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(Washington, D.C.) - This past weekend, three large studies by different researchers revealed major issues with the U.S. marijuana industry.
First, in the most extensive study of commercial marijuana products ever conducted, researchers analyzed over 90,000 samples from over six legal states and found widespread mislabeling issues regarding the psychoactive contents of myriad products.
"The prevailing labeling system is not an effective or safe way to provide information about these products," University of Colorado information sciences professor and study author Brian Keegan remarked in a press release. "[The current labeling of marijuana products] is a profound disservice to consumers. It is a cause for concern."
The second study looked at over a million emergency room encounters and found marijuana patients had higher odds of most medical and behavioral diagnoses, especially in the use of other substances, mental health disorders, social anxiety disorder, HIV/AIDS, PTSD, depression, and bipolar disorder.
The third study highlighted the rapidly increasing prevalence of adolescent vaping use.
“Heavy and frequent use of cannabis is increasing among U.S. adolescents, and vaped systems for products for both cannabis and nicotine are growing in number so understanding the prevalence and patterns of frequent cannabis vaping is important public health information for prevention,” said Katherine Keyes, PhD, professor of epidemiology at Columbia Mailman School. “Given rising concerns about cannabis vaping in terms of safety, and potential for transition to cannabis use disorder especially at frequent levels of use, these results indicate a necessity for public health intervention and increased regulation.”
"These studies show Big Marijuana is only concerned with profits--not safety," said Dr. Kevin Sabet, president and co-founder of Smart Approaches to Marijuana (SAM) and a former senior drug policy advisor to the Obama Administration. "States like Colorado have had a decade to prove that the legal marijuana industry can successfully regulate their products. With this new data, we see that regulation is a farce. Marijuana use is dangerous, and we need a national campaign to discourage its use, not the shameless promotion currently sanctioned by state governments and regulators alike."
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