Daily Digest: Last 24 Hours: CHS Awareness, Prenatal Risk, and the Endocannabinoid System’s Expanding Reach — February 28, 2026

Cannabis News
Last 24 Hours
February 28, 2026 — 27 articles reviewed

This cycle’s coverage clustered heavily around cannabis safety signals, from hyperemesis syndrome and prenatal psychiatric risk to adolescent vulnerability, while a parallel thread highlighted the endocannabinoid system’s deepening relevance in alcohol use disorder, placebo analgesia, and appetite regulation. Regulatory and access stories rounded out the feed, with recalls, physician protections, and international program launches all reinforcing that the infrastructure around cannabis medicine is maturing faster than the clinical evidence guiding it.

🤰 Prenatal Cannabis Exposure and Psychiatric Risk

A study linking prenatal cannabis exposure to schizophrenia-associated molecular changes in placental tissue adds biological weight to what epidemiology has suggested for years. The placenta is not a passive barrier; cannabinoids cross it and appear to alter fetal neurodevelopment during windows that shape lifetime psychiatric vulnerability. For clinicians, this strengthens the case for direct, unambiguous counseling against cannabis use during pregnancy, even for nausea or anxiety. Patients who are pregnant or planning pregnancy should discuss all cannabis use openly with their provider, because the risk calculus has shifted meaningfully with this data.

🔥 Cannabis Hyperemesis Syndrome: No Longer a Footnote

Two articles this cycle covered the rising incidence of cannabis hyperemesis syndrome, both reinforcing that CHS is now a mainstream clinical concern rather than an obscure case report curiosity. The condition is driven by chronic, high-frequency, high-potency THC use and remains widely underdiagnosed because cannabis is culturally associated with anti-nausea effects. Emergency department presentations are climbing in parallel with the availability of concentrated THC products. Patients using cannabis daily who experience cyclical vomiting relieved by hot showers should raise this with their physician immediately, because cessation remains the only reliable resolution.

🧠 Mental Health, Self-Medication, and the Adolescent Brain

A Canadian study received coverage across multiple outlets highlighting the parallel rise of cannabis use alongside anxiety and depression, while a separate piece focused specifically on adolescent and young adult vulnerability. The core clinical tension is the same in both contexts: patients are turning to cannabis to manage distress, but without guidance on THC-to-CBD ratios, dosing, and frequency, they may be compounding the conditions they are trying to treat. Adolescents face additional risk because the prefrontal cortex is still developing into the mid-twenties, making regular THC exposure a genuine neurodevelopmental concern. Clinicians and caregivers need to screen for cannabis use patterns alongside mood disorder assessments rather than treating them as separate clinical lanes.

🔬 The Endocannabinoid System Beyond Cannabis: Alcohol, Placebo, and Appetite

Three distinct research threads this cycle demonstrated the endocannabinoid system’s relevance well beyond cannabis consumption itself. A translational systematic review mapped ECS-targeted therapies for alcohol use disorder, identifying CB1 modulation and FAAH inhibition as promising pharmacological strategies for craving and relapse. Separately, a bioRxiv paper presented evidence that placebo analgesia recruits endocannabinoid signaling pathways, complicating how we interpret pain relief in cannabis trials. And new research on appetite stimulation reinforced the CB1-mediated mechanisms behind what patients have reported for decades, offering a clearer scientific basis for cannabis-assisted appetite support in cachexia and wasting conditions.

🏛️ Regulation, Access, and the Infrastructure of Safe Cannabis Medicine

This cycle carried a broad sweep of regulatory and access developments spanning multiple jurisdictions. New York issued precautionary cannabis product recalls tied to laboratory testing integrity concerns, reinforcing that the safety architecture of legal markets depends entirely on the reliability of analytical testing. Nebraska advanced physician protection legislation, Ghana launched a structured medicinal cannabis program, Wisconsin Democrats filed a combined adult-use and medical bill, and North Carolina candidates signaled growing bipartisan support for medical access. President Biden’s signing of a federal cannabis research bill and a Connecticut public health commissioner’s comments on potency regulation further illustrated that the policy landscape is shifting on multiple fronts simultaneously. The common thread is that infrastructure is being built, but the clinical evidence these programs need to function well is still catching up.

💊 Novel Cannabinoids, Delivery Systems, and Drug Development

Several stories highlighted the expanding pharmacological frontier beyond THC and CBD. Aelis Farma’s withdrawal of a THC interaction trial for AEF0117, a first-in-class CB1 signaling inhibitor targeting cannabis use disorder, raises questions about the viability of that development program. Meanwhile, CBC gummies entered the consumer market ahead of meaningful human clinical data, and CBG research continued to build a case for more rigorous trials. A bioavailability study on thin-film CBD delivery offered genuinely useful data on absorption consistency across formats, and a sleep deprivation study underscored the bidirectional relationship between sleep quality and impulsive substance use. Clinicians should welcome better delivery and pharmacokinetic data while remaining cautious about novel cannabinoid products outpacing their evidence base.

The endocannabinoid system keeps proving it is far bigger than cannabis itself, and the field’s challenge now is building clinical frameworks that match the biology’s complexity. Good medicine requires that we hold two truths simultaneously: cannabis has real therapeutic value, and ignoring its real risks is not advocacy, it is negligence.

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