WEBVTT

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- Welcome everybody. Thank you so much for joining us for this last session. My name is Melanie I'm a

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- part of Sudax planning team and I am here and it really excited to have Patrick Rippberger from Meso

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- Solutions as our presenter today with the high the rise of high-potency THC products Just the

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- last housekeeping item. This will be the last time you hear it from me but if you are here for CEUs,

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- please make sure that you sign in and out on the attendance sheet that's on your

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- on your table, make sure that you're here at the end to scan the CEU or the QR code to get your CEUs.

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- And then before you leave today, if you could make sure to fill out your program evaluation and leave

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- it on the table that you came in at. And with that, I'll take it away. Patrick. All right.

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- All right. Thank you all for being here today on day two of your summit. I'm excited to talk with you

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- all today about marijuana. We've been seeing marijuana right our entire lives, but things have changed

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- and I'm happy to be here to talk with you about that. Like Melanie said, my name is Patrick Rippberger.

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- I am a practicing epidemiologist and master community health educator. I've done a lot of work at the

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- intersection of mental health, but also substance misuse.

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- And through my work with the CDC and drug-free communities, we found a lot of need for information about

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- what THC products look like today. Pot is very different from when we all grew up. It's very different

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- from when our parents grew up. So we'll be talking about some different trends, how things have evolved.

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- And actually, you get to take a tour through my pot shop pretty soon. So I'll get to go on a little

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- field trip with you all through my virtual pot shop.

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- And again, thank you all for being here today. Mezzo Solutions is an organization that we put together

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- about six years ago to help serve helping professionals through education, but also mental health support.

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- So this is my piece in the public health world for this project. So about this training, we're looking

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- a little bit at product potency, but also access. And we're trying to figure out a way to replace the

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- stigma of substance misuse, of marijuana use,

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- with some more clarity for the work that we all are engaging in. We're gonna talk about also some Indiana

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- data. We'll look at some legal clarity about what's actually happening with the realm of marijuana throughout

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- the community. And I see now Melanie's passing out some of my snacks for you all, so feel free to take a snack.

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- We'll also get to watch a video here in just a minute, so a little movie snack for you. At the end,

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- I'm going to go over some practical action steps for what you can do with your organizations in your

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- community to help promote the reduction of substance misuse.

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- some lessons that we've learned along the way. Some of these slides are adapted from Sue Thaw, who is

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- one of the only preventionist lobbyists we have here in the United States. So we've adapted and updated

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- some of her information through an organization called CADCA. We've been presenting this information

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- to organizations at summits and conferences across Indiana for about two years now, first starting with

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- the Indiana Rural Health Association to what it is today. So we will take a look

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- also at what this is and what this isn't. So this isn't about legalization, okay? Legalization of marijuana

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- looks at decriminalization, which is something that I'm totally for, right? I think that we shouldn't

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- be putting people in jail for long years because of substance use crime. What we're looking at today

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- though is the commercialization of cannabis, the commercialization of marijuana. And this also makes

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- me think too about the idea of marijuana becoming a celebrated drug,

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- not just a drug that you have at parties, but the kind of drug that you find in your convenience store,

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- the kind of drug you find at your gas station, the kind of drug that you would find at your grocery

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- store. These are things typically that we think of, like alcohol and tobacco. Some institutes would

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- also say caffeine, but people get kind of angry when I say, hey, caffeine's a drug. But it is. I still

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- use that for sure. But celebrated drugs are normalized. And if we don't look at them honestly and sincerely,

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- We have to be honest with it. I myself, I'm in long-term sustained recovery, and one of my substances

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- of choice was alcohol. From alcohol, I got rid of my alcohol issue by using cannabis, which became problem

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- use. So I'll be talking about what that looks like too as we go along. So again, this isn't

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- about legalization. This is about branding. This is about commercialization and what happens when we

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- either regulate or under-regulate a market and see where we are today.

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- So on the screen, I want everyone to look at what we usually picture when we think of marijuana, right?

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- There's this plant. It's this green thing that comes from the earth. We smoke it. It makes us feel kind

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- of funny, kind of good. At the top, there is this flower or this bud. This is typically what we think

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- of when we think of marijuana. It's dried. It's put into products. Maybe it's put into an edible or

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- you smoke it.

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- But there's other pieces of this plant, too, that are cultivated to make different types of products.

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- This image itself is actually taken from a cultivation website that teaches people how to cultivate

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- marijuana. And this shows the different names of things, the things that can be turned into oils. We

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- turn into concentrates. So when we start this presentation, this is usually what we picture. This is

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- the marijuana we think of. It's a plant from the ground. But by the end of our today's session, we're

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- actually going to see what it looks like today.

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- what it looks like in our stores, in our communities, throughout our neighborhoods. Because it doesn't

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- look like this anymore. It looks like something completely different. So to start with, I have a video

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- that we're going to play real quick with my help from the tech department over here. We're going to

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- play this quick video. Feel free to have some snacks. I put some snacks on your table. Go ahead and

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- grab some gummies and enjoy yourself. This is going to talk about how THC impacts our brain.

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- how it impacts our bodies, what we know and what we don't know about it, because there's still some

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- mysteries, because there's been a lapse in research that we're also talking about. So I'll pause now

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- and play the video. And we'll get some sound in a minute. Yeah, there's supposed to be some sound.

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- research on the drug's mechanisms and effects. Today, marijuana's therapeutic benefits are

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- widely acknowledged, and some nations have legalized medical use, or are moving in that direction. But

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- a growing recognition for marijuana's medical value doesn't answer the question, is recreational marijuana

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- use bad for your brain? Marijuana acts on the body's cannabinoid system,

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- which has receptors all over the brain and body. Molecules native to the body, called endocannabinoids,

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- also act on these receptors. We don't totally understand the cannabinoid system, but it has one feature

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- that provides a big clue to its function. Most neurotransmitters travel from one neuron to the next

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- through a synapse to propagate a message. But endocannabinoids travel in the opposite direction,

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- When a message passes from the one neuron to the next, the receiving neuron releases endocannabinoids.

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- Those endocannabinoids travel backward to influence the sending neuron, essentially giving it feedback

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- from the receiving neuron. This leads scientists to believe that the endocannabinoid system serves primarily

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- to modulate other kinds of signals, amplifying some and diminishing others.

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- Feedback from endocannabinoids slows down rates of neural signaling. That doesn't necessarily mean it

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- slows down behavior or perception, though. For example, slowing down a signal that inhibits smell could

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- actually make smells more intense. Marijuana contains two main active compounds, tetrahydrocannabinol,

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- or THC, and cannabidiol, or CBD.

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- THC is thought to be primarily responsible for marijuana's psychoactive effects on behavior, cognition,

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- and perception, while CBD is responsible for the non-psychoactive effects. Like endocannabinoids, THC

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- slows down signaling by binding to cannabinoid receptors. But it binds to receptors all over this sprawling,

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- diffused system at once,

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- whereas endocannabinoids are released in a specific place in response to a specific stimulus. This widespread

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- activity, coupled with the fact that the cannabinoid system indirectly affects many other systems, means

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- that each person's particular brain chemistry, genetics, and previous life experience largely determine

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- how they experience the drug. That's true much more so with marijuana than with other drugs,

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- that produce their effects through one or a few specific pathways. So the harmful effects, if any, vary

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- considerably from person to person. And while we don't know exactly how marijuana produces specific

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- harmful effects, there are clear risk factors that can increase people's likelihood of experiencing

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- them. The clearest risk factor is age. In people younger than 25, cannabinoid receptors are more concentrated

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- in the white matter

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- than in people over 25. The white matter is involved in communication, learning, memory, and emotions.

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- Frequent marijuana use can disrupt the development of white matter tracts and also affect the brain's

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- ability to grow new connections. This may damage long-term learning ability and problem solving.

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- For now, it's unclear how severe this damage can be or whether it's reversible. And even among young people,

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- The risk is higher the younger someone is— much higher for a 15-year-old than a 22-year-old, for instance.

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- Marijuana can also cause hallucinations or paranoid delusions. Known as marijuana-induced psychosis,

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- these symptoms usually subside when a person stops using marijuana. But in rare cases, psychosis doesn't

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- subside, instead unmasking a persistent psychotic disorder. A family history of psychotic disorders

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- like schizophrenia, is the clearest though not the only risk factor for this effect. Marijuana-induced

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- psychosis is also more common among young adults, though it's worth noting that psychotic disorders

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- usually surface in this age range anyway. What's unclear in these cases is whether the psychotic disorder

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- would have appeared without marijuana use. Whether marijuana use triggers it early is a catalyst for

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- a tipping point that wouldn't have been crossed otherwise.

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- or whether the reaction to marijuana is merely an indication of an underlying disorder. In all likelihood,

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- marijuana's role varies from person to person. At any age, as with many other drugs, the brain and body

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- become less sensitive to marijuana after repeated uses, meaning it takes more to achieve the same effects.

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- Fortunately, unlike many other drugs, there's no risk of fatal overdose from marijuana.

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- And even heavy use doesn't lead to debilitating or life-threatening withdrawal symptoms if use stops.

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- There are more subtle forms of marijuana withdrawal, though, including sleep disturbances, irritability,

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- and depressed mood, which pass within a few weeks of stopping use. So, is marijuana bad for your brain?

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- It depends who you are. But while some risk factors are easy to identify, others aren't well understood.

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- which means there's still some possibility of experiencing negative effects, even if you don't have

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- any of the known risk factors. Okay, I like showing that video because everyone has access to it. It's

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- on YouTube. If you have clients who have questions about marijuana, if you have staff that have questions

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- about marijuana, it gives a nice snapshot to look at what we know so far with the research we have.

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- But there are a lot of questions that are unanswered and some ambiguity about this video, and I want

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- to talk about that now. Before I start, though, I want to ask, how is cannabis or THC products showing

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- up in your community? And you can just shout this out. Where are you seeing THC? If you're seeing these

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- products, where are you seeing it at? The gas station, okay?

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- What was that? Liquor stores? The smoke shop or the vape shops. Yeah. Do any of you, I mean, we live

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- pretty close now to Illinois, right? Illinois has some legal dispensaries. So you might see billboards,

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- you might see packaging around town. You might get advertisements. You might get mailers even advertising

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- to come over to Illinois. So cannabis is showing up in a lot of different ways in our community.

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- And there's a weird market too from this Delta 8 piece that you might have seen, which we'll also talk

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- about here today, about why is there marijuana in our gas station in Indiana if it is illegal? And we'll

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- answer that question here today. But we need to start with, okay, start by looking at where is marijuana

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- legal? What's the legality of it right now in the United States? Where can you actually get it from

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- state to state?

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- And you'll see here on this map, Indiana is still in the red, but we're surrounded by a lot of states

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- that allow recreational or medical marijuana use. Illinois is medical, but also recreational. Michigan

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- is medical and recreational. Ohio is medical recreational, and Kentucky is medical, with a push to have

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- recreational marijuana available. How close is the nearest dispensary to us right now? Does anyone know?

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- You're not exposing yourself either, I'm just... Maybe less than an hour, right? Maybe over in Illinois,

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- less than an hour, somewhere around there. In my community, I live over in Richmond, Indiana, which

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- is kind of west of Dayton, Ohio. Our dispensaries used to be about 45 minutes or an hour away, but we

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- actually have a new one that popped up in a town on the border, so it's actually about 10 minutes away.

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- So we can just go right across the border, get some weed, come back over. It is illegal, but it's very

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- accessible for our community. It's becoming more and more accessible. And you can go to Illinois from

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- Indiana and buy marijuana. I've done it. I know that anyone can do it. You just got to have an ID. You

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- got to be old enough to do it. Same for Michigan and Ohio. They're totally fine selling it to people

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- from the Hoosier state.

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- It's not that hard to obtain it as long as you have an ID and you're of age to be there. There has been

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- some talk in Indiana, right, about legalization, about recreational and medical, but there's been a

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- lot of stop in the government to make sure this isn't happening. We'll see if it ever happens. We're

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- still kind of unsure about when or if it'll happen on a state level in Indiana.

