Marijuana in the U.S.

We’ve made some progress over the years…

Marijuana Won the Midterm Elections by Tom Angell

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56 Responses to Marijuana in the U.S.

  1. Servetus says:

    Results from the latest mouse and rat research has produced more outcomes demonstrating a further need to do THC research on humans. New findings show that:

    6-Nov-2018 —

    • Prenatal exposure to THC in rats has lasting effects on metabolites in the brain, making the animal more vulnerable to stress later in life (Robert Schwarcz, abstract 609.12).

    • Rats exposed to synthetic compounds that are similar to THC during fetal development show impaired formation of the neural circuits involved in learning and memory as adolescents (Priyanka Das Pinky, abstract 424.17).

    • Cannabinoid use by adolescent rats boosts activity in brain pathways responsible for habit formation (José Fuentealba Evans, abstract 602.07).

    • In adolescent rats, cannabinoids may disturb the development of a protein lattice important for balancing excitatory and inhibitory activity in a brain region involved in decision-making, planning, and self-control (Eliza Jacobs-Brichford, abstract 645.09).

    • Long-term cannabinoid use alters metabolism and connectivity of brain regions involved in learning and memory in adult mice (Ana M. Sebastião, abstract 778.08).

    • Treating Alzheimer’s disease mice with the psychoactive compound found in marijuana improves memory and reduces neuronal loss, suggesting a possible therapy for the human disease (Yvonne Bouter, abstract 467.14).

    AAAS Public Release: New insights into the neural risks and benefits of marijuana use: Compounds in cannabis can impair or improve memory depending on age, disease

    Also at Brainfacts.org see: When Mice Can’t Answer Questions, Neuroscience Turns to Primates

  2. anon says:

    BULLSHIT ON TROLL COMMENT ABOVE

    • Servetus says:

      The point I was trying to make is that rat or mice studies don’t necessarily mean researchers will get the same results when they test humans. 85% of the time they don’t. So far, humans and maybe primates are the only valid test subjects for getting realistic human results. Volunteers shouldn’t be hard to find.

    • darkcycle says:

      Servetus is no troll. And that research cited above is legit (as far as that goes). Remember, not only does this research have to be shown to be applicable in a human brain, but it also needs to be replicatable. Particularly in cannabis research that seems to be an issue.
      I am reminded of the words of J.W.D. Henderson, Cannabis researcher: “The drug is really quite a remarkably safe one for humans, although it is really quite a dangerous one for mice and they should not use it.”

  3. DdC says:

    Engineering results is Prohibitionism in a nut shell. If Ganja supplements the Endocannabinoid System into balance. Then a duel result is simply switched. If it curtails appetite in obesity, then that would be “bad” for wasting syndrome. While actual Ganja has both properties. It can dilute memory in PTSD and remove the cobwebs with brain trauma and ALZ.

    Active Ingredient In Marijuana Reduced Alzheimer’s-Like Effects In Mice

    Prohibitionists babble has prevented treatment and caused terror in citizens, and its paid by the victims taxes. Its hard to protest Trumps lying, diverting irrational acts when so many never noticed growers doing mandatory minimums or 50 million Americans having arrest records tagging them through life.

    ‘After two puffs, I was turned into a bat’

    Government sponsored trips while I’m still waiting for the flashback Nixon promised.

    The New York Times obtained hundreds of pages of documents this week relating to the Central Intelligence Agency’s mind-control experiments involving LSD.

    The Yuppies are starting to see what Cannabist’s have lived, for damn near a century. Cheating, Lying, Diversion, Stalling and killing legislature before anyone can read it. Research banned, media censored and propagandized. We’ve lived under Bi-Partisan Trumpism’s going on 5 decades. How many more Americans suffered from Ron & Nancy’s billion dollar piss tasting business spreading gossip about Ganja?

    The Hype: Brain Damage in Dead Monkeys
    The Facts: Suffocation of Research Animals
    … In 1974, California Governor Ronald Reagan was asked about decriminalizing marijuana. After producing the Heath/Tulane University study, he proclaimed brain damage.

    Now instead of removing Cannabis as a Controlled Substance. To let the American citizrey do what a few states have been doing underground or by states with no power. To let people relieve pain without sneaking around dealing in cash. How many things this plant could do and the scum of the earth Prohibitionists continue to sabet-age and lie to maintain a sick perverted life-style of the very backassward profiteers on misery.

    How Cannabis Can Help Ease Arthritis Pain & Inflammation

  4. Servetus says:

    It gets better all the time.

    Kevin Sabet’s source of funding, Ms. Schauer, is accused of consorting with a known anti-Semite named Roger Morgan who says George Soros “collaborated with Nazis in wartime Hungary to steal and send Jewish families to the gas chambers.” Morgan is also an ardent marijuana prohibitionist who blames Soros for the “failures” of marijuana legalization.

    Diana Goldstein writes at Alternet:

    …Ms. Schauer, although I do not accuse you of being racist or anti-Semitic, I do take exception to the way you and your organization have contributed to the spread of racism, without your publicly condemning these ideas. And I’m appalled that, in these circumstances, SAM and Kevin Sabet have brought you to the national spotlight.

    Perhaps Sabet, who is currently attempting to reframe marijuana legalization as the New Jim Crow, doesn’t know that your former director has published anti-Semitic bile, while you and your non-profit have willfully ignored and sanitized it? […]

    Will Kevin be taking fascist cash in the future? Funding could get harder to find now that Ms. Schauer’s life is apparently ruined by her donation to Sabet’s SAM, and by Ms. Goldstein’s latest article.

  5. DdC says:

    President Trump considers Kris Kobach, Lindsey Graham, Chris Christie, Rudy Giuliani for attorney general http://www.nydailynews.com/news/politics/ny-pol-trump-kobach-christie-bondi-ag-20181108-story.html

    Cannabis and the Anxiety of Fragmentation—A Systems Approach for Finding an Anxiolytic Cannabis Chemotype
    https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fnins.2018.00730/full

    What Does Jeff Sessions’ Exit Mean for Federal Pot Policy? https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-features/jeff-sessions-fired-marijuana-pot-weed-policy-753456/ via @RollingStone

  6. Servetus says:

    Mark A. R. Kleiman won’t admit he’s beaten. He continues his gratuitous persecution of cannabis consumers by publishing on the dangers of driving under the influence of THC. A frustrated Prof. Kleiman notes several problems associated with policing stoned drivers:

    26-OCT-2018–…Oral-fluid testing can demonstrate recent use but not the level of impairment and thus a blood test must be carried out by health professionals at a medical facility. A further challenge is that blood THC levels drop very sharply even after minutes. A blood test is also a poor indicator of how recently the drug was used or the extent of impairment, and other tests are also not completely accurate.

