--:-- Sean Rameswaram: It's a new year. Maybe you're taking a month off from drinking, you know, dry January, and maybe you're replacing it with something else.
--:-- Maren Kogan: Puff, puff, pass. Some like one in five people who do dry January say they're smoking weed instead.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: And more Americans are now smoking weed daily than drinking daily. Current president is into it. No one should be in jail merely for using or possessing marijuana, period. Future president is into it.
--:-- Maren Kogan: I've had friends and I've had others and doctors telling me that it's been absolutely amazing, the medical marijuana.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Failed president and former prosecutor was down to clown. People shouldn't have to go to jail for smoking weed. Even health-conscious brainworm guy likes it.
--:-- Maren Kogan: My position on marijuana is that it should be federally legalized. Everyone's getting down with pot, but legislatively we're still stuck with a hot mess in the United States.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: We're going to see what we can do about that on Today Explained. Department can focus on the work that matters most.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: I've never met an AI agent. Learn how ServiceNow puts AI to work for people at ServiceNow.com.
--:-- Maren Kogan: Support for this show comes from Strawberry.me. Be honest. Are you happy with your job? Or are you stuck in one you've outgrown? Or never wanted in the first place?
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Sure, you can probably list the reasons for staying. But are they actually just excuses for not leaving? Let a career coach from strawberry.me help you get unstuck. Discover the benefits of having a dedicated career coach in your corner. Go to strawberry.me slash unstuck to claim a special offer.
--:-- Maren Kogan: You're listening to Today Explained. Maren Kogan, senior correspondent at Vox, what's up with weed right now?
--:-- Maren Kogan: So researchers found in 2022, for the first time, more Americans were using marijuana every day or nearly every day than consuming alcohol at the same rate. More Americans are doing daily weed than daily booze.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Yeah, it's a huge phenomenon. And if you think about it, the numbers are something like 17.7 million Americans say that they're getting a little high or smoking a little weed daily or near daily. That's not nothing. That's like 5% of the American public.
--:-- Maren Kogan: So I smoke marijuana sometimes a lot every day, and I'll tell you. I smoke weed all day, so I would imagine it would be worse if I didn't.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: How much do you smoke a day?
--:-- Maren Kogan: Probably an ounce, like a cool chair.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Jesus! We burning a cool ounce.
--:-- Maren Kogan: This is all based on survey data. It's self-reported use. So are these people taking a little hit of a vape pen before they go to bed to deal with insomnia?
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: BRB, about to escape and enter my magical fantasy world?
--:-- Maren Kogan: It just calms me down. I'm able to sleep comfortably and I stay asleep. It's much easier and much more pleasant, the whole experience, because when you do sleep, you sleep like a log.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: I sleep really well. Are they people who wake and bake?
--:-- Maren Kogan: You thinking what I'm thinking? Wake and bake. Let's go. Good morning to all the wake and bakers. It's time to wake and bake.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Are they people who are basically getting a little high before they go to class, before they go to their jobs?
--:-- Maren Kogan: Getting late before work, guys. Cheers. It's called self-care. Look it up.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: So I'm on my way to school and I gotta smoke. I gotta smoke before school.
--:-- Maren Kogan: We don't know how many times a day those people are using. We also don't know the potency of what they're using. So there's a huge range and variation.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: And what we do know is that the market right now for marijuana and the number of sales are really going towards customers who are using very heavily. So we're talking multiple times a day.
--:-- Maren Kogan: What we don't know exactly is what that means for personal or for public health. So essentially, Americans are conducting this real-time experiment on their own bodies.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Are people getting addicted to weed? Can you get addicted to weed?
--:-- Maren Kogan: Yeah. So contrary to popular belief, it can be habit forming for some people. It can increase risk of dependence on other substances.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: And a recent analysis by Columbia University researchers found that as many as 18 million people in the US might have some form of cannabis use disorder. In other words, addiction.