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- I like to keep this slide in here because originally we started having this talk with youth coalitions

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- in Indiana about how marijuana has changed. And the truth is this marijuana we have today is not your

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- grandma's marijuana. This is not the weed that we had maybe at Woodstock or before. This is a more high

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- potency THC that can impact us in ways that we don't really fully understand yet because the research

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- hasn't caught up to where we are with these potency levels.

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- So I'm about to show you the story of THC levels here in the United States. And these are taken from

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- illicit marijuana samples that are confiscated by law enforcement and measured over the years. And we're

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- gonna see how this THC from illicit marijuana has increased over the past few decades. So in 1970s,

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- we had THC in a marijuana joint that was equaling about one to 2% THC.

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- very low level marijuana, some like grass weed they would call it, that woodstock weed. And as we see

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- the years go on and on, potency kind of stayed about around that. We started getting higher into 5%,

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- 6%, into 10% THC in 2010. In 2015, 2020, we were peaking at about 15 to 16% THC in illicit marijuana

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- that was confiscated by law enforcement.

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- But around this time, too, we started seeing the recreational and the medical use start to catch on

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- to figure out how can we actually increase potency. Now, I like to stop it here to show the 15 to 16

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- percent THC in illicit marijuana because studies have shown that anything over 15 percent THC is considered

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- high potency. The medical use of THC products begins to diminish after 15 percent THC.

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- The psychoactive effects can actually inhibit helping, healing, and supportive in that medical department.

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- But we see time and time again that THC is way beyond this 15%. But research has shown again that there's

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- not a lot of medical support after a 15% THC, but it has become a standard. I'll go back real quick.

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- One of the places that has had legal marijuana for a long time is Amsterdam.

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- Amsterdam, when I was a kid, we always joked about we're going to go to Amsterdam because they have

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- weed and we're going to smoke weed in Amsterdam. But the fact is Amsterdam did this experiment and they

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- found out that when they legalized marijuana, it became commercialized. When it became commercialized,

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- the industry started making higher and higher potencies of the marijuana to where it was exceeding 15%

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- THC 85% of the time. 85% of their products were high potency THC.

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- And when they tried to create legislation and make rules about reeling this back to figure out how can

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- we create low-potency THC in our community, they couldn't do it. The industry became too strong. They

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- couldn't get this passed through their government. So even Amsterdam, with this experiment back in the

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- day, is still suffering from the consequences of an unregulated market of potency. And a lot of states

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- that we have here in America today

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- don't have potency caps in a way that is effective for this product that we have. So there has been

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- a lot of research looking at what is the average THC potency in dispensaries around the United States.

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- And we can see here that everywhere from Maine to Vermont to California, the majority of marijuana sold

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- in their dispensaries are high-potency THC. It's really hard to find low-potency THC

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- If you want to find low-potency THC, it's almost a specialty thing now, because there's so much high-potency

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- THC, it's flooded the market. Because in the commercialization of this, people want a higher potency.

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- They want to sell the best product. They want to get better and better. High-potency THC is the standard,

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- but the research for that hasn't caught up yet. Even over in Michigan, we see that the standard flower

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- of cannabis is 18% to 23% THC.

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- We see concentrates hitting at 82% THC, which is a whole other world that we'll talk about as we go

00:20:53.980 --> 00:21:00.631
- along. THC, and if anybody wants these slides afterwards, I'm happy to email them to you and share.

00:21:00.631 --> 00:21:07.348
- If you need to talk with your organization or your community, I'm happy to share these slides. We do

00:21:07.348 --> 00:21:14.065
- have the references at the bottom of all these slides for your use as well. So even in Michigan, the

00:21:14.065 --> 00:21:15.262
- standard is above

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- the high-potency threshold. Another way to look at this is that one joint today could be as strong as

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- 17.5 joints during the 1970s, that woodstock weed. And this can cause a lot of issues for people, especially

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- if you are maybe a returning user from back in the day. Maybe you experimented with pot when you were

00:21:38.211 --> 00:21:44.670
- a kid and you tried some of the new stuff. It's way stronger. It's really, really strong.

00:21:45.314 --> 00:21:51.325
- And I have an example of that for sure. The first time that I tried marijuana as an adult had been about

00:21:51.325 --> 00:21:57.051
- 15 years since I tried it as a kid. And I was at a concert in Detroit, right? So Michigan, they had

00:21:57.051 --> 00:22:02.833
- legal marijuana. I got some from the guy I was getting the Airbnb from. I tried this marijuana and I

00:22:02.833 --> 00:22:05.982
- got so freaked out, I about called the cops on myself.

00:22:06.850 --> 00:22:12.574
- because I just, I couldn't handle it. I was like, this is not the weed of my childhood. Of the 2010s,

00:22:12.574 --> 00:22:18.242
- you know, it was that like 10%, 11%. This was like 30% THC and I thought my face was like gonna melt

00:22:18.242 --> 00:22:24.022
- off. Terrifying stuff, right? And we hear this story time and time again of people who maybe are given

00:22:24.022 --> 00:22:29.746
- these products because it's told by their loved ones or someone that cares about them that it'll help

00:22:29.746 --> 00:22:35.358
- them. Maybe even their doctor has prescribed it. But these high potency THCs are a different level.

00:22:35.522 --> 00:22:41.817
- And it's something that we have to be honest about. Because the THC today is not the THC that we think

00:22:41.817 --> 00:22:47.990
- about. It's not the marijuana that we picture in our minds, that plant. So now I'm about to take you

00:22:47.990 --> 00:22:54.163
- guys on a little virtual field trip to Pat's Pot Shop. So this is my pot shop. And we'll be taking a

00:22:54.163 --> 00:22:59.358
- tour of what you will find in a dispensary if you walk into a dispensary here today.

00:23:00.610 --> 00:23:06.366
- Pat's Pot Shop is for public health purposes only, so I hope that everyone here is 21 years or older.

00:23:06.434 --> 00:23:11.974
- before we go in. A funny side note is I had a t-shirt made because I would give this talk a few times

00:23:11.974 --> 00:23:17.514
- and I was wearing my t-shirt for Pat's Pot Shop to a Costco in Ohio over the weekend. And people were

00:23:17.514 --> 00:23:23.055
- stopping me asking, where's Pat's Pot Shop? I want to go to it. And I was like, all right, well, this

00:23:23.055 --> 00:23:28.595
- is a good time to have a conversation with you about what this is. But people thought it was real. So

00:23:28.595 --> 00:23:34.135
- maybe there's a market in the future. But for today's purposes, we'll be looking at the public health

00:23:34.135 --> 00:23:35.710
- impacts of these THC places.

00:23:36.738 --> 00:23:42.582
- So when you first think about THC and marijuana, we think of these products, the flower, the things

00:23:42.582 --> 00:23:48.542
- that came from that plant that I first showed you, the top of the plant, the pieces of the plant. You

00:23:48.542 --> 00:23:49.886
- can buy this as a bud.

00:23:50.210 --> 00:23:56.225
- You can buy this as a pre-roll depending on the state you're in. Some states have made it so you can't

00:23:56.225 --> 00:24:02.066
- get pre-rolls because it's a harm reduction technique to reduce the time it takes for you to buy to

00:24:02.066 --> 00:24:08.081
- use the product. Ohio had that ban for about two years, but that was lifted last November. And you can

00:24:08.081 --> 00:24:14.155
- also buy ground cannabis flower if you don't want to grind it at home. So these are the flower products

00:24:14.155 --> 00:24:16.958
- that you can purchase at a cannabis dispensary.

00:24:17.282 --> 00:24:24.775
- And this is the type of label that you will see on a cannabis product. Now this has a lot of information

00:24:24.775 --> 00:24:32.054
- on it, a lot of information about the lab it was tested from, where it was grown, the THC content. We

00:24:32.054 --> 00:24:39.475
- have the total THC in this garlic breath, which is a pretty popular brand for this state, is 29.5% THC,

00:24:39.475 --> 00:24:44.542
- which is double what we would consider high potency. So this flower is

00:24:44.642 --> 00:24:52.538
- double the high potency, and it lists the different types of THC you'll find in it, from Delta-9, which

00:24:52.538 --> 00:25:00.207
- is the standard THC, to THCA, which is a THC that you can actually extract from hemp flower and hemp

00:25:00.207 --> 00:25:07.876
- products. THCA is just like THC-9 or Delta-9, except THCA has no psychoactive effects until it's lit

00:25:07.876 --> 00:25:09.470
- on fire or heated up

00:25:09.890 --> 00:25:17.203
- or exposed to some type of heat. So THCA is converted to THC9 or delta 9 with heat. So it's showing

00:25:17.203 --> 00:25:24.589
- that you add all these things up and you have 29.5% THC in this type of product. Now what do you use

00:25:24.589 --> 00:25:32.926
- to smoke these products, right? So at the shop you could buy this type of paraphernalia or do this paraphernalia.

00:25:33.058 --> 00:25:39.312
- You have bongs, pipes, one-hitters. The dry herb vape is sometimes interesting to people because you

00:25:39.312 --> 00:25:45.504
- can actually vape a dry herb. You can vape a marijuana flower. Some people say it's healthier or it

00:25:45.504 --> 00:25:52.006
- makes their lungs feel less clogged up, but that is something that you can do. So that's what a standard

00:25:52.006 --> 00:25:58.260
- dry herb vape will look like. And then you have the papers and the pre-rules. So these are the tools

00:25:58.260 --> 00:26:02.718
- that trade when it comes to the flower. So that's what those look like.

00:26:03.362 --> 00:26:10.282
- But we also have vapes, right? Vapes are very common. We see these a lot today in gas stations. People

00:26:10.282 --> 00:26:17.067
- vape nicotine and different things. And these vape shops sell the types of vapes that you would have

00:26:17.067 --> 00:26:24.055
- in your gas station. They have the disposable vapes. They have the vapes that you'd put onto a battery.

00:26:24.055 --> 00:26:30.907
- You can see here, too, that the one for Michigan is 100% clean, 100% tested, 100% Michigan, promoting

00:26:30.907 --> 00:26:32.990
- that this is a Michigan brand.

00:26:33.218 --> 00:26:39.149
- And that's by design, but also because of the law. So there is a law in place that says that marijuana

00:26:39.149 --> 00:26:44.964
- is federally illegal, which means that you can't transport Michigan weed to Ohio for sale, just like

00:26:44.964 --> 00:26:51.068
- you can't take Illinois weed to Kentucky for sale. It has to be grown in the state and sold in the state.

00:26:51.068 --> 00:26:56.998
- You can't pass borders. It's state by state right now when it comes to that legalization. So they also

00:26:56.998 --> 00:27:01.950
- try to make it regionally attractive to people, saying that this is Michigan's brand,

00:27:02.082 --> 00:27:07.922
- You should be in Michigan smoking this brand. So a lot of times you'll see like in Ohio, they have like

00:27:07.922 --> 00:27:13.706
- the Buckeye brands. I don't know what's big in Illinois, but probably like, I don't know, Chicago weed

00:27:13.706 --> 00:27:19.827
- or I don't know, something like that, right? That's the only thing I can think of with Illinois. I apologize

00:27:19.827 --> 00:27:25.611
- if you're from Illinois. So they really try to make it regional because of that federal law. You can't

00:27:25.611 --> 00:27:29.598
- move it from state to state. So they're trying to really work on that.

00:27:29.954 --> 00:27:35.437
- You have the disposable vapes. We even have our friends Cheech and Chong getting on the board here,

00:27:35.437 --> 00:27:41.249
- right? So we have Cheech and Chong vapes, which you can buy online, have it shipped to your house. Cheech

00:27:41.249 --> 00:27:47.061
- and Chong primarily works in legal delta from the 2018 farm bill, which we'll also talk about here today.

00:27:47.061 --> 00:27:52.544
- But these are things that you can buy online, have shipped to your house, completely anonymous. You

00:27:52.544 --> 00:27:56.382
- don't even usually need to give an ID to get these types of products.