    Research on the risk of driving under the influence of cannabis is still preliminary and subject to fierce debate. However, a few facts are certain: stoned-driving adds to accident risk, especially in combination with alcohol and other drugs. Also, while it is certain that the risk of driving under the influence of cannabis alone is much lower than under the influence of high levels of alcohol, it is difficult to determine levels of impairment after cannabis use.

    Stoned driving, the article posits, should be discouraged by making it a traffic offense with the promotion of anti-stoned driving messages highlighting the dangers and risks.

    “Even assuming that an acceptable test can be developed, stoned driving alone and not involving alcohol or other drugs, should be treated as traffic infraction rather than as a crime, unless aggravated by recklessness, aggressiveness, or high speed,” said study author Professor Mark A.R Kleiman of New York University.

    AAAS Public Release complete with scare headline: High on the highway — stoned-driving on the increase

    Original Article—No Paywall: https://www.degruyter.com/view/j/jdpa.ahead-of-print/jdpa-2018-0004/jdpa-2018-0004.xml

    Too bad for Mark. If only those pesky THC blood levels didn’t drop sharply within minutes it might be possible to nail more drivers. Better luck next time.

  7. kaptinemo says:

    Remember how the prohibs always said that if they fought the drug war like a real war, they’d win?

    Well, they got their wish, last year…and failed utterly: The Drug Catastrophe in Afghanistan

    The massive aerial bombardment of ten drug-processing laboratories included strikes by some Afghan air force Tucano aircraft, but the main assault was by the US Air Force which for the first time in Afghanistan used its F-22 Raptor aircraft, flown from the United Arab Emirates. B-52 strategic nuclear bombers based in Qatar attacked targets, and F-16s joined in from the Bagram base near Kabul. The operation also involved KC-10 and KC-135 refuellers, every surveillance means that could be deployed, and command and control aircraft. This was a major — and very expensive — operation.

    The commander of foreign forces in Afghanistan, US General John Nicholson, told a news conference “We hit the labs where they turned poppy into heroin. We hit their storage facilities where they kept their final products, where they stockpiled their money and their command and control.” Not only that, but “The strikes that were prosecuted last night will continue… This is going to be steady pressure that’s going to stay up and we are not going to let up.” He said “the Drug Enforcement Administration estimates there are 400 to 500 opium laboratories across Afghanistan”. So after that first attack in November 2017 there were ten down and about 400 to go.

    We told them. We told them for not years, but decades, that their efforts would only be like fighting the mythical Hydra; cut one head off, two more grow back. But, noooo, we were just stupid closet druggies, they were the ‘adults in the room’, the Very Serious People.

    They were like McNamara’s ‘The Best and the Brightest’ who were going to win the war in Viet Nam. They were like Bush II’s NeoCon’Vulcans’ who said the Iraqis would line the streets and throw flowers at the feet of US soldiers marching in a victory parade in Baghdad. History proved otherwise, as the realists said it would.

    I hate the smell of such blind, arrogant hubris in the morning; it smells like charred corpses.

  8. Hope says:

    “I hate the smell of such blind, arrogant hubris in the morning; it smells like charred corpses.”

    Me, too.

    I’m glad to have stood beside you through most of this resistance to idiocy, Kap. I would have been a lot more scared and doubtful without you.

    • kaptinemo says:

      Hope, all I am and have ever been was a mouth. Maybe sometimes a big one, but just a mouth. One that said what needed saying. There are others here who have done much more…and paid higher prices than I have. They have my respect.

      As someone told me long ago, “The truth will always come out.” Servetus finding that article on AlterNet about the prohibs’ unsavory associations and what happened when they were discovered was an example of that truth coming out.

      The modern-day prohibs are the fruit of the poison tree, and cannot fall far from its branches. Every reformer knows the catechism about how drug prohibition was steeped in racism and bigotry, and it would seem that its modern-day proponents are ‘chips off the old block’, engaging in crypto (and now, as has been discovered, not-so crypto-) racial bigotry.

      And now this discovery is happening at a time in our nation’s history when such subjects, once taboo, are being resurrected and public discourse about them is heated to incandescence. If this revelation about the prohib’s crypto-racist associations gets more traction, the prohibs will be facing not only rancorous discussion, but given the highly charged political environment, it may become very personal for them in a physical way never experienced by them before.

      They’re stately academicians (or pretend to be, anyway) not (as Kipling put it) ‘gutter-devil’ street fighters. They’ve never actually had to face the legions of people the policies they supported have savaged. Their own hands seem clean but what they have supported has left broken lives and dead bodies in its wake. That safe cocoon they enjoyed, allowing lever-pulling and button-pushing from high up their ivory towers could change, and swiftly.

  9. Hope says:

    Telling the truth in the face of a storm of lies from very powerful people with a nasty agenda is not something done lightly. You have answered the calling to publicly say something for justice and respect for the persecuted and you’ve said it faultlessly. Absolutely faultlessly and for a very long time. I really was scared to speak up and make public statements online and in newspapers. I was really scared. You, Richard Lake, and that old lumber salesman we love from the backwoods of Oregon, made me feel brave enough to join you and you encouraged me to add my voice to yours. Thank you for that. It’s taken so long…too long, but I wouldn’t take anything for having participated in this long, drawn out struggle for truth and sanity. Thank you.

  10. primus says:

    The entry by BarryWenry is spam. It leads to a porn site.

  11. DdC says:

    Whitaker said he supports state’s rights
    to nullify federal law @CNNPolitics https://cnn.it/2qCzqAT

    Matthew Whitaker, the new acting attorney general, has said that states have the right to nullify federal law, but that they need the political courage to do so.

    ‘Nullification as a serious, mainstream legal argument didn’t survive the Civil War (or the constitutional amendments that followed),” said University of Texas law professor and CNN contributor Stephen Vladeck. “It’s irreconcilable not only with the structure of the Constitution, but with its text, especially the text of the Supremacy Clause of Article VI—which not only makes federal law supreme, but expressly binds state courts to apply it. For someone who holds those views to be the nation’s chief law enforcement officer, even temporarily, is more than a little terrifying.”

  12. WalStMonky says:

    .
    .

    The imposition of the death penalty for selling medicinal cannabis in Malaysia appears to have ended the death penalty in Malaysia.

    Medical cannabis: Death sentence prompts Malaysia to re-think harsh laws

  13. Servetus says:

    A Loma Linda University Health study okays the use of donor kidneys from marijuana consumers for transplants:

    15-Nov-2018—…There is a shortage of kidneys available for transplantation. As of 2018 there are nearly 100,000 patients on the waiting list for donor kidney transplants, with an average wait-time of 3 to 10 years depending on region and blood type. Some patients do not survive long enough on dialysis to receive a transplant.

