San Francisco's Marijuana Dispensaries Still Don't Cause Crimes, Study Shows

Whenever a new medical marijuana dispensary applies for a San Francisco permit, a troop of naysayers is ready with a predictable script: dispensaries cause crime, harm children, and destroy neighborhoods. However, the city's Planning Commission tired of this long ago -- because it's simply not based on fact. "We have not had direct testimony of law enforcement that they believe there is an increase in crime in areas because there is medical marijuana dispensaries," Commissioner Michael Antonini said March 1 in response to such claims. Local zoning decisions are not made based on this misnomer, but federal-level law enforcement moves are. Dispensary-related crime, and instances of this crime near children, are exactly why local United States Attorney Melinda Haag shut some 10 state-legal Bay Area cannabis dispensaries since Oct. 7, 2011. Haag presented no data along with her claims, and a recent study conducted by UCLA researchers won't help her either. Based on crime trends in Sacramento in 2009, the study found "no observed ... associations between the density of medical marijuana dispensaries and either violent or property crime rates," and further found that dispensary security measures like door guards and security camera may be crime deterrents. Crime predictions are often based on "routine activity theory," the study says. According to this theory, crime will occur when several condition are met: "The presence of a motivated offender; a suitable target defined by its value, visibility, access, and/or likelihood of low resistance to crime; and the absence of guardians against crime." Researchers Nancy Kepple and Bridget Freisthler looked at other crime-causing variables including employment, young men, and vacant housing. They crunched the numbers and found no discernible link. "[D]ispensaries may be associated with crime but no more than any other facility in a commercially zoned area with conditions that facilitate crime," they wrote. That is not causal, and they did not factor "guardianship" -- i.e. security cameras, doormen -- in their study. If they did, one could extrapolate that dispensaries in fact reduce crime. "If medical marijuana dispensaries have strong guardianship, such as security and monitoring systems, routine activity theory would suggest that the three necessary conditions for crime are not met," the researchers wrote. The researchers stop far short of proclaiming any kind of direct relationship, but note that "these findings run contrary to public perceptions," notably a report from the California Police Chiefs Association, which says doom, gloom, and thugs with guns inevitably follow the opening of a pot club. So why does this canard persist? Why do politicians say, "liquor store yes -- pot club, no"? An Oakland dispensary owner we talked to about the study recently suggested another problem-causing zoning use: schools -- specifically middle or high schools. "These kids are a menace," he said, referring to the teenagers who sometimes engage in vandalism on their way to or from a downtown charter school. "Ask anyone one this block who'd they rather be near." Hmm. We hear much about how the crackdown is intended to "save the children" -- but who then is saving us from the children? We put in a request to SFPD to discuss the current study, but haven't yet heard back. We will update when we do. In the meantime, we're left with the 2009 white paper from the California Police Chiefs Association, which stated unequivocally that dispensaries are nothing but trouble. Confirmation bias is a hell of a drug.

Marijuana Recipes: 'High Times Cannabis Cookbook' Author Gives Edible Weed Advice