00:27:57.090 --> 00:28:04.544
- And then you also have the cannabis cartridge right there that you put onto a battery. And typically

00:28:04.544 --> 00:28:11.999
- the concentration of this is 40 to 90% THC, right? So high-potency THC is 15%, but the vape is 40 to

00:28:11.999 --> 00:28:19.453
- 90% THC. And the THC that you can consume during a session of vaping is a lot more than you can from

00:28:19.453 --> 00:28:26.686
- smoking a blunt or smoking a bong, because you can just keep doing it, keep going and keep going.

00:28:27.618 --> 00:28:35.584
- So that's a look at the vape cartridges. I want to also talk about concentrates, which help build up

00:28:35.584 --> 00:28:43.628
- the vape industry. This right here is THC disatel oil, and this looks a lot like a syringe. Sometimes

00:28:43.628 --> 00:28:51.594
- people think, like, do people inject this? But no, this is not something you inject into your veins.

00:28:51.594 --> 00:28:55.774
- This is a concentrate that you actually use to smoke

00:28:55.874 --> 00:29:02.139
- You use it to actually put into maybe edibles. But it comes in this type of syringe because it's a very

00:29:02.139 --> 00:29:07.682
- sticky substance, a very sticky substance that you would use in this process. When we think

00:29:07.682 --> 00:29:13.706
- about concentrates, we also know that some can be up to 99. We're even seeing some at 100% THC now.

00:29:13.706 --> 00:29:19.730
- The entire thing is just full of THC. You can pack a heck of a punch. So this THC-dissipate oil can

00:29:19.730 --> 00:29:23.646
- be used to smoke or you can put it into some type of ingestible.

00:29:24.610 --> 00:29:31.631
- Some other smokable ones that we've seen are THC Wax. This one here is kind of a Skittles brand, so

00:29:31.631 --> 00:29:38.862
- it has a bit of a Skittles taste to it. We have THC Shatter, which is also smoked. We have THC Batter,

00:29:38.862 --> 00:29:46.023
- which again is also smoked. We have THC Crumble, which is smoked with a dab pen, or it could actually

00:29:46.023 --> 00:29:53.114
- be mixed into some type of flour if you're able to heat that to a high enough capacity. We also have

00:29:53.114 --> 00:29:53.886
- THC Sauce,

00:29:54.050 --> 00:30:00.761
- You don't put this on your food, you actually smoke this too. And these are all byproducts of the marijuana

00:30:00.761 --> 00:30:06.975
- processing process. All those parts I showed you on that plant earlier are used in this in order to

00:30:06.975 --> 00:30:13.375
- make it. Sometimes it's through pressing oils out, other times it's through caustic chemical compounds

00:30:13.375 --> 00:30:19.030
- using propane and like a laboratory in order to extract these THC's from the plant to make

00:30:19.030 --> 00:30:21.950
- these concentrates. And then we have THC sand.

00:30:22.370 --> 00:30:30.900
- THC sand can be smoked in a dab kit or it could be put into a marijuana joint sprinkled in to make that

00:30:30.900 --> 00:30:39.348
- THC flower even more high potency. THC sand, it looks like sand, right? It's like this very like fine,

00:30:39.348 --> 00:30:41.726
- fine powder, fine substance.

00:30:42.658 --> 00:30:49.326
- These are the tools that trade for that too. In order to smoke these products, we have nectar collectors,

00:30:49.326 --> 00:30:55.742
- we have wax vapes, which heat up just like a traditional vape, but heat up to the temperature to burn

00:30:55.742 --> 00:31:02.095
- the oil. And then we have a dab rig, which is kind of like the bong version for a dab. And this is a

00:31:02.095 --> 00:31:08.574
- slide too that helps me reflect on the reason why I started to question, is marijuana still marijuana?

00:31:09.346 --> 00:31:16.321
- Is it still the plant that we think of? Is it still this green plant from the earth that we contribute

00:31:16.321 --> 00:31:23.092
- to like the 1970s and maybe like hippie culture and spirituality? Is it this natural compound or is

00:31:23.092 --> 00:31:30.135
- it turning into something different? And it was this product that I first started to really think, it's

00:31:30.135 --> 00:31:33.182
- different. There's something happening here.

00:31:33.378 --> 00:31:39.258
- When I walked into my friend's house, he was my friend, but I sometimes bought pot off of him. And I

00:31:39.258 --> 00:31:45.370
- went to his pot room. It's true, right? I went to his pot room, right? And he has this room set up where

00:31:45.370 --> 00:31:51.308
- he had all his pot, his scales and whatnot. And after he weighed out some leaves and stuff for me, he

00:31:51.308 --> 00:31:57.886
- put out a dab kit. And he was like, do you want to take a dab? And I was like, what are you doing? What is this?

00:31:58.274 --> 00:32:04.508
- And he takes this dab rig and he takes a hit and he starts hacking a lung up like he just like inhaled

00:32:04.508 --> 00:32:10.802
- from like an exhaust on a car. And I kind of freaked me out, right? It kind of really did freak me out.

00:32:10.802 --> 00:32:16.914
- It made me question, you know, what is this drug now? This was just like a fun thing, a recreational

00:32:16.914 --> 00:32:23.269
- practice. Maybe it helped with some medication that I needed. But this level of marijuana made me really

00:32:23.269 --> 00:32:26.174
- question what's going on in the industry today.

00:32:26.626 --> 00:32:33.824
- I've seen the same thing. There was, is anybody from the Muncie area or visit Muncie sometimes? There

00:32:33.824 --> 00:32:35.870
- is a pot shop in Muncie that

00:32:36.002 --> 00:32:41.687
- had Afro Man come to it once. That was his claim for fame, is they had Afro Man come in. They sold legal

00:32:41.687 --> 00:32:47.264
- marijuana. It was like a meet and greet. And I was in town for a conference, and I was like, I'm going

00:32:47.264 --> 00:32:52.679
- to go check out this pot shop. I go in, and the worker is hitting a dab kit behind the counter, and

00:32:52.679 --> 00:32:58.365
- then just starts hacking up a lung. And he's like, I'll be with you in a minute. And I was like, I don't

00:32:58.365 --> 00:33:04.158
- know if you'll be with anyone in a minute. How can you function with this level of THC? It's just bonkers,

00:33:04.158 --> 00:33:05.566
- right? It's just bonkers.

00:33:07.554 --> 00:33:14.927
- When we are consuming up to 99 to 100% THC in a smoking session, it can hit us really quick. And I want

00:33:14.927 --> 00:33:22.584
- to talk about those delivery systems as well. When we smoke marijuana, when we consume it in this capacity,

00:33:22.584 --> 00:33:29.886
- it can affect us within minutes. We have anywhere from seconds to a few minutes for that really to hit

00:33:29.886 --> 00:33:34.494
- with a 30 minute peak on how that marijuana actually impacts us.

00:33:35.298 --> 00:33:41.858
- We also know that it can last for up to six hours with everything, those effects kind of going away

00:33:41.858 --> 00:33:48.483
- within 24 hours, depending on your tolerance and depending on how much you consume. But when we look

00:33:48.483 --> 00:33:55.043
- at ingesting marijuana, edibles, consumables, it can take a while. It can take sometimes 30 minutes

00:33:55.043 --> 00:34:01.406
- to two hours for the effect to actually start feeling with a peak sometimes at about four hours.

00:34:01.506 --> 00:34:07.053
- which can result in over ingesting marijuana and edible. Maybe you've heard of that before, right? Like,

00:34:07.053 --> 00:34:12.494
- and I know I've definitely been there. I love I get to tell these stories too. So I used to work under

00:34:12.494 --> 00:34:17.777
- a federal grant and there's some things that were like, you can't say that. And now I'm like, I can

00:34:17.777 --> 00:34:23.165
- say whatever. So there was a time that I was in Michigan and I took way too many edibles and I didn't

00:34:23.165 --> 00:34:28.501
- know what it would do to me. Cause I was just a returning user from my youth. I ended up being stuck

00:34:28.501 --> 00:34:30.878
- at a Burger King parking lot for four hours.

00:34:31.362 --> 00:34:37.352
- because I couldn't leave, because I was way too intoxicated. This can sneak up on you, right? Doses

00:34:37.352 --> 00:34:43.341
- are really important. Dosing, when it comes to edibles too, usually start at 2.5 to five milligrams

00:34:43.341 --> 00:34:49.510
- per dose, and I'll show you in a second how that can be problematic. So some common things that you'll

00:34:49.510 --> 00:34:55.620
- find in the pot shop, in Pat's Pot Shop, are Rice Krispie treats, right? The things that we think of,

00:34:55.620 --> 00:34:58.974
- like a little treat you can have, a Rice Krispie treat,

00:34:59.138 --> 00:35:06.484
- They have these other things called cones, which is like a little cone that's filled with chocolate

00:35:06.484 --> 00:35:13.977
- that's infused with THC. We also have breakfast bars, like a Lucky Charms bar. We also have nerds. We

00:35:13.977 --> 00:35:21.691
- have nerds ropes, nerd bites. We have stony patch kids. And I'm going to pause right here and ask. About

00:35:21.691 --> 00:35:28.670
- 30 minutes ago, 20, 30 minutes ago, we started passing out some gummies that anybody take any.

00:35:30.722 --> 00:35:37.127
- You took some gummies? Are you feeling okay? They're not dosed, okay, but look at the package, right?

00:35:37.127 --> 00:35:43.407
- So that's also something they wouldn't let me say during the grant. But look at the package, right?

00:35:43.407 --> 00:35:49.812
- The packages look very similar to these products. I promise I didn't dose anybody here because that's

00:35:49.812 --> 00:35:52.638
- illegal and I'm not breaking any laws today.

00:35:53.730 --> 00:36:01.002
- So the packaging looks very similar to these candies that we ate as kids, that our kids eat. It looks

00:36:01.002 --> 00:36:08.202
- very similar. Stony Patch Kids, Nerds Ropes. We have candy bars, candy bars infused. And you can see

00:36:08.202 --> 00:36:15.332
- here, I hope you guys can see it, the percentages, right? So a package of gummy of Stony Patch Kids

00:36:15.332 --> 00:36:21.534
- has 350 milligrams of THC. The recommended medical dose starts at 2.5 to 5 milligrams.

00:36:22.530 --> 00:36:29.851
- I don't know anyone who just takes one Sour Patch kid and calls it a day. That's hard to do. This next

00:36:29.851 --> 00:36:36.958
- one's even a little scarier, and I really want to find an example of this in the wild, but Doritos.

00:36:38.082 --> 00:36:43.552
- This looks like real Doritos, but once you start paying attention to the package, you'll see there's

00:36:43.552 --> 00:36:49.130
- like a triangle in the corner. There's some information about dosing. These brands have been sued time

00:36:49.130 --> 00:36:54.870
- and time again by regulating bodies saying, hey, those are copyright infringements. You can't sell these,

00:36:54.870 --> 00:37:00.286
- but they keep coming back. A new one will start. They open up a new company to make it happen. This

00:37:00.286 --> 00:37:05.214
- is straight from online. You can buy a box of these online, have it shipped to your house.

00:37:06.050 --> 00:37:13.874
- These look just like Doritos. When you dive into the serving size, can you guys guess how much a serving

00:37:13.874 --> 00:37:21.399
- size is for a dose of Doritos? It's one or two chips. I've never opened a bag of Doritos and had one

00:37:21.399 --> 00:37:28.254
- or two chips. Never once. The risk of overdosing yourself with these products is very easy.

00:37:29.122 --> 00:37:36.760
- We also have mints. So mints usually come, each mint is about 2.5 milligrams of THC to 5 milligrams

00:37:36.760 --> 00:37:44.704
- of THC, and they're odorless, they're easy to use, and these are available at your standard smoke shop.

00:37:44.704 --> 00:37:52.418
- This could be a dispensary across state lines, this could be your gas station, it could be your vape

00:37:52.418 --> 00:37:57.918
- shop that's selling these products. Any questions about these before we

00:37:59.138 --> 00:38:05.291
- take some more examples. Have you guys seen products like this before? Some people, it might be kind

00:38:05.291 --> 00:38:11.504
- of shocking to others to be like, wow, that looks just like something in my kid's lunch box, which we

00:38:11.504 --> 00:38:17.657
- will talk about as we go on. Here's some more examples of the Doritos. You can see that this one's a

00:38:17.657 --> 00:38:23.870
- little more telling because there's some pot of leaves on it. But the Flaming Hot Cheetos, again, you

00:38:23.870 --> 00:38:27.038
- can see that little California label in the corner.

