Cannabis use has changed in recent years, as many states have legalized it. An influential group of scientists recommends policy changes to protect public health.
JUANA SUMMERS, HOST:
More than half of all U.S. states have legalized cannabis either for medical or recreational use. Meanwhile, the federal government still considers most types of cannabis illegal. A new report from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine finds that the gap between states and the federal government has led to fragmented policies and risks to public health. NPR’s Pien Huang is here in the studio. Hi, there.
PIEN HUANG, BYLINE: Hey, Juana.
SUMMERS: So there is this gap between states and the federal government on cannabis, but help me understand how this is playing out, just in, like, practical terms.
HUANG: Yeah. So like you mentioned, since the federal government considers cannabis to be mostly illegal, the standards are all over the place. The growing conditions, the quality of the product, the potency of it – this all varies between different products and different states. And for instance, edibles tend to have more restrictions than other forms of cannabis.
And while smoking is still the most popular way that people use cannabis, there’s been a boom in cannabis-related products – edibles, concentrates, vape oils, gummies. There’s also been a trend towards higher-dose products and kind of like an open season on marketing. So that’s been making things even more complicated. And states have been focused mostly on building commercial markets, regulating sales and revenue. So there hasn’t been much attention on public health.
SUMMERS: OK. So what are the public health impacts here?
HUANG: So the use of cannabis has increased a lot in the U.S. Adults say they use it more regularly than alcohol, and medically, it’s used for pain relief, socially, for relaxation. But Steven Teutsch with the University of Southern California says that people are often unaware of the risks.
STEVEN TEUTSCH: It was not to say that one should never use this product or anything like that, but that it is important to recognize that there are potential harms of using them, and some of these can be severe.
HUANG: Now, Teutsch chaired the committee at the National Academies that wrote this report – the reports on cannabis and public health. And for individuals, cannabis can impair learning and memory, which is especially a problem for developing brains. And for heavy cannabis users, especially, it increases the risk of anxiety disorders and some serious mental health issues.
On a societal level, with more people using it, they’re hearing more about the benefits and the risks, and all of this rises to a level of growing concern for public health. Teutsch says that this should be met with federal leadership and more uniform policy.
SUMMERS: So what types of changes is the committee suggesting?
HUANG: Well, they do make some fairly detailed recommendations. On a federal level, they want to close a loophole which was created in the 2018 Farm Bill…
SUMMERS: OK.
HUANG: …And that excludes hemp from regulation. Hemp is a cannabis plant with low natural levels of psychoactive chemicals. But this has actually led to a whole bunch of hemp-derived products that are not regulated, like CBD, for instance. The committee also wants the government to loosen restrictions for research to collect better data. And they also call for setting nationwide standards on cannabis quality and dosage, and for training the people who sell cannabis so they can tell people about the risks, kind of like they’re pharmacists.
SUMMERS: Interesting. That is NPR health correspondent Pien Huang. Thank you.
HUANG: Thank you.
(SOUNDBITE OF LORD HURON’S “DEADBEATS JAM TAPE WINTER ’94”)
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