In a new paper at JAMA Network Open, Ashley Bradford and colleagues examined the impact of medical and recreational cannabis dispensing on the use of five common classes of drugs that are typically used to treat mental health conditions in a commercially insured population.
Their findings are mixed:
Medical cannabis laws were associated with a 12.4% reduction in the benzodiazepine fill rate (average treatment effect on the treated [ATT], –27.4; 95% CI, –14.7 to 12.0; P = .001), recreational cannabis laws were associated with a 15.2% reduction in the fill rate (ATT, −32.5; 95% CI, −24.4 to 20.1; P = .02), and medical cannabis laws were associated with a 1.3% reduction in the mean number of benzodiazepine fills per patient (ATT, –0.02; 95% CI, −0.02 to 0.02; P = .04). Medical dispensaries were associated with a 3.9% reduction in mean days’ supply per benzodiazepine fill (ATT, −1.7; 95% CI, −0.8 to 0.6; P = .001), while recreational dispensaries were associated with a 6.2% reduction (ATT, −2.4; 95% CI, −1.0 to 0.9; P < .001). Medical cannabis laws were associated with a 3.8% increase in antidepressant fills (ATT, 27.2; 95% CI, −33.5 to 26.9; P = .048), and medical dispensaries were associated with an 8.8% increase (ATT, 50.7; 95% CI, −32.3 to 28.4; P = .004). The mean number of antipsychotic medication fills per patient increased by 2.5% (ATT, 0.06; 95% CI, −0.04 to 0.05; P = .02) after medical cannabis laws and by 2.5% (ATT, 0.06; 95% CI, −0.04 to 0.04; P = .02) after medical dispensary openings.
Benzo use went down, antidepressents and antipsychotic went up.
I think this is part of the growing body of econometrically well identified research that cannabis is not a miracle drug. It likely has its place but it comes with substantial trade-offs.
Raven
I’m in pain almost all the time and have been looking at antidepressents for some relief.
Maxim
Couldn’t there be other variables? I would think in some cases at least, it’s possible that medical or recreational cannabis use enabled people to cope well enough to realize they needed more help, or a different kind of help. I’m not sure why those numbers going up is automatically a negative.
BR
I want to see Harris/Walz prominently talking about legalization — it’ll bring in young men who are on the fence.
CaseyL
This is exactly why it’s important to do legitimate research on marijuana’s medical uses, so that we know what it is and isn’t good for.
I automatically distrust any evangelical movement, whether it’s selling religion or financial investments or alternative medicine. Weed/THC/CBD evangelists have been free to make exaggerated claims for their concoctions.
Now we can get some actual, real data. Which is great.
JaySinWA
Just skimmed the article to see a bit of the methodology,
One thing that stood out as a Medicare advantage person was this:
I can understand not breaking them out because of the sample size, but why would they be excluded from the overall results?
Butch
I know from firsthand experience that medical marijuana was a huge improvement over the horrible side effects from the medications that were prescribed for Crohn’s.
Steve in the ATL
Legalization has more ramifications than easing pain for white collar or retired people, or driving Taco Bell sales. How do you address cannabis use for people in physically demanding and dangerous jobs? It’s one thing to get high and practice law or sell shoes or process loan applications, but it’s another thing to get high and operate heavy equipment or work on high scaffolding or weld or wire or many other things. Had a recent case where a manufacturing employee got high and crashed a fork truck. Luckily, he only caused about $75,000 in property damage and didn’t hurt anyone, but that is not always the case.
Won’t be viable until there is (1) an accepted standard of what level constitutes impairment, such as there sort of is with alcohol, and (2) means of testing recency of use–did he smoke before coming to work this morning or four weeks ago? We can’t tell from current testing!
Lots of issues to resolve before we can go the full Peter Tosh.
David Anderson
@Maxim: Oh definitely — we need to know more about the underlying mechanisms, but we’re getting to the point where we know that marijuana is not a 100% substitute — it may be a complement or an accelerator…. now why is it an accelerator is a damn good question — are people better off and able to seek help that they were deferring before? If so this is GREAT! Or are people getting to be worse off and the antidepressents are a reaction to more THC consumption?
I have no idea but that is one hell of a question.
David Anderson
@JaySinWA: Medicare Advantage claims and encounter data is an absolute adventure at this time… and if there is not enough power in the sample, it is not worth the messiness.
Ishiyama
When cannabis is legal, I won’t have to defend any more teenagers on homicide charges when a botched robbery for a few bags of pot turns deadly – which has been my duty more than once.
