You smoke weed in front of the cops, get free munchies, and a ride home. Not a dream, no. It’s the new Ocean City Police Department (OCPD) program, as part of the Maryland Highway Safety Office’s Zero Deaths DUI Conference, held in partnership with Cannabis Green Lab. And it’s happening on Sunday, October 26, from noon to 4 p.m.

In Ocean City, Maryland, the police department put out a call for volunteers to light up and drive for training purposes, and quickly received an “overwhelming” number of volunteers, according to the OCPD post. All in the name of science, education and, probably, free lunch (they did have to bring their own stash, but still, not a bad deal.)

The OCPD was only looking for 12 to 14 adults over 21 years old to “smoke cannabis for educational purposes while officers learn to recognize cannabis impairment,” but the post went viral within hours, forcing them to close the call, according to Marijuana Moment.

And because it sounded so good, the 12–14 spots turned into a flood of applications, hundreds of people reportedly signing up within seven hours.

Training cops to read the high, not just smell it

The initiative is part of the Maryland’s Zero Deaths DUI Conference, in partnership with Cannabis Green Lab. The Green Lab, says OCPD, “helps both officers and participants better understand the effects and levels of impairment caused by cannabis, all in a safe, controlled setting.”

Participants have to bring their own weed, consume it before the driving exercises, and then get a free lunch, “courtesy of MHSO,” clarified the department. To keep things above board, a shuttle service was arranged to take volunteers home once the session and the meal were over, since no, you can’t drive high, not even in states where smoking is legal.

“We’ll have about 40 student officers participating, so it’s a great way to help train the next generation of law enforcement safely and responsibly,” the department said.

This training comes after a crucial legal shift in Maryland. Following adult-use legalization, Governor Wes Moore (D) allowed a bill to become law prohibiting police from using the smell or simple possession of cannabis as grounds for a search. And earlier this year, Montgomery County also began relaxing cannabis policies for would-be officers to boost recruitment; another sign that, even inside the force, times are changing.

That means law enforcement can no longer rely on the ‘odor test’—a sniff and a hunch, basically—to justify arrests or searches. The Green Lab training program seeks to update that outdated logic with actual observation and data, bridging the gap between legalization and enforcement.

It’s rare to see the words ‘police’, ‘weed’, and ‘free lunch’ in the same sentence, and rarer still for it to be entirely legal. But that’s Maryland’s new reality: a state trying to redefine what responsible cannabis use—and enforcement—looks like. And as Governor Moore himself once admitted, even his historic win couldn’t top the people’s will: “There was one thing that beat me on the ballot: marijuana legalization.”

More Americans now use marijuana than smoke cigarettes amid shifting perceptions of harm of the two substances, according to a new study.

Researchers at the State University of New York (SUNY) and the University of Kentucky provided what they called the “most comprehensive” analysis of trends in adults who use only cannabis, only tobacco or both from 2015-2023—revealing a consistent decline in cigarette smoking as marijuana consumption rose.

From 2021 to 2023, data from the National Survey on Drug Use and Health (NSDUH) showed that the rate of people who reported using only cannabis in the past 30 days “rose sharply” from 7.2 percent to 10.6 percent—”overtaking cigarette-only use,” which declined during that period.

“Cannabis-only use increased from 3.9 percent to 6.5 percent in 2015–2019, was 7.1 percent in 2020, and increased again from 7.9 percent to 10.6 percent in 2021–2023. Cigarette-only use decreased from 15.0 percent to 12.0 percent in 2015–2019, was 10.3 percent in 2020, and declined again from 10.8 percent to 8.8 percent in 2021–2023. Co-use was relatively stable across the different periods.”

Writing in the journal of Addictive Behaviors, the researchers said that the evolving trends in use of the two substances could be evidence of a “substitution” effect amid “changing harm perceptions, evolving legislation, and shifting norms.”

“The rising cannabis-only use across groups parallels the expanding state-level recreational cannabis legalization, increasing accessibility and normalization,” the paper says. “Conversely, continued declines in cigarette-only use align with decades of tobacco control efforts and evolving norms surrounding smoking. The relatively stable co-use trends may reflect substitution dynamics whereby some individuals replace cigarettes with cannabis, preventing co-use from rising in tandem with cannabis-only use.”

Other researchers have also separately observed a similar trend where cannabis is increasingly used as an alcohol substitute.

“During 2015–2019, cigarette-only use declined, while cannabis-only use increased across nearly all sociodemographic groups.”

Cigarette-only use was most prevalent “among socioeconomically disadvantaged adults (with lower education, income, or lacking insurance),” the study found, whereas cannabis-only use “predominated among more socioeconomically advantaged groups (college-educated, high-income, and privately insured).”

While prior studies have concluded that marijuana smoke exposure is not equally or more dangerous to health than tobacco smoking, the authors of the new paper suggested that the “surge in cannabis use” as “tobacco use wanes” represents “a worrisome trend among adults.”

“Without timely policy response, cannabis may become the next public health crisis,” they cautioned.