When most people think of stoner food, they typically think of fatty, greasy items like nachos or chili cheese fries. When most people think of food to get you high, the first thought is usually pot brownies. But there is a whole realm of marijuana cuisine that goes beyond the obvious. Enter "The Official High Times Cannabis Cookbook" by Elise McDonough and the editors of High Times magazine. This cookbook might have some familiar favorites, but it also offers interesting riffs on more advanced cannabis cuisine like farmers' market risotto and potato gnocchi with wild mushroom ragu. McDonough, a 10-year veteran of High Times magazine, stresses that you can't just throw some marijuana in food and call it a day. Like all forms of cooking, technique is key. Her version of stoner cuisine isn't about what to eat once you're high -- it's about how to create tasty meals that can give you a nice buzz. In the book's introduction, McDonough explains: Mention the word "marijuana" or better yet pull out your stash, and the first thought that springs to most stoner's minds is rolling a joint, packing a pipe, toking a bowl, hitting a bong, or putting a flame to some other smoking accessory. But it wasn't always that way. Ancient people throughout the world have use marijuana as a cooking ingredient -- pot brownies only became popular in the 1950s. The passage of California's Proposition 215 in 1996, effectively legalizing medical marijuana, helped in "opening the door for more and more people to realize the benefits of eating their stash instead of smoking it," McDonough writes. HuffPost Food spoke with McDonough to learn more about the book and the finer points of cannabis cookery. Check out the interview below, and scroll down for some recipes from the book -- including Bar-B-Cannabis Sauce and Cheeto Fried Chicken. Are you seeing an uptick in the consumption of edible marijuana? It's definitely a growing part of the industry. It's very similar to what's going with organic food and farmers' markets. The cost of cannabis is falling in California because so many people are growing it. People are trying to find other way to use it and make a profit. What are the reasons a patient or recreational user might prefer to cook and eat the substance over more traditional forms of ingestion? When you eat the cannabis as opposed to smoking or vaporizing, it lasts longer. if you deal with chronic pain, you are going to get release for four to five hours instead of one to two hours. It is more discreet, and it saves your lungs. Chronic longterm smoking can lead to bronchitis. The staple of French cuisine are the mother sauces (hollandaise, bechamel, etc.) Is there an equivalent in cannabis cuisine? The basic infusion that you are going to have to master is the butter or the oil. The main way you get cannabis into your food is simmering it in a chosen fat. That involves a chemical reaction of a THC molecule binding to the lipid. What's the easiest technique for extracting THC from marijuana -- butter, oil, tinctures or something else? The easiest standard way is with butter because it is easy and potent. If you are a vegan or you don't want that much saturated fat, olive oil and coconut oil works well. Can you talk about the process of what happens when you apply heat to cannabis? Does cannabis lose any of its potency when you cook it at a high temperature for a prolonged time? (baking, etc.) Once it is in the butter, you can bake it at a normal temperature. If you cook at a very high temperature, the THC will begin to degrade and it will lose its potency. For butter, keep it on a low simmer -- you definitely wouldn't bring it to boil. One of the best ways to make a good cannabutter is to do it in your Crock Pot. It is important for people to know that raw cannabis, the fresh plant out of the ground, is not psychoactive at all. There is a process called decarboxylation after you dry the plant that makes it psychoactive. What is the key to a good cannabis dish? Don't overdo it. Especially when people are making stuff and they know you are from High Times. I want to be able to eat a satisfying portion of something without it sending me to the moon. Theres also such a wide variety of ingredients to start -- dried buds, trimmed leaves, sifted kief, unpressed hash (the most expensive, but tastiest). If you're looking for flavor, you're going to want to used dried cannabis instead of fresh. Sometimes you can get kind of a unpleasant grassy taste from fresh marijuana. The flavors of marijuana clearly work better with some foods than others -- what are some characteristics of the flavor profile of marijuana and how do you use that to determine good pairings and recipes? There's a group of chemicals found in all plants called terpenes and flavonoids. Different marijuana strains also have these chemicals. Some strains are citrusy and others can taste like pine. With the advent of laboratory testing, people are doing analysis which allows people to experiment. For example, in the book, for the Tom Yum Ganja, chef Ashley Boudreaux found a hay strain that paired very favorably with the ingredients. Are there any foods that don't work with marijuana? I haven't come across things that are unsuccessful, only when there is too much [cannabis] in there. if you do a good infusion, you are going to get a hint of it. It pairs really well with chocolate and peanut butter though. What are your favorite recipes in the book? It depends on my mood. I love the cover recipe -- pumpkin pie is one of my favorite things. I like the Ganja Granny's Smoked Mac 'N' Cheese. I also like the lighter stuff like the Rasta Pasta and Reggae Rice and Bean Soup. Do you have any advice for a budding cannabis chef? Low and slow. That goes for both eating and cooking. When you are eating, you want to start with a low dose and go slow. Wait an hour to see how it effects you. Same with cooking. Simmer low and slow. Check out some recipes from the High Times Cannabis Cookbook below. All slideshow text excerpted from the High Times Cannabis Cookbook.