TBone
@Ishiyama: that, for me, is a good reason for legalization – alcohol is probably far more deadly than weed, yet it’s legal.
Working for criminal defense attorneys, I’ve seen kids’ lives ruined by possession convictions that are simply farcical in this day and age.
Of course, restrictions should apply, just as they do with alcohol.
Weed really only helps me fall and stay asleep – it does nothing for pain. YMMV! Xanax works better for calming down, but now that I’m not working for attorneys anymore, I don’t ever need it 😂
Ten Bears
Joint tubes. They’re like cigarette butts: everywhere …
BellyCat
@Steve in the ATL: Truth. Testing for excess is medically not currently an easy thing to do. Related, it is a rare day when I go to a big box lumber store, dominated by people in the construction trades, and do not smell weed. Blows my mind….
Lochnessmom
I am a regular user as of about a year ago. Gummies, trying different strains. It has almost completely stopped my severe and chronic insomnia, and i rarely take Ativan for anxiety/panic disorder any more. I generally take 20 mg of an Indica at night, and will occasionally use recreationally. I have tried the seltzers and lemonades and they are pretty decent.
So I have ended up coming off three prescriptions medications and thinking about dropping another.
On the other hand my partner doesn’t care for it and hasn’t seen any benefits, so doesn’t really partake.
My 88 year old mom uses oral CBD regularly and believes it helps her arthritis.
My oldest son suffers from insomnia and anxiety and he regularly takes an Indica gummy or two before bed and it has made a vast difference for him.
(My personal experience: three users and 5 going on 6 prescription medications dropped)
TBone
Are we factoring in the doctors who are actually in charge of how much antidepressant and antipsychotic medication is accessible to people? Weed is pretty accessible everywhere, but those drugs are much harder to obtain.
When opioids were in fashion, doctors practically ruled the world. Not so much now, but they are still large and in charge.
BellyCat
@TBone: Given the barriers to prescriptions, my sense is that a pretty high number of people turn to self-medication (through nicotine, weed and booze) before they consider pharmaceuticals.
TBone
@BellyCat: In my considerable experience, weed doesn’t physically impair like other drugs and alcohol do. You can pretty much safely drive a car or operate heavy machinery while high on weed. Of course, limitations to my statement apply!
TBone
@BellyCat: self medication is indeed seriously rampant as a first course of action for many. You can get pretty much any prescription medication on the street these days. But since benzos and antipsychotics are not typically in high demand, they’re not really easy to find on the black market. Of course, if you know the right people, anything can be delivered right to your door (I used to know a pharmacy delivery person who’d bring anything you wanted)…
BellyCat
@TBone: In my own “considerable experience” (read: college, even before weed potency became 10X what it is now!) I respectfully have to disagree. Some people certainly fall into your description. However, others (like me) lose all focus and physical coordination becoming solely interested in ice cream and good music. LOL
E.
Cool. Now do A.I.
Soprano2
I use THC gummies for my husband’s appetite. It works most of the time, but not always. I forgot to give it to him before dinner on Monday night, and he barely ate any dinner at all. I gave him one before we went to the bar last night, and he ate 3 pieces of pizza! Since coming home from the hospital at the beginning of April he’s up from 116 lbs (!) to 132 lbs last weekend. Without THC I think I’d be struggling to get him over 125 lbs, and he might not even be that heavy. The ones I get, I cut them in half, and that seems to be plenty most of the time to get him to eat. When he finally asked me what it was, I told him it was an herbal remedy to help his appetite, because he was adamantly anti-pot most of his life, and I’m afraid he’d get upset and refuse to take it if he knew what it was. I figure what I’m telling him is the truth, just not the whole truth. I don’t correct him when he calls our girl cat a boy, either. LOL I’ve told his gerontologist and nephrologist, because I wanted to make sure it wouldn’t hurt his kidneys any. I also used to use it to help him sleep; I quit doing that once I started using it for his appetite. I don’t want him to get high, I just want him to eat enough decent food rather than eating sweets all the time.
BellyCat
@TBone: My GF, a geriatrician, is HUGELY against benzos. Her experience is that sundowning, dysphoria, and manic episodes/mental breaks are significantly increased in their presence. She thinks they should be illegal.
TBone
@BellyCat: 😆 I said “limitations apply!” 😆
Geminid
@Steve in the ATL: The lack of a legal standard for cannabis impairment came up.in an Albemarle County, Virginia manslaughter trial a few years back. The defendent was the guy who drove his trash truck around a railroad crossing gate and got creamed by an Amtrak train full of Republican Representatives on their way to the Greenbriar resort.
