Understanding the effects of cannabis is crucial to determining the legal status of the substance, which is still a schedule I drug in the Controlled Substances Act. In learning more about cannabis, researchers from The University of New Mexico (UNM) recently examined its use as a pain reliever. According to the results of their study, on a scale of 0 to 10, the pain level of the user decreased by approximately three points with the use of cannabis.

Presently, chronic pain impacts over 20% of adults, and there is nothing more financially stressful in the health sector than this problem. It even exceeds the cost of treating cancer and heart disease combined. Jacob Miguel Vigil, one of the researchers that was leading the study, said,

“Our country has been flooded with an over-prescription of opioids medications, which then often leads to non-prescription opioid and heroin use for many people. This man-made disaster is killing our families and friends, regardless of socio-economic status, skin tone, and other superficial human differences.”

Vigil further explained that the use of cannabis was a better alternative to using opioids, when it comes to pain. This alternative method had “very minimal negative side effects for most people.”

The researchers collected information from a mobile software program called Releaf App. The app was developed by Branden Hall, Keenan Keeling, and Franco Brockelman, collaboratively, allowing users to monitor the effects of their use of cannabis-based products. Since the co-authors developed the app in 2016, the free service has been a helpful source of information on the different types of products, the methods of use, and the cannabinoid content of cannabis-based products.

In the findings of the study, the researchers stated that the highest reports of analgesic response came from the use of dried cannabis flower, especially flower with high THC levels. CBD, however, showed momentary changes, but the combination of THC and CBD was the best soothing effect.

Vigil added, “Our results confirm that cannabis use is a relatively safe and effective medication for alleviating pain, and that is the most important message to learn from our results. It can only benefit the public for people to be able to responsibly weigh the true risks and benefits of their pain medication choices, and when given this opportunity, I’ve seen numerous chronic pain patients substitute away from opioid use, among many other classes of medications, in favor of medical cannabis.”

Medical cannabis advocates have been talking with legislative leaders about getting rid of a requirement that buds and leaves be packaged in "blister packs."

"What we’re looking at is maybe altering the way that blister pack would be, in order to make it specific to how that particular dose would be most efficiently packaged, not cause any impurities, allow it to be given to a dose-specific element with a patient," Senate Majority Leader Evan Vickers, R-Cedar City, told FOX 13 in a recent interview. "There could be some tweaking on how that bubble pack looks, what it looks like and how it’s used."

Desiree Hennessy, the director of the Utah Patients Coalition, which sponsored Proposition 2, said her group had been talking with lawmakers about alternatives. She argued that no other state with cannabis puts the product in blister packs and requiring buds or leaves to be put in them could impact the efficacy of the product.

"They are the medicine. So if you’re sticking that in a blister pack and then heating that up, you are tampering with the effectiveness of the plant," she said.

Hennessy said she preferred tamper-resistant bags or sealed containers that other states use. Sen. Vickers said discussions were underway, but cautioned that no agreement has been reached.

"We have some discussions, but there’s also a lot of resistance to that, too. I know that we would like to go down a road where those can be as tightly unit dose medication as possible, so dose-specific medication," he said. "And that’s a little bit hard to do with cannabis, especially with the bud and leaf. We’ll see how that turns out."

When voters approved Prop. 2, which legalized medical marijuana last year, lawmakers replaced it with a bill crafted as a compromise between supporters of the citizen ballot initiative (including the Utah Patients Coalition and the Libertas Institute) and opponents like the Utah Medical Association and The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

That bill set in place a number of strict control measures, including requirements that the marijuana bud be placed in blister packs. Edible marijuana would be in cube-shaped gummy form only (and Sen. Vickers said there was no plans to change that). The state was also creating a dispensary network that required county health departments to dispense medical cannabis to qualifying patients.

The state-run dispensary network is expected to be done away with after the Davis and Salt Lake County attorneys told FOX 13 they were recommending against their local health departments distribute marijuana out of fear government workers could face federal drug charges. A special session of the legislature to fix that could take place later this month.

"Where these issues have come from is our agencies start to try to implement the program and meet those deadlines and, 'Hey, we’ve run up against this. How do we solve it?' So it’s been a pretty collaborative opportunity," Sen. Vickers said.

A bill on any packaging changes would not be considered until the 2020 legislative session in January.

"Blister packs were the result of an effort to solve two concerns by Prop 2’s opponents: consistent dosing and distinguishing between 'street marijuana' and cannabis purchased legally," Connor Boyack with the Libertas Institute, who negotiated the compromise bill, told FOX 13 in a text.

"I don’t think anyone is a fan of the specific concept we landed on, and in the time since we have been kicking around some alternative approaches that are more patient-friendly and cost-effective, and that still solve those two concerns. I’m optimistic we’ll get agreement on a new direction by the time January comes."

The Senate Majority Leader believed that a working medical cannabis program would be running by March 2020.

"We’re still on track to meet that March 1 deadline. Is it going to be completely 100% ramped up on day one? No," he said. "It’s going to take a little bit to ramp up."

The state is being sued by two medical cannabis advocacy groups. Together for Responsible Use and Cannabis Education (TRUCE) and the Epilepsy Association of Utah argue the replacement bill is not what voters wanted. They have also argued that the state's program was essentially a government-run drug cartel. The lawsuit is currently pending in federal court. They have asked for Prop. 2 to be implemented in full.

"Over-packaging is a real problem in the cannabis industry. Unnecessary packaging, like the mandatory blister packs for cannabis flower, serve little purpose but drive up cost and destroy the delicate trichomes that rest on the surface of the flower," TRUCE founder Christine Stenquist said in a statement.

