With legalization in some states and so many cannabis and cannabis-like products popping up, there is a lot of information to navigate.
- What’s legal or allowed? The Federal Government and individual states have different laws and policies regarding marijuana and they are changing rapidly.
– Recreational marijuana is not legal on the Federal level. - Marijuana can be characterized as:
– Medical – Ingested/smoked/vaped – cannabis is recommended for an ailment by a clinician
– Recreational – anyone can purchase and use cannabis
– Illegal – manufacture, sale, distribution, use is against the law – still true federally. - There are different ways to use it – smoking, vaping, and edibles.
- People may confuse THC and CBD. THC, (delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol), the main psychoactive ingredient in the marijuana plant and CBD, (cannabidiol), which is from the marijuana plant but not psychoactive.
- Perhaps the most important considerations – what impact does marijuana have on our health and if it is safe?
The short answer is that there are potential health effects and risks. To explore this more fully, we turned to John Kelly, psychologist, and addiction expert from MGH.
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John Kelly, PhD ABPP is the Founder and Director of the Recovery Research Institute at MGH and the Elizabeth R. Spallin Professor of Psychiatry in the Field of Addiction Medicine at Harvard Medical School. Dr. Kelly is a former President of the American Psychological Association’s (APA) Society of Addiction Psychology, a founding member and inaugural President of the American Board of Addiction Psychology, a Fellow of the APA, and a Diplomate of the American Board of Professional Psychology. He has served as a consultant to U.S. federal agencies and non-federal institutions, as well as foreign governments, the United Nations and the World Health Organization. Dr. Kelly has published over 200 peer-reviewed articles, reviews, chapters, and books in the field of addiction medicine, and was an author on the U.S. Surgeon General’s Report on Alcohol, Drugs, and Health.
