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Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, the powerful head of the Texas Senate, sharply rebuked Gov. Greg Abbott on Monday for vetoing his top legislative priority — a ban on all THC products — and dug in his heels against the governor’s call for lawmakers to instead place firmer regulations on the hemp industry. In vetoing Senate Bill 3 just before midnight Sunday, Abbott argued that the measure would have faced “valid constitutional challenges” that would have kept it tied up in court for years. He called the Legislature back to Austin for a special session next month to pass stricter rules...

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott vetoed a bill Sunday to ban all THC consumables, allowing the booming market flush with THC-infused vapes, gummies and other products to continue to be sold across the state. Abbott, a Republican, waited until the final moment to veto the bill in what would have been one of the most restrictive THC bans in the country and a significant blow to the state’s billion-dollar industry. The law would have made it a misdemeanor to own, manufacture or sell consumable THC, or tetrahydrocannabinol, products and was the latest push by states to regulate THC after a 2018...

A headline regular during the 89th legislative session was an all-encompassing ban on hemp-derived tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) products, which landed on Gov. Greg Abbott’s desk on May 27. By law, the governor has an additional 20 days following the final day of the session to take action on bills that pass in the session's last 10 days. This means he has until Sunday, June 22, to sign or veto Senate Bill 3, which could determine the fate of Texas’ growing hemp industry. Without any indication of what he will do and mounting pressure from his Republican associates, Abbott seems to be...

There’s more trouble brewing for an embattled Queens public defender office, as a lawyer there was busted for passing drugs to an incarcerated client just days after group’s founder was charged with fraud. One of the staff lawyers at Queens Defenders was arrested for allegedly attempting to sneak more than 130 pages of paper laced with THC to an inmate during a scheduled attorney visit at Rikers Island. Bernardo Caceres was charged with promoting prison contraband, a felony punishable by up to seven years in prison in New York. During a visit to inmate Luis DeJesus Wednesday afternoon – who’s...

Previous studies show exposure to Tetrahydrocannabinol (THC)—the main psychoactive component in cannabis—while in utero can lead to lower birth weight and potential heart complications in newborn animal offspring. For the first time, researchers have found a potential way to prevent those effects. A recent study is the first to uncover a potential intervention to remedy the decline in birth weight and compromised heart health in offspring due to THC exposure in utero. Using rat models, the researchers found heart deficits associated with THC were counteracted by Omega-3 supplementation. In this study, researchers were able to replicate the results from a...

Weed users are much more likely to suffer a heart attack, stroke or other life-threatening heart condition than people who don't indulge, a new study says.Adults under 50 are more than six times as likely to suffer a heart attack if they use marijuana, compared to non-users, researchers reported Tuesday in the journal JACC Advances.They also have a dramatically higher risk of stroke, heart failure and heart-related death, researchers said."Asking about cannabis use should be part of clinicians' workup to understand patients' overall cardiovascular risk, similar to asking about smoking cigarettes," lead researcher Dr. Ibrahim Kamel, a clinical instructor at...

A type of Trema micrantha. (Daniel Pineda Vera/iNaturalist/CC BY 4.0) Scientists have discovered cannabidiol, a compound in cannabis known as CBD, in a common Brazilian plant, opening potential new avenues to produce the increasingly popular substance. The team found CBD in the fruits and flowers of a plant known as Trema micrantha blume, a shrub which grows across much of the South American country and is often considered a weed, molecular biologist Rodrigo Moura Neto of the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro told AFP in 2023. CBD, increasingly used by some to treat conditions including epilepsy, chronic pain and...

The 25-year-old mayor of Bogalusa, Louisiana, on Tuesday was arrested and accused of involvement in a drug-trafficking operation and the soliciting of prostitution. Louisiana State Police arrested Mayor Tyrin Truong and six others after investigating an alleged drug trafficking organization operating in the Bogalusa area in April. The criminal organization is accused of distributing opioids, ecstasy, THC products and high-grade marijuana via social media and other channels, then using proceeds to buy guns, some of which were then used in other crimes, police said in a release. All seven suspects, including the mayor, are from Bogalusa and have been charged...

***[Elton] John, who had a notorious drug addiction during the 1970s and 1980s but has been clean and sober for decades, made [the following] statement in [an] interview: John now divides his life into pre- and post-sober periods. … Those struggles have made him doubt the wisdom of legal weed. “I maintain that it’s addictive. It leads to other drugs. And when you’re stoned—and I’ve been stoned—you don’t think normally,” he says. “Legalizing marijuana in America and Canada is one of the greatest mistakes of all time.”John couldn’t be more right.***We’ve long known that marijuana use damages the brain, especially...

Using cannabis may cause changes in the human body's epigenome, a study of over 1,000 adults suggests. The epigenome functions like a set of switches, activating or deactivating genes to change how our bodies function. "We observed associations between cumulative marijuana use and multiple epigenetic markers across time," explained epidemiologist Lifang Hou from Northwestern University when the research was published in 2023.

