Marijuana Could Prevent Alzheimer's, New Study

Chickan writes "'A puff a day might keep Alzheimer's away, according to marijuana research by professor Gary Wenk and associate professor Yannic Marchalant of the Ohio State Department of Psychology. Wenk's studies show that a low dosage in the morning of a certain canavanoid, a component in marijuana, reversed memory loss in older rats' brains. In his study, an experimental group of old rats received a dosage, and a control group of rats did not. The old rats that received the drugs performed better on memory tests, and the drug slowed and prevented brain cell death.' My fine university's dollars at work!" Maybe it works even better in combination with brain-preserving sips of coffee.

Comments

Rational

[Rinisari]

I have yet to hear/see a rational reason why marijuana is still illegal.

Re:Rational

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

Because America is divided between people who hate risk more than they love freedom and people who hate hippies more than they love freedom.

Re:Rational

[Scrameustache]

I have yet to hear/see a rational reason why marijuana is still illegal.

It helps keep rich people rich.

Re:Rational

[ruiner13]

It is hard to tax something so easily grown at home.

Re:Rational

[Clever7Devil]

Ask your local law enforcement and prison guard unions. They have pleanty.

Re:Rational

[Captain Splendid]

Just sayin'. There ARE side effects.

The only side effects are ones related to one specific way of taking the drug. When vaporized or ingested, none of those risks are present. Thanks for FUDding!

Re:Rational

[Nursie]

"So, you get pulled over and they decide you're baked. They can't really prove it because there is no "immediate intoxication test"

So we'll develop one, and in the mean time continue to use co-ordination and driving ability. driving without due care and attention is still an offence regardless of whether you're baked or not. Believe me, the market will fill this niche in seconds. This is just another stupid excuse.

Hey, where's the roadside test for vicodin? Prescription codeine or morphine? Dextromethorphan?

Thought not.

Re:Rational

[Hatta]

So, you get pulled over and they decide you're baked

If they can't detect any impairment, then what's the problem? If you're significantly impaired, it's going to be obvious. Otherwise you should just be sent on your way.

Everything I've seen on the effects of marijuana on driving indicate that yes, it's mildly impairing, but that impairment never reaches a level equivalent to that of a 0.8 bac. So if it's legal to drive under a similarly impairing amount of alcohol, it should be ok to drive stoned. Also, unlike alcohol, marijuana users know how impaired they are, and compensate. This is why marijuana is *underrepresented* in accident statistics.

Personally, I'm of the opinion that all driving while intoxicated laws are inappropriate. Either you're driving recklessly or not. If you are, go to jail. If not, go home and sleep it off.

Re:Rational

[Absimiliard]

I've seen people smoke so much they ended up in mental hospitals.

Proof of causality please.

I've seen people breathe so much air that they ended up addicted to heroin. In fact I've never met a heroin addict who didn't breathe air first.

Such a basic logical flaw, I'm sure you can do better.

-abs

Re:Rational

[HungryHobo]

If I turn up to work hung over and as a result cannot do my job I get in trouble.
If I turn up glassy eyed and obviously impaired I'm not going to be working there very long.

Obviously hung over and still under the effects of the night before- it doesn't matter if I was drinking while off the clock, if it effects me while on the clock that's good enough.
Obviously high and still under the effects of the night before-it doesn't matter if I was smoking something while off the clock, if it effects me while on the clock that's good enough.

If I'm not obviously drunk or high at work they don't give a damn.

Re:Rational

[The End Of Days]

ARGHHH

Please stop making this ridiculous argument. Beer is easy to make at home, but is legal and taxed. Food is easy to grow at home, but is legal and taxed in some (many?) states. Clothes are easy to make at home, but are legal and taxed in some (many) states.

The evidence flies in the face of this absolutely retarded claim.