The Commonwealth’s attorney wanted to introduce results from a blood test which showed THC in the driver’s system, but the defense successfully argued that the lack of a standard disqualified the evidence. The driver was convicted for the death of his passenger anyway.
I used to drive over that crossing a lot and I think I know what happened. Amtrak runs its “Cardinal” passenger train through there in the late afternoon, 3 times a week, but all the other trains are very long packages of empty coal coal cars coming back from Hampton Roads. They take some minutes to pass because it’s on an upward grade.
I suspect the driver assumed this was another slow coal train and decided to get on with his route. But it was a special Amtrak train going 60 miles an hour and he got his buddy killed because of that impulsive decision.
This may have illustrated one problem with cannabis impairment: it does not affect driving reflexes like alcohol does, but it can affect judgement.
Steve in the ATL
@E.: if you disagree with my position please explain.
As for A.I., I have complete faith in Musk and Zuckerberg. Ok, not really.
TBone
@BellyCat: as with all drugs, moderation and proper usage/dosage apply. I used benzos as directed for a limited time (during menopausal mood swings) so I wouldn’t bite anyone at the office. Better than a muzzle!
TBone
@Geminid: 👍 agree 1,000%
TBone
@Soprano2: that’s great news! I’m proud of you, it’s not easy to make those decisions.
Alce _e_ardillo
@David Anderson: We will not know the answer to many of these questions until we have robust double blinded multi center studies. There has been resistance to studies for many reasons. The anti cannabis side looks at them as akin to the “studies” in the early years of the 20th century that saw first morphine, then heroin as wonder drugs ,while the pro cannabis side doesn’t want anything to rebut their sweeping claims of health benefits..
Alce _e_ardillo
@David Anderson: We will not know the answer to many of these questions until we have robust double blinded multi center studies. There has been resistance to studies for many reasons. The anti cannabis side looks at them as akin to the “studies” in the early years of the 20th century that saw first morphine, then heroin as wonder drugs ,while the pro cannabis side doesn’t want anything to rebut their sweeping claims of health benefits..
@TBone: studies of reaction times while high tell different stories, but YMMV.
BellyCat
@TBone: No judg(e)ment from me. Benadryl is a wonderful tool for overly rowdy kids! Picturing you in a muzzle and coming up with something in black leather with pointy studs sticking out of it every half inch or so…
TBone
Incidentally, Bigger Than Life, starring James Mason, aired on TCM the other night.
“…many modern critics hail it as a masterpiece and a brilliant indictment of contemporary attitudes toward mental illness…”
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bigger_Than_Life
TBone
@BellyCat: 👀
😆
TBone
@Alce _e_ardillo: funny (or not so funny, actually), I have better reaction time while high than hubby, who has never touched weed in his life, does. And he insists on doing most of the driving!
cmorenc
@David Anderson:
Cannabis is no miracle drug – it won’t cure cancer, but it sure improves one’s attitude toward the universe. It has its place sitting in a rocking chair at night on my front porch, with the substantial trade-off that one should not drive a car while high, but I don’t need to drive anywhere anyways at 11pm.
cmorenc
Cannabis and sports are a paradoxical mixed bag for me.
Alce _e_ardillo
@BellyCat: Many practitioners are moving away from Benadryl because of it’s side effect profile—- sedation, dry mouth, urinary retention in older men, and risk of anticholenergic crisis with overdoses.
@TBone: test your reaction times with and without weed— that will tell the tale…
Alce _e_ardillo
And lest I sound like I’m just a spoilsport. I actually have a lot of patients using cannabis, and doing fairly well. It’s just not well studied, for obvious reasons.
TBone
@cmorenc: couldn’t have said this part any better!
karen marie
Correlation does not equal causation. Of all people, Dave, I’d think you’d understand that.
Maxim
@Steve in the ATL: I didn’t know that about the lack of a timestamp (so to speak) on the testing. That’s definitely something that needs to be solved.
@David Anderson: Or it could be both. Bodies are different, as we know, and there’s no reason to assume every brain responds the same to cannabis. It might vary with the type of cannabis, too, since medical marijuana often (always?) excludes the psychotropic ingredients. Lots more research needed, so I’m glad it’s underway.
Maxim
Speaking of drugs and their accessibility, this is interesting:
https://www.404media.co/right-to-repair-for-your-body-the-rise-of-diy-pirated-medicine
Raven
I’ll say this, it got me through some deep shit!
