Welcome to Senior Cannabis Digest. This week we look at a new study that suggests seniors who use cannabis are finding relief from pain, a problem with misleading labels on CBD sleep aids, Arizona’s impressive tax haul from cannabis sales and more. Enjoy.
Cannabis Corner
There is promising news for older individuals who are thinking of using cannabis to address a variety of medical conditions. A recent study suggests cannabis may help them manage pain and enjoy a better quality of life.
That’s the word from an article prepared by the staff of the website Dispensaries.com. It cites an Israeli study published in the journal Frontiers in Medicine that found that by using cannabis older individuals experienced relief from a variety of medical conditions, including chronic pain, post-traumatic stress disorder and inflammatory bowel disease. The 10,713 subjects who participated in the six month study had a mean age of just over 54 years.
In addition, the mature consumers who participated in the study reported an overall improvement in their quality of life. The authors of the journal article reported that when the study began, only 13 percent of the seniors said they had a good quality of life. After the six-month study, that number rose to 70 percent.
The researchers also found that after using cannabis as part of the study, 40 percent of mature individuals who used opioids reported they had stopped using them and 25 percent of those who used antidepressants said they no longer used them.
The researchers concluded, “Supervised medical-cannabis treatment is associated with high adherence, improvement in quality of life, and a decrease in pain level with a low incidence of serious adverse events.”
To learn more about the study, you can read the article which appeared in the March 22, 2022 issue of GreenEntrepreneur.com.
www.greenentrepreneur.com/article/422749
You can also read the journal article which describes the study in more detail. Simply click on the link that follows.
www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fmed.2022.827849/full
CBD Spotlight
Mature consumers who turn to CBD products to help them get a good night’s sleep may be in for a rude awakening. That’s because a new study indicates that 60 percent of consumer CBD products currently marketed for sleep contain the wrong amount of CBD, CBN, or melatonin.
So says Graham Abbot, writing for the website Ganjapreneur. Abbot reports that to conduct the study Leafreport—a company that specializes in CBD news, product reviews and consumer education—purchased 52 different CBD sleep products including gummies, tinctures, and capsules.
According to Abbot, the study, conducted by Infinite Chemical Analysis Labs, found two-thirds of the tested products said to contain melatonin were found to be mislabeled, while just over half with CBD carried inaccurate CBD levels, and nearly half labeled for CBN were also inaccurate. In addition, out of 32 products that were advertised to contain broad or full-spectrum CBD, 25 percent appeared to be mislabeled.
He also noted that capsule products performed better than the other products in terms of labeling accuracy with 50 percent of tested products matching their label, followed by gummies (40 percent), then tinctures (30 percent).
Said Gal Shapira, Leafreport’s Product Manager, “Frankly, the results of this research are shocking and continue to illustrate the need for a more transparent CBD industry. Consumers need to know when they buy CBD products that there are certain quality standards being met.”
To learn more, we urge you to read Graham Abbot’s excellent article. It appears in the April 28, 2022 issue of Ganjapreneur.
www.ganjapreneur.com/study-60-of-cbd-sleep-products-are-mislabeled/?
Stats of the Week
This week there are several magic numbers that demonstrate that when given the opportunity to legally purchase cannabis, consumers tend to vote their approval with their wallets and state governments are benefiting from their spending.
For starters, Marijuana Moment reported that state data shows that New Jersey sold nearly $2 million worth of cannabis on the first day adult use sales were legal. That figure represents purchases made by 12,438 consumers at the twelve dispensaries currently licensed to sell recreational cannabis across the Garden State.
According to Bloomberg.com, on that first day consumers spent a little over $150 apiece.
In an effort to help grow New Jersey’s recreational market, the state’s cannabis commission authorized 13 dispensaries that sell medical marijuana to sell recreational cannabis as well.
In other state news, Kyle Jaeger, writing for Marijuana Moment, reports that in March the state of Arizona took in more tax revenue from legal marijuana sales than from tobacco and alcohol sales combined.
Jaeger noted that tax deposits to the state general fund from medical and adult-use cannabis reached about $6.3 million in March, compared to $1.7 million from tobacco and $3.7 million from alcohol sales. That’s according to the Arizona Joint Legislative Budget Committee (JLBC).