--:-- Maren Kogan: So it's simply not true that it's completely harmless for everyone.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Tell me more. What do we know about the harms, especially as we undergo this massive nationwide experiment and see more people smoking weed every day.
--:-- Maren Kogan: So one really good example of this is cannabinoid hyperamesis syndrome. Cannabinoid hyperamesis syndrome. It's a really fancy term for people who have used a lot of marijuana, heavy amounts over a long period of time, who begin throwing up really violently and are sort of unable to stop these cycles of nausea and vomiting.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Doctors and hospitals across the country are seeing people come in with cannabinoid hyperemesis syndrome, and it can be really, really bad. Crazy stomach pains and migraines and nausea and diarrhea and all this other stuff.
--:-- Maren Kogan: I was losing weight. I was getting nauseous. I wasn't throwing up, but I was getting the joint pain. I really couldn't work out anymore without massive amounts of discomfort.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: If you're having crazy vomiting and nausea episodes and you smoke weed and nothing helps you except for laying in a very hot shower, you likely have CHS.
--:-- Maren Kogan: I'm not a doctor. I'm saying likely. You likely have CHS.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: There have been all sorts of horror stories of people who have burned themselves because one of the few things that makes people with this syndrome feel better is heat.
--:-- Maren Kogan: So they'll take hot baths repeatedly. And yeah, people have actually burned themselves trying to get relief from the nausea they feel because they've been smoking so much weed.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Is cannabinoid hypermesis syndrome the only negative health impact we seeing amongst people who are smoking more weed?
--:-- Maren Kogan: No. So high levels of consumption is being associated with higher risk of stroke cardiovascular disease.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: But the real issue here and I think the real concern that a number of researchers have is what regular marijuana use is doing to teens.
--:-- Maren Kogan: There is particular concern about what regular heavy marijuana use does to adolescent and teen brains.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: So there have been studies that have shown an increased likelihood of depression and suicidal ideation associated with heavy marijuana use.
--:-- Maren Kogan: In a few cases, it has been associated with the development of schizophrenia and other psychotic disorders among young people.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Studies have also shown disruptions in the anatomy of a developing brain.
--:-- Maren Kogan: And teens often have, and honestly, adult consumers too, often have really no idea what they're consuming and how safe it is.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: A big issue is a lot of people don't know dosing, so they tend to overconsume and then they have a very bad experience.
--:-- Maren Kogan: Last time that I called myself taking an edible, I legit called the ambulance because I thought I was having a heart attack.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Once those edibles kicked in, my whole entire soul left my body and I'm not being dramatic. I literally disassociated. I was talking to the refrigerator, bawling my eyes out, throwing up.
--:-- Maren Kogan: Why don't we know more about what we're consuming and how safe it is?
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: A lot of it is because every state is sort of running their own experiment with marijuana legalization.
--:-- Maren Kogan: So different states have different laws. They have different requirements for what sort of health or safety inspections things have to go through.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: And then the other thing is just the market is evolving so fast and customers are sort of rushing in to buy new products and they don't necessarily themselves know what's in the product.
--:-- Maren Kogan: And it's confusing for the consumers. It's confusing for the researchers too.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: The regulations basically have not caught up to where the market is evolving.
--:-- Maren Kogan: Por qué no?
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: One of the big reasons is that the federal government has basically allowed the states to liberalize their marijuana laws, so decriminalizing or legalizing in different cases.
--:-- Maren Kogan: Today, marijuana is legal for medical use in 38 states and recreational use in roughly half of all states, plus the District of Columbia.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: But it's still kept marijuana as illegal on a federal level as a Schedule I drug.
--:-- Maren Kogan: So the government doesn't recognize it for medical use, and that's made getting safety approvals and government funding necessary to study the drug really difficult.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: So essentially, researchers say it's like they've been handcuffed all these years, right?