TALLAHASSEE -- Gov. Ron DeSantis - who's come out swinging against a proposed constitutional amendment that would allow recreational marijuana - on Friday delivered a victory to potential pot competitors by vetoing a measure that would have severely restricted the sales and production of euphoria-inducing hemp-based products. Lawmakers passed the bill (SB 1698) in March, with supporters arguing it would address safety concerns as the use of THC, or tetrahydrocannabinol, has boomed. The bill would have banned the sale of products containing what is known as delta-8 tetrahydrocannabinol and limited the amount of delta-9 THC. Delta-8 and delta-9 are cannabinoids...

“No one could have foreseen that a single hit of marijuana that night would have caused Ms. Spejcher to have a total psychotic break from reality, certainly not Chad and certainly not Ms. Spejcher. In light of these facts, I do not believe that further incarceration of Ms. Spejcher is appropriate,” Judge David Worley said in court. He sentenced her instead to two years of probation and 100 hours community service, educating the public on the dangers of THC.

WASHINGTON — The Biden administration will take a historic step toward easing federal restrictions on cannabis, with plans to announce an interim rule soon reclassifying the drug for the first time since the Controlled Substances Act was enacted more than 50 years ago, four sources with knowledge of the decision said. The Drug Enforcement Administration is expected to approve an opinion by the Department of Health and Human Services that marijuana should be reclassified from the strictest Schedule I to the less stringent Schedule III. It would be the first time that the U.S. government has acknowledged its potential medical...

Initial toxicology reports on the three Kansas City Chiefs fans found frozen and dead in a friend’s yard found cocaine, THC — and three times the amount of fentanyl that is enough to kill, according to reports. The families of David Harrington, Clayton McGeeney and Ricky Johnson — who were found dead outside their friend Jordan Willis’ Kansas City home on Jan. 9 — confirmed to WDAF that police have the initial reports on illicit drugs in the dead men’s systems. Among the substances were cocaine and fentanyl, according to TMZ and NewsNation.

laced with marijuana' It was supposed to be a night out at one of Arizona’s premiere golf destinations. But after a surprising addition to their dinner menu, two families say their kids had to be rushed to the hospital. Gelato at Isabellas 1.jpeg By: Jennifer KovaleskiPosted at 10:13 PM, Dec 31, 2023 and last updated 10:13 PM, Dec 31, 2023 SCOTTSDALE, AZ — It was supposed to be a night out with family and friends at one of Arizona’s premiere golf destinations. But after a surprising addition to their dinner menu, two families say their kids had to be rushed...

A woman who stabbed her boyfriend 100 times after inhaling marijuana sobbed in court, while clutching a picture of dog - which she also killed. Bryn Spejcher, 32, originally from Chicago, committed the horrific attack in May 2018, after taking two hits of her boyfriend's marijuana 'bong'. According to an expert witness, the violent act was a result of a 'psychotic episode' caused by the cannabis. 'Dog lover' Spejcher is said to have smoked pot just five to ten times in her life, according to testimony heard in the trial that started last week at the Superior Court of California....

Two new preliminary studies on recreational marijuana and health strengthen existing evidence that regular use negatively impacts heart and brain health, according to the American Heart Association.The first report, drawing on data from a major study involving more than 150,000 people from all walks of American society looking at the relationship between lifestyle, biology and environment, found daily use of marijuana raised the risk of developing heart failure by about one-third compared with non-users.A research team from Medstar Health, a not-for-profit health provider in the Baltimore-Washington metro area, found that among 156,999 healthy people it followed, those who used marijuana...

... In a model using nonhuman primates, researchers administered THC in a daily edible and compared its effects to a group receiving a placebo. Specifically, researchers evaluated the epigenetic changes in several key areas that indicate healthy prenatal development: the placenta -- the disc of tissue that connects the umbilical cord and uterus -- and fetal lung, brain and heart. When looking at these areas, analyses showed that THC exposure altered the epigenome, meaning a process in which the information encoded in a gene is turned into a function or observable trait. Genes -- the segments which make up DNA...

“The increased risk of getting schizophrenia after drug-related psychosis is even higher than what we find in first-degree relatives of those who have been given the diagnosis,” Bramness says. First-degree relatives are parents and children. The risk of being diagnosed with the malady for sons and daughters of a sick mother or father is "only" five to ten per cent. In other words, there is no other risk factor for schizophrenia that is higher than related to drug-induced psychoses. Trauma, infections and moving to another country are other known risk factors for schizophrenia, but these increase the risk to a...

Australian researchers have published the first robust clinical study proving that medicinal cannabis effectively treats the debilitating effects of Tourette syndrome. The findings show a statistically and clinically significant reduction in motor and vocal tics in just six weeks. The analysis found a significant association between levels of cannabis in the bloodstream and the response to active treatment. THC (tetrahydrocannabinol) is the active hallucinogenic compound in cannabis that produces a "high" effect, while CBD (cannabidiol) is a non-psychoactive compound. Both are used medicinally in Australia. The study involved testing 22 adult patients with severe Tourette symptoms. In the double-blind study,...