Researchers could have access to retail cannabis as part of the infrastructure bill passed in the Senate last week.

What does marijuana have to do with infrastructure? Well, nothing, sort of. The provision included in the bill would require the US transportation secretary to develop a public report on the risk of cannabis-impaired driving within two years. As part of creating that report, researchers would have access to high-quality cannabis from state-approved dispensaries.

Scientists studying marijuana have been limited to notoriously poor-quality cannabis from the government-run research facility out of the University of Mississippi. The provision in the infrastructure bill would enable researchers to study the actual marijuana that people are consuming.

Additionally, the public report must include advice to lawmakers on how to set up a “national clearinghouse to collect and distribute samples and strains of marijuana for scientific research that includes marijuana and products containing marijuana lawfully available to patients or consumers in a state on a retail basis.”

In states that haven’t legalized either medical or recreational marijuana, this clearinghouse would ensure scientists’ access to high-quality cannabis from dispensaries in legal states.

If the new marijuana reform rules pass, states with legal medical or recreational marijuana would be required to develop programs to “educate drivers regarding the risks associated with marijuana-impaired driving” and “to reduce injuries and deaths resulting from individuals driving motor vehicles while impaired by marijuana.”

Senator John Hickenlooper (D-CO) sponsored the marijuana reform amendment that was included in the infrastructure bill.

“Colorado led the way on marijuana legalization,” Hickenlooper said in a press release. “The federal government needs to catch up by lifting outdated restrictions on the scientific study of cannabis so we can prevent driving while high.”

The Senate approved the infrastructure bill containing the marijuana reform provision by a 69-30 vote. Next, the bill will go to the House for approval before heading to President Biden’s desk for his signature.

Researchers Study Whether Cows Fed Hemp Will Get Meat Eaters and Milk Drinkers High

Will feeding hemp to cattle pass along a high to humans? That’s what researchers at Kansas State University hope to discover after the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) awarded them a $200,000 grant.

Although the federal government legalized hemp under the 2018 Farm Bill, it’s prohibited for use as animal feed, and no one really knows what effect cannabinoids have on cattle. Plus, using hemp as livestock feed could potentially result in concentrations of THC in meat and milk.

“Our goal is to fill in the knowledge gaps,” said Michael Kleinhenz, one of the researchers at Kansas State University. “Until feedstuffs containing hemp are established as safe in animals, our data will assist producers in managing situations involving intentional or unintentional hemp exposures.”

Fewer Vaping Illnesses Reported in Legal Marijuana States

According to a study conducted by the Yale School of Public Health, higher rates of e-cigarette and marijuana vaping did not result in more vaping-related lung injuries (known as EVALI) in states with legalized marijuana.

“Indeed, the five earliest states to legalize recreational marijuana—Alaska, California, Colorado, Oregon and Washington—all had less than one EVALI case per 100,000 residents aged 12 to 64. None of the highest EVALI-prevalence states—Utah, North Dakota, Minnesota, Delaware and Indiana—allowed recreational marijuana use,” according to Yale researchers.

So what accounts for the difference? It turns out that the use of Vitamin E acetate, a vaping additive used to dilute marijuana oils in mostly black-market vaping products, is responsible for the rise in EVALI cases. People in states where marijuana is still prohibited are more likely to seek out black-market products.

Yale researchers used data collected by the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) related to EVALI hospitalization and deaths nationwide.

Another Month, Another Colorado Marijuana Sales Record

Marijuana sales in Colorado have been breaking records nearly every month, despite (or maybe because of) the COVID-19 pandemic. July was no exception: Recreational marijuana dispensary sales amounted to $183,106,003, while medical marijuana sales amounted to $43,268,565. Combined, that’s $226,374,568 worth of weed, up 13.8% from June.

So far, Colorado dispensaries have sold more than $1.2 billion worth of marijuana edibles, concentrate, and flower in 2020, amounting to $203 million in taxes for the state.

If cannabis sales continue to break records, 2020 could surpass 2019’s record of $1.75 billion in annual sales.

Hold on to your CBD-infused lattes, because cannabis is going to space.

Front Range Biosciences, an agricultural technology company, has partnered with the University of Colorado, Boulder to send 480 hemp and coffee plant cultures to the International Space Station (ISS).

“This is one of the first times anyone is researching the effects of microgravity and spaceflight on hemp and coffee cell cultures,” said Dr. Jonathan Vaught, Co-Founder and CEO of Front Range Biosciences in a press release. “There is science to support the theory that plants in space experience mutations. This is an opportunity to see whether those mutations hold up once brought back to earth and if there are new commercial applications.”

