The recreational marijuana business got off to a roaring starting in Colorado, with $5 million is sales reported for the first week. The demand was so high there were rumors of stores running out of inventory. And as expected an increase in DUI busts, as well as traffic stops near the border as people came back from Colorado. Dabbing is a general term for several ways to extract the THC from the marijuana and greatly increase the potency. It includes propane hash oil, which routinely blows up and sets houses on fire. And when dogs find some of this highly enhanced MJ, it can result in serious health effects, as happened in SF recently, with a dog getting into a neibhbor’s discarded pot butter, and fell into a coma for 3 days. Genetic testing and treatment for ADHD is being explored. Low levels of dopamine seems to be part of the condition. And e-cigarette companies are planning a major advertising effort for this year, including TV ads. Meanwhile the FDA is intending to adopt new regulations for e-cigarettes, and New York City and a few other areas are requiring tobacco and e-cigarette purchasers to be 21.
Transcript (edited):
HOWARD: Welcome to the CNS Podcast featuring Dr. Darryl Inaba, research director for CNS Productions, I am Howard LaMere. As you might expect, there were a number of stories in the news about marijuana, legal marijuana, as this is the first week or I guess the second week now, when pot became legal in Colorado. So there’s been a big rush on that activity. Some other stories about e-cigarettes and smoking that well talk about and a couple of hard science pieces on ADHD and also some interesting stories like pet poisoning with marijuana. Lets start with marijuana since that seems to be top of the pops. The first week of legal marijuana sales in Colorado apparently generated something like 5 million dollars. The industry projects it at 1 billion dollars now, expected to go to 2 1/3 billion by the end of 2014. So, Darryl, this is no surprise really, but how do you assess it?
DARRYL: Well in a way it is in a way the demand is so much greater than I think they had foreseen and even the.
HOWARD: Apparently it dropped off pretty rapidly though.
DARRYL: Even very liberal people were not expecting the supply side to keep up with the demand side. It dropped although the drop-off is huge there is still an overabundance of demand compared to the supply with news just last night that the pot dispensaries and the pot boutiques had to close early or ran out of their high grade product. It seems like people want the highest grade possible and they’re going through the ritual of picking out the best pot they can find but stores sell out so rapidly and – as with any kind of economic system, when the demand goes up – the price just kept creeping higher and higher and higher and now people are paying hundreds of dollars for an eighth of an ounce, which is the new lid. When I was growing up a lid was like a full ounce of marijuana, but now an eighth of an ounce is considered a lid and it had been selling as medical marijuana for between 25 to 35 dollars – now it is hundreds of dollars. So that is pushing up the revenue which interests a lot of investors and has many states and revenue analysts from governments asking – is this a viable situation? As you say, maybe if the sales and demands start to drop a little bit and it starts to level off and isn’t quite the big boon that it is right now, maybe there wont be such an interest in it, but right now it seems to be really generating a tremendous amount of income . taxes will take some of that, but for those selling it, I’m sure its a bigger deal than they expected. There is a concern about the number of people from out of the state of Colorado flocking in and getting in line to buy. I think you can buy 4 lids or 4/8 of an ounce for your own possession at any one time unless youre from out of state and then you’re limited to one lid or something like that, there are limitations if you’re not a Colorado resident.
HOWARD: Then of course as soon as you cross the state border, you’re illegal again.
DARRYL: You cant cross the state border so you’ve got to smoke it all in Colorado. They hadn’t quite thought that one through in terms of how to regulate that. I think the other states are watching closely there has been a decrease in crime and busting people for marijuana , which follows because obviously marijuana is now legal so you cant get busted for using it recreationally. But what I understand is there are a lot of police set-ups right across the border to catch anybody coming from Colorado into their states and those people are getting busted. Its a big experiment that’s happening and some interesting things are coming out. There’s always going to be a certain percent of the population who have a genetic or a biological or brain vulnerability to becoming addicted to this substance to cannabis and for those people, I think its the responsibility now of the state and of the so-called normies or people who don’t have problems with marijuana to care for or provide some sort of treatment and intervention for those people who have a genetic vulnerability and who develop uncontrolled and pathological behavior with multiple consequence as a result of the use of this substance. And that’s always the sad thing. I always see the revenues generated by taxing things like that quickly being diverted to other state needs rather than to helping out people that are harmed due to the legalization of something like marijuana.
HOWARD: Now, lets talk about this dabbing phenomenon. What is that all about? I don’t quite follow that.
