In what might be described as a confluence of demographics, experience, and perceived medical benefit, a majority of Americans now support the legalization of marijuana in some form.
That’s the word from the Pew Research Center. Andrew Daniller, writing for Pew’s FactTank, reports that two-thirds of Americans say the use of marijuana should be legal, according to the Center’s latest survey. At the same time, the share of U.S. adults who oppose legalization has fallen from 52 percent in 2010 to 32 percent today.
The survey found that an overwhelming majority of U.S. adults say marijuana should be legal either for medical and recreational use (59 percent) or that it should be legal just for medical use (32 percent). The survey, conducted September 3 to 15 on Pew Research Center’s American Trends Panel, found that only 8 percent of respondents would keep marijuana illegal in all circumstances.
Daniller also reports younger adults are somewhat more likely than older adults to say that marijuana use should be legal for both medical and recreational use. About two-thirds (69 percent) of those ages 18 to 29 say it should be legal for both types of use, compared with 48 percent of those ages 65 and older. Most adults 65 and over nonetheless favor legalization in some form.
The growing public support for legal marijuana comes as a growing number of jurisdictions have legalized marijuana for medical or recreational purposes.
To learn more, visit Andrew Daniller’s analysis in the November 14, 2019 issue of the Pew Center’s FactTank.
www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2019/11/14/americans-support-marijuana-legalization_
Cannabis Trends
In what may be seen as evidence of the growing acceptance of recreational marijuana there is a reported increase in the number of “weed bars” at corporate holiday parties in states where cannabis is legal.
Granted, you are more apt to find a weed bar at a corporate event held by a public relations firm or an advertising agency than the Christmas party of the local sheriff’s office. Still, they are growing in popularity.
So says Alaina Demopoulos in an article for the Daily Beast. She cites the experience of Bec Koop, who co-owns Irie Weddings and Events with her business partner Madlyn Kenny. Said Koop, “About 85 percent of our business is still focused on weddings, but we’re definitely picking up more regular corporate events,” noting that cannabars or weed bars that come complete with budtenders “change the vibe of a company party.”
Demopoulos also described the experience of Reena Rampersad who owns and operates the cannabis catering service High Society Supper Club in Hamilton, Ontario, just outside Toronto. Rampersad, who also operates a Caibbean restaurant, opened the catering service after Canada passed legalization.
Said Rampersad, “Holidays are busy for us and will be again this year,”. “Every item on the menu comes paired with a sauce, the use of which is optional, that carries THC. That being said, with those events the doses are really low and I always start each party with an information session, Cannabis 101, so people are fully aware and in acknowledgement of what’s happening. ”
Last year, the CEO of a beverage company that was flirting with releasing cannabis products hired Rampersad to host a Christmas dinner party for his team. His wife attended, but wanted to sit out the infused sauces because she had a bad experience with a pot brownie in college. But after sitting down and smelling the food, the wife decided to try a bit.
“She made it through the entire meal and when I told her to pause, she said, ‘No, I’m OK,’” Rampersad recalled. “I was concerned because she was having more when she left, and I told her husband. He said she was fine, and the next day she texted me saying she’d had the most amazing night, the best sleep of her life, and couldn’t wait to try it again.” Rampersad will cater their holiday party this year, too.
Companies that book with Koop’s firm Irie must buy their own cannabis—legally— and then hand it over to the budtenders who serve it. Irie charges $7.50 per guest over the age of 21 for what’s described as a “Flower Package.” This ensures guests a night full of smoking or vaping weed and eating edibles.
There is also a “Beverage” option that costs $12.50 a head and includes mocktails that can be infused with microdoses of THC. In addition, each budtender carries an “Overconsumption Kit,” filled with “homeopathic remedies,” just in case anyone who takes a puff has a less than positive experience.
To learn more we suggest you read Alaina Demopoulos’ entertaining article in the November 11, 2019 edition of the Daily Beast.
www.thedailybeast.com/forget-booze-weed-bars-spark-up-the-office-christmas-party?ref=home
CBD Spotlight
There’s good news for mature consumers and others looking for an organic CBD supplement with a spicy kick. A new company has introduced an organic CBD tincture infused with an extract of roasted chilies. It’s called Lucy’s Red Hot Premium Hemp & Chili Extract
The company, called Red Hot Organics, starts with an organic broad-spectrum CBD tincture produced from hemp grown in the USA by a company called Joy Organics. The designation broad spectrum indicates the CBD tincture contains the full range of cannabinoids and terpenes without any THC.
The company then infuses this base with an extract of chilis roasted in MCT oil, which is made from a coconut-oil base, to make the CBD and chili tincture. Although the chili extract is made from a family recipe that originally called for corn oil, MCT oil is said to enhance the product’s “bioavailability.” This means it enhances the body’s ability to absorb the CBD tincture and deliver a greater percentage of it to the appropriate receptors in the body.
Company CEO Danny Ruelas comes to the manufacturing process with over ten years experience in the food industry, most of that time in the inspection and regulation end of the business. He believes this has prepared him to deal with the regulatory environment CBD products must navigate, the FDA in particular.
Ruelas notes, “While we are producing a product that is marketed as a supplement, we are manufacturing it in a way that would enable it to meet the FDA regulations for producing a food product, which are more stringent than the regulations governing supplements. We are doing this to ensure the purity and quality of our chili oil.”
The supplement is sold in bottles that contain about 30 servings, with each serving containing 15 mg of CBD. Since it’s a tincture, it can be administered by using an eyedropper to place a serving under your tongue or it can be used to spice up to a wide range of dishes, including soups and stews.
Ruelas says he hopes customers use the product as part of an active, on-the-go lifestyle that promotes wellness. Red Hot Organics is already developing other CBD infused products, such as gummies with a cinnamon flavor, pumpkin spice CBD oil, and massage candles that contain CBD.