The goal of the experiments is to see if zero gravity and radiation will mutate or genetically alter the coffee and hemp plants. Scientists will be able to see how the plants react to the stress of space travel. The research could help scientists develop plants that can endure drought and cold. On Earth, that could mean developing more resilient crops that can be grown in environments that don’t normally support hemp growth.

“We envision this to be the first of many experiments together,” said Louis Stodieck, Chief Scientist of BioServe Space Technologies at the University of Colorado, Boulder. “In the future, we plan for the crew to harvest and preserve the plants at different points in their grow-cycle so we can analyze which metabolic pathways are turned on and turned off. This is a fascinating area of study that has considerable potential.”

The hemp and coffee cultures will travel to the ISS aboard SpaceX CRS-20 in March 2020. The incubated cells will spend a month is space before returning to Earth to be analyzed by Front Range Biosciences.

In the future, we plan for the crew to harvest and preserve the plants at different points in their grow-cycle, so we can analyze which metabolic pathways are turned on and turned off,” Louis Stodieck, director of BioServe Space Technologies at the University of Colorado, Boulder, said in a statement. “This is a fascinating area of study that has considerable potential.”

The passage of the 2018 Farm Bill removed hemp as a Schedule I substance, legalized the production of hemp, and removed barriers to federal research. Hemp is a type of cannabis plant that contains less than 0.3 percent THC and has a variety of uses, including in textiles, bioplastics and biofuel, food, and insulation.

Hemp also contains high concentrations of CBD and other non-intoxicating cannabinoids.

While scientific research on hemp in space is in its early stages, it’s not the first time cannabis has left Earth. Earlier this year, Space Tango sent hemp seeds to the ISS for a series of experiments. The hemp seeds were sent back to Earth and planted for another series of experiments. The results have not yet been published.

Pennsylvania Governor Tom Wolf announced Monday that eight universities in the state have been licensed to begin studying medical marijuana. Pennsylvania’s medical marijuana program is just three months old, with the first dispensaries opening their doors to patients in February.

In a press conference announcing the colleges awarded the research permits, Gov. Wolf said, “Today, medical research is so limited by the federal government that only a few doctors can even have access to medical marijuana. Pennsylvania’s premiere medical schools will be able to help shape the future of treatment for patients who are in desperate need not just here, but across the country.”

The universities awarded research permits include the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania, the Lewis Katz School of Medicine at Temple University, the Drexel University College of Medicine, Lake Erie College of Osteopathic Medicine, Penn State College of Medicine, Philadelphia College of Osteopathic Medicine and Sidney Kimmel Medical College at Thomas Jefferson University.

Research of cannabis has been limited, mostly because the plant is still illegal under federal law, and the research that has been approved by government agencies so far uses notoriously poor quality cannabis from the University of Mississippi. However, the universities involved in the research program in Pennsylvania will use cannabis from the state’s licensed medical marijuana producers.

“It is important to note that Pennsylvania is the first and only state in the country to institute such a program, and we believe that the research that will be conducted by the School of Medicine in collaboration with [University of Pennsylvania Medical Center] will be of great importance in determining the safety, efficacy and effectiveness of medical cannabis products in treating specific diseases,” Pitt School of Medicine officials said in a statement Monday.

The eight available clinical registrant permits for growers/producers of medical marijuana have not yet been granted. Applications will be available through the Pennsylvania Health Department as of May 24 and must be filed no later than July 12.

There’s loads of anecdotal evidence that cannabis is effective in treating PTSD in veterans, but the Department of Veterans Affairs is not having any of it. Physicians in the VA are still prohibited from recommending cannabis to their patients, leaving veterans struggling with symptoms and addictive medications.

However, there is hope for veterans struggling to access medical marijuana. The first FDA-approved study on the effects of cannabis in treating veterans’ PTSD is nearly complete, and we could be one step closer to federally legalizing cannabis as a treatment.

The study, now in its third year, is being conducted by Dr. Sue Sisley and is funded by a $2.15 million grant from the University of Colorado. Sisley fought for seven years to get approval from federal officials to study the effects of marijuana, and while she may be well known as a marijuana advocate these days, she wasn’t always a fan.

“I was dismissive and judgmental, then I started losing a lot of vets in my practice to suicide, and it became a big wake-up call. The veteran community has a higher rate of prescription drug overdose, and many vets discovered they can substitute cannabis for the more addictive medications they’ve been prescribed, which is how we started to examine this,” Sisley told Healio.