Re:Rational

[scubamage]

That's a circular argument. You're saying it should be illegal because they don't have a means to test for it as an illegal substance. If its legal, your argument dissapears. No offense, just sayin :)

Re:Rational

[just_another_sean]

I don't consider any of the reasons you provided as "rational". "We can't control it, we can't tell if your on it when your driving" are not good reasons to me. If a cop can't tell that you are impaired by giving you a field sobriety test then the any thought of arrest should end right there. The reason a cop can tell a raving drunk but has difficulty determining if "smiley" is high is because alcohol significantly impairs your physical coordination while marijuana does not. I don't recommend driving while intoxicated on anything but I would much rather take my chances with people who are "baked as hell" and driving then people who slam 6-10 drinks in a bar and then get behind the wheel.

I have four children; I'm much more worried about them out drinking with people then smoking. Hell, I'm more worried about them smoking tobacco then I am about them smoking marijuana.

Not to stereotype you but I would have thought a guy with a /. handle of Garcia (not to mention the low id) that runs a website called Lazy Lighting would be a little more enlightened on the relative dangers between alcohol and marijuana. Screw the "we can't keep teh childrenz from smoking" rhetoric, the only real reason they have is the trillions you mentioned at the end of your post. America needs to wake up and realize that the emperor wears no clothes.

Re:Rational

[TheGratefulNet]

you have one data point. that's fine. its a real data point, at least.

yours is NOT typical and people should know that. most users don't get 'baked' and drive right away. I've never known anyone like that - not ever.

otoh, its VERY common to drink and drive - even without waiting at all.

choice: would you rather be in the passenger seat of someone who had 2 joints or 2 beers? 1 joint or 1 beer?

I'd take the NO BEERS choice, please, alex. seriously. and the difference is: when you are drunk, you often can't know if you are too impaired to drive. with pots you know. you really do - and it never fully blocks your thinking (that's just BS).

ever break up with an SO and drive? its not much different. ever get fired from a job and have to drive home? that is the level of 'impairment' (distraction) that you might have if you were high and drove. is it illegal or 'dangerous' to drive while you are emotionally distraught (the 2 examples I used) ? no, of course not.

look at the driving and not what's inside the person's body or mind. if you care about 'distractions' and safety hazzards you'll pull over all the arguing couples or the families that have to shout at their kids in the back seat. THOSE are the dangerous distracted drivers. pot users are just easy targets but its not any kind of justice to go after light drug users. its just EASY to say 'we are fighting crime' when in fact, they are only raising more revenue (indirectly).

take the unsafe drivers off the road but pot users are not always unsafe drivers. no correlation at all - its all just made up shit by LEOs and their ilk. talk to those who know this stuff fist hand and you'll see its all just social programming to keep the status quo.

Re:Rational

[p00dl3]

Actually, vaporization is far more efficient than combustion. The material is heated to the point where the organic volatiles (cannabanoids and terpenes) go through a phase change from semi-solid to gas. Because they are not being combusted (burned) more of the active compounds reach the bloodstream. Conversely, fewer harmful compounds are taken in, thus making vaporization less harmful. Oral consumption (when combined with a lipid carrier such as butter or chocolate) is one of the most efficient methods of use, although the effects are somewhat delayed when compared to smoking or vaporizing. Wow, $200. You clearly have not been to the market since the 1980's. High quality cannabis, consisting of seedless female flowers, goes ~$400/oz in most parts of the country.

Re:Rational

[Anonymous Coward]

That's funny...

My job is very intellectually challenging, and pushes the bounds of my memory daily. And I smoke pot every day, even regularly before I go into work. And yet... I'm still seen as the best person we have there, and I'm constantly picking up everyone else's slack, most of whom see pot as such a bad thing. In fact, I'm the only one there that I know of that ever even smokes it at all...

Not only that, but a large group of people I know (some friends and some not) decided to do our own little experiment: smoke pot and study for a college exam. We couldn't find any correlation at all. I wish we got this published, but we were somewhat paranoid about someone coming after us for it, what with it being illegal and all.

Physically, there might be something, but I, like many people I know, have difficulty doing our daily exercise routines without smoking pot before hand (mostly psychological reasons that is the reasons we smoke pot in the first place).

Your argument doesn't make sense to me at all.

Re:Rational

[xappax]

Perhaps, but is growing /good/ pot as easy as throwing seeds out in the backyard? I mean, you can make hooch in the bathtub - you can even make it in prison. But it's not very good. For that matter, you really can grow tomatoes by throwing seeds in your back yard, but how many people do that instead of buying them for $excessive at the supermarket?

