Best printers for Home

Best Mixer Grinder

Best wired Earphones

Best 43 Inch TV in India

Best Wi Fi Routers

Best Home Theatre in India

Smart Watch under 5000

Best Laptops for Education

Best Laptop for Students

Contrary to the popular belief that playing video games is linked with mental health problems, a new study has found that it may be associated with better cognitive performance in children.<br /><br />The study, published in <keyword id="7284222" type="General" weightage="80" keywordseo="jama-network-open" source="Orion">JAMA Network Open</keyword>, found that those who reported playing video games for three hours per day or more performed better on cognitive skills tests involving impulse control and working memory, compared to children who had never played video games.<br /><br />"This study adds to our growing understanding of the associations between playing video games and brain development," said researcher <keyword id="167021" type="General" weightage="80" keywordseo="nora-volkow" source="Orion">Nora Volkow</keyword>, from <keyword id="817713" type="General" weightage="50" keywordseo="national-institute-on-drug-abuse" source="Orion">National Institute on Drug Abuse</keyword> (<keyword id="32609" type="General" weightage="50" keywordseo="nida" source="Orion">NIDA</keyword>).<br /><br />"Numerous studies have linked video gaming to behaviour and mental health problems. This study suggests that there may also be cognitive benefits associated with this popular pastime, which are worthy of further investigation," <keyword id="5125969" type="General" weightage="80" keywordseo="volkow" source="Orion">Volkow</keyword> added.<br /><br />For the study, the team analysed data obtained when children entered the ABCD Study at ages 9 and 10. The research team examined survey, cognitive, and brain imaging data from nearly 2,000 participants within the bigger study cohort. They separated these children into two groups, those who reported playing no video games and those who said playing video games for three hours per day or more. This threshold was selected as it exceeds the American Academy of Pediatrics screen time guidelines, which recommend that video gaming time be limited to one to two hours per day for older children. <br /><br />For each group, the investigators evaluated the children's performance on two tasks that reflected their ability to control impulsive behaviour and to memorise information, as well as the children's brain activity while performing the tasks.<br /><br />The researchers found that the children who reported playing video games for three or more hours per day were faster and more accurate on both cognitive tasks than those who never played. They also observed that the differences in cognitive function observed between the two groups were accompanied by differences in brain activity. Functional MRI brain imaging analyses found that children who played video games for three or more hours per day showed higher brain activity in regions of the brain associated with attention and memory than those who never played. <br /><br />At the same time, those children who played at least three hours of video games per day showed more brain activity in frontal brain regions that are associated with more cognitively demanding tasks and less brain activity in brain regions related to vision. <br /><br />Earlier, a study reported that video games can precipitate life-threatening cardiac arrhythmias in susceptible children whose predisposition may have been previously unrecognised.<br /><br /><strong>SEE ALSO:<br /><a target="_blank" class="c-link c-message_attachment__title_link" href="https://www.businessinsider.in/tech/news/starlink-signals-might-be-processed-and-utilised-to-replace-conventional-gps-report/articleshow/95080387.cms">Starlink signals might be processed and utilised to replace conventional GPS: Report</a><br /></strong><a target="_blank" class="c-link c-message_attachment__title_link" href="https://www.businessinsider.in/business/corporates/news/indias-it-giants-are-worried-about-moonlighting-employees-sharing-their-corporate-secrets/articleshow/95077652.cms"><strong>India’s IT giants are worried about moonlighting employees sharing their corporate secrets</strong></a><br />

Video gaming can lead to better cognitive performance in children says new study

<ul class="summary-list"><li>Philadelphia lawmakers voted this month to essentially ban supervised injection sites.</li><li>The vote came despite evidence that the sites significantly reduced overdose deaths.</li></ul><p>Over the last decade, about 10,000 people in Philadelphia have injected drugs, overdosed, and died. </p><p>Each year, hundreds of people pass out on the city's streets and do not wake up. With the arrival of fentanyl, it's trending worse, too: 10 years ago, fewer than 500 Philadelphians suffered a <a target="_blank" href="https://www.pewtrusts.org/-/media/assets/2022/04/philadelphia-2022-the-state-of-the-city.pdf"><u>fatal overdose</u></a>; in 2021, the overdose death toll was almost 1,300, at least <a target="_blank" href="https://www.dea.gov/engage/operation-engage-philadelphia"><u>8 in 10 fatalities</u></a> attributable to drugs laced with the powerful opioid.</p><p>Public health is not a field for moralizing. People should not, generally, inject into their bodies a substance they bought with cash from a stranger on the street. But people will because they are physically hooked on those substances. And many will not resort to best practices, like using a clean needle, and contract diseases that require lifelong treatment. </p><p>Kensington, a neighborhood in northeast Philadelphia, is ground zero for this behavior. It's home to open-air dealing in heroin and "tranq," an animal sedative that can result in limbs being amputated. But people all over Philadelphia, addicted and unhoused, can be found lying motionless on sidewalks or a stranger's front stoop.</p><p>That is the state of things. Knowing this, and presumably being aware of the science — a supervised injection site in Vancouver, Canada, reduced overdose deaths by 35%, <a target="_blank" href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6565790/"><u>according to one study,</u></a> and those who used the site were more likely to also seek drug treatment — members of Philadelphia's city council, almost all Democrats who style themselves progressive, this month acted in near-unanimity to <a target="_blank" href="https://www.inquirer.com/news/philadelphia/supervised-injection-site-ban-philadelphia-city-council-20230914.html"><u>effectively prohibit</u></a> something that does not currently exist: safe spaces where someone can inject a drug, with a clean needle, in front of someone trained to address an overdose.</p><p>"This is another tragic page in a tragic story," Scott Burris, director of the Center of Public Health Law Research at Temple University, told Insider. "Philadelphia had a chance to come together to do something that needed to be done, that is backed by evidence and experience. It pushed a lot of buttons, but we should as a community [have] been able to talk it through and get to a solution."</p><p>Philadelphia's city council did allow for the possibility of a site opening in one western district of the city, and some members suggested they were only asking for more community input, although cynics would note such input tends to be, predictably, of the "not in my backyard" variety. Councilman Isaiah Thomas, who has a reputation as a progressive, likened supervised injection sites to billionaires steamrolling opposition and constructing a downtown sports arena, <a target="_blank" href="https://www.inquirer.com/news/philadelphia/supervised-injection-site-ban-philadelphia-city-council-20230914.html"><u>The Philadelphia Inquirer reported</u></a>. "People would be up in arms," Thomas said.</p><p>Mike Driscoll, a Democrat representing the city's northeast, was adamant that he was opposing the whole idea.</p><p>"We need to put these folks into compassionate, long-term care and get them on the road to recovery, not postpone the inevitable," he said, <a target="_blank" href="https://www.inquirer.com/news/philadelphia/supervised-injection-site-ban-philadelphia-city-council-20230914.html"><u>according to The Philadelphia Inquirer</u></a>.</p><p>In that, most of Philly's elected Democrats are in an uneasy but very real alliance with Donald Trump. In 2019, the former president's Department of Justice <a target="_blank" href="https://whyy.org/articles/federal-prosecutors-sue-to-stop-nations-first-planned-supervised-injection-site-in-philly/"><u>sued to stop</u></a> a Philadelphia-based nonprofit, Safehouse, from opening what would have been the country's first safe injection site, citing a federal law originally aimed at crack houses. The Biden administration is looking to have the <a target="_blank" href="https://whyy.org/articles/safehouse-supervised-injection-suit-department-justice-dismiss/"><u>case dismissed</u></a>.</p><p>The bipartisan fantasy is admirable, albeit unfunded. Instead of enabling the safer consumption of a dangerous drug, the benevolent state could instead extend its iron hand to the afflicted user, leading them down the path to treatment (paying for it, even: the food; the shelter; the counseling) and eventual reintegration with society, doing what is best for them, whether they can see that or not.</p><p>The trouble, according to Dr. Nora Volkow, head of the National Institute on Drug Abuse, is that this approach does not usually work, at least in the scaled-down versions of mandatory treatment that actually exist. "The data does not show that it's beneficial to put someone in jail or prison or force them against their will to go to treatment," <a target="_blank" href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/04/30/opinion/forced-addiction-treatment.html"><u>she told The New York Times</u></a> last year.</p><p>Besides, Philadelphia, a city battling not just drug addiction but poverty and gun violence, is not about to open drug treatment resorts. The stopgap solution — a safe place to inject drugs — falls far short of eliminating the scourge of drug addiction but exists just a couple hours north in New York City, where advocates say in just its first few months, it prevented <a target="_blank" href="https://www.npr.org/2022/06/04/1103114131/supervised-injection-sites-in-nyc-have-saved-lives-but-officials-wont-provide-fu"><u>hundreds</u></a> of potential overdose deaths.</p><p>Elected officials are probably being honest when they say that most of the constituents they hear from are opposed to the idea. Most people would rather a cute café open up next door and, for that, maybe they should not be blamed. But the seeming lack of public support is also a product of the fact that few in public office have been interested in putting in the work.</p><p>Ronda Goldfein, a cofounder of Safehouse and executive director of the AIDS Law Project of Pennsylvania, said she doesn't blame Philadelphians for being skeptical in the absence of leadership.</p><p>"I think that they are perhaps so angry, understandably, because the city has failed them," Goldfein told Insider.</p><p>To residents who have seen public drug use extend across the city, opening a safe injection site may sound like opening a Walmart Supercenter for narcotics — another boneheaded solution imposed by a negligent city government that will only attract more of the same.</p><p>The irony is that what angers many residents the most — people doing drugs in public, from the subway to the alley behind their home, leaving needles in the reach of pets and children — is just what safe injection sites are intended to address.</p><p>"We'll take it all inside," as Goldfein puts it. "We are offering a solution to the problem they're complaining about."</p><p>Philadelphia Mayor Jim Kenney is one of the few public officials to explicitly endorse supervised injection sites. He leaves office in a few months, and his likely Democratic successor, Cherelle Parker, has already endorsed the city council's de facto ban.</p><p>After the council's veto-proof decision, Kenney <a target="_blank" href="https://whyy.org/articles/philadelphia-mayor-jim-kenny-supervised-injection-site-ban-overdose-deaths/"><u>told reporters</u></a> that opponents would have blood on their hands.</p><p>"If you really want to say that you want to fix this problem or address this problem, then address it, and stop trying to put your head in the sand and say this doesn't work — because it works," Kenney told reporters. It works in Canada and Europe, he said; it works in New York City. "If [city] council wants to continue to avoid this and resist it, it's fine," Kenney said, "but it means you're gonna have people dying as a result of it."</p><p><em>Have a news tip? Email this reporter: </em><a target="_blank" href="mailto:cdavis@insider.com"><em><u>cdavis@insider.com</u></em></a></p>