--:-- Maren Kogan: And the handcuffs are just sort of coming off.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Should we use it in place of an opioid? Should we use it in the place of another pain medication? Where and how should it fit into medicine?
--:-- Maren Kogan: We don't know.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: So now you'll see these scientists emerging in this natural health field, really opening up the field so that they can evaluate the therapeutic effects, which patients already know that cannabis has.
--:-- Maren Kogan: Meanwhile, all these states have legalized marijuana, and they're trying to figure out now how do we establish a public health response to make sure people are aware of what they're taking as consumers, aware of what they're putting in their bodies, similar to what we have around, say, cigarettes or alcohol.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Okay, and has there been success on that front? Is there consistency in what people are getting across this country, or at least consistency in the labeling of what people are getting across this country?
--:-- Maren Kogan: Oh, no, absolutely not.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Certain states have better, I think, testing and safety standards than others.
--:-- Maren Kogan: But no, I mean, essentially, it's on you to sort of be an expert both about like reading labels and figuring out what it is exactly you're taking and then also figure out what amount works for your body.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: I mean, and it seems like there is really wide variations.
--:-- Maren Kogan: The problem is that, you know, people don't always know their own limits.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: They don't always know what they're taking.
--:-- Maren Kogan: And there can be real health consequences as a result.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Not to mention this stuff's just generally a lot stronger than it used to be, right?
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: So the products out there are a lot stronger than the sort of dime bags that were floating around, you know, in the early 2000s.
--:-- Maren Kogan: Over the last 25 years, the government has been testing the percentage of THC in marijuana seized by the Drug Enforcement Agency.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: And they have seen that the percentage of THC has more than tripled in those samples from 5 to 16 percent.
--:-- Maren Kogan: This sounds all very messy, Maren.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: As we enter a new year and approach this country with this potent drug that a whole lot of people love to take, that increasingly people are taking every day with this patchwork of laws and a whole, you know, inconsistent patchwork of regulations.
--:-- Maren Kogan: Is anyone having buyer's remorse on all the legalization we've done?
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Definitely.
--:-- Maren Kogan: There are some people who argue that legalization was a mistake.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: As they point to these health consequences that I've been noting, they say that it hasn't really had the sort of positive impact on racial disparity in the criminal justice system that they expected it to.
--:-- Maren Kogan: And they point out that, yeah, essentially this is creating a new public health problem that researchers just really have not had the time or ability to get a handle on before so many people started consuming marijuana.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: It is unfortunate that it's on the consumers to kind of figure out what is going into their bodies and whether or not it's good for them.
--:-- Maren Kogan: But that is the reality of where we're at right now.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: It is a brave new world with regard to marijuana legalization in this country.
--:-- Maren Kogan: It is probably harmless for a huge number and helpful even for a huge number of people out there.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: But it doesn't mean that it's perfectly safe and harmless for everyone.
--:-- Maren Kogan: And I think people are going to have to, while the government sort of figures out a public health response to this, they're going to have to really think about themselves and make sure that they feel healthy with what they use.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Maren Kogan, you can read her joint on weed at Vox.com. It's called How We'd Won Over America.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: I'm Sean Ramos from Next Up on Today Explained. As we so often do, we're heading to Canada to find out if we can learn anything from our neighbors to the north who didn't just legalize state by state or province by province in their case. They legalized federally.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Support for today's show comes from Adio. What is Adio?
--:-- Maren Kogan: Adio Adio is an AI native customer relationship management system built specifically for the next era of companies.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: They say it's extremely powerful, adapts to your unique data structures and scales with any business model.
--:-- Maren Kogan: According to Adio, Adio takes less than a minute to set up.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: And within seconds, you will have your email and calendars synced.
--:-- Maren Kogan: You see all your relationships in a fully fledged platform they say all enriched with that actionable data
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: And they say you can build AI automations and use its research agent to tackle some of your most complex processes to seize so that you can focus on what matters, building your company.