Booger
@Steve in the ATL: Doesn’t that come down to balancing the THC/CBD ratio? Maximum analgesia, minimum stonedness?
Booger
@Geminid: I remember that vividly. My niece owns a house down the block from the crossing, the driver was her route guy. Sad day for all.
Kayla Rudbek
@David Anderson: I if I recall correctly, Kurt Vonnegut’s son smoked a lot of marijuana and wound up developing schizophrenia or other mental illness (psychosis?) he wrote a book about it, explicitly stating that there was a link between marijuana use and the mental illness that he had. So probably not something to be prescribing to someone with a family history like that.
And Spider Robinson thought he was a better driver after one joint (although he was writing about experience in the 1960s-1980s so who knows what current strains do).
Kayla Rudbek
@Maxim: can you make Plan B or birth control pills with it?
Maxim
@Kayla Rudbek: The article explicitly mentions making misoprostol for 89 cents per dose. There’s an open-source lab, open-source software, and other supporting materials.
owlbrick
@Steve in the ATL: For recency, they are able to do blood tests; but those are invasive enough that they’re generally restricted to situations where there’s been an incident or a crash. They’re also getting close to an oral fluid (cheek swab) test, but it’s not quite ready for widespread use. But the problem comes down to the fact that, unlike alcohol, there’s not just one single chemical that has a simple and predictable rate of conversion in the body. They are able to do breathalyzer tests at all because alcohol breaks down at a predictable rate, and its effects are directly related to the amount of ethyl alcohol in the bloodstream. By measuring the level in either breath or blood they can get a reasonably accurate picture of a general level of impairment. Cannabis is not so straightforward, because the number of active chemicals and the way it effects the body is still not fully understood. So far there’s not an established level of THC in the bloodstream that correlates to a specified threshold of impairment.
Soprano2
@TBone: I started it after seeing people in my FB support group talking about it. I was desperate after he came home from the hospital the second time; he was starting to look like the pictures I’ve seen of starving people, all knobby knees and elbows. It was frightening. It’s expensive but worth it for the results.
SW
Look it is a recreational drug. I get that magnifying its potential benefits was part of the effort to end prohibition. It is clearly insane to put people in jail over it. But I have always been uncomfortable with the tendency to turn it into a cure all wonder drug.
Geminid
@Soprano2: I wonder if your husband likes breakfast cereal or oatmeal. If he does, half-and-half is a good substitute fore milk because of the extra calories. Also, butterfat is fairly nutritional (in my opinion).
raven
@Soprano2: I remember watching that interview with his where he described his troops. It’s no wonder he’s anti-pot.
Maxim
@SW: It does have medicinal benefits for some people. Some children with seizure disorders, for instance, have gotten relief from medical marijuana (which doesn’t get you high) when nothing else worked. There is, so far, one cannabis-derived medication with FDA approval for use with those children.
So it’s worth doing more research. The fact that it’s best known as a recreational drug doesn’t preclude other uses or benefits.
Barbara
@Geminid: When my dad was in his last months of life he ate ice cream with every meal. It seemed pointless to avoid it and he needed the calories. It definitely tastes better than nutrition drinks.
SW
@Maxim: No doubt many find it beneficial for a number of conditions. But I believe that the tendency to over sell it is related to the fact that for some people because it makes you feel good it is considered to be a bad thing. Evil in some twisted way. It is a puritan ethic that runs strangely deep in this culture.
A Man for All Seasonings (formerly Geeno)
I take 5mg THC/CBD gummies to help me get to sleep. I usually cut them in half. I’ve been getting to sleep much easier, and my spouse tells me that I sleep very quietly now rather than tossing and turning.
Kent
No, you will have to defend teenagers who are involved in botched armed robberies of legal pot dispensaries which are targets for armed robbery because they are cash businesses. That is a real problem and issue here in the Pacific Northwest where pot is legal.
Geminid
@Kent: There will be no reason for this to be a cash business once cannabis is legalized.
PAM Dirac
@Maxim:
It sounds absolutely horrible. A couple of hundred dollars to build a reaction set-up, but as far as I can see no analytical equipment at all. Lot’s of claims that the result is “the same chemical” as the commercial drug, but no data; no analytical chemical data, but also no clinical data. To me the whole thing is summed up by the quote:
In other words any one who studies chemistry and biology for years is wasting their time or is actively doing evil because even though I don’t take the time to learn much, I can put together some flasks and some tubing and run an AI program that will give me a recipe and everything will just work out just fine because I’m so much smarter than everyone that I don’t even need to check the work. Seems like more of the standard tech-bro bullshit.