00:38:27.362 --> 00:38:34.550
- But other than that, this looks like a bag of Cheetos. This one just came up recently. Pop tarts. Right?

00:38:34.550 --> 00:38:41.670
- Pot tarts. These look just like a box of pop tarts. If this is at your home, in your kitchen, you know,

00:38:41.670 --> 00:38:48.516
- a kid or unsuspecting person can definitely get a hold of this not knowing what they're eating. And

00:38:48.516 --> 00:38:55.294
- this can be pretty harmful. This can be harmful for someone if they don't know what they're using.

00:38:55.842 --> 00:39:03.268
- And even if they know what they're using, this type of dosage can be very detrimental. Some more of

00:39:03.268 --> 00:39:10.843
- the stony patch kids, also looking at the labels on the back and just how familiar these look like to

00:39:10.843 --> 00:39:18.715
- the candies that we have in our lives today. As we go on with consumables, we're starting to see a bigger

00:39:18.715 --> 00:39:20.126
- market for drinks.

00:39:20.258 --> 00:39:27.287
- drinks that are infused with THC or different THC compounds. This one's called Keef. It has 10 milligrams

00:39:27.287 --> 00:39:33.918
- of THC per can. We also have Flower Aid, which is just like Power Aid, but you kind of have a scoop

00:39:33.918 --> 00:39:40.548
- and you can make your own dose about how much THC that you want. I don't know if this will actually

00:39:40.548 --> 00:39:47.643
- help you with sports though. It might actually change your dynamics in that. This one too, Keeva, cannabis

00:39:47.643 --> 00:39:48.638
- infused gravy.

00:39:50.370 --> 00:39:56.126
- Okay, so we'll have some more information about this as we go on, but the kind of gravy you would take

00:39:56.126 --> 00:40:01.769
- to like a family get-together. We have Delta 9 syrup. So this syrup you would add to like a big gulp

00:40:01.769 --> 00:40:07.413
- or like a drink at your house. This contains a thousand milligrams of THC, but there is no measuring

00:40:07.413 --> 00:40:13.057
- spoon with it. There's no way for you to actually measure what you're putting in it unless you bring

00:40:13.057 --> 00:40:14.398
- your own tools to that.

00:40:14.658 --> 00:40:22.655
- And then we have tinctures, which can be used under your tongue or with other types of consumables that

00:40:22.655 --> 00:40:30.345
- you might be making. Some more on the drinks. We have high dose lemonade that has 100 milligrams of

00:40:30.345 --> 00:40:37.342
- Delta 9 infused in it. So that's kind of like your standard lunch box serving of lemonade.

00:40:37.474 --> 00:40:44.634
- And then we have Willie Nelson getting in on it too. So Willie Nelson's been having some commercials

00:40:44.634 --> 00:40:51.794
- come out about his drink, right, talking about how there's sobriety from alcohol, but using THC will

00:40:51.794 --> 00:40:59.025
- help you, you know, reduce some stress. So Willie's drink here has 17 servings. It has 170 milligrams

00:40:59.025 --> 00:41:06.398
- of THC per bottle. So Willie Nelson is getting on this too. Each serving is about 10 milligrams of THC.

00:41:10.306 --> 00:41:15.937
- Now the gravy. Okay, this one's interesting, but I also want to talk about how they're marketing this

00:41:15.937 --> 00:41:21.678
- as well, because we're seeing ads for this gravy come up on social media in different places. So Kiva's

00:41:21.678 --> 00:41:27.363
- Cannabis Infused Gravy, they're looking at normalizing the market to help people think that, you know,

00:41:27.363 --> 00:41:33.270
- this is a celebrated drug, this is something that we can bring around the family. Kiva Foods has dedicated

00:41:33.270 --> 00:41:38.238
- to crafting different types of cannabis edibles that are focused on this type of product.

00:41:38.754 --> 00:41:45.369
- So Kiva's marketing for Thanksgiving gravy, these are some one-liners they have on some of their social

00:41:45.369 --> 00:41:52.111
- media ads. Kiva's cannabis gravy ensures a stoned family dinner. Need to tamper down some of those family

00:41:52.111 --> 00:41:58.535
- disagreements, just give grandma a little spoonful. And again, dosing somebody without them knowing,

00:41:58.535 --> 00:41:59.998
- that's illegal, right?

00:42:00.930 --> 00:42:07.648
- Also, Kiva Foods' cannabis infused gravy has 10 milligrams of THC in a package, enough to get you or

00:42:07.648 --> 00:42:14.365
- your loved ones a little loose for that conversation about what you're doing with your life. So this

00:42:14.365 --> 00:42:21.415
- is just looking at some of the marketing that they're normalizing the use of cannabis products throughout

00:42:21.415 --> 00:42:25.406
- the country. Now, we have to talk about the 2018 Farm Bill.

00:42:25.762 --> 00:42:31.888
- because there was already some discussion about we're seeing marijuana in our gas stations and our vape

00:42:31.888 --> 00:42:37.955
- shops here in Indiana. And I want to talk about why you're seeing that. In 2018, Congress accidentally

00:42:37.955 --> 00:42:43.964
- legalized weed. They didn't mean to, right? They did not mean to. They were trying to support farmers

00:42:43.964 --> 00:42:49.854
- who wanted to grow hemp. And their idea was that we can unregulate some of the hemp production with

00:42:49.854 --> 00:42:55.038
- different regulations around that. And they said that if you can make a product that is

00:42:55.170 --> 00:43:01.939
- 0.03% THC by that item, it's legal, right? They thought this is like a low dose of THC. We don't got

00:43:01.939 --> 00:43:08.642
- to worry about it. Because of that, hemp production really went up. They started producing more and

00:43:08.642 --> 00:43:15.545
- more hemp. They made so much hemp, nobody wanted it. Nobody wanted to make bags or clothes or textiles

00:43:15.545 --> 00:43:18.494
- or paper, but there was a plethora of hemp.

00:43:19.458 --> 00:43:27.643
- It took scientists about three months after that hemp created a surplus to figure out how they can actually

00:43:27.643 --> 00:43:35.373
- convert hemp and the THC inside hemp into psychoactive material that we have in these products in our

00:43:35.373 --> 00:43:42.270
- gas stations. So by law, these are legal products because by volume it contains 0.03% THC.

00:43:43.170 --> 00:43:50.911
- That's how this loophole has opened, and that's why these legal THC products have been put into our

00:43:50.911 --> 00:43:59.039
- communities. The Delta-8s, the Delta-10s, the THC-A, THC-V, THC-10, the THC-Acetate, THC-P, all of these

00:43:59.039 --> 00:44:06.780
- derivatives pulled from hemp plants through usually acoustic means, right? This is scientists using

00:44:06.780 --> 00:44:11.038
- things like propane and different chemicals to extract

00:44:11.234 --> 00:44:18.215
- this THC from these legal plants, and then putting it on our shelves. And this is what we're finding.

00:44:18.215 --> 00:44:25.127
- The same kind of Delta-8 cartridges that we might see. Its counterpart is Delta-9 in the dispensary.

00:44:25.127 --> 00:44:32.039
- We have the concentrates. We have the diamonds, which again, you would smoke with a dab rig. We have

00:44:32.039 --> 00:44:36.830
- the exhale wellness blunts that you can smoke. And we have the flour.

00:44:38.050 --> 00:44:44.603
- Now it's important to understand that even the flower here is a problem because the flower itself, hemp

00:44:44.603 --> 00:44:51.029
- flower, is not psychoactive. You can smoke hemp and nothing happens. You might feel a little relaxed.

00:44:51.029 --> 00:44:56.574
- You might get some of the CBD benefits from it for pain, for different muscle supports.

00:44:57.442 --> 00:45:03.168
- What they do with the flour though is they make the concentrate or that oil and spray it back onto the

00:45:03.168 --> 00:45:08.783
- flour to make it have that psychoactive effects. So even if you have this legal farm bill weed, it's

00:45:08.783 --> 00:45:13.342
- still doused and concentrates to make it psychoactive because by itself it's not.

00:45:13.954 --> 00:45:19.617
- Hemp is not psychoactive by itself, but when they improve the psychoactivity with the concentrates,

00:45:19.617 --> 00:45:25.620
- that's what we're seeing. And then you see these types of gummies too, right? The Delta-8s and Delta-10s.

00:45:25.620 --> 00:45:31.396
- But what you'll notice is that a Delta-8 product, like a gummy or consumable, is usually a little bit

00:45:31.396 --> 00:45:37.059
- bigger than what you would find in a dispensary. It's a little bit bigger because it's working that

00:45:37.059 --> 00:45:38.814
- definition of 0.03% by volume.

00:45:39.618 --> 00:45:45.534
- It's working that legal loophole. So the gummies are a little bit bigger, but they still have

00:45:45.534 --> 00:45:51.954
- that psychoactive effect that could impact your ability to drive a car, to make certain decisions. So

00:45:51.954 --> 00:45:58.814
- this is why we have this legal weed through Indiana. This is what it might look like on your shelves at your

00:45:58.882 --> 00:46:04.788
- gas station, these colorful packages showing these types of designs, selling this THC. I've seen a lot

00:46:04.788 --> 00:46:10.579
- more of like the Delta 8 neon signs and windows at vape shops when I go buy those. This is something

00:46:10.579 --> 00:46:16.714
- that you can buy online and have it shipped to your house without any ID, without any really requirements,

00:46:16.714 --> 00:46:23.022
- just pay them with a credit card and they'll send it to you. Some states are cracking down on this interstate

00:46:23.022 --> 00:46:26.462
- travel of these types of drugs, but it still is popping up.

00:46:27.170 --> 00:46:33.401
- This one's over in Indianapolis. We were talking at an addictions conference, and this store was about

00:46:33.401 --> 00:46:39.571
- five minutes from that room. They had an actual physical location where they could actually sell this

00:46:39.571 --> 00:46:45.923
- product to the public, but it's also online, so you can have this ordered and shipped to you. So Delta-8

00:46:45.923 --> 00:46:52.033
- and the derivatives from hemp because of the farm bill are currently still legal, but that is on the

00:46:52.033 --> 00:46:53.182
- verge of changing.

00:46:53.826 --> 00:46:59.049
- When there was some independent studies also looking at are these products actually accurate when it

00:46:59.049 --> 00:47:04.479
- comes to their consistency or their potency, they found that some of them didn't actually have the right

00:47:04.479 --> 00:47:09.857
- potency listed because no one's regulating the potency of these products. They're not regulated at this

00:47:09.857 --> 00:47:15.183
- point and no one's watching those laboratories as well. So even if you're buying it from a vape store,

00:47:15.183 --> 00:47:20.458
- you're not always necessarily sure what's actually in it and you're really taking that company's word

00:47:20.458 --> 00:47:22.526
- for granted for what is on their label.

00:47:25.218 --> 00:47:31.479
- So what about the regulation? So Indiana has noticed that there is a lot of problem with this farm-built

00:47:31.479 --> 00:47:37.442
- weed throughout the state, and they've done some work on trying to regulate that and change it. But

00:47:37.442 --> 00:47:43.704
- also this industry that has popped up has gained a lot of momentum because there's a lot of money behind

00:47:43.704 --> 00:47:49.667
- it. A lot of money is being made, billions of dollars because of this loophole. And as we all know,

00:47:49.667 --> 00:47:53.662
- right, money can actually make things happen with our regulations.

00:47:53.890 --> 00:48:01.013
- So, Indiana state bills have been put up, they've been paused, they've been thought about, they've been

00:48:01.013 --> 00:48:08.203
- reworded, and recently they've actually kind of paused and said, okay, we're not going to pursue banning

00:48:08.203 --> 00:48:15.326
- this because there is some federal legislation in the work that says that this loophole will be closed.

