Science & Health
People Are Skipping Sleep Aids In Favor of Marijuana, Study Reports

The scientific community is still unclear on whether or not marijuana can actually help treat sleep disturbances such as insomnia. A new study, however, found that fewer people purchase over-the-counter (OTC) sleep medications when they have legal access to cannabis.
“Our results show that the market share growth for sleep aids shrank with the entry of recreational cannabis dispensaries by more than 200% relative to the mean market share growth in our sample, and the strength of the association increased with each subsequent dispensary,” the paper, published in the December edition of Complementary Therapies in Medicine, concludes. “In particular, cannabis appears to compete favorably with OTC sleep aids, especially those containing diphenhydramine and doxylamine, which constitute 87.4% of the market for OTC sleep aids.”
“Recreational cannabis dispensaries greatly increase the number of individuals able to legally treat sleep disorders using cannabis, particularly those with mild to moderate sleep disorders.”
Researchers at the University of New Mexico and California State Polytechnic University used retail scanner data collected by the Nielsen Company to help them understand how access to recreational marijuana affected the sales of OTC sleep medications purchased at local stores in Colorado.
In their analysis, they studied the market shares of overall sleep aidsâincluding supplements such as melatonin and pharmaceuticals such as diphenhydramineâat 587 stores. They also used monthly data from the Colorado Department of Revenue to compare the number of recreational dispensaries in each county as well as local cannabis retail sales figures.
“The negative association between cannabis access and sleep aid sales suggests a consumer preference for cannabis.”
It became legal for Colorado residents to purchase cannabis for adult use on January 1, 2014, and the study period covered December 2013 through December 2014.
According to the results, the market share for sleep aids was neither rising nor declining prior to a dispensary opening in the same county. After one did, however, the market share declined with each month of its existence. A regression model showed that sleep aid market share growth decreased by 236 percent after a dispensary entered the market, and this negative association increased as the number of dispensaries grew.
“The magnitude of the market share decline increases as more dispensaries enter a county and with higher county-level cannabis sales.”
“For the first time, we show a statistically significant negative association between recreational access to cannabis and OTC sleep aid sales, suggesting that at least some recreational purchasers are using cannabis for therapeutic rather than recreational purposes,” the study’s authors write.
“Additionally, despite a lack of direct clinical evidence on the effectiveness of self-managed cannabis as a sleep aid, our results indicate that enough individuals are switching from OTC sleep aids to recreational cannabis that we can identify a statistically significant reduction in the market share growth of OTC sleep aids in conjunction with access to recreational cannabis using a statistically conservative county-month-level treatment variable and a quasi-experimental research design,” the paper concluded.
“Our results are consistent with evidence that legal access to medical cannabis is associated with reductions in Scheduled II-V prescription medications (e.g., opioids and sedatives), many of which may be used in part as sleep aids,” the authors wrote.
“These findings support survey evidence that many individuals use cannabis to treat insomnia, although sleep disturbances are not a specific qualifying condition under any U.S. state-level medical cannabis law.”
Study author Sarah Stith, an applied microeconomist at the University of New Mexico, explained in a statement: âFrom a public health perspective, the possible widespread use of cannabis for less severe medical conditions both highlights its therapeutic potential and raises concerns regarding the risk-benefit tradeoffs of substituting a substance associated with abuse and dependence for relatively ineffective OTC medications with typically low levels of abuse potential.”
“From an economic or business perspective, regardless of underlying mechanism, our documentation of changing purchase behaviors has implications for multimillion-dollar US markets with OTC sleep aids likely just one example,” she said. âIt is important for the medical community to recognize that the lack of medical guidance does not necessarily lead to a lack of medical use. Dispensaries and online forums are stepping up to fill the information vacuum as individuals are forced to take treatment into their own hands, with statistically evident effects on treatment choices.”
A ‘Significant’ Number Of Patients Stopped Taking Benzodiazepines After Starting Medical Marijuana
Photo by Wesley Gibbs on UnsplashÂ
Politics
Feds To Send Marijuana And Hemp Samples To Labs As Part Of Large-Scale Testing Accuracy Study

A federal science agency is inviting labs to participate in a large-scale study to assess their ability to accurately analyze marijuana and hemp samples for their cannabinoid profile and possible contaminants.
