American Basketball Player Faces Death Penalty in Indonesia Over Medical Cannabis
Texas basketball player Jarred Shaw has been arrested in Jakarta could be given capital punishment after having delivered 869 grams of cannabis gummies, claiming to alleviate incurable Crohn’s disease, exposing lethal consequences of cannabis prohibition throughout Southeast Asia.
Jarred Shaw, a 35-year-old American basketball player for Texas, who assisted in bringing home a 2023 Indonesian Basketball League title, is looking at potential death penalty or life imprisonment after being arrested by Indonesian police in May 2025 for accepting a package of more than 100 cannabis gummies.
Shaw, during an interview conducted by The Guardian last October when he’s being held under pre-trial detention at a jail in Jakarta, shared that he takes cannabis for medicinal purposes to alleviate himself of Crohn’s disease, an inflammatory condition which cannot be cured but for which he affirms no other drug is able to prevent his stomach’s pain.
Indonesia has extremely penal drug policies including capital punishment for cannabis crimes, and prosecutors indicted Shaw for possession of nearly a kilogram of cannabis despite most of its weight being comprised of cannabis’s non-cannabis ingredients of edibles.
“I made a foolish mistake,” Shaw admitted. “There’s individuals saying I’m going to spend the rest of my life in prison for some edibles. They’re portraying me like I’m some large drug dealer. Why would I bring the candy here to sell? It’s for personal consumption.” Shaw referenced his first two months in jail as “the lowest moment of my life” where he was a “really dark place mentally” and “didn’t want to wake up again.“
The case resembles other prior international cannabis incarcerations of American citizens abroad, including WNBA player Brittney Griner’s Russia detention and educator Marc Fogel’s 14-year prison term, both of which were ultimately declared wrongfully imprisoned and released.
It is unknown at this point if the Trump administration becomes involved in Shaw’s case. Shaw, who played abroad for team Prawira Bandung, stated: “I just turned 35 but I’m young at heart. I would like to continue my basketball career.”
The case highlights how risky it is for medical cannabis patients to travel to nations of strict drug penalties, even if it’s for proper therapeutic administration of cannabis.
Source: marijuanamoment.net
Utah Study Exposes Why Medical Cannabis Patients Turn to Illegal Products
Exorbitant prices and weak information force Utah med cannabis patients to seek unsafe unregulated products, putting themselves at risk of contamination and inconsistent dosing, concludes September 2025 report chronicling key inhibitors of America’s medical cannabis programs.
A groundbreaking study published on September 20, 2025, in the Journal of Cannabis Research has uncovered why some Utah patients enrolled in the state’s medical cannabis program continue using illegal, unregulated products despite having legal access—with cost emerging as the primary barrier preventing patients from using safer, licensed cannabis.
The research, conducted by the University of Utah’s Program for Addiction Research, Clinical Care, Knowledge, and Advocacy (PARCKA), surveyed over 200 people enrolled in Utah’s medical cannabis program and found that the high cost of legal cannabis products creates a vicious cycle of economic and health consequences for patients treating chronic conditions like PTSD and chronic pain.
Dr. Jerry Cochran, senior author and director of PARCKA, explained the devastating trade-off patients face: “There’s this trade-off. It’s like, ‘OK, I have a chronic illness which makes it hard for me to work, and so I have limited resources.
But I can’t really work because I’m sick, and if I buy the cheaper product, it might actually make me sicker.” However, the research also identified a promising solution: access to high-quality, unbiased information strongly correlates with greater use of legal products.
Dr. Lirit Franks, research development associate in PARCKA, emphasized the importance: “It engenders accountability. You can see areas to improve, you can see what’s working.”
Source: medicalxpress.com
Cannabis Extract Outperforms Opioids for Chronic Back Pain in Landmark Trial
Cannabis extract demonstrates improved analgesia and tolerability, and reduced risk of addiction and withdrawal, when compared to opioids, in a Phase III trial of 820 patients, giving relief hopes for 619 million individuals around the world affected by chronic lower back pain.
A groundbreaking Phase III clinical trial published in Nature Medicine on September 29, 2025, has shown that VER-01—a full-spectrum cannabis extract developed by German drugmaker Vertanical—significantly reduces chronic lower back pain while demonstrating superior safety compared to opioids.
The randomized, placebo-controlled study enrolled 820 adults with chronic lower back pain across Germany and Austria who had not achieved adequate relief from non-opioid medications.
Participants receiving the cannabis extract experienced a mean pain reduction of 1.9 points on an 11-point scale after 12 weeks, compared to just 0.6 points in the placebo group—a statistically significant and clinically meaningful difference. Patients also reported significant improvements in sleep quality and physical function, two key factors contributing to quality of life for chronic pain sufferers.
