More bullshit from the marijuana industry

Gerard Vanderleun lets us know about:

The Wine Appreciation Bullshit Reaches Marijuana Sales.

Read about it here.

What happens when children ingest marijuana edibles?

Although we Coloradans love our sunny days, Daniel Greenfield notes at Front Page Magazine,

Life isn't altogether sunny in the legal pot utopia. The usual victims of adults behaving irresponsibly are unsurprisingly children. And this entire issue is summed up as adults behaving irresponsibly.

“Here at Children’s Hospital Colorado we saw an increase from one child we saw in the emergency department in 2009 to 16 in 2015,” said Dr. G. Sam Wang, the lead author of the study, in a press release. “And at the regional poison center, we had nine calls for kids between [ages] zero and nine in 2009 increase fivefold to 47 in 2015.”

Dr. Wang said that the majority of the cases happened at home, with the children later presenting symptoms of “lethargy” and “sleepiness.” Some cases were more serious, he added, requiring tracheal intubation to treat coma or respiratory depression...

Two more findings shore up this hypothesis: Not only did Colorado’s increase in marijuana-related calls for young children outpace such increases in the rest of the country, but nearly half of the cases after legalization involved recreational rather than medical marijuana.

A new study shows marijuana poisoning in young children has risen 150 percent in Colorado since the substance was legalized in 2014... According to the study published by the JAMA Pediatrics Journal Monday, the mean rate of marijuana poisoning increased at Children’s Hospital in Denver from 1.2 per 100,000 two years before legalization to 2.3 per 100,000 after legalization.

The majority of those cases involved children who had ingested marijuana edibles.

Dr. Sharon Levy, director of the adolescent substance abuse program at Boston Children’s Hospital, said excessive marijuana exposure can cause psychotic episodes for both children and adults.

The long-term effects for young kids are unknown.

“They could have acute psychotic reactions, which is why they would need to be admitted to intensive care units in some cases,” she said. “They have a change of mental status and become very lethargic.”

Our Halloween nightmare

This is the kind of crap Colorado parents and children have to deal with this Halloween, because the drug dealers have taken over this state.

This guy is going to need some good lawyers

The man pictured above is Russell Kirk. Jordan Steffen writes about him this morning in the Denver Post:

Richard Kirk's attorneys admit he put a gun to his wife's head in their Observatory Park home, pulled the trigger and killed her. Tests performed afterward showed he had no alcohol, prescription drugs or other substances in his system — except a low level of THC, the psychoactive element in marijuana.

Now, as details of the bizarre night continue to emerge, the focus of the case shifts to a novel question: Was the marijuana-infused candy Kirk nibbled on enough of the drug to spark a temporary mental breakdown in his ability to tell right from wrong?

But a Denver judge found that despite Kirk's erratic behavior on April 14 — diving in and out of a first-floor window, ranting about the end of the world and asking his 7-year-old son to kill him — he still had the ability to unlock the gun safe, load the gun and fire it. The judge ruled there is enough evidence to try Kirk for first-degree murder after deliberation for killing his wife, 44-year-old Kristine.

If Kirk wants to argue the marijuana stopped him from understanding the consequences of his actions, he could enter a plea of not guilty by reason of insanity, and then his attorneys will have to show the drug triggered some kind of underlying mental health condition, said Russell Covey, a law professor at Georgia State University.

In that scenario, Covey said, a low level of THC in Kirk's blood would help in his defense.

"It suggests that the cause of his crazy behavior was not being stoned but rather a pathological reaction to the drug that was unanticipated," Covey said.

Read more here.

For a related story, read this fabulous post by Ann Althouse.

"This is not your grandma's marijuana"

D o you see how similar this edible marijuana looks on the same plate as a Reese's Peanut Butter candy?

photo by Smart Colorado
Andrea Dukakis writes,

The head of the emergency room at one of Denver's largest hospitals says he's seeing more people being admitted after consuming large quantities of edible marijuana in the form of cookies or other foods.

Dr. Richard Zane, head of the Department of Emergency Medicine at the University of Colorado Hospital, says the increase coincides with the legalization of recreational marijuana.

Dr. Zane says young, otherwise healthy adults are showing up at his emergency room agitated and anxious. He says some are hallucinating.

“They will say they see things or hear things that aren’t there," Zane says. "They see things on the wall or smell things.”

