A review of drug use and abuse in the news, including the outgoing saga of the emerging medical marijuana industry. The Federal Government is now downplaying its role in the increased prosecutions of medical marijuana growers, saying the push is coming from the states, based on profiteering, in violation of the various state laws prohibiting making money from providing medical marijuana for those who cannot grow their own. We also look at related stories about the various new synthetic drugs.
Transcript (edited):
HOWARD: Hi and welcome once again to the CNS Addiction Podcast. I am Howard La Mere here with Dr. Darryl Inaba. This week in the news there is an article about The University of Buffalo receiving 900,000 dollars in federal funds to develop programs to train doctors on how to address addicted patients. Also, there is a doctor in Orange County in southern California who has been indicted for selling prescription drugs at coffee houses all over the Southwest and apparently one patient died of an overdose as a result. The doctor prescribed drugs like Vicodin and Oxycontin to people that he barely even knew. A new book has come out by the journalist, Edward Vulliamy, called Amexica: War Along the Borderline”. The book talks about how the bank, Wachovia has perhaps made millions of dollars laundering money for Mexican drug cartels. Those are the topics but Darryl, what is on your agenda? Whats on your plate today?
DARRYL: Well, its a patchwork of stories. I know we spoke last time about the crackdown on medical marijuana providers and growers and marketers. There has just been a spate of crackdowns and busts that are perplexing to providers and angering many people who now feel that marijuana should just be legalized. Its getting to be too crazy, like prohibition on alcohol. But whats interesting about that is in addition to all the headlines, because in our local paper almost every other day there is a headline on another raid and someone’s plot or patch of marijuana is confiscated allegedly because it wasnt being grown and sold exclusively to people with medical marijuana cards, but sold to others for profit. There was a statement issued from the attorney general of the United States that the federal government has not been involved in this crackdown and is not participating in these raids whatsoever. They still maintain that theyre not going to really .
HOWARD: And it seemed in a story from last week, that they were involved. So
DARRYL: Right. Its a contradiction.
HOWARD: We have people pointing at each other here.
DARRYL: Right. This is a contraction. The federal government and the Obama administration say they arent doing this at all, this is the choice of state attorneys general and the local municipalities to crack down on what they see as unreasonable or illegal abuses of the medical marijuana laws – allowing some people to profit from selling marijuana for abuse purposes. The story today is much truer to the facts. I read that in California many state senators and legislators are now demanding an explanation from their state attorney generals office, not from the federal government .the California state attorney generals office has refused to comment. There doesn’t seem to be any real justification for cracking down on people who claim theyre within legal limits only growing for people with legitimate health care needs on a compassionate basis. Although growers are not supposed to make money, but just recoup their cost . Is that the reason for whats going on? Is that an accurate depiction of what theyre going through … a lot of undue persecution or is it really – as some people have mentioned, that it is a crackdown on people who are profiteering and hiding behind the medical marijuana laws.
HOWARD: Well, its interesting that we have opposing stories coming out within a week of each other.
DARRYL: Yes, that always generates some sort of impression in my mind of what the reality is. It is interesting in that three of the top LSU football players (LSU is the top ranked team in the nation – LSU beat our Oregon Ducks in the opening game of this college season, and is considered the contender for the National Championship in college football) were suspended for one game the game against Alabama. And I dont think Alabamas record is that good, so I dont think it was too much of a penalty you know what I mean they could probably win anyway. They probably did win that game because it was played already, but the top players were suspended because they were found to be abusing synthetic marijuanas, you know the herbal incense in potpourris and other forms of synthetic marijuana. They got caught smoking varieties of spice and K9, which as we reported a few weeks ago, is now illegal according to the federal government and many, many state governments so use is a violation of law. But what I think the players didnt realize is that by late 2010 when governments were moving to make them illegal, urine testing companies were formulating tests. Prior to this you couldnt test for these synthetic marijuanas in the urine, but the companies developed tests for the 5 that have been placed upon restriction, even so there are several, maybe about 20 other synthetic marijuanas that arent being tested for there are no tests yet and they are still legal to use.
HOWARD: So they just happened to use the wrong one.
DARRYL: The wrong one! Yes! They didnt realize that they could be tested for it – so they got busted and suspended for only one game, which I found interesting. Maybe because the laws were in limbo in terms of whether it was illegal in Louisiana. But the punishment was sort of a slap on a wrist and the suspension for a game that probably wasnt going to be that important. But related to this – 64 sailors were busted – tested positive for synthetic marijuana in their urine and were discharged from the service.
HOWARD: And we should probably remind people that spice K9 and the like is much more powerful than marijuana or hash.
