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New Study Shows Marijuana Users Have Low Blood Flow To the Brain (eurekalert.org)
cold fjord writes: State level marijuana legalization efforts across the U.S. have been gaining traction driven by the folk wisdom that marijuana is both a harmless recreational drug and a useful medical treatment for many aliments. However, some cracks have appeared in that story with indications that marijuana use is associated with the development of mental disorders and the long-term blunting of the brain's reward system of dopamine levels. A new study has found that marijuana appears to have a widespread effect on blood flow in the brain. EurekAlert reports: "Published in the Journal of Alzheimer's Disease, researchers using single photon emission computed tomography (SPECT), a sophisticated imaging study that evaluates blood flow and activity patterns, demonstrated abnormally low blood flow in virtually every area of the brain studies in nearly 1,000 marijuana users compared to healthy controls, including areas known to be affected by Alzheimer's pathology such as the hippocampus. According to Daniel Amen, M.D., 'Our research demonstrates that marijuana can have significant negative effects on brain function. The media has given the general impression that marijuana is a safe recreational drug, this research directly challenges that notion. In another new study just released, researchers showed that marijuana use tripled the risk of psychosis. Caution is clearly in order.'"
Interesting how science denial has a per-subject ideological bent.
Lord knows that shit is bad for you, but I don't need anybody trying prevent me from enjoying a few fingers of fine rum after a long day at work.
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
Just smoke a cigarette after smoking marijuana.
The nicotine stimulation will counter the low blood flow to the brain and stimulate neural activity.
Problem solved!
No more health-risks from marijuana!
Modern Psychology believes that drug use is a form of self-medication. People will instinctively gravitate to things that make them feel better.
Article states causality has not been established... it's just a BS correlation.
I know too many people who smoke and this doesn't seem right. Sure, they can be a little goofy at the time of use, but other than that they are completely functional. They're productive, have high paying challenging jobs, one is a biochemist, and their recreational use of marijuana doesn't seem to make life difficult for them. If the study is looking at impairment at the time of use, how do they equate this to, say alcohol. If someone is really drunk, I doubt there brain is fully functional at the time either. I don't think smoking marijuana is detrimental in any way.
Don't breath because you're oxydizing your genes, and farts pollute air ... you're breathing ... oh well
Only a complete moron would think that a recreational drug that alters your mood and brain chemistry is 'safe'.
Doesn't matter if it's alcohol or THC, these work by fidgeting with things in the brain that should obviously be left alone (for the sake of health - I think the recreational value is apparent).
We don't do surgery for the fun of it, we don't do blunt force trauma for the fun of it, why should altering our insides via drug or drink be considered 'safe' when no other internal alteration is, and who could possibly be dumb enough to think so?
Ermm, isn't that what folks who have smoked weed for a while call it? Long-term blunting? That was just too funny to not comment on.
As with all things that alter mood and consciousness, the devil's in the dosage. These results, even if accurate, reflect heavy, long-term use by people predisposed to sit for studies.
Even alcohol and pain meds are more effective when used sparingly.
Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know.
Ernest Hemingway
I remember in the mid 90's in high school they showed us pictures of exactly this. They had scans of normal brains showing their blood flow, compared to the brains of various drug users. They looked like Swiss cheese. Some looked like carved out pumpkins... each drug had its own appearance.
Cwm, fjord-bank glyphs vext quiz
Interesting justification. A variation on the "everyone's doing it, so I will too". At what point in our development as a species will we realize nothing is "free" not even our "fun".
According to Daniel Amen, M.D., 'Our research demonstrates that marijuana can have significant negative effects on brain function.'
Yeah, well, you know, that's just, like, your opinion, man.
The Amen clinics have been accused of using questionable techniques (https://www.quackwatch.org/06ResearchProjects/amen.html and others, just google for information on them). This isn't to say that the data isn't true, but this result hasn't been confirmed by replication of the results by other researchers or more accurate scanning methods.
It's in the Bible!
Marijuana, like alcohol, screws with your brain to achieve its effects. There is a reason we are particularly squeamish about handing out legal medicine that works on brain chemistry. It's because messing with brain chemistry can be like opening Pandora's Box.
This isn't a good reason to keep the War on Drugs, but it is a good reason to reevaluate some of our society's basic principles on dealing with intoxicating substances.
The one concern I have about legalization is that there are a lot of people (probably 5-10% of the adult population) that can look at what crack, meth and heroin do and still use them. They just don't care. Their time preference barely goes a millimeter past the tip of their nose. Then they and many "good people" will piss and moan that they are poor and our "indecent society" is bankrupting them by not providing medical coverage to them on an affordable basis.
If the US were more of a republic, it wouldn't bother me because in a more republican state these people (and many of their supporters) could not even vote. However, if we do go full on legalization we will need to veer strongly toward the more pure republic model from the trend toward more "democracy" in order to keep legalization from becoming a crippling effect on our system.
Drugs are fun. That's why.
But sometimes their effects are not fun. Sometimes their effects hurt other people. Nobody really gives a shit if you drink a beer or smoke a joint. But we do care when your use of those drugs causes undue risk or actual harm to others. We do care if you are not yet an adult and may not fully understand the consequences of your choices.