--:-- Maren Kogan: You can join industry leaders such as Flatfile, Replicate, Modal, and so much more.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: You can go to adio.com slash todayexplained to get 15% off your first year.
--:-- Maren Kogan: That's A-T-T-I-O dot com slash todayexplained.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Support for this show comes from Macy's.
--:-- Maren Kogan: It's almost fall, and that means it's time to cycle your wardrobe to the cold setting.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Because while everyone loves a breezy summer outfit, let's be real, layering is even more fun.
--:-- Maren Kogan: That's why Macy's Fall Fashion Guide has everything you need to piece together the perfect look for you.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: It's your one-stop shop for fall's latest trends and must-haves, curated by their experts.
--:-- Maren Kogan: Add a statement shoe to your collection, like the calf hair loafers from Steve Madden.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Or tap into your romantic side with flowy dresses from CeCe and sheer pieces from INC.
--:-- Maren Kogan: You can even throw in some textural layers for contrast, like a faux fur bomber jacket from Karl Lagerfeld Paris.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Whether your old favorite sweater or coat is on its last threads, or you're just craving a new vibe to switch things up, Macy's has got you covered this season.
--:-- Maren Kogan: Find the perfect layering pieces for you by exploring the Macy's Fall Fashion Style Guide.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Shop in-store or online at Macy's.com.
--:-- Maren Kogan: Support for the show today comes from Life Kit, the podcast from NPR.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: What's in your life kit? I'm asking.
--:-- Maren Kogan: They didn't ask that.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Every day you have to make choices that might shape the direction of your life, but you can't flip to the back of the book to find an answer key.
--:-- Maren Kogan: Instead, you can listen to the Life Kit podcast from NPR.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Life Kit offers real stories about common issues like relationships, finances, parenting, and your career.
--:-- Maren Kogan: If you're looking to move with more intention or just need thoughtful guidance on living better, Life Kit delivers strategies to help you make meaningful, sustainable change.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: From fitness routines to mental resilience, navigating personal goals to tackling burnout,
--:-- Maren Kogan: Each episode is full of relevant insights and clear takeaways about things we all could use a little help with.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: LifeKit wants to help you approach your own life with confidence and clarity and walk away with a game plan you can implement right away.
--:-- Maren Kogan: Enough from me. Go listen to the show, LifeKit.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: It's a podcast from NPR.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: James McKillop sits in the Peter Boris Chair in Addictions Research at McMaster University and St. Joseph's Healthcare in Hamilton, Ontario.
--:-- Maren Kogan: But he's also from the United States, so he was the ideal doc to ask, what's up with legal weed in Canada compared to America?
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: We started with weed's legal status north of the border.
--:-- James McKillop: Well, cannabis has been legal now, federally, for just over six years.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: And even before that, cannabis was legal for medical purposes since 2001.
--:-- James McKillop: So it's been legal in one form or another for nearly 25 years.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: And why did Canada legalize weed fully?
--:-- James McKillop: So fundamentally, the approach was to apply a public health strategy to cannabis and in particular to try to reduce harms and maximize benefits.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: The three big goals were to reduce youth access, to create a legal framework for adults to access cannabis and to reduce burden on the criminal justice system.
--:-- James McKillop: Okay, so how are we doing on those three goals?
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: To reduce youth access, increase adult access, and reduce burdens on the criminal justice system six years into this experiment?
--:-- James McKillop: Well, the good news is we haven't seen a sharp increase in youth consumption, which was a fear that a lot of people had.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: And although we haven't seen big decreases, it does seem like there haven't been those feared increases.
--:-- James McKillop: There have also been some other consequences that are not so positive, but the other things that are good include certainly many fewer arrests for cannabis and a fully realized large economic cannabis sector now.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Okay. So we did reduce burdens on the criminal justice. We didn't necessarily increase youth access.
--:-- James McKillop: I assume adults are smoking more?
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: That is the case.
