Binge Drinking, Alone or With Cannabis, During Adolescence Triggers Different Effects on Immediate Visual Memory in Men and Women

Background: This study examines the interaction between a history of binge drinking (BD), alone or with cannabis consumption, and the effects of acute alcohol exposure on immediate visual memory (IVM) (faces memory task, scenes memory task and IVM-IQ) in adolescents of both sexes.Method: Two hundred and ninety adolescents, grouped into refrainers, binge drinkers and subjects with a history of simultaneous BD/Cannabis co-use, received a risk dose of alcohol or a control drink.Results: Consumption Pattern (refrainers vs. binge drinkers vs. BD/Cannabis consumers) was not significant, while Treatment (acute alcohol vs. control drink) was significant in both sexes. Also, male binge drinkers' performance in the faces memory task was poorer than that of refrainers and BD/Cannabis consumers who consumed the control drink. BD/Cannabis consumers performed this task as capably as refrainers. In women, binge drinkers performed better than refrainers in scene memory and IVM-IQ tests when given alcohol, and binge drinkers performed worse than refrainers after consuming the control drink.Conclusions: Acute alcohol consumption worsens IVM. Cannabis exerts a buffering effect in men. A cognitive tolerance effect is observed in women. Exposure during adolescence to alcohol, alone or with cannabis, can trigger different cognitive effects in men and women that could endure into adulthood.

Cognitive Deficiency in Cannabis Consumers

While being the most abused psychoactive substance (PS), cannabis is also the least researched PS (especially) in Indonesia. Since 24% of total PS abusers within the last year is students, we could only form an a priori on what cannabis consumption might lead to for the cognitive functions of the students. A study to explore what would happen to cognitive functions due to cannabis consumption is important. This article aims (1) to explore the effects induced by cannabis to human cognitive functions and (2) to explore which part of the brain correlated with cognitive functions affected by cannabis consumption. We conduct a literature review to answer the questions. This article shows that there is no clear conclusion whether cannabis induced positive or negative effects to human cognitive functions. It is due to various sampling technique used by the studies cited within this article. Several rationalizations stated to support our finding.

Tourism of Polish cannabis consumers

The aim of this study is to characterize the tourism activity of Polish cannabis consumers in terms of (i) the level of their participation in tourism, (ii) parameters describing this participation, (iii) the effect of legal access to cannabis on choosing tourism destinations. The study is based on an anonymous online survey in which 886 voluntary respondents answered a series of questions about their tourist travels, their attitude to cannabis consumption, and their demographic, socio-economic and geographic metrics. Results of the survey were analyzed using several statistical indicators of variability, structure, correlation, and structure similarity. For the respondents declaring cannabis consumption, the level of their participation in tourism is close to the national level. Other parameters describing the domestic and foreign tourism of these respondents differ quite significantly from those reported for the general public of Poland. This indicates that the possibility of cannabis consumption significantly affects the nature and directions of travels undertaken by tourists interested in cannabis. Furthermore, there is a strong connection between the respondents’ personal preferences and the nature of their tourism, especially the destinations of their foreign trips. The conclusions from this study mostly apply to current and recent cannabis consumers because the vast majority of respondents (90%) rank among such kinds of cannabis users.

Δ9-Tetrahydrocannabinol inhibits Hedgehog-dependent patterning during development

ABSTRACT Many developmental disorders are thought to arise from an interaction between genetic and environmental risk factors. The Hedgehog (HH) signaling pathway regulates myriad developmental processes, and pathway inhibition is associated with birth defects, including holoprosencephaly (HPE). Cannabinoids are HH pathway inhibitors, but little is known of their effects on HH-dependent processes in mammalian embryos, and their mechanism of action is unclear. We report that the psychoactive cannabinoid Δ9-tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) induces two hallmark HH loss-of-function phenotypes (HPE and ventral neural tube patterning defects) in Cdon mutant mice, which have a subthreshold deficit in HH signaling. THC therefore acts as a ‘conditional teratogen’, dependent on a complementary but insufficient genetic insult. In vitro findings indicate that THC is a direct inhibitor of the essential HH signal transducer smoothened. The canonical THC receptor, cannabinoid receptor-type 1, is not required for THC to inhibit HH signaling. Cannabis consumption during pregnancy may contribute to a combination of risk factors underlying specific developmental disorders. These findings therefore have significant public health relevance.