The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) said in a notice on Thursday that it will provide samples of cannabis that it’s already analyzed to labs and then ask them to run their own tests. Once that’s complete, NIST will reveal the actual data and compare the numbers to identify any disparities.
The point of the study isn’t to expose labs that fail to provide accurate analyses; rather, it’s intended to help forensic analysts and the cannabis industry develop best practices. NIST, which is part of the U.S. Department of Commerce, said it’s especially important given that hemp was federally legalized under the 2018 Farm Bill, while its higher THC cannabis cousin marijuana remains federally illegal.
âIf youâre going to confiscate a farmerâs crop, or subject a person to prosecution, you want to be sure that measurement is accurate,â NIST research chemist Brent Wilson said in a press release.
Is it hemp or is it marijuana? Legally, there's a big difference. Now, NIST is helping labs increase the accuracy of the measurements they make to answer that question. Find out how: https://t.co/3tQZzzcleL pic.twitter.com/ntsmZuuGUb
— National Institute of Standards and Technology (@NIST) January 14, 2021
The agency has previously led research on analyzing hemp oil, but this one involving both hemp and marijuana will target flower, which is more challenging for labs. To get the samples for this new study, NIST ground down various cannabis buds and sorted themâ”like a baker sifting flour”âto separate the material by particle size.
Wilson then “blended the powders into batches and carefully measured how much of each compound and contaminant was present in each batch.”
“NIST will send samples from those batches to participating labs,” the agency said. “All labs will receive legal hemp samples. Labs that are licensed to handle controlled substances can also request marijuana samples.”
Labs interested in participating in the study have until February 5 to enroll. Samples will be distributed in April.
While determining THC content is a central concern, the research will also look at CBD and other cannabinoids so that cannabis companies are able to ensure that their products meet legal standards and are properly labeled for consumers.
After a lab has analyzed the samples, it will report back to NIST with the results as well as information about the testing method it used. The results will be published, but they will be anonymized. The public will “be able to see the amount of variation across labs but not how any specific lab performed.”
âOur goal is to provide a learning opportunity for labs, not to publicize their performance,â NIST research chemist Melissa Phillips said.
Following the study’s completion, the agency will investigate which testing methods produce the most accurate results to inform the industry. Then it will re-run the test, which is expected to show “less variability in the lab measurements, as labs overall improve their methods.”
A description of the study exercise states that participating labs “may also elect to report only selected analytes (e.g., only reporting total THC, but not all cannabinoids).”
“Participants will be asked to report triplicate results for each sample provided using measurement procedures and calculations normally performed in their laboratories,” it says. “In addition, participants will also be asked to identify the type of sample preparation and analytical methods employed in their testing to facilitate conclusions about potential method bias.”
There are currently 46 labs that are listed as participants in NIST’s cannabis research program. That includes multiple private labs as well as one police department and a division of the U.S. Department of Agriculture. There are also facilities from Canada and the Netherlands enrolled.
In December, the Department of Justice announced that it was awarding NIST a grant to help to develop a method of differentiating hemp and marijuana.
The previous year, the Drug Enforcement Administration similarly announced that it was seeking a device to âprovide specificity to distinguish between hemp and marijuanaâ since the former crop was legalized.
The complications resulting from hemp legalization is especially apparent in Texas, where marijuana possession arrests fell almost 30 percent from 2018 to 2019 following the state-level legalization of the non-intoxicating cannabis crop.
Prosecutors in the state have dismissed hundreds of low-level cannabis cases since hemp was legalized. And officials announced last year that labs wouldnât be performing testing in misdemeanor cases, with the Department of Public Safety saying it âwill not have the capacity to accept those.â
USDA Announces Grant To Collect ‘Superior Performing’ Hemp Seeds
Photo courtesy of National Institute of Standards and Technology.
Science & Health
Best Music Playlists For Psychedelic Therapy Are Explored In New Johns Hopkins Study

Psychedelic therapy sessions often incorporate musicâand typically that music is of the classical genre. But new research out of the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine suggests there may in fact be no special value in playing a Mozart concerto or Chopin Ă©tude for tripping patients.
Gongs could work just as well, if not better, the study found.