Philadelphia's mayor says his fellow Democrats just voted for more people to die from drug overdoses. Experts say he's right.

<ul class="summary-list"><li>A new study by the US National Institutes of <keyword id="6354750" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="100" keywordseo="health">Health</keyword> has linked <keyword id="14728" type="ENTERTAINMENT" weightage="60" keywordseo="cannabis">cannabis</keyword> use and suicidality in young people.</li><li><keyword id="14724" type="PERSON" weightage="60" keywordseo="Young-adults">Young adults</keyword> who used weed were more likely to consider <keyword id="6356238" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="suicide">suicide</keyword>, but researchers don't know why.</li><li>Women may be especially vulnerable to this increased risk of suicidality, the authors wrote.</li></ul><p>A new study from the <a href="https://www.nih.gov/news-events/news-releases/cannabis-use-may-be-associated-suicidality-young-adults">National Institutes of Health</a> suggests there may be a link between cannabis use and rising rates of suicidal ideation, planning, and attempts among young people.</p><p>Both casual and habitual cannabis users were more likely to report suicidal thoughts and behaviors, according to an analysis of data from the 2008-2019 <a href="https://nsduhweb.rti.org/respweb/homepage.cfm">National Surveys on Drug Use and Health</a>. </p><p>Any level of cannabis use seemed to correspond with an increase in suicidality, regardless of frequency of use or preexisting <keyword id="6354774" type="ORGANIZATION" weightage="60" keywordseo="Mental-health">mental health</keyword> conditions, the researchers wrote, though they said they weren't sure why.</p><p>Both cannabis use and mental health issues have grown more common in the US over the past decade. The number of American adults who report using cannabis has more than doubled between 2008 and 2019, according to the <a href="https://www.drugabuse.gov/drug-topics/marijuana/marijuana-trends-statistics">National Institute on Drug Abuse</a> (NIDA). During that same period, rates of depression and suicidality also increased, <a href="https://www.insider.com/cdc-suicide-rate-in-young-people-10-24-continues-climb-2020-9">especially among young people</a>.</p><p>Nora Volkow, NIDA director and senior author of the study, told Insider that more research is needed to understand these findings. In the meantime, she said it's best to be prudent.</p><p>"We already know that <a href="https://www.insider.com/rare-marijuana-side-effects-vomiting-lung-damage-psychosis-2021-6">marijuana can trigger psychotic episodes</a>, and in people that are vulnerable, it can trigger schizophrenia," Volkow said. "So, when you have data like this, the message is that you should be cautious."</p><h2><strong>The </strong>study found higher <strong>risks for women using cannabis than men</strong></h2><p>The study, published Tuesday in <a href="https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamanetworkopen/fullarticle/2781215?utm_campaign=articlePDF&amp;utm_medium=articlePDFlink&amp;utm_source=articlePDF&amp;utm_content=jamanetworkopen.2021.13025n.2021.13025">JAMA Network Open</a>, analyzed data from more than 280,000 Americans ages 18-35.</p><p>It supported <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1600-0447.2008.01259.x">past</a> <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/the-british-journal-of-psychiatry/article/cannabis-and-suicide-longitudinal-study/6CFEC0A5B314F34D35A68693A847CAAD">studies</a> linking cannabis use and suicidality, and suggested that the association was stronger in women.</p><p>Women who used cannabis at any level were more likely to report suicidality compared to men with the same levels of cannabis use.</p><p>For instance, women who screened positive for both cannabis use disorder and a major depressive episode were twice as likely to report planning suicide compared to men in the same category. </p><p><a href="https://www.insider.com/is-marijuana-addictive">Cannabis use disorder</a> is defined as "a problematic pattern of cannabis use leading to clinically significant impairment or distress," according to the DSM-5, a manual known as the psychiatry "Bible." </p><p>As for those without a history of depression, nearly 14% of women with cannabis use disorders reported suicidal thoughts, compared to 3.5 percent of women who did not use cannabis. Among men, nearly 10% of those with CUD and 3% of those without it experienced suicidal ideation.</p><h2>The r<strong>esearchers </strong>said they <strong>don't know which </strong>might <strong>come first: suicidal thoughts or cannabis use</strong></h2><p>There are a few different ways in which cannabis and mental health could interact.</p><p>Some people with preexisting mental health issues may <a href="https://www.insider.com/how-bad-is-cannabis-use-in-pregnancy-2021-4">self-medicate with cannabis</a> to ease symptoms of depression, anxiety, or suicidal thoughts.</p><p>Peter Grinspoon, a primary care physician and cannabis specialist at Harvard Medical, told Insider that people who use cannabis for therapeutic purposes may also be at higher risk for suicide, but that correlation doesn't mean causation.</p><p>"I think the most straightforward explanation is that distressed people, who are more likely at risk for all types of negative outcomes including suicide, self-medicate with cannabis because it helps them relax, sleep, connect with others, and elevates their mood," Grinspoon told Insider. "I treat these people and it helps them."</p><p>Volkow said it's also possible that cannabis use could make the brain more reactive and vulnerable for suicidality. Cannabis acts on the <a href="https://www.insider.com/cbd-vs-thc">endocannabinoid system</a>, a collection of receptors which help <a href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/19839936/#:~:text=The%20central%20endocannabinoid%20system%20is,behaviour%2C%20mood%20and%20stress%20responsivity.">regulate mood and buffer stress</a>. Too much stimulation from cannabis could impact the body's own endocannabinoids, Volkow said.</p>

Cannabis use may be linked to increasing suicidal thoughts in young women, study finds