DARRYL: Well, its something we talked about maybe 6 months ago on this Podcast. There is an amazing extraction process where hash or hash oil is made from marijuana through a variety of new ways. One remarkable way creates something called butane hash oil where butane is used to force the extraction of the THC, the cannabinoids of marijuana out of the plant substance and then volatilize that substance over just a pan of warm water. As you know butane is very, very volatile and we’ve already had a case locally where a house exploded and burned down as a result of this. The process leaves what is called butane hash oil which sort of looks like peanut brittle in the pan, is a substance that contains over 90% THC. the THC is concentrated to a high degree…this is a very effective way of concentrating the active chemical. There are a number of different processes that have been developed by street chemists that people can find on the internet showing step by step how to make it. This whole system of creating stronger extracts of marijuana through various extraction products is called, dabbing, and using these substances is also called dabbing. There’s an extraction process that uses carbon dioxide and ice that is referred to as honey oil. One of the funnier ones that I found used alcohol, ethanol pure ethanol to extract the THC – it was referred to as ear wax and when you look at it, it looks like either dry or wet ear wax depending upon how well they do it. There’s a cold water extraction process that produces a product called, bubble hash. There is someone making/using various solvents and extracting something he calls, fractured glass or broken glass hash oil. But its remarkable that there are so many ways of concentrating the active chemical in marijuana with these processes that usually result in from 70 to maybe close to 95% purity – containing active cannabinoids that are the main psychoactive substances in the plant.
HOWARD: Seems like an awfully high ratio.
DARRYL: Its extremely high and it probably explains the fact that marijuana, according to the DEA in 2013 reached about 15% average concentration in street pot from only maybe 3 or 4% a few years ago and 1 or 2% in the 1960s. It is up to 15% with some reaching up to 40% in the higher grade marijuana. And with that were seeing increasing reports of things that I would have laughed at in the 1960s.reports from Northwestern University that there are brain changes that can be imaged. You can actually see the brain structures where high doses of marijuana have caused structural differences that look like schizophrenia and actually induce thought disorders. There are reports from South Carolina of the cannabis hyperemesis syndrome which is uncontrollable vomiting. There are people experiencing extreme paranoia, people who have sort of seizure activities and other things so maybe were in for a new range of toxicity at the time that marijuana is becoming legal in some states and other states are looking at the possibility of legalizing it, we might end up with greater marijuana problems including addiction. I have one client now in treatment who got a hold of some of the spices synthetic marijuana that can be up to 800 times stronger than regular delta 9 THC – who suffered major seizures and convulsions in the hospital and he is now terrified of smoking it as he should be.
HOWARD: I could imagine so.
DARRYL: So, marijuana is getting stronger and yet its become more legal. Its causing more problems and yet it is becoming more legal, it just doesn’t fit. That’s what our world is like and – I was in San Francisco over the holidays and on New Years Eve, the Chronicle published a front page story about somebody’s pet dog who was rummaging through a neighbor’s trash can, got a hold of their marijuana butter, ate a lot of that butter and then promptly fell into a coma and was given IVs for 3 days. That shows you it ain’t the same old pot that were used to. Marijuana is a much stronger substance. The story in the Chronicle goes on to say that pets are getting into peoples stash more frequently and there are more accidental overdoses – a rash of overdose among pets attributed to marijuana toxicity. In the old days, I don’t think that happened often even though pets did get into people’s stash and ate dope, there wasn’t the toxicity that were seeing today.
HOWARD: That reminds me of the TV series My Strange Addiction – its back and this week there was someone that was addicted to eating mattresses. So, there are a lot of strange addictions.
DARRYL: See that’s what addicts have to accept and that’s what they have to learn, that its not about them being a bad person or uneducated its that they have a difference in their brain that makes them vulnerable to a certain addiction and if that vulnerability is to alcohol or if it is to cocaine, its because of how their brain is set up rather than a moral failing and hopefully they can understand their situation better when they see somebody who is addicted to eating mattresses or cat fur or ice chips or dirt or all the other strange addictions that make people do amazingly irrational things. I mean, no one is going to get high from eating cat fir. I don’t believe that anybody ever is going to get any kind of, buzz or spun, but there’s something happening in their brain on a subconscious level that tells them if they don’t eat it, there’s a fear that they’re not going to survive and that’s what happens to an alcoholic and that’s what happens to a heroin addict and with a marijuana addict that if they have this vulnerability, its an unconscious drive to continue to do something even though they suffer tremendous consequences. Our job in treatment is to help addicts appreciate that and understand that like a diabetic who has to avoid carbohydrates, avoid calories, must exercise, and live their life differently than most of us to be healthy, the addict has these biological vulnerabilities so must learn to avoid nicotine or marijuana or cocaine or heroin or Vicodin or whatever drug it is so that they can be as healthy as they can be.
HOWARD: Now there are reports of we’ve been talking with ADHD a lot in the last several months, but apparently there have been some new testing regimes coming out, do you have more details on that?