âWestern classical music has long been assumed to be the standard in psychedelic therapy,â researchers wrote in the study, published Tuesday in the American Chemical Society (ACS) journal Pharmacology and Translational Science. âThe present data challenge this notion that Western classical music, or for that matter any specific genre of music, is an intrinsically superior form of music to support psychedelic therapy, at least for all people at all times.â
Analyzing a 10-person trial involving the use of psilocybin therapy to help people quit smoking tobacco, the Johns Hopkins team compared sessions featuring classical music with those involving overtone-based music, featuring instruments such as gongs, Tibetan singing bowls or the didgeridoo, among others.
âAlthough we found no significant differences between the two musical genres studied here,â the team wrote, âseveral trends suggested that the overtone-based playlist resulted in somewhat better outcomes and was preferred by a larger portion of this small sample of participants.â
Spoiler alert – they did about the same but a hint that the overtone playlist (gong etc.) did a bit better than Western classical. Apparently classical music is not such a sacred cow for psychedelic therapy. With @juststrickland and Albert Garcia-Romeu.
— Matthew W. Johnson (@Drug_Researcher) December 30, 2020
In other words, while the results donât prove that overtone-based music yields better outcomes than classical, the findings nevertheless âcall into question whether Western classical music typically played in psychedelic sessions holds unique benefit.â
As one of the studyâs authors, Johns Hopkins researcher Matthew Johnson, put it in a recent tweet: âApparently classical music is not such a sacred cow for psychedelic therapy.â
The researchers said the study “provides the first contemporary and within-subject experimental manipulation of session set and setting factors in psychedelic research” and is the “first fully randomized test of different musical genres supporting psychedelic therapy.”
Participants each had three therapy sessions, one featuring classical music, another featuring overtone music and a third session for which they could choose between the two genres. Psilocybin doses were between 20 milligrams and 30 milligrams per 70 kilograms of body weight.
Among the data researchers analyzed were participantsâ evaluations of their own experiences, including âmystical experiencesââsuch as feelings of unity and transcendence of time and spaceâas well as âchallenging experiences,â such as feelings of panic or losing sanity.
âVisual inspection of individual and average data indicated higher overall scores for overtone-based sessions compared to Western classical sessions,â the authors wrote. âThis difference was of a medium effect size but was not statistically significant.â
As described in the paper there is about 25% overlap with the classic playlist we compared it to, link below. Most of that overlap was near onset and come down. A few tracks on the older classical playlist already fit the overtone-based genre.https://t.co/rKUsd6N005
— Matthew W. Johnson (@Drug_Researcher) December 31, 2020
Researchers also analyzed smoking abstinence outcomes based on the music genre participants selected for their third psychedelic therapy session, after sampling both genres. Participants who chose to listen to overtone music during the third session were more successful at quitting smokingâboth immediately after treatment (83.3 percent) and over a period of about 30 months afterward (66 percent). By comparison, half of participants who chose Western classical music quit smoking immediately, and all of those people were still not smoking after 30 months.
Experts have long stressed the role of set and setting in a psychedelic experience, noting how both a personâs psychological state as well as their environment can affect the behavioral and clinical effects of entheogenic drugs. âTraditional laboratory contexts that contain overtly âsterileâ stimuli (e.g. white walls and medical equipment,â the authors note as one example, âhave been suggested to increase the likelihood of negative reactions.â
While music is a standard feature of clinical psychedelic therapy, the new study says, the default by therapists to predominantly Western classical playlists is âlikely due to recommendations present in early guidelines,â which specifically mentioned classical music.
But it may not be music at all, but instead a collection of sounds, that complements the psychedelic experience.
âThe lack of superiority of the Western classical playlist is even more interesting considering that some of the overtone-based playlist tracts consisted of sounds without traditionally identifiable melody and/or rhythm and therefore might not be classified as songs or music by some,â the study says. âThis suggests that the sounds capable of supporting psychedelic therapy sessions may go beyond the bounds of traditionally defined musical genres.â
The researchers concluded that the study lends support to the idea that “developing a process for generating patient-specific musical selections rather than providing standardized music may improve therapeutic outcomes.”
