Getting it Right from the Start

01/20/2026

Congress is quietly moving to delay a federal ban on intoxicating h**p products—and the public health stakes are high.

This fall, Congress finally made progress by embedding a ban on intoxicating h**p and synthetic cannabinoids in budget legislation (with a one-year delay) made possible by a farm bill loophole (we warned about in 2018). That window gave the h**p industry time to push back.

According to Roll Call, Rep. James Baird (R-IN) and Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) are now backing legislation to delay the ban by three years, potentially inserting it into must-pass spending bills. The Trump administration has also signaled support for reversing h**p restrictions, urging agencies and Congress to act.

These products—often sold as “legal CBD”—frequently contain dangerous levels of intoxicating and synthetic cannabinoids, harming kids, families, and communities.

States like New Jersey are stepping up. The question is whether Congress will too? We urge our friends, allies, and public-health experts to educate their members of Congress about the public-health risks posed by highly intoxicating h**p products—often containing large amounts of untested, synthetic cannabinoids—that are widely marketed and readily accessible to children across the country.

Read article in comments!

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01/16/2026

Worth reading: In a thoughtful new op-ed for the Los Angeles Times, Susan Shapiro shares her personal journey of quitting cannabis—and why legality doesn’t equal harmlessness.

She clearly lays out what the research is telling us: as cannabis has become easier to access and more heavily marketed, rates of dependence have risen, along with links to psychosis, cardiovascular risks, and su***de. Nearly 1 in 3 users, she notes, may be genetically predisposed to developing cannabis use disorder.

Importantly, Shapiro doesn’t just warn—she offers practical, compassionate guidance: how to assess whether use is becoming a problem, what withdrawal can signal, and concrete strategies for cutting back or quitting, from tapering and therapy to peer support.

This is exactly why California—and the rest of the country—needs smarter public-health guardrails: policies that reduce harm, curb aggressive commercialization, and put health ahead of profit. Right now, the market is largely designed to do the opposite.

Read this candid, humane piece that adds much-needed nuance to the conversation about cannabis, health, and prevention: https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2026-01-13/cannabis-addiction-signs-recovery-strategy

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Pot is quickly becoming America's drug of choice, on track to replace alcohol, but its harms are becoming clear as well.

01/12/2026

Even “light” cannabis use can harm teens — new national study

A major new study our of Columbia and published in Pediatrics analyzed data from more than 160,000 U.S. middle and high school students and found that even teens who use cannabis just once or twice a month already show worse mental health and school outcomes.

The study was led by child and adolescent psychiatrist , who explains:

“While previous studies have focused on the effects of frequent cannabis use among teens, our study found that any amount of cannabis use at all may put kids at risk of falling behind in school, and the kids using most often may have the greatest risk. A few ‘harmless’ joints can snowball into real academic consequences. Teens using it regularly often struggle to focus, miss school, and may lose interest in their future plans.”

Why is this happening now? Today’s cannabis products are two to three times more potent than in the past — and adolescent brains are still developing the systems that control learning, mood, and self-regulation. Even casual use can interfere with that development.

This is why public-health-based cannabis policy matters:

- Limits on THC potency
- Youth protections
- Honest education about risks
- Prevention and early-intervention resources

At Getting it Right from the Start, this is exactly what we’ve been warning about: We can respect adult choice while still protecting adolescent brain health. The science is clear — and policy needs to catch up.

Read more: https://www.cuimc.columbia.edu/news/teens-any-cannabis-use-may-have-impact-emotional-health-academic-performance

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Even occasional cannabis use is linked to worse school performance and emotional distress for teens, finds a new study led by Columbia University.

12/30/2025

This new Washington Post commentary is a must-read for anyone who cares about public safety — and it confirms exactly what we’ve been saying at Getting it Right from the Start.

Two leading experts — Beau Kilmer (RAND) and Keith Humphreys (Stanford) — explain why cannabis-impaired driving has quietly become a major problem since legalization:

- There’s still no reliable roadside test for ma*****na
- THC stays in the body long after someone stops being high
- Products today are far more potent than in the past
- Ultra-cheap, high-THC products encourage heavy use
- States failed to educate the public about real risks

Today’s legal cannabis market is not your parents’ pot. Flower averages 20% THC, and concentrates run 60–90% — levels that absolutely impair driving.

Yet legalization moved faster than regulation, and the result is predictable: Nearly 12 million Americans now drive after using cannabis each year.

