User:Jmlebla3/Cannabis in Louisiana

FINAL EDITS MOVED TO LIVE ARTICLE
= Franchising a Marijuana Business: It’s Not Quite Mission Impossible by Shannon L. McCarthy and Dawn Newton = This article talks about how different states have varying legality laws regarding marijuana, whether it be recreational or medical. Certain states only allow the use of medical marijuana under certain circumstances, like if the patient was to have a debilitating disease that came with chronic pain (McCarthy and Newton, 2016, Pg. 364). This used to be how doctors prescribed medical marijuana to patients in Louisiana before law HB-819 was enacted, enabling any well-respected doctor to prescribe medical marijuana as they saw fit. This greatly increased medical marijuana usage and made marijuana much more attainable for the ones who needed it, while also allowing doctors to prescribe it to patients who they thought needed it but did not qualify for it.

Some states allow the sales of cannabis products as long as the level of THC is below a certain threshold, but Louisiana deems it necessary to have any products that contain THC be at the lowest possible levels.

Some states allow the growth of the marijuana plant at home, but Louisiana is not one of them. Marijuana plants grown for recreational/medicinal purposes are not allowed in Louisiana.

This is to ensure that the THC will do its job without putting the individual under the influence. This article is aimed at people who are trying to start a cannabis business of some sort and is aiming to inform them about what THC products are legal and which ones aren’t. McCarthy is a renowned doctor who has been studying medicine for over 20 years, while Newton is a lawyer who specializes in franchising.

Uniform Controlled Dangerous Substances Law by the Louisiana State Legislature

This page is a detailed report of a certain law in Louisiana’s legislature that gives insight on how Louisiana law defines certain words or phrases. This page is written by Louisiana lawmakers and is legally binding. This article being written by Louisiana lawmakers makes this source extremely reliable and up-to-date. The point of this page is to have a digital copy of the law for individuals to look at if they want to know what is illegal and what is not illegal. For example, according to the Louisiana legislature (2021), cannabis is described as any part of the cannabis plant that can be used to either grow more of the cannabis plant or any part that can be used as a drug. However, the legislature states that the stems of the plant are not illegal to have as long as the stems are being used for fiber production; the seeds are also allowed to be owned under government law as long as they are not fertile and not capable of growing a new plant. This allows people to have these seeds to make hemp oil and other extracts that are derived from the seeds of the cannabis plant. Hemp is also not considered by Louisiana law to be illegal to own. The legislature goes on to talk about how if the FDA were to ever release something approved by them that happened to have THC in it, it would be legal in Louisiana and not considered marijuana from a legal standpoint. This article also builds into the article written by McCarthy and Newton, as this states what derivatives of the marijuana plant are legal to use/sell.

Investigating Discriminative Bail Sentencing Multivariate Analysis on Louisiana Drug Interdiction by J. Lee and J. M. Ruiz

In 1996, a study was performed that studied the bail amounts of white and non-white inmates who were arrested for possession of marijuana. The study took into account race, gender, amount of product on the persons when arrested, and what state the individual lived in. After conducting the study, Lee and Ruiz found that people of color had a much higher bail amount than white individuals who were arrested for the same crime (Lee and Ruiz, 1996). The study found that gender and amount of product seized did not have nearly as great an effect on the set bail amounts than the race of the accused. This report also states that the state in which the accused lives was not a good predictor of the amount of bail that was posted. This study gives insight on how race plays a heavy factor in how bail is chosen for white people versus people of color. People of color are more likely to be arrested by cops in the first place, and are now also much more likely to be stripped of their civil liberties while awaiting a fair trial. Ruiz has also done numerous studies on racial bias when arrests were being made and had seen the same results on every study done. This article was published in order to speak about the discrepancy of bail amounts between certain parties, and to inform people of color that if they are to be caught with marijuana, they will inexplicably get a higher bail than their white counterparts.

