Are Cannabis Edibles Safer Than Smoking? - The New York Times

Are Edibles Safer Than Smoking?

"The health risks of cannabis depend in part on how you use the drug.

Jan. 29, 2024

Janelle Jones for The New York Times

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Cannabis-infused chocolate fountains are flowing at weddings. “Budtenders” are pouring cannabis cocktails. And as sales of edibles are trending up, cannabis brands are emphasizing the idea that the products might offer a healthier alternative to bongs or blunts.

“Edibles allow you to enjoy cannabis without the negative side effects of smoking,” reads the website of Kiva, which makes cannabis chocolate bars and fruit-flavored gummies.

Consumers are increasingly asking whether that’s the case, but the answer is complicated. There’s little research comparing the health effects of edibles and smoking head-to-head. What we do know so far largely comes from limited data, anecdotes and inferences from researchers and clinicians.

“There’s tons of nuance there,” said Ryan Vandrey, a professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at Johns Hopkins Medicine who studies cannabis. “You can’t black and white say edibles are safer than smoking, or smoking is worse than vaping — there are different risks for the different routes.”

Edibles are harder to dose

When someone smokes a joint, the high hits almost immediately and then fades within a few hours. But the cannabinoids in edibles take their time traveling through the gastrointestinal tract. It can take anywhere from 30 minutes to several hours for users to feel the effects, said Daniel Barrus, a pharmacologist at the nonprofit research organization RTI International. That timing can vary even for experienced cannabis consumers, because the contents of your stomach affect how quickly an edible kicks in, said Dr. Collin Reiff, a clinical assistant professor of psychiatry at the N.Y.U. Grossman School of Medicine.

As a result, consumers can end up nibbling an extra bite of a pot brownie or eating another gummy to feel more of an effect — and end up way too high when the drug finally kicks in, sometimes causing paranoia, delusions and panic attacks. These effects typically subside within hours, but people can have rapid, racing heart rates, leading some to seek medical attention.

“I see far more adverse outcomes in people who use edibles,” Dr. Reiff said.

A study of emergency department visits related to marijuana at a large hospital in Colorado found that people who took edibles were more likely to end up in the emergency room. (Total admissions were higher for smokers, most likely because far more people smoked than used edibles, according to state cannabis sales data.) People who took edibles were also more likely to experience cardiovascular or acute psychiatric symptoms, than those who smoked.

Far more people consume edibles safely every day than end up in the hospital, noted Dr. Andrew Monte, a professor of emergency medicine and medical toxicology at the University of Colorado School of Medicine and lead author of the study.

Edibles can lead to more intense highs

Edibles can sometimes induce a more intense, intoxicating high than smoking, because of how the body metabolizes T.H.C., the main compound in cannabis, said James MacKillop, director of the Michael G. DeGroote Centre for Medicinal Cannabis Research at McMaster University.

Even for experienced users, edibles can have a potent effect. For some people, that high can be pleasant; for others, fear and anxiety can take hold.

Edibles may have less addictive potential, Dr. MacKillop said, because in general, the quicker a person feels a drug’s effects, the greater the chance the user will become dependent. A study last year found that roughly one-fifth of people who use cannabis develop cannabis use disorder.

The respiratory risk of smoking

Smoking any substance has the potential to harm your lungs.

Cannabis smoke contains many of the same toxic chemicals and carcinogens as cigarette smoke, and the drug, when smoked, can damage lung tissues and blood vessels, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The method also matters: When people smoke a joint or blunt, they also inhale particulate matter from rolling papers or wrappers, as well as particulate matter from the cannabis itself, both of which may harm the lungs.

Vapes heat cannabis through a different method than joints, bongs and pipes, and so vapes can help consumers avoid harmful compounds like carbon monoxide and tar, Dr. Barrus said. But vapes still expose the lungs to irritants, and some evidence has found that vapes generate dangerous emissions. Cases of vaping-related illnesses and injuries caused by contaminants in vapes have concerned doctors for years.

People who smoke cannabis seem to be at an increased risk for bronchitis, and it’s clear that smoke can significantly irritate the lungs, Dr. Barrus said. But studies have not definitively proven that smoking cannabis can cause lung cancer, as smoking tobacco does.

The shared risks

No matter how you consume cannabis, it carries both long and short-term risks.

Cannabis can increase your heart rate and blood pressure. Daily use is linked to a higher risk of heart failure. The drug also takes a toll on cognition. It slows your reaction time — that’s part of why driving high is so dangerous — and users may struggle with concentration and memory even after a high wears off.