“Cannabis-only use and co-use trends pose public health risks akin to cigarettes, necessitating targeted prevention campaigns,” the paper says. “A multi-pronged strategy of public health education, early detection, and effective treatment development is vital to prevent cannabis from becoming the next public health crisis.”

“U.S. cannabis legislation is rapidly evolving. While declining cigarette use is encouraging, rising cannabis use is concerning,” the researchers argued. “Although emerging evidence suggests potential therapeutic applications of cannabis—pain management, opioid detoxification and tapering–considerable risks exist, with heterogeneous effects by administration mode, potency, use frequency and intensity, and population.”

It should be noted that data on cannabis use in the study included all forms of consumption, from smokable flower and vaping concentrates to edibles and tinctures. By contrast, the data on cigarettes excluded those who vaped nicotine.

The study involved an unweighted sample size of 42,163 to 46,906 participants for each time period—with the exception of 2020 when there was a smaller sample of 27,001 amid pandemic-related complications.

“Increasing adults’ cannabis use alongside declining cigarette use highlights evolving substance use patterns warranting monitoring and targeted prevention, treatment, and policy efforts,” the study concluded.

To the authors’ point about shifting perceptions of harm, a recent survey found that, on the list of activities that Americans say is dangerous for pregnant women to engage in, using marijuana falls below drinking alcohol or smoking cigarettes.

Consistent with the latest study, survey data from Gallup that was released late last year found that 15 percent of U.S. adults reported that they smoke cannabis, which is more than the 11 percent of who told the polling firm that they have smoked any cigarettes in the past week.

A separate Gallup report at the beginning of last year similarly found that significantly more Americans said they smoked marijuana than cigarettes—with young people being more than five times more likely to consume cannabis compared to tobacco.

Texas officials have formally adopted new rules to implement a law significantly expanding the state’s medical marijuana program.

About two months after the Department of Public Safety (DPS) posted the proposed rules—after which point a 30-day public comment period was completed—the regulations were finalized and published in the Texas Register on Friday.

This specific set of rules will increase the number of licensed dispensaries, establish security requirements for “satellite” locations and authorize the revocation of licenses for certain violations.

DPS will ultimately be issuing 12 new licenses for dispensaries across the state. Currently there are only three. The additional licensees will go through a competitive process, with officials prioritizing Texas’s public health regions to optimize access.

The first round of licenses will be awarded to nine of 139 applicants who submitted their forms during an earlier application window in 2023. DPS will select those nine licensees on December 1. The 2023 applicants that didn’t receive a license, as well as any new prospective licensees, will have another shot at getting their license during a second round where awardees will be announced on April 1, 2026.

The finalized rules also lay out security parameters for dispensaries with satellite locations approved by the department, including mandates to “designate an enclosed locked area within the satellite location where low-THC cannabis product is stored that provides reasonably adequate security against theft and diversion” as well as “designate an individual, or a limited number of individuals, with responsibility for and with the authority to enter or control entry” into those secure areas.

Additionally, they specify policies allowing regulators to revoke licenses for violations such as not having cannabis products available within 24 months of a license issuance, failing to “promptly and accurately fill prescriptions” and not “continuously” producing cannabis “in a manner consistent with the level of demand for the licensee’s product.”

DPS received two comments on the rules when they were up for public review, but no changes were made based on the feedback.

In addition to increasing the number of dispensaries in the state, the law signed by the governor also expands the state’s list of medical cannabis qualifying conditions to include chronic pain, traumatic brain injury (TBI), Crohn’s disease and other inflammatory bowel diseases, while also allowing end-of-life patients in palliative or hospice care to use marijuana.

That policy change is automatically adopted via the enacted statute, so it took effect on September 1 without further rulemaking.

Also in line with the state’s medical cannabis expansion law that Gov. Greg Abbott (R) signed, the state Health and Human Services Commission (HHSC) proposed rules last month to let physicians recommend new qualifying conditions for cannabis and to create standards for allowable inhalation devices.

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Meanwhile, Department of State Health Services (DSHS) recently adopted a set of emergency rules meant to prevent the sale of intoxicating hemp products to people under 21.

After similar restrictions were implemented by the Texas Alcoholic Beverage Commission (TABC) late last month, DSHS announced that they’ve moved forward with the policies changes that comply with the governor’s recent executive order on hemp.

Meanwhile this month, the head of the Texas Department of Agriculture (TDA) pushed back against a GOP senator’s “incorrect assertions” about the state’s regulatory compliance with federal hemp laws. But he also signaled that changes may be coming to measure “total THC” to determine the legality of hemp products in a way that some stakeholders worry could negatively impact the industry.

After the legislature failed to pass a controversial bill to ban hemp products containing THC during two special sessions following the governor’s veto of a similar measure earlier this year, Abbott signed the executive order to impose certain restrictions on the market.

Separately, a recent survey from a GOP pollster affiliated with President Donald Trump found that Texas Democratic and Republican voters are unified in their opposition to the hemp ban proposal.

Image element courtesy of AnonMoos.