    Based on National Kidney Registry recommendations that exclude substance abusers from donation, transplant institutions may refuse live kidney donors who have a history of marijuana use; however, there was previously no evidence pertaining specifically to the donor or recipient outcomes.

    Researchers in this study reviewed living kidney transplants performed between January 2000 and May 2016 in a single academic institution. Donor and recipient groups were each divided into two groups by donor marijuana usage, comparing the outcomes of the transplants using a variety of tests. Researchers reviewed 294 living donor medical records, including 31 marijuana using donors. Researchers also reviewed 230 living kidney recipient records, including 27 marijuana using kidney recipients.

    The results show no difference in donor or recipient perioperative characteristics or postoperative outcomes based upon donor marijuana use, indicating that there were no long-term differences in kidney function between those who used marijuana and those who did not. […]

    AAAS Public Release: Marijuana use has no effect on kidney transplant outcomes

    The paper, “Should donors who have used marijuana be considered candidates for living kidney donation?” is available (at midnight EST on November 15) at https://academic.oup.com/ckj/article-lookup/doi/10.1093/ckj/sfy107.

    That marijuana use should be considered a factor in transplants is as bizarre as some religions whose members refuse blood transfusions or organ transplants because it’s believed to be a type of cannibalism.

    At least kidney transplant recipients can now feel assured they won’t be failing their donor kidneys’ urine tests for weed.

  14. Fuck Utah Mormons says:

    On Marijuana won the midterms.

    Does Utah count? Since governmental authority flows through the Mormon cult, is Utah a State or a Theocracy?

    Really hurtful to me, is the idea that any State’s medical association would fight against the primary reason people use medicinal cannabis, i.e., chronic pain. The Mormon cult is heavily invested in Big Pharma and hates the fact weed exists.

    The drug war body count is meaningless to Theocractic crazies. Fuck Utah and Mormons until they get it right.

  15. DdC says:

    This is becoming a yearly post…

    Fire! fire on the mountain!
    Hemp: Inexpensive fire-resistant construction material. The perfect material to replace trees. Eliminates poisonous fumes of burning synthetic materials in a house or commercial fire. Detoxify & Reduce soil loss and mudslides.

    Just give me one sign that this dork has a clue about anything.

    Trump tours Paradise area, calls wildfire a ‘really bad one’

    Drumpfy thinks its forest management and since most of the forests are Federally managed, he might be right. Except the “Camp Fire” isn’t in the forest. More need to be raking leaves to prevent such fires. Raking leaves in a forest. Maybe we should start giving fish baths too. Maybe when the EPA director gets indited the air will clean itself. Air quality has been “poor” around SCruz, my expectorant effect doobies have been working well. The “city” (SF) is hazed over 3 times higher. Just don’t mention climate change.

    • Dumfmarken says:

      Drumpfy only knows about golf course maintenance… he’d just tell his paeons to get raking… unfortunately from his pov he’ll need to import millions of them to rake California properly, and guess what: they’re Mexicans!

  16. Servetus says:

    SAM and Kevin Sabet formed an alliance with an alleged think tank calling itself the Centennial Institute and affiliated with the Colorado Christian University (CCU) located ten miles west of Denver.

    CCU was established in 2009. The director of the Centennial Institute is “Jeff Hunt, a leading conservative voice in our state and nation, and the Chairman … is Dr. Donald Sweeting, President of [CCU].” The two men like to boast of CCU’s conservative credentials:

    We were named a Top Conservative College by Young America’s Foundation, the Most Conservative College in Colorado and a Top Ten Most Conservative College in America by Niche, and we have earned one of the few A grades (20 out of 1100 colleges and universities rated nationally) for core curriculum from the American Council of Trustees and Alumni for three years running.

    CCU aka Centennial Institute appears to be little more than a fascist front organization using religion as a propaganda vehicle. CCU’s leadership has made the fatal mistake fascists often make of attacking marijuana consumers and cannabis consumption.

    Teaming up with SAM, the Centennial Institute think tank (actually a belief tank) produced pseudo research that outsourced its data gathering to a “family” organization called QREM in order to produce conclusions favoring prohibition. The conclusions are bolstered by lies, innuendo, scapegoating, discriminatory stereotyping, and false or pointless associations. Below is a list of the Institute’s findings and recommendations on marijuana:

    •For every dollar gained in tax revenue, Coloradans spent approximately $4.50 to mitigate the effects of legalization

    •Costs related to the healthcare system and from high school drop-outs are the largest cost contributors

    •While people who attended college and use marijuana has grown since legalization, marijuana use remains more prevalent in the population with less education

    •Research shows a connection between marijuana use and the use of alcohol and other substances

    •Calls to Poison Control related to marijuana increased dramatically since legalization of medical marijuana and legalization of recreational marijuana

    •About 15 people are severely burned as a result of marijuana use per year

    •People who use marijuana more frequently tend to be less physically active, and a sedentary or inactive lifestyle is associated with increased medical costs

    •Adult marijuana users generally have lower educational attainment than non-users

    •Research does suggest that long-term marijuana use may lead to reduced cognitive ability, particularly in people who begin using it before they turn 18

    •Yearly cost-estimates for marijuana users: $2,200 for heavy users, $1,250 for moderate users, $650 for light users

    •69% of marijuana users say they have driven under the influence of marijuana at least once, and 27% admit to driving under the influence on a daily basis

    •The estimated costs of DUIs for people who tested positive for marijuana only in 2016 approaches $25 million

    •The marijuana industry used enough electricity to power 32,355 homes in 2016

    •In 2016, the marijuana industry was responsible for approximately 393,053 pounds of CO2 emissions

    •Marijuana packaging yielded over 18.78 million pieces of plastic

    The researchers felt strongly that Colorado needs to have an important conversation about the presence of THC in fatal car crashes and suicide and they included these numbers in the report without attaching a monitory value to the loss of life. They pointed out that these are preventable deaths and if we’re serious about stopping THC-related car crashes and suicides, we need to explore these issues further.

    Separation of church and state is obviously not the motto of CCU, nor its Centennial Institute.

    • NCN says:

      Eye-balling a list of Sabet’s “Greatest Hits,” is always good for a laugh.

    • DdC says:

      • Marijuana is the most violence-causing drug in the history of mankind.​

      • Reefer makes darkies think they’re as good as white men.​

      • Marihuana influences Negroes to look at white people in the eye, step on white men’s shadows and look at a white woman twice.