As with any drug, “dose and frequency really drive health risks,” Dr. Vandrey said. “With cannabis, and for really anything else.”

Are Cannabis Edibles Safer Than Smoking? - The New York Times

Bill Maher SHREDS Republicans in BLISTERING Monologue

Opinion | To Beat Trump, Joe Biden Needs a New Narrative - The New York Times

How Biden Beats Trump

Jan. 29, 2024

Mark Peterson for The New York Times

By Chris Whipple

"Mr. Whipple is the author of “The Fight of His Life: Inside Joe Biden’s White House.”

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For months, battered by President Biden’s dismal 2024 re-election polls, Democrats have been undergoing a kind of collective nervous breakdown over Mr. Biden’s re-election prospects against Donald Trump.

Following Mr. Trump’s victory in New Hampshire and with the unofficial start of the general election campaign, there is no reason for the Biden team to panic. Polls at this stage of the race are almost always a referendum on the incumbent instead of a clear choice. Still, the president’s bad polls and a stubbornly low approval rating are, or should be, more than just grist for Mr. Biden’s critics. They’re proof that his campaign needs to overhaul its message.

Joe Biden has yet to explain clearly why he’s running for a second term. I’ve reached this conclusion after speaking with more than a dozen ex-presidential campaign managers and top political strategists — indeed, I spent two years writing a book about the Biden presidency.

To articulate his vision for America, and his case for re-election, the president — whom, I should note, I am rooting for — must campaign in both poetry and prose. The poetry will be in his pledge to preserve the integrity of the Constitution and safeguard democracy, and the prose in his promise to deliver on kitchen table issues where many voters believe he’s fallen short.

As the incumbent, Mr. Biden cannot run as an outsider. But he has a strong populist case to make for a future in which ordinary Americans, and the ideals embodied in our Constitution, can prosper. This case would offer a stark and optimistic contrast to Mr. Trump, whose only allegiance is to himself and to retribution for his imagined grievances.

A recovery narrative

The top issue for many voters is the economy, and to overcome Americans’ gloomy outlook on this front, Mr. Biden needs a new narrative.

Bidenomics, a wonky recitation of his achievements (jobs created, unemployment lowered, prescription drug costs capped, etc.) has failed to resonate with voters. Nor has his slogan “finish the job” — because he has failed to define the nature of the challenges Americans face.

The president should state the obvious — that prices for many things are higher than they used to be — and then he should explain why that’s the case, admitting that his stimulus under the American Rescue Plan, though necessary at the time to rescue the economy, might have been a factor. And he should tell people what he’s going to do about it.

As a former Democratic presidential campaign manager told me, voters can deal with higher prices if they think Mr. Biden has a plan to bring them down.

There is a model for this kind of recovery narrative that fits Mr. Biden’s predicament like a glove. He may be a flawed messenger, but Bill Clinton’s memorable speech to the 2012 Democratic convention hit the marks of a Democratic president cleaning up a mess left by his predecessor. Too many Democrats have lost a skill that Mr. Clinton excelled at: understanding the economic struggles of ordinary Americans and explaining how he’ll get them to a better place.

As Barack Obama’s “secretary of explaining stuff,” at the 2012 convention, Mr. Clinton spoke plainly to voters about Mr. Obama’s record in the wake of the Great Recession: “He inherited a deeply damaged economy,” Mr. Clinton said. “He put a floor under the crash. He began the long, hard road to recovery and laid the foundation for a modern, more well-balanced economy that will produce millions of good new jobs, vibrant new businesses and lots of new wealth for innovators.”

“Now, look, here’s the challenge he faces,” Mr. Clinton told his rapt audience. “A lot of Americans are still angry and frustrated about this economy. If you look at the numbers, you know employment is growing, banks are beginning to lend again.”

Here he leaned in: “But too many people do not feel it yet.”

This empathetic note, mastered by Mr. Clinton, is oddly missing so far from Mr. Biden’s campaign repertoire.

“No president — no president, not me, not any of my predecessors — no one could have fully repaired all the damage that he found in just four years,” Mr. Clinton continued. “But he has laid the foundation for a new, modern, successful economy of shared prosperity.” The convention hall erupted in applause. And, not incidentally, Mr. Obama cruised to re-election.

Mr. Biden doesn’t need to recruit Mr. Clinton as a surrogate; indeed, while the president may not have his predecessors’ oratorical gifts, few people are better at speaking homespun truths.

