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Loosening restrictions on marijuana may not lead to boon cannabis advocates seek

Federal authorities are weighing whether to stop classifying marijuana among the riskiest drugs, a move that cannabis advocates have long hoped would result in more research on its health effects, businesses having an easier time selling it and fewer people going to jail.

But experts warn the August recommendation by the Department of Health and Human Services to strip marijuana’s designation as a Schedule I drug may not fulfill those hopes.

All controlled substances come with restrictions on research, but marijuana and other Schedule I substances have the toughest requirements. Experts say it’s imperative to conduct more research on marijuana to understand its benefits and risks as legal markets flourish and consumer use soars.

To gain access to pot, researchers need to register with the DEA under rules that would not apply if they studied Schedule II substances like cocaine and fentanyl.

Some researchers have found ways to get around these rules, but their studies have limitations.

For example, Washington State University researchers studying the cognitive effects of cannabis had to use Zoom to observe participants who just used marijuana they bought at dispensaries. The ideal study would involve researchers providing high-potency cannabis from dispensaries, including a placebo to a control group, and participants coming to a lab to provide blood samples and record physiological data points such as heart rate variability and cortisol levels that cannot be measured over Zoom.

The university risks losing federal funding if researchers administer cannabis themselves even though marijuana is legal in Washington, said Carrie Cuttler, an associate professor of psychology who directs The Health & Cognition (THC) Lab at Washington State.

“It’s absurd, absolutely absurd,” she said, “to treat cannabis as pretty much the most dangerous narcotic available in the world.”

Despite these restrictions, there is still plenty of research done on marijuana without ever handling the physical drug.

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The Washington Post
Yahoo! News

 

 

Big data play a huge role in US presidential elections. Do they have the same impact in Australia?

Travis Ridout is a political scientist who studies political advertising in the United States, and he spent the first six months of 2023 in Australia as a Fulbright scholar. He interviewed campaign staff and political consultants about their use of various campaign techniques in state and federal elections.

A key reason Barack Obama won the 2012 US presidential election was his campaign’s use of “big data” to target specific voters. His team created multiple versions of ads aimed at niche audiences, taking care to test every message. Naturally, some have worried about the potential power of these data-driven campaign techniques to manipulate voters. But have these methods taken over election campaigns in Australia?

In short, not really. Australian campaigns typically rely on much less data-intensive techniques due to a lack of resources, doubts about the data, and ethical and philosophical concerns about the approach.

One reason is that [Australian] campaigns do not have unlimited money and staff resources. At the end of the day, hiring a data scientist or creative staff to design ads for multiple audiences is a luxury most campaigns cannot afford. In contrast, more than US$6.6 billion (A$10.2 billion) was spent on the 2020 presidential election.

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The Conversation

Meet the WSU student designing gameday posters hidden around campus

Collin Scott had to look twice. Scott had just hopped on his bike, riding away from Gesa Field, the site of Washington State’s home matchup with Northern Colorado, when he noticed something: two girls, laughing as they held up a 13×9 poster, which showed an illustration of a Cougar and a Bear, the two mascots squaring off that afternoon in September.

It was Scott’s poster. Not even 24 hours prior, he had designed the thing himself.

“I was like, ‘Oh, this is pretty cool,’ ” Scott said. “They were smiling, like dang, we found it.”

Scott, a junior majoring in art at Washington State, doesn’t always get to see the people who find the printouts of the posters he designs – but he feels fulfilled either way. An intern in WSU’s creative media department, Scott uses an app called Procreate on his iPad to illustrate a poster for the Cougars’ home games, which gets printed out then hidden somewhere around campus a few hours before the game for one lucky person to find.

The spot can be anywhere around campus, like the Cougar statue or The Coug, but to get to that stage, Scott has to design the poster first.

A few hours before each home game, WSU director of creative media Dallas Hobbs (’21 DTC) and his team do the same routine: Airdrop the poster from Scott’s iPad to Hobbs’ iPad, which connects to a printer in their office. Out comes the finished project, which they take to some place around campus. Then Hobbs snaps a picture of the poster – showing enough context around the location to give hints, but not enough to make it obvious.

Then Hobbs posts the picture on the WSU football Instagram, Twitter and Facebook accounts, asking readers to post a picture of the poster if they find it.

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Spokesman-Review
Yahoo News

Most who use pot to get a good night’s rest quit using sleep aids

A recent peer-reviewed study has produced data showing that people who struggle with sleep might be favoring cannabis over other common prescription and over the counter sleep aids.

The study, published in Exploration of Medicine found that 80% of cannabis users with sleep issues reported no longer needing prescription or over-the-counter sleep medication. Sixty percent of people who used cannabis alone were able to fall asleep and stay asleep for at least six hours, compared to only 20% of people who used alternatives.

The study was conducted by analyzing responses to surveys by a Canadian cannabis data company called Strainprint. The researchers looked at data from 1,216 participants who all self-reported that they use cannabis to help them fall asleep or stay asleep. Senior author of the study and associate professor of psychology at Washington State University, Carrie Cuttler, said in a written statement that some of the study participants actually sought out particular strains with particular terpenes specifically to help them sleep.

“One of the findings that surprised me was the fact that people are seeking the terpene myrcene in cannabis to assist with sleep,” Cuttler said. “There is some evidence in the scientific literature to support that myrcene may help to promote sleep, so cannabis users seemed to have figured that out on their own.”

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WFAA8 News
American Academy of Sleep Medicine
KIRO7 News
KING5 News
Futurity.org
Yahoo News
High Times
WSU Insider
KOIN6 News
Cannabis Now
Forbes
Knowridge.com

 

WSU launches initiative to combat election misinformation

In an era of rampant misinformation, Washington State University’s public policy institute announced it has launched an initiative to promote election integrity and civic engagement.

A national rise in conspiracy theories surrounding elections and threats to poll workers — including suspicious envelopes sent last week to elections offices in at least four Washington counties — have spurred fear that the 2024 U.S. presidential election could mean trouble. Evacuations at elections offices around the state disproved experts’ predictions that local elections this year would be relatively calm.

The university’s Thomas S. Foley Institute for Public Policy and Public Service will host educational events and collaborate with the Washington Office of the Secretary of State to support free and fair elections. The institute will also work to encourage people to sign up to volunteer at elections offices — places burdened by high turnover due to safety concerns.

Experts are worried there won’t be enough poll workers for the 2024 election, Foley Institute director Cornell Clayton said.

“There’s been a dramatic increase in the threats and incidences of violence at polling stations and elections offices over the last four years,” Clayton said. “The vast majority of poll workers are just volunteers — they tend to be elderly women. They go to these polling stations and they find themselves being accosted and threatened.”

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The Columbian
Yahoo News
Spokesman-Review
WSU Insider