DARRYL: The range of these synthetic marijuanas is anywhere from 5 to 800 times 800 times, Howard, 800 times stronger than regular marijuana and some psychosis is resulting from use – some seizure activity. Some people are reporting more toxic effects because it is so much more powerful. But now that there is a test for this more people are testing positive – leading me to believe that use was much more widespread than we knew. People could smoke it, even on probation or parole without testing positive. You can be in drug court… and use …which means that many people found that way to circumvent the legal restrictions to these drugs.
HOWARD: So were seeing here at the top of the drug use activity chart, a lot of activity with the new synthetic drugs, the spice drugs and also the bath salts and the ones that are stimulants as well as prescription drug use and abuse, which we talk about often. Those two appear to be the greatest danger to society right now.
DARRYL: Well, use is certainly rapidly rising theyre going to continue to modify chemicals and to make things available to abuse that are not currently illegal or detectible.
HOWARD: “Better living through chemistry”
DARRYL: I thought that was the motto of the University of California pharmacology department there was manufacturing or synthesizing a lot of new psychoactive compounds that didnt exist before and I think they used to call us the Better Living through Chemistry Department. But the other thing you should mention there is that abuse is not limited to marijuana and cocaine, synthetic cocaine and amphetamines, now we are seeing head shops carry Kratom, which is an Indonesian coffee plant substance that pretty much works like a synthetic Vicodin, so now there is synthetic Vicodin. The government – especially the DEA has had on radar for several decades – salvia divinorum, but no laws have been passed outlawing its use. It is readily available and is said to produce tremendous psychedelic effects for those aficionados of it. So, there are new dresses for old, old types of psychedelic drugs or psychoactive drugs. We have the uppers. We have the downers. We have the all-arounders, but theyre coming in new shapes and new forms as the world discovers different ways to make synthetic chemicals that arent detectible, or use naturally occurring substances that provide amazing effects – like lions tail – that are being abused.
HOWARD: Well, its impressive and interesting and we will continue to look at, watch, and talk about this emerging trend. The other thing that we should talk about more is human need and desire what drives our use of mind altering substances. Because its like key to the whole matter.
DARRYL: And for addicts and non-addicts to start to come to grips with that. The basic compulsive drive is in the subcortical or unconscious brain and therefore for those people who are vulnerable, it isnt about them copping a buzz or getting high, its about differences in their brain make them use substances to the point that they suffer catastrophic consequences. And on the other side of the emerging drug trends in synthetics and more potent substances, is a rapid development of vaccines. I just read that there are 400 vaccines in development to treat addiction or to prevent addiction or to prevent the relapse to addiction in those people who are vulnerable. There is a cocaine vaccine under development which is about 40 to 50% effective in all the clinical trials, but is still hailed by many as a great innovation and there is pressure to approve it as quickly as possible. The same researcher is developing a heroin vaccine and others are developing vaccines for other drugs. This is being looked at as a preventative – especially for people who have a high risk potential for abusing drugs and for those who are already abusing. Once a person goes through detoxification – inject them so that if they either slip, relapse or theyre introduced for the first time the vaccine will prevent the drug from working in the brain and on the body and therefore the person wouldn’t get any effect from the drug whatsoever and they wouldnt develop any kind of addiction. But I think that is a little bit of narrow vision for what addiction is and why people have a drive to alter states of consciousness. Even normies, who are not prone to addiction, have an occasional need to alter their states of consciousness.
HOWARD: Well, and as weve discussed a number of time, theres a variety of activities that people do that accomplish this – including sports, dancing, spirituality, music definitely.
DARRYL: Art does it for me.
HOWARD: The list is long.
DARRYL: Yes, but to get people to appreciate or to experience these things in terms of an altered state is a difficult thing. You get too aloof. We look at say a novel painting that might be pleasing to look at, but we never view it in an altered state of consciousness. Sometimes people go out dancing and are so interested in how they look to other people as they dance or how other people look to them instead of concentrating on the altered state of consciousness they receive from just getting out there, flowing with the music and becoming involved and surrounded by that consciousness. Its a situation thats always been there and it is difficult to understand why individuals dont appreciate the altered states that come about naturally from their own brain chemistry rather than seeking the altered state that is brought about by an external or an artificial chemical. Why, when they are snorting, say cocaine, theyre so heavily concentrated on what theyre feeling in their brain and what their altered state of consciousness is, – that tremendous affect and reinforcing affect of cocaine. When they go to, you know, watch their favorite team and get so involved in the action and are jumping up and down and going whoo ha ha, theyre not focusing on how much more powerful that experience is than any cocaine could ever give them and therefore dont appreciate the natural altered states.
HOWARD: Pretty fascinating. Okay, well, well come back around to this topic because it is central to it all. Thats about all the time we have for today. Thanks for visiting and if you have comments, suggestions or questions get in touch – info@cnsproductions.com. Please check back soon for the next in the series.