00:48:15.650 --> 00:48:22.784
- In 2025, they looked at closing the loophole to reduce the amount of THC that could be in these products

00:48:22.784 --> 00:48:29.781
- and actually try to wind back these rules, which would actually impact over 95% of the products on the

00:48:29.781 --> 00:48:36.847
- shelf today, and essentially eliminate this industry as we know it. First, it was supposed to be banned

00:48:36.847 --> 00:48:42.622
- in November. That's been pushed to December 11th of this year, and we'll see if that

00:48:42.754 --> 00:48:50.020
- keeps rolling backwards as they pause to figure out how they can regulate it instead of ban it, because

00:48:50.020 --> 00:48:57.216
- there are some components of people who say there are some harm reduction supports for this legal farm

00:48:57.216 --> 00:49:04.412
- bill weed. This changes it to a 0.4 milligram per container and not just per item, which actually just

00:49:04.412 --> 00:49:10.910
- eliminates a lot of these products. But we are seeing a lot more move towards beverages that

00:49:11.106 --> 00:49:17.103
- include THC. So I theorize that we'll see a lot more beverages even if these edibles and things start

00:49:17.103 --> 00:49:23.217
- to go away. So December 11th is supposed to be the day that these are off the shelf across the country,

00:49:23.217 --> 00:49:29.625
- but we will kind of stand to see if that's actually going to happen. We also need to talk about rescheduling

00:49:29.625 --> 00:49:31.742
- because that's usually a hot topic.

00:49:31.906 --> 00:49:39.722
- In 2025, there was an executive order to expect to expedite medical marijuana and CBD research and looking

00:49:39.722 --> 00:49:47.319
- at moving marijuana from a schedule one to a schedule three. And there's still some things in the works

00:49:47.319 --> 00:49:54.696
- for that. We see that the schedule three is kind of a partial at this point, looking at FDA approved

00:49:54.696 --> 00:49:59.006
- a state licensed medical marijuana to move to schedule 11.

00:49:59.778 --> 00:50:05.834
- schedule 11, schedule three. But it's important to understand too, this is not legalization of marijuana.

00:50:05.834 --> 00:50:12.062
- This is not saying that adult use or recreational use is legal. This is opening up the field for research on

00:50:12.290 --> 00:50:18.121
- marijuana, where it is today, this high potency. For years now, we've been researching some really bad

00:50:18.121 --> 00:50:24.065
- weed. Not bad as in like, oh, it's bad, but like just really low potency government supplied weed. You'd

00:50:24.065 --> 00:50:29.840
- have to talk to the government to get weed to research it, and their weed was not as good as the weed

00:50:29.840 --> 00:50:35.501
- on the streets. And it was hard to actually understand what this THC was doing to people and how it

00:50:35.501 --> 00:50:36.350
- impacted them.

00:50:36.866 --> 00:50:43.120
- So this rescheduling will actually open up the doors for us to actually look at what is high-potency

00:50:43.120 --> 00:50:49.437
- THC doing to people and how can we make sure that we are honest in our discussions about it. And it's

00:50:49.437 --> 00:50:56.249
- important to understand too that when you're talking to medical providers, when you're talking to individuals

00:50:56.249 --> 00:51:02.441
- about THC, a lot of the research we have today about the benefits of marijuana is about low-potency

00:51:02.441 --> 00:51:06.590
- THC, the kind of THC that you can't find hardly at dispensaries or

00:51:06.818 --> 00:51:13.944
- in stores. So the research that we hear from our physicians is always cited from research that was on

00:51:13.944 --> 00:51:21.070
- low-potency THC. Now, hopefully, this will make it so that we can catch up, that we can start looking

00:51:21.070 --> 00:51:28.266
- at the more high-potency. But again, we are waiting to see. This is an anecdote, too, to just solidify

00:51:28.266 --> 00:51:35.742
- that marijuana is still illegal and it affects a lot of industries. We talk about marijuana a lot with our

00:51:36.258 --> 00:51:42.487
- at our company, around the state, and we sell a lot of workshops about marijuana. And because of that,

00:51:42.487 --> 00:51:48.596
- my credit card company that we contract with caught on and contacted me and said, hey, it looks like

00:51:48.596 --> 00:51:54.644
- you're in the marijuana industry. We can't support your business anymore. And they wanted to cancel

00:51:54.644 --> 00:52:00.994
- my credit card contract. So I'm still trying to figure out if they're going to actually cancel my credit

00:52:00.994 --> 00:52:06.014
- card connection with the company because there is such legalities around cannabis.

00:52:06.594 --> 00:52:13.676
- You can't do anything with high potency cannabis when it goes beyond the farm bill and the litigation.

00:52:13.676 --> 00:52:20.620
- So even my credit card company has dinged me for talking about high potency THC because they thought

00:52:20.620 --> 00:52:27.701
- maybe I was dealing it in some aspect. So THC is still illegal in that federal level. The rescheduling

00:52:27.701 --> 00:52:29.214
- does not change that.

00:52:31.842 --> 00:52:38.488
- So I want to talk about some statistics too as we go along. So we have slides here, and again, I'm happy

00:52:38.488 --> 00:52:44.818
- to make these available to anybody who would like to utilize them. But this one talks about potency

00:52:44.818 --> 00:52:51.212
- and risk at first dependent symptom. Teens who are first exposed to lower potency cannabis were at a

00:52:51.212 --> 00:52:55.326
- 1.88 times more likely to develop the first cannabis use symptom

00:52:55.458 --> 00:53:01.530
- cannabis use disorder symptom within a year. And we'll talk about what that cannabis use disorder looks

00:53:01.530 --> 00:53:07.601
- like in a few more slides. But teens who had a first exposure to high potency cannabis were nearly five

00:53:07.601 --> 00:53:13.673
- times more likely to develop that symptom within the first year. So the higher potency, the more likely

00:53:13.673 --> 00:53:18.110
- there was that someone might develop problem use when it came to youth use.

00:53:19.746 --> 00:53:25.492
- We're also seeing that 72% of adolescents who use cannabis have used a concentrated product. So these

00:53:25.492 --> 00:53:31.351
- concentration products are becoming very popular with youth. Maybe you've heard of youth using THC vape

00:53:31.351 --> 00:53:37.098
- pens. I know in my community we've had a lot of reports of teens going into the ER after using a vape

00:53:37.098 --> 00:53:42.732
- pen because they didn't really know what it was and they didn't know what was happening to them and

00:53:42.732 --> 00:53:44.478
- it kind of really scared them.

00:53:44.706 --> 00:53:52.000
- Adolescents who use concentrates show higher rates of broader substance use problems than those who

00:53:52.000 --> 00:53:59.878
- use flour only. Looking even at that idea of poly use when we look at substance use and these concentrates.

00:53:59.878 --> 00:54:07.901
- Non-vaped adolescent cannabis use is declining while the vape is actually increasing. And frequent adolescent

00:54:07.901 --> 00:54:14.174
- vaping six or more times a month is increasing across nearly every demographic group.

00:54:15.074 --> 00:54:21.103
- we're seeing more and more of these concentrates being used within youth. One question that comes up

00:54:21.103 --> 00:54:27.670
- sometimes in our presentations is about fentanyl-laced weed. Some states have heard of this, some communities

00:54:27.670 --> 00:54:33.640
- are concerned about it, and there's a lot of information from the DEA and some other state agencies

00:54:33.640 --> 00:54:38.654
- regarding this, so we like to kind of show this slide that talks a little bit about

00:54:38.914 --> 00:54:46.364
- the myths and reality of fentanyl-laced weed, even the chemistry behind it, and how fentanyl can be

00:54:46.364 --> 00:54:54.111
- exposed to a person. And there's no evidence of widespread contamination so far in reports, but there's

00:54:54.111 --> 00:55:01.561
- been some news articles, some spurred by some false positive tests in the field that were reported,

00:55:01.561 --> 00:55:08.862
- and that's how those conversations have started, because we know that anything fentanyl is scary.

00:55:09.154 --> 00:55:16.481
- Right? But this also is a conjunction to this too about how youth can be exposed to fentanyl. And there's

00:55:16.481 --> 00:55:23.393
- a lot of talk about the idea of, you know, counterfeit pills. There's a lot of campaigns even about

00:55:23.393 --> 00:55:30.305
- the one pill. It just takes one pill to be exposed to things in this counterfeit market. Especially

00:55:30.305 --> 00:55:38.046
- if you're purchasing these types of substances on social media or the internet or through non-organized groups.

00:55:40.034 --> 00:55:46.321
- We also have some information here which is just repeated from the video talking about how cannabis

00:55:46.321 --> 00:55:52.608
- impacts the developing brain. We have frequent adolescent use is linked to changes in brain regions

00:55:52.608 --> 00:55:59.084
- governing things like attention and memory, decision making and even motivation. It's dangerous to use

00:55:59.084 --> 00:56:01.662
- cannabis when our brains are developing.

00:56:01.858 --> 00:56:08.266
- If you're going to use cannabis, wait until 25 or 26, right? That's kind of an idea to think about it

00:56:08.266 --> 00:56:14.863
- because our brains are still kind of forming. They're still kind of mushy in there. Attention and memory

00:56:14.863 --> 00:56:21.460
- deficits have been detected even after a month of abstinence of substance use when it comes to cannabis.

00:56:21.460 --> 00:56:27.743
- And there's even associated IQ decline that can impact individuals up to eight points when it comes

00:56:27.743 --> 00:56:29.502
- to adolescent cannabis use.

00:56:31.426 --> 00:56:40.369
- Studies have time and time again found links between suicidality trends among young adults who use cannabis.

00:56:40.369 --> 00:56:48.902
- This has even been found true when adjusting for things like depression and even cannabis use disorder.

00:56:48.902 --> 00:56:51.774
- This one is a newer diagnosis that

00:56:52.034 --> 00:56:59.226
- has hit the market. And we've had some people we've worked with through our organization that

00:56:59.226 --> 00:57:07.412
- have experienced this, the cannabinoid hypermemesis syndrome, which is repeated severe nausea and vomiting

00:57:07.412 --> 00:57:15.292
- in a chronic way from frequent cannabis use, but it's linked a lot to high potency use. So it's almost

00:57:15.292 --> 00:57:21.566
- like uncontrollable vomiting after long exposure to chronic high potency THC use.

00:57:21.794 --> 00:57:27.497
- This was sometimes not even caught when people went into the ER to figure out what's going on because

00:57:27.497 --> 00:57:33.535
- they didn't want to admit that they were using cannabis products because there's still stigma or legalities

00:57:33.535 --> 00:57:39.182
- behind that. And that's not a good thing because one of the best ways to treat this is to stop using

00:57:39.182 --> 00:57:44.941
- cannabis. But if that's not actually communicated to them, it can keep it going because they think I'm

00:57:44.941 --> 00:57:49.470
- nauseous. Maybe I should use some more cannabis, which can prolong the symptoms.

00:57:55.138 --> 00:58:02.258
- Another interesting anecdote here is that again, a definite treatment is cessation of cannabis, but

00:58:02.258 --> 00:58:09.449
- also using capsaicin cream and hot water to offer relief on the abdomen or stomach, which is just an

00:58:09.449 --> 00:58:16.569
- interesting anecdote there. The American Heart Association talks about the risk of cannabis use and

00:58:16.569 --> 00:58:17.566
- heart issues.

00:58:17.922 --> 00:58:24.296
- We have cannabis uses linked to an increased risk of heart attack and heart failure in observational

00:58:24.296 --> 00:58:31.112
- studies. We see that TXC triggers the nervous system, which activates increased heart rate, blood pressure,

00:58:31.112 --> 00:58:37.424
- and oxygen demand. So it even impacts our heart, right? We could even kind of go on a limb here and

00:58:37.424 --> 00:58:44.050
- say, too, that sometimes when you're using cannabis, you might not be making the healthiest food choices

00:58:44.050 --> 00:58:45.502
- sometimes, which could

00:58:45.666 --> 00:58:52.821
- increase our risk of maybe heart problems. We also have data from the emergency department, right? I

00:58:52.821 --> 00:59:00.188
- talked about how kids might be going to the emergency department more and more because of intoxication,

00:59:00.188 --> 00:59:07.838
- but it's happening to adults too. We see that cannabis-related ED visits is up nationally across the board.

