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

[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

[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

[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

[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

[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.