<ul class="summary-list"><li>The professor Carl Hart has studied psychoactive <keyword id="14721" type="COMPANY" weightage="60" keywordseo="Drugs">drugs</keyword> for more than three decades.</li><li>His new book lays out why he thinks all drugs should be legal.</li><li>Other experts stress limiting supply and putting more limits on big drug companies could help.</li></ul><p>Carl Hart says he first tried heroin six or seven years ago.</p><p>At the time, he was already a tenured professor at Columbia University and "well over 40," according to his new book, "<a href="https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/534657/drug-use-for-grown-ups-by-dr-carl-l-hart/">Drug Use for Grown Ups</a>."</p><p>After doing that "short, thin line" with a friend, he said, he felt "a dreamy light sedation, free of stress."</p><p>He added that the two chatted, laughed, "called it an evening, and went home."</p><p>Hart, a <keyword id="6363047" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="psychology">psychology</keyword> professor and neuroscience expert, had already worked (legally) with drugs including marijuana, cocaine, and heroin for more than 25 years, studying drug users and seeking to answer questions about the threats drugs pose to mental and physical <keyword id="6354750" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="100" keywordseo="health">health</keyword>.</p><p>For most of that time, Hart was set on proving one point: Drugs are bad. Now, he just wishes he could do them legally and that you could too.</p><p>"My heroin use is as recreational as my alcohol use," Hart wrote in his book. "Like vacation, sex, and the arts, heroin is one of the tools that I use to maintain my work-life balance."</p><p>His book is a research scientist's love letter to drugs of all stripes and an argument for more even-handed drug policies across the US.</p><p>"This notion that people are not going to use drugs, that's silly and adolescent," he told Insider. "That's what this book is about: being grown up."</p><p>But other drug experts say the professor's ultimate goal of widespread legalization isn't the idyllic solution he suggests, even as they agree that the decriminalization he stumps for in his book is desperately needed.</p><p>Heroin is highly effective at treating pain, but long-term <a href="https://pubchem.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/compound/Heroin">heroin use</a> can trigger tolerance and physical dependence. <a href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/15785068/">Taking heroin</a> can also lead to breathing problems and death. In the US, nearly a third of all opioid deaths involve heroin, and <a href="https://www.cdc.gov/drugoverdose/data/heroin.html">15,000 people died</a> from a drug overdose involving heroin in 2018.</p><h2>Hart says he's 'better for' his drug use and believes society could benefit from it too</h2><div type="image" title="FILE PHOTO: An Afghan man works on a poppy field in Jalalabad province April 17, 2014. REUTERS/ Parwiz/File Photo" height="2314" width="3500" msid="81114300" hostid="261"></div><p>Heroin is part of a group of pain-relieving drugs called <a href="https://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/opioids/what-are-opioids.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">opioids</a> (originally derived from the opium poppy), while methamphetamine is a synthetic chemical compound.</p><p><a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/npp2011276#Sec11">Hart's work</a> has shown that a drug like meth provides some short-term cognitive benefits, including better visuospatial perception, more sustained attention, and faster responses. The cognitive benefits of this stimulant use have long been known.</p><p><a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/features/2016/11/25/a-brief-history-of-war-and-drugs-from-vikings-to-nazis">Pilots in World War II</a> took meth so they could <a href="https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/ct-xpm-2003-02-02-0302020386-story.html">stay awake for full days</a> of flying. Today, methamphetamine is approved by the Food and Drug Administration as a medication for both attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder and obesity, as it's almost <a href="https://pubchem.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/compound/Methamphetamine">chemically</a> <a href="https://pubchem.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/compound/Amphetamine">identical</a> to Adderall (amphetamine).</p><p>Hart says that his family supports his own recreational-heroin habit and that he continues to meet his responsibilities as an academic, husband, father, and taxpayer, writing in the book that he's "better for" his drug use.</p><p>"The most important thing we have emphasized as parents is: Just try and live like the person that you think you are - a moral, compassionate, global citizen," he told Insider. "My family would expect me to stand up on behalf of the people who have been castigated" for using drugs.</p><p>Making meth or heroin an everyday activity is a different story, though. Consistent, heavy drug use makes people more vulnerable to addiction, though that vulnerability varies. Long-term heavy use of methamphetamine is also toxic to neurons, Dr. Anna Lembke, the chief of the Stanford Addiction Medicine Dual Diagnosis Clinic, told Insider.</p><h2><strong>Hart disagrees with other experts about whether drugs can change your brain</strong></h2><div type="image" title="Hart.Vancouver" height="1125" width="1500" msid="81114301" hostid="261"></div><p>Drug addiction is often described by researchers as a brain disorder, calling forth images from public-service announcements of the 1980s and '90s comparing "your brain on drugs" to a <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F0kCYP_iPtg">fried egg</a>.</p><p>Dr. Nora Volkow, the director of the National Institute on <keyword id="14744" type="ORGANIZATION" weightage="60" keywordseo="Drug-abuse">Drug Abuse</keyword>, explained this disorder model in a <a href="https://www.drugabuse.gov/about-nida/noras-blog/2018/03/what-does-it-mean-when-we-call-addiction-brain-disorder">2018 blog post, writing</a> that "stark" differences in the brains of addicted individuals help explain the compulsive nature of their drug use.</p><p>Hart asserts that most studies of drug users show their cognitive abilities and functions rest within the normal range. (It's clear in the book that he disagrees with Volkow vehemently on this point.)</p><p>"Intelligent, informed people can disagree on the disease model of addiction," Lembke said, acknowledging Hart's argument.</p><p>She also says there's evidence that sustained, long-term drug use <em>can</em> alter your brain in a different kind of way than learning a new language or a musical instrument might. Piano players can stop hitting the keys whenever they want, without going through the painful, debilitating symptoms of withdrawal.</p><h2>Hart says going through heroin withdrawal was incapacitating</h2><p><strong><div type="image" title="FILE PHOTO: A 41-year-old man found unconscious after overdosing on opioids in the driver's seat of a car, with the engine running and the transmission in drive, puts his hands over his head in the back of a Cataldo Ambulance at a gas station in the Boston suburb of Malden, Massachusetts, December 2, 2017. REUTERS/Brian Snyder/File Photo" height="3156" width="4734" msid="81114302" hostid="261"></div></strong></p><p>Hart knows what it feels like to go through opioid withdrawal.</p><p>In the book, he documented some of his experience with what he called mild heroin withdrawal, which he said he had gone through more than once after he used "for no more than about 10 consecutive days at a time."</p><p>Hart described common withdrawal symptoms like the flu: chills, runny nose, nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, all starting about 12 to 16 hours after the final dose. For hours, it would be so incapacitating that he couldn't sleep.</p><p>"It was a pain that I would not easily forget. It was a new pain, unlike any I had previously experienced. It was so intense that it radiated throughout my entire body," Hart wrote in the book, describing one of his worst experiences going through withdrawal.</p><p>Because Hart is a drug expert, he sprang into action, crushing up a bit of sedative and knocking himself out for several hours, until the pain subsided to more manageable aches and a runny nose. Hart was relieved to feel more minor, flu-like symptoms when he woke up.</p><p>Researchers say this painful withdrawal period can be one of the most "powerful factors" <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/mental-physical-effects-of-opioids-2016-5#suddenly-stopping-the-drugs-can-result-in-withdrawal-symptoms-like-shakiness-vomiting-and-diarrhea-12">driving opioid dependence and addictive behavior</a>. People who become addicted to drugs may also <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/mental-physical-effects-of-opioids-2016-5#you-may-also-develop-a-tolerance-for-the-drugs-so-that-you-need-more-to-get-the-same-effect-over-time-11">develop a tolerance</a> for the substances they use, requiring more and more of a drug like meth or <a href="https://medicine.yale.edu/news/yale-medicine-magazine/from-cough-medicine-to-deadly-addiction-a-century/">heroin</a> to feel good.</p><p>"We all have the potential to become addicted," Lembke said. "It's in our DNA to pursue pleasurable activities, to avoid painful ones."</p><h2>'Accept the fact that people will do drugs'</h2><div type="image" title="carl hart " height="666" width="1000" msid="81114304" hostid="261"></div><p>Hart is convinced the US must regulate and license recreational drugs and then teach people how to use them safely.</p><p>The first thing Hart wants President Joe Biden to do is <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/americans-declared-drug-war-over-election-prohibition-lawmakers-marijuana-oregon-2020-11">decriminalize</a> possession, an initial step on the pathway toward more open, legal drug use of all kinds.</p><p>"You could have a massive public-service-announcement campaign that says 'If you're going to use opioids, don't use alcohol as a background or other sedatives in combination, because it increases the likelihood of respiratory depression and death,'" Hart said. </p><p>In the US, most <a href="https://www.cdc.gov/drugoverdose/pubs/featured-topics/VS-overdose-deaths-illicit-drugs.html">opioid overdose deaths</a> involve street drugs, like illicitly manufactured fentanyls. Many people also mix in <a href="https://www.billboard.com/articles/columns/the-juice/6509451/asap-rocky-asap-yams-death-new-york-times">antihistamines</a>, which can be deadly when combined with opioids.</p><p>It's virtually impossible for people without access to a lab to test the purity of these drugs.</p><p>Hart's view is that many of the <a href="https://www.cdc.gov/drugoverdose/data/statedeaths.html">60,000-plus drug overdose deaths</a> across America each year could be eliminated with better education and a cleaner supply. He envisions a system in which people can <a href="https://www.vice.com/en/article/wdbnzx/boom-festival-decriminalized-drugs-portugal-harm-reduction-drug-testing">submit samples of their drugs and learn what they contain</a>, reducing the risks of use. </p><p>"Our founding document guarantees us at least three birthrights: life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness," he said. "Those ideals are profound. It means that you can live your life as you choose. And it's nobody's business, as long as you do not interfere with anybody else doing the same."</p><p>Some experts say his view ignores some inconvenient truths - that access to drugs often leads to <a href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33028468/">more overdoses</a>, <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5623152/">more emergency-room visits</a>, and more potent consumption. <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/30/us/marijuana-colorado-legalization.html">Racial divides in drug arrests</a> don't go away when drugs become legal, either.</p><p>Keith Humphreys, a Stanford University psychiatry professor who worked as a White House drug-policy advisor for both President George W. Bush and President Barack Obama, told Insider that Hart's views on drug regulation discounted the role of money in politics.</p><p>"What is naive about this is that it's basically saying we can trust multibillion-dollar corporations to do the right thing," Humphreys said. "That's the road we have taken with alcohol, and tobacco, and opioids. And I would say we can't do that."</p><h2>Just 'a few lines by the fireplace at the end of the day'</h2><div type="image" title="Cocaine" height="2001" width="3001" msid="81114305" hostid="261"></div><p>Hart doesn't use heroin every day now, nor does he say he craves it. But it is his drug of choice.</p><p>What is so wrong, he wonders in the book, about indulging in a short, thin "few lines by the fireplace at the end of the day"?</p><p>He said he's frustrated when he sees people <a href="https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/529343/how-to-change-your-mind-by-michael-pollan/">glorify psychedelics</a>, as if they are some special class of drugs and not simply the chemicals of choice for white, recreational drug users.</p><p>"Heroin allows me to suspend the perpetual preparation for battle that goes on in my head," he wrote. "I am frequently in a state of hypervigilance in an effort to prevent or minimize the damage caused by daily living in my own skin."</p><p>When asked about how to keep legalization safe, Hart said: "The regulators should just do their damn job."</p><p><em>If you or someone you know is dealing with substance use or mental health issues, confidential, free help is available 24/7. Call <a href="https://www.samhsa.gov/find-help/national-helpline">the National Helpline</a> at 1-800-662-HELP to be connected to treatment information.</em></p><p><em><strong>Correction:</strong> A previous version of this story classed methamphetamine as an opioid. It's not. It's a synthetic stimulant that was originally <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2014/10/brewing-bad-the-all-natural-origins-of-meth/381045/">developed in a lab</a>.</em></p>

A Columbia professor who uses heroin says the drug helps him maintain a work-life balance and should be legal for everyone

