Rescheduling marijuana enables defamation defenses

9 Responses to Rescheduling marijuana enables defamation defenses

1. Servetus says:

   August 22, 2026 at 1:39 am

   Social media platforms publishing pro-cannabis marketing that reaches adolescents is criticized by a study conducted and funded by the NIDA:

   19-Aug-2026 – Brands that market hemp-derived, intoxicating cannabinoid products are capitalizing on lack of oversight on social media platforms to reach consumers, according to Rutgers Health researchers.

   Since the passage of the 2018 U.S. Farm Bill, use of these products — Delta-8 THC, HHC and THC-P delivered as edibles, beverages, vapes, concentrates and extracts — has been on the rise throughout the United States. Brand marketing on social media, which is largely underregulated, may contribute to this growth.

   The study, published in the journal Addiction, evaluated the marketing features used by leading brands on social media to inform consumer protection and youth prevention strategies, as well as public health policy responses. […]

   The researchers analyzed 837 Instagram posts published by accounts representing nine leading brands between February 2024 and February 2025. They evaluated the posts for key marketing themes, including product descriptions, recreational appeals, imagery oriented for youth 18 and younger, health claims and safety warnings.

   They found the brands placed an emphasis on lifestyle and recreational marketing, with minimal attention given to consumer safety warnings. Product description and imagery were featured in 75% of posts and 52% showed recreational images that depicted hemp-derived, intoxicating cannabinoid products as part of daily routines and social or leisure experiences. Youth-oriented imagery, such as memes, cartoons and pop culture references, were present in nearly 50% of the posts.

   The marketing approach varied by product type. Cannabis beverages were the most heavily promoted product category, with 97% featuring product imagery, 84% emphasizing recreational themes, 57% using youth-oriented appeals and 40% focusing on brand positioning. Youth-focused themes also were prominent in posts marketing vapes and cartridges (54%) and edibles (49%). Recreational themes were common in posts for edibles (61%) and pre-rolls or blunts (53%). […]

   “Although this study focused on Instagram, similar indirect marketing practices warrant closer examination on platforms such as YouTube, Facebook and TikTok,” said Chen-Sankey, a co-author of the study.

   Approximately half of the posts included youth-oriented elements, such as cartoon imagery, memes, and influencers, is notable given the reported increase in hemp-derived, intoxicating cannabinoid product use in youth, the researchers said.

   “Although many states prohibit youth-appealing marketing strategies, these restrictions do not explicitly extend to hemp-derived, intoxicating cannabinoid products or to social media platforms, where regulatory oversight and enforcement remain limited,” said co-author Kathryn La Capria, a research associate at Rutgers Institute for Nicotine and Tobacco Studies. “Age restrictions limiting who could view brand social media content and notices that products were for adults aged 21 or older were rarely observed, leaving much of the content accessible to underage users, potentially increasing youth exposure to content that normalizes use among young people.” […]

   AAAS Public Science News Release: Leading hemp-derived cannabinoid brands lean on lifestyle and youth appeals on social media — Rutgers researchers find frequent recreational and youth-oriented themes, but limited safety information, in Instagram marketing

   Addiction: Marketing features of derived intoxicating cannabinoid product brands on Instagram: A content analysis

   Authors: Kathryn La Capria, Siyan Meng, Alisa A. Padon, Kayla K. Tillett, Scott I. Donaldson, Jon-Patrick Allem, Matthew E. Rossheim, Cassidy LoParco, Carla J. Berg, Kristina M. Jackson, Julia Chen-Sankey.

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2. Servetus says:

   August 25, 2026 at 9:20 pm

   Gallup Poll, U.S. marijuana smoking at record high, cigarettes at low:

   Gallup: Record High

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3. Servetus says:

   September 2, 2026 at 11:27 am

   Addiction disorder studies aided by a new atlas of the brain’s striatum developed at MIT:

   1-Sep-2026 — A region of the brain called the striatum is critical for many cognitive and motor functions, including decision-making, control of movement, habit formation, and processing of reward. It also plays a role in addiction and is significantly affected by Huntington’s disease, schizophrenia, and other disorders.

