Welcome to Senior Cannabis Digest. This week we look at tips on edible safety during the holidays, the challenge of measuring THC impairment in drivers, consumer trends for the holidays and more. Enjoy.
Holiday Tips
From gummies to brownies and everything in between, edible forms of cannabis seem to be just about everywhere. However, just because they’re popular with mature consumers and others doesn’t mean edibles come without risk.
This is particularly true around the holidays when, even with social distancing restrictions, small groups of family and friends plan to get together. Sadly, holiday gatherings can increase the chances that edible cannabis products fall into the wrong hands.
To help, the New York City Department of Health—or NYC Health if you prefer—recently released a tip sheet designed to help keep children safe when they’re around edible products. While it’s aimed at children, the tips can apply to vulnerable adults as well.
The sheet begins by reminding consumers that while cannabis edibles are drugs, they often resemble snacks, candy and baked goods and that eating cannabis products can pose a threat to children.
The Health Department’s specific tips include the following:
• Store edible cannabis products separate from other food and drinks.
• Always keep cannabis products in a secure place that is out of sight and reach of children.
• Recognize symptoms of cannabis poisoning, such as loss of coordination, excessive sleepiness and trouble breathing. Severe poisoning can lead to a coma or need for a ventilator.
• Call the NYC Poison Control Center at 212-POISONS (212-764-7667) if you think a child has eaten something containing cannabis. You can call the helpline 24/7. All calls are free and confidential. Interpretation services are available.
While the information about the Poison Control Center is specific to New York City, it would apply to the equivalent services in other areas.
If you want to keep the holidays jolly and bright, remember to keep edibles away from the unsuspecting. This includes cookies left out for Santa and the reindeer—and those stories about Rudolph’s glowing nose are just rumors.
For a copy of the tip sheet, simply click on the link that follows.
www1.nyc.gov/assets/doh/downloads/pdf/basas/cannabis-palm-card.pdf
An Edible Milestone
It’s been said that life is about accepting challenges and going where no one has gone before. We believe it was in that spirit that the “kitchen engineers” at a cannabis company called MariMed decided to celebrate National Brownie Day by baking a very large, very potent brownie.
According to Javier Hasse, reporting for Benzinga, the 850-pound brownie featured 20,000 mg of THC. To make the 400 square foot brownie, the intrepid bakers used 450 pounds of sugar, 212 pounds of butter and more than 1300 eggs. The brownie measured 3 feet wide by 3 feet long and was 15 inches tall.
The brownie was also used by MariMed to promote the introduction of a new line of edibles called Bubby’s Baked. The company says the edibles are made in small batches, infused with precision-dosed, full-spectrum cannabis and come in three styles: brownie, chocolate chip, and snickerdoodle.
Acknowledging that for many consumers, homemade brownies were their first taste of cannabis-infused edibles, MariMed chief product officer and SVP of sales Ryan Crandall said, “Bubby’s Baked fills a big hole in the edibles market that cannabis consumers crave – high-quality, delicious baked goods that stay moist and chew.”
To learn more, you can read Javier Hasse’s article in the December 8, 2021 issue of Benzinga.
Feel free to cue that song about an impossible dream if you care to.
Cannabis and Impairment
As the movement to legalize cannabis continues to gain momentum at the state and federal levels, you can expect to see increased research on the issue of what constitutes impairment resulting from cannabis use and how to measure it.
For example, one new study suggests that THC concentrations in blood and oral fluid are poor and inconsistent indicators of cannabis-induced impairment.
According to TG Branfalt, writing for Ganjapreneur, researchers at Australia’s University of Sydney reported that “higher blood THC concentrations were only weakly associated with increased impairment in occasional cannabis users while no significant relationship was detected in regular cannabis users.”
Clearly, from a research and policy perspective, the issue of what constitutes impairment is a thorny one. According to Professor Iain McGregor, the academic director for the university’s Lambert Initiative for Cannabinoid Therapeutics, inexperienced cannabis consumers “can ingest a large oral dose of THC and be completely unfit to drive yet register extremely low blood and oral fluid THC concentrations” while experienced consumers “might smoke a joint, show very high THC concentrations, but show little if any impairment.”
McGregor added, “The strong and direct relationship between blood-alcohol concentrations and impaired driving encourages people to think that such relationships apply to all drugs, but this is certainly not the case with cannabis.”
The study was recently published in the journal Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews.
To learn more, we urge you to read TG Branfalt’s informative article in the December 7, 2021 issue of Ganjapreneur.
www.ganjapreneur.com/study-blood-and-oral-fluid-poor-indicators-of-thc-impairment/?
Cannabis and the Workplace
In a move that some interpret as further evidence that legalization is inevitable, the CDC has issued advice to businesses that employ drivers on how to develop marijuana policies that respect state legalization laws but reduce the risk of impaired driving.
According to Kyle Jaeger, reporting for Marijuana Moment, the CDC’s National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH), said employers should create cannabis policies that account “for current laws in each state where your company operates,” adding that a “zero-tolerance policy for marijuana may not be possible, depending on your state’s laws.”
The CDC also acknowledged that employers should recognize that “marijuana’s specific contribution to crash risk is unclear because it can be detected in body fluids for days or even weeks after use.”
In addition, the CDC suggested that employers can develop policies that prohibit workers from using cannabis on the job or showing up to work impaired. It also recommended that employers partner with an attorney who can “review your policy and provide feedback.”
Jaeger also reported that the CDC advised employers that if drug testing is part of a business’s marijuana policy, employers should make sure that the conditions under which a worker might be tested are clear, that a trained medical professional is available to accurately interpret THC testing results and that drivers are adequately informed about the risks of consuming CBD products that might be mislabeled and contain excess THC levels that could be detectable in a drug test.
To learn more, we suggest you read Kyle Jaeger’s article in the November 29, 2021 issue of Marijuana Moment. As always, his reporting is on point and informative.
Stats of the Week
This week’s magic number is 76 percent. According to a recent study by Jushi Holdings, that’s the percentage of cannabis users in states where recreational cannabis is legal who intend to give cannabis products as holiday gifts.
That percentage jumped to 88 percent when respondents were asked, “if cannabis was legal across all of America, would you be more likely to purchase cannabis or cannabis-related products as holiday gifts?”
Reinforcing the notion that cannabis products are like any other consumer products, only different, respondents said the two most important factors in choosing a cannabis product are THC level (50 percent) and price (49 percent).
Jushi’s survey also revealed that 74 percent of respondents reported that the specific strain (i.e., “Sour Diesel”) is important or very important in choosing a cannabis flower product and when asked “how important is the brand of a cannabis product to you,” 74 percent of consumers stated it was important or very important.
Yep, it’s a consumer product all right.
Jushi Holdings is described as a national, multi-state cannabis company developing and operating high-end retail locations, premium brands and state-of-the-art cultivation, processing and manufacturing facilities.
To learn more, we suggest you read the results from their survey on cannabis and consumer trends for the holidays. They can be found in an article by Keegan Williams that appeared in the December 3, 2021 issue of Culture Magazine.
culturemagazine.com/new-poll-looks-at-cannabis-consumer-trends-for-2021-holiday-season/
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.
