slower. That’s when people who had less than $50 seized by law enforcement get their day in Courtroom 478.
For many of those property owners, fighting for the return of under $50 isn’t worth the hassle of spending a morning—and possibly several more—in Courtroom 478. On a Friday in July, only one person is listed on the docket, and that person doesn’t show up.
Darpana Sheth, a lawyer with the Institute for Justice who is leading a class action lawsuit against Philadelphia, says her group has seen forfeiture petitions for as little as $7 or $9. Going to Courtroom 478 to fight for such a low amount may seem futile, she says, but it’s those small sums that boost the city’s forfeiture revenue.
“If that’s what’s been taken from you, it’s a rational, economic decision that it’s not worth your time to go fight over that,” Sheth says in an interview with The Daily Signal. “But it’s important to know that it’s through this kind of accumulation of small-dollar amounts that most of Philadelphia’s slush fund of forfeiture revenue has been accumulated.”
Of the nearly $6 million—an average—forfeited annually by action of the Philadelphia District Attorney’s Office from 2002 to 2012, $4.5 million came from cash seizures, according to an analysis conducted by the Institute for Justice.
The American Civil Liberties Union found in its own investigation that half of cash forfeitures in Philadelphia between 2011 and 2013 involved amounts of less than $192. Just 10 percent were more than $1,000. The ACLU examined a random sample of 351 cash forfeitures over that three-year span.
In the weeks following The Daily Signal’s visit, the district attorney’s Public Nuisance Task Force—which oversees the process—decided to prohibit forfeitures of less than $50. Also ended were forfeitures tied to low-level misdemeanors.
Waiting to Meet a Prosecutor
For those summoned to Courtroom 478 on this Thursday, waiting to meet with an assistant district attorney is an hours-long affair.
The prosecutors often meet directly with property owners and help guide them through the process. Such involvement has earned the criticism of Sheth and other forfeiture opponents, who argue that the lack of a neutral party violates due process.
David Earley had $150 in cash and three cell phones seized in June, when police arrested him for possession of cocaine, he tells The Daily Signal. The case was dropped and the charges dismissed.
Earley, 36, says he doesn’t care about the cash—it’s one of the cell phones he wanted back. He waited for nearly two hours to learn if it would be returned. (It was.)
Another property owner, a woman named Rochelle, says Officer Jeffrey Walker seized $7,000 from her in 2012. The next year, the narcotics officer was arrested and charged with planting drugs in and robbing a suspect’s house. In July, Walker was convicted and sentenced to three and a half years behind bars.
On this Thursday in July, Rochelle appears with hopes her money will be returned, but she learns that it will be another 10 to 12 weeks before she sees the cash—another 10 to 12 weeks in what has been a three-year battle with the city.
Back in Courtroom 478, a broken clock leans up against the wall.
Guilty Until Proven Innocent
There are 16 seats on the left side of Courtroom 478, seats meant to hold a jury. But they’re empty.
A man sits at the front of the rectangular room. In any other courtroom, a judge would sit there. In Courtroom 478, though, the man isn’t a judge. He is a scheduler who tells property owners when they need to appear next.
Residents such as Earley and Banks, whose cash or other property was seized by the Philadelphia Police Department, receive a notice of forfeiture. They are required to appear here to prove they were unaware of any illegal activity involving their property.
This notion—of being guilty before proven innocent—is one of the many points of contention for critics of the city’s forfeiture system.
Sheth says it denies the presumption of innocence.
“The property owner bears the burden to affirmatively prove that they didn’t know about the illegal activity or they didn’t consent to it,” Sheth tells The Daily Signal, adding:
That’s where you get the reversal of the presumption of innocence. In these civil forfeiture cases, the property owner has to come forward and affirmatively prove a negative, that they didn’t know about the illegal activity, which is a very hard thing to do. The presumption of innocence is being turned on its head.
Sheth and the Institute for Justice have homed in on specific aspects of the system that threaten property rights, including the profit incentive created by forfeiture.
