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5 Discoveries About Marijuana That You Won't Hear in the Corporate Media
Paul Armentano of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws (NORML) reports via AlterNet
Scientific discoveries are published almost daily in regard to the healing properties of the cannabis. But most of these findings appear solely in subscription-only peer-reviewed journals and, therefore, go largely unnoticed by the mainstream media and by the public. Here are five just-published cannabis-centric studies that warrant attention.
- Men Who Smoke Pot Possess a Reduced Risk of Bladder Cancer
- Long-Term Pot Exposure Isn't Damaging to Lung Health
- Alcohol, Not Pot, Alters the Brain
- Marijuana Use Doesn't Lead to Depression
- Marijuana Possesses a Unique Margin of Safety Compared to Other legal and Illegal Drugs
Cannabis is Bad for You, Cannabis is Good for You - Confused?
The BBC's Radio 4 has been running a series this week regarding the use and abuse of cannabis in the UK, and they offer this report of part of the discussions that have been aired. From the report:
Cannabis is bad for you, cannabis is good for you - confused? That's not surprising. Complicated and controversial, cannabis is revealed by recent science to have a dual personality, with a dark side and a more positive one. Radio 4's PM programme is this week running a whole series on cannabis, and the debate surrounding it.
Key to understanding this strange plant are two of the ingredients that make it up, known by their initials as THC and CBD. I asked Professor Val Curran of University College London to describe how they work and she came up a memorable answer:
"In a way, THC and CBD are a bit like yin and yang. The THC makes you stoned, but it can also make you anxious. It can also make you feel a bit psychotic, and it will seriously impair your memory.
"The other side of the yin/yang is CBD, which has almost the opposite effects. CBD calms you down, it has anti-psychotic properties and it also offsets the effects on memory, so that on CBD-containing cannabis you're less likely to forget what's going on."
So the first step to understanding cannabis is to realise how it can vary, how different types contain very different quantities of these polar opposites, with dramatically different outcomes.
One of the problems highlighted is that the cannabis available today (particularly 'skunk') is often much stronger than was available 20 - 30 years ago, and the balance of THC to CBD has changed, with potentially serious consequences. For example: "If you smoke high-potency skunk at all, then you are three times more likely to be psychotic. If you smoke high-potency cannabis every day, you are five times more likely to be psychotic." There is much more in the article, so give it a look.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Phoenix666 on Saturday February 21 2015, @04:26PM
I have tried it a few times and it was a mixed bag. Pot and beer while playing GTA Vice City was an excellent balance of mellow and adrenaline. Paralyzed and incurably thirsty in a Saigon hotel room, hearing hidden messages in the Vietnamese propaganda playing on the loudspeakers outside, was not exactly enjoyable. Meh, if you like it, go for it.
It does seem like long-term use has repercussions, though. My brother-in-law in his mid 40's has been smoking it daily since he was 13. It is the center of his life. He will eschew everything and everyone, tie himself into intricate knots, to get to his pipe. And if he can't for some reason get and sustain his buzz, he metamorphoses from a kind, gentle guy into a raving asshole. It beats being a sot, because he is quasi-functional, but pot boosters ought to acknowledge that it remains a dependency with all the drawbacks of other addictions.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 2) by sjames on Sunday February 22 2015, @04:44AM
Perhaps he is unknowingly self-medicating. Who knows what he might be like had he never smoked.
But true enough, anything can be taken too far. Some people naturally get habituated to things and they react badly when they can't have them.