To learn more, visit the company website at redhotorganics.com or click on a link below to listen to a podcast interview with Ruelas where he describes the experience of bringing a new CBD product to market.
anchor.fm/danny-ruelas9/episodes/Starting-a-Red-Hot-Organic-CBD-company
Holiday Gift Tips
It’s long been said that to get to the bottom of things, follow the money. Or, you can read publications that follow the money.
For example, Forbes, a magazine that calls itself “The Capitalist Tool,” has for some time now been covering the high-end (no pun intended) of cannabis consumption.
Recently, Katie Shapiro, a writer who covers “the intersection of vice and luxury,” for the magazine came up with a holiday gift guide that focused on traveling safely with marijuana. While she described several holiday gifts with the international jet-setter in mind, we did see three gift ideas on her list that would be just as suitable for traveling across town, or even going from room to room, in a locale where cannabis is legal.
First, a company called Another Room has made what it calls its New Kit. Similar in style to a dopp kit and hand-sewn in Vancouver, British Columbia, the clear carrying case, which is large enough to handle smoking paraphernalia and a bag of snacks, comes complete with the company’s signature Doob Tube (a tube for carrying joints), a Joint Locker (a small device that can carry a joint and a lighter) and a smell-proof pouch for flower, with extra room in the kit for more supplies. To make things even easier for the consumer, the door of the bag doubles as a makeshift rolling tray. It costs a modest (depending on your holiday gift budget) $88 and it’s from the websiteanotherroom.io.
Next up is the SilverStick Wallet Dugout. For those not familiar with the term, a dugout is usually a small hand-held box that holds a small one-hitter pipe and a limited amount of ground marijuana. A user slides open the dugout, pulls out a spring-loaded pipe and packs it with cannabis by pressing it into the compartment containing the bud.
In this case the SilverStick Wallet Dugout was designed in Boulder, Colo. and handcrafted in the United States from Horween leather and European hides that are veg-tanned. This a method used to tan hides that uses organic materials, such as tree bark, instead of chemicals.
The just-released wallet version holds the signature SilverStick one-hitter pipe, a flower container, lighter, a poker to clean the stick and filters. There is also a flap on the back of the wallet to hold an ID, cash, and a credit card. This clocks in at a less modest, but still affordable price point of $99. It’s available at thesilverstick.com.
Another item from Shapiro’s list that we like is extremely affordable and designed to resolve a persistent problem—the odor of cannabis. The product, called Cannabolish, is available both as an all-natural spray and as a candle said to be capable of clearing the air around you. Both the spray and candle are made from natural plant oils and water. They are said to remove the scent of smoke quickly, are supposed to be safe for use around plants, animals and people and are available as a set that contains a travel spray, a spray for the home and a candle that’s priced at $29.99. It’s available online at cannabolish.com.
To find more cannabis-related holiday gift ideas you can visit Katie Shapiro’s gift guide in the November 13, 2019 issue of Forbes.com.
Medical Cannabis And Mature Consumers
There’s helpful news for those who wonder if medical marijuana may provide some relief from their various aches, pains and medical problems.
Writing for AARP, Sari Harrar has done a deep dive into what the current medical thinking is on the effectiveness of cannabis when it comes to treating and offering relief from chronic pain, MS, depression and other conditions. Here is a brief look at what she found out about using cannabis to treat two of those conditions.
Multiple sclerosis Experts say that many of the nearly one million Americans with MS are individuals 45 years of age and older. Harrar cites a 2017 survey finding that as much as 66 percent of those one million cases may be using medical marijuana to help manage the debilitating muscle spasms and pain of MS. In fact, people with MS are thought to be the second-largest group of medical marijuana users in the U.S., behind chronic pain sufferers.
She also reports that the cannabis research and development company MMJ International Holdings Corp. hopes to test an experimental medication — a highly purified, liquid plant extract with THC and CBD in a gelatin capsule — for MS in the near future.
The bottom line: Medical marijuana seems to help those with MS.
Chronic pain Harrar writes that more than 600,000 Americans turn to cannabis for relief from chronic pain and she found the scientific evidence for its effectiveness is substantial. In what she described as “gold-standard randomized clinical trials” of people who deal with “agonizing” pain due to health concerns — peripheral neuropathy (nerve pain from diabetes), spinal cord injury, HIV or complex regional pain syndrome, cancer, chemotherapy, muscle and joint problems, rheumatoid arthritis and multiple sclerosis — cannabis reduced pain by 40 percent, according to a 2017 NASEM (the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine) report.
She also found that in a 2019 Colorado survey, arthritis was the top reason older adults used cannabis, followed by back pain. Overall, 79 percent of those interviewed said it helped.
The bottom line: The consensus is that cannabis seems to help patients manage chronic pain.
It should be noted that in March of 2019 the AARP Board of Directors approved a policy supporting the medical use of marijuana for older adults in states that have legalized it. According to the policy, “AARP also supports further clinical research of medical use of cannabinoids to help alleviate both the symptoms of disease and the side effects of the treatment for diseases.”
In addition, AARP also took the position that the Drug Enforcement Administration’s classification of marijuana as a Schedule I controlled substance deters the medical use and scientific study of cannabinoids and called on federal officials to examine options to allow more clinical research.
To learn more, we suggest you read Sari Harrar’s insightful and comprehensive reporting in the September 3, 2019 issue of AARP.org.
www.aarp.org/health/drugs-supplements/info-2019/cannabis-for-medical-conditions.html
Senior Cannabis Digest is compiled and edited by Joe Kohut and John Kohut. You can reach them at joe.kohut@gmail.com or 347-528-8753.