You're going to die, I'm going to die, everyone dies from something. Life is about having fun.
So you are arguing that we should hurry up the process of dying because we're all going to die anyway? Life is not all about having fun. That's an extremely immature and selfish attitude.
Drugs aren't for everybody, but people like drugs
People like all sorts of things but that doesn't mean we shouldn't have any rules to keep everyone safe.
treat drug abuse as a medical condition, not crime; that approach has failed.
Not that simple. Sometimes drug abuse is just a medical condition. But often drug abuse causes people to hurt others which is (and should be) a crime. See the difference?
You do what you want. Stop telling other people what's good for them.
I'm not telling people what is good for them. I'm telling them what is bad for other people. I honestly don't care if a consenting adult uses recreational drugs PROVIDED they do not hurt anyone else in the process. Problem is that people that abuse drugs are rarely able to avoid hurting others. Want to drink responsibly? Fine. Want to drink and drive? Hell no - now you are a risk to others. Your right to play with recreational drugs stops when it becomes a threat to the safety and well being of others.
But "people with serious neuropsychiatric people who used cannabis have low blood flow to the brain" is both less clickworthy and less politically useful than "OMG pot rots yr brain!"
And I love this: "As a physician who routinely sees marijuana users..." Yeah, that's called "a physician". Cannabis use is common, every physician has seen patients who has used it.
Both Amen and this methodology are poorly regarded. He's in the addiction treatment industry -- look at this is an old marketing pitch of his quoted in a Quackwatch article:
OHOH, Officials at major psychiatric and neuroscience associations and research centers say his SPECT claims are no more than myth and poppycock, buffaloing an unsuspecting public.
Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | my blog
You cannot wash away blood with blood
It would be interesting to see if the route of administration results in different effects. More research is needed. I would imagine that oral ingestion could have a less pronouced cerebral vasioconstricion.
Interestingly enough, a cup of Coca leaf tea will increase blood flow to the brain.
I respect the right of anyone to do whatever they want to their own bodies. There is no one single chemistry, nor one correct response regarding these issues.
Peace.
I see what you did there... ;)
Marijuana don't cause severely mental illness (what Donald Trump suffers from...) :P
tobacco, alcohol, ibuprofen, aspirin, caffeine, pizza?
Is this low blood flow the underlying cause of reefer madness?
Does it also exist in tobacco users?
http://s000.tinyupload.com/ind...
Almost everything you ingest has some negative side effects in the long term and on top of that, I didn't ask Uncle Sam to be my Mommy and tell me what to ingest and what not to.
Maybe the blood flow is lower because of improved efficiency.
Dope smokers are stupider than average.
..and deleted again, as it's on sci-hub anyway
BULLSHIT!
Whoever even thought that drugs were good for you? Things are bad for us, we still take them. I am not sure what the point of this is: do they think drug takers will say OMFG i did not know that? Pointless research
They could have left a voice mail message, at least I think I can get to my voice mail mailbox, before "thinning out" my blood to the brain.
What if the last three were enough to affect the results? I'm not saying that one like me could affect the outcome; I'm just sayin'
Well, I happen to think that studies like these involving recreational uses of substances are just as important as those demonstrating ill effects of habitual use.
WARNING: Smartphones have side effects--most of them undocumented.
*A* study may find anything. *A* study may be meaningless. *A* study has found that eggs are really bad for you while another found they are really good for you. It's reproducible results from numerous studies that start to matter.
Many have death as a side effect! A little less blood to the brain is nothing compared to the miracles this drug offers. Mass media can shove it.
Korsakoff's syndrome https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
There seems to be a real ambivalence towards alcohol use and abuse and yet its negative outcomes are far greater than Cannabis use. Heck we're even pushing alcohol consumption during Sunday brunch!
For medical use, marijuana shouldn't be anymore dangerous than any controlled substance or do you want to ignore opioid abuse.
For recreational use, it would be advisable to understand the consumption limits of marijuana, like we have for alcohol.
When we have a complete picture we can make informed decisions.
Sorry, couldn't resist.
*reads*
*nods*
*reads*
*nods*
*blinks*
Nnno no no, you! Like. Have a slow brain flow.
A 'singular oddity' is an event that cannot be explained and only happens when you are alone.
Instead of this fairly small and limited scope, finger waving "study", why not study statistics where it is not only legal, but has been for a long time?
So, there's a downside to marijuana? OMG alert the press! Tell everyone! Don't talk about cigarettes or alcohol, though. Big companies need that money.
I love how they say, "...the media". The media tries to tell us all the time that marijuana is just horrible and that, "it's illegal for a reason!". How about you let us, as the free people of the US, decide whether we want to smoke it or not? We do the same fucking thing for nicotine and alcohol.
Hypocrites.
I call BS. There are endless studies on the effects of alcohol and cigarettes. You are only upset because it posits there might be a downside to something you enjoy doing
Where I live there is now a 10 Meter rule where you can't smoke or vape within 10 meters of an entryway or bus stop. They also tax alcohol a lot to keep us from drinking too much of it. Meanwhile they are planning to decriminalize marijuana (which I'm ok with as long as it gets the same 10 M rule)
Really, we should be allowed to do what we want provided no one else has to have our choice but we should also be kept fully informed of the potential consequences of our life choices.