This isn’t about going backwards. It’s about finally getting legalization right — with potency limits, pricing floors, strong education, and rules designed around health and safety, not industry profits.

Read article: https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2025/12/29/ma*****na-driving-legal-state-cannabis/

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There’s no breathalyzer test for driving under the influence of cannabis. But there are other options.

12/23/2025

An important new op-ed in The New York Times by Dr. Aaron E. Carroll of AcademyHealth is a must-read for anyone who cares about cannabis policy and public health.

Carroll makes an essential point that too many leaders avoid:
legalization moved faster than the evidence — and commercialization has outpaced our ability to monitor, educate, and protect public health.

He is clear about what legalization got right: Fewer arrests and less incarceration! Those are real gains — and they matter.

But he also names what comes next. As he writes, legalization created a commercial market “faster than we built the systems needed to monitor health effects, educate consumers or manage risk.”

Today’s market includes:
• Ultra-high-potency products far stronger than those studied in earlier research
• Aggressive marketing and wellness claims that downplay risk
• Rising emergency-room visits and cannabis use disorder
• Disproportionate harms among youth, heavy users, and vulnerable people
• An evidence base that still lags behind policy and industry growth

Carroll rejects both scare tactics and denial. He calls for honest science communication, stronger guardrails around potency and marketing, better data, and reinvesting cannabis tax revenue into prevention, treatment, and mental health services.

And he makes the point we’ve long emphasized: the answer is not to go back to prohibition — it’s to improve legalization so it actually protects public health.

This is what getting cannabis policy right looks like: protecting the gains of reform while confronting the real-world harms with evidence, humility, and smart regulation.

Read The New York Times: https://www.nytimes.com/2025/12/19/opinion/trump-ma*****na-policy.html

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All policy decisions have trade-offs, and cannabis legalization is no exception.

12/22/2025

Thoughtful take from the Los Angeles Times’ Robin Abcarian — and one that resonates deeply with our work at Getting it Right from the Start. Abcarian reflects on nearly a decade of legal cannabis in California and lands in a place we’ve long argued for: the truth sits between two extremes.

For decades, cannabis policy was driven by Re**er Madness, criminalization, and racialized enforcement. Today, the pendulum has swung hard in the opposite direction — toward mass commercialization, ultra-high-potency products, aggressive marketing, and sweeping wellness claims that far outpace the science.

As the author notes, "The ensuing decade has been a mixed bag for many who believed that legalization would bring an end to the many woes caused by prohibition: a lack of access to banking and capital, the disproportionate prosecutions of people of color despite usage rates that are uniform across races, no reliable way of knowing whether a product was tainted, unfettered access by minors."

We don’t need to return to prohibition. But we also can’t ignore mounting evidence about high-potency products, youth exposure, dependency risks, and the consequences of treating cannabis like just another consumer good.

Public health isn’t about demonization or denial. It’s about getting the balance right — protecting youth, grounding policy in evidence, and resisting a commercial free-for-all that puts profit ahead of health.

Read: https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2025-12-21/federal-government-cannabis-reform

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Weirdly, Trump's executive order to reschedule cannabis coincides with an analysis casting doubt on whether pot actually helps with pain, insomnia and stress.

12/19/2025

The Trump administration has signed an executive order to fast-track the reclassification of cannabis—an approach also pursued under the Biden administration. While this move could reduce barriers to medical research, it would also give the legal cannabis industry a major tax break and does not legalize cannabis outside the FDA’s standard drug approval process.

This is a consequential moment for public health—and one that demands precision, not politics.

Last year, Getting it Right from the Start submitted detailed public comments to the DEA outlining both the potential benefits and serious risks of rescheduling cannabis. Our core message: cannabis is not a single substance, and rescheduling should reflect real differences in risk, potency, and evidence of medical use.

Today’s market looks nothing like it did when the Controlled Substances Act was written. Low-potency products have largely been replaced by ultra-high-potency flower, concentrates and vapes approaching 90% THC, and high-dose edibles—products linked to rising addiction, emergency room visits, psychosis, pregnancy-related harms, and emerging cardiovascular risks.

Our recommendation is simple: if cannabis is rescheduled, it must be done smarter—not broader. Schedule III should be limited to lower-potency products with some evidence of medical use, while higher-risk products remain appropriately controlled. And researchers must be allowed to study the actual products people are using—not outdated substitutes.

