From Meth to Marijuana: Q&A with Featured Researcher Dr. Jane Maxwell

Dr. Jane Maxwell of the Addiction Research Institute at the University of Texas at Austin gives an overview of drug use trends, including heroin use, prescription painkillers, synthetics, and marijuana. See the Q&A below.
Watch a video of this iTraining webinar on the ATTC Vimeo site.
The Deep web is harder to access. Technical obstacles include timed-entry, password access, requires deliberate search into a website, and it is not always bad.
The Dark web is a small portion of the web that is intentionally hidden and inaccessible through standard web browsers. Other aspects allegedly include illegal services such as copyrighted media, hit-men/contract killings, human trafficking, child pornography, illegal firearms, and illegal drug trade as on Silk Road. Other alleged services include identity theft, new passports, IDs, social security numbers, stolen credit card numbers, Bit-coin, which is on-line encrypted currency, no banks involved, completely anonymous, and delivery through FedEx, UPS, DHL, etc.
A new book on cryptomarkets has recently been published by James Martin: Drugs on the Dark Net: How Cryptomarkets are Transforming the Global Trade in Illegal Drugs.
Most of the diversion I have seen is because people have become addicted to heroin or pain pills and cannot get into buprenorphine treatment because of the limitation on the number of patients a doctor can have or unable to get it because of cost. So is the “epidemic” really a reflection of the need for treatment?
We are being told by many that overdose doesn’t happen and no one has evidence of overdose death from marijuana.
I have never seen a death due to overdose of marijuana. However, a traumatic death in Colorado following ingestion of an edible marijuana product found a blood level of 7.2 ng/mL without evidence of polysubstance abuse (whole blood limit of delta-9 THC for driving a vehicle in Colorado is 5.0 ng/mL). (The user took one bite of a marijuana=infused brownie and got no effect so then ate the entire brownie and ended up jumping off a balcony).
On the basis of initial surveillance data and cases of accidental overconsumption, on February 1, 2015, Colorado instituted new packaging and labeling rules, requiring that recreational edible marijuana products contain no more than 10 mg of THC, or have clear demarcation of each 10-mg serving. In addition, before distribution, cannabinoid potency testing is now performed on batches of recreational edible marijuana products by state-certified laboratories.
- For publicly funded federal programs such as Medicaid, 340B, the VA, IHS and others, the price is steeply discounted (about 40-50% per federally established policy); there are also discounts to states for individuals who do not qualify for Medicaid, but are indigent, which is less than the federal rebate/discount but still substantial.
- For people with commercial insurance coverage, Alkermes provides up to $500/month co-pay assistance, so that the vast majority of people with commercial coverage can have $0 out of pocket costs.
- Regarding Alkermes ongoing provision of samples to individuals leaving prison, this public health initiative is born of our company’s view that addiction is a disease and not a crime; our support and advocacy for prison re-entry programs are one of the many ways we advance the de-stigmatization and help to reform the just treatment of addicted individuals.