Anecdotal, I know, but the few marijuana users I have known had little drive in their lives (career, education, hobbies). I always wondered whether their personality type caused the use of marijuana or vice versa (or neither). I wonder if this study might explain that.
Long Term Blunting is great for the economy! Just think of all of the business that the local stores do when the "blunters" get a serious case of the munchies!
TLDR: This study compared addicts to controls. Controls were not screened for drug use, only for a history of drug or alcohol abuse.
From the "Method" Section of the article:
Persons with a diagnosis of cannabis use disorder by DSM-IV and DSM-V criteria (n=982) were compared to controls (n=92) with perfusion neuroimaging with SPECT at rest and at a concentration task.
According to DSM-V, "cannabis use disorder" is:
A problematic pattern of cannabis use leading to clinically significant impairment or distress, as manifested by at least two of the following, occurring within a 12-month period:
Cannabis is often taken in larger amounts or over a longer period than was intended.
There is a persistent desire or unsuccessful efforts to cut down or control cannabis use.
A great deal of time is spent in activities necessary to obtain cannabis, use cannabis, or recover from its effects.
Craving, or a strong desire or urge to use cannabis.
Recurrent cannabis use resulting in a failure to fulfill major role obligations at work, school, or home.
Continued cannabis use despite having persistent or recurrent social or interpersonal problems caused or exacerbated by the effects of cannabis.
Important social, occupational, or recreational activities are given up or reduced because of cannabis use.
Recurrent cannabis use in situations in which it is physically hazardous.
Cannabis use is continued despite knowledge of having a persistent or recurrent physical or psychological problem that is likely to have been caused or exacerbated by cannabis.
Tolerance, as defined by either of the following:
A need for markedly increased amounts of cannabis to achieve intoxication or desired effect.
Markedly diminished effect with continued use of the same amount of cannabis.
Withdrawal, as manifested by either of the following:
The characteristic withdrawal syndrome for cannabis (refer to Criteria A and B of the criteria set for cannabis withdrawal, pp. 517–518).
Cannabis (or a closely related substance) is taken to relieve or avoid withdrawal symptoms.
Every intoxicant has risks, some choose the one with lower risks. Cannabis is safer than alchohol in nearly every possible measure of safety.
Viagra also decreases blood flow to the brain. Man has a penis and a brain, but can only use one at a time!.
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Your only example of a drug hurting others is alcohol. Show me the devastation caused to families by the scourge of marijuana. Oh, you can't. Cheers.
It's trivial to show pretty much any drug causing harm to others including marijuana. Some drugs are more dangerous than others and cannabis is less dangerous than many but there is clear data showing that its use can result in negative health and economic consequences to others in some circumstances. Used responsibly it presents little danger but it is perfectly possible for use of cannabis to result in harm to others. I would regard cannabis as less dangerous than tobacco cigarettes or alcohol but that shouldn't be interpreted as presenting no danger. Even something as safe as aspirin can be dangerous if used improperly or to excess.
Per the World Health Organization:
"Cannabis impairs psychomotor performance in a wide variety of tasks, such as motor coordination, divided attention, and operative tasks of many types; human performance on complex machinery can be impaired for as long as 24 hours after smoking as little as 20 mg of THC in cannabis; there is an increased risk of motor vehicle accidents among persons who drive when intoxicated by cannabis."
"Cannabis used during pregnancy is associated with impairment in fetal development leading to a reduction in birth weight;"
they are called dope heads for a reason.
I haven't seen this as reported by any credible media source.
In fact any serious article I've seen generally at least mentions the health risks from abuse and mental impairment when driving/operating machinery, at a minimum.
Maybe they needed to add that bit in to make their research appear novel?
I think it's something that's been obvious for decades, those who smoke heavily tend to end up with dulled wits. I have a couple acquaintances in that category, you can make a joke and 5 seconds later they finally figure it out.
On the other hand, those that I know who are occasional smokers never appear to lose that sharpness to their thoughts.
Once again, moderation is key to just about everything in life.
"Action without philosophy is a lethal weapon; philosophy without action is worthless."
(Posted anonymously for obvious reasons)
I was diagnosed 4 years ago with stage IV colon cancer. I did all the traditional treatments (12 rounds of intense chemo, 6 weeks of radiation daily coupled with an oral form of chemo, multiple surgeries, etc.). When it spread to my lungs I had yet more surgery (biopsies, which with lungs is major surgery), and more rounds of chemo. The tumors were at that point widespread, inoperable, and unresponsive to the chemo that was otherwise killing me. Finally my oncologist agreed I had to stop chemo or die, and I was given less than six months to live.
I did 5 months of intesnse Rick Simpson Oil treatment (http://phoenixtears.ca/), mostly because my wife wanted me to not give up and there really was nothing left to try. I didn't expect it to work, and if my wife and my oncologist hadn't both been encouraging me to give it a go, I wouldn't have. It was a miserable experience, being "beyond high" for more than five months (because of the damage 18 rounds of chemo had done, it took 150 grams rather than the 60 it usually takes).