Very limited rescheduling could be a step forward. But we cannot allow industry pressure to outweigh evidence, youth protection, and public health.

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12/11/2025

Another important study we co-authored with Kaiser Permanente—published this week in JAMA Network Open—shows just how inconsistent and inaccurate information about cannabis use in pregnancy remains across California’s retail market.

The “mystery caller” survey reached 505 retailers. 1 in 5 budtenders said prenatal cannabis use is safe, only 40% said it’s unsafe, fewer than 6% mentioned the required pregnancy warning, and nearly a third said edibles are safer despite limited evidence.

Budtenders are often trusted, nonjudgmental advisors, yet many lack accurate information and have no medical training to guide such decisions—leaving pregnant people to navigate mixed messages at a critical moment for maternal and child health.

To protect public health, we need prominent front-of-pack warnings, clear evidence-based health messages, better training for retail workers, and strong public education campaigns.

Read Kaiser Permanente’s full article here:
https://divisionofresearch.kaiserpermanente.org/cannabis-retailers-advice-safety/

12/10/2025

Great to see covering our recent study with UC Irvine researchers on how cannabis retail legalization is affecting youth use in California.

Key finding: while overall teen use hasn’t spiked dramatically, frequent use among 11th graders has increased — up 30% — since retail stores opened. Youth in cities with no cannabis shops used far less than those in areas allowing storefronts.

The study highlights an essential point: local cannabis policies shape youth exposure and health outcomes.

Read article: https://www.psypost.org/frequent-cannabis-use-rose-among-california-teens-after-legalization/

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A new study shows frequent ma*****na use increased among California 11th graders following the 2018 legalization of recreational retail. However, students in cities with bans on dispensaries reported lower usage rates than those with legal shops.

12/04/2025

A new CNN report by Sandee LaMotte highlights a growing — and often misunderstood — public health issue linked to today’s ultra-high-THC cannabis products: cannabis hyperemesis syndrome (CHS), sometimes called “scromiting.”

Doctors across the country are seeing sharp increases in adolescents and daily users arriving at ERs with severe abdominal pain and uncontrollable vomiting. Some teens end up hospitalized multiple times in the same month. Cases rise particularly in states with aggressive commercialization and high-potency products.

This doesn’t mean cannabis should be prohibited or criminalized. But it’s a strong reminder that legal is not the same as safe — especially when high-potency, youth-appealing products are mass marketed as “wellness” without guardrails.

CHS reinforces exactly what we’ve been saying: California needs evidence-informed protections such as potency limits, health warnings, and restrictions on child-appealing products. A balanced, public-health approach isn’t anti-cannabis — it's pro-people.

Read article: https://bit.ly/44aU4uZ

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12/01/2025

A major new review published in JAMA Network and covered by Newsweek takes a hard look at the evidence behind medical cannabis claims — more than 1,000 studies in total.

The authors found that many commonly advertised medical uses remain unproven, even as real medical benefits do exist for some patients, especially those dealing with cancer-related nausea, appetite issues, or certain kinds of pain.

The review also raises concerns that nearly 1 in 3 medical cannabis users develop cannabis use disorder, and that today’s ultra-high-potency products may increase physical and mental health risks.

None of this means cannabis has no therapeutic value. It does.
But it reinforces a growing pattern: legitimate medical uses are getting drowned out by unverified wellness claims and hyper-commercialization.

A balanced, evidence-informed approach is not anti-cannabis.
It simply recognizes that people and patients — not profits — should come first.

The review found that 27 percent of adults from the U.S. and Canada have used cannabis for medical purposes.

11/26/2025

AP’s newest deep dive highlights something we’re seeing more often: for some people — not most, but a meaningful minority — cannabis use can slowly shift from relief to dependence, especially with today’s ultra-high-potency products and aggressive commercialization.

The article’s real power comes from the stories: older adults struggling to cut back, young people dealing with creeping brain fog, and former industry workers caught off guard by products far stronger than what existed decades ago.

None of this means cannabis should be criminalized again. But legal doesn’t mean harmless — and the swing from “Re**er Madness” to “it’s totally benign” misses the real experiences people are having.

This is why Getting it Right from the Start works for a balanced, science-informed, health-first approach to cannabis. Not anti-cannabis — pro-people.

Read the article: https://apnews.com/article/cannabis-disorder-ma*****na-addiction-682ab2ff68586167448e2856fa2e5d09