Ferre did you see this ??

[Linda in NY]

Are you okay ???

Article on Marijuana

[littleFella]

LONDON - New findings on marijuana's damaging effect on the brain show the drug triggers temporary psychotic symptoms in some people, including hallucinations and paranoid delusions, doctors say.

One doesn't need to take marijuana to get into the the above described states.

[John Scott]

Originally Posted by littleFella

One doesn't need to take marijuana to get into the the above described states.

Odd how if that film were about Muslim children peacefully worshiping their god it would be entirely politically incorrect, but as long as it bashes Christianity it's hip and cool.

[Brian]

including hallucinations

acid and shrooms are best for this

[chicgeek]

Losing control of my facilities is not recreational, to me.

[StupidScript]

"One of the great puzzles is why people with schizophrenia keep taking the stuff when it makes the paranoia worse," said Dr. Robin Murray, a professor of psychiatry at King's College.
...
"We don't know the basis of paranoia or anxiety," said McGuire.

Perhaps the basis for paranoia is unrelated to "the stuff" making it worse? Or maybe they need to do a little more analysis before making sweeping statements about "the stuff's" role in paranoia? Or maybe pot smokers get paranoid as the result of decades of negative propaganda and The War On Drugs? (if only The War were on drugs ... sigh ...) You're not paranoid if they really are out to get you ...

Experts theorized that schizophrenics may mistakenly judge the drug's pleasurable effects to outweigh any negatives.

Ask the schizophrenics. Maybe for them the pleasurable effects do outweigh the negatives.

If they were truly interested in testing pot SMOKE's influence on the brain, then their subjects would have been SMOKING some. Otherwise, the scientists have excluded from their research any number of other chemicals and ingestion factors that may mitigate the effects they observed when their subjects were administered doses of pure chemicals without the rest of the traditional delivery method's attending elements.

At least this study may clear the way for government-approved products containing cannabidiol (CBD), if it's really the THC that makes people nuts. (You know, all of those wackos who get CRAZY after they fire up a doobie.)

[Ferre]

I am aware of that article, in fact I asked Dr. Robert Melamede for his opinion on that article a couple of days ago, he's doing research on the effects of Cannabis on the brain for many years already (apart from lots of other reseach that is not at all Cannabis related) .
Professor Melamede is Chairman of the Biology Department of the University of Colorado. (http://www.uccs.edu/~rmelamed/)

That article is another great example of government funded fearmongering.

The point is that there is NO "DIRECT LINK" between Cannabis use and psychosis.

To understand the scientifical language, there is a HUGE difference between "a link" and a "direct link". The latter has never been found despite millions of $$$ government funded research the -past 20 years to find one.

"A link" means nothing, there is "a link" between drinking milk and alcoholism; i.e. nearly 100% of all alcoholics started with drinking milk.

A "direct link" would mean that it is scientifically proven that drinking milk leads to alcoholism, milk does not do that and that's why scientifically spoken, there only is 'a link', not a 'direct link'.

THAT is the reason that you will never see any mentioning of a 'direct link' in any of those articles.

It's nothing but fearmongering paid for by the taxpayers.

Here's a quote from the email I received from Dr. Melamede on that article:

illnesses are biochemical imbalances. Most of the time, cannabis helps most of us to maintain balance. Cannabis is an anti-aging drug, and we are all aging, therefore we suffer from the consequences of the biochemical imbalances of aging. However, that does not mean cannabis is always good for everyone. From what I have read, I think cannabis is probably bad for a subset of young people who have a predisposition to schizophrenia. One percent of the population develops schizophrenia, and it has been estimated that maybe 10% of that one percent would be harmed by cannabis consumption. I think most of the other 99.9% of the population could benefit from wisely consuming cannabis. So the question arises, why have the laws favored the 0.1% at the expense of the rest of us?

I'm never impressed by those 'scientific reports', they only impress people who don't know the real facts.