Successful presidential campaigns seldom focus on the past. (A rare exception was Mr. Trump’s 2016 race, when he promised to “Make America Great Again.”) “The last thing I said to the president before I left the White House,” says Ron Klain, Mr. Biden’s former White House chief of staff, “is that he had to remember that campaigns are about the future. They’re not rewards for good behavior.”

Let Biden be Biden

The president can’t run effectively if he’s kept under wraps by overprotective advisers. Despite his age and occasional verbal stumbles, he often rises to the occasion in unscripted moments. Think of the 2023 State of the Union address, when he outwitted G.O.P. hecklers. Or more recently, when he appeared in the White House’s Roosevelt Room and blasted the Republican Congress for failing to pass funds for Ukraine and Israel.

Badgered by a reporter about allegations of corrupt foreign deals with his son Hunter, he called them “a bunch of lies.” Asked if any other Democrat could beat Mr. Trump, the president parried: “Probably 50 of them,” then added, “but I will defeat him.” It was a robust, combative performance.

The campaign will be more successful if it lets “Joe be Joe” and talk the way he actually talks.

In recent days, Mr. Biden has moved key advisers from the White House to strengthen his re-election team: Jennifer O’Malley Dillon, the hard-charging, battle-tested manager of Mr. Biden’s winning 2020 race, and Mike Donilon, the president’s chief strategist, have joined the campaign. This move comes not a moment too soon.

Attacking Trump

Their challenge, and Mr. Biden’s, is to define Mr. Trump as a threat to the economy, the Constitution and much else.

As Jim Messina, who managed Mr. Obama’s winning campaign against Mitt Romney, points out: “Voters think about politics a few minutes a week and hold down multiple jobs. So if you’re a swing voter in Wisconsin, you just don’t have time to focus on this [expletive].”

Voters will need to be reminded that Mr. Trump lost more jobs than any president in history; that he enacted tax cuts that overwhelmingly benefited the ultrawealthy over the working class and exploded the deficit; that, other than his support for developing a vaccine, he was oblivious or worse (peddling bleach as a quack cure) when a once-in-a-century pandemic killed hundreds of thousands of Americans; that he wrenched children from their parents at the border; that he denounced fallen soldiers as suckers; and that he incited a bloody insurrection to overturn an election and still peddles the “Big Lie.”

Perhaps most important, Mr. Biden needs to drive home the MAGA threat to women’s reproductive rights. There’s plenty of fresh material to work with on the still potent issue of abortion. The Biden-Harris campaign recently put out an ad featuring a young mother who was forced to flee Texas to have an abortion. This should be just the first salvo in a relentless barrage, juxtaposing women victimized by draconian abortion laws with brags from the former president that he “got rid of Roe v. Wade.”

Even more important is underscoring what Mr. Trump has said he’ll do if given a second chance: from prosecuting his political enemies to deporting millions of people, to constructing concentration camps, to invoking the Insurrection Act to further radicalizing a deeply conservative Supreme Court that threatens to curtail American freedoms.

As for his economic agenda, what Mr. Trump promises is magic dust and the gauzy notion that he can rewind the clock to a golden age when interest rates were near zero and prices were at prepandemic lows. That economy, incidentally, was the one he inherited from Mr. Obama and then ran into the ditch.

Oh, and on another potent issue — health care — Mr. Trump has renewed his vow to repeal Obamacare without a realistic plan to replace it.

Indeed, the Biden team can’t emphasize strongly or often enough that the MAGA-dominated Republican Party has no answers or realistic plans to deal with the problems of our day. Name the challenge — reducing inflation, cutting the price of housing, providing affordable health care, ending mass shootings, stopping Vladimir Putin, slowing global warming — and the G.O.P. toolbox is empty. Even on the issue of the southern border, the MAGA-controlled House appears willing, on Mr. Trump’s command, to scuttle a potential bipartisan deal — at least in part because it would deny the former president a campaign issue. The party stands for nothing except membership in a cult of personality.

A populist for all Americans

No doubt Mr. Biden has some weak spots. For example, the impact of Israel’s war against Hamas on many progressive Democrats and young voters. Having had Israel’s back on Oct. 7, Mr. Biden should now publicly denounce its near-indiscriminate bombing of Gaza.

But consider this: While the president will get little political benefit for being sure-footed on the international stage, rallying NATO in the face of Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine has been vital to Western democracy.

And he remains the best advocate for many issues young voters care about — like student-loan relief, reforming gun laws and mitigating climate change.