Growing good, potent cannabis takes time and effort the same way making good wine does, which means there's easily potential for corporate commoditization. Never underestimate people's willingness to buy things they don't need to.

Re:Rational

[lpevey]

Are you kidding? If you want to take away someone else's liberty to do something, the burden of proof that the something in question is so harmful to society as to justify that restriction of liberty should fall on you.

Re:Rational

[TriezGamer]

Not to endlessly repeat it like it's a mantra or anything, but correlation != causation.

Re:Rational

[LithiumX]

Please stop making this ridiculous argument. Beer is easy to make at home, but is legal and taxed. Food is easy to grow at home, but is legal and taxed in some (many?) states. Clothes are easy to make at home, but are legal and taxed in some (many) states.

Beer is doable, but not all that easy to make at home. You have to build at least a minimal apparatus, and you have to employ some fairly stringent (for a home environment) anti-contamination protocols. It takes time, and the end result usually ends up tasting a little better than horse piss. It's fun (and mine quit tasting like horse piss after a few tries), but not something that will ever be common. Regardless, you are still limited to a very small setup for tax reasons.

Food is food. Apart from subsidies, the growth of food is not very regulated (if for your own consumption). It's about as fundamental a right as there is. Food is also different - you're taxed on profit, but food itself is largely untaxed. Therefore grow all you like.

Clothes are not easy to make at home, at least nothing you'd wear outside. It takes skill and a minimum of equipment. It's not that difficult to build this skill, and brief "homespun" fads have hit the country many times since the Revolution, but on the whole clothing is something that you can rely on never being made at home - except for the statistically small hobbyist, and those who can't afford new clothes. Also, prohibiting clothes made at home would be extremely difficult to provide a reason for, no matter how much any industry screamed for it.

There are a number of reasons why cannabis was illegalized - and most of the common ones you hear are actually true to one extent or another, but none stand out much on their own. Taxation, immigrant paranoia, easy enforcement results, propaganda, and actual honest public health issues. However, brewers were one of the main original impetuses that got the ball rolling, so protecting profits was a major initial cause.

Note that, even today, the alcohol industry is STILL one of the primary sources of funding for anti-legalization. It's easy to see why.

Re:Rational

[asdfghjklqwertyuiop]

Because the burden of proof is on those that believe that it's harmless rather than those that don't believe it to be safe. Which is just the way that it should be.

No, it isn't, and nor should it be, because

There really isn't that much evidence to support the idea that legalization is the appropriate course of action.

It is a basic principle in the US and any supposedly free country that things shouldn't be illegal "by default". Anything should be allowed unless a law is written specifically against it, and there should be specific and good reasons for that - not arbitrary religious nonsense.

Re:Rational

[nospam007]

For that matter, you really can grow tomatoes by throwing seeds in your back yard, but how many people do that instead of buying them for $excessive at the supermarket?

Millions.

Re:Rational

[WiseWeasel]

Come out to the west coast for a while sometime. Marijuana is very much a part of mainstream culture in several parts of this country, and people already take the drug to very unhealthy/unproductive levels, only outnumbered by those who consume it responsibly. What we're doing now has approximately zero effect on keeping a lid on the substance, and the only real consequence of the current prohibition is that a vast, vast underground economy, one that dwarfs large sectors of legitimate agriculture in many states, is allowed to grow and prosper, at the expense of the government's ability to tax and regulate this trade. Even for harder substances, criminalization is hardly an intelligent way to deal with most of these cases of abuse, when medical intervention would be so much more appropriate than tossing someone in jail. The current drug policy in the US is completely indefensible, and is only allowed to continue due to the political sensitivity surrounding the issue, thanks to propaganda campaigns that were able to find a sizable target of gullible people in this country. Still, marijuana is very much a part of mainstream culture in many parts of the US, and trying to fight it with laws only serves to call the value of law enforcement into question. If you were looking for a way to alienate a large portion of the population from the law, then the War on Drugs is a tremendous success.