--:-- James McKillop: So right now, the rates of cannabis use in Canada are certainly at all-time highs.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Some of that happened before legalization, but that's a trend that hasn't gone away.
--:-- James McKillop: And especially if you look at not youth like teenagers, but young adults in their 20s, the rates are close to half in terms of folks reporting any use in the last year.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: So the overall rates of cannabis use are certainly high.
--:-- James McKillop: Where does that put Canada in terms of, I don't know, world rankings of pot smokers?
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Well, historically, Canada lagged the U.S. only in terms of overall rates.
--:-- James McKillop: I think that actually the rate may be higher than the U.S. now, although it depends on the survey that you look at.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: But certainly it is near the top, if not at the top globally.
--:-- James McKillop: Wow. So Canadians are smoking a ton of weed.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: And it sounds like you think that's not a good thing.
--:-- James McKillop: Well, I think that it's a complicated picture six years in.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: So as I said, some of the good things are it's a real economic marketplace.
--:-- James McKillop: There's a lot of sales. The illegal market has been substantially displaced, but there have been some downsides too.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: I think the overall high rate of use is not great.
--:-- James McKillop: But the other reality is a lot of people are concerned about how many storefronts we have.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: There's a cannabis shop on every corner, it feels like.
--:-- James McKillop: And there are concerns about burdens on the health care system, too.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Worrying upticks in terms of the number of individuals going to emergency departments or urgent care centers,
--:-- James McKillop: The number of individuals who are experiencing cannabinoid hyperemesis syndrome, that very unusual syndrome of acute nausea and vomiting that takes place in people who use cannabis frequently.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: There are increases in pregnant women who are seeking care for cannabis and increases in the proportion of impaired drivers who are testing positive for cannabis.
--:-- James McKillop: So those are all kind of canaries in the coal mine for some pretty troubling trends.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: How do the medical concerns compare to those with alcohol?
--:-- James McKillop: And are we seeing fewer alcohol hospitalizations or driving infractions as a result?
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: That a great question.
--:-- James McKillop: So I think that alcohol is in some ways the best comparator drug.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: And the reality is alcohol despite being legal has lots of harms.
--:-- James McKillop: And those range from acute harms like driving while intoxicated and physical and sexual assaults to chronic harms like cancer.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: The U.S. Surgeon General this morning is calling for new warnings on alcohol products.
--:-- James McKillop: In a statement in the last few hours, the Surgeon General said alcoholic beverages are a leading cause of cancer and should carry labels similar to those you find on cigarettes.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Light to moderate drinking was associated with reductions in overall brain volume.
--:-- James McKillop: There's a really complicated and important relationship between alcohol and things like depression and anxiety in particular.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: And in a lot of ways, cannabis has a somewhat more favorable profile, although we don't have a great sense for whether the increase in cannabis use and the increase in cannabis sales, legal sales, has offset some of the harms from alcohol.
--:-- James McKillop: What I can tell you is that if you look nationally, the alcohol retail sales have not changed all that dramatically.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: So Canadians spend about $2 billion a month on alcohol, and that has been very stable from prior to legalization to the current date.
--:-- James McKillop: Along that same time period, there has been a skyrocketing sales of legal cannabis.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: And so it seems like what's happening is the legal cannabis market is displacing the illegal market, but it's not really changing the amount of drinking all that much, which probably suggests that the amount of benefits in terms of reducing alcohol harms are going to be limited.
--:-- James McKillop: You mentioned that there's a pot shop on every corner, it seems like, in Canada these days.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Are you seeing an economic boom?
--:-- James McKillop: There have been aspects of the cannabis economy that have been boom-like, but also bust-like.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: The reality is the stocks for a lot of the producers prior to legalization were sky high, and those stocks unfortunately dropped in value after legalization when things recalibrated a bit.