<p></p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_right"><div><div class="image on-image"></div><p></p></div></div>If drug addiction is a disease like cancer or Alzheimer's, how do you explain the seemingly amoral behavior - the lying, cheating, and hiding - that has come to be linked with so many addicts?<p>The answer has less to do with morality and much more to do with physical changes in the brains of those who become addicted, as <a href="https://www.drugabuse.gov/">National Institute on Drug Abuse</a> Director Dr. Nora Volkow perfectly explains in a recent <a href="http://www.thirteen.org/openmind/science/disease-free-will/5457/">PBS episode of "The Open Mind,"</a> on addiction.</p><p>It makes a lot of sense - especially when explained with chocolate.</p><p>Volkow is a chocolate lover, you see. She has a special weakness for dark varieties. Most of the time, she can control her cravings. But occasionally - usually when she's frustrated or tired or bored - she gives in. Then she'll overdo it, and eat too much of the stuff.</p><p>Sound familiar?</p><p>If so, that's because it's a fairly common type of experience. Most of us can abstain some of the time and give in occasionally, but more often than not, most of us easily follow the rule of moderation. But in people who are vulnerable to addiction (via a mesh of factors including genetics, environment, behavior, and exposure), this is <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/maia-szalavitz-unbroken-brain-treating-addiction-as-a-learning-disorder-2016-4">where things start to look different</a>, Volkow explains. And it's at this point where&#xa0;the long-held notion that addiction is merely a problem of a lack of self-control begins to crumble.</p><p>"When you transition from that stage where most of the time you are able to self-regulate the desires and control and manage your behavior even though you want to do it, you say it's not a good idea - when you lose that capacity consistently, that's when you start to get into the transition of addiction," she says.</p><p></p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"></div><p></p></div></div>But, as she continues to explain, the problem is <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/maia-szalavitz-unbroken-brain-treating-addiction-as-a-learning-disorder-2016-4">not simply a behavioral one</a>. It's also influenced by physical changes that happen in the brain - changes that produce <a href="http://www.nature.com/nrn/journal/v5/n12/full/nrn1539.html">marked differences</a> between the brains of people who are addicted and those who are not.<p>One of those differences, says Volkow, is a dysfunction in&#xa0;areas of&#xa0;the frontal cortex, a part of the brain which plays a key role in helping us analyze situations and make decisions. "But if these areas of the brain are not functioning properly, which is what repeated drug use [can do] to your brain, it [can erode] the capacity of frontal cortical areas."</p><p>When that happens, your ability to say no to that chocolate bar gets diminished, or in Volkow's words, "your ability to make optimal decisions gets dysfunctional."</p><p>Volkow's ideas are bolstered by decades of <a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1201373/">research</a>, including a <a href="http://www.nature.com/nrn/journal/v12/n11/full/nrn3119.html">2011 review of studies</a> that she co-authored for the journal Nature. The authors of a <a href="http://www.nature.com/nrn/journal/v5/n12/full/nrn1539.html">2004 paper</a> built upon similar research, concluding that addiction is a learned behavior linked with fundamental changes to the brains of addicts.</p><p>For this reason, it's not as simple as just choosing to use drugs - or, in Volkow's example, overdo it on the chocolate. And the more we know about the neurological basis of addiction, the better we will be able to treat it.</p><p style="text-align: left;"><strong>Watch the <a href="http://www.thirteen.org/openmind/science/disease-free-will/5457/">full "Open Mind" episode</a> on PBS:</strong></p><p style="text-align: left;"><div></div></p>

Watch America's foremost authority on drugs smash a huge misconception about addiction - with chocolate

<p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_right"><div><div class="image on-image"><p class="source"><span>Shutterstock</span></p></div><p></p></div></div>An annual survey of 45,000 middle and high school students in the US found that it may be harder than ever for teens to find weed.</p><p>According to the <a href="http://www.monitoringthefuture.org//pressreleases/16drugpr_complete.pdf">Monitoring the Future survey</a>, which is funded by the National Institute on Drug Abuse, 8th- and 10th-grade participants <a href="http://www.usnews.com/news/data-mine/articles/2016-12-13/marijuana-is-harder-than-ever-for-younger-teens-to-find">gave the lowest-ever indication</a> that they could acquire marijuana if they wanted it. The survey has asked the question every year since 1992.</p><p>Experts are scratching their heads as to what caused the dip.</p><div><p>"I don't have an explanation. This is somewhat surprising," Nora Volkow, director of NIDA, <a href="http://www.usnews.com/news/data-mine/articles/2016-12-13/marijuana-is-harder-than-ever-for-younger-teens-to-find">told US News &amp; World Report</a>.</p><p>In 2016, seven states voted to legalize marijuana in some form. One in five Americans will soon live in states where they can purchase the Schedule I drug without a letter of recommendation from a doctor.</p><p>Opponents of legalization often cite increased usage among teens as a reason for tabling legalization bills. But the data provided by researchers at the University of Michigan appears to debunk the myth.</p><p>"We had predicted based on the changes in legalization, culture in the US as well as decreasing perceptions among teenagers that marijuana was harmful that [accessibility and use] would go up. But it hasn't gone up," <span>Volkow</span> said.</p><p>Among 8th-graders, the rate of students who used marijuana in the past 12 months plummeted from 11.8% in 2015 to 9.4% in 2016, its lowest level since 1993. The number of 8th-graders who light up monthly dropped from 6.5% in 2015 to 5.4% in 2016.</p><p>Rates of marijuana use among 10th- and 12th-graders remained stable year over year. High school seniors also gave slightly increased indications that they could easily access marijuana.</p><p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"><p class="source"><span>Timothy J. Gonzalez/AP</span></p></div><p></p></div></div></p><p><span>Activists on both sides of the legalization issue will be mulling over the data in the weeks ahead. </span><span>Volkow told US News &amp; World Report that "<span>the fact that teens spend more time around computers and less time around friends who could offer them drugs" might be reason for the decline.</span></span></p><p><span><span>Those in favor of legalization, however, point to better education and public awareness as a possible cause for the data shift.</span></span></p><p>"<span><span>Every time a state considers rolling back marijuana prohibition, opponents predict it will result in more teen use. Yet the data seems to tell a very different story," Mason Tvert, a spokesperson for the pro-legalization Marijuana Policy Project, said in a statement.</span></span></p><p><span><span>"The best way to prevent teen marijuana use is education and regulation, not arresting responsible adult consumers and depriving sick people of medical marijuana," <span>Tvert said.</span></span></span></p><p><span><span><span><span>Ethan Nadelmann, executive director of the Drug Policy Alliance, offered up another explanation in an interview with US News &amp; World Report.</span></span></span></span></p><p><span><span><span><span>"</span></span></span></span><span>Maybe marijuana use is becoming less and less a symbol of rebellion among teenagers," Nadelmann said.</span></p></div>    <div class="margin-top">        <h3>NOW WATCH: <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/animated-map-marijuana-legal-election-votes-2016-11">This animated map shows where marijuana is legal in the US</a></h3>        <div>            <div>        <div class="ooyala-video-player" data-video-autoplay="false" data-video-id="U4YThoNzE6tFppLEKe2927sU3eASnMv9" data-player-variable="ooyalapopvideo" id="ooyalaplayer_popvideo" style="width:1280px;height:720px"></div>        </div>        </div>            </div>

Teens are having a harder time getting their hands on weed than they did in the '90s