Re:Rational

[asdfghjklqwertyuiop]

Why is it illegal. Because it is a mind altering drug, which can easily be abused (recreational use of this drug is abuse), Being in an altered state of mind isn't productive to society, as well as health concerns.

None of those are valid reasons why it or any such things shouldn't be personal, individual choices in a free society.

Re:Rational

[SanityInAnarchy]

Because non-hippies are doing so well at that right now...

Re:Rational

[spidercoz]

Studies further suggest that marijuana is a general "immunosuppressant" whose degenerative influence extends beyond the respiratory system. Regular smoking has been shown to materially affect the overall ability of the smoker's body to defend itself against infection by weakening various natural immune mechanisms, including macrophages (a.k.a. "killer cells") and the all-important T-cells.

I smoke and haven't had so much as a cold in over 5 years. Your "studies" are faulty

3) It has been suggested that marijuana is at the root of many mental disorders, including ... uncontrollable aggressiveness.

I laughed out loud at that. Have you ever even seen a pot smoker? Uncontrollable aggressiveness, that's the dumbest thing I've ever heard.

Re:Rational

[tripdizzle]

I had AP calc in HS after lunch, and of course I was blazing everyday at lunch, got out of there with an A-, as well as getting paid by the preppy rich kids parents for tutoring.

Re:Rational

[DrLudicrous]

Everything I've seen on the effects of marijuana on driving indicate that yes, it's mildly impairing, but that impairment never reaches a level equivalent to that of a 0.8 bac.

Well, I should hope not. If your BAC is 0.8, you are most likely dead. If not, you will have set a new world record for the highest level of alcohol intoxication. Unfortunately, you may not wake up from the alcohol-induced coma to revel in your achievement.

Re:Rational

[Mister Whirly]

Yes. For more information I suggest you look into Prohibition in America. It basically created organized crime and made a lot of people, Al Capone being one of the most famous, very rich. For more further reading, also check out what happens to prices of goods once they go from being sold legally to being sold on the black market.

Re:Rational

[truckaxle]

I'm of the opinion that all driving while intoxicated laws are inappropriate. Either you're driving recklessly or not. If you are, go to jail. If not, go home and sleep it off.

Really! Sometimes the indication that someone is driving recklessly is when they plow into the side of a car, killing and maiming the occupants.

Drunk driving laws and enforcement do save lives and prevent many needless tragedies as they statistically highlight those that are most likely to be involved in an accident - they should be tougher if anything.

Re:Rational

[harry666t]

It's simple.

1. You smoke marijuana

2. You realize that God loves you, that you don't need anything else to be happy, that everything is a vibration and the whole living universe is One

3. You become less and less attached to physical goods and material stuf, you stop caring about possesing things and instead focus on spiritual growth

4. You become a very poor source of profits, because you spend much less money, if any at all

There's of course another side effect of being more enlightened, which is: not fitting into the structure of the society. And this is the biggest threat to our current "order". You are much harder to control. To lock in a cage full of shit painted gold.

Oblig. movie: "Equilibrium".
Oblig. YouTube video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vX1CvW38cHA

Re:Rational

[Mister Whirly]

If you grew it yourself and never sold any, there would be no reason to tax it. You aren't taxed for growing things, you are taxed for selling things (or providing a service).

Re:Rational

[TheSpoom]

I think you're being a bit redundant with the whole "lazy hippies" thing.

Carcinogneic

[turgid]

Cannabis/Marijuana is carcinogenic, and about four times as carcinogenic as tobacco.

They say that if tobacco were "discovered" today it would be outlawed straight away.

Alcohol has serious long-term health effects too, but in the short term it also leads to intoxication and injury and death by accidents. Not just road accidents either. That would be banned as well.

Really, the banning of all drugs is absurd. In an ideal world, adults would be responsible for their own actions and deemed wise enough to decide for themselves what and what not to ingest into their own bodies, and for their actions while under the influence of those substances. However, we live in a conservative, irrational, authoritarian world. And besides, have you seen the shockingly childish and ignorant behaviour of many adults?

safer drugs?