      • There are 100,000 total marijuana smokers in the US, and most are Negroes, Hispanics, Filipinos and entertainers. Their Satanic music, jazz and swing, result from marijuana usage. This marijuana causes white women to seek sexual relations with Negroes, entertainers and any others.​​

      • You smoke a joint and you’re likely to kill your brother.​

      • Marijuana is an addictive drug which produces in its users insanity, criminality, and death.

      • The primary reason to outlaw marijuana is its effect on the degenerate races.​

      • No one knows, when he places a marijuana cigarette to his lips, whether he will become a joyous reveller in a musical heaven, a mad insensate, a calm philosopher, or a murderer.

      • If the hideous monster Frankenstein came face to face with marijuana, he would drop dead of fright.

      • Some people will fly into a delirious rage, and they are temporarily irresponsible and may commit violent crimes. Other people will laugh uncontrollably. It is impossible to say what the effect will be on any individual.

      • Marihuana leads to pacifism and communist brainwashing.​

      • It is dangerous to the mind and body, and particularly dangerous to the criminal type, because it releases all of the inhibitions.

      • The use of cannabis, whether smoked or ingested in its various form, undoubtedly gives rise to a form of addiction, which has serious social consequences (abandonment of work, propensity to theft and crime, disappearance of reproductive power).

      • I do not think there is such a thing as not being able to cure an addict. Marihuana addicts must go to a Federal narcotic farm.

      • The addict pays anywhere from 10 to 25 cents per cigarette. It will be sold by the cigarette. In illicit traffic the bulk price would be around $20 per pound. Legitimately, the bulk is around $2 per pound.

      • Marijuana is taken by musicians. And I’m not speaking about good musicians, but the jazz type.

      • Colored students at the University of Minnesota partying with (white) female students, smoking [marijuana] and getting their sympathy with stories of racial persecution. Result: pregnancy.

      • I wish I could show you what a small marihuana cigarette can do to one of our degenerate Spanish-speaking residents. That’s why our problem is so great; the greatest percentage of our population is composed of Spanish-speaking persons, most of who are low mentally, because of social and racial conditions.

      • By the tons it is coming into this country – the deadly, dreadful poison that racks and tears not only the body, but the very heart and soul of every human being who once becomes a slave to it in any of its cruel and devastating forms. Marihuana is a short cut to the insane asylum. Smoke marihuana cigarettes for a month and what was once your brain will be nothing but a storehouse of horrid specters. Hasheesh makes a murderer who kills for the love of killing out of the mildest mannered man who ever laughed at the idea that any habit could ever get him.

      • In the year 1090, there was founded in Persia the religious and military order of the Assassins, whose history is one of cruelty, barbarity, and murder, and for good reason: the members were confirmed users of hashish, or marihuana, and it is from the Arabs’ ‘hashashin’ that we have the English word ‘assassin.’

      • How many murders, suicides, robberies, criminal assaults, holdups, burglaries and deeds of maniacal insanity it causes each year, especially among the young, can only be conjectured…

      • DonDig says:

        .
        .
        It truly is amazing (now) that anyone could look at any of these assertions and accept them at face value.
        But then I guess it’s like repeating any lie; if it’s repeated often enough and loudly enough, some folks give the benefit of the doubt when there really is none to be had.

  17. Servetus says:

    Certain pharmacy drugs may benefit from an extra helping of cannabinoids. CBD added to an NMDA antagonist shows promise as a drug cocktail in treating concussions, according to Gillian A. Hotz, Ph.D., professor of neurological surgery, and director of the KiDZ Neuroscience Center:

    16-Jul-2018…funded by a $16 million grant from Scythian, the multidisciplinary Miller School team embarked on a five-year study to examine the effects of combining CBD (a cannabinoid derivative of hemp) with an NMDA antagonist (an anesthetic used in animals and humans) for the treatment of traumatic brain injury and concussion. The researchers believed the combination could reduce post-injury brain cell inflammation, headache, pain and other symptoms associated with concussion.

    The findings of a pre-clinical pilot study were recently released, and they show that the combination therapy improved the cognitive functions of animals, compared with those treated with a single vehicle. In addition, there were no adverse effects from either the combination therapy or the individual components. […]

    Phase two will involve a small human pilot study, likely administering the compounds in pill form to a control group and two groups of TBI patients, acute and chronic. Researchers will use nine outcome fields — cognitive, behavioral, psychosocial, sleep, pain, sensorimotor, cardiovascular, inflammatory biomarkers, and neuroimaging studies — to evaluate the drug’s efficacy. Once the study is completed, the data will be analyzed and any safety concerns will be addressed.

    If the treatment is deemed safe and effective, the third phase of the research will be to begin a full-scale clinical trial over the next three years. With FDA oversight, data will reveal whether the compound is an effective therapeutic treatment for those suffering from different severities of TBI and concussion.

    “The implications for the study are extraordinary,” said Hoffer. “Having such a large, multidisciplinary team of neuroscience experts attaching themselves to research that could change the outcome of TBI and concussion care is the opportunity researchers have been looking for to curb the growing trend of concussion.”

    Traumatic brain injury is a major cause of death and disability in the United States, contributing to about 30 percent of all injury deaths and impacting about two million children and teenagers annually, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. About 345,000 cases have been diagnosed among U.S. armed forces members since 2000, and athletes including professional and amateur football and hockey players continue to be plagued at alarming rates. Most of these individuals face short-term effects such as headaches and dizziness, while others are at increased risk for longer-term chronic medical problems, including disorders of attention, memory, anxiety, depression and dementia. […]

    AAAS Public Release: ‘Concussion pill’ shows promise in pre-clinical pilot study: Researchers at the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine and The Miami Project to Cure Paralysis, along with their partners at Scythian Biosciences, are one step closer to finding a new treatment for concussion

  18. Servetus says:

    Why are cannabis ingredients so effective when used as medicines?

    The answer comes from a “three-part collaboration between Tim Hughes’ team and those of Jonathan Page, of Aurora Cannabis and the University of British Columbia , and Harm van Bakel, of the Icahn School of Medicine at Mt Sinai in New York”:

    26-Nov-2018 — …THC and CBD, bioactive substances produced by cannabis and sought by medical patients and recreational users, sprung to life thanks to ancient colonization of the plant’s genome by viruses, U of T researchers have found.

    The finding is only one of the insights revealed by the long-awaited cannabis genome map detailing gene arrangement on the chromosomes, published recently in the journal Genome Research. Among other revelations are discovery of a gene responsible for the production of cannabichromene, or CBC, a lesser known cannabinoid, as the active substances in cannabis are known, and new insights into how strain potency is determined.