<p><strong><em>Welcome to <keyword id="9884466" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="insider-cannabis">Insider Cannabis</keyword>, our weekly <keyword id="621414" type="PERSON" weightage="60" keywordseo="Newsletter">newsletter</keyword> where we're bringing you an inside look at the deals, trends, and personalities driving the multibillion-dollar global <keyword id="14728" type="ENTERTAINMENT" weightage="100" keywordseo="cannabis">cannabis</keyword> boom.</em></strong></p><p><strong><em><a href="http://newsletter.businessinsider.com/join/cultivated">Sign up here to get it in your inbox every week</a>.</em></strong></p><p>If you follow cannabis news closely, this week was a good reminder of the strange world we live in where <keyword id="40905" type="PERSON" weightage="60" keywordseo="Marijuana">marijuana</keyword> use is completely legal and normalized in some states and a criminal act in others.</p><p>Late-night host <strong>Conan O'Brien</strong> <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uNOHeeXuGbs">lit up a joint</a> with cannabis evangelist and comedian <strong>Seth Rogen</strong> on live TV, for O'Brien's second-to-last ever TBS show. O'Brien said he's not a regular marijuana user, but joked that he needed to do something with all his newfound free time.</p><p>Elsewhere in the late-night world, <strong>Jimmy Kimmel</strong> helped "<strong>Freddie the Stoner</strong>," an Indiana man who was interviewed by the show while waiting in line at a dispensary opening in Michigan, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5aSE5lFJ4LY">land his dream job writing product reviews for <strong>Emjay</strong></a>, a Los Angeles-based cannabis delivery startup. </p><p>Lots of Americans of all political stripes watch Kimmel and O'Brien. You might think that late-night hosts being so brazen about using marijuana on live television is a clear sign that the era of marijuana prohibition is over. You'd be wrong.</p><p><strong>LA Lakers</strong> guard <strong>Alex Caruso</strong> was <a href="https://www.espn.com/nba/story/_/id/31690313/los-angeles-lakers-guard-alex-caruso-arrested-texas-marijuana-possession">arrested in Texas</a> for having a grinder with a small amount of marijuana on him at the airport. He was released, but not before his mugshot was shared with the world. He'll be fine, and I'm sure he has the money and resources to cover bail and fight whatever charges crop up, but he's an example of what's still happening to thousands of people across the country.</p><p>And on a semi-related note, two former consultants to <strong>Eaze</strong> were sentenced to prison for disguising credit card payments on the marijuana delivery service's platform. At the hearing, <strong>US District Judge Jed Rakoff</strong> criticized the sentencing guidelines which called for life in prison for one, and 24 years for the other, <a href="https://www.reuters.com/legal/government/ex-eaze-consultants-sentenced-prison-pot-payment-scheme-2021-06-18/">Reuters reports</a>. </p><p>The consultants broke the law. But life in prison for what amounts to fraud is quite a harsh sentence - the defendant ultimately got two-and-a-half years.</p><p>What else?</p><p>The Ontario Securities Commission <a href="https://financialpost.com/fp-finance/with-quasi-criminal-canntrust-charges-osc-flexes-enforcement-muscles-long-seen-as-weak-spot">gave out "quasi-criminal" charges</a> to <strong>CannTrust</strong>'s former CEO, <strong>Peter Aceto</strong>, as well as another executive and a board member for growing unlicensed cannabis. </p><p>And I got a fun scoop on what the CEOs of US cannabis companies <strong>Trulieve</strong> and <strong>Green Thumb Industries</strong> told an audience of some of the world's most powerful investors at last week's <strong>Robin Hood Investors Conference</strong>. <strong><a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/gti-trulieve-ceos-discuss-future-of-cannabis-at-robin-hood-conference-2021-6">You can read that here</a></strong>.</p><p><strong>Cantor Fitzgerald</strong> analyst <strong>Pablo Zuanic</strong> said in a note this week the US cannabis sector has been suffering from a 'Schumer overhang' while the industry waits for the Senate Majority Leader's legalization bill. </p><p>Let's get to it. </p><p><em>- Jeremy Berke (<a href="https://twitter.com/jfberke">@jfberke</a>) &amp; Yeji (<a href="https://twitter.com/jesse_yeji?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Eauthor">@jesse_yeji</a>)</em></p><p><strong><em>If you like what you read, share this newsletter with your colleagues, friends, boss, spouse, strangers on the internet, or whomever else would like a weekly dose of cannabis news. </em></strong></p><p><strong><em>Here's what we wrote about this week:</em></strong></p><h3><a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/atai-life-sciences-ipo-psychedelics-key-takeaways-s-1-filing-2021-4"><strong>Psychedelics giant Atai is targeting a $2.3 billion valuation in its IPO. We pored over its 446-page filing to find 7 key takeaways.</strong></a></h3><p>The largest private psychedelics company in the world made its long-anticipated public debut last Friday. We dug through Atai's public filings to narrow down the main takeaways investors should know about the company.</p><h3><a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/cannabis-tech-companies-hiring-new-york-recreational-marijuana-market-2021-6"><strong>4 top cannabis-tech startups share how they're gearing up to win a slice of New York's $7 billion marijuana market</strong></a></h3><p>Tech companies that work in cannabis are preparing for New York's adult-use marijuana market. Insider spoke to four cannabis-tech companies - Fyllo, Dutchie, LeafLink, and SpringBig - and all said they're hiring aggressively to meet the demand of the New York market.</p><h3><a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/capitol-hill-staffers-use-marijuana-biden-fires-staffers-for-weed-2021-4">Capitol Hill staffers say they use marijuana freely even though it's still illegal for federal workers</a></h3><p>Using marijuana is a <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/white-house-biden-pushed-out-sidelined-staff-marijuana-use-2021-3">fireable offense</a> in President Joe Biden's White House, but many power players who work a couple of miles away on Capitol Hill can and do get away with it.</p><p>Most congressional staffers never get asked about their cannabis use, so they can light up or take edibles without too much concern about losing their jobs.</p><h3><a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/cannabis-amc-meme-stocks-retail-investors-shareholders-proxy-voting-2021-6"><strong>Meme stock shareholders are causing issues by not voting on things like exec pay and M&amp;A deals. Here's how startups are trying to improve the process.</strong></a></h3><p>Companies with large retail-investor bases face difficulties reaching a quorum in shareholder votes. "It's hard to get those shareholders to show up and vote," Tilray CEO Irwin Simon told Insider.</p><h3><a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/gti-trulieve-ceos-discuss-future-of-cannabis-at-robin-hood-conference-2021-6"><strong>The CEOs of two of the biggest US cannabis companies break down the future of the industry to an exclusive audience of Wall Street's most powerful investors</strong></a></h3><p>Green Thumb Industries and Trulieve CEOs spoke at the exclusive Robin Hood Investors Conference last week. The talk was closed to the press, but Insider learned the executives discussed the generational opportunity of investing in cannabis and made predictions about the industry.</p><div type="image" title="Israel cannabis" height="1333" width="2000" msid="83847716" hostid="261"></div><h2>Executive moves</h2><ul><li><strong>Amy Larson</strong> is joining <strong>TILT</strong> as the VP of operations and communications next week. She was previously a VP at <strong>Simplifya</strong>. </li><li>Psychedelics company <strong>Awakn</strong> <a href="https://awaknlifesciences.com/awakn-appoints-prof-david-nutt-as-its-chief-research-officer">announced</a> on Thursday that <strong>David Nutt</strong>, director of the neuropsychopharmacology unit at <strong>Imperial College London</strong>, has joined as chief research officer.</li><li>In more psychedelic people moves, <strong>Novamind</strong> has appointed <strong>Dr. Paul Thielking</strong> as chief science officer.</li></ul><h2>Deals, launches, and IPOs</h2><ul><li>Hydroponics company <strong>Hydrofarm Holdings</strong> <a href="https://www.globenewswire.com/news-release/2021/06/17/2249321/0/en/Hydrofarm-Enters-into-Agreement-to-Acquire-Aurora-Innovations-and-its-Organic-Nutrients-and-Grow-Media-Operations.html">will acquire</a> <strong>Aurora Innovation</strong><strong>s</strong>, an Oregon hydroponics company, for $161 million in cash and $26 million in Hydrofarm stock. </li><li><strong>Precision Extraction Solutions</strong> and <strong>Cascade Sciences</strong> <a href="https://www.greenmarketreport.com/precision-extraction-cascade-sciences-combine-to-form-extraction-powerhouse-sinclair-scientific/">are merging to form <strong>Sinclair Scientific</strong></a>. The merger will create what the company says is the largest cannabis and hemp extraction company, with combined annual revenue of over $100 million. </li><li><strong>PharmaCann</strong> <a href="https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/pharmacann-completes-85-million-senior-secured-note-offering-301320041.html">announced</a> on Friday that it had completed a senior secured note offering. The net proceeds are worth around $79.9 million.</li><li><strong>Awakn Life Sciences</strong> went public on the NEO Exchange on <a href="https://awaknlifesciences.com/awakn-commences-trading-on-neo-exchange">Wednesday</a> under the symbol "AWKN" through a reverse takeover. </li></ul><h2>Policy moves</h2><ul><li><strong>Connecticut</strong> is the latest state to legalize cannabis for adult-use. On Tuesday, <strong>Gov. Ned Lamont</strong> <a href="https://www.marijuanamoment.net/connecticut-governor-signs-marijuana-legalization-into-law/">signed a marijuana bill into law</a>, which will go into effect on July 1. </li><li>A legalization bill <a href="https://www.wpri.com/news/politics-government/ri-senate-approves-recreational-marijuana-bill/">passed the <strong>Rhode Island</strong> state Senate on Tuesday</a>. A vote in the House likely won't take place during the current session but <strong>House Speaker Joe Shekarchi</strong> has said that consideration of the bill may occur in a special session in the fall. </li><li><strong>The United Nations</strong> recommended a global ban on advertising cannabis products <a href="https://www.unodc.org/unodc/en/frontpage/2021/June/unodc-world-drug-report-2021_-pandemic-effects-ramp-up-drug-risks--as-youth-underestimate-cannabis-dangers.html?testme">in its 2021 World Drug Report</a>, saying that youth often underestimate the risks of cannabis consumption. The report estimates that 200 million people, or about 4% of the world's population, used cannabis in the past year.</li><li><strong>Rep. Ed Perlmutter</strong> <a href="https://twitter.com/natsfert/status/1407741675162816516?s=20">added language</a> from the <strong>SAFE Banking Act</strong>, which would let cannabis companies access the banking system, into a draft of the <strong>House Financial Services Appropriations Bill</strong>. </li><li>The Supreme Court declined to hear a challenge to the cannabis industry's hated 280E rule, <a href="https://www.law360.com/cannabis/articles/1395847/justices-won-t-hear-pot-cos-challenge-to-irs-summonses">Law 360 reports</a>. <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/cannabis-more-audits-280e-treasury-inspector-general-irs-2020-10">Read our deep dive into 280E and the uptick in audits cannabis companies are facing</a>. </li><li><strong>Curaleaf</strong> chairman <strong>Boris Jordan</strong> - who is one of the top industry lobbying voices in DC - said that <strong>Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer's</strong> cannabis legalization bill <a href="https://twitter.com/Boris_Jordan/status/1405543551639855104?s=20">will be introduced in July</a>. </li><li><strong>Colorado Gov. Jared Polis</strong> signed a bill directing the state to <a href="https://twitter.com/colo_politics/status/1408128543381364736?s=20">study the effects of high potency cannabis</a> on adolescent brains. </li></ul><div type="image" title="Marijuana Cannabis" height="1333" width="2000" msid="83847722" hostid="261"></div><h2>Research and data</h2><ul><li>Adolescent marijuana and alcohol use remained steady during the pandemic, despite decreases in both substance's availability, according <a href="https://www.nih.gov/news-events/news-releases/adolescent-marijuana-alcohol-use-held-steady-during-covid-19-pandemic">to a study from the National Institute on Drug Abuse's <strong>Dr. Nora Volkow</strong></a>. The study also showed that past-month nicotine vaping among high schoolers decreased during the pandemic. The authors say the study shows that reducing teen use of substances cannot be achieved solely by limiting supply.</li><li>A <a href="https://academic.oup.com/sleep/advance-article/doi/10.1093/sleep/zsab149/6296857?searchresult=1">new study</a> published in the journal <em>Sleep</em> found that <strong>Zelira Therapeutics</strong> cannabinoid drug, <strong>Zenivol</strong>, is effective for treating insomnia and showed few adverse effects. </li><li><strong>Alabama</strong> could add <a href="https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/akerna-flash-report-alabama-could-add-over-600-000-000-to-its-gdp-in-first-three-years-of-medical-cannabis-retail-sales-301314152.html">$600 million to its GDP</a> in its first three years of medical cannabis sales, according to a report from cannabis software firm <strong>Akerna</strong>. Alabama legalized medical cannabis in May.</li><li>Cannabis information site <strong>Leafly <a href="https://www.leafly.com/news/politics/leafly-seeds-of-change-2021-report-rates-states-on-marijuana-equity">published a report</a> </strong>ranking states with legal cannabis on their social equity programs. <strong>California</strong> and <strong>Colorado</strong> topped the list, while <strong>Montana</strong> and <strong>South Dakot</strong>a came in last. The report states that only 1 in 50 cannabis companies is black-owned, compared to the US average of 1 in 20 for other industries.</li><li>A new <a href="https://www.cpear.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/210617-CPEAR-Small-Minority-Owned-Business-digital.pdf">report from the <strong>Coalition for Cannabis Policy, Education, and Regulation (CPEAR)</strong></a> looked at the challenges of establishing a framework for small, minority-owned businesses in the cannabis industry. </li><li>Cannabis use may be associated with suicidal ideation in young adults, according to a <a href="https://www.nih.gov/news-events/news-releases/cannabis-use-may-be-associated-suicidality-young-adults"><strong>National Institutes of Health</strong> analysis of survey data</a> from 280,000 young adults between the ages of 18-35. </li></ul><h2>What we're reading</h2><p><a href="https://www.cnn.com/2021/06/23/business/amazon-drug-test-cannabis-paradigm-shifting/index.html">Amazon ditched cannabis testing, and more employers will likely follow</a> (CNN Business)</p><p><a href="https://financialpost.com/fp-finance/canntrust-former-ceo-and-two-former-directors-face-fraud-charges">CannTrust's former CEO and two directors charged with fraud over unlicensed pot growing scandal</a> (Financial Post)</p><p><a href="https://montreal.ctvnews.ca/opinion-cannabis-is-the-great-social-experiment-that-wasn-t-1.5480416">Opinion: Cannabis is the great social experiment that wasn't</a> (CTV News)</p><p><a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2021/06/20/maines-fight-over-big-marijuana-493472">Maine's mom and pop weed scene sweats corporate 'gentrification'</a> (Politico)</p><p><a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/willyakowicz/2021/06/23/the-future-of-psychedelic-medicine-might-skip-the-trip-rick-doblin-bryan-roth-mindmed-darpa-maps/?sh=2c01a61f244f">The Future Of Psychedelic Medicine Might Skip The Trip</a> (Forbes)</p><p><a href="https://www.law360.com/articles/1396672">How Conn. Learned From Its Neighbors On Pot Legalization</a> (Law 360)</p><p><a href="https://www.newyorkupstate.com/marijuana/2021/06/political-infighting-means-more-delay-for-new-yorks-legal-marijuana-business.html">Political 'infighting' could mean more delay for New York's legal marijuana business</a> (New York Upstate)</p><p><a href="https://www.insider.com/i-ate-a-four-course-meal-at-stoned-pizza-parlor-2021-6">I ate a 4-course meal at a weed pizza parlor and got stoned to the bone</a> (Insider)</p><p><a href="https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2021/06/eric-adams-nyc-mayor-interview">Eric Adams on weed, Beyonce, and the housing-sleuth haters</a> (Vanity Fair)</p><p><a href="https://mjbizdaily.com/cannabis-firms-tilt-ayr-pay-nearly-300000-each-in-massachusetts-settlements/?mc_cid=fcd78cffa8&amp;mc_eid=7a0a53edc3edc3">Cannabis firms Tilt, Ayr pay nearly $300,000 each in MA settlements</a> (MJ Biz Daily)</p>