But, I've now had three scans that show the cancer is GONE, I am in complete ("full") remission. The nodules throughout my lungs are dead, there is no sign of other cancer anywhere in my body, and in a few months, if it continues, I go from full remission to officially cured.
By marijuana.
If this were widespread, it would spell the end of several lucrative pharma industries. Oh, by the way, my oncologist admitted that they're required to sign numerous contracts forbidding them from mentioning any treatments other than chemo, radiation, surgery, or hospital-approved drug trials to any patient, and even though more and more of them are aware of the curative value of cannabis oils (especially in the palliative care area where they've given up all hope, and people are going into full remission), they are forbidden from telling their patients.
Unfortunately stories like mine are all anectdotal. The FDA absolutely refuses to consider any study that might indicate a curative value for marijuana. And guess who's running the FDA these days ... yup, that's right. Big Pharma insiders.
Until politics gets out of the way of science, and stops preventing research, there will be no true science on this subject (in the United States anyway). Meanwhile opioids are approved for widespread use on the basis of one article,written by a Big Pharma employee, claiming with no evidence, and no peer review. that opioids are "non-addictive," and how the rest of the industry pounces on that, cites it, and pushes their agenda forward. Funny how big pharma has such a ridiculously low bar for their "science," while real cures for numerous severe deseases, including most late-stage cancers, are held to an impossible standard ("prove it, but we won't allow any studies!") and then dismissed as "not scientific."
I'm alive today because of cannabis, specificlly highly concentrated cannabis oils. Hopefully someone out there who needs it will read this, and not be dissuaded by those wh will no doubt quote doctrine (with no evidence of their own), dismissing this amazing medicine.
Is this really a shock? Seriously, is this cause or effect? Did they have low blood flow before using?
Say what you want about conspiracy theories but when a guy as evil and manipulative with a history of changing countries to suit his own warped view of the world keeps pushing recreational marijuana around the US, you know that he's well aware that people with weaker mental faculties are less likely to oppose him. Think of Soros as Darth Sidious and marijuana is his version of The Force having a powerful influence over the weak-minded.
[From Eurekabit]
Now there's great experimental design... wtf.
All datawere [sic] obtained for analysis from a large multisite database, involving 26,268 patients who came for evaluation of complex, treatment resistant issues to one of nine outpatient neuropsychiatric clinics across the United States (Newport Beach, Costa Mesa, Fairfield, and Brisbane, CA, Tacoma and Bellevue, WA, Reston, VA, Atlanta, GA and New York, NY) between 1995-2015. Of these, 982 current or former marijuana users had brain SPECT at rest and during a mental concentration task compared to almost 100 healhty [sic] controls. Predictive analytics with discriminant analysis was done to determine if brain SPECT regions can distinguish marijuana user brains from controls brain.
If you're trying to be clever, you're failing. Tobacco. So many studies. Constant barrage of ads about the health issues of it. Alcohol, same as tobacco, but add in ability to increase anxiety issues. ibuprofen, Rips up your stomach if you use it for prolonged amounts of time, can cause bleeding issues. Aspirin, generally the same issues as ibuprofen. Caffeine has a widely varying LD50, causes increased blood pressure and can cause anxiety attacks (I know this one personally and as such avoid it like the plague). Pizza, well, that's way to vague, but if you're talking about greasy pizza, welcome to heart disease.
Seriously, every one of those has had studies done about the legitimate health risks. It's up to individuals to have the information of the risks and make decisions based off that. Seriously, when I found out that caffeine can cause anxiety attacks and cut it out of my diet, it was a fricken god send.
....Should be legal. I should have sovereignty over my own body. There are already laws in place should I do something illegal while being affected by a drug but if I want to use a drug for any purpose I should be able to.
On the subject of this "research"....has this been duplicated by peers, has it been peer reviewed? If not then it isn't credible yet so the findings are nothing more than opinion
If you follow that link the guy is clearly a quack.
"How your brain and soul work together determines how happy you feel, how successful you become, and how well you connect with others."
We're discussing a study written by someone who believes this and is named "Amen". What's next; "Caucasian brains have higher memory capacity and superior intellect" by Karl Klatenburg Kohen?
Looking up the scanning technology shows he is the main proponent and a lot of links to sites debunking it.
I find this article and the one two stories down really explain a lot together. When people say they are high on Jesus, they are not kidding! Very low blood flow to the brain.
This is just another attempt to define, in threatening terms, another risk for smoking marijuana. We already *know* that smoking marijuana isn't risk free and for some people can be even riskier.
But all of this is a distraction -- marijuana prohibitionists want, and actually need, the debate for legalization to be oriented around the *safety* of marijuana use, both demanding an artificial high standard of safety not applied to other substances and trying to demonstrate unique and insidious risks from marijuana use.