   In work that could help scientists devise new treatments for those diseases, MIT researchers have generated a new atlas of the neurons found within the striatum. Using single-cell RNA sequencing and other techniques, they were able to identify 31 subgroups of neurons based on which genes they express.

   These groups include neurons that are involved in addiction, depression, and schizophrenia. The researchers also discovered why some neurons of the striatum are more vulnerable to Huntington’s disease. All of these results, the researchers say, could help scientists develop new drugs to combat these conditions.

   “We see this as the foundation that will allow more studies in our Huntington’s disease and opioid use disorder projects. We needed a roadmap of what is there,” says Myriam Heiman, the Picower Professor of Neuroscience and director of MIT’s Picower Institute for Learning and Memory. […]

   The striatum, located deep within the brain, receives diverse inputs from the cortex, midbrain, hippocampus, and other regions, which it uses to coordinate planning, movement, and decision-making, as well as processing reward. In this study, the researchers focused on the most populous cell type in the striatum, a type of inhibitory neuron called the medium spiny neuron, which responds to dopamine.

   Most of these medium spiny neurons belong to either the direct pathway, which helps to promote movement, or the indirect pathway, which suppresses unwanted movements. These pathways are distinguishable by what type of dopamine receptor they express — dopamine receptor 1 (D1) or dopamine receptor 2 (D2).

   Beyond these two divisions, scientists knew that there were many subpopulations performing different roles, especially in the anatomically ventral (lower) regions of the striatum. However, it has been difficult to generate a consensus on how to classify these cells, in part because prior studies focused on specific subregions, meaning that overarching principles of striatal cellular organization were lacking.

   To overcome that challenge, the researchers worked closely with brain banks in the United States and Canada to collect postmortem striatal samples representing diverse anatomical regions. […]

   Using these techniques, the researchers were able to identify 31 different subpopulations of neurons, including nine types of medium spiny neurons. Among their medium spiny neuron types are two “outlier” populations that appear to play important roles in schizophrenia, substance use disorder, and depression.

   One of those populations, known as D1 outliers, showed high expression of genes involved in addiction and substance use disorder, especially genes related to opioid response. Another population, called D2 outliers, showed high expression of genes that respond to antidepressants. And, both populations appeared to respond strongly to clozapine, an antipsychotic drug used to treat schizophrenia. […]

   The researchers found that dorsal populations of medium spiny neurons express higher levels of the genes MSH2 and MSH3, which play a role in increasing the number of CAG repeats found in the huntingtin gene. As more of those repeats accumulate, the mutated version of the huntingtin protein becomes more harmful to cells.

   The researchers also found that a rare population of medium spiny neurons that forms island-like structures in the ventral striatum was more resistant to the accumulation of CAG repeats. Further study of this class of cells might help researchers learn how to induce other medium spiny neurons to become more resistant to the disease, Heiman says.

   “Looking at the genes that these neurons express or don’t express might give us some clues as to how to make other medium spiny neurons resilient like them,” she says. […]

   The researchers also compared their findings from human tissue samples to samples from mice and found several differences, especially in the expression of genes related to drug response and substance use disorders. One such gene, which encodes the mu opioid receptor (OPRM1), is highly expressed in the human D1 outlier population, but not in the corresponding population of neurons in mice.

   This means that standard mouse models may not fully capture the biology of opioid responses, and that engineering mice to express this receptor in a similar manner to humans could make those models significantly more accurate.

   “Some of the diversity we’re seeing in the human ventral striatum is species-specific and has implications for modeling substance use disorder in rodents,” Heiman says. “Now that we understand better the species differences, we can use the rodent models for specific questions that apply for conserved genes, but we could also think about humanizing some models.”