    “The chromosome map is an important foundational resource for further research which, despite cannabis’ widespread use, has lagged behind other crops due to restrictive legislation,” says Tim Hughes, a professor in the Donnelly Centre for Cellular and Biomolecular Research and co-leader of the study. Hughes is also a professor in the Department of Molecular Genetics and Senior Fellow at the Canadian Institute for Advancement of Research.

    The researchers expect the map will speed up breeding efforts to create new strains with desired medical properties as well as varieties that can be grown more sustainably, or with increased resistance to diseases and pests. […]

    “Mainstream science has still not done enough because of research restrictions,” says Page, of UBC and Chief Scientific Officer at Aurora, one of Canada’s largest producers of medical cannabis. “Legalization and looming ease of research regulation really provide for opportunities for more research to be done. And Canada is leading the way.”

    AAAS Public Release: How ancient viruses got cannabis high: Ancient viruses contributed to the evolution of hemp and marijuana

  19. DdC says:

    Why do dispensary cannabis packs have cancer warnings
    when it is not carcinogenic?

    WARNING: This product
    contains a chemical
    known to the State of California
    to cause cancer.
    ~ Proposition 65 Warnings Website

    Why am I being warned about exposure to marijuana smoke?

    Marijuana smoke is on the Proposition 65 list because it can cause cancer. Exposure to marijuana smoke may increase the risk of cancer. Proposition 65 requires businesses to determine if they must provide a warning about exposure to listed chemicals.

    ☛ Study Finds No Cancer-Marijuana Connection
    “We hypothesized that there would be a positive association between marijuana use and lung cancer, and that the association would be more positive with heavier use,” he said. “What we found instead was no association at all, and even a suggestion of some protective effect.” ~ Dr. Donald Tashkin
    University of California at Los Angeles,
    a pulmonologist who has studied marijuana for 30 years.

    ☛ Dr. Donald Tashkin
    Marijuana Lung Cancer Study
    Pt 1 of 2 via @YouTube

    ☛ An epidemiologic review of marijuana and cancer: an update
    A large cohort study of 64,855 individuals in California, marijuana use was not associated with cancer risk nor with tobacco-related cancers, after adjustment for age, race, education, alcohol use and cigarette smoking.

    ☛ Packaging and Labeling FAQs
    Proposition 65, officially known as the Safe Drinking Water and Toxic Enforcement Act of 1986, requires businesses to provide a clear and reasonable warning before knowingly and intentionally exposing anyone to chemicals that are known to state to cause cancer or birth defects or other reproductive harm. Businesses should be aware of the levels of harmful chemicals in their products and of applicable Proposition 65 requirements. For more information on Proposition 65 and how to comply with its requirements, please visit the Prop. 65 website.

    ☛ What’s On Your Label, Part 3:
    California Cannabis Packaging and Labeling, and Prop. 65

    • NorCalNative says:

      DdC, good question.

      I’m still reading the evidence CA used for it’s weed-smoke cancer warning. The human studies were done in Africa and Europe and tobacco smoking was a confounding factor.

      But what really caught my attention were the animal studies on rats and mice. Most of the animal studies didn’t use cannabis smoke through inhalation, but instead used cannabis smoke “condensate” injected under the skin.

      Yup, injecting smoke condensate into rats and mice causes cancer. And of course since all MMJ patients are using the pot-needle injection method, this makes perfect sense and that you can assume it causes cancer in humans.

      A friend who runs Santa Rosa’s oldest cannabis dispensary got busted ($40,000 fine) for not displaying properly the prop 65 cancer warning on his dispensary products.

      Also, I think Nora Volkov and NIDA have intentionally lost Donald Tashkin’s phone number and they’re doing their best to ignore his significant and important work on this subject.

      Looking at the CA list of nasty chemicals in cannabis smoke revealed a couple of surprises. Caffeine and Vitamin E are apparently part of cannabis smoke. They also listed a couple of terpenes as well like beta caryophylene.

      • DdC says:

        Hey NCN,
        I don’t like the entire packaging scam. From more pollution with glass jars holding an eighth to the plastic envelopes they stash the other plastic in. Over taxed and illogical regulations are driving it back to the streets. It is convenient and they take debit cards and some deliver. But I preferred it before Prop 64 and the polcats getting hold of it. I guess overall its still beats Alabama…

        I’m contemplating moonlighting.

        It’ll soon shake your windows
        And rattle your walls
        For the times they are a-changin’

        Cannabis jobs in Santa Cruz County, CA
        SCC Sampler/Technician (Courier)
        Deibel Laboratories Santa Cruz, CA
        $15 – $16 an hour

  20. Servetus says:

    The classic dilemma of which came first, the chicken or the egg, has been resolved in an application involving teen marijuana use. Research at the University of Pennsylvania dispels common scapegoating of cannabis as criminogenic, up-ending claims by prohibs such as Rudolph Giuliani:

    26-Nov-2018 — …new research led by the Annenberg Public Policy Center of the University of Pennsylvania finds that cannabis use among teens does not appear to lead to greater conduct problems or greater affiliation with other teens who smoke cannabis, associations that previous research had suggested to be possible.

    Instead, it’s the other way around: It is adolescents with conduct problems or whose friends use cannabis who are more likely to gravitate toward cannabis use. And that “cascading chain of events” appears to predict cannabis use disorder as the teens become young adults, according to the study, newly published in the journal Addiction.

    “Cannabis use in and of itself does not appear to lead to conduct problems or increasing attraction to peers who use cannabis,” said coauthor Dan Romer, research director of the Annenberg Public Policy Center (APPC).

    The study follows a group of Philadelphia adolescents over eight years. “Previous studies have not been as able to isolate the effects of cannabis use in adolescents,” Romer added. “But because we had measurements over the entire period of adolescence, we were able to disentangle the effects of cannabis use itself from other influences.” […]

    Ivy Defoe, the lead author and former APPC postdoctoral fellow, said, “Interestingly, the results show that not only do conduct problems such as school truancy and theft predict cannabis use, but adolescents who display conduct problems are also drawn to cannabis-using peers. These affiliations predict increases in cannabis use and, eventually, cannabis use disorder, as our results show,” added Defoe, now a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Twente, the Netherlands.

    Defoe said some theories would suggest that teens with conduct problems may be using cannabis as a coping mechanism to deal with disapproval of their behavior problems and perhaps to self-medicate. The study concludes that if youth with conduct problems “use unprescribed cannabis to cope with their condition, then healthier alternative coping strategies and support should be made available.” […]

    One concern about use of an illegal drug is that it will lead adolescents to socialize with deviant peer groups, such as those who sell and use illegal drugs. However, the study suggests that adolescents using cannabis are no more likely to start affiliating with peers using cannabis. […]

    AAAS Public Release: Does teen cannabis use lead to behavior problems — or vice versa?