But this isn't really what legalization should be about. We have ample scientific and more importantly, long-term public use, evidence of the relative safety of marijuana. The debate about legalization is about the *failed* nature of criminal prohibition as public policy. Prohibition has been an utter failure, costing trillions of dollars, sacrificing civil liberties, poisoning the relationship between the police and the public, discrediting public health warnings on more dangerous drugs, and all the the while totally and utterly failing to deliver anything remotely resembling the elimination of marijuana use.
It doesn't work. It costs a fortune. Trying to make it work erodes civil liberties. Nobody believes anyone who spins scare stories about marijuana. Prohibition of marijuana is one of the worst public policies advanced by every possible measure.
The link is between marijuana _abuse_ and psychosis. Dr. Amen, owner of the clinic that did the study and quoted in the post, says the link is between use and psychosis and that's not true. Also, the research isn't *exactly* new: https://www.fhi.no/en/news/2016/cannabis-abuse-psychosis/
... the autism-hating, custom EpiPen-hating, Musk-hating Slashdot troll!
Sperm count? Erection? Lung capacity? Tar on brain? Huh?
Don't mess with my pizza, paisano!
The new studies that show new, ominous sounding but nebulous effect of Marijuana use are beginning to appear. They always appear whenever Marijuana laws are being relaxed. The same thing happened in the UK a few years back when the police said they would no longer actively pursue arrests of Marijuana users. These studies are to be ignored. Legalization and governmental control of who can purchase and grow Marijuana are both enlightened and necessary to move forward. The anti-drug laws and their deleterious effects on individuals and society must first be eliminated before their past effects can be reversed. Legalize and then empty the prisons of those jailed exclusively for possession, use, and sale of Marijuana. Make it illegal for companies to test and discipline/fire their employees for substances found that have been confiscated from their employees' bodily fluids. This needs to be the real deal, otherwise it will be reversed in a heartbeat.
And yet there is zero correlation with Alzheimer's. Note the use of the quoted term "compared to healthy controls", that's an assumption of the highest order. Does that not already show this study's bias and its subsequent interpretation.
https://www.yakimawa.gov/council/
If you have a great product that can't be patented by the Drug companies what do you do?? You smear the product's reputation!! End of story.
SPECT scan requires a radioisotope, why would (normal heathy) people willingly subject themselves to a dose of radioactivity and how do they expect it to get past the blood brain barrier? Are they smoking radioactive weed? I have serious questions about this study...
"State level marijuana legalization efforts across the U.S. have been gaining traction driven by the folk wisdom (that would be name calling) that marijuana is both a harmless recreational drug (and that is a straw man argument) and . . ."
This is not an isolated example, with more and more stories on slashdot being very low quality. Either the editors are neglecting their duty or are deliberately letting stuff like this through because it is good clickbait, or whatever it is. Either way, after a decade of reading slashdot, I am now actively looking for an alternative.
Junk is junk folks; please put it in the bin, not on the front page. I'm very much in favour of marijuana legalization efforts but I do not think the issue is black and white and would value reading well thought through pieces from people on the other side of the argument. Can we have some of those please?
What ever, anything people use to get sideways on or to treat illness is bound to fuck with you no matter what. Alcohol too fucks with your head and the rest of your body. But because it's socially acceptable, it doesn't get bad press like a fucking weed. This weed usage, like any thing else should be a state matter and personal decision.
And also hairy palms!
neither is tobacco, why can we be trusted to make some choices but not others with our own bodies
We call it smoothe.
...about what long term pot use does to the brain, just spend 30 seconds speaking to a sober pothead.
I want to see how the blood flow differences compare to that of people who smoke cigarettes, and people who use alcohol.
They say it's good for alzheimers too http://www.alzheimers.net/6-15-15-effects-of-medical-marijuana-on-alzheimers/
Maybe it's good for Alzheimers too, according to other studies http://www.alzheimers.net/6-15-15-effects-of-medical-marijuana-on-alzheimers/
Asspained potheads everywhere.
There is legitimate research showing benefits not funded by big brewers and big pharma.
But what provision do these treaties have allowing for a ruling that commerce within a country shall be treated as international trade, analogous to Wickard v. Filburn?
So, the implication here is that these are serious side effects compared to the benefit that the users get. Note that it's easily proven that sugar and salt harm, often fatally, far more people but we tolerate them due to the benefit.
Let's try a little word substitution to make a point.
State level sex legalization efforts across the U.S. have been gaining traction driven by the folk wisdom that sex is both a harmless recreational activity and a useful medical treatment for many ailments. However, some cracks have appeared in that story with indications that sexual activity is associated with the development of mental disorders and the long-term blunting of the brain's reward system of dopamine levels. A new study has found that sexual activity appears to have a widespread effect on blood flow in the brain. EurekAlert reports: "Published in the Journal of Alzheimer's Disease, researchers using single photon emission computed tomography (SPECT), a sophisticated imaging study that evaluates blood flow and activity patterns, demonstrated abnormally low blood flow in virtually every area of the brain studies in nearly 1,000 sexually active adolescent males compared to healthy controls, including areas known to be affected by Alzheimer's pathology such as the hippocampus. According to Daniel Amen, M.D., 'Our research demonstrates that sexual activity can have significant negative effects on brain function. The media has given the general impression that sex is a normal and safe recreational activity, this research directly challenges that notion. In another new study just released, researchers showed that extensive sexual activity tripled the risk of psychosis. Caution is clearly in order.'"
people who need to self-medicate are clearly dysfunctional... normal healthy people with fully-functional brains need no medication. There is something seriously wrong with a person who must be medicated in order to face the real world, and these medications always have toxic side effects.