Expanding legal treatment options for medical marijuana in the State of Louisiana by Theresa Kane and Christopher Flood

This article talks about medical marijuana and how it was very limited at one time. HB819 is a Louisiana law that allows any valid doctor to prescribe medical marijuana without having to be approved by the LSBME (Kane and Flood, 2021). This is a groundbreaking moment in the medical marijuana industry, as now doctors are able to freely prescribe patients marijuana as they see fit. This fits in well with McCarthy and Newton’s article that was referenced earlier. This law cuts out a lot of extra steps and paperwork for doctors as they no longer need to be certified by a certain company, and this grants medical marijuana consumers a much easier time getting the marijuana. Laced products that were relied upon before will no longer be used as much since now patients will have the ability to purchase what they need whenever they need it. Opening this diagnosis up to envelop a myriad of other diseases is a step in the right direction as people suffering from problems/diseases that were not allowed to be prescribed medical marijuana will now have an answer to their pain. Patients may also develop a better relationship with their primary care providers because of this law as well. However, this article also talks about how you may still be arrested if you are operating a motor vehicle under the influence of marijuana. This is important to mention when talking about prescribing medical marijuana, as some patients may abuse this medicine and drive while intoxicated which can lead to troubles with the law.

Comparison of Male and Female Patients in Louisiana Medical Marijuana Dispensaries by H. Raymond Allen, Doug Boudreaux, and Jeffrey Keller

This article talks about the discrepancies between male and female medical marijuana dispensary visitors. Allen, Boudreaux, and Keller state that a pharmacist has to be sanctioned by the state in order to dispense medical marijuana. Thanks to these pharmacists, a study was conducted of around 1200 people who frequented medical marijuana dispensaries around Louisiana; over 85% of them were of white descent, while only 11% were of black descent (Allen, Boudreaux, Keller, 2020). The patients who were interviewed had an average age of 51 with around 65% of them having a history of smoking non-medically prescribed marijuana. These patients were also asked how they ingested the THC/CBD before they were prescribed medical marijuana, with the most common being smoking (no specific form) and the least common being topical cream. The main finding in this article, however, is that men are around three times more likely to be taking prescription opioids while taking medical marijuana than women (Allen, Boudreaux, Keller, 2020). Their findings have also stated that women are much more likely to have suffered some form of psychosis in the past before their medical marijuana prescription. To be exact, these women were about twenty times more likely to have been diagnosed or dealt with some sort of psychosis than the men studied. This study also took into consideration other medications that the patients were taking, such as blood-thinners and anti-seizure medications. There is not much data on the demographics of medical marijuana dispensary patients, and finding out how they are similar is just as important as finding out how vastly different they can possibly be.

Functional Impairment in Response to the COVID-19 Pandemic among Cannabis Users by Cristina Abarno, Nina Glover, Paige Morris, Michael Zvolensky, and Julia Buckner

This article talks about how recreational marijuana usage is prevalent in college students during the COVID-19 pandemic. During the pandemic, many people have reported increased feelings of depression and isolation due to necessary precautions in stopping the spread of COVID-19. With this isolation, many people have picked up smoking cannabis in order to pass the time and try to escape from the world they are currently living in. This study follows 727 individuals located in Louisiana; Louisiana was chosen to be the location of this study since it was one of the states with the highest COVID-19 cases and deaths (Abarno, Glover, Morris, Zvolensky, Buckner, 2021). This article was written to inform college students who are currently using marijuana recreationally to be careful, as they could make their mental state worse. The hypothesis of this study is that if people are recreationally smoking marijuana during the pandemic, they will start to attain psychosocial tendencies and lose the ability to function as normal. 184 of these individuals admitted to already used marijuana recreationally before the pandemic. After conducting this study, the researchers found that these college students were starting to behave differently and started having trouble processing and understanding their own emotions. With the already hard-to-cope with pandemic weighing down on them, these students that used marijuana have, according to the study, made their emotional state worse than it was before. To clarify, the marijuana was not said to cause these emotions on their own. With the negative and fragile mental state that most of the population was already in, the marijuana only exacerbated the feelings of despair and loneliness that they had undoubtedly felt before they started doing marijuana.