Another financial benchmark that we found interesting comes from the latest issue of MJBizDaily’s Factbook for 2022. It reports that in 2021, U. S. cannabis sales were more than $4B higher than U.S. Starbucks sales.
We know, we don’t know what it means exactly either, but it sure does sound impressive. Feel free to use it to amuse your friends and confound your enemies.
To learn more about New Jersey’s rollout of recreational cannabis, you can read the article in the April 27,2022 issue of Marijuana Moment.
To learn more about Arizona’s cannabis tax revenues, we urge you to read the article by the always informative Kyle Jaeger. It appeared in the April 25, 2022 issue of Marijuana Moment.
To learn more about MJBizDaily’s latest factbook, click on the link that follows.
insights.mjbizdaily.com/factbook-2022/?
Cannabis Use Through History
Those who think the use of cannabis started with the Beatniks or with the hippies sometime around the “summer of love” may be surprised to learn that the ritual use of cannabis can be traced back as far as biblical times.
So says Melissa Klein, reporting for the New York Post on an upcoming exhibition at the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research that examines the historic relationship between the Jewish people and cannabis. The Institute is located near Union Square in New York City.
According to Eddy Portnoy, the exhibit’s curator, as he began to research the topic he found a number of artifacts and learned many aspects of the history of Jews and cannabis that were unknown to him and he believes to other people as well.
For example, Portnoy cited a passage in the book of Exodus about an altar for burning incense with herbs including kaneh bosem, which some say refers to cannabis.
Items on display at the exhibit will range from the contemporary, such as a yarmulke decorated with cannabis leaves, to much older artifacts, such as a kind of purchase order for cannabis, dating to the 1200s. According to Portnoy, the document, which was found in a Cairo synagogue in the 1800s, is a letter in which the writer asks for textiles and hashish in exchange for silver.
Klein notes that there is even a poem that pokes fun at people who smoke hashish saying, “They eat everything in sight”— what Portnoy describes as an early 15th-century reference to the munchies.
To learn more we encourage you to read Melissa Klein’s informative and entertaining article in the April 23, 2022 issue of the New York Post.
nypost.com/2022/04/23/new-exhibit-opens-on-history-of-jews-and-cannabis/
Cannabis Quote of the Week
“The research findings continue to validate how, as the market of 49.5 million legal U.S. consumers matures, cannabis consumers are becoming more intentional about their use of the plant, both seeking specific experiences from their cannabis use and aligning the products they choose to those outcomes. While the top reasons for consuming cannabis remain largely unchanged – i.e., seeking relaxation, pain management, improving sleep outcomes, or treating medical conditions – the broadening ways to achieve desired outcomes from the wide array of products on the market is leading to significant changes to how consumers integrate cannabis into their lives.“—Dr. Molly McCann Ed.D., Senior Director of Consumer Insights, New Frontier Data
Dr. McCann’s comments are taken from the article Familiarity Breeds Contentment with Cannabis Consumers—a comprehensive analysis of consumer preferences published by New Frontier Data.
In the article Dr. McCann notes that:
• A majority (57 percent) of current cannabis consumers use both flower and nonflower product forms.
• One-quarter (25 percent) exclusively use flower.
• 17 percent exclusively use nonflower forms.
• Among the majority of consumers who use more than one form of cannabis, their chosen activity is the leading determinant (46 percent) for the form used.
• Consumers’ choice of product form is also influenced by whichever mood they want to create (38 percent).
• or the time of day (27 percent).
Dr. McCann contends these findings indicate that context and intentionality are key factors in understanding consumer behavior when it comes to cannabis.
The article offers a truly insightful analysis of the product choices cannabis consumers make and how they come to make them. We can’t recommend the article enough.
To learn more, we urge you to read the article Familiarity Breeds Contentment with Cannabis Consumers. It appears in the April 26, 2022 issue of Cannabis Insights from New Frontier Data.
newfrontierdata.com/cannabis-insights/familiarity-breeds-contentment-with-cannabis-consumers/?u
Senior Cannabis Digest is compiled and edited by Joe Kohut and John Kohut. You can reach them at joe.kohut@gmail.com and at 347-528-8753.