Medical Marijuana helps Anorexia

The standard definition of anorexia nervosa, known by most people simply as "anorexia," is that it's a psychiatric illness that causes an eating disorder marked by poor perception of body image, low body weight, excessive exercise, purging of food (forced vomiting), voluntary starvation, or the use of diuretics and diet pills. It's common knowledge that around 90% of all anorexics are female. Since anorexia also includes what, in clinical language, is referred to as "an acute loss of appetite, often associated with psychological factors," it would seem logical that cannabis, or at least cannabinoid drugs would be an effective therapy. Pot is known for giving you the munchies, after all. Unfortunately, since anorexia is, at heart, a psychological disorder that manifests itself physically, the use of cannabis may not help. Cannabinoids have been shown to have only minimal success at appetite suppression in patients with classic anorexia, despite the fact that the primary ingredient, delta-9 THC, has a well-established history with the successful treatment of cachexia, the appetite loss associated with HIV/AIDS. There are synthetic THC pills, marketed under the name Marinol, which may be used as appetite stimulants in qualified patients, but doctors could lose their licenses by prescribing these drugs as "off-label" treatments for patients with true anorexia nervosa and not suffering from the severe weight loss typically associated with AIDS or cancer chemotherapy. Similarly, the use of either medical marijuana or synthetic THC may be contraindicated in Alzheimer's disease patients. According to a 2002 study by Grotenhermen, Russo. Cannabis and Cannabinoids, Pharmacology, Toxicology, and Therapeutic Potential (New York: The Hawthorn Integrative Healing Press), "A positive influence on body weight was also reported in 15 patients with Alzheimer’s disease who were previously refusing food. Surprisingly, THC also decreased the observed severity of disturbed behavior. In patients diagnosed with primary anorexia nervosa there was no measurable cannabinoid effect, presumably because the underlying pathological mechanism is not loss of appetite." Translation: while the use of cannabis or cannabis-derived drugs improved the appetites of Alzheimer's disease patients, it also made their actual Alzheimer's disease worse, while there was no measureable positive effect in anorexia patients.