   The researchers hope that this map, built from tissue contributions by brain donors and their families, and assembled across disciplines and institutions, will provide an important starting point for researchers pursuing new treatments for some of the most difficult-to-treat brain disorders. […]

   AAAS Public Science News Release: Atlas of the brain’s striatum could guide researchers to new drug treatments — a new study reveals insights into populations of neurons affected by Huntington’s disease, schizophrenia, addiction, and other disorders

   Cell: Cross-species single-cell atlas of the striatum defines cell-type and subregion disease vulnerabilities

   Authors: Raleigh M. Linville, Benjamin T. James, Kyriaki, Li-Lun H, Jung Hoon Shin, Esaria Oliver, Stuart B. Fass, James C. Cameron, Brent E. Fitzwalter1, Roland Bock, Erin M. Murray Mathilde Louçã, Oluwamayowa Okel, Charlotte Wang, Erica Engelberg-Cook, Michael DeTure, Vanessa Farrell, Sergio Sebastian Pineda, Suphinya Sathitloetsakun, Xinyue Liang, Bertha Madras, Dennis W. Dickson, Deborah C. Mash, Gustavo Turecki, Vanessa C. Wheeler, Veronica A. Alvarez, Dana Gabuzda, Manolis Kellis, Myriam Heiman.

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4. Servetus says:

   September 3, 2026 at 9:41 pm

   Psilocybin offsets chemotherapy-induced peripheral neuropathy (CIPN):

   3-Sep-2026 — A psychedelic compound best known for its effects on the brain may help prevent one of chemotherapy’s most debilitating side effects – chemotherapy-induced peripheral neuropathy (CIPN), researchers report. In mouse models, as few as two doses of psilocybin given before treatment durably prevented CIPN through multiple cycles of chemotherapy, while preserving both nerve function and the therapies’ tumor-killing effects. No previous studies have examined the prophylactic potential of psilocybin for CIPN, the authors say. CIPN is a common and often debilitating consequence of platinum-based cancer treatments. Affecting more than 60% of patients, CIPN causes persistent pain, burning sensation, and numbness. This condition often limits or interrupts potential lifesaving cancer treatment and can greatly reduce the quality of life of survivors. […]

   CIPN is linked to failures in mitochondrial function and the progressive degeneration of the farthest-reaching portions of sensory nerve fibers. Previous research has suggested that psilocybin promotes neural plasticity through the 5HT2A receptor. Because 5HT2A receptors may also influence mitochondrial production and sensory pain pathways, Heles et al. hypothesized that psilocybin could potentially produce lasting remodeling and protection within the nervous system. In tumor-bearing animals undergoing repeated, clinically relevant cycles of platinum- and taxane-based chemotherapy, the authors showed that psilocybin administration before chemotherapy durably prevented CIPN through as many as six chemotherapy cycles without reducing chemotherapy’s antitumor effects. […]

   “The challenge now is to translate these mechanistic insights into carefully designed clinical trials…” she says. Maiarú also notes that the effect of the findings extends beyond chemother­apy-induced neuropathy in terms of potential for disease-modifying approaches to chronic pain.

   AAAS Public Science News Release: Psilocybin prevents chemotherapy-induced peripheral neuropathy in mice

   Science: Psilocybin prevents chemotherapy-induced peripheral neuropathy through mitochondrial trafficking preservation

   Authors: Mario Heles, Lilach Pasvolsky, Hinduja Sathishkumar, Shorook Naara, Yen Vu, Caitlyn L. Stewart, Tongxin Xie, Frederico O. Gleber-Netto, Pengyu Zhu, Megan L. Uhelski, Jordan Chatwin, Andrew Lara, Danielle L. Stolley, Michael R. Migden, Z-Hye Lee, Shiyanth Thevasagayampillai, Preethi H. Gunaratne, Kaoutar Ait-Ahmad, M. J. Kuykendall, Sebnem Ece Eksi, Patrick M. Dougherty.

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5. Servetus says:

   September 4, 2026 at 5:17 pm

   Cannabis marketers may promote marijuana in connection with intimacy:

   1-Sep-2026 – PULLMAN, Wash. – Alcohol advertisers have long faced industry guidelines discouraging them from linking drinking with sexual success. Cannabis marketers have no comparable industrywide guidelines and may promote cannabis in connection with sex and intimacy. A new Washington State University study suggests such messages may influence young adults’ intentions to use cannabis before sex, with potential implications for sexual decision making and consent.