DARRYL: Yes, my old friend, Dr. Kenny Blum at University of Texas, San Antonio, is one of the most prolific scientists and prolific writers Ive ever come across. He continues to get papers accepted in the Scientific Journal almost on a daily basis and he is really on a genetic kick right now looking at the genetic basis of every condition and teaching about the specific genes associated with the condition and using that information to identify not only appropriate diagnoses for that condition, but directing treatment too. “How we can best treat that condition with this genetic profile?” Kenny Blum’s recent article published in Post Graduate Medicine talks about low levels of dopamine in the brain being strongly associated with attention deficit disorder and specific polymorphism of a certain gene that can predict whether or not a person has this. His findings promote a better diagnostic technique – that of looking for this gene and identifying it before somebody is diagnosed with ADHD. He, as well as everyone else is finally beginning to admit that with the increase of this diagnosis: attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, of which maybe only 2% of adults have and up to about maybe 20% or 10 to 20%…maybe that’s too high – maybe only 8 to 12% of children actually have. So there is a more aggressive treatment of it with stimulants. This created an increase in diversion and abuse of Adderal, Concerta, Ritalin and all the stimulant drugs. We are not treating it correctly. We’re giving addiction medication to young people who may not have this condition and wont benefit from the medication except to develop an addiction. Dr. Blum is suggesting genetic testing of people who have alleged symptoms of ADHD and if they have this gene, then we appropriately treat them with medications that are targeted for that gene, this would cut down on diversion and abuse of stimulant medications in a lot of children who are prescribed ADHD medications who might not need them.
HOWARD: Thats long overdue I think, so that’s good. Lastly, lets talk about smoking issues. We have e-cigarettes and Darryl, you just pointed out the story that just came out about tobacco 21. One of the last things that Mayor Bloomberg did in New York City was pass a law raising the age to 21 for purchasing regular cigarettes and e-cigarettes. Some places in Massachusetts passed the same law, and Utah and a few other states. So that said, there’s news this week that the e-cigarette industry is about to increase advertising. Simultaneously the FDA is talking about implementing regulations on e-cigarettes, maybe as early as this month. So, the e-cigarette companies – many of them are owned by the major tobacco companies – are making a move to do some serious advertising to get their brands out there and build brand loyalty. And of course there are a lot of people adverse to TV advertising for e-cigarettes because as some people in the industry were saying, it kind of re-normalizes smoking behavior.
DARRYL: Right, Howard, and you know, we haven’t yet developed a baseline for e-cigarettes and how they affect someone’s health because they are not regulated at any level except for local levels and they can be sold to minors . It has become vogue in Paris and in other parts of the world to wait in line to get the newest flavors. We talked about this in an earlier podcast. There are new studies reporting that, as we’ve always said, nicotine is the addictive substance. There are all these rules about tobacco it is limited, but we don’t limit nicotine, so e-cigarettes have been scooting under the law and getting away with a lot of things that we restrict in tobacco products. New studies show that nicotine in the form of an e-cigarette does not protect against the heart and the vascular complications of smoking cigarettes. It may protect someone from developing some of the pulmonary and lung problems, but not the heart and blood vessels. There are other studies reporting on second-hand smoke. Ive been on planes where people are smoking e-cigarettes and blowing them right into the aisle and into the air system. So there is potential exposure to many of the same heavy metals and the other toxic components and as well as the nicotine in e-cigarettes. Because we haven’t established a baseline and there are no laws against them, we have this phenomenon of an addictive substance which is nicotine that is being sold to a large group of people and is being delivered in just the purest form of addiction because the smoker doesn’t get that big of a buzz from it, but you cant stop using once you start. So, its good to see them start to control them and Mayor Bloomberg, I guess it was his last act as a mayor in November.
HOWARD: One of them.
DARRYL: Yes, in November of 2013 he enacted the most restrictive tobacco and nicotine laws found anyplace in the country . In New York City you have to be 21 in order to buy tobacco products and e-cigarettes. He included a lot of restrictions, a lot of ways of policing it. He agrees enforcement will be an issue, but at least hes taking that initiative that maybe the federal government should have taken a long time ago – up the age to 21 like alcohol restricting e-cigarettes as well. So things are starting to change, but it is very slow. There is a myth that we have sort of won the war on smoking tobacco because we see charts of a great decline in American smokers for the last 10 years, but now I submit that if we were to ask if those who quit were using e-cigarettes we might not see such a great change at all because addiction is addiction and there are a certain percentage of these people who are always going to need nicotine.
HOWARD: Thats all the time we have for today, I hope our listeners enjoyed this little foray into the weeks news of addiction and recovery and brain research and well come back soon. Meanwhile, your questions, comments, and suggestions are always welcome. Stop by the website at cnsproductions.com and leave us a note there. Thanks, Darryl.
DARRYL: Hey, thank you, Howard.
HOWARD: That wraps our pod for today. Thanks for visiting the CNS Podcast. Please check back soon for the next in the series and visit our website, www.cnsproductions.com