Recent Research on Medical Marijuana

Emerging Clinical Applications For Cannabis & Cannabinoids Humans have cultivated and consumed the flowering tops of the female cannabis plant, colloquially known as marijuana, since virtually the beginning of recorded history. Cannabis-based textiles dating to 7,000 B.C.E have been recovered in northern China, and the plant's use as a medicinal and mood altering agent date back nearly as far. In 2008, archeologists in Central Asia discovered over two-pounds of cannabis in the 2,700-year-old grave of an ancient shaman. After scientists conducted extensive testing on the material's potency, they affirmed, "[T]he most probable conclusion ... is that [ancient] culture[s] cultivated cannabis for pharmaceutical, psychoactive, and divinatory purposes." Modern cultures continue to indulge in the consumption of cannabis for these same purposes, despite a present-day, virtual worldwide ban on the plant's cultivation and use. In the United States, federal prohibitions outlawing cannabis' recreational, industrial, and therapeutic use were first imposed by Congress under the Marihuana Tax Act of 1937 and then later reaffirmed by federal lawmakers' decision to classify marijuana -- as well as all of the plant's organic compounds (known as cannabinoids) -- as a Schedule I substance under the Controlled Substances Act of 1970. This classification, which asserts by statute that cannabis is equally as dangerous to the public as is heroin, defines cannabis and its dozens of distinct cannabinoids as possessing 'a high potential for abuse, ... no currently accepted medical use, ... [and] a lack of accepted safety for the use of the drug ... under medical supervision.' (By contrast, cocaine and methamphetamine -- which remain illicit for recreational use but may be consumed under a doctor's supervision -- are classified as Schedule II drugs; examples of Schedule III and IV substances include anabolic steroids and Valium respectively, while codeine-containing analgesics are defined by a law as Schedule V drugs, the federal government's most lenient classification.) In July 2011, the Obama Administration rebuffed an administrative inquiry seeking to reassess cannabis' Schedule I status, and federal lawmakers continue to cite the drug's dubious categorization as the primary rationale for the government's ongoing criminalization of the plant and those who use it. Nevertheless, there exists little if any scientific basis to justify the federal government's present prohibitive stance and there is ample scientific and empirical evidence to rebut it. Despite the US government's nearly century-long prohibition of the plant, cannabis is nonetheless one of the most investigated therapeutically active substances in history. To date, there are over 20,000 published studies or reviews in the scientific literature pertaining to the cannabis plant and its cannabinoids, nearly one-third of which were published within the last three years. This total includes over 2,700 separate papers published in 2009, 1,950 papers published in 2010, and another 2,100 published to date in 2011 (according to a key word search on the search engine PubMed Central, the US government repository for peer-reviewed scientific research). While much of the renewed interest in cannabinoid therapeutics is a result of the discovery of the endocannabinoid regulatory system (which we describe in detail later in this booklet), some of this increased attention is also due to the growing body of testimonials from medical cannabis patients and their physicians. The scientific conclusions of the overwhelmingly majority of modern research directly conflicts with the federal government's stance that cannabis is a highly dangerous substance worthy of absolute criminalization. For example, in February 2010 investigators at the University of California Center for Medicinal Cannabis Research publicly announced the findings of a series of randomized, placebo-controlled clinical trials on the medical utility of inhaled cannabis. The studies, which utilized the so-called 'gold standard' FDA clinical trial design, concluded that marijuana ought to be a "first line treatment" for patients with neuropathy and other serious illnesses. Among the studies conducted by the Center, four assessed smoked marijuana's ability to alleviate neuropathic pain, a notoriously difficult to treat type of nerve pain associated with cancer, diabetes, HIV/AIDS, spinal cord injury and many other debilitating conditions. Each of the trials found that cannabis consistently reduced patients' pain levels to a degree that was as good or better than currently available medications. Another study conducted by the Center's investigators assessed the use of marijuana as a treatment for patients suffering from multiple sclerosis. That study determined that "smoked cannabis was superior to placebo in reducing spasticity and pain in patients with MS, and provided some benefit beyond currently prescribed treatments." Around the globe, similarly controlled trials are also taking place. A 2010 review by researchers in Germany reports that since 2005 there have been 37 controlled studies assessing the safety and efficacy of marijuana and its naturally occurring compounds in a total of 2,563 subjects. By contrast, many FDA-approved drugs go through far fewer trials involving far fewer subjects. As clinical research into the therapeutic value of cannabinoids has proliferated so too has investigators' understanding of cannabis' remarkable capability to combat disease. Whereas researchers in the 1970s, 80s, and 90s primarily assessed cannabis' ability to temporarily alleviate various disease symptoms -- such as the nausea associated with cancer chemotherapy -- scientists today are exploring the potential role of cannabinoids to modify disease. Of particular interest, scientists are investigating cannabinoids' capacity to moderate autoimmune disorders such as multiple sclerosis, rheumatoid arthritis, and inflammatory bowel disease, as well as their role in the treatment of neurological disorders such as Alzheimer's disease and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (a.k.a. Lou Gehrig's disease.) In fact, in 2009, the American Medical Association (AMA) resolved for the first time in the organization's history "that marijuana's status as a federal Schedule I controlled substance be reviewed with the goal of facilitating the conduct of clinical research and development of cannabinoid-based medicines." Investigators are also studying the anti-cancer activities of cannabis, as a growing body of preclinical and clinical data concludes that cannabinoids can reduce the spread of specific cancer cells via apoptosis (programmed cell death) and by the inhibition of angiogenesis (the formation of new blood vessels). Arguably, these latter findings represent far broader and more significant applications for cannabinoid therapeutics than researchers could have imagined some thirty or even twenty years ago. THE SAFETY PROFILE OF MEDICAL CANNABIS Cannabinoids have a remarkable safety record, particularly when compared to other therapeutically active substances. Most significantly, the consumption of marijuana -- regardless of quantity or potency -- cannot induce a fatal overdose. According to a 1995 review prepared for the World Health Organization, "There are no recorded cases of overdose fatalities attributed to cannabis, and the estimated lethal dose for humans extrapolated from animal studies is so high that it cannot be achieved by ... users." In 2008, investigators at McGill University Health Centre and McGill University in Montreal and the University of British Columbia in Vancouver reviewed 23 clinical investigations of medical cannabinoid drugs (typically oral THC or liquid cannabis extracts) and eight observational studies conducted between 1966 and 2007. Investigators "did not find a higher incidence rate of serious adverse events associated with medical cannabinoid use" compared to non-using controls over these four decades. That said, cannabis should not necessarily be viewed as a 'harmless' substance. Its active constituents may produce a variety of physiological and euphoric effects. As a result, there may be some populations that are susceptible to increased risks from the use of cannabis, such as adolescents, pregnant or nursing mothers, and patients who have a family history of mental illness. Patients with hepatitis C, decreased lung function (such as chronic obstructive pulmonary disease), or who have a history of heart disease or stroke may also be at a greater risk of experiencing adverse side effects from marijuana. As with any medication, patients should consult thoroughly with their physician before deciding whether the medical use of cannabis is safe and appropriate.