401 - Cannabis and Older Adults

The National Cannabis Survey results indicates that cannabis consumption among older adults has been accelerating at a much faster pace than other age groups in Canada. Internationally, an increasing number of countries and U.S. states have also legalized medical and non-medical cannabis.More than 1500 physicians, nurse practitioners, other healthcare providers, healthcare students, older adults and caregivers of older adults responded to a needs assessment survey on Cannabis and Older Adults distributed by the Canadian Coalition for Seniors’ Mental Health (CCSMH) in the fall of 2020.Responses showed that 89% of physicians and nurse practitioners and 76% of other healthcare providers are aware of older patients in their practice using cannabis. Despite this fact, only 39% of physicians and nurse practitioners and 26% of other healthcare providers feel strongly or very strongly that they have sufficient knowledge and expertise to address older patients’ and theircaregivers’ questions about cannabis.Older adults who responded to the survey indicated that their most common reasons for using cannabis were pain, sleep and anxiety. Fifty-one percent responded that they had talked to their doctor or healthcare provider about cannabis but 41% of those older adults stated that their doctor or healthcare provider were unable to answer their questions. Older adults reported they access information on cannabis from the internet (45%), physicians (40%), friends and family (34%), cannabis stores and clinics (28%), the media (24%), and other healthcare providers (16%). Fifty-four percent of older adult respondents who use cannabis do so with a prescription or medical authorization from their physician/nurse practitioner for medical/therapeutic reasons. One quarter of respondents indicated they use cannabis for non-medical reasons (for recreational use).Although there is a reported gap in knowledge regarding cannabis and older adults, physicians, nurse practitioners, other healthcare providers and healthcare students all reported they are eager to learn more about how to talk with patients, how to authorize and prescribe cannabis appropriately, how to mitigate risks and assess for cannabis use disorder in older adults. CCSMH will be launching a physician- accredited e-learning course on Cannabis and Older Adults in January 2022.

Metabolic Consequences of Gestational Cannabinoid Exposure

Up to 20% of pregnant women ages 18–24 consume cannabis during pregnancy. Moreover, clinical studies indicate that cannabis consumption during pregnancy leads to fetal growth restriction (FGR), which is associated with an increased risk of obesity, type II diabetes (T2D), and cardiovascular disease in the offspring. This is of great concern considering that the concentration of Δ9- tetrahydrocannabinol (Δ9-THC), a major psychoactive component of cannabis, has doubled over the last decade and can readily cross the placenta and enter fetal circulation, with the potential to negatively impact fetal development via the endocannabinoid (eCB) system. Cannabis exposure in utero could also lead to FGR via placental insufficiency. In this review, we aim to examine current pre-clinical and clinical findings on the direct effects of exposure to cannabis and its constituents on fetal development as well as indirect effects, namely placental insufficiency, on postnatal metabolic diseases.

Measuring self-reported change in alcohol and cannabis consumption during the second wave of the COVID-19 pandemic in Canada

This study presents nationally representative estimates of self-reported changes in alcohol and cannabis consumption since the onset of COVID-19 in Canada. We used data from the Survey on COVID-19 and Mental Health (collected from September to December 2020) to calculate the prevalence of self-reported change in alcohol and cannabis consumption. We found that 15.7% of respondents self-reported an increase in alcohol consumption and 5.4% in cannabis consumption since the start of the pandemic. Sociodemographic disparities were also observed, indicating that increased alcohol and cannabis consumption may be more prevalent among certain populations.

Applying a gendered lens to understanding self-reported changes in alcohol and cannabis consumption during the second wave of the COVID-19 pandemic in Canada, September to December 2020

Introduction Increased alcohol and cannabis consumption and related harms have been reported since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic. Existing evidence shows that substance use and related harms differ by gender. Yet, no Canadian study has applied a gendered lens to alcohol and cannabis consumption use during this time. Our objectives were to (1) provide gender-specific prevalence estimates of self-reported increased alcohol and cannabis use; and (2) examine gender-specific associations between sociodemographic and mental health variables and alcohol and cannabis use. Methods Using data from the Survey on COVID-19 and Mental Health, we calculated nationally representative, gender-specific prevalence estimates and disaggregated them by sociodemographic and mental health variables. Four logistic regression models were used to assess the likelihood of self-reported increased alcohol and cannabis use. Results The prevalence of self-reported increase in alcohol use (16.2% women; 15.2% men) and cannabis use (4.9% women; 5.8% men) did not differ by gender. For both genders, income, racialized group membership, working in the past week, being a parent/legal guardian of a child aged under 18 and screening positive for depression and anxiety were associated with increased alcohol use. Men and women who were between the ages of 18 to 44, screened positive for depression, or both, were more likely to report increased cannabis use. For women, education was significantly associated with increased alcohol use. For men, being a parent/legal guardian was significantly associated with lower odds of increased cannabis use. Conclusion Sociodemographic factors, as well as depression and anxiety, were similarly associated with increased alcohol and cannabis use for both men and women in the second wave of the pandemic.