--:-- James McKillop: A lot of the pot shops opened and then unfortunately closed because it turns out the markets are already somewhat saturated.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: And there are some pretty insidious aspects of this too, because when you have cannabis shops on every corner, even though advertising is prohibited, that becomes a form of advertising.
--:-- James McKillop: So I have young kids and they see cannabis stores all over the place, sometimes two or three in a given strip mall.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: And the other thing is I've heard from my patients that when they're trying to quit or even reduce, having cannabis stores everywhere is a real challenge.
--:-- James McKillop: And so I think that even though there are some economic benefits, we are right now reckoning with some of the harms also.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Has someone done this better than Canada?
--:-- James McKillop: I mean, do you guys look at the Netherlands and say, you know, oh, they had a great model.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Is there a good example of how to legalize marijuana out there?
--:-- James McKillop: I'll tell you, Sean, what I think is the best model.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: And I think that Canada has done on balance a good job, but maybe not a great job.
--:-- James McKillop: And where I see the best implementation is actually in Quebec.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Also Canada.
--:-- James McKillop: Also Canada.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: So one of the things that's interesting about Canada is that cannabis is federally legal, but it is implemented by the provinces.
--:-- James McKillop: So there are slightly different models across the provinces and territories.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: And there are some interesting natural experiments that are happening as a result.
--:-- James McKillop: And as you probably know, Quebec often marches to the beat of a different drum compared to other provinces in Canada and they speak a whole different language.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: They speak French.
--:-- James McKillop: And there are many great qualities about Quebec but in this case they are probably the most different from the other provinces and territories because they have a higher age of access 21 rather than 19.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: They prohibit any uh edibles that look like candy to keep them out of the hands of children.
--:-- James McKillop: So you can get cannabis cauliflower or cannabis broccoli or beets, but you can't get cannabis chocolate.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: They have a provincial monopoly, which means you can only buy cannabis from stores that are administered by the province.
--:-- James McKillop: Which means you can control how many stores you have.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: And you can have really rigorous ways of making sure that kids or teenagers are not coming in and buying cannabis because they're similar to, for example, the ABC store in North Carolina or other state monopolies around alcohol.
--:-- James McKillop: So So in many ways, Quebec has implemented a more stringent public health model.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: And we've actually seen in studies, not from my group, but from other groups, that some of the harms that are observed in Canada are not present when you look specifically at Quebec.
--:-- James McKillop: So if there was a model I would recommend, it's probably that one.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: You know, let me close by asking you this, James. It's a new year. People are thinking about who they want to be, how they want to change, what resolutions they're making and whatnot.
--:-- James McKillop: For people who are smoking a lot of weed, considering taking up weed, considering quitting weed, as a medical professional who, yes, lives in Canada, but is actually from the United States,
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: What would you say to your fellow Americans who are living in a state where this is now legal and who are certainly living in a country where their federal government isn't in a rush to solve this problem of the marijuana patchwork we have across the United States?
--:-- James McKillop: Well, Sean, given that it's January and a lot of people already consider dry January and abstaining from alcohol,
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: I would absolutely encourage them to think about taking a month off from weed also, especially if they're frequent users.
--:-- James McKillop: The reality is, as a psychologist, I see a lot of people who struggle with their cannabis use.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: It's the number one problem in our young adult substance use program.
--:-- James McKillop: And taking a month off is a great way to kind of take stock of whether or not you have a problem.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: If it's easy, then you'll save some money. You might clean out the mental cobwebs. Your lungs will thank you.
--:-- James McKillop: If it's hard, you may want to think about whether you need to talk to a health professional.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: And so to me, new year, new you, it's a great time to think hard about your relationship with pot.
--:-- James McKillop: Dr. James McKillop, McMaster University. Go Marauders.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: That's a good one.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Abishai Artsy made our show today.
--:-- Amna Alsadi: He was edited by Amna Alsadi,
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: fact-checked by Laura Bullard,
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: and mixed by Andrea Christensdachter and Patrick Boyd.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: This is Today Explained.