I don't hang around with people who need to consume mind-altering chemicals in order to be stable, it's not safe, and the worst aspect of the problem is that the self-medicating are every bit as self delusional as the insane; they both cannot detect their own problems and they both are convinced they are "better" when they do whatever they do to cope with their problems. The pot user will often brag that he feels better and is more productive or more creative, but his perceptions are untrustworthy because he is drugged and his brain is not working properly. People who use chemicals to screw with their brains cannot, by definition, be trusted to use those medicated brains to asses their own condition.
And probably more stress free than you've ever been in your life... - pure speculation but I'm sticking to it!
Look, we've basically bred two major variants: one is high in CBD and one is low in CBD.
If you are using it for pain medication it has a lot of CBD and not much THC. The CBD counteracts the paranoic effects at high dosage, and is much more mellow.
If you are using it to get high, yes, that would be the other variant, high in THC and low in CBD.
It's like comparing different medications.
Stop freaking out. Stop listening to studies funded by the alcohol and tobacco companies that regard this as a competitor. Those rarely replicate the results they tout.
And stop taking it if you're under 21. Especially before tests, seriously, that's the stupidest thing ever. Save it for winter or spring break. And don't drive drunk or buzzed. If you think you might be either, you are. Duh.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
Duh...thanks Captain Obvious :)
Comment removed based on user account deletion
If it's really your view that "life is about fun" and "drugs are fun" then max-out and die in bliss. If, as you say, "everyone dies from something" and if there's nothing more to life, then there's no real reason to prolong your life. Once you are dead, it will no longer matter how much "fun" you had or how often you had "fun".
Tens of thousands of innocent people are killed every year by morons who only care about themselves getting drunk/stoned and then recklessly killing/maiming others.
You wanna screw-up your brains for fun? fine. Do it behind closed-and-locked doors where nobody else will be at risk. Do it in the presence of others and while putting others at one iota of additional risk, and you out to be strung-up and lit on fire. You claim the right to do whatever you want to obtain fun for yourself, but you need to acknowledge that you have no right whatsoever to impact the ability of all the people around you to "have fun" I'm absolutely disgusted by the sort of swine who use drugs or alcohol and then climb into a car, or play with a gun, or play with fire, etc and injure or kill the innocent.
No way!!!
The low blood flow to the brain made them think smoking pot is a good idea.
You idiots who use drugs are so mentally compromised that you cannot detect your mental problems - you do not even comprehend just how totally screwed-up you are, nor do you realize how stupid you are when you speak or type. You're perception is completely distorted, and you have willingly made yourselves blind to it. You have made yourself so stupid that you are beyond understanding what you have done to yourself and you do not understand that you are not even redeemable, in the sense that now that you have made your brain malfunction, you can no longer rationally trust it for anything, including to know if you ever return to normal. Good luck in your alternate reality, you have no way of knowing anything else.
drugged-idiots murder thousands per year in car accidents, but the reason you can smugly pretend this is not so is that there are no current legal standards for measuring how screwed-up a person's brain is from drugs and there are no quick test kits with which police departments have been equipped. It used to just be totally illegal no matter how doped a person was, and the degree of mental compromise was only determined in autopsies, on the occasions when those were done. The police frequently find drugs at car crash sites, but find it easier to go after the guilty for the alcohol they also find since there are specific statutory limits for and recognized measuring methods for alcohol impairment.
Prohibition was a much more complex thing than the modern narrative suggests.
Yes, there were violent gangs like Capone's, but they tended to mostly kill other gangsters and the death tolls were far smaller than the death tolls today from gangs.
The health stats show that the people of the prohibition era suffered dramatically lower rated for liver and kidney problems, and thus their lifetime medical expenses were lower. These benefits lasted decades after prohibition, as very large numbers of Americans came of age without alcohol and felt no need to consume it. Other societal statistics of the era are interesting too; family breakups went down, productivity of workers went up, domestic violence went down, and more. People tend to forget WHY the "temperance movement" led to prohibition in the first place: The society was seriously afflicted by rampant alcoholism. Families were falling apart, women and children were being left destitute, employers were having trouble finding sober workers, and the public finally VOTED to get rid of alcohol. Things were so bad the American people amended the Constitution to deal with it (and THAT is a very heavy political lift). It was only after the nation had sobered-up that people were willing to re-legalize alcohol, and then with limits that had not previously been applied to it.
So, there's a downside to marijuana? OMG alert the press! Tell everyone! Don't talk about cigarettes or alcohol, though. Big companies need that money.
I love how they say, "...the media". The media tries to tell us all the time that marijuana is just horrible and that, "it's illegal for a reason!". How about you let us, as the free people of the US, decide whether we want to smoke it or not? We do the same fucking thing for nicotine and alcohol.
Hypocrites.
