Teen Pot Use Falling In States With Medical Marijuana Laws

Washington, DC: States that have enacted legislation authorizing the use of medical cannabis by qualified patients have not experienced an increase in the drug's use by the general population, according to a report issued this week by the Marijuana Policy Project and co-authored by NORML Advisory Board Member Mitch Earleywine.

Among the twelve states that have legalized the use and cultivation of medical cannabis, all but one (New Mexico) have experienced an overall decline in teen marijuana use since the enactment of their medi-pot laws. (Data was unavailable for New Mexico, which passed its law last year.) In seven of the twelve states, marijuana use among young people declined at rates that exceeded the national average.

"Opponents of medical use of marijuana regularly argue that such laws 'send the wrong message to children,' but there is just no sign of that effect in the data," said Earleywine. "In every state for which there's data, teen marijuana use has gone down since the medical marijuana law was passed, often a much larger decline than nationally."

A previous 2005 review of medical cannabis laws and their impact on use reported similar findings, noting that teen use in California had fallen nearly 50 percent since the passage of that state's medi-pot law in 1996. A 2002 report by the General Accounting Office (GAO) concluded that state medical marijuana laws were operating primarily as voters and legislators had intended and had not led to widespread abuses among the general population.

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Clone cell cancer 'cure' hailed

Melanoma can be fatal

Scientists claim they have cured advanced skin cancer for the first time using the patient's own cells cloned outside the body.

The 52-year-old man involved was free of melanoma two years after treatment.

US researchers, reports the New England Journal of Medicine, took cancer-fighting immune cells, made five billion copies, then put them all back.

Scientists in the UK warned that further trials would need to be done to prove how well the treatment worked.

This is another interesting demonstration of the huge power of the immune system to fight some types of cancer Spokesman Cancer Research UK

The body's immune system plays a significant role in the battle against cancer, and doctors have been looking for ways to boost this tumour-killing response.

The 52-year-old man had advanced melanoma which had spread to the lungs and lymph nodes.

Scientists at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle concentrated on a type of immune system cell called a CD4+ T cell.

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From a sample of the man's white blood cells, they were able to select CD4+ T cells which had been specifically primed to attack a chemical found on the surface of melanoma cells.

These were then multiplied in the laboratory, and put back in their billions to see if they could mount an effective attack on the tumours.

Two months later, scans showed the tumours had disappeared, and after two years, the man remained disease-free.

The new cells persisted in the body for months after the treatment.

'Immune power'

While claiming this as a world first, the study authors pointed out that their technique applied only to a patient with a particular type of immune system and tumour type, and could work for only a small percentage of people with advanced skin cancer.

Patients will live with their cancer, and die with their cancer, but not of their cancer - it will be like diabetes today Professor Karol Sikora Imperial College London

Dr Cassian Yee, who led the project, said: "For this patient we were successful, but we would need to confirm the effectiveness of therapy in a larger study."

Professor Karol Sikora, a cancer expert at Imperial College in London, described the research as "pretty exciting" with potentially wide application.

He said the researchers had focused on melanoma because the disease was well understood compared with other cancers, but other cancers could potentially be targeted.

He said: "I think we will be able to harness the power of the immune system. Eventually we will learn how to control cancer, in other words we will suppress it.

"Patients will live with their cancer, and die with their cancer, but not of their cancer - it will be like diabetes today."

A spokesman for Cancer Research UK also said more research would be needed, adding: "This is another interesting demonstration of the huge power of the immune system to fight some types of cancer.

"Although the technique is complex and difficult to use for all but a few patients, the principle that someone's own immune cells can be expanded and made to work in this way is very encouraging for the work that ourselves and others are carrying out in this field."

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Kellogg's, LEGO team up to train kids to choke

There's really not a much gentler way to phrase it: The biggest name in breakfast foods and among the most iconic names in toys have put their ingenuity and marketing genius together to create a fruit-flavored treat -- LEGO Fun Snacks -- that is so mind-numbingly irresponsible that at first I presumed it was a joke.

We're talking about a children's snack shaped like the tiny plastic building blocks that every kid fortunate enough to have toys has put in his or her mouth at one time or another -- or a hundred. (The only thing my kids like better than LEGOS is watching videos of "Star Wars" characters made out of LEGOS.)

The Web site Penny Arcade threw the penalty flag yesterday:

I would love to know what sick (person) at Kellogg's came up with this genius idea. I just spent the first three years of my son's life trying to get him not to eat blocks, and now you're telling him they taste like strawberries. Thanks a lot. Seriously, how in the hell did this ever get past their legal department? You can't tell me that this isn't a lawsuit just waiting to happen. I can only assume that their next product is fruit flavored thumbtacks.

My initial thought was that it had to be some kind of hoax or Onion story, but a jump over to the Kellogg's Web site showed that's not the case.

The mere idea of a LEGO-shaped snack reminded me of this hilariously effective 2004 Super Bowl commercial that pilloried the tobacco industry.

When I sent the Penny Arcade link around the office this morning, other parents were quick to offer their own ideas for killer snacks: Paint Chip Flakes and Chewable Barbie Shoes being my favorites.

There's a wide-ranging discussion of the matter over at Reddit.

And, if training children to eat plastic blocks isn't enough to rile you, there's another major flaw with this LEGO/Kellogg's product: The gelatinous blocks do not stack, a design flaw highlighted in this video by a couple of foul-mouthed grownups.

While a little Googling shows that the two companies have been taking relatively mild flack about this product since at least last year, here's a prediction: LEGO Fun Snacks won't be on grocery shelves for much longer.

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