If you really want to know what Cannabinoids do to humans, read this article, by the same Dr. Melamede. (I know it's on my own website, but it's the only place it's published as far as I know.)

[EBORG9]

How is this news? Most Pot Smokers could have told them that and saved tons of money.

[Ferre]

Originally Posted by chicgeek

Losing control of my facilities is not recreational, to me.

To me neither, but I've never in my life used any entheogens that did that. In fact usually it does the opposite, you gain facilities.

When you look at the names of the 'catagories' for different kinds of drugs you will see that many drugs are catagorized in a catagory named "mind altering" drugs. In the Dutch language this catagory is named "geestverruimende middelen" which translates to "mind expanding substances"

Somehow there are *some* governments that do not want their 'sheep' to expand their minds. Luckily, in my country and many others, mind expanding drugs are not illegal.

[Jesse Vlasveld]

I find myself more focussed when having smoked pot. But when I hear my mother tell me about her last time smoking pot you realise that it can have other effects aswell.

[StupidScript]

Here's a pretty good rant against the study:

There are upwards of 300 active compounds in marijuana. This study took the two most abundant (THC and CBD), and looked to see where the brain was affected. Because of anti-drug taboos, these studies are almost always conducted with synthesized THC. And an MRI will give you an image of activity or inactivity, but - as already mentioned - we don't know all the details of activity in certain areas of the brain.

I am not trying to slam the study. The media and its fervor, however, can go take a flying f**k at a rolling donut on this one. Reuters has this article titled "Brain scans pinpoint cannabis health risk." But they didn't. The brain scans show activity or inactivity of the brain, and and the implications affect mental health outlook, while "health" implies physical health or brain damage. First sentence: "Brain scans showing how cannabis affects brain function...." Hold it right there. Function is not measured but by behavior.

I particularly enjoyed the image of the MRI scanner ... if THAT doesn't make you a little paranoid, very little will.

[Ferre]

Those 'reports' are only made becaue governments fund research with the explicit purpose of finding negatives on Cannabis use.

Fact is that the past 30 years there has been enormous amounts of research been done by governments and millions of tax money spend to find a DIRECT link between Cannabis use and any kind of health risk. Untill today there has never been any research that has found any direct link between Cannabis and mental or phycical health.

At first the official story was that it made people become violent insane killers, seriously, that was the official motivation and reason why it was made illegal in 1937 by Harry Anslinger. That got debunkt by scietific research and they invented the 'stepping stone' theory. That one got debunked too and they found a new reason, it was causing lung cancer, untill research found out that it does not cause lung cancer and actually may prevent lung cancer and now we are spoonfeed that it causes braindamage.

Again, no evidence whatsoever, except for the famous "casual link" they talk about now. NO scientist will dare to risk his repution to claim a direct link simply because they never found one, in fact recent research has found that heavy Cannabis use does not cause braindamage.

I wonder what the next thing will be that they'll invent to keep the general public scared as hell for supporting re - legalisation.

Whatever it is, they have never been able to show us any bodies, zero people have died from Cannabis use in our entire known history and therefor they come up with irrational fears to distract the general public from the fact that there have never been any victims from Cannabis use, the only victims are the Cannabis users who are the victims of a modern day, but just as irrational, witch hunt.

This video is an eye opener;

http://video.google.de/videoplay?doc...32679367311144

[chicgeek]

A little to steamy (and sense-making) for the lobby.

I've redefined "Politics" to mean legal, moral, and otherwise too-serious issues. ha.

[littleFella]

I don't understand why this is in the political forum.
Wouldn't an agricultural forum be more appropriate
Or perhaps we need a recipes forum?

[WorldwideTrading]

Originally Posted by chicgeek

Losing control of my facilities is not recreational, to me.

Funny, thats some peoples idea of a good night out!

[John Scott]

Originally Posted by littleFella

I don't understand why this is in the political forum.

Bud is a political issue.

[chicgeek]

This forum should be called "Politics and (Im)morality".