The increase in the number of states where either medical or recreational use (or both) is now legal has fired up research efforts to determine, among other things, the effects of recreational cannabis use and to discover the conditions and diseases that may benefit most from cannabis use.

For example, a recent study found a doubling of marijuana use among U.S. adults and a near doubling of “problematic use.” Another concern is the availability of high-potency pot about which little is known. Research has shown that high-potency cannabis products do produce different effects than the lower-potency products that have been around for decades. What remains unknown is the longer term effects of using the high-potency products.

LiveScience cites Professor Alan Budney of Dartmouth’s Geisel School of Medicine:

Some of the hottest areas of research are investigating marijuana’s short- and long-term effects on the brain, especially how use of the drug alters the course of brain development in teens, Budney said. Another hot topic is understanding the therapeutic benefits of compounds in marijuana used for medical reasons.

The full story at LiveScience provides more details on current areas of research and some of the, perhaps unexpected, effects of using marijuana.

Here are other important news stories for the week.

Kosher-approved Medical Marijuana
The medical marijuana company Vireo Health of New York is following two sets of regulations as it prepares to begin selling its products next month: an 18-month-old state law, and the considerably older edicts of the Torah.

Vireo announced Wednesday that it has received kosher certification from the Orthodox Union, one of the world’s pre-eminent gatekeepers of what is certified as kosher and what isn’t. The group’s trademark OU symbol will appear on Vireo’s vaporization cartridges, oils and capsules.
It would appear Vireo is the only one of the five companies licensed to grow, produce and sell medical marijuana in this state that has scored such a certification.

The applicability of the kosher certification remains to be seen. The state’s regulations do not include any rules about following religious customs. And it’s unclear how many potential medical marijuana patients — bearing in mind that the state program is rather restrictive — keep kosher. But it is a fact that New York is home to the largest Jewish community (between 1 million and 2 million people) in the United States.

Read more at the [Albany, New York] Times Union.

Marijuana Industry Building a Buzz
Snoop Dogg has his own line of marijuana. So does Willie Nelson. Melissa Etheridge has a marijuana-infused wine.

As the fast-growing marijuana industry emerges from the black market and starts looking like a mainstream industry, there’s a scramble to brand and trademark pot products.

The celebrity endorsements are just the latest attempt to add cachet to a line of weed. Snoop Dogg calls his eight strains of weed “Dank From the Doggfather Himself.” Nelson’s yet-to-be-released line says the pot is “born of the awed memories of musicians who visited Willie’s bus after a show.”

Read more at The Dallas Morning News.

Mexican Marijuana Farmers See Profits Tumble as U.S. Loosens Laws
He started growing marijuana as a teenager and for four decades earned a modest living from his tiny plot tucked at the base of these rugged mountains of western Mexico.

He proudly shows off his illegal plants, waist-high and fragrant, strategically hidden from view by rows of corn and nearly ready to be harvested.

“I’ve always liked this business, producing marijuana,” the 50-year-old farmer said wistfully. He had decided that this season’s crop would be his last.

The reason: free-market economics.

The loosening of marijuana laws across much of the United States has increased competition from growers north of the border, apparently enough to drive down prices paid to Mexican farmers. Small-scale growers here in the state of Sinaloa, one of the country’s biggest production areas, said that over the last four years the amount they receive per kilogram has fallen from $100 to $30.

Read more at the Los Angeles Times.

Nearly 100,000 Marijuana-infused Edibles Recalled by Mountain High Suckers
Denver-based pot-infused manufacturing business Mountain High Suckers has voluntarily recalled over 100,000 units of marijuana products, the city of Denver announced Wednesday.

The recall is due to the presence of potentially unsafe pesticide residues, according to the City of Denver.

The recalled products are marijuana infused edibles consisting of suckers, lozenges and powdered candy, determined to have been derived from contaminated plant material purchased from Western Remedies and Rocky Mountain Farmacy, two cultivation facilities in Denver.

Samples of these marijuana infused products had residual levels of Imidacloprid and Myclobutanil, two pesticides the Colorado Department of Agriculture has determined cannot be used legally on marijuana in Colorado.

Read more at kdvr.com.

Fed Reserve of Kansas City May Win in Marijuana Case
The Colorado credit union established for marijuana businesses may not win its case against the Federal Reserve Bank (FRB) of Kansas City. Fourth Corner filed a suit in October of this year against the Kansas City Fed for not giving the credit union a master account, which would give it access to Federal Reserve Bank payment services.

On Monday, Judge Jackson said he was sympathetic to Fourth Corner and said that if he were a member of Congress, he would be inclined to allow pot banking. However, as a judge he must uphold the laws and that means that at the Federal level marijuana is still illegal. The judge hasn’t given a final ruling yet, but it seems likely he’ll rule in favor of the Kansas City FRB

Judge Jackson suggested that the two parties try to work out an agreement and negotiate a resolution and he pointed out flaws in both legal arguments. Fourth Corner believes the FRB is obligated to provide the account and is just choosing not to work with Fourth Corner because its clients are in the cannabis industry. The lawyer for the Kansas City FRB maintained that doing so would cause it to break the law.

Read more at Forbes.

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