I call BS. There are endless studies on the effects of alcohol and cigarettes. You are only upset because it posits there might be a downside to something you enjoy doing
Where I live there is now a 10 Meter rule where you can't smoke or vape within 10 meters of an entryway or bus stop. They also tax alcohol a lot to keep us from drinking too much of it. Meanwhile they are planning to decriminalize marijuana (which I'm ok with as long as it gets the same 10 M rule)
Really, we should be allowed to do what we want provided no one else has to have our choice but we should also be kept fully informed of the potential consequences of our life choices.
You call BS on what? I never said there weren't studies on the effects of alcohol and nicotine. I said nobody fucking talks about it (when it comes to these kind of law changes on mind-altering substances).
I agree with you, though. Taxing it would be just fine! In fact, I encourage it being taxed. Hello HUGE source of tax revenue. The US government is pretty dumb not to jump on this!
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Who reads papers? It need to be repeated in multiple blogs first before we believe it.
Yes circular referencing between the blogs is fine too.
You know if we repeat it enough it happens. It's magical.
Magic is more awesome than science any day.
https://priceonomics.com/the-time-everyone-corrected-the-worlds-smartest/
From the section titled "The Psychology of Rationalization"
When people are confronted with evidence that is “inconsistent with their beliefs” ... they first respond by refuting the information, then band together with like-minded dissenters and champion their own hard-set opinion.
Marijuana user can relax knowing they are safe from cancer, this lowered heart rate results in less blood flow to the brain. People who don't have access to the cure for cancer are more stressed, so their brains get more blood.
Yeah... I've seen this before... from those claiming brain research, versus real stories from those who do.
How about those that regularly work out and get their blood flowing? Perhaps they sampled a majority of people who are immobile, lazy, and overweight; with naturally slower blood flow?
Nah, polling samples are never biased with agendas.. because science is always honest
I call BS, but the Mrs. is haute
http://tanaamen.com/
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Crappy no name site. No valid links to any sources. Not even fake ones.
Most like a christian boot camp that found a joint in the bunks and posted this crap to scare the little sinners.
Who paid for the study?
How many participants? How were they screened? How was the "control group" screened?
Was this a double-blind study or an extrapolated survey?
That is all I want to know. That will tell you all you need to know.
$20 says it was paid for and designed by a major Pharma company, one who makes big bucks selling Opioids.
Exactly how marijuana is used might be a factor. Smoking gets you lots of combustion byproducts: carbon monoxide, etc. Vaporizers and edibles do not. I'd like to see the breakdown, and maybe compared with cigarette smokers as well. Maybe it's the THC that is causing the effect reported, but maybe not.
Q: What does the "B." in Benoit B. Mandelbrot stand for? A: Benoit B. Mandelbrot
The last 'bad' study from a few weeks ago shed light on the decades old cautionary tale 'if you smoke it, you'll end up with less grey matter!' Very specific claim. Then a study dropped showing the grey matter in the addictive part of the brain is smaller after the smoker gives up. What would the world be like if everyone had less grey matter in the addictive part of the brain?
Other studies show that people try to adapt to changes in their brains. When people with genetic traits which end up with full blown schizophrenia tend to try to treat their illness any way possible. Alcohol and ciggerettes usually the first 2, followed by pot. Pot helps, but the condition continues. Then a god fearing researcher sees this, then assumes that pot caused the schizophrenia and not the other way around. How can you create a need to fund more of your research if everything was ok?
Does society want more people with well formed and hungry addicted to everything? What morality structure are the accusors following? Because the language smells like man made global warming hysterical activisim to us, and should be filed away with all the other chicken littles 'knowledge' of the world.
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Of all the pro-legalization groups I follow, not one of them claims that marijuana is harmless. They claim it is *relatively* harmless, i.e. less damaging to individuals and society than other common choices such as alcohol. It's not a "safe" choice, it's a less dangerous one.
If this is true, and assuming you're happy to let people use some recreational drugs in moderation (e.g. alcohol), it follows that marijuana should be one of the legal options.
https://youtu.be/1pzoJVnPblI
...this explains a great deal about Liberals.
Oh, wait, I think they said it was, a blooming mental deviant. My bad.
It's been widely known that use of cannabis affects blood flow in THE ENTIRE BODY.
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
Perhaps, they are only reparing the scenery for the next nightmare...
"...Marijuana Users Have Low Blood Flow To the Brain"
You say it's an effect, I say it's a cause (of marijuana use)!
(ducks and runs)
Do you even vape, bro?
Posted by Cold Fjord, long the running dog of the Fascist right here on /., even before the Trump lunatics took over the asylum.
This work goes beyond the normal logical confusion of "correlation implies causation." It's just a really poorly designed experiment. A better experiment would have compared blood flow in brains of people who have never used marijuana and them had them use marijuana and then again measured blood flow. (This also lacks a control but at least it measures something useful. And I spent all of five seconds coming up with it and I'm not in the field. So.....)