   …the study found that college students who interpreted advertisements as suggesting cannabis use resulted in better sex – whether the ads featured sexual themes or not – were more likely to expect those benefits and to say they might use cannabis before sex. […]

   “We know from alcohol advertising that sexualized appeals can make a difference in how people understand the information presented,” said Jessica Fitts Willoughby, a professor in WSU’s Edward R. Murrow College of Communication and the study’s lead author. “Cannabis is a little different because there really aren’t rules saying you can’t tie it to sex.” […]

   Simply seeing a sexual or romantic ad did not consistently predict viewers’ answers. What mattered more was how they interpreted it. Those who believed an ad was promising better sex were more likely to expect cannabis to improve their own sexual experiences or reduce nervousness. They were also more likely to say they might use cannabis before sex.

   “It wasn’t as simple as seeing a message and automatically being influenced by it,” Willoughby said. “The stronger connection appeared when someone interpreted the ad as saying cannabis makes sex better and then they thought it might do the same for them.”

   The study also found differences between men and women. Men who wanted to be like the men shown in sexual or romantic ads – who were typically physically fit, attractive and masculine – were more likely to say they intended to use cannabis before sex. Women who thought the ads raised concerns about sexual consent were less likely to say they would use it before sex. […]

   AAAS Public Science News Release: Cannabis ads may shape viewers’ expectations about cannabis and sex

   SAGE Journals – Communications Research: Sex, Romance, or Recreation? An Experiment Testing the Effects of Cannabis Brand-generated Social Media Ads on College Students’ Expectancies and Intentions to Use Cannabis Prior to Sex

   Authors: Jessica Fitts Willoughby, Stacey J. T. Hust, Leticia Couto, Jiayu Li, Soojung Kang.

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6. Servetus says:

   September 4, 2026 at 5:25 pm

   NIDA research to determine if psilocybin can be used to treat cocaine addictions:

   4-Sep-2026 — Albert Arias, MD, chief of addiction psychiatry at Carilion Clinic, has received an award from the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) to research how psilocybin, a psychedelic compound being studied for several psychiatric and substance use disorders, can offer a new approach for people with cocaine use disorder.

   The initial $623,000 award is part of a phased project to evaluate whether psilocybin can help reduce cocaine use when administered in a carefully controlled clinical research setting combined with structured psychotherapy. Subsequent funding to support the larger clinical phase of the research could bring the total award to $3.5 million. […]

   The first phase of research will examine safety, tolerability, feasibility, dosing, and early signals of efficacy. If successful, the project will move into a larger clinical trial designed to test efficacy and better understand why some patients may respond better than others.

   The NIDA award expands Carilion’s growing research in addiction psychiatry and reflects the health system’s commitment to investigating new approaches for patients affected by substance use disorders.

   “Research is especially important when patients and clinicians have limited treatment options,” Arias said. “Our goal is not to assume that psilocybin works, but to ask the question carefully, scientifically and safely. If we find evidence of benefit, it could provide the foundation for larger studies and, eventually, new treatment options. […]

   AAAS Public Science News Release: Carilion Clinic researcher receives NIH award to study use of psychedelics to treat cocaine addiction – initial award could grow to $3.5 million to support larger clinical research phase

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7. Servetus says:

   September 7, 2026 at 7:19 pm

   LSD is stripped down to the base features responsible for its hallucinogenic and therapeutic effects:

   7-Sep-2026 – In a study published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the researchers whittled away at LSD’s core multi-ring structure and synthesized new, simplified versions of it to probe its functionality. The researchers successfully developed several compounds with reduced hallucinogenic and cardiotoxic effects while also identifying one compound that produced antipsychotic-like effects.

   “By systematically deconstructing LSD, we have identified simplified cores that are better starting points for medicinal chemistry efforts,” said study corresponding author David E. Olson, director of the Institute for Psychedelics and Neurotherapeutics and a professor of chemistry, and biochemistry and molecular medicine at UC Davis.

   LSD is among the many psychedelic drugs that researchers are investigating due to its ability to spur growth of neurons and strengthen connections between them. A host of neuropsychiatric and neurodegenerative diseases are characterized by these connections withering.