    “Disentangling longitudinal relations between youth cannabis use, peer cannabis use, and conduct problems: developmental cascading links to cannabis use disorder” is published open access in the journal Addiction.

    Broken Windows mythology keeps getting broken by its critics. Soon the myth may appear so shabby everyone will attack it.

  21. Servetus says:

    A British study tested certain opioids effects on driving. The effects are noted, but unlike the US, there isn’t an underlying threat to treat the drivers as criminals, or to develop new technologies to detect drugged driving. After all, it’s opioids, not cannabinoids. Instead, a bit of friendly advice given to the driver is all the researchers recommend:

    04 December 2018 — Taking opioids for the treatment of pain has been associated with increased risks of crashing among drivers, but it is unknown whether this applies to all opioids or pertains to specific opioids only. A new British Journal of Clinical Pharmacology study found that the influence of single analgesic doses of methadone and buprenorphine–two different opioids–on driving performance was mild and below the impairment threshold of a blood alcohol concentration of 0.5 mg ml-1.

    Both opioids produced impairments of cognitive task performance and increased sleepiness at the highest dose, however. Four out of the 22 participants in the study stopped their on-road driving test while under the influence of either opioid due to sleepiness.

    The findings indicate that it is impossible to state that use of buprenorphine and methadone will not impair driving in any patient. Consequently, patients should always be informed about the potential driving impairment that might be caused by buprenorphine and methadone. […]

  22. Raymond Fuckler says:

    ” Taking opioids for the treatment of pain has been associated with increased risks of crashing among drivers, but it is unknown whether this applies to all opioids or pertains to specific opioids only. ”

    Prescribed opioids good (no crashes), “illegal” opioids baaaaaad! (DUI)
    The magic of “writing” doctors bribed by Perdue Pharma… free golf holiday anyone? Boondoggles for dentists too! (“The secret is to start taking these BEFORE the pain starts, look it says so right here in the Oxycontin brochure…)
    Don’t worry, just wave your magic piece of paper at the cop…

  23. Servetus says:

    A piece at Counter Punch, adapted from Whiteout: the CIA, Drugs and the Press, by Jeffrey St. Clair and Alexander Cockburn, is titled “Air Cocaine: Poppy Bush, the Contras and a Secret Airbase in the Backwoods of Arkansas”.

    Many details are revealed that don’t appear in the Tom Cruise comedy American Made depicting pilot and smuggler Barriman Alder Seal. The info implicates Bill Clinton in the plot. The CIA owed Bill some favors afterwards, so Bill appears to have used the CIA favors as a springboard to the presidency. Commenting on the cover-up by the American press:

    Dec 5, 2018 — Such passivity on the part of the press allowed the CIA and Bill Clinton to portray the Mena scandal as, in the words of White House spin doctor Mark Fabiani, “the darkest backwater of right-wing conspiracy theories.”

    And speaking of another dark backwater of rightwing conspiracies, David Gee at the Friendly Atheist reveals the language that was behind the Mormon Church’s attempt to stop Utah’s implementation of medical marijuana, in a piece titled: “Mormon Lobbyist to Members: Follow the Prophet ‘Like Sheep’ on Cannabis Vote”:

    Dec 5, 2018 –…Stephens also spoke about critics who would fault Latter-day Saints for obeying their faith leaders.

    “Some have even criticized members of the church for following the words of the prophets by saying they’re like sheep, simply doing what they’re told. To this, I plead guilty,” Stephens said, continuing by quoting remarks made by apostle Neil L. Andersen earlier this year: “Don’t be surprised if at times your personal views aren’t initially in harmony with the teachings of the Lord’s prophet. These are moments of humility. These are moments of learning, of humility, when we go to our knees in prayer.”

    The church declined to comment on the recording and whether Stephens’ sermon violated any guidelines given to lay leaders about making political statements over the pulpit. Stephens did not return a call requesting an interview. […] [Emphasis in original]

    Prop 2 passed with 53% of the votes. Perhaps Utah Mormons who voted for medical marijuana in their state were offended their church considers them to be as dumb as sheep. Baaah!

  24. Servetus says:

    William Pelham Barr is Trump’s latest pick for Attorney General, or Grand Inquisitor, depending on one’s politics.

    A former US attorney general under prohib George H. W. Bush, the 68-year-old lawyer maintains a staunch prohibidiot posture likely due to sadomoralist penchants favoring punishment beneath the wheel of Catholic Canon Law 1369.

    Besides prosecuting drug cases, AG Little Willy advocated that the government intervene in other matters of immorality. Jay Michealson has the story at The Daily Beast :

    12.09.18 — In 1995, [Barr] blamed ‘secular’ government for everything from rising crime to STDs and called for subsidizing religious schools to turn back ‘assault’ on ‘traditional values.’ … in an essay, “Legal Issues in a New Political Order” published in the St. John’s University Law School journal The Catholic Lawyer:

    “The American government,” he wrote, “was predicated precisely on [the] Judeo-Christian system” that “flows from God’s eternal law.” But since the 1960s, Barr wrote, “the state no longer sees itself as a moral institution, but a secular one.”

    Specifically, Barr continued, “through legislative action, litigation, or judicial interpretation, secularists continually seek to eliminate laws that reflect’ traditional moral norms. Decades ago, we saw the barriers to divorce eliminated. Twenty years ago, we saw the laws against abortion swept away. Today, we are seeing the constant chipping away at laws designed to restrain sexual immorality, obscenity, or euthanasia.” […]

    Barr went on to blame everything from crime to sexually transmitted diseases on a government-led attack on “traditional values.” He explicitly called for the government to subsidize Catholic religious education and to promote laws which “restrain sexual immorality,” […]

    Despite receiving a J.D. degree with highest honors from the George Washington University Law School in 1977, Little Willy was apparently absent the day his law professor explained that the First Amendment specifically bars an establishment of religious dogma within the law and that it does so by excluding any government funding for pursuing such enterprises. The US government has defined itself as secular since 1789, not 1960.

    William Pelham Barr is another moral poverty maven, much like William J. Bennett, or John P. Walters. All are enemies of the Open Society:

    We must plan for freedom, and not only for security, if for no other reason than only freedom can make security more secure…. What we need and what we want is to moralize politics, not to politicize morals.” — Karl Popper (1945)

  25. Servetus says:

    Dermatologists were surveyed and proved open to the use of cannabis compounds as treatments. Should it work out, the new medical uses will be a huge boost for an already booming marijuana industry.