00:59:08.098 --> 00:59:16.029
- Cannabis was the second most common substance in drug-related ED visits followed by alcohol and just

00:59:16.029 --> 00:59:24.039
- ahead of opiates. And age is the strongest risk marker with 18 to 25 being the highest followed by 26

00:59:24.039 --> 00:59:31.970
- to 44. We also see that 43% of cannabis-related ED visits involved at least one additional substance

00:59:31.970 --> 00:59:35.582
- or that polysubstance, most commonly alcohol.

00:59:36.162 --> 00:59:43.853
- So people are using these drugs in conjunction, and there are some notable racial disparities here.

00:59:43.853 --> 00:59:51.775
- The rate of black individuals was significantly higher than the white individuals. When we look at the

00:59:51.775 --> 00:59:59.543
- youth data, we also see that ED visits among people under 25 over the study period is at over half a

00:59:59.543 --> 01:00:04.542
- million, and over 90% of these visits were people aged 15 to 24.

01:00:05.282 --> 01:00:12.833
- CDC discussions have tied the rising use visits to this high-potency THC use. So they're more commonly

01:00:12.833 --> 01:00:20.165
- using high THC products, which is resulting in adverse effects. And sometimes that involves seeking

01:00:20.165 --> 01:00:27.569
- support from the emergency department. When we talked about ingesting, when I joked about dosing you

01:00:27.569 --> 01:00:34.974
- all, which if that scared anybody, I apologize. I really do. We see that this happens more and more.

01:00:35.650 --> 01:00:42.490
- We see this is more and more happening. Children under the age of six accidentally consume edibles containing

01:00:42.490 --> 01:00:48.894
- marijuana has jumped over a thousand percent between 2017 and 2021. Over half of these reports involve

01:00:48.894 --> 01:00:55.361
- toddlers between the age of two and three, because these look just like candies or foods we find around

01:00:55.361 --> 01:01:02.201
- the house. And 91% of those cases occurred in their own home. Maybe a family member is using these substances

01:01:02.201 --> 01:01:05.310
- or leaving them out. They're not locking them up.

01:01:05.698 --> 01:01:12.011
- Nearly one-fourth of the children wound up hospitalized because of these incidences and eight percent

01:01:12.011 --> 01:01:18.571
- admitted to critical care with depressed breathing or even coma. We've talked with home visiting agencies

01:01:18.571 --> 01:01:24.946
- before where they said that they've heard of families in the past who might have accidentally left out

01:01:24.946 --> 01:01:31.258
- these types of products. Their kids might have got a hold of them and they were too afraid to go seek

01:01:31.258 --> 01:01:34.910
- medical help and they wanted the kid just to sleep it off.

01:01:35.234 --> 01:01:41.058
- on the couch. There's some danger there, right? There's definitely some danger there because there is

01:01:41.058 --> 01:01:46.881
- stigma and there's fear. If you go to the hospital and you admit that your child has taken some drugs

01:01:46.881 --> 01:01:52.705
- that you either inadvertently or on purpose provided to them, there could be some legal consequences.

01:01:52.705 --> 01:01:58.529
- So there is risk in this. There is definitely risk. We've talked to schools that say they've heard of

01:01:58.529 --> 01:02:01.726
- parents using these substances to calm their kids down.

01:02:01.954 --> 01:02:07.647
- to help them go to sleep. There are some high potency pieces in this market that can help you sleep.

01:02:07.647 --> 01:02:13.396
- They're marketed to help you sleep. And some people are using it thinking it's a natural alternative.

01:02:13.396 --> 01:02:19.427
- But I hope maybe the vision that you're starting to see is some of this isn't just completely all natural.

01:02:19.427 --> 01:02:25.063
- This is kind of just like a big laboratory experiment that we're seeing when it comes to these high

01:02:25.063 --> 01:02:26.078
- potency products.

01:02:28.034 --> 01:02:34.813
- Marijuana and impaired driving. It's the number two drug detected in impaired drivers. Driving under

01:02:34.813 --> 01:02:41.658
- the influence of marijuana is associated with 110% increase in fatal crashes. We've also got research

01:02:41.658 --> 01:02:48.839
- showing that four times as many high school students reported driving after marijuana compared to alcohol.

01:02:48.839 --> 01:02:56.222
- Same for college students. Four times as many college men report driving after marijuana compared to alcohol.

01:02:57.026 --> 01:03:04.630
- Now what that statistics tells us is that there is a lack of, what's the word I'm looking for, perception

01:03:04.630 --> 01:03:12.091
- of harm. Individuals are believing that using marijuana isn't as harmful as alcohol when it gets coming

01:03:12.091 --> 01:03:19.552
- to getting behind the wheel. So they think that it's not that bad. They're more likely to use marijuana

01:03:19.552 --> 01:03:24.574
- and get into a car than they are to drink alcohol and get into a car.

01:03:24.930 --> 01:03:30.503
- We've done a lot of work on the public health side and through our community saying, like, don't drink

01:03:30.503 --> 01:03:36.347
- and drive. But we need to start talking about don't smoke and drive. I myself, I have friends and sometimes

01:03:36.347 --> 01:03:41.758
- even colleagues who say, like, they're a better driver when they smoke. I kind of find that hard to

01:03:41.758 --> 01:03:47.169
- believe. It takes attention. If you don't know the right dose, it could really mess you up. If it's

01:03:47.169 --> 01:03:52.689
- something new, you don't know what you're handling. So we need to start talking about don't smoke and

01:03:52.689 --> 01:03:54.366
- drive or don't dose and drive.

01:03:54.754 --> 01:04:00.448
- because this is dangerous, but we don't really believe that. And I would assume that we don't believe

01:04:00.448 --> 01:04:06.255
- that smoking and driving isn't that dangerous because we have this perception of it's just this natural

01:04:06.255 --> 01:04:11.949
- herb from the earth. It just helps me feel good. We're still picturing that woodstock weed. We're not

01:04:11.949 --> 01:04:14.238
- picturing this new high-potency product.

01:04:18.530 --> 01:04:24.932
- Looking at the psychosis risk too, which the video talked about a bit, people who use high-potency cannabis

01:04:24.932 --> 01:04:30.979
- are three times as likely to experience their first episode of psychosis. Daily users of high-potency

01:04:30.979 --> 01:04:33.054
- cannabis are five times as likely.

01:04:33.282 --> 01:04:39.246
- This is not saying that if you use cannabis that you're going to go into psychosis, but it does say

01:04:39.246 --> 01:04:45.567
- that the research tells us that it increases your risk of your first episode of psychosis. Higher potency

01:04:45.567 --> 01:04:51.650
- is also associated with greater risk of cannabis use disorder and that severe dependence. Now this is

01:04:51.650 --> 01:04:57.793
- a new street term that's coming out. Some of you may have heard of it, maybe you haven't, but greening

01:04:57.793 --> 01:04:59.582
- out is considered an overdose

01:05:00.162 --> 01:05:06.355
- I'm going to use that kind of like in quotations, like an overdose on marijuana. Now marijuana has never

01:05:06.355 --> 01:05:12.254
- killed anybody from an overdose, but greening out is consuming too much THC in one setting that can

01:05:12.254 --> 01:05:18.329
- impact your body. And here's what it looks like. It happens when someone consumes too much THC, flour,

01:05:18.329 --> 01:05:24.463
- edibles, or concentrates. The symptoms include nausea, dizziness, vomiting, rapid heart rate, paranoia,

01:05:24.463 --> 01:05:26.174
- panic, loss of coordination.

01:05:27.170 --> 01:05:33.982
- It's most common for new users, for returning users, youth, and those with pre-existing anxiety. So

01:05:33.982 --> 01:05:41.067
- if you guys remember my story from Detroit, that was greening out in that instance. I consumed too much

01:05:41.067 --> 01:05:47.948
- THC for what my tolerance was, and there were adverse effects of what happened. So what do you do if

01:05:47.948 --> 01:05:51.422
- you happen to be around someone or if you yourself

01:05:51.618 --> 01:05:57.996
- Maybe accidentally greens out. You gotta stay calm. You gotta rest. You gotta hydrate. Maybe practice

01:05:57.996 --> 01:06:04.561
- some deep breathing. Avoid adding more cannabis to calm yourself down. That's not gonna help, all right?

01:06:04.561 --> 01:06:10.939
- The idea is to help kind of get it out of your system. Do not add alcohol to it. Some people say, how

01:06:10.939 --> 01:06:17.442
- do you reduce greening out? They say, take a shot. Don't do that. That's not gonna help, okay? You need

01:06:17.442 --> 01:06:20.318
- some water, some time, maybe some soft music.

01:06:21.058 --> 01:06:27.420
- and also seek medical help if it is severe. The risks here though that if you are experiencing a green

01:06:27.420 --> 01:06:33.659
- out is accidents due to impairment. Imagine if you lose all sense of coordination and you're walking

01:06:33.659 --> 01:06:39.898
- down a flight of steps. Or if you're driving a car. Or if you're walking on the sidewalk by traffic.

01:06:39.898 --> 01:06:46.198
- There's mental health risks and it's a higher risk for youth with a developing brain. Now the message

01:06:46.198 --> 01:06:49.534
- here that I really want to share is that greening out

01:06:50.018 --> 01:06:57.090
- is not fatal, but it doesn't make it safe. There are some risks that can occur if you overconsume THC,

01:06:57.090 --> 01:07:01.278
- and these risks can be harmful to you and people around you.

01:07:03.874 --> 01:07:11.057
- So some common health effects that we see a lot when it comes to what we have so far in THC research.

01:07:11.057 --> 01:07:18.593
- Mental health daily or near daily use of cannabis can contribute to dependence and mental health problems.

01:07:18.593 --> 01:07:25.988
- It can impair driving. There can be respiratory issues because there's still toxins if you are inhaling.

01:07:25.988 --> 01:07:28.382
- And also pregnancy. Substance use

01:07:28.642 --> 01:07:34.731
- Substancing using cannabis while pregnant can transfer from the mother to the child and affect the baby.

01:07:34.731 --> 01:07:40.645
- Not using cannabis of pregnant or breastfeeding is the safest option. We've worked with organizations

01:07:40.645 --> 01:07:46.734
- that have said that their participants doctors told them to use cannabis if they're experiencing morning

01:07:46.734 --> 01:07:52.707
- sickness. Maybe some of you have heard that yourself. But the thing is, I don't know if that physician

01:07:52.707 --> 01:07:55.838
- actually knows what that client knows about cannabis.

01:07:56.354 --> 01:08:02.214
- Is it a low potency cannabis they're using or is it something off the shelf? If it's off the shelf,

01:08:02.214 --> 01:08:07.899
- it's more likely to be a high potency product. What can that do to a developing child? If you're

01:08:07.899 --> 01:08:13.876
- breastfeeding, it's just like if you're drinking. So if you do use cannabis while you're pregnant and

01:08:13.876 --> 01:08:19.854
- breastfeeding, you should pump and dump that because it can create a concentrate in your breast milk.

01:08:19.854 --> 01:08:24.542
- Passing high potency concentrated breast milk to your developing child, I mean,

01:08:24.674 --> 01:08:31.825
- they'll probably sleep, right? Like sleep really well, but who knows what's happening to their developing

01:08:31.825 --> 01:08:37.964
- brain or their body? I try not to be too funny about it, but seriously, right? It could be

01:08:37.964 --> 01:08:45.116
- pretty detrimental. So health effects, short term, we have altered senses, altered sense of time, changes

01:08:45.116 --> 01:08:52.199
- in mood, impaired body movement, difficulty thinking or problem solving, impaired memory, hallucinations

01:08:52.199 --> 01:08:53.886
- are taken in high doses,

01:08:54.114 --> 01:09:00.974
- delusions when taken in high doses, and even psychosis, risk of regular use in high-potency marijuana.

