Should cannabis products in California come with warnings about rare, adverse reactions for people living with schizophrenia and other mental illnesses, or does it fuel false or exaggerated beliefs about cannabis?

Senate Bill 1097, the Cannabis Right to Know Act, was introduced February 16 by Sen. Richard Pan, and is sponsored by the Public Health Institute, a nonprofit. On June 21, it was amended in the Committee on Business and Professions, as support for the bill gained steam.

Some researchers say people must already have a predisposition for a mental disorder like schizophrenia for these types of negative reactions to occur, while others disagree. Others say certain types of products shouldn’t be a big concern.

“Cal NORML agrees that consumers should be educated about the risks of psychotic reactions, especially in connection with high-THC concentrates and dabs,” Dale Gieringer told High Times. “Cyclical vomiting syndrome is another concern. We doubt whether label warnings are a useful way of informing them, though. Consumers are already jaded by the proliferation of inane Prop. 65 warnings.”

Gieringer has been the state coordinator of California’s NORML branch since 1987, before adult-use regulations took effect, ramping up safety efforts. Requiring warnings like this on products like topicals and CBD products isn’t the solution, he says.

He continued, “We don’t think SB 1097 is the right answer. It doesn’t make sense to be posting these warnings on harmless products like topicals or high-CBD varieties. Consumers weren’t consulted by the authors of SB 1097. We think more research is needed to determine the best way of informing consumers about the risks of THC over-consumption.”

On June 30, the Kaiser Health News profiled an instance of a teen who had an adverse reaction to pot, and it was later revealed that he was diagnosed with schizophrenia. Liz Kirkaldie’s grandson didn’t have a good experience with cannabis, but he suffered from schizophrenia. The pot appeared to enhance delusions like hearing voices. “They were going to kill him and there were people coming to eat his brain. Weird, weird stuff,” Kirkaldie said. “I woke up one morning, and no Kory anywhere. Well, it turns out, he’d been running down Villa Lane here totally naked.”

“The drug use activated the psychosis, is what I really think,” she said.

Seek and ye shall find, and there are plenty of peer-reviewed studies that show the negative outcomes from cannabis use. According to a study published in The Lancet Psychiatry on March 19, 2019, the focus is on high-potency pot, and the risk is over four times greater for people who use high-potency pot daily than for those who have never smoked. But often these risks are blown out of proportion.

Fearmongers have banked on studies like these, such as Alex Berenson, author of Tell Your Children: The Truth About Marijuana, Mental Illness, and Violence—who was permanently banned from Twitter for you guessed it, the spread of misinformation. The way arguments are presented makes it seem as though schizophrenia is common.

But what do other researchers say about the link between schizophrenia and pot?

Other researchers say drugs, nicotine, and other factors that aren’t pot muddy up the results in studies searching for a real correlation between pot and schizophrenia, nor other mental disorders.

A 2014 study, led by Ashley C. Proal and Dr. Lynn E. DeLisi of Harvard Medical School recruited pot smokers with and without a family history of schizophrenia, as well as non-smokers with and without such a history. But this time, the pot users did not use any other drugs, so they could rule out those factors. What they actually found was a heightened schizophrenia risk among people with a family history—regardless of cannabis use.

“My study clearly shows that cannabis does not cause schizophrenia by itself,” Dr. DeLisi told the New York Times in 2019. “Rather, a genetic predisposition is necessary. It is highly likely, based on the results of this study and others, that cannabis use during adolescence through to age 25, when the brain is maturing and at its peak of growth in a genetically vulnerable individual, can initiate the onset of schizophrenia.”

Other experts backed up Dr. DeLisi’s guess that schizophrenia warnings could be a bit inflated. “Usually it is the research types who are doing ‘the sky is falling’ bit, but here it is switched,” said Dr. Jay Geidd, a professor of psychiatry at the University of California, San Diego. “The researchers are wary of overselling the dangers, as was clearly done in the past. However, clinicians overwhelmingly endorse seeing many more adolescents with ‘paranoia’”

SB 1097 now heads to an appropriations committee, sent on June 22, for another reading.

City lawmakers in Washington, D.C. adopted an emergency ordinance on Tuesday designed to ease access to the medical cannabis program in the nation’s capital by allowing all adults to “self-certify” their eligibility to use medicinal pot. Under the proposal, adults 21 and older would no longer be required to submit a recommendation to use medicinal pot from a health care provider when they apply for a medical cannabis identification card.

Supporters of the measure maintain that the bill will make it simpler for patients to gain access to medical cannabis, particularly for those who have difficulty seeing a doctor. Out of thousands of physicians practicing medicine in Washington, D.C., only 620 are registered to issue medical pot recommendations. In January, the city council passed a similar measure that allowed adults 65 and older to self-certify for medical cannabis card eligibility, but that ordinance expired on May 1.

“This self-certification is urgently needed for consumers and dispensaries alike,” said Councilmember Janeese Lewis George, as quoted by the DCist. “Expanding our patient base is a necessary first step to putting them on an equal playing field.”

Washington, D.C. Dispensaries Face Competition From Illicit Businesses

The emergency ordinance passed on Tuesday was introduced by Councilmembers Kenyan McDuffie and Mary Cheh. Proponents of the bill also hope that it will help regulated medical dispensaries compete with the illicit cannabis economy.

“Due to the lower barriers to access in the gray market, a significant number of medical marijuana patients have shifted from purchasing their medical marijuana from legal medical dispensaries to the illicit gray market, creating a significant risk to the long-term viability of the District’s legal medical marijuana industry,” McDuffie and Cheh said in a statement accompanying the emergency bill. “If this trend continues, it is possible that gray market sales could wipe out the District’s legal marijuana dispensaries.

Cheh and McDuffie went on to state that given the “benefits that regulated and safe legal dispensaries provide to medical marijuana users in the District, it is vital that the industry survive until the District can stand up a regulated recreational market and transition toward full regulation of recreational marijuana products.”

The council members noted that Washington, D.C.’s permitted medical marijuana dispensaries face stiff competition from the city’s gray market for cannabis, which takes advantage of recreational cannabis decriminalization loopholes to operate with virtual impunity. One popular scheme features businesses who sell cheap merchandise at hyper-inflated prices and include what is ostensibly a gift of cannabis with the purchase.

“Savvy business owners have pushed the legal limits on the gifting industry,” McDuffie said ahead of the vote. “I’ve had medical dispensaries that have reached out to me and my staff and say that if we don’t pass this measure, it could put their businesses into jeopardy.”

Although possession of cannabis has been legalized since the passage of a 2014 ballot measure, the federal government has blocked implementation of the law that would allow for the opening of recreational pot retailers. At Tuesday’s meeting, Council Chairman Phil Mendelson said that he would still like to see additional legislation that targets Washington D.C.’s cannabis gifting shops, noting that the business will be vital infrastructure for a potential legalized adult-use cannabis market.

“It’s not an equal playing field and will never be as long as there are illegal cannabis gifting shops,” he said. “As long as there are these businesses, the legal industry won’t be there to step in [when legalization happens].”

The city council passed the ordinance by a unanimous vote at its meeting on Tuesday. The bill is now headed to the office of Mayor Muriel Bowser for her consideration. In a letter sent to the council on Tuesday, Bowser said that she is in favor of the legislation, according to media reports.