[Anonymous Coward]

yeah, cause we all know how good acetaminophen is for your liver, how good ibuprofen is for your digestive track not to mention how good opiods[/ates] are for your brain but thankfully they're completely non-addictive and nobody's ever died from overdose...

please tell me you're a troll...

Re:Dude... like... what?

[goombah99]

Marijuana is memory enhancing? What?

No it's just that in the rat's the puff they are not able to measure any memory loss with aging because they already lost it.

There's a huge difference between "memory" and "cognative skill". To operate at a rat, requires a lot of different skills. Huge chunks of their brain are devoted to 0) fleaing predators 1) not eating poison 2) navigating and memorizing paths by smell and touch, not sight or time.

it's entirely plausible that different drugs could shift the relative effort in these areas and improve their skills in other areas. FOr example, perhaps they are less perpetually afraid and thus better able to concentrate on memorization.

Rats aren't people

[indytx]

So, you can swap possible long-term memory loss for probable short-term memory loss. I'll wait for the large, double-blind study after they've isolated what exactly in the marijuana, if anything, reduces the risk of Alzheimer's. Meanwhile, there have been recent reports that coffee and red wine could reduce the risk of Alzheimer's. Seems like a safer, not to mention legal, alternative to experimenting on yourself by breathing smoke. Most doctors will agree that any smoking is harmful, and before you say that it can be eaten or steeped like tea, carcinogens can still cause cancer even if not smoked.

Re:Rats aren't people

[Phortune]

Moreover, the increase in potency of cannabis (due largely to intensive hydroponic growing methods, as well as selective breeding and interbreeding of various strains of cannabis) over the past few decades has lead to a marked increased incidence in the onset of psychosis in long-term users of the drug. I hardly think that a lifetime of suffering from psychosis, and the hideous side-effects of anti-psychotic drugs, is a worthwhile price to pay for a minor increase in long-term memory later in life, not to mention a piss-poor short-term memory in the meantime. If people knew the torture of living with schizophrenia then they wouldn't be so quick to jump on the "let's-all-smoke-cannabis-and-have-an-awesome-time" band-wagon. I've smoked weed too - it feels good, I know. Not good enough to be worth risking that...

Re:Rats aren't people

[flynt]

I'll wait for the large, double-blind study after they've isolated what exactly in the marijuana, if anything, reduces the risk of Alzheimer's.

Does smoking cigarettes cause lung cancer? Could you please cite a large, double-blind, randomized clinical trial that demonstrated that?

Re:Rats aren't people

[ChienAndalu]

and before you say that it can be eaten or steeped like tea, carcinogens can still cause cancer even if not smoked.

Thats true. Luckily there aren't any carcinogens in the cannabis oil itself, which is just like any other plant oil you might use in your household. It just has an additional psychotropic component.

So no, you do not have a point.

Re:Rats aren't people

[ion.simon.c]

If you want actual human studies - there are 4 grandfathered medical marijuana patients in the United States who have been smoking daily for 25 years now. Not one has shown any adverse health affects.

[citation needed]

Enforcement of different laws is irrelevant

[Brain-Fu]

So you are saying that illegal-to-drive-while-baked is difficult to enforce.

That utterly fails to justify making it illegal to use when not driving.

You are merely punishing the law-abiding citizens because a *different law* is difficult to enforce (and will be broken by the criminals anyway).

That is irrational.

Medicinal marijuana

[wfstanle]

The problem with the current legal status of marijuana it that legitimate medical research is hampered. Sure, there is some medical research happening but nowhere as much as there could be. There are many components of marijuana that are not involved with getting you high and these components may have medical benefits. The problem is that we just don't know about them because of all the hysteria generated by "Reefer Madness". We need a calm and rational investigation about all the components of marijuana.

Re:Dude... like... what?

[Joe the Lesser]

check your vocabulary

Re:Off Schedule I

[justinlee37]

(A) is true. Not that I am in favor of hand-holding nanny-state government, mind you. Drug prohibition stifles the economy.

Re:Dude... like... what?

[FiloEleven]

It's a bit like running FSCK on your brain

I know that this is a good thing, but it still reminds me of those old DARE ads...