When he took office in August 2017, Jerome Adams, the Trump Administration\u2019s surgeon general, identified the ongoing opiate-overdose crisis and untreated mental illness as the country\u2019s top public health challenges \u2014 in his words, a \u201cscourge\u201d \u2014 and, thus, his main priorities while on the job.<\/p>\n
But since Adams is surgeon general of the United States in the era of cannabis legalization and medical marijuana, drug-policy reform is on his to-do list by default. (You could argue, with\u00a0strong evidence in support<\/a>, that all are interrelated.)<\/p>\n In this, he has mostly stuck to declaring the obvious. It could be a reflection of our basement-low expectations of government officials on the marijuana question, but in the context provided by other Trump Administration officials, Adams has been a net benefit, even if he can\u2019t quite help himself from pushing at least one questionable line based on selective data.<\/p>\n In December, Adams\u00a0told<\/a>\u00a0an audience in Boston that federal drug scheduling, which classifies marijuana as highly dangerous, highly addictive, and with no known medical benefit (three assertions simply not supported by evidence), is suppressing research and needs to be re-examined. Not a bold statement by any means, it\u2019s something that researchers have been openly acknowledging for years, but repetition by the chief medical officer of the United States is amplification.<\/p>\n Adams later clarified that he personally isn\u2019t in favor of legalization or rescheduling, while offering the qualifier that he does want \u201cevidence-based findings.\u201d You can\u2019t have any evidence without research, and since research requires rescheduling, it\u2019s hard to find the negative.<\/p>\n Last week \u2014 which was \u201cNational Drug and Alcohol Facts Week\u201d \u2014 after Adams posted a marijuana-related tweet that was somewhat negative, other doctors called him out on it. The surgeon general (and\/or his social media team) responded by self-editing and offering a tacit endorsement of medical marijuana use, and for children, no less.<\/p>\n Marijuana Moment<\/a>\u00a0noted Adams\u2019s progress on Jan. 23. A tweet declaring, in part, \u201cNo child should ever use #marijuana. It is not safe for the developing brain and it affects learning and memory,\u201d was deleted and replaced with \u201cNo child should use #marijuana\/products non medically.\u201d<\/p>\n No child should use #marijuana<\/a>\/ products non medically. Not safe for the developing brain & affects learning and memory. Possible short-term effects are: slower reaction times, anxiety, fear, distrust, and a faster heart rate. Over time, it can\u00a0\u00a0risk for addiction. #NDAFW<\/a><\/p>\n \u2014 U.S. Surgeon General (@Surgeon_General) January 23, 2019<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n What Adams did was nothing more revolutionary than backing up the Food and Drug Administration, which last year\u00a0approved marijuana-derived pharmaceutical drugs<\/a>, the main active ingredient of which is CBD, or cannabidiol. CBD-based pharmaceuticals intended to treat intractable epilepsy in children are approved drugs in the United States. In a way, Adams\u2019s tweet is merely an American doctor acknowledging this fact.<\/p>\n But the surgeon general doesn\u2019t do much surgery. Adams\u2019s job is a political office and so the surgeon general acknowledging that medical cannabis has value, for children, some of whom have had to\u00a0fight in the courts<\/a>\u00a0in order to bring their preferred medication to school, is a political act.<\/p>\n He is by no means perfect. Adams also tweeted that marijuana is not a \u201csafe and accepted medicine\u201d and then wallowed in the depths with his @-ers. Adams argued, using his personal account, that youth use is on the rise due to a connection between tobacco vaporizer use and vaporizing marijuana and he even threw in a reference to gateway theory.<\/p>\n Dr. Tishler, I think you need to ask America\u2019s communities that question. 1\/3 youth who vape are vaping marijuana, states that OKed medicinal use saw\u00a0\u00a0in youth rec use, in midst of opioid epidemic, many with opioid use disorders say marijuana use was part of their journey.<\/p>\n \u2014 Jerome Adams (@JeromeAdamsMD) January 24, 2019<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n You could argue that that\u2019s bad and unacceptable and canceled out any positive effect his official tweets might have had. You could also argue that a barely-noticed tweet from a personal account holds far less weight than an official declaration. Here\u2019s what we have: a surgeon general who has to figure out what to do about tens of thousands of Americans dying every year from opiate overdoses, who admits that cannabis isn\u2019t adequately researched and that it should be. That amounts to a critique of official American drug policy, from the country\u2019s chief medical officer. That\u2019s the takeaway most Americans will have and it\u2019s mostly good.<\/p>\n TELL US<\/b>, do you think medical marijuana has value for children?<\/p>\n The post Trump\u2019s Surgeon General Is Mostly Good On Marijuana<\/a> appeared first on Cannabis Now<\/a>.<\/p>\n
When he took office in August 2017, Jerome Adams, the Trump Administration\u2019s surgeon general, identified the ongoing opiate-overdose crisis and untreated mental illness as the country\u2019s top public health challenges \u2014 in his words, a \u201cscourge\u201d \u2014 and, thus, his main priorities while on the job. But since Adams isContinue Reading<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"false","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[50,136,95,7337,7338,81,2075,429],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32492"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=32492"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32492\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":32493,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32492\/revisions\/32493"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=32492"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=32492"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=32492"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}\n
\n
\n
\nRead More: Trump\u2019s Surgeon General Is Mostly Good On Marijuana<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"