    All that’s needed for the cannabis industries to leave earth orbit is for the cosmetics industry to introduce additional cannabinoids into their products, and not just hemp oil.

    10-Dec-2018 — Recent research has identified potential uses for cannabinoids, which are derived either from the resin of the cannabis plant or synthetically produced in the lab, in treatment for conditions such as psoriasis, atopic dermatitis, and wound healing. […]

    Five hundred and thirty-one participants answered 19 multiple choice questions on demographics as well as perspectives on and knowledge of cannabinoids use in dermatology. […]

    A team from the George Washington University (GW) recently conducted a web-based survey to determine the perspectives of dermatology providers on the uses and potential benefits of cannabinoids as therapies in dermatology, as well as their knowledge about cannabinoids in general.

    The survey revealed that, overall, dermatology providers are interested in learning more about and recommending cannabinoids to their patients. However, they are currently lacking in knowledge on cannabinoids and many posed concerns about the associated societal stigmas, limiting their pursuit of these active agents as potential treatments.

    These results, the authors wrote, show the need for further education and research on the benefits and risks of cannabinoids in dermatology.

    “The use of cannabis in medicine is a hot topic,” Friedman said. “With the amount of mainstream coverage and the interest from patients, it’s important that dermatology providers are able to make the right call when it comes to education and recommending cannabinoids to their patients.”

    The study, titled “Knowledge, Perceptions, and Attitudes of Cannabinoids in the Dermatology Community,” was published in the Journal of Drugs in Dermatology and is available at http://jddonline.com/articles/dermatology/S1545961618P1273X/1

    AAAS Public Release: Providers show interest in prescribing therapeutic cannabinoids: Researchers from the George Washington University surveyed dermatologists on their interest and knowledge on cannabinoids for dermatologic treatment

  26. Servetus says:

    A split battle is raging in commercial sector research on cannabinoids, with some promoting natural extracts, while some chemical engineers work on synthetics:

    November 18, 2018 — GW demonstrated that a drug extracted from cannabis can be approved in the U.S., despite the federal government’s hostility to cannabis. Today, more than 100 drug companies are furiously testing myriad new products, in dozens of therapeutic areas, based on CBD and other cannabinoids present in the cannabis plant.

    Yet some pharmaceutical chemical companies consider GW an aberration in the emerging field of cannabinoid drugs. These firms are investing in R&D, analytical capabilities, and manufacturing facilities in the U.S. to support production of cannabinoids via organic chemistry rather than extraction from the cannabis plant. They are betting that the future of cannabinoid therapeutics will be synthetic.

    Of these firms, Noramco is the most aggressive in its pursuit of the cannabinoid market. Founded in 1979, Noramco is licensed by the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration to produce controlled substances such as codeine, morphine, and oxycodone in bulk for drug industry customers. It also makes amphetamines and naloxone, the active ingredient in opioid overdose antidotes.

    Noramco was a unit of Johnson & Johnson until 2016, when the private equity firm SK Capital acquired it for a reported $800 million. Noramco added THC to its portfolio 10 years ago at the request of a customer, but under James Mish, who became CEO soon after the acquisition, cannabinoids are now front and center. “We have remodeled the entire organization to refocus around these products,” Mish said during a briefing at the CPhI Worldwide pharmaceutical chemical trade show in Madrid last month.

    To complement the CBD and THC it gets from a manufacturing partner in Switzerland, Noramco began making clinical quantities of CBD last year at its own facility in Athens, Ga. Early next year, the firm said, it will begin larger-scale production of CBD in Wilmington, Del., and THC in Athens. Noramco will be the only company that uses chemical synthesis to make commercial quantities of pharmaceutical-grade CBD and THC, Mish said. […]

    Chemical and Engineering News : Natural extracts and synthetics square off as cannabinoid drugs: FDA recently approved a natural extract, but others see the future as synthetic

    • NorCalNative says:

      The worst thing that could happen to public perception, would be to believe the synthetic cannabinoid pipeline is superior to gardening.

      Big Advertising, the people who do drugs on the side, would love nothing more than to keep lab-produced drugs as the status quo.

      The science is showing that cannabis extracts are the better option for patients than single-molecules like THC or CBD. This means smaller doses, less side-effects, and also less expensive medicine than synthetic forms.

      The combination of all the chemicals in the cannabis plant are key to better health outcomes. Hey assholes, stop trying to peddle your reductionist junk as a solution. Gardeners Rule, lab-cretins drool!

      • Servetus says:

        The problem is one that’s plagued job expansion in the agricultural sector versus the chemical industry for years. The boundary was crossed when genetically modified yeast was programmed to produce THC.

        The problem is cannabis cultivation benefits the whole economy, the whole environment, and people’s lives, versus a centralized synthetic operation that benefits the few who own and operate a chemical factory.

        On a more optimistic note, economically, it’s now wine versus white lightning. Single malt scotch verses cornpone. Craft ales verses 3.2 beer. Cannabis versus synthetics, alcohol, opioids, anti-democracy pills, fascism, totalitarianism, Big Pharma, Big Brother, Big Religion, and Kevin Sabet.

        Cannabis will win.

        • Lab Mouse Mafia says:

          Cannabis will win.

          When it does, will it be a pill for democracy or socialism?

        • Servetus says:

          Neither. It will be a pill for anarchism.

        • DUH! says:

          Not to mention the agricultural production of hemp verses Big Plastic, Big Paper, Big Oil etc etc. The environment verses greed. (but don’t worry Little Kevvie… you’ll always find someone who’ll pay you to tell lies for them.)

  27. DdC says:

    Profits over People…
    Isn’t it time to get rid of the selfish prohibitionist liars and bigots?

    Cannabis’s Entourage Effect: Why Whole Plant Medicine Matters
    https://www.leafly.com/news/cannabis-101/cannabis-entourage-effect-why-thc-and-cbd-only-medicines-arent-g

    Welcome to The Medical Cannabis Synergy Project
    https://medicalcannabissynergyproject.com/
    The Synergy Of Our Endocannabinoid System

    Madelines Whole Plant Journey
    https://t.co/Qy0bmZCNks

    Maddie’s Fight
    https://www.facebook.com/maddiesfight/posts/982292725243025
    Maddie is diagnosed with Zellweger syndrome and was not expected to live past her first year of life. Doctors prescribed cannabis oil to make her “comfortable until the end.” Maddie’s Mom reluctantly agreed to try the medicine in hopes of easing her daughter’s suffering.

    Maddie is now 4 years old and is learning to communicate through sign language. As I held her, unsure of what to expect, she reassured me with a kiss on the cheek before grinning ear to ear.

