In Canada, pediatric ED visits due to cannabis exposure significantly increased after recreational cannabis was legalized, according to recent data. The website for the government of Canada states that the country legalized sales of fresh cannabis, dried cannabis, cannabis oil, cannabis seeds and cannabis plants in 2018. One year later, the sale of edible cannabis products, cannabis extracts and cannabis topicals was also legalized.

Surely it’s not beyond the ability of Health Canada to come up with a users’ guide that could be handed out at cannabis stores.

Since the use of cannabis was legalized in 2018, the number of drivers injured while testing positive for the drug has more than doubled.

Specifically, the proportion of injured drivers who had blood concentrations above the legal limit stood at 3.8 per cent in 2018. By 2020 that number had risen to 8.6 per cent. The greatest increase was in drivers over 50 years of age.

While more recent figures aren’t available, such a dramatic surge in just two years suggests an ongoing trend.

A new study has found that cannabis use in both recreational and chronic users can lead to persistent and severe acute cognitive impairments that may continue well beyond the period of intoxication.

The systematic review of 10 papers and more than 43,00 participants, led by Canadian researchers and published Wednesday in the scientific journal Addiction, found that cannabis intoxication can produce small to moderate cognitive impairments in areas such as decision making, suppressing inappropriate responses, and the overall time needed to complete a mental task.

The review also found that the ability to remember what one reads or hears, as well as learning through reading and listening, were also impacted.

One of the arguments used all across the world against the legalisation of cannabis, that its use leads to increased cases of schizophrenia and psychosis, was dealt a blow this week. Evidence from a Canadian study shows that hospital admission for cases of cannabis-induced schizophrenia and psychosis have not risen since the Canadian government legalised adult cannabis use in 2018.  

In the study, published in the Canadian Journal of Psychiatry, researchers state that they aimed to directly address the often reported fear “that legislation might increase the burden of transient and persistent psychotic illnesses in society.”

A study last week from two Oregon universities has generated a lot of buzz, after findings suggested that some cannabis compounds may be able to block the SARS-CoV-2 virus from entering human cells. It adds to a growing body of research on cannabis and the coronavirus, as studies from around the world — including from Canada — have found that the cannabis compound CBD may be effective in helping treat some of the virus’s most deadly symptoms.  

Solving the puzzle of whether cannabis is associated with, or causes, psychosis.

A recent issue of the American Journal of Psychiatry (January 1, 2022) contained new research data and an incisive editorial that advances our understanding of whether cannabis can cause, or is merely associated with, psychosis.

The association of cannabis with psychosis was first noted by the Scottish psychiatrist Thomas Clouston after visiting the Cairo asylum in 1896, where 40 out of the 253 patients had insanity attributed to hashish. Studies since then have conclusively documented cannabis’s association with schizophrenia-like psychosis.

The UK has approved Australia’s medicinal cannabis company Bod Australia’s clinical trial into the efficacy of its products to treat the effects of long-COVID-19.  According to Business News Australia report, Bod announced that it received Clinical Trial Austgorisation by UK’s UK’s Medicines & Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency which would allow the company to commence a clinical trial into the effectiveness of its ‘MediCabilis’ 5% CBD product on long-COVID-19. 

At the onset of the pandemic, millions of people found themselves stuck at home, working, taking care of children and older family members, or simply abiding by restrictions and lockdowns due to the then-newness of COVID-19.

Could cannabis really help prevent a positive coronavirus outcome? A new study published by researchers at Oregon State University found that hemp compounds have the ability to prevent the virus from entering human cells, according to a report from New4JAX sister station WDIV in Detroit.

The researchers were investigating small-molecule therapeutic agents, which in addition to vaccines, might help treat or prevent infections by SARS-CoV-2 and its variants, which cause COVID-19.

The study said that cannabinoid acids from hemp (Cannabis sativa) bind to the COVID spike protein, blocking a critical step in the process the virus uses to infect people and preventing the entry of live SARS-CoV-2 into cells.

A new study has found that Ontario saw nine times more emergency department visits per month for cannabis poisonings in young children after Canada legalized recreational cannabis.

The study, published Friday in JAMA Network Open, found that there were "more frequent and severe" emergency department (ED) visits in the province due to cannabis poisoning in children under the age of 10 following legalization, with the largest increase seen after commercial cannabis edibles hit the market.

While individual hospitals have reported on child cannabis poisonings before, researchers say this is the first study to look at the data for an entire region.