"Forcing this botanical into a pharmaceutical model it's not designed for, is akin to,  expecting a fish to climb a tree and insisting it's possible if we just fashion it with legs. Both Prop. 2 and the replacement bill addressed public safety concerns with a flower limit. All dispensaries track how much you can buy, so the patient-consumer can't go over the legal limit. So, the right question is, which special interest is this regulatory redundancy designed to profit?"

Still, some medical cannabis advocates are optimistic about the direction the program has started to take. Asked if it appeared the Utah State Legislature was moving toward what Prop. 2 originally envisioned, Hennessy said she believed lawmakers were listening to the concerns of patient advocates.

"The whole point of our initiative was to get the attention of the legislative body and that’s what it did," she said. "Now, we’re working together to get patients access and so yeah, we are going back to Prop. 2 -- or more like it -- and that’s wonderful."

If you use cannabis on your own time in a state where it is legal, should that be grounds for terminating your employment or rejecting your application for a job? Advocates are starting to say no, and demanding action to protest workers’ rights to use cannabis without the fear of the sack and unemployment.

Some states have already made progress in this direction. Yet California, which led the way toward opening legal space for cannabis with the Propositio 215 medical marijuana initiative in 1996, is not among them. Neither 215 nor the Prop 64 adult-use legalization initiative exactly 20 years later provided any such protections.

California Out of the Vanguard

California’s Supreme Court actually ruled on the question in 2008, finding that Prop 215 does not protect workers’ rights. The high court dismissed a suit brought by Gary Ross, an Air Force veteran who suffered from a back injury sustained during his military service. Ross sued under the state’s Fair Employment & Housing Act (FEHA), charging that he had been wrongfully denied employment by RagingWire Telecommunications after testing positive for cannabis use. The court found that 215 did not create a general right to use medical marijuana, but only protected patients from criminal prosecution.

Later that year, the State Legislature passed a law to correct this situation, making it illegal for employers to discriminate against workers in non-safety-sensitive jobs for using medical marijuana. However, it was vetoed by then-governor Arnold Schwarzenegger.

The California chapter of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws (NORML) has launched a campaign to instate employment protections for cannabis users.

Progress in 15 States 

Fortunately, things are looking a little better elsewhere in the United States. Fifteen states have passed laws making it illegal for an employer to discriminate against either an employee or job applicant who uses medical marijuana as permitted by state law. These states are Arkansas, Arizona, Connecticut, Delaware, Illinois, Maine, Minnesota, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island and West Virginia.

In June, Nevada became the first state to actually ban pre-employment cannabis testing altogether — for workers not in public safety positions, an inevitable exception. The law was signed by Gov. Steve Sisolak and will take effect next year. 

In Maine, which voted to legalize adult-use cannabis in the same 2016 elections that California and Nevada did, employers are not allowed to discriminate based on cannabis use. This was written into the text of the Pine Tree State’s 2002 medical marijuana law. However, there are no laws that directly address drug testing. 

The New York City Council also passed a measure this April that bars employers from requiring job applicants to pass a cannabis screening test as a condition of employment. 

There is likewise a sense of the tide turning on the judicial front. After years of upholding employee firings for use of cannabis even under state medical marijuana programs, the courts are finally starting to turn around on the question. The rights of Massachusetts medical patients were upheld in state court last year, as were those of patients in Rhode Island and Connecticut.

In February of this year, another such victory was reported from Arizona — this time in the federal courts. Carol Whitmire, a former Arizona Walmart employee and card-holding medical marijuana patient who was fired after testing positive for cannabis, won a wrongful termination suit in the U.S. district court in Phoenix. 

A remedy from Capitol Hill may also be in the works. Legislation introduced in the House of Representatives this year would protect the jobs of federal employees who use cannabis in states where their use is currently legal. The Fairness in Federal Drug Testing Under State Laws Act would prohibit cannabis drug-testing “from being used as the sole factor to deny or terminate federal employment for civilian positions at executive branch agencies if the individual is in compliance with the marijuana laws in their state of residence.”

And the Golden State, which has long been at the forefront of expanding freedom for cannabis users, may soon be catching up with Nevada, its supposedly more conservative neighbor to the east. California NORML asserts: “Employment drug testing has been shown in federal studies not to improve worker safety, but it’s a great way to discriminate against cannabis consumers. We hope to sponsor a bill that will truly make marijuana legal for all adults and educate unions and employers about the needlessness of drug testing.”

Although Colombia is known for being a country involved in the illegal drugs market as a producer of cocaine and marijuana, the nation is now moving towards the new medical marijuana industry. According to a recent report released by BBC World News, Colombia is becoming a recognized producer of marijuana for the medical sector.

Medical Marijuana Industry Expands In Colombia

Colombia has been working in order to offer high-quality marijuana for the medical sector that is slowly growing around the world. There are different farms that are currently exporting their products to the United Kingdom and Canada, among other countries.

As mentioned by the report, there are several countries in the world that are legalizing medical marijuana in specific cases, which is increasing the demand for this good. According to Rodrigo Arcila, the president of the Colombina Cannabis Association, Colombia offers cheap farmland, low wages and also skilled labour, which make of the country a great location to start these activities.

In addition to it, Colombia receives 12 hours of daily sunlight all year. Meanwhile, other countries have to invest in artificial lights to remain competitive in the market, which can be very expensive in many cases. In Colombia, there are more than 24 different companies working in the sector. These firms produce pain relievers for cancer patients and many other products.

Álvaro Torres, the CEO of one of the companies in the country, considers that Colombia is migrating from being the “drug cartel” to a leader in the medical marijuana sector. With this model, pharmaceutical solutions would be provided by a country from the Southern Hemisphere, when it was usually in the other way.

One of the companies in the country, Clever Leaves, has already created more than 500 jobs in Colombia. Some of the individuals working in these farms have been affected by the bad reputation of the marijuana industry, but things are starting to slowly change.