So what's wrong? Maybe people who have abnormally low brain blood flow are prone to using marijuana, perhaps even to _increase_ blood flow, but less than perfectly. And instead of _causing_ psychosis, maybe people who are psychotic are prone to using marijuana. I know people who have told me that they need to use marijuana to feel normal, and maybe normal for them means non-psychotic.
http://www.amenclinics.com/blo...
Considering that the longest time I've ever spent in a hospital, and the worst health damage I've ever had, was from a Tylenol overdose, I'm not impressed that cannabis is a significant health threat to me. It does help considerably with my joint and back pain from years of construction work though...
When the king heard the words of the Book of the Law he tore his robes.2Kings22:11
Inhaling smoke constricts blood vessels..
+1, keep up the good work using your brain regardless of how much bloodflow was required. Part of the pattern here is "non-normality implies negative results". Just because something is different doesn't necessarily mean it is bad. Especially when, as @limaxray pointed out- you can verify the false theory by simply looking outside and realizing the sky isn't in the process of falling (except when it literally is, not that that matters)
I was talking about this specific effect on the brain. Everyone knows that all sorts of studies have found tobacco to be unhealthy in many ways, ditto everything else listed. What I want to know is if this specific effect they see in marijuana is a common effect with other things or is it specific to weed and does it mean anything in terms of long term health?
All I can think is a resounding Duh.
You needed a study to tell you that? Have you ever talked to a stoner?
capcha : higher. Go figure.
Rastahs engage in hair fantasy, one of them being non washing it and letting dandruff and allowing other insect parasites. Was this correlated in the study? I think it renders their study useless. I mean, I do see live Rastahs and they do explain and speak of it because it is not badly seen but on the contrary it is macho AND natural! You do not have to be a Rastah to get parasited if for them it is not a religious imperative but a natural concomitance. What I knew is that THC produces increases in blood pressure, which is one of the disadvantages other contrary studies have published against its use. Contradictory statements! You will not get truths till you legalize because in the 70s all these studies were just primitive and non existent and while penalized you will only get people treated as criminals.... Do you understand this last point?
This is a correlation study, AFAICT. The most that can be concluded from this is "more research is warranted." At present, cannabis users in the US is *not* a representative cross-section of the population as a whole, and there's no reason to suspect that cannabis is the cause of the observed phenomenon.
Not to seem like a science denier but this is crap. If you did science...detail the purpose of the study, the methodology used, the controls, the detailed results and the peer review that duplicated or contradicted the results. And what they mean. Also reveal who commissioned the study and who put up the money. Then it's science. Until these conditions have been met it's simply advancing and agenda. So fuck off. And on the other hand...on a non scientific take...thousands of years of use and no one noticed anything wrong until Harry J. Anslinger came along to start the ball rolling. Again. Fuck Off.
So, it's beneficial with respect to strokes. (not that kind of stroking, you dirty bastards :)
Yeah, don't talk about dangers of marijuana as though it were some kind of significant public health threat compared to alcohol or tobacco. Those two destroy more minds and lives every day than cannibis ever did in a decade. Or ever. There is hardly any comparison considering how damaging the legal drugs of choice are. As it happens, I credit medical-grade cannibis with helping me recover from a noticable degree of neurological debility due to booze. I'm quite sure it helps because I've been through that process -- recovering from significant neocortical damage -- without it. Recently it saved me years of living with less than a satisfactory feeling of (sober) wellness and I'm quite convinced, has helped my entire nervous system, not just with certain obvious things like short and long-term memory, but also with athletic coordination, social functionality in stressful chaotic situations, etc etc. . This is a medium term observation, one my physician and psychiatrist both observed and confirmed (and encouraged via hinting, within NYS legal frameworks, that they agreed with my subjective reportage and with my assessment of its probable connection to cannibis). Bear in mind this is 15-25 good vape hits of mostly top-shelf killer bud a day, minimum, for 1 1/2 years. It seems a miracle, considering how hard it was to have any sense of recovering full functionality and sanity for several years before, when I did without it. Seriously, there was a time when writing grammatically proper sentences in a comment like this was a crap shoot for me.
I never understood why people keep pushing for legalizing pot, while nobody even dares to bring up LSD. LSD is far more of an "intelligent" drug than pot could even be. Pot is for idiots who just want to "chill" and "have a good time". LSD can actually change a person, overcome abusive experiences and achieve enlightenment. Ah, and it's not addictive. Ah, and it's the safest "drug" ever, probably safer than green tee, assuming you should have a non-LSD person with you to make sure you don't want to go out of a window (but if you limit yourself to 150-300 ug you'll be fine). My version is that the government knows just how useful LSD could be for the general population. They are afraid that people might become too "enlighten" to go through their bullshit policies anymore, reason why everything about LSD is banned. Why aren't they banning smoking or alcohol? Those are doing far more damage than LSD could ever do.
the autism-hating, custom EpiPen-hating, Musk-hating Slashdot troll!
The title of this article is a conclusion which is not supported in the article. The critical point is that the scans were done on "patients who came for evaluation of complex, treatment resistant issues". Did anyone else note this? It should have been in big bold letters.
So, it doesn't compare healthy brains to (otherwise) healthy brains exposed to marijuana use. Thus one cannot form a causal link, and the article's title is very misleading.