‘Direct Financial Incentive’
Philadelphia took in $64 million in forfeiture proceeds from 2002 to 2012, according to the Institute for Justice. Approximately $25 million of it went to paying law enforcement salaries, including those of lawyers working for the city in Courtroom 478.
A report from the Pennsylvania Attorney General’s Office found that Philadelphia law enforcement seized $3.4 million from 2013 to 2014 through civil forfeiture.
The ACLU reported that the district attorney’s office received nearly $2.2 million from forfeiture proceeds in 2012, which equals 7.3 percent of the agency’s budget.
“Those prosecutors have a direct financial incentive in the outcome of that proceeding. If property is eventually forfeited, that goes directly to the district attorney’s office, which uses it to pay salaries, including the salaries of these prosecutors,” Sheth says. “They have a direct financial interest that is very problematic.”
Prosecutors for the city don’t see it that way.
In an interview with The Daily Signal, Andrew Jenemann, chief of the district attorney’s Public Nuisance Task Force, says forfeiture proceeds are split between the police force and the district attorney’s office. The agencies use the money for different purposes, Jenemann says, and his task force has no say in it.
The money represents a small percentage of the budget, he says:
Some of the criticism is that we’re taking random people’s money, and that can’t be further from the truth. I don’t know if you’ve ever had the experience of living next door to a drug house or next door to a place that’s selling drugs. Ultimately, what this is all about it disrupting the drug trade and taking away instruments of crime that [criminals] use to further it.
Return Engagements
But the profit incentive isn’t the only reason opponents say the process is unconstitutional.
Property owners aren’t granted a right to counsel and often are asked to fill out complex forms filled with legal jargon.
Additionally, after appearing in Courtroom 478 for the first time, many property owners are required to return four, five, or even six times before learning whether their cash, vehicles, or houses are forfeited for good or will be returned.
Earley was lucky; he appeared in Courtroom 478 just once. Rochelle, who didn’t wish to share her last name, was there three times. Banks appeared six times, records show.
Failing to appear even once leads to automatic forfeiture of cash and automobiles, critics complain.
In January 2014, Philadelphia police seized $580 and a Buick LeSabre from Nassir Geiger, a lifelong city resident. Geiger, who joined the Institute for Justice’s class action lawsuit, appeared in Courtroom 478 several times to fight for his car and money.
Geiger, a sanitation worker employed by the city, wasn’t aware that the district attorney’s office had filed separate forfeiture petitions for his car and about $465 in cash.
According to court documents, Geiger never received a hearing notice about his cash and failed to appear in Courtroom 478 as scheduled on March 11, 2014, and June 16, 2014.
Because he didn’t show, his money was forfeited.
‘Bad Information’
Contrary to their critics, prosecutors disagree that missing a hearing leads to automatic forfeiture.
Jenemann, an assistant district attorney, says prosecutors do research before acting to forfeit real property—a house, business or warehouse—if a person fails to appear. He says they comb real estate tax records and other public documents, and look for addresses listed on a property’s water bills.
If a property owner cooperates and participates in the process, and then fails to appear in Courtroom 478, Jenemann says, prosecutors aren’t afraid to reopen cases involving property that had been defaulted.
Also, if property is forfeited after the owner fails to appear, Jenemann stresses, he or she can request that the court reopen a case by filing a motion to vacate the previous forfeiture. In some cases, the Pennsylvania courts reopen forfeiture cases involving houses, cars, and money.
“There’s a certain amount of bad information that’s been put out there,” Jenemann says. “There’s a certain amount of unfairness in the way [forfeiture] has been portrayed. We’re always trying to improve the process. You want to get from what it is to where it should be.”
Jenemann notes that the number of times claimants have to appear in forfeiture court is based largely on the defendant and whether he or she has an open criminal case.
Under Philadelphia’s court rules, he says, status hearings must be conducted every few months until a criminal case is closed. That can keep property owners such as Banks coming back to Courtroom 478 five or six times.