   “We’ve known the structure of LSD for a long time, but the complexity of its core has really limited our ability to engineer optimized drugs based on its structure,” said Olson. “If you can only modify a couple of spots, you’re limited in what you can do.” […]

   The research focused on LSD’s ergoline core, which is a structure of four fused ring-like shapes that act as its base molecular scaffold. This structure interacts with a suite of serotonin receptors in the brain, including serotonin receptors 5-HT2A, 5-HT2B and 5-HT2C, to produce LSD’s various positive and negative effects.

   “We found that when you start deleting portions of LSD’s molecular structure, you can retain some properties and eliminate others,” Olson said. “By systematically deleting these rings, we can figure out what rings are important for what effects.”

   Olson described LSD’s molecular framework as a mixture of the two major families of psychedelic compounds, the tryptamine family and the phenethylamine family. Molecularly, LSD possesses physical characteristics of both. […]

   When the researchers removed the tryptamine-like parts, the molecule retained its ability to stimulate the 5-HT2A receptor, producing hallucinogenic effects. But when the researchers removed other parts of the molecule, the hallucinogenic effects were reduced, as were the cardiotoxic effects. The cardiotoxic effects are mediated by the 5-HT2B receptor.

   In total, the research team synthesized nine modified versions of LSD’s ergoline core, two of which showcased these improved safety profiles, with reduced hallucinogenic and cardiotoxic effects.

   The team named these compounds UCD0094 and UCD0076. […]

   When tested in mouse behavioral assays, UCD0076 produced antipsychotic properties.

   “It’s interesting that you could take LSD’s structure, chop off a part of it and you’re left with a molecule that is fundamentally antipsychotic,” said Olson, noting that compounds that activate 5-HT2C receptors are being explored as treatment options for epilepsy and substance use disorders in addition to schizophrenia. “This is a great starting point for those conditions.” […]

   AAAS Public Science News Release: Deconstructing LSD for therapeutic discoveries — molecular autopsy uncovers features responsible for hallucinations and therapeutic benefits

   Phys Org: Stripped-down LSD reveals structural features linked to hallucinogenic and therapeutic effects

   Authors: Eds. Gaby Clark and Robert Egan

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8. Servetus says:

   September 7, 2026 at 11:11 pm

   Psilocybin protects against nerve damage from chemotherapy:

   September 3, 2026 — Chemotherapy is brutal. The cancer treatment is often lifesaving, but it comes with serious side effects. Some are shorter-lived, such as hair loss, nausea and fatigue, but others can last long after treatment is over and even for life. That’s the case with peripheral neuropathy. This painful side effect, which can cause tingling and numbness in the hands and feet, can be managed with ice and painkillers or opioids. But for the most part, it is unpreventable.

   That could soon change: New research in mice suggests psilocybin, an active ingredient in magic mushrooms, may protect against this kind of severe nerve pain. The results, published on Thursday in the journal Science, show that mice that were given two doses of psilocybin were protected against nerve damage caused by chemotherapy for as many as six cycles of treatment.

   “This is the first time where psilocybin has been used as a neuroprotective agent,” said Patrick Dougherty, one of the paper’s co-authors and a professor at the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, at a press conference ahead of the paper’s release. […]

   “For the first time, we’re looking at pain—a somatic symptom—and we’re actually showing a really significant efficacy, not in treating that but in preventing that,” he said.

   The discovery was something of an accident. One of Amit’s colleagues noticed that mice that had been given psilocybin avoided nerve damage after chemotherapy. But Amit didn’t believe it—not at first.

   “Do it again,” he recalled telling her. “So she did, again and again and again.”

   “We did it so many times with tumor, without tumor, different types of chemotherapy. And consistently, we did not see the development of neuropathy, whether we gave those animals just one cycle or even six consecutive cycles,” Amit said. “This is unparalleled.”

   The reason why seems to have to do with how energy-producing structures called mitochondria move through nerve cells. Chemotherapy attacks “microtubules,” which are different structures in nerve cells that help transport mitochondria like a “railroad system,” Amit explained. With psilocybin, cells were able to maintain mitochondria’s movement along this “railroad.” […]

   Scientific American: ‘Unparalleled’ study finds psilocybin protects against nerve damage from chemotherapy — the findings, which were made in mice, may offer a new way to prevent a common chemotherapy side effect that can last well beyond treatment

   Authors: Jackie Flynn Mogensen, edited by Claire Cameron.