In a concurrent Phase III head-to-head study of 384 patients comparing VER-01 directly to prescription opioids, the cannabis extract exhibited definitive superiority: patients saw significantly more pain relief (2.33-point reduction compared to 1.89 points for opioids), improved sleep, and order of magnitude fewer adverse effects.
Remarkably, patients treated with the extract were four times less likely to suffer constipation compared to opioid patients and three times less likely to need laxatives.
If approved, VER-01 would be a first cannabinoid-based agent approved for severe, chronic lower back pain, potentially bringing a paradigm-changing alternative to limited and problematic current treatments for tens of millions of patients suffering chronic pain globally.
Source: nature.com
Australia’s Most Remote Cancer Patient Joins Cannabis Clinical Trial
Mother of four, who resides 127 kilometers away from the closest city, becomes Australia’s farthest participant of investigational drug research, obtaining potentially life-altering medicinal cannabis therapy through revolutionary teletrial technology, removing travel impediments for patients far away in the remote outback.
Jacqualine Poole, a 53-year-old mother-of-four from Aramac—a tiny Queensland town with just 372 residents located 127 kilometers from Longreach—has made history as Australia’s most remote patient ever to participate in an investigational drug teletrial, accessing potentially groundbreaking medicinal cannabis research without leaving her rural community.
Diagnosed with stage 4 endometrial cancer in January 2025, Poole discovered a poster about the MedCan 3 teletrial during one of her grueling 12-hour journeys from Aramac to Mater Hospital Brisbane for chemotherapy.
The trial, coordinated by Mater Palliative and Supportive Care Research under Professor Phillip Good’s leadership, explores the effectiveness of tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) and cannabinol (CBD) oil in managing cancer-related symptoms including pain, nausea, and appetite loss.
The double-blind, placebo-controlled study has enrolled 92 patients, including seven via teletrial methodology where medication or placebo is delivered to the nearest hospital.
Professor Good emphasized: “Access to trials of new medications, such as medicinal cannabis, to reduce symptom problems, has previously been limited in regional, rural, and remote Queensland. The teletrial methodology will close this equity and access gap.“
Australian Teletrial Program Director Kaye Hewson revealed that 88 percent of clinical trial sites are located in cities, forcing patients outside metropolitan areas to travel long distances. Teletrial clusters now include over 1,300 participants in regional, rural, and remote areas across all medical specialties.
Source: materresearch.org.au
Scientists Discover “Cannabis Gene” That Predicts Who Will Try Cannabis
A large study of 271,000 people uncovers gene CADM2 as cannabis use’s greatest predictor, and it’s surprisingly connected to risk-taking, sex behavior, and personality traits—but not to addiction.
Historic genetic research released by Nature Neuropsychopharmacology in January 2025 identified a single gene, CADM2, as the strongest indicator of whether an individual is likely to try cannabis during their lifetime.
The scientific study compared DNA samples of 271,134 participants (106,680 of whom are cannabis users) across three large data repositories: the All of Us Research Program, International Cannabis Consortium, and UK Biobank.
It is the largest study to date into cannabis-using genetic predispositions. Yale University School of Medicine researchers concluded that individuals carrying some variations of the CADM2 gene are substantially more likely to have tried cannabis, and it confirmed for a second time the importance of this gene for cannabis behaviors.
The study revealed interesting associations between the cannabis gene and other behaviors. Those who were genetically predisposed to cannabis use also took more risks, had more sex partners, smoked cigarettes, drank once a week, and scored higher on “openness to experience” personality traits.
Six different behavioral traits all pointed to the same section of DNA having the CADM2 gene, providing strong evidence that one gene determines a large set of risk-taking and exploratory behaviors.
More than anything, genetics for trying cannabis once or twice are completely different from genetics for cannabis addiction—not a single gene for occasional use expressed any connection to cannabis use disorder, demonstrating experimental use and problematic use have inherently different biological foundations.
The study pinpointed several other significant genes apart from CADM2, including some previously associated with nicotine addiction, alcoholic dependence, schizophrenia, and other psychiatric disorders.
Possibly more remarkably, the study revealed a paradox: whereas individuals genetically primed for recreational cannabis use shared higher educational attainment, individuals genetically primed for cannabis dependence exhibited the opposite trend—less than average educational attainment.
Such a sharp contrast implies individuals who attempt cannabis recreatively and those who become dependent have quite distinct social and cognitive patterns.
With increasing legalization of cannabis internationally, its authors stress how comprehension of genetic predispositions becomes all the more important for pinpointing risk groups and designing specified prevention measures prior to development of problematic behavior.
Source: nature.com