Running for re-election while simultaneously managing world crises is a herculean task. But as one senior White House adviser told me (on condition of anonymity to speak freely about White House conversations): “I keep saying to the president and to the team, yes, Ukraine is really important. Yes, the economy is really important. Yes, Israel is really important. But at the end of the day, when we think about the future of this country and the world, it’s about the president being re-elected. And so we have to put that at the top of the list, right?”

It’s time for Joe Biden to get out of the Rose Garden, shake off his script doctors and recapture the plain-spoken persona that got him elected three years ago by a margin of seven million votes.

Mr. Biden has an overwhelming populist case for re-election, and he can and should win a second term — but only if the president and his team explain what he intends to do with it, and why returning Mr. Trump to power would be a calamity for our democracy and America’s leadership role in the world.

If you were President Biden’s campaign strategist, what slogan would you suggest he adopt for his 2024 presidential campaign, and why? Opinion wants to know what message you think he needs to send to the voters he needs most. 

We may feature your comments in a future article or on our social media platforms. 

---

Chris Whipple is the author of “The Gatekeepers: How the White House Chiefs of Staff Define Every Presidency” and “The Fight of His Life: Inside Joe Biden’s White House.” He is writing a book about presidential campaign managers."

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Lawrence on why Biden was the big winner in New Hampshire

 

  Lawrence on why Biden was the big winner in New Hampshire

Trump’s New Hampshire win had some bright red warning signs

Trump’s victory wasn’t as big as predicted: 5 takeaways from New Hampshire

POLITICO

7 min

January 23, 2024

View Original

After New Hampshire, the primary will turn to the courts.

CONCORD, N.H. — If Nikki Haley was going to stop Donald Trump in any state, it was going to be New Hampshire, whose independent-minded electorate seemed more likely to deliver for her than anywhere else.

It didn’t.

It wasn’t a knockout punch. But Trump beat his only remaining competition here decisively on Tuesday. And his former rivals, who over the course of the past week either dropped out or endorsed him or both, helped him do it.

Never mind that only around 230,000 votes — the population of a decent-sized American suburb — will likely have been cast for Trump in just two states by the time New Hampshire finishes counting. Or that Trump’s margin of victory fell short of the polling that had him up roughly 20 percentage points in the state.

Trump is still running away with the Republican nomination.

“In a state with so many independent primary voters, with Trump above 50, it’s pretty hard to argue that Republican primary voters are looking for anyone else,” said former New Hampshire GOP chair Fergus Cullen.

Still, bright red warning signs are flashing for Trump. A wounded Haley is vowing to fight on, telling a crowd on Tuesday night that “this race is far from over.” A Supreme Court decision threatening Trump’s ballot status looms. And voters he’ll need in November are either, at best, not voting for him, or at worst vowing to never vote for him.

Here are five things New Hampshire told us about the primary as it moves to Nevada, South Carolina, Michigan and beyond.

The primary turns to the courts

If Trump’s closing argument in New Hampshire — calling for “full and total immunity” — sounded more at home in a courtroom than in a town hall, that’s because that will be the very terrain on which he now stands to cinch his party’s nomination.

To wit, the next GOP contest to award delegates doesn’t take place until Feb. 8 in Nevada. That happens to be the same day that, 2,500 miles to the east, the Supreme Court is expected to hear oral arguments on whether the 14th Amendment should knock him off the ballot.Criminal cases pending in New York, Georgia and Florida — and potentially, even Michigan — also loom.

The political liability for Trump is huge. Last month, a Wall Street Journal poll that found Trump leading Biden in a head-to-head matchup also showed that Trump fares worse — 45 percent to Biden’s 46 percent — if convicted of a felony.

The general election coalition Trump would have to build is deeply fractured over issues of his conduct. Just look at Haley’s supporters, whose support he would need in November. In New Hampshire on Tuesday, roughly 9 in 10 Haley voters said they would not be happy with a third Trump nomination, according to exit polls, while 84 percent of her backers said Trump would be unfit for the presidency again if convicted of a crime.

The election voters still don’t want 

Trump and Biden may have won their respective primaries on Tuesday night. But look deeper and it’s hard to miss how dissatisfied voters are about it.

By late Tuesday night, about 75 percent of votes had been counted. Of that total, nearly 43 percent of the vote had gone to candidates other than Biden or Trump.

That’s no small indictment of the most likely general election ticket shaping up. And it follows months of polling data suggesting Americans are less than satisfied as they watch Trump’s legal saga unfold and Biden age into his 80s.

Voters cast their ballots inside the Pinkerton Academy high school polling place in Derry, New Hampshire. | Jamie Kelter Davis for POLITICO

According to polling averages aggregated by FiveThirtyEight, both men are underwater with the American public — Biden by 15 points, and Trump by 9 points.