Maxim
@PAM Dirac: I don’t think it’s the standard tech-bro bullshit. The guys behind this have no profit motive, no stake in anything. Obviously it would be better if such measures were not required — if lifesaving drugs were all easily affordable.
Risky? Absolutely. Better than accepting (a potentially very painful and/or drawn-out) death because the medicine you need is unaffordable or unavailable? If you’re going to die anyway, I can imagine a lot of people would rather roll the dice on something like this.
Anoniminous
@Maxim:
There’s every reason to assume every brain will not have identical response to cannabis due to the fact every brain has a distinct genome thus distinct molecular biology.
artem1s
@Steve in the ATL:
I just went to a local dispensary here in Ohio (recently legalized) to see if I could find an alternative to NSAIDs for some mild back and muscle spasms. I’m not interested in vabe or prerolled (COPD and lung cancer, no thanks) or edibles (don’t do sugar) as you can’t control the dosage. I was mostly interested in flower to decarb and make my own tinctures with. Or possibly some topical products.
It was obvious from their product line they were not interested in selling ratio products with low, legal levels of THC. They are selling to people who don’t know that there are alternative products and ways to manage pain without having to be baked all the time. Until the FDA requires labeling, legalizing weed is going to cause more problems than it solves and will probably end up causing as much or even more problems than Oxy.
Anoniminous
@Maxim:
DIY pharmaceuticals sounds like a really good way to commit suicide.
PAM Dirac
@Maxim:
I think it is. This guy might think he is doing something great, but I think it was Feyman who said the point of the scientific method is a way of minimizing your chances of getting fooled and the easiest person to fool is yourself. If you think there is any reasonable chance of Joe average person pulling off synthesis of a drug as if it was a cake recipe you are very much fooling yourself. Have you ever taught an undergraduate organic chemistry lab? I have. Most students have at least some problems running very well documented, worked out, much repeated experiments. And the reason they know they had problems is that all the labs have some kind of check in the end to make sure things worked the way they were supposed to. I know desperate people do desperate things. Some throw lots of money at quack cures and I think the people that peddle those quack remedies are the lowest scum. I don’t think this guy is much better as he is leading people to believe he is smart enough to solve all their problems when he is not even bothering to learn the most basic principles that MIGHT raise the probability of success to something measurably different than zero.
Gin & Tonic
@Geminid:
Way OT, but is the Greenbrier worth spending a couple of nights at? Yeah, I know it’s expensive, but I have the money, just don’t want a letdown.
Anoniminous
@PAM Dirac:
And there’s no guarantee the ingredients are to spec.
Fair Economist
@PAM Dirac: Yeah, weird-ass production problems which end up with some toxic chemical in drugs are a mainstay of FDA action reports. That problem will be a lot more common with homebrewed meds, and users will never know until they get a nasty leukemia or kidney failure 20 years down the line.
Anoniminous
Having said what I said, there’s every reason to believe out of patent drugs could be made cheaper. Eli Lily and their price gouging of insulin is the poster child.
Fair Economist
@Gin & Tonic: My mother took me to the Greenbrier in 2018. It’s a nice place with a lot of fancy activities (how many places can you go for a falconry demonstration?) I’d never have gone on my own because I’m not into that but I expect if you like a plush resort you’d like it.
That said, the owner, WV governor Jim Justice, is a nasty, corrupt piece of work. It’s in bankruptcy right now, so perhaps it will have a better owner soon.
MagdaInBlack
@TBone: Oh dear lord, I would do neither. Limitations apply indeed 😊
Just leave me on the couch with my coffee and my podcasts. No driving for me, tyvm.
John Revolta
@Anoniminous: I have some experience in this area and I can tell you absolutely that peoples’ reactions to cannabis are extremely subjective. Two people can smoke the same weed and have very different experiences psychologically.
(The only thing I would say definitively is: “Dope will get you through times of no money better than money will get you through times of no dope!” [Freewheelin’ Franklin])
PAM Dirac
@Anoniminous:
Sure, but to put a generic on the market you have to have a FDA approved synthetic plan and clinical trials. Not full blown efficacy trials, but pharmacokinetic studies that should that the generic achieves similar blood levels.
lowtechcyclist
@TBone:
You can pretty much safely drive a car or operate heavy machinery while high on weed. Of course, limitations to my statement apply!