The drawn out nature of forfeiture cases, criticized by opponents of Philadelphia’s practice, is one aspect of the program Jenemann has changed.
“We are responding to the criticism by evaluating past policies and past procedures, and where we find them to need updating or changes, we’re making updates or changes,” he says. “But I don’t think the criticism has been fair.”
‘Every Last Penny’
Banks’ case underscores the concerns of those fighting the system. The contractor represents thousands of property owners whose cash, cars, or residences were seized even though the property wasn’t tied conclusively to illegal activity.
Banks was found guilty of possession of marijuana with intent to manufacture or deliver, according to filings with the Municipal Court of Philadelphia County. His pay stub, however, showed that the $1,858 seized by police wasn’t tied to the drugs.
He was sentenced to 18 months’ probation.
Banks and the district attorney’s office reached a settlement in August, court documents show. As a result, Banks says, he received “every last penny back.” He also was asked to sign a waiver saying he wouldn’t sue the city.
Such waiver requests aren’t uncommon, as evident in the 2012 case of George Reby, who had $22,000 in cash seized in Tennessee. Reby, who got his money back, was asked to sign a waiver saying he wouldn’t sue the state.
In the interview with The Daily Signal, Banks says he didn’t understand why police went after him and not the man who they believed was selling marijuana, especially when law enforcement is focused on taking drugs off the streets.
And although Banks was able to prove that his money wasn’t tied to illegal activity, effectively beating Philadelphia’s forfeiture system, he laments that others won’t find it that simple.
“For someone who doesn’t have a pay stub, it wouldn’t be so easy,” Banks says, adding of his money: “I needed that change.” (For more from the author of “The Unconstitutional Civil Forfeiture Racket: Guilty Until Proven Innocent (and Other Scams)” please click HERE)
Marijuana use among U.S. adults doubled over a decade, rising to almost 10 percent or more than 22 million mostly recreational users, government surveys show.
The trend reflects a cultural shift and increasingly permissive views about the drug, the researchers say, noting that other studies have shown increasing numbers of adults think marijuana should be legalized. Recreational use is now permitted in four states . . .
The results come from a comparison of health surveys from 2001-02 and 2012-13 sponsored by the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism. Almost 80,000 adults aged 18 and older participated in face-to-face interviews about various health-related behaviors. Results were published Wednesday in the journal JAMA Psychiatry. (Read more from “Marijuana Use in US Adults Has DOUBLED in a Decade” HERE)
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.png00Joe Millerhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngJoe Miller2015-10-22 01:23:442016-04-11 10:57:06Marijuana Use in US Adults Has DOUBLED in a Decade
State and city legislators joined forces on Thursday to demand that online retailers such as eBay and Craigslist stop selling the dangerous synthetic marijuana known as K2.
“The Internet has become a virtual bodega and a chemist’s warehouse,” state Sen. Jeff Klein, a Bronx Democrat, said at a Manhattan press conference.
“These are things that we can find in grocery stores and bodegas around our city, and now you can actually get them delivered to your front door.”
Klein and other lawmakers sent letters to the CEOs of several Internet retailers, asking that they take down ads for the potent substances and “better monitor the classifieds” . . .
“It is a dangerous, unpredictable and illegal substance and for too long unscrupulous stores and online marketplaces have profited,” said City Council Speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito, who has led the fight to rid K2 from her East Harlem community. (Read more from “Lawmaker: Synthetic Weed Leaving Streets Full of ‘Zombies'” HERE)
Starting Wednesday, adults in Oregon will be able to legally possess and consume marijuana. But the state already has more ganja shops than Golden Arches or places to buy Grande Frappuccinos.
There are currently 269 medical marijuana dispensaries open for business in Oregon, according to the state’s health authority, which started issuing permits in March 2014. The Oregonian newspaper in Portland, by the way, has mapped nearly all of them. Medical weed is legal is 23 states, but very of few of them have licensed dispensaries. Oregon already has the second-highest number of medical marijuana patients per capita in the country, behind only Colorado.