Those voters who picked someone else on Tuesday will be the kind of people who are up for grabs in November. What the election demonstrated is just how many of them there are — and how much work Biden and Trump will have to do to win them over.

Biden had a big night, too

Biden wasn’t on the ballot in New Hampshire. His long-shot challengers had the state to themselves and a raft of concerns among Democratic and independent voters about the incumbent’s age, mental acuity and ability to beat Trump in a general election.

None of that mattered. Biden cruised to victory with a write-in campaign stood up by his allies in the state. Self-help guru Marianne Williamson and Rep. Dean Phillips (D-Minn.), who had staked his campaign largely on this state, have very little to show for their efforts.

The Democratic National Committee won’t count the results here toward convention delegates. But they show that Biden is running headlong toward a rematch with Trump.

People sit outside of Oyster River High school with signs in support of Joe Biden's write-in campaign in Durham, New Hampshire. | Jamie Kelter Davis for POLITICO

And perhaps more importantly, the outcome demonstrated this: For all of the hand-wringing about Biden’s weak approval ratings and polls showing him trailing Trump in a general election — and despite all of the anger here about Biden’s attempt to reorder the primary calendar — Democrats were still willing to rally behind him when it mattered.

“The Republican Party has been taken over by Trumpers,” said Kathy Sullivan, a longtime Democratic operative who worked on the pro-Biden super PAC in New Hampshire. “So, yeah, I think you’re going to see a lot more energy, a lot more interest from the Democratic base to get out there and elect Joe Biden.”

The road for Haley just gets harder

Haley’s campaign manager, Betsy Ankney, lambasted the media on Tuesday for asserting that New Hampshire was the most favorable GOP primary electorate she was going to get.

Places like Michigan and some of the Super Tuesday states, she argued, will bring out many moderate, unaffiliated voters.

But even if her campaign team is right, Haley has to keep the money and the support flowing for more than a month until those states’ primaries roll around. That’s a difficult task when Trump is racking up endorsements and growing his polling lead. Already, Haley is facing calls from GOP officials and conservative commentators to give up.

Meanwhile, Haley and her team are effectively pretending like Nevada doesn’t exist — having declined to register for the GOP caucus on Feb. 8, which Trump is all but certain to win. And then comes South Carolina, Haley’s home state, which looks far more difficult for her than New Hampshire.Trump not only holds a commanding polling lead in the state, but has swept the state’s Republican offices for endorsements. Even some of Haley’s past friends and allies have seemingly turned their back on her there. That includes Sen. Tim Scott, whom Haley appointed to the Senate, and Rep. Nancy Mace, for whom Haley campaigned in a tough 2022 reelection fight.

A closer-than-expected finish in New Hampshire could persuade her former constituents in South Carolina to take her campaign seriously. But lacking that, it will be all the more difficult for Haley to convince a Republican primary electorate who hasn’t seen her on a ballot in 10 years to decide to support her over Trump.

The other surprising winner on Tuesday: Social Security

It may not be the economy or abortion rights or immigration. But in the run-up to the New Hampshire primary, allies of both Biden and Trump gave Social Security an enormous amount of play.

On the Democratic side, Granite for America, a super PAC supporting the write-in effort for Biden, sent mailers elevating Social Security protection alongside abortion rights and concerns about democracy, saying “ Social Security IS ON THE LINE.”

And on the Republican side, the issue emerged as one of Trump’s top lines of attack against Haley, with negative ads against her over her calls to raise the retirement age and cut benefits for the wealthy to keep the program solvent.

The super PAC backing Haley not only went on air pushing back, saying Haley would fight to protect Social Security, but Haley also began to devote a segment of her stump speech over the last week to debunking some of Trump’s accusations — which included lies about her stance on immigration.

It’s unclear how much the issue actually resonated in New Hampshire.

“It’s always hard to say in the middle of a battle, what is causation versus correlation?” said Mark Harris, lead strategist of SFA Fund, Inc., the super PAC supporting Haley. “I think our data indicates that certainly a lot of negative advertising on us does do damage … It’s part of the reason we ran advertising to refute that it wasn’t true, and to point out Donald Trump’s record on the issue.”

Trump has insisted he will protect Social Security. But the Biden campaign has repeatedly — and sometimes misleadingly — hammered him on the issue, suggesting past remarks make him an untrustworthy steward of the program.

Elena Schneider and Steven Shepard contributed to this report.

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