What GTI and Trulieve told Wall Street

<p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image"></div></div></div></p><ul class="summary-list"><li>A new <a href="http://annals.org/aim/article/doi/10.7326/M18-2809%20">study</a> documents a <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/marijuana-er-visits-spike-edibles-colorado-2019-3">sharp rise</a> in emergency room visits linked with marijuana following legalization in Colorado.</li><li>One of the key drivers of the ER visits is a <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/syndrome-causes-marijuana-users-to-get-violently-ill-vomit-2018-2">mysterious syndrome</a> characterized by severe nausea and repeated vomiting. </li><li>Called <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/syndrome-causes-marijuana-users-to-get-violently-ill-vomit-2018-2">cannabinoid hyperemesis syndrome</a>, or CHS, very little is known about the condition.</li><li>The only known cure for CHS is to stop using marijuana. Researchers still aren't sure what causes it.</li></ul><p>When she became so uncontrollably sick that she resorted to scalding her skin in a hot bath for the third time in a row, Mrs. X began to wonder if it had something to do with smoking marijuana. </p><p>For nearly a decade, the Australian woman had experienced sudden and severe episodes of nausea and vomiting in connection to using the drug. Before that, she'd smoked safely for years with no symptoms. In 2004, a team of emergency room physicians in the country <a href="https://gut.bmj.com/content/53/11/1566">detailed</a> Mrs. X's experience anonymously alongside a handful of similar cases that happened in the same region that year. In nearly all of them, patients described an illness that cropped up suddenly, often after decades of normal marijuana use. Piping hot baths were their only relief. The Australian physicians dubbed it "cannabinoid hyperemesis syndrome," or <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/syndrome-causes-marijuana-users-to-get-violently-ill-vomit-2018-2">CHS</a>.</p><p>Although the Australians' report raised some red flags locally, most experts continued to believe that cases like Mrs. X's were rare across the globe. Until a spate of similar reports begin to crop up elsewhere.</p><p>Now, several recent studies from emergency room physicians across Europe and the US are beginning to suggest that CHS could be a lot more common than previously thought.</p><p>The latest study was <a href="http://annals.org/aim/article/doi/10.7326/M18-2809%20">published</a> on Monday by a team of clinicians in Colorado, where marijuana was legalized medically in 2009 and recreationally in 2014. In their study, which appeared in the journal Annals of Internal Medicine, the physicians describe more than 2,500 cannabis-related emergency visits to a large public hospital in the state between 2012 and 2016. </p><p>Stomach issues like nausea and vomiting were the main driver of the trips, even before psychiatric problems like intoxication and paranoia.</p><p>And of those stomach issues, <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/syndrome-causes-marijuana-users-to-get-violently-ill-vomit-2018-2">CHS</a> was both the single most commonly-reported problem as well as the top reason for patients to be booked at the hospital.</p><p>"To see that this was a leading reason for people coming to the ER, that was pretty striking," <a href="http://www.ucdenver.edu/academics/colleges/medicalschool/departments/EmergencyMedicine/Faculty/Faculty-Anschutz%20Medical%20Campus/Pages/monte.aspx">Andrew Monte</a>, the new paper's lead author and an associate professor of emergency medicine at ​​​the University of Colorado School of Medicine, told Business Insider.</p><p>"We have to do a better job of educating users on the fact that this phenomenon exists," he added.</p><p><a href="https://www.drugabuse.gov/about-nida/directors-page/biography-dr-nora-volkow">Nora Volkow</a>, the director of the National Institute of Drug Abuse, echoed Monte's concerns about cannabis and CHS in an editorial published alongside the new study. </p><p>"We must recognize that the full range of potential adverse health consequences from cannabis consumption are not fully understood," she wrote.</p><h2>From 'barely known' illness to something that could affect millions each year</h2><p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image"></div></div></div>Because cannabis was widely illegal until very recently, very few studies have explored the full range of its effects - be them positive or negative. <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/syndrome-causes-marijuana-users-to-get-violently-ill-vomit-2018-2">CHS</a> is one of them.</p><p>Two decades ago, the condition was completely unheard of. Then in the early 2000s, a spate of researchers began to describe clusters of stomach-related issues that appeared to stem from heavy and repeated cannabis use. Although they coined a name for the problem - CHS - they still had no idea what was causing it or how to stop it.</p><p>More than a decade later in 2017, a team of German ER doctors <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5360975/">described</a> CHS as a "barely known" illness characterized by intense nausea, vomiting, and stomach pain. They still hadn't pinned down a cause, but they did identify a cure: quitting cannabis.</p><p>A year later in New York City, clinicians <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/bcpt.12962">surveyed</a> thousands of patients at a large urban public hospital and <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/bcpt.12962">concluded</a> that as many as 3 million Americans could experience something like CHS every year. Again, the only definitive treatment they identified was quitting marijuana completely.</p><p><em><strong>Read more:</strong> <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/syndrome-causes-marijuana-users-to-get-violently-ill-vomit-2018-2">A mysterious syndrome in which marijuana users get violently ill is starting to worry researchers</a></em></p><p>For the latest <a href="http://annals.org/aim/article/doi/10.7326/M18-2809%20">study</a>, the Colorado researchers chronicled nearly 10,000 emergency room visits to the University of Colorado Health's Anschutz campus in Aurora, a large public hospital roughly 30 minutes from Denver. Out of all of the visits, roughly a quarter (or about 2,500) were related to marijuana.</p><p>Of the weed-related visits, 31% were stomach-related - making stomach issues the leading cause of all ER trips for cannabis. And out of the stomach-related cannabis visits, CHS emerged as the single most common adverse event and the main driver of hospital admissions. </p><p>Monte's findings are beginning to chip away at the previously-held assumption that CHS is uncommon.</p><p>"CHS is certainly not very rare," Monte told Business Insider. "We see it absolutely every week in our ER."</p><p>Other researchers agree.</p><p>"This isn't surprising and we're certainly going to see more of this" <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/syndrome-causes-marijuana-users-to-get-violently-ill-vomit-2018-2">Joseph Habboushe</a>, an associate professor at NYU Langone and the lead author of the CHS paper published last year, told Business Insider.</p><p>Habboushe is currently working on a study that aims to identify some new relief methods for the symptoms of CHS. Monte said one of his graduate students was working on a similar paper.</p><p>For Mrs. X, the only thing that helped was quitting. When she tried to start smoking again, she was okay for a few months, but then her symptoms returned.</p><p>"Patients [who] re-challenged themselves by resuming marijuana ... relapsed within months," the authors of the Australian study documenting Mrs. X's case report wrote in 2004.</p>