Weed shops in Oregon are so plentiful that they top the total number of McDonald’s or Starbucks in the state. (Read more from “This State Has More Marijuana Shops Than Starbucks” HERE)
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.png00Joe Millerhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngJoe Miller2015-07-01 03:12:012016-04-11 10:59:26This State Has More Marijuana Shops Than Starbucks
The family of a Tulsa man who shot himself Saturday night in Keystone is blaming his suicide on his ingestion of edible marijuana candies.
“It was completely a reaction to the drugs,” Kim Goodman said about her son Luke’s Saturday night suicide.
Luke Goodman’s death is now the third death in Colorado linked to marijuana edibles.
The 23-year-old college graduate was in the midst of a two-week ski and snowboard vacation with family members. Saturday afternoon he and his cousin, Caleb Fowler, took a bus from Keystone to Silverthorne where Fowler says they bought $78 worth of edibles and marijuana . . .
When the young men got back to Keystone, Fowler said they began ingesting the edible pot. He said his cousin favored some peach tart candies, each piece of candy containing 10 mg of the active ingredient in marijuana, the recommended dose for an adult consuming an edible. (Read more from “Man Shoots Himself After Eating Marijuana Candies [+video]” HERE)
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.png00Joe Millerhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngJoe Miller2015-03-27 03:31:522015-03-27 03:31:52Family: Son Shoots Himself After Eating Marijuana Candies [+video]
A Senate committee advanced legislation Monday that would update state laws related to marijuana crimes.
The Senate Finance Committee moved the bill after adopting a new version.
SB 30, would update state crimes now that certain recreational use and possession of marijuana is legal for adults 21 and older. It sets out the crimes for possession of larger amounts of marijuana, allows emergency responders under 21 to enter marijuana businesses, and prohibits delivery or transportation of marijuana for sale or barter.
It also would prohibit a commercial or retail marijuana industry in the state’s unorganized borough outside of municipalities, although it allows established villages to opt back in.
The most contentious of the amendments the committee discussed earlier in the month, which would have banned marijuana concentrates beginning in 2017, was not included in the version of the bill the committee advanced. (Read more from “Alaska Senate Panel Advances Bill Regarding Pot Crimes” HERE)
By Emily Miller. The District passed a law legalizing pot use in residences, but the city did not specify how to control the smoke going into other apartments and condos or public areas.
Now, some residents are complaining about the smoke, and building managers are trying to figure out how to handle the new problem.
Many people in D.C. live in apartments or condos, and the smoke goes through the air vents and under doors. So, whether you want to or not, you may be inhaling.
Veretta Swann and her daughter live in an apartment building in Northwest . . .
Swann walked down the hall of her floor with me. “When you get off the elevator right there, you get a contact. When you are walking down this hallway, you get high. You get cigarette smoke. You get weed smoke,” she said. (Read more from “DC Pot Legalization Turning Neighbors Against Each Other” HERE)
Brooklyn Mom Says Daughter Is Partially Paralyzed Because of Pot Brownie
By Howard Thompson. The push is on to legalize pot. You hear people say things like, “It’s just marijuana, no big deal.”
Don’t say that to Allison Buchanan. What she’s living is enough to terrify any parent. She says her 17-year-old daughter, Danieel, bought what she thought was just a brownie from another student at Benjamin Banneker High School on Feb. 27.
“She ate part of the brownie, shared it with two other students and got sick,” Allison Buchanan told me. “Around 11 a.m. the school called me. They said she had high blood pressure and her heart was racing and they were taking her to the emergency room.”
Danieel’s been in the hospital since then, partially paralyzed. “She’s not able to walk. She can’t stand. She can’t sit up…They have never seen anything like this before.” (Read more from this story HERE)
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.png00Joe Millerhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngJoe Miller2015-03-13 03:52:422016-04-11 11:01:21DC Pot Legalization Turning Neighbors Against Each Other [+video]