The phase 2 study aims to provide more than anecdotal evidence through a controlled clinical trial. The study is triple-blind, randomized, and placebo-controlled. After a familiarization stage, veterans are given cannabis to take home and self administer. Subjects are randomly assigned to receive either high THC, high CBD, an equal THC/CBD mix, or placebo and asked to administer the medication at their own discretion for three weeks, followed by two weeks with no cannabis. Researchers monitor PTSD symptoms throughout the process.

In addition to PTSD, Sisley and her colleagues are also assessing biomarkers for inflammation and anti-inflammatory effect of cannabis.

Sisley said that only 19 additional veterans are needed to complete the dataset, and she hopes that the FDA will approve a phase-3 trial.

While that’s all good news, there is a potential hiccup in the research, and it has to do with the notoriously low-quality weed supplied by the government. The flower used in the study is grown at the University of Mississippi, and in addition to being full of stems and seeds, some samples also contain mold and lead.

“If half is extraneous nonmedical plant material, it could be sabotaging efficacy studies, meaning that if you’re trying to measure effectiveness of cannabis and you’re forced to use a very sub-optimal plant material, this could harm the outcome of tests looking at how effective cannabis is at treating a certain illness,” Sisley said to Healio.

 

Ever wonder why the high produced from smoking versus ingesting cannabis feels different? Look no further than cannabinoid 11-OH-THC.

Most people familiar with marijuana know about the rockstars of the cannabinoid world–THC and CBD–but there are more than 100 other cannabinoids produced by marijuana, including 11-OH-THC. And while THC is known for its psychoactive effects, there’s evidence that 11-OH-THC is more potent than THC.

What does that have to do with smoking versus eating cannabis? That requires a bit of background on cannabinoids and how they’re formed.

Most cannabinoids aren’t actually present in the cannabis plant, but are the result of chemical interactions between our bodies and cannabis. And the way we consume marijuana affects the type and concentration of cannabinoids produced.

When we smoke cannabis, it’s metabolized through the lungs and the absorbed cannabinoids are distributed throughout the body. Smoking cannabis results in only a very small amount of cannabinoids metabolized by the digestive system.

Ingesting cannabis, on the other hand, metabolizes cannabis through the digestive system. The liver breaks down THC molecules, converting them into other molecules to be eliminated from the body. One of the metabolites created during this process is 11-OH-THC. When THC is converted to 11-OH-THC, it becomes more potent.
According to the Prof of Pot:

“The levels of 11-OH-THC in your blood after smoking cannabis are only about 5% of THC levels. This is probably not enough to feel any effects from the 11-OH-THC.

However, after taking cannabis orally, the average levels of 11-OH-THC vary from 25% of THC to more than 300% of THC levels…so some people will have well over 3 times more 11-OH-THC in their body than THC after ingesting cannabis!”

The different levels of THC and 11-OH-THC are probably responsible for the different qualities of high produced from smoking or ingesting marijuana.

Citing a study that compared the potency of THC vs. 11-OH-THC, the Prof of Pot explains, “With this molecule )11-OH-THC), subjects reached nearly an 8 out of 10  on the  highness scale, vs. only about a 3 out of 10 for THC.”

Cannabis is credited with a whole host of therapeutic benefits and is effective at treating numerous medical conditions. But, it’s still early days when it comes to testing and researching marijuana, making the benefits of cannabis anecdotal evidence.

Scientists around the country are researching cannabis, hoping to expand our knowledge of the plant. Last month, two Colorado companies announced that they had mapped the cannabis genome. Sunrise Genetics, based in Fort Collins and Boulder-based CBDRx/Functional Remedies teamed up to map cannabis’ 10 chromosomes. Functional Remedies provided cannabis plants for Sunrise Genetics to study.

Understanding the genetic makeup of cannabis will make targeting specific desired effects, like making a consumer feel focused or relaxed, as well as treating specific symptoms, like muscle spasms or insomnia. Much of the current research around cannabis is focused on its medical uses, but there’s also increased focus on the uses of industrial hemp.

CJ Schwartz, chief executive officer of Sunrise Genetics, told Bloomberg, “DNA, of course I’m biased because it’s what I do, but it doesn’t lie. It really is a way to just sort of clear a lot of the b.s. The excessive claims are really doing a disservice to the plant or the potential of the plant and the science surrounding that.”

Matt Gibbs, president of Sunrise Genetics, told Biz West, “In this emerging industry, we all play a role in its success, and finding innovative and forward-thinking partners right here in Colorado has made the benefits of a joint effort to advance the science that benefits the hemp industry that much greater. Together, we look forward to continued expansion upon the map, expansion upon research opportunities,” he said, “and continuing to make better hemp and cannabis genetics.”

The full cannabis genome was presented at the Plant and Animal Genome Conference in San Diego in January.