BY RUTH HILL R.N.
In January 2023, an emergency was declared for Merced, Sacramento, and Santa Cruz counties due to storms in the Golden State which killed 19 people and caused floods, power outages, mudslides, road closures, and evacuations. A shooting at home in Goshen, California, left six people, including a 17-year-old mother and a 6-month-old baby, dead.
Beginning January 1, 2023, cannabis retailers required the collection of 15 percent cannabis excise tax from purchasers of cannabis or cannabis products based on gross receipts from the retail sale of cannabis or cannabis products. Phew, what a mouthful.
Throughout 2023 a consolidation of big cannabis corporations gobbled up the mom-and-pop stores that could not survive during COVID restrictions. Cannabis employees spent a year moving around from one employer to another as the owners changed hands. How did anyone survive the trials and tribulations of 2023 without cannabis?
The good news for 2023 is the cannabis market increased from the projection of $33.88 billion in January to $5 billion in sales by the end of 2023. There were 12,572 dispensaries in the U.S. as of September 2023. Oklahoma has the most dispensaries at 2,683. Texas has the least at 3. Oregon has the most dispensaries per capita of any state, followed by Oklahoma, Montana, then Colorado. California—because of its tough regulatory process and local control—ranks 10th out of 36 states.
Unless the unforgiving tax structure, and suffocating bureaucracy at the local and state level, are immediately tackled by the state’s leaders, the California market will remain at risk of further regression. Even years after these cities have passed retail cannabis ordinances the dispensaries are prevented from opening.
The Cannabis Corner revealed remarkable cannabis research throughout the year. A German researcher Bernard Fronmueller observed in 1860, that of all anesthetics ever proposed, Indian hemp is the one that produces a narcotism most closely resembling natural sleep without causing any extraordinary side effects and does not kill. People with mood disorders who use cannabis have the highest rates of sleep benefits at 93%.
Research by Pamela Maher’s team, at the Salk Institute in La Jolla CA, looked at cannabinol (CBN), the darling of the phytocannabinoids. Her research showed growing evidence that CBN can reduce oxytosis the leading cause of dementia. Researchers at Germany’s Rostock University found evidence of the potential of cannabinoids to treat diseases of the skin. These include allergic contact dermatitis, scars and keloids, epidermolysis bullosa, pyoderma gangrenosum, acute inflammation, androgenetic alopecia, eczema, and atopic dermatitis.
The most relevant research came for cancer victims. Immune checkpoint inhibitors (ICI) are routinely administered as first-line treatments for multiple cancers. either alone or in combination with chemotherapy. There’s been some concern that for cancer patients adding cannabis is a red flag. Since Cannabidiol (CBD) regulates the immune system, the recommendation was to avoid using high doses (over 50mg/day). Now we know these previous studies included patients with various cancer treatment regimens who were given ICI shortly before death. Under these circumstances, the use of cannabis is often a mere surrogate for high-burden symptomatic disease.
Cannabis Corner, in 2023, showed GW Pharmaceuticals was awarded a patent in 2018 by the US Patent and Trademark Office for the use of cannabigerolic acid (CBGA) and cannabidiolic acid (CBDA), to kill cancer. These combinations have shown themselves to be synergistic in treating one or more: breast cancer; liver cancer; lung cancer; pancreatic cancer; melanoma; ovarian cancer; gastric cancer; renal cancer or bladder cancer.
Finally, today we have Dr. Thomas Seyfried, on YouTube, discussing cancer as a metabolic disease as opposed to a genetic disease. He clearly in understandable terms walks the listener through the fallacies of treating brain cancers with radiation and chemotherapy. Dr. Seyfried reveals stunning non-toxic cancer therapies that give us hope for treatments to come. I think I will stick with cannabis which is also non-toxic.
Learn Cannabis Education, Dosing Without the High by requesting a consultation from cannaangel16@gmail.com on the 1st Saturday of the Month from 11 AM to 1 PM at the Vault Dispensary Lounge, now called MainStage.