  28. Servetus says:

    A University of Michigan researcher, Brooke Arterberry, is one of many marijuana researchers desperately looking for something to pin on marijuana or its consumers. So she bases her latest data on people already exhibiting a substance use disorder:

    17-Dec-2018 — Higher average potency cannabis at first use increases the risk for the first symptom of cannabis use disorder within a year of use, according to the study published in the journal Drug and Alcohol Dependence. Brooke Arterberry, assistant professor of psychology, says this is a concern given that THC – one of the chemicals that determines potency – has increased significantly, from 3.5 percent in 1994 to 12.3 percent in 2012.

    Arterberry and colleagues at the University of Michigan and Brown University found individuals whose first use cannabis at a national average 4.9 percent THC had 1.88 times higher risk for first cannabis use disorder symptom, while those whose first cannabis use was an average 12.3 percent THC were at 4.85 times higher risk. The study is specific to the first symptom and not diagnosis of the disorder, which requires two or more symptoms.

    Understanding the relationship between potency and the first symptom may provide opportunity for early intervention and prevention, Arterberry said. Symptoms of the disorder may include craving or strong desire to use cannabis, recurrent use in situations in which it is physically hazardous, or failing to meet obligations at work, home or school because of recurrent use.

    “THC has linearly increased over two decades,” Arterberry said. “Based on the results, states may want to think about the available potency levels of cannabis products, especially with the changing legal landscape of cannabis.”

    It is important to note the data – collected through the Michigan Longitudinal Study – is specific to high-risk individuals with a background for any substance use disorder. Arterberry says the results may be different for the general population. […]

    AAAS Public Release: Higher average potency cannabis may increase risk for first disorder symptom

    Correlating the potency of cannabis with its overall quality, it’s easy to see why people prefer it over ditch weed.

    If someone has the genetic makeup to become an alcoholic, it’s much easier to accomplish the task with a fine, fortified port wine, than with some cheap, low-alcohol, jug wine. Craft ales exhibiting higher contents of alcohol taste better than lesser-alcohol brews because the extra alcohol brings out more flavors from the hops—a plant cousin of marijuana.

    All Dr Arterberry has demonstrated is that cannabis consumers who consistently go for greater amounts of THC in their cannabis have class, regardless of their personal appetites or mental health.

  29. DdC says:

    A survey found that Americans seem to think smoking marijuana is safer than vaping it.
    https://t.co/cd5j9A5F3W

    Deschedule Marijuana, Says Coalition Involving AARP, Labor Unions And NAACP
    https://t.co/d3eUDYARsH

    Brad Heath @bradheath
    https://twitter.com/DendeCannabist/status/1074740213669289984
    4th Cir.: Finding three marijuana stems in somebody’s trash doesn’t permit the police to search the house for evidence of drug trafficking and money laundering, search everybody inside the house, or seize all the computers and toiletries they come across inside.

    PUBLISHED
    UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
    FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT
    No. 17-4787
    http://www.ca4.uscourts.gov/opinions/174787.P.pdf

    A study found that “administration of oral CBD in addition to routine psychiatric care was associated with PTSD symptom reduction in adults” and that “CBD also appeared to offer relief in a subset of patients who reported frequent nightmares as a symptom of their PTSD.”
    https://t.co/ahv0Yxlw66

  30. Servetus says:

    NIDA funded researchers have discovered enhanced inflammatory responses in the brains of male mice possessing a rare genetic mutation while being exposed to THC. A deceptive press release title meets the unwritten NIDA criteria that all such reports must mislead journalists into writing about the evils of cannabis in general:

    17-Dec-2018…the researchers say they showed that pot exposure increases inflammation in a specific type of brain cell in adolescent mice that carries a rare genetic mutation linked to schizophrenia, bipolar disorder and other major psychiatric disorders. In a proof-of-concept experiment, the investigators then used a nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drug, NS398, to suppress the pot-induced inflammation in the brain. The researchers report they were able to prevent marijuana’s brain damage in mice that appear genetically susceptible to the harmful effects.

    “The inflammation we saw in our mice is probably activated in many people who smoke marijuana, but our results may help explain why and how some mice and some people are genetically predisposed to experience an enhanced inflammatory response and brain damage,” says Mikhail “Misha” Pletnikov, M.D., Ph.D, professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. […]

    Building on the knowledge that only a select population of teen pot smokers have later cognitive problems, the researchers chose to experiment with a mouse model for psychiatric illnesses that carries a mutation in the DISC1 gene originally found in a Scottish family with many members diagnosed with schizophrenia, bipolar disorder and major depression.

    The researchers used mice that make the faulty DISC1 protein in their brains. When the mice were about 30 days old, the rodent equivalent of teenagers, the researchers injected them with 8 milligrams per kilogram D9-tetrahydrocannabinol (THC)–the active chemical in marijuana responsible for feeling high–every day for three weeks, somewhat mimicking the exposure from daily smoking during adolescence. […]

    Control mice spent much more time exploring the new object compared with the familiar one. In both tests, control mice showed good recognition memory. In contrast, male DISC1 mice exposed to THC showed deficient recognition memory as they explored the previously blocked arm of the Y maze and the new object as much as they examined the familiar arms and objects.

    The researchers say this indicates poorer recognition memory in the DISC1 mice exposed to marijuana. The effects of THC on recognition memory in the female DISC1 mice were less profound than in male DISC1 mice, so the researchers chose to focus on the male mice for remaining experiments.

    “In people, women appear to have more persistent cognitive effects from smoking marijuana in their teens than do men, and this is a difference we can’t explain at this time,” says Pletnikov. […]

    …the researchers looked at which genes became more or less active in the brain of the mice with mutant DISC1 after exposure to THC compared with the DISC1 mice without THC exposure or control mice exposed to THC. They identified 56 genes related to inflammation that were specifically turned on in the brain of mutant DISC1 mice exposed to THC.

    Adolescent mutant DISC1 mice were given the anti-inflammatory medication NS398 30 minutes before their daily injections with THC. When the mice were older and tested, they didn’t have memory problems in the cognitive tests, Pletnikov says.

    “If our results turn out to be applicable to people, they suggest we could develop safer anti-inflammatory treatments to prevent long-term consequences of marijuana use,” says Pletnikov. Kamiya adds that being able to identify those who are susceptible and preventing them from partaking in marijuana use is another option for protecting teens’ memory.

    AAAS Public Release: How marijuana may damage teenage brains in study using genetically vulnerable mice

    All male adolescents not born with a DISC1 gene mutation leading to schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, or major depression, as originally discovered in some obscure Scottish family, may feel free disregard the Johns Hopkins research.

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