“For example, future work could evaluate how patient-selected music impacts therapeutic effects or identify individual factors predictive of response to varying musical genres or musical features other than genre to individualize session selections,” the wrote. “More broadly, these findings emphasize the need for the parametric study of psychedelic session components to either provide improved standardized conditions, or to individualize conditions to improve the therapeutic effects of psychedelic therapy across diverse and varied populations.”
Johns Hopkins University, where the study analysis was done, is widely regarded as a leading institution on psychedelic research. In 2000, it became the first U.S. institution to gain federal approval to reinstitute research into psychedelic drugs using subjects who didn’t already have a history of using the drug, and last year it launched the country’s first-ever psychedelic research center.
Canada Will Let Health Care Professionals Legally Use Psychedelic Mushrooms, Health Minister Says
Photo courtesy of Wikimedia/Workman
Science & Health
Youth Marijuana Use Remains Stable Amid Surge Of State-Level Legalization, Feds Report

Youth marijuana use continues to be stable, even as more states move to legalize the plant, according to the latest edition of an annual survey funded by the federal government.
The Monitoring the Future (MTF) report, released on Tuesday, found that cannabis consumption among adolescents “did not significantly change in any of the three grades for lifetime use, past 12-month use, past 30-day use, and daily use from 2019-2020.” That’s based on self-reports from 8th, 10th and 12th grade students.
What’s more, daily marijuana vaping actually decreased by more than half during that time period for 10th and 12th graders. It’s down to 1.1 percent and 1.5 percent, respectively.
NEWS: Rates of past-year #nicotine and #marijuana vaping among high schoolers remained steady from 2019 to early 2020, although they are still high. See the latest #MonitoringTheFuture survey results on teen drug use:https://t.co/giFEFnZaeB#MTF2020 pic.twitter.com/9epVIQbnzu
— nidanews (@NIDAnews) December 15, 2020
For all three grades, lifetime cannabis use, past 30-day consumption and daily use either remained the same or slightly decreased from 2019 to 2020, the survey shows. The only exception is daily use among 12th grade students, which ticked up by half a percentage point.
Perceptions of the harmfulness of marijuana also generally remained stable.
These results run counter to the narrative that prohibitionists have consistently put forward, arguing that the state-level legalization movement will lead to significant increases in youth cannabis use because it would normalize the behavior.
Advocates have countered that establishing regulated marijuana programs would restrict access to underage people, while at the same time mitigating the influence of the illicit markets where policies like ID checks are not required.
The 2018 MTF survey, which is conducted by the University of Michigan and funded by the National Institute on Drug Abuse, also revealed that fewer adolescents are using marijuana now compared to 2012, when the first states moved to legalize cannabis.
These results are consistent with other federal data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). The agency’s biennial Youth Risk Behavior Survey found that marijuana consumption among high school students declined during the peak years of state-legal recreational cannabis legalization.
There was âno changeâ in the rate of current cannabis use among high school students from 2009-2019, the survey found. When analyzed using a quadratic change model, however, lifetime marijuana consumption decreased during that period.
The prohibitionist argument that cannabis legalization would embolden young people to use cannabis has been repeatedly debunked in research. And the claim becomes all the more shaky each year as more states legalize legislatively or through the ballot.
Colorado and Washington were the first two states to legalize marijuana, in 2012. Since then, additional states have come on board with every election cycle. Most recently, Arizona, Mississippi Montana, New Jersey and South Dakota voters elected to enact the reform via the ballot last month.
Another study released by Colorado officials in August showed that youth cannabis consumption in the state âhas not significantly changed since legalizationâ in 2012, though methods of consumption are diversifying.
An official with the White House Office of National Drug Control Policyâs National Marijuana Initiative went even further in July, admitting that, for reasons that are unclear, youth consumption of cannabis âis going downâ in Colorado and other legalized states and that itâs âa good thingâ even if âwe donât understand why.â
Past studies looking at teen use rates after legalization have found declines in consumption or a similar lack of evidence indicating thereâs been an increase.
Last year, for example, a study took data from Washington State and determined that declining youth marijuana consumption could be explained by replacing the illicit market with regulations or the âloss of novelty appeal among youths.â Another study from last year showed declining youth cannabis consumption in legalized states but didnât suggest possible explanations.
Photo courtesy of Martin Alonso.