01:09:00.974 --> 01:09:07.635
- Now, long-term effects, which we still are studying and the research needs to be updated on because

01:09:07.635 --> 01:09:14.362
- we only know about low-potency marijuana at this point, is impaired thinking and memory and learning

01:09:14.362 --> 01:09:21.022
- functions, disruption in brain connectivity, heavy teenage use is linked to an eight-point IQ drop,

01:09:22.018 --> 01:09:28.837
- Cannabis use can lead to substance use disorders and problems with child development during and after

01:09:28.837 --> 01:09:35.523
- pregnancy. Now, cannabis use disorder is in the DSM-5TR, so this is an actual diagnosis that we can

01:09:35.523 --> 01:09:42.208
- look at when we look at different symptoms. You have to have at least two of the following symptoms

01:09:42.208 --> 01:09:48.960
- in a sustained criteria within 12 months on the screen. This includes continuing the use of cannabis

01:09:48.960 --> 01:09:51.902
- despite physical or psychological problems,

01:09:52.674 --> 01:09:59.019
- using cannabis despite social or relationship problems, craving cannabis, difficulty controlling or

01:09:59.019 --> 01:10:05.490
- cutting down cannabis, giving up or reducing other activities in favor of cannabis, spending a lot of

01:10:05.490 --> 01:10:11.835
- time on cannabis, taking cannabis in high risk situations, such as driving a car, right? And I like

01:10:11.835 --> 01:10:15.198
- to pause on that one because I'm going to talk about

01:10:15.458 --> 01:10:21.046
- my pot dealer again, the one who used the concentrates that got me thinking about this is different.

01:10:21.046 --> 01:10:26.634
- He told me that he would take a gummy before he left his office because he would start feeling it by

01:10:26.634 --> 01:10:32.333
- the time he got home. And he wanted to feel it when he got home because he was dealing with some stuff

01:10:32.333 --> 01:10:37.922
- at home. He didn't really want to be completely present. He was using it as a medication to help him

01:10:37.922 --> 01:10:40.190
- calm down. That's a high risk situation.

01:10:40.642 --> 01:10:45.845
- He's taking a gummy before he gets into a car and hopefully the traffic's good enough so that by the

01:10:45.845 --> 01:10:50.996
- time he gets home, he's not like stuck in traffic or veering off towards someone or something else.

01:10:50.996 --> 01:10:56.251
- So high risk situations, we can find ourselves falling into that. Maybe you were using cannabis while

01:10:56.251 --> 01:11:01.505
- your kid was at school and you thought that it would wear off by the time you had to pick him up. But

01:11:01.505 --> 01:11:06.708
- maybe the clock is ticking and maybe you took too many edibles and now you have to get in the car to

01:11:06.708 --> 01:11:09.438
- go to the pickup lane. That's a high risk situation.

01:11:10.274 --> 01:11:16.855
- We have taken cannabis, more cannabis than what was intended. We have tolerance to cannabis, withdrawal

01:11:16.855 --> 01:11:23.310
- from discontinuing, and then problems at work or school or home as a result of cannabis. And this can

01:11:23.310 --> 01:11:30.334
- be measured depending on how many symptoms you have from mild, moderate to severe. So cannabis use in the USA.

01:11:30.690 --> 01:11:38.296
- Here's some statistics. We have 52.5 million people use cannabis in 2021. 30% of 12th graders report

01:11:38.296 --> 01:11:46.053
- using cannabis in the past year. Three in one people who use cannabis may actually have a cannabis use

01:11:46.053 --> 01:11:54.111
- disorder. And people who begin using cannabis before age 18 are four to seven times more likely to develop

01:11:54.111 --> 01:11:56.446
- problem use as an adult, which

01:11:56.898 --> 01:12:02.519
- could also lean to why a lot of the marketing we see is trying to capture kids when they're younger,

01:12:02.519 --> 01:12:08.085
- because you capture them when they're younger, they continue to use as an adult, and you could have

01:12:08.085 --> 01:12:13.150
- some lifelong profit from that. Now, we used to have this great group, the epidemiological

01:12:13.282 --> 01:12:21.143
- group here in Indiana that did some studies. The last one came out in 2023 that showed us who uses the

01:12:21.143 --> 01:12:28.776
- most cannabis here in Indiana. We found ages 18 and 25% in this survey, 22.5% of them reported past

01:12:28.776 --> 01:12:36.484
- month use of cannabis. And then ages 26 plus came in under that, and then ages 12 to 7 came in under

01:12:36.484 --> 01:12:42.590
- that. So these are the age ranges of the majority of cannabis users in Indiana.

01:12:43.330 --> 01:12:51.775
- And when we look at the surveys from the Indiana Use Survey or INYS, we see some trajectories here from

01:12:51.775 --> 01:13:00.139
- 2009 to 2024 about cannabis use in our schools, right? So if you're not familiar with INYS, it's given

01:13:00.139 --> 01:13:08.503
- at schools to help us measure perception of harm, even use, different risk factors throughout schools.

01:13:08.503 --> 01:13:11.102
- And we see that the majority of

01:13:11.266 --> 01:13:16.971
- Grades where people are using cannabis are 12th grade. That's the common thing we see for a long time

01:13:16.971 --> 01:13:22.787
- is that 12th grade is the most common use for cannabis. We do see that it's starting to kind of go down

01:13:22.787 --> 01:13:28.715
- though, which is a good thing, but we are seeing a reduction in cannabis use with youth across the board.

01:13:28.715 --> 01:13:32.574
- It's a slight downgrade, but still there's some good work happening.

01:13:34.082 --> 01:13:40.430
- We also want to point out the fact that on social media, adolescents who are 5 to 19 who followed a

01:13:40.430 --> 01:13:47.032
- cannabis business on social media platforms are five times higher to have past year use. So if you guys

01:13:47.032 --> 01:13:53.571
- have kids, maybe check out who they're following on social media, right? This helps kind of reduce the

01:13:53.571 --> 01:13:58.078
- stigma of cannabis and promote it. So that's something to think about.

01:13:58.818 --> 01:14:06.457
- Those who thought they'd likely own or wear cannabis brand and merchandise had nearly eight times greater

01:14:06.457 --> 01:14:13.809
- odds of past year use. So if you're wearing it, you're promoting it, that's also a sign. We also look

01:14:13.809 --> 01:14:21.376
- at the review of cannabis businesses on social media. And some states had rules about how they advertise

01:14:21.376 --> 01:14:27.358
- cannabis. Should they have warning signs and labels on it? And some regulated yes.

01:14:27.490 --> 01:14:33.618
- But not all these companies are actually following it. We got to think of like the tobacco and alcohol

01:14:33.618 --> 01:14:39.746
- industries and how they advertise. A lot of these companies are not putting the required warning label

01:14:39.746 --> 01:14:44.862
- on their ads, which are on social media, on these platforms that the kids are seeing.

01:14:45.090 --> 01:14:50.808
- We also need to take a look back at history. At the beginning of this talk, I talked about celebrated

01:14:50.808 --> 01:14:56.862
- drugs, the things like alcohol and tobacco. And these industries are catching on to the fact that marijuana

01:14:56.862 --> 01:15:02.916
- is becoming more popular. It's more popular than alcohol now when it comes across the board in the country.

01:15:02.916 --> 01:15:08.690
- And they are using what they learned in their marketing strategies to promote marijuana. We heard back

01:15:08.690 --> 01:15:12.670
- in the day with tobacco, its natural product, it came from the ground.

01:15:13.890 --> 01:15:19.487
- The plant I showed you at the beginning was a product that came from the ground, but that's not what

01:15:19.487 --> 01:15:25.139
- marijuana looks like now today. There was medicinal uses. They said that there was health benefits of

01:15:25.139 --> 01:15:30.681
- smoking, including supporting asthma, head colds, and even diseases of the throat, right? They told

01:15:30.681 --> 01:15:36.278
- us that smoking was good for us. They said that the doctors support it. Doctors use it so it must be

01:15:36.278 --> 01:15:41.875
- okay, and no one has ever died of a tobacco overdose, right? These are claims that we heard from the

01:15:41.875 --> 01:15:43.870
- tobacco industry as it was growing.

01:15:45.314 --> 01:15:51.266
- And there's been a commercialization of marijuana which has created a profit-driven business. I don't

01:15:51.266 --> 01:15:57.335
- know anyone who likes being marketed to. No one likes being marketed to. The ads are annoying. We don't

01:15:57.335 --> 01:16:03.346
- like being told what to do or being convinced to do something. But these guys are professionals at it.

01:16:03.346 --> 01:16:09.357
- They've been doing it for years. When any drug is commercialized or legalized, the marketplace is able

01:16:09.357 --> 01:16:14.142
- to innovate and create new, potentially more addictive and high-potency products.

01:16:14.242 --> 01:16:20.969
- And this is the story of how the makers of Marlboro have caught on to the fact that marijuana is getting

01:16:20.969 --> 01:16:27.633
- popular. We need to play this game as well. They've invested heavily in companies, heavily in lobbying.

01:16:27.633 --> 01:16:34.296
- They've even founded a coalition for cannabis policy to try to find ways to increase access to cannabis

01:16:34.296 --> 01:16:39.550
- across the country to help their margins. The alcohol industry is doing the same.

01:16:39.650 --> 01:16:46.480
- 81% of marijuana consumers believe that marijuana is safer than alcohol, and the alcohol companies know

01:16:46.480 --> 01:16:53.113
- this. Alcohol companies have created marijuana beverages, such as this Keefe brand that again has 10

01:16:53.113 --> 01:16:59.812
- milligrams per can. We have the makers of Corona and Modelo agree to take a large stake in a Canadian

01:16:59.812 --> 01:17:06.708
- marijuana grower where they can get around some more legalities of that, and they want to take a leading

01:17:06.708 --> 01:17:09.598
- position in the cannabis beverage industry.

01:17:11.618 --> 01:17:19.954
- Now the role of the helpers, what can we do when we're looking at cannabis legislation, rules around

01:17:19.954 --> 01:17:22.430
- marijuana in our communities?

01:17:22.658 --> 01:17:29.434
- If we ever get to a point in Indiana where we say we're going to have legalization of recreational or

01:17:29.434 --> 01:17:36.210
- medical, these are some things to really take into consideration. Everything from private possession,

01:17:36.210 --> 01:17:43.451
- private possession amounts to sales derivatives, to rules around self-cultivation, restriction on businesses

01:17:43.451 --> 01:17:50.360
- that are selling and producing cannabis, sometimes even distance ordinances about signage that you have

01:17:50.360 --> 01:17:52.286
- about advertising marijuana.

01:17:52.674 --> 01:17:59.122
- We also have limits of retail sales. If you go over to a legal state, you might know that you can't

01:17:59.122 --> 01:18:05.569
- buy a certain amount of marijuana or over a certain amount because there are regulations about what

01:18:05.569 --> 01:18:12.017
- you can buy per day. And those are some harm reduction tactics. We also have the idea of the buffer

01:18:12.017 --> 01:18:18.593
- zones between retailers. There's not too many, like a strip mall of pot shops, but they're spaced out

01:18:18.593 --> 01:18:22.526
- a bit too. So there are some environmental things we can do.

01:18:22.626 --> 01:18:28.615
- Another thing that helpers can do in their communities is looking at something called SBIRT. Some of

01:18:28.615 --> 01:18:34.604
- you may be familiar with it in your communities, but it is a brief standardized question to identify

01:18:34.604 --> 01:18:40.711
- risk level before problems can be obvious of different substance uses. And this is actually a training

01:18:40.711 --> 01:18:46.878
- that you can have brought to you through Prevention Insights, which is from IU School of Public Health.

01:18:47.234 --> 01:18:54.680
- They also have some free modules on their website that you can complete to learn more about SBIRT and

01:18:54.680 --> 01:19:02.127
- if that would be a good thing for maybe your community or for your coalition to support. We also have

01:19:02.127 --> 01:19:09.500
- the personal screening or the free survey, the CUDITR, the Cannabis Use Disorder Identification Test

01:19:09.500 --> 01:19:13.150
- Revised, which is eight questions to look kind of

01:19:13.282 --> 01:19:20.224
- internally to see maybe are you experiencing some symptoms of cannabis use disorder. Some red flags

01:19:20.224 --> 01:19:27.235
- in the population for the people maybe you're working with or people around you. If there's impaired

01:19:27.235 --> 01:19:32.094
- control, maybe repeated or unsuccessful attempts to cut down or stop.