Dr. Zane says University Hospital is admitting about a person a day for pot-related problems, and most are linked to edibles. Likewise, other ER physicians at metro area hospitals, including Denver Health Medical Center, say they're seeing more patients reacting to edibles. So far those reports are anecdotal, but one study at Children's Hospital Colorado showed an increase in ER admissions for young children due to reactions to marijuana.

Dr. Richard Zane says the problem with edibles is they don’t take effect immediately, so often people continue eating them and ultimately take too much. Also, Zane says the drug isn’t always spread evenly through food or candy, so several people eating the same amounts can be ingesting different quantities of marijuana. And he says today's marijuana is grown differently than in years past, giving it a different effect than it used to.

Zane says legalization has added a certain legitimacy to using marijuana, which means inexperienced users are trying it.

"It’s [one] thing to say that one person who’s used marijuana before is gonna smoke a marijuana cigarette or eat one small piece of chocolate," says Zane. "It’s another thing when you have college students who are pretty naive who are sucking on a THC-infused lollipop and are psychotic for two or three days because they’ve never had this level of THC or this strength."

The Colorado General Assembly is considering several bills that deal with marijuana, including one measure (PDF) that would require makers of edibles to stamp, color or shape them with a standard symbol saying they contain marijuana, and that they're not for kids. The bill also restricts manufacturers from creating treats that can be reasonably mistaken for trademarked candies, a practice that is happening now.

Read more here.

Covering their asses

One company is suing another company over edible marijuana packaging.


Steve Raabe reports,

A Longmont-based maker of marijuana-infused mints said Friday it is filing a trademark infringement lawsuit against Denver edibles company Dixie Elixirs.

Bridge Marketing alleges in the suit that Dixie Elixirs recklessly packaged "MED-a-Mints" in a manner that makes them look like candy.

The lawsuit claims that Dixie Elixirs failed to use Bridge's trademarked design for packages of the mint-like lozenges that contain THC, the psychoactive ingredient in marijuana.

"Edible marijuana is not candy," said Gary Gabrel, MED-a-Mints' inventor and managing partner of Bridge Marketing. "And yet Dixie Elixirs has acted with reckless disregard to business ethics and consumer safety by removing our clear and conservative labeling, and by refusing to offer the product in childproof packaging that we have repeatedly recommended."

The legal dispute is unfolding in the wake of two high-profile deaths that may have connections to edible marijuana. In one case, a Denver man is believed to have purchased THC-infused candies and may have consumed them just prior to allegedly shooting his wife to death. In the other case, a college student jumped to his death from a Denver hotel balcony after eating six times the recommended dose of a marijuana cookie.

Read more here.

Madness

Jordan Steffen reports in the Denver Post,

Richard Kirk purchased marijuana candy about 6:40 p.m. Monday and is accused of shooting his wife to death about three hours later. He remains in custody and faces a court appearance Monday morning. Kristine A. Kirk called 911 at 9:31 p.m. Monday to report that her husband was ranting about the end of the world, hallucinating and urging her to shoot him, according to a search-warrant affidavit.

The 44-year-old woman spent 13 minutes on the phone with the 911 operator. According to dispatch recordings, it took officers more than 15 minutes to arrive at the brick Tudor home.

Inside the basement of the home, detectives found a receipt from Nutritional Elements, a marijuana store in southeast Denver.

On Friday, all of the marijuana edibles had been pulled from the cases of the pot shop. The receipt and a review of video surveillance show that Kirk purchased "Karma Kandy Orange Ginger," a candy form of edible marijuana, and "Pre 98 Bubba Kush Pre-Roll," a prerolled joint.

The taffylike candy is manufactured by Gaia's Garden, and similar products listed on its website show a piece of candy contains about 100 mg of THC, the active ingredient in marijuana. Under Colorado's Marijuana Enforcement Division's rules, a single serving size of an edible contains 10 mg of THC.

Read more here.

Edible marijuana causing havoc in Colorado

One highly regarded lawyer/radio personality, Dan Caplis. is trying to get a movement going in Colorado to make recreational marijuana use illegal once again. Every day there is a story of someone being hurt by marijuana usage. Edible marijuana is causing havoc. People are used to marijuana going directly to the brain, but with edibles, it takes longer, so people more and more, then when it reaches the brain, the effects can be terrifying.

Here is one story about a college student having a psychotic reaction and jumping to his death from a fourth story motel room.

Here is another story about a man eating some pot candy, then killing his wife in front of their three children.