A mysterious syndrome that makes marijuana users violently ill is starting to worry doctors

<p><strong><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"></div><p></p></div></div></strong></p><ul><li><strong>A new vaccine for heroin is getting closer to human trials.</strong></li><li><strong>But it's still 10 to 15 years from reaching the market.</strong></li><li><strong>Addiction experts and treatment professionals are wary of how much it will help the current opioid crisis.</strong></li></ul><p>Two scientists are locked in a race to develop a groundbreaking vaccine for heroin. But many addiction experts and health officials warn that the medicine is unlikely to be the end game for the current opioid crisis and is a decade from reaching the market, at the earliest.</p><p>Dr. Kim Janda, a chemist at the Scripps Research Institute in La Jolla, California, has been developing vaccines targeting addictive substances for nearly 30 years and has pioneered much of the research in the field. He began developing the heroin vaccine about a decade ago and in recent years has begun work on a vaccine for fentanyl, <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/fentanyl-drug-prince-overdose-deaths-2016-8">a painkiller 50 times more powerful than heroin</a> and <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/fentanyl-legal-drug-stronger-heroin-contaminating-street-drugs-vancouver-canada-2017-5">the cause of an increasing number of overdose deaths</a>.</p><p>His competitor, Dr. Gary Matyas, has been developing his vaccine since 2011 at the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research in Maryland, a facility run by the Department of Defense. Matyas' work largely builds on Janda's and grew out of a research push to develop a vaccine for HIV - his vaccine has since become a combination heroin and HIV vaccine. So far, both Janda's and Matyas' vaccines have been tested only in animals.</p><p>While work on opioid vaccines stretches back decades, the research has gained added urgency in light of the opioid crisis. Last year, <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/opioid-overdose-death-statistics-2016">more than 30,000 Americans died from overdoses</a> related to opioids, with that number rising nearly every year since 1999. President Donald Trump announced <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/trump-opioid-crisis-national-emergency-2017-8">that he was declaring the crisis "a national emergency</a>" last month, but his administration has yet to officially do so.</p><p>Still, the prospect of a heroin vaccine has stoked a lot of interest and enthusiasm in the research. But as more is learned about the vaccine, its limitations as a moonshot cure have become clearer.</p><p>"Vaccines are an innovative approach that may be promising, but it won't be the panacea," Dr. Ivan Montoya, a <a href="https://www.drugabuse.gov/about-nida/organization/divisions/division-pharmacotherapies-medical-consequences-drug-abuse-dpmcda/office-director-od">director at the National Institute on Drug Abuse</a>, who has approved grants for both projects, told Business Insider.</p><h2><strong>Keeping heroin from entering the brain</strong></h2><p>Vaccines help the body create antibodies. For example, a measles vaccine works by helping the body's immune system make antibodies that can confront the virus should you come across it. That way, you won't get sick.</p><p>That's how a heroin vaccine would work, in theory, helping the body's immune system recognize the heroin molecule and knock it out of the body before it can get to the brain receptors that give you a high. If you aren't able to get high - ideally for a long period after the vaccine's given - it could make it easier to quit, or at least protect you from overdose.</p><p>"These drugs have to get in the brain to have their function," Matyas said.</p><p>While the details are still being worked out, each vaccine works in different ways. Janda's vaccine is designed to specifically eliminate heroin, while Matyas is working to make his vaccine bind to the substances that heroin breaks down to. If successful, that would mean Matyas' vaccine could block the effects of a wider variety of opioids.</p><p>That's important because one of the main concerns is that many addicts switch between substances to get their fix. A persistent opioid addiction leaves the brain perpetually lacking endorphins for long periods after use stops. Because neither vaccine fixes that, it could leave addicts trying to alleviate cravings by opioids not covered by the vaccine.</p><p>"If you create a vaccine for morphine, people could switch to fentanyl. We already have people using fentanyl rather than heroin to avoid triggering drug tests because fentanyl is so difficult to detect," Mark Willenbring, a leading addiction psychiatrist who runs Alltyr, a treatment clinic in Minneapolis, told Business Insider.</p><p>On the other hand, creating a vaccine that targets a broad spectrum of opioids has its own problems. One of the most effective treatments for opioid use disorder are maintenance drugs like buprenorphine (commonly known as Suboxone) and methadone, which are chemically similar to opioids and work by attaching to the same brain receptors, preventing users from using other opioids to get high while reducing cravings and withdrawal symptoms.</p><p>Matyas acknowledged that creating a vaccine that stops problematic opioids while avoiding treatment drugs is the goal.</p><h2>What it will take to get a heroin vaccine approved</h2><h2><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"></div><p></p></div></div></h2><p>For now, the vaccine has been tested only in animals. Montoya at NIDA called current studies of the vaccines' use in animals "encouraging" but said it remains to be seen whether they will work in humans.</p><p>The hope is to get a human clinical trial started within a couple of years, but that could take <a href="http://www.cancerresearchuk.org/about-cancer/find-a-clinical-trial/how-clinical-trials-are-planned-and-organised/how-long-it-takes-for-a-new-drug-to-go-through-clinical-trials">up to 15 years</a> from the earliest of human trials to approval. First, <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/how-fda-drug-approval-works-2017-2">researchers will have to show that the vaccine is safe to administer</a>, then you have to show it's effective at what it sets out to do. A heroin vaccine will likely take just as long, by Matyas' estimate.</p><p>That process won't be cheap and will need the backing of a drug company.</p><p>While Matyas has licensed his vaccine to biotech company Opiant, which <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/price-of-naloxone-narcan-skyrocketing-2016-7">developed the NARCAN anti-overdose spray</a>, CEO Dr. Roger Crystal told Business Insider it is waiting for more pre-clinical data before deciding whether to proceed. The data should be available by the end of the year.</p><p>In the event Matyas' vaccine doesn't pan out, Crystal said Opiant would look to license other potential vaccines until the company found a success. "We're here for the long run," Crystal said.</p><p>Despite being the trailblazer in the field, Janda has had more difficulties attracting significant interest for his vaccine, at least until recently. He said that just a few years ago he nearly gave away the vaccine free. As the opioid crisis has intensified, so has interest. He is now working on a deal with a small biotech company - he declined to name which since the deal isn't done - to bring his vaccine through clinical trials, which he says will cost between $30 million and $40 million.</p><p>Janda says his focus is on getting the vaccine to the public as soon as possible.</p><p>"I'm not looking to make money off this," he said. "The people out there that have these problems don't have deep pockets."</p><h2><strong>Making 'a good decision once'</strong></h2><p></p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_right"><div><div class="image on-image"></div><p></p></div></div>The heroin vaccine appears to be part of a trend in addiction research focusing on long-acting treatments that rely less on patients' decision-making.<p>Opioids hijack the brain's rewards system, resulting in fundamental changes to addicts' brain wiring. The longer one uses, the <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/maia-szalavitz-unbroken-brain-treating-addiction-as-a-learning-disorder-2016-4">more profound changes are to an addict's ability to make choices</a>. One recovering addict, Andi Peterson, told Business Insider that even while enrolled in a treatment program, getting high "<a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/heroin-addict-explains-why-hard-stay-sober-drug-rehab-center-2017-4">required no thought" and was "like breathing</a>."</p><p>Most addicts go through years and several stints of treatment to achieve abstinence. Relapse is a common and expected part of the process.</p><p>Addiction experts and treatment professionals have long worked toward solutions that acknowledge this aspect of brain <keyword id="41551" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="100" keywordseo="science">science</keyword>. The "gold standard" of opioid-use-disorder treatment, according to them, are psychological therapies in conjunction with maintenance medication like buprenorphine or methadone, which prevent users from getting high while reducing cravings.</p><p>But such treatments must be taken daily, and while buprenorphine can be taken anywhere, methadone must be taken at a clinic often far from the patient's home. If a patient forgets or misses a dose, the cravings return and can trigger a relapse.</p><p>Researchers such as Matyas and Janda are looking to work around that daily-choice issue. The first medication to achieve that is Vivitrol, <a href="https://www.vivitrol.com/opioid-dependence/what-is-vivitrol">a monthly injection</a> approved by the FDA in 2010 that blocks opioid receptors in the brain. But the drug has been criticized for its side effects - including a painful withdrawal process - and questionable success.