01:19:32.354 --> 01:19:38.871
- leaning towards the idea of dependence, using larger amounts for longer than intended, a great deal

01:19:38.871 --> 01:19:45.519
- of time spent obtaining, using, or maybe even recovering from use, and also persistent craving of use

01:19:45.519 --> 01:19:46.366
- of cannabis.

01:19:46.594 --> 01:19:52.622
- We have, over here on social and occupational functioning, maybe declining performance at work or school,

01:19:52.622 --> 01:19:58.651
- or even in our caregiving responsibilities. We have withdrawing from activities, hobbies, and friendships

01:19:58.651 --> 01:20:04.395
- that we used to find really important or that mattered to us. Continued use despite causing friction

01:20:04.395 --> 01:20:10.082
- in relationships. And even for the youth side, if you work with youth, change the peer group. A new

01:20:10.082 --> 01:20:12.414
- secrecy about time and even whereabouts.

01:20:14.146 --> 01:20:21.090
- For risky use, we have use in physically hazardous situations, again, driving, operating machinery,

01:20:21.090 --> 01:20:28.311
- caregiving while impaired, continued use despite a physical or psychological problem, or even worsening

01:20:28.311 --> 01:20:35.532
- of that problem, and then on the other side, needing more to get the same effect, so again, having that

01:20:35.532 --> 01:20:40.254
- tolerance issue, and then some behavioral things too, irritability.

01:20:40.450 --> 01:20:47.930
- anxiety or sleep disruption in days when you're not using in those in-between gaps. Also, we have on

01:20:47.930 --> 01:20:55.484
- the GI system, again, we're thinking about that hypermimesis, reoccurring or unexplained GI symptoms.

01:20:55.484 --> 01:21:03.039
- Some caregiver action steps. It might not be believable to some of you, but our kids really care what

01:21:03.039 --> 01:21:09.630
- we think. They care what our perception is on things. They care about our approval even.

01:21:09.986 --> 01:21:15.945
- So making sure that we're talking with our kids about the use of substances, talking about honestly

01:21:15.945 --> 01:21:22.500
- about marijuana, what it is today, and the risks of it is really important. Having those open communications,

01:21:22.500 --> 01:21:28.698
- setting boundaries, offering education, maybe even having like some meetings or some conversations with

01:21:28.698 --> 01:21:34.895
- the people you serve about cannabis use. Maybe offering not just a leaflet, but just a discussion about

01:21:34.895 --> 01:21:38.590
- like weed is different now. Weed is definitely different now.

01:21:39.586 --> 01:21:46.400
- Some community campaigns you might be interested in. We have the JustSayNo.org, which is also part of

01:21:46.400 --> 01:21:53.749
- the Johnny's ambassador program that has some social media graphics that you can share with your organization

01:21:53.749 --> 01:21:59.294
- or your newsletter even. This one is 50 Woodstock joints equals one marijuana dab.

01:21:59.842 --> 01:22:07.033
- That's a big comparison. We also have Talk They Hear You. Talk They Hear You is a campaign through SAMHSA.

01:22:07.033 --> 01:22:13.552
- Anybody can get a license for it with your organization to provide PSAs to those that you serve.

01:22:13.552 --> 01:22:20.407
- Social media, you can put it on billboards. This one here, we were working with a drug-free coalition

01:22:20.407 --> 01:22:24.574
- and we had some locals put together some photos of us to help

01:22:24.674 --> 01:22:30.775
- spread the message of Talk They Hear You. And Talk They Hear You is great because it's not just a campaign

01:22:30.775 --> 01:22:36.647
- or a picture, but it's also a companion app and a website resource that teaches caregivers how to talk

01:22:36.647 --> 01:22:42.463
- with kids about substances, how to have that conversation, because it can be hard to start that talk.

01:22:42.463 --> 01:22:46.910
- But there is step-by-step guidance through Talk They Hear You in that domain.

01:22:47.810 --> 01:22:53.894
- There's also National Drug and Alcohol Facts Week, which connects communities and those that you're

01:22:53.894 --> 01:23:00.039
- serving to the National Institutes of Health so that they can learn about substances from scientists

01:23:00.039 --> 01:23:06.183
- that are studying it. It's a cool thing. We usually bring it into classrooms in my community to have

01:23:06.183 --> 01:23:11.902
- them talk. It's a virtual talk, of course, about what they're seeing and the truths about it.

01:23:12.418 --> 01:23:18.028
- There's also Red Ribbon Week, where individuals can bring that to their communities, and also National

01:23:18.028 --> 01:23:23.529
- Prevention Week that some of you may have been a part of. Now, again, on Talk They Hear You, there's

01:23:23.529 --> 01:23:29.030
- creative ways that you can bring this conversation to your community. One thing that we did was that

01:23:29.030 --> 01:23:34.641
- we had a movie night, where we actually took over the local movie theater, and we did a free screening

01:23:34.641 --> 01:23:40.414
- of Inside Out. I didn't know you could do that, but you could actually buy the rights for it for a night,

01:23:40.642 --> 01:23:46.143
- get the theater rented out. And we had people come in. And before we played the movie, we actually had

01:23:46.143 --> 01:23:51.752
- the PSA run. We had videos run. We had a talk about Talk They Hear You. And it opened up these community

01:23:51.752 --> 01:23:57.199
- members' ideas about substance use and how to talk about it with their kids. And it was really great,

01:23:57.199 --> 01:24:02.754
- because after this gathering, we actually had parents contact us and say, hey, we had the conversation.

01:24:02.754 --> 01:24:07.134
- And we wouldn't have. We wouldn't have had it if we didn't have this opportunity.

01:24:07.650 --> 01:24:12.617
- Our kids may be getting substance use education in the school, but it's not always coming home with

01:24:12.617 --> 01:24:17.634
- them. We might not always talk about it. So having these conversations with parents in the community

01:24:17.634 --> 01:24:22.750
- can be very impactful. And sometimes putting on a free movie night is one of the best ways to do that.

01:24:25.218 --> 01:24:31.768
- Some evidence-based programs that you can use in your community or your organizations to support the

01:24:31.768 --> 01:24:38.448
- people you serve. Things like life skills training, strengthening families, guiding good choices. Some

01:24:38.448 --> 01:24:44.998
- of these might be familiar to you, they might be new. Too good for drugs, also too good for violence

01:24:44.998 --> 01:24:49.278
- as a companion to this. We have Project Alert and we see a lot of

01:24:49.378 --> 01:24:55.400
- you know, like Boys and Girls Clubs and Girls Inc. and those types of organizations utilizing these

01:24:55.400 --> 01:25:01.663
- programs. But also for adults, don't worry, you're not left out, right? We have this thing called Prime

01:25:01.663 --> 01:25:07.745
- for Life. Prime for Life is drug education for adults that can be implemented over either a few days

01:25:07.745 --> 01:25:13.948
- or even a few weeks where you can learn about everything from, you know, alcohol use to marijuana use.

01:25:13.948 --> 01:25:19.006
- It is a pretty great program. It's pretty, not too expensive to get trained in too.

01:25:21.346 --> 01:25:27.716
- So what can you do as an individual? Get involved. I always tell people to get involved with their local

01:25:27.716 --> 01:25:34.024
- coordinating council. The majority of communities in Indiana have a local coordinating council. They're

01:25:34.024 --> 01:25:40.151
- the ones that might give out drug-free grants to your community or have a monthly meeting for you to

01:25:40.151 --> 01:25:47.006
- join to learn about substance use initiatives and trends. Stay informed. Stay updated. This presentation changes

01:25:47.202 --> 01:25:52.701
- probably week to week. I think in my hotel room before I came here, I added like two more slides because

01:25:52.701 --> 01:25:57.937
- new things are always coming out. We have to stay informed because the market is changing and share

01:25:57.937 --> 01:26:03.226
- what you've learned today. Talk with someone about how this is not your grandma's marijuana anymore.

01:26:03.226 --> 01:26:08.777
- This is something completely different. These high potency products are not what we know of in our youth,

01:26:08.777 --> 01:26:12.286
- not what our parents knew about is something completely different.

01:26:13.762 --> 01:26:19.622
- Another thing to think about before we close today is that if we're thinking that these new high-potency

01:26:19.622 --> 01:26:25.203
- THC products are just like the products of the past, of just like the flower, that's like comparing

01:26:25.203 --> 01:26:31.007
- a glass of alcohol to a bottle of Everclear. The potencies are very different. These are very different

01:26:31.007 --> 01:26:36.588
- items. And I really hope that maybe you're thinking about marijuana a different way now, because we

01:26:36.588 --> 01:26:42.392
- can't just think that marijuana is marijuana. We have to know more about it. What's the potency of that

01:26:42.392 --> 01:26:43.006
- marijuana?

01:26:43.778 --> 01:26:50.021
- How many milligrams are in it? What's the percentage? We can't think of it as just this green stuff

01:26:50.021 --> 01:26:56.327
- anymore because it's been cultivated in the way where it's not quite that. Now, I also want to close

01:26:56.327 --> 01:27:02.820
- with, if you're concerned about your own use after hearing some of these things, I welcome you to maybe

01:27:02.820 --> 01:27:04.318
- explore that some more.

01:27:04.866 --> 01:27:10.690
- Cannabis use is something that is very normalized. It's becoming celebrated. But if you are sitting

01:27:10.690 --> 01:27:16.863
- here today thinking like, wow, maybe my use is becoming kind of problematic for my health and well-being,

01:27:16.863 --> 01:27:22.745
- it's something to really reflect on. Cannabis use disorder is a diagnosis. It's not a moral failing.

01:27:22.745 --> 01:27:28.802
- It's something that can happen to any of us. So here's some information on this screen about, you know,

01:27:28.802 --> 01:27:30.782
- SAMHSA getting connected to help.

01:27:30.882 --> 01:27:38.943
- findtreatment.gov, and if your organization offers an EAP program, that's something you could also lean

01:27:38.943 --> 01:27:47.004
- on to talk with them about some issues. So this is recognized and it is treatable. My last ask for you,

01:27:47.004 --> 01:27:54.911
- okay, I do like getting drugs from people. It's one of my favorite things. So if you are connected to

01:27:54.911 --> 01:27:56.926
- a law enforcement agency,

01:27:57.058 --> 01:28:02.663
- that is willing to provide some empty packaging for these talks that we continue to do in the future.

01:28:02.663 --> 01:28:08.434
- I'm always looking for examples of products you're finding in your communities. I do ask that the police

01:28:08.434 --> 01:28:14.369
- give me a letter that says that they gave it to me. Just in case I get pulled over, people aren't thinking,

01:28:14.369 --> 01:28:20.414
- like, why does this guy have all these empty packages with a tie-dye shirt in his car? Like, what's going on?

01:28:20.546 --> 01:28:26.381
- We have collected some from our local police department. They actually gave me the wrong stuff one time.

01:28:26.381 --> 01:28:31.938
- And I was like, this is psychedelics. And they're like, oh, sorry. But we're looking for packaging,

01:28:31.938 --> 01:28:37.884
- because we want to have some hands-on materials to show people. So if you're connected to law enforcement,

01:28:37.884 --> 01:28:43.608
- who would be willing to share some packaging that they can part with? I'm happy to accept it. And that

01:28:43.608 --> 01:28:49.276
- takes us to our last two minutes. So I wanted to show the CEU slide up here, if anybody would like to

01:28:49.276 --> 01:28:50.110
- scan for CEUs.

01:28:50.306 --> 01:29:01.418
- And I'll also pause for any questions. Well, thank you all for your attention. I know it's been, you're

01:29:01.418 --> 01:29:12.422
- on day two of the summit, it's about to end. So thank you all too for your work and how you're working

01:29:12.422 --> 01:29:20.222
- to support your communities of reducing substance use. I know it can be,

01:29:20.514 --> 01:29:25.084
- Some heavy works. I hope that you all get to take care of yourselves and don't have to rush back to

01:29:25.084 --> 01:29:29.882
- work after this. I hope you can maybe take some time off, maybe go for a walk. It's a little hot though,

01:29:29.882 --> 01:29:31.390
- but thank you all for your time.