Extroverting

Category: Wellness

  • Cannabis: Brain Alterations May Spur Feelings of Alienation

    Cannabis: Brain Alterations May Spur Feelings of Alienation

    New research has revealed altered brain activity in young adults with cannabis addiction.

    The findings suggest a mechanism that may explain why the risk of depression and other mental health issues is higher among those who use the drug, according to Medical News Today.

    The study was carried out by Dr. Peter Manza, Dr. Dardo Tomasi, and Dr. Nora Volkow, of the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism in Bethesda, MD.

    The findings have been published in the journal Biological Psychiatry: Cognitive Neuroscience and Neuroimaging.

    Read the full story. 

  • High Cost of Medical Marijuana Causes Pain in Vermont

    High Cost of Medical Marijuana Causes Pain in Vermont

    Recent scientific reviews have found substantial evidence that marijuana can be useful in easing at least some types of chronic pain. Yet even for the majority of Americans who live in states that have legalized medical marijuana, choosing opioids can be much cheaper.

    "I can get a bottle of opioids for a dollar on my state insurance," says MaryJane Sarvis, a textile artist in Shaftsbury, Vt. Instead, Sarvis says, she spends around $200 each month on medical marijuana, according to NPR.

    Sarvis has permanent nerve pain from a childhood spine surgery. At 12, a doctor fused 10 of her vertebrae together in what she says was then a state-of-the-art effort to treat scoliosis. Thirty years later, the disks started breaking down. Her doctors told her she'd be on opioids for the rest of her life.

    Read the full story.

  • Mandy Moore: Rubbing Cannabis Oil on Feet Helps With Wearing High Heels

    Mandy Moore: Rubbing Cannabis Oil on Feet Helps With Wearing High Heels

    Wearing regular heels is one thing, but the sky-high stilettos the stars strut in down the red carpet is another kettle of fish.  

    No one knows that better than Mandy Moore, having been in the public eye since she was just a budding pop star teen. But lucky for her, she found a solution to the age-old problem of high heel-inflicted foot pain, according to the Daily Mail.

    The 33-year-old explained that her secret to escaping sore feet is none other than cannabis oil.

    Mandy explained her hack to the publication while getting ready to hit the red carpet for the Golden Globes, saying that she went looking for help after a particularly painful night.

    'I always try to choose really comfortable shoes, because as I’ve gotten older I just can’t hack being in heels for an extended period of time,' she said.

    Read the full story.

  • Medical Refugee Family Calls for Legal Medical Cannabis in Kansas

    Medical Refugee Family Calls for Legal Medical Cannabis in Kansas

    The first time Gavin had a seizure, he had just turned 3. It was a grand mal seizure, the kind where people convulse uncontrollably due to irregular activity in the brain.

    Melissa Ragsdale, Gavin’s mother, had never seen a seizure before. Little did she know, she would witness her son have thousands of seizures over the next five years, according to the Garden City Telegram.

    Gavin is 8 now. He lives in Colorado Springs, Colo., with his mother, and he is a medical refugee. He and his mother, who previously lived in Fairway in Johnson County, were able to settle in Colorado thanks to the generosity of another medical refugee family and many others woven together through a tight-knit network of patient advocacy groups calling for nationwide legalization of medical cannabis at the state and federal levels.

    Read the full story.

  • Legalized Cannabis Gets Academic Makeover as Students Flock to Study It

    Legalized Cannabis Gets Academic Makeover as Students Flock to Study It

    University Library (doctor-a)

    The relentless march of legalised pot across the US has spawned a raft of cannabis-linked courses at colleges across the country. Cannabis is already big business, with Wall Street piling into an industry that experts say could be worth $21 billion by 2021, and now it's being given an academic makeover.

    Northern Michigan University is the first to offer a dedicated four-year science of cannabis course.

    Already there are 50 students in the course, and another 500 looking to enroll. The course encompasses the properties of the drug and how it reacts to pesticides, among other things, according to The Telegraph.

    Michigan Medical marijuana license applications available online a week earlier than scheduled 

    "What we have done is take pieces from various curricula which are out there and packaged them into a four-year undergraduate programme," said Brandon Canfield, associate professor of chemistry.

    Read the full story. 

  • Mom Begs Doctors to Give Severely Epileptic Daughter Cannabis Oil

    A desperate mother in Preston, England, has begged doctors to give her 2-year-old daughter cannabis.

    Jenna Heary hopes that the drug could help cure little Olivia's epileptic seizures, according to The Sun. 

    She hopes to get her daughter onto a trial in the hope that it might make her "just that little bit more comfortable", she added that if the drug reduced her seizures it "would be a real bonus."

    The tot currently suffers with over 100 seizures everyday, is on six different medications and follows a Ketogenic diet to try and control them – but it's not helping.

    Read the full story.

  • As Vets Demand Cannabis for PTSD, Science Races to Unlock Its Secrets

    Thousands of military veterans have pressured federal and state legislators to legalize medicinal cannabis and ease rules on research into the plant’s apparent therapeutic properties, arguing that it could help reduce suicide rates among former soldiers.

    Backed by overwhelming public support for broader legalization, their demands are starting to resonate in statehouses across the country, according to Scientific American.

    This past November, New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo chose Veterans Day to make PTSD a qualifying condition for the state’s tightly controlled medical marijuana program. New York joined seven other states this year—and 27 overall—that include PTSD in their lists of conditions that qualify for medical cannabis.

    Read the full story.

  • The Top CBD Cannabis Studies of 2017

    The past year was important for proponents of medical cannabis.

    Those seeking to remove cannabis’ Schedule I status are now armed with even more evidence for its medicinal and wellness benefits from a combination of human and rodent studies, according to Leafly.

    From benefits in epilepsy, autism, and beyond, here are some of 2017’s biggest medical cannabis news stories.

    This installment covers insights relating to CBD, but tune in to the second part of this series for more discoveries uncovered in 2017.

    Read the full story.

  • Vaping Cannabis More Popular Than Smoking Cigarettes Among U.S. Teens

    Vaping Cannabis More Popular Than Smoking Cigarettes Among U.S. Teens

    US teenagers are using marijuana and vaporizers more than they smoke cigarettes, a government study shows, according to the BBC.

    Some 15% of high school students said they had used marijuana within the previous 30 days, found the report for the National Institute on Drug Abuse.

    And 12.1% of students said they had used a vaping device. But only 5% had smoked cigarettes.

    One in 10 high school seniors said he or she had vaped marijuana at least once in the past year.

    “It’s much higher than I expected,” said Richard Miech, the University of Michigan researcher who led the study, of the cannabis vaping figure.

    Read the full story.

  • Tennessee Lawmakers Push to Legalize Cannabis Oil for Medicinal Purposes

    A medical marijuana task force was formed earlier this year to study the topic of medical marijuana and then make a recommendation to be presented to the general assembly, according to WBIR.

    The co-chair of the task force, state Rep. Jeremy Faison, R-Cosby, is confident their bill will pass once it hits the table, but critics are urging a "no" vote again on the issue.

    "What you need to understand, in Tennessee, the cannabis plant is coming and it's coming to every state in America," Faison said Friday. "We don't want to wait until every state around us has something and then we are trying to build an airplane while we are flying."

    Faison said 30 states have already legalized medical marijuana including, most recently, Arkansas, which borders part of Tennessee.

    Read the full story.