I assume that has to do with being able to control your dosage and learn how much you can handle, now that gummies and the like give you the ability to know exactly how much you’ve ingested.
With actual weed, back in the day, it was always guesswork. You’d smoke a bunch and be completely sober, and a few more hits and WHAM! you couldn’t put together a sentence because you’d forgotten where you started before you got to the end. I’m not sure I’d have trusted myself to ride a bicycle stoned back then, let alone drive a car.
Maxim
@Anoniminous: Potentially, yes. Especially if done by random people with no background, training, or understanding. I was thinking of this having some potential as an underground way of helping people in red states access abortion drugs, for instance, if there were a handful of labs overseen by people who actually knew what they were doing and built in the analysis part of the process that PAM Dirac is talking about. I don’t in any way think it’s some sort of panacea.
@PAM Dirac: As I said above, I am not trying to say that any garden-variety uninformed person should try to do this, more that it might be a potentially useful tool in the hands of people who actually understood the science and could develop the proper protocols. Unlike a lot of other technology, it’s not that easy to even get this setup going if you have no idea what you’re doing, so the barrier to participation is fairly high. Of course there’s the potential for things going wrong, people overestimating their knowledge, etc., as is true with any technology. But maybe you’re right that the guy in the article is high on his own (metaphorical) supply.
MagdaInBlack
@lowtechcyclist: I don’t like edibles because I won’t know for half an hour how its gonna hit. I also recall when you had to smoke a lot to feel it, but with today’s cannabis, one small hit is enough to tell you if you’re going to want more. Usually you won’t need much to take the edge off life, the universe, and everything.
E.
@Steve in the ATL: I’m just objecting to the “not viable until” stuff as coming from a position that holds a relatively harmless recreational drug to higher standards than all sorts of things we permit that are far more dangerous. It is provably viable to legalize weed now. Many States have done it. We can work out the kinks as we go, like we are with an unregulated internet, unregulated digital security, self-exploding cars, bitcoin, and all the rest.
lowtechcyclist
@Kent:
Legal pot dispensaries out there don’t take credit cards, Apple pay, etc.? I don’t understand why they’d be any more of a target than any other business that accepts payment by various means including cash.
Timill
@lowtechcyclist: Pot is still illegal according to the Feds, so banks won’t deal with them.
Local legalization doesn’t matter here.
Geminid
@Gin & Tonic: The Greenbrier is in the middle of a very beautiful area so if you like the outdoors it would be a great place to visit. I’ll bet there are nice golfing and tennis facilities, and there should be good hiking and fishing nearby.
I think you could get there on an Amtrak train if you wanted. They run the “Cardinal” from DC to Chicago three times a week and it stops in White Sulpher Springs. The Greenbrier is one of those old resorts established before the automobile dra.. Many of the guests probably came down from New York in their own private rail cars. You should probably call before you take yours though.
The Greenbriar served as a convalescent hospital for wounded service members during the Second World War. Then a new wing was added during the Cold War, It had a very large, very stoutly constructed basement with a big kitchen, an infirmary and room for 535 cots where the members of Congress were to sleep in the event of a nuclear war. This was revealed to the public in the 1990s, and they may give tours now.
Geminid
@Fair Economist: I actually think Jim Justice has been good governor. At least, he did a good job leading Wwst Virginia through the Covid pandemic. The Harrisonburg, Virginia radio station I listen to has a large audience in that state and they would carry parts of his daily press conferences. He laid out the importance of public health measures very effectively I thought.
Justice is a popular governor who easily brushed aside his more conservative primary opponent. I expect he’ll be a reliable vote for his caucus leaders, but within the caucus he’ll probably align more with the pragmatic side as opposed to the idealogical side.
But like him or not, I bet we’ll be hearing plenty from Justice next year. News show producers are gonna love him; a fresh face with a really down-home, West Virginia accent. The guy makes Joe Manchin sound like David Niven.
Chris T.
@Booger: Spousal Unit uses gummies for constant pain, and finds that the ones with CBG (whatever that is) do the trick. Up here (WA state) the “Wyld” brand “pear” flavor ones are the Right Ones. There’s a dispensary store basically across the street from my gym so I pick them up on their discount days.
Chris T.
@Kayla Rudbek:
This is certainly possible: some people get nervous about driving—which is reasonable: you’re piloting a literal ton or more of deadly weapon, after all—and being jittery about it can make your reactions worse, so a small bit of relaxation first could improve your responses.
Chris T.
@lowtechcyclist:
They can’t: Federal banking rules prohibit it.