</p><p>Many patients that do end up trying Vivitrol, according to treatment professionals that spoke to Business Insider, tend to stop after the first monthly shot, largely because the drug, like the vaccine, has no effect on cravings.</p><p>"Some places have good luck with patients returning for their monthly shot, but we haven't had much success," Sandi Kuehn, the CEO of the Center for Addiction Treatment in Cincinnati, told Business Insider. Most patients aren't interested in the treatment, she said.</p><p>&#xa0;</p><p>Crystal, Opiant's CEO, thinks the vaccine will be more effective than Vivitrol precisely because it works for longer than Vivitrol's one-month timeline, and requires patients to only "make a good decision once."</p><p>While it is unclear how long a vaccine will remain effective, Janda said it would likely require three injections over three months, with the possibility of a booster shot at a later date. A study <a href="http://pubs.acs.org/doi/ipdf/10.1021/jacs.7b03334">presented in August at an industry conference</a> found that the vaccine lasted as long as eight months in monkeys.</p><p>NIDA is also funding research into long-acting versions of buprenorphine, particularly Probuphine, an <a href="https://www.fda.gov/NewsEvents/Newsroom/PressAnnouncements/ucm503719.htm">implant that doles out the medicine</a> for six months. Approved last year, Probuphine <a href="https://www.drugabuse.gov/about-nida/noras-blog/2016/05/probuphine-game-changer-in-fighting-opioid-dependence">has been called a "game changer</a>" by Dr. Nora Volkow, the director of NIDA, largely because it solves the daily-decision issue while alleviating cravings, unlike the vaccine or Vivitrol.</p><p>"The more often you have to administer the medication, you lower the adherence to treatment," said Montoya of NIDA, adding that the agency thinks long-acting treatments will improve adherence.</p><h2><strong>Another Vivitrol</strong></h2><p></p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_right"><div><div class="image on-image"></div><p></p></div></div><p>Vivitrol has drawn headlines over the past year after investigations by <a href="https://www.propublica.org/article/vivitrol-opiate-crisis-and-criminal-justice">ProPublica,</a> <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/11/health/vivitrol-drug-opioid-addiction.html?mcubz=1&amp;_r=0">The New York Times</a>, and the <a href="https://www.statnews.com/2016/11/14/opioids-prisons-vivitrol/">Associated Press</a> reported how Alkermes, which developed the drug, grew its business from $30 million in 2015 to $209 million a year later, primarily by <a href="https://www.propublica.org/article/vivitrol-opiate-crisis-and-criminal-justice">marketing its product directly to drug courts, prisons,</a> and other parts of the criminal-justice system.</p><p>In many cases, the company targeted judges in areas hard hit by the opioid crisis wary of maintenance treatment and with a bias toward viewing addiction as a moral weakness. Vivitrol was pitched as a way to avoid treatment that "substitutes one opioid for another," a still common misconception of buprenorphine <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/hhs-secretary-tom-price-medication-assisted-treatment-suboxone-news-opioid-crisis-2017-5">repeated in May by Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price</a>.</p><p>Daniel Wolfe, a director at progressive organization Open Society Foundations, slammed Vivitrol in STAT News as a treatment that "<a href="https://www.statnews.com/2017/06/29/vivitrol-methadone-opioids/">prioritizes the fantasy of being drug-free</a> over the real interests of people in need of help."</p><p>Addiction experts and treatment professionals worry that the heroin vaccine, if marketed improperly, could go down the same path - providing governments another reason to avoid maintenance therapies, which they see as more effective.</p><p></p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"></div><p></p></div></div><p>"When the courts start practicing medicine from the bench, there is a real fear that they may latch onto vaccines and mandate them without involving clinicians," Dr. Devang Gandhi, the head of the University of Maryland's addiction residency program, told Business Insider. "That is often the case now, where decisions are made by judges who don't really understand what these medications are."</p><p>That fear may not be entirely unfounded. When asked what Opiant saw as a potential market for the vaccine, Crystal said it would be "ideal" to administer to those with a history of abuse, "particularly in the prison setting."</p><h2><strong>'You can't find a magic bullet for this'</strong></h2><p></p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_right"><div><div class="image on-image"></div><p></p></div></div><p>While addiction experts and treatment professionals expressed excitement at the prospect of Janda's and Matyas' research, many wondered how "practically useful" such a vaccine would be for those on the front lines of the crisis.</p><p>Willenbring, the addiction psychiatrist, said that solving the opioid crisis is not a matter of developing new treatments but expanding access of current treatments to those that need it.</p><p>"The problem right now is not that we don't have effective treatments, it's that we don't have enough of it," said Willenbring, who was the director of treatment research at the National Institute of Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism from 2004 to 2009.</p><p>The treatment paradigm - psychological therapies in conjunction with buprenorphine or methadone - represents&#xa0;"some of the most effective treatments not just in addiction but all of medicine," Gandhi said.</p><p>While the Obama administration <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/obama-buprenorphine-suboxone-policy-2016-7">made administrative changes to increase the number of prescribers </a>administering buprenorphine last year, a study <a href="http://www.healthline.com/health-news/anti-opioid-drug-is-underused#2">conducted by the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine earlier this year</a> found that only 44% of physicians who had obtained a waiver to prescribe buprenorphine were doing so at full capacity. The White House opioid commission <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/trump-opioid-commission-republican-healthcare-obamacare-repeal-2017-8">recommended expanding access to buprenorphine and other</a> medication-assisted treatments in its July report.</p><p></p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"></div><p></p></div></div><p>Willenbring put it bluntly: "It's hard for me to talk about highly theoretical treatments that may not work when we already have highly effective treatments that people can't access," he said. "If we're serious about ending this crisis, we'd make sure anybody who wants medicated-assisted treatment can have immediate access at an affordable price, if not free."</p><p>Kuehn, the CEO of the Ohio treatment center, said that the complicated nature of addiction makes it unlikely that any one treatment will work for all patients, but that any additional treatments could be effective tools.</p><p>"You can't find a magic bullet for this. It would be misleading for the public to think that it can be easily cured," she said.</p><p>While Janda acknowledged the limitations of the vaccine, he said it's not designed to be a cure-all, but something that could be used in conjunction with current treatments to help addicts.</p><p>"If we think that the treatments we have right now are going to solve our problems, I don't think that's going to be the case," he said. "We've got to start looking outside the box to try to find some alternative or other therapies."</p><div><div style="position:relative;width:auto;padding:0 0 39.58%;height:0;top:0;left:0;bottom:0;right:0;margin:0;border:0 none" data-break-on="414" data-lg-id="experience-59b313f0dfd7a" data-lg-src="//view.ceros.com/business-insider/desktop-heroin-vaccine-compare-chart-1-1" data-lg-padding="39.58%" data-sm-id="experience-59b31a36105d4" data-sm-src="//view.ceros.com/business-insider/desktop-heroin-vaccine-compare-chart-1-1-1?heightOverride=570" data-sm-padding="47.5%">    </div></div><div><div style="position:relative;width:auto;padding:0 0 56.25%;height:0;top:0;left:0;bottom:0;right:0;margin:0;border:0 none" data-break-on="414" data-lg-id="experience-59b3011f0a5c8" data-lg-src="//view.ceros.com/business-insider/desktop-heroin-vaccine-compare-chart" data-lg-padding="56.25%" data-sm-id="experience-59b313e186356" data-sm-src="//view.ceros.com/business-insider/desktop-heroin-vaccine-compare-chart-1" data-sm-padding="83.33%">    </div></div>    <div class="margin-top">        <h3>NOW WATCH: <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/nasa-footage-hurricane-harvey-threat-texas-2017-8">Terrifying NASA footage from space shows the giant Hurricane Harvey about to slam the Texas coast</a></h3>        <div>                    </div>    </div>

You Searched For "nora volkow" and got 10 results

Video gaming can lead to better cognitive performance in children says new study

IANS

Philadelphia's mayor says his fellow Democrats just voted for more people to die from drug overdoses. Experts say he's right.

Charles R. Davis

Cannabis use may be linked to increasing suicidal thoughts in young women, study finds

Andrea Michelson

A Columbia professor who uses heroin says the drug helps him maintain a work-life balance and should be legal for everyone

Hilary Brueck

Watch America's foremost authority on drugs smash a huge misconception about addiction - with chocolate

Erin Brodwin

Teens are having a harder time getting their hands on weed than they did in the '90s

Melia Robinson

What GTI and Trulieve told Wall Street

Jeremy Berke,Yeji Jesse Lee

A mysterious syndrome that makes marijuana users violently ill is starting to worry doctors

Erin Brodwin

2 scientists are locked in a race to develop a groundbreaking vaccine for heroin, but it might not be a 'magic bullet'

Harrison Jacobs,Lydia Ramsey

A mysterious condition makes marijuana users violently ill, and it reveals a hidden downside to the drug's growing popularity

Erin Brodwin

Popular Keywords

Buying Guides