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9. Servetus says:

   September 10, 2026 at 5:41 pm

   Use of betel nut by humans emerged 25,000 years ago:

   9-Sep-2026 — A team of Griffith University archaeologists has uncovered evidence that humans were using mind-altering substances much earlier in time than previously supposed.

   Led by Professor Adam Brumm from Griffith’s Australian Research Centre for Human Evolution (ARCHE), and involving ARCHE colleagues Associate Professors Carney Matheson and Michelle Langley, the team combined biochemical and archaeological evidence to trace the prehistoric roots of one of the world’s most popular addictive stimulants, “betel nut”, an ancient drug used throughout much of the Asia-Pacific region.

   The group’s research, conducted in collaboration with Indonesian archaeologists from Makassar’s University of Hasanuddin and the National Research and Innovation Agency (BRIN), shows that the use of betel nut as a drug emerged among some Indonesian communities by up to 25,000 years ago, moving beyond the previously suggested Neolithic or Bronze Age (~3500 years ago) start times. […]

   Presently, it is thought the world’s first traditions of psychoactive drug use arose after the Neolithic advent of farming, beginning with the innovation of fermented alcoholic drinks (barley beer) about 13,000 years ago in Israel.

   “However, this theory fails to account for the possibility that very ancient drug-taking lies at the roots of our most commonly used psychoactive substances,” Professor Brumm said.

   Professor Brumm’s investigation focused on the origins of betel nut usage, a near-universal tradition among hundreds of millions of people between India and the South Pacific (about one in 10 of the modern global population).

   Consuming betel nut induces a sense of mild euphoria and heightened alertness, among other effects.

   “Although poorly known in western societies, it is the world’s fourth most widely used psychoactive substance, after alcohol, caffeine and nicotine,” Professor Brumm said.

   Modern users take the betel drug by mixing a processed seed of the Areca catechu palm (the betel “nut”) with slaked lime – commonly made by grinding burnt shells into a fine powder – and other ingredients to form a “quid”, which is then chewed to get high.

   “Slaked lime is an essential ingredient because it causes a chemical reaction that releases the nut’s psychoactive compounds into the bloodstream more rapidly,” Professor Brumm said. […]

   …the Griffith team reports the discovery of extremely rare skeletal remains of two early human foragers from the Indonesian island of Sulawesi, one dating to 25,000-16,000 years ago, the other to 7600-6300 years ago.

   Both hunter-gatherers display a highly unusual dental-wear pattern (deep, rounded tooth grooves), a novel bioarchaeological marker the researchers established was caused by a previously unknown drug-use behaviour: habitual sucking of whole betel nuts.

   Previous reports suggested the main neuroactive alkaloid in betel nut (arecoline) was released by chewing the processed nut in a prepared quid with slaked lime, with the latter converting arecoline into a free base form, thereby increasing its bioavailability.

   “But our team conducted experiments in which we soaked betel nuts in artificial saliva and tested the resultant broths against a panel of cloned human receptors expressed in frog egg cells, including specialised proteins that act as molecular switches, regulating neural activity,” Professor Brumm said.

   “This showed that just sucking on intact betel nuts will release arecoline in sufficient amounts to have a physiological effect, altering brain function.”

   In addition, biochemical analyses carried out by Associate Professor Carney Matheson detected the presence of arecoline in the dental tissues of the foragers, providing strong evidence for betel nut ingestion.

   Taken together, the findings suggest early foragers in Sulawesi engaged in an ancient and longstanding practice of habitually sucking betel nuts, resulting in dramatic alterations to their teeth. […]

   AAAS Public Science News Release: Ice Age origins of one of humanity’s oldest drug habits

   ScienceAdvances: Betel nut sucking is the earliest recorded evidence for the habitual use of a neuroactive plant drug

   Authors: Adam Brumm, Melandri Vlok, Roger L. Papke, Carney D. Matheson, Budianto Hakim, Clare Stokes, Basran Burhan, Suryatman, Andi Muhammad Saiful, Michelle C. Langley, Pratiwi Yuwono, Delta Bayu Murti, Sofwan Noerwidi, and Marlon N. R. Ririmasse.

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