Some positive findings/no propaganda

Cherylkarma

Heavy Marijuana Use Doesn't Damage Brain

Analysis of Studies Finds Little Effect From Long-Term Use
By Sid Kirchheimer
Reviewed By Michael Smith, MD
on Tuesday, July 01, 2003
WebMD Medical News

July 1, 2003 -- Long-term and even daily marijuana use doesn't
appear to cause permanent brain damage, adding to evidence that it
can be a safe and effective treatment for a wide range of diseases,
say researchers.

The researchers found only a "very small" impairment in memory and
learning among long-term marijuana users. Otherwise, scores on
thinking tests were similar to those who don't smoke marijuana,
according to a new analysis of 15 previous studies.

In those studies, some 700 regular marijuana users were compared
with 484 non-users on various aspects of brain function -- including
reaction time, language and motor skills, reasoning ability, memory,
and the ability to learn new information.

Surprising Finding

"We were somewhat surprised by our finding, especially since there's
been a controversy for some years on whether long-term cannabis use
causes brain damage," says lead researcher and psychiatrist Igor
Grant, MD.

"I suppose we expected to see some differences in people who were
heavy users, but in fact the differences were very minimal."

The marijuana users in those 15 studies -- which lasted between
three months to more than 13 years -- had smoked marijuana several
times a week or month or daily. Still, researchers say impairments
were less than what is typically found from using alcohol or other
drugs.

"All study participants were adults," says Grant, professor of
psychiatry and director of the Center for Medicinal Cannabis
Research Center at the University of California, San Diego School of
Medicine.

"However, there might be a different set of circumstances to a 12-
year-old whose nervous system is still developing."

10 States OK Marijuana Use

Grant's analysis, published in the July issue of the Journal of the
International Neuropsychological Society, comes as many states
consider laws allowing marijuana to be used to treat certain medical
conditions. Earlier this year, Maryland became the 10th state to
allow marijuana use to relieve pain and other symptoms of AIDS,
multiple sclerosis, cancer, glaucoma, and other conditions --
joining Alaska, Arizona, California, Colorado, Hawaii, Maine,
Nevada, Oregon, and Washington.

Medicinal marijuana is available by prescription in the Netherlands
and a new marijuana drug is expected to be released in Great Britain
later this year. In the U.S. and elsewhere, Marinol, a drug that is
a synthetic form of marijuana and contains its active ingredient,
THC, is available by prescription to treat loss of appetite
associated with weight loss in AIDS patients.

Grant says he did the analysis to help determine long-term toxicity
from long-term and frequent marijuana use. His center is currently
conducting 11 studies to determine its safety and efficacy in
treating several diseases.

"This finding enables us to see a marginal level of safety, if those
studies prove that cannabis can be effective," Grant tells
WebMD. "If we barely find this effect in long-term heavy users, then
we are unlikely to see deleterious side effects in individuals who
receive cannabis for a short time in a medical setting, which would
be safer than what is practiced by street users."

Grant's findings come as no surprise to Tod Mikuriya, MD, former
director of non-classified marijuana research for the National
Institute of Mental Health Center for Narcotics and Drug Abuse
Studies and author of The Marijuana Medical Handbook: A Guide to
Therapeutic Use. He is currently president of the California
Cannabis Medical Group, which has treated some 20,000 patients with
medicinal marijuana and Marinol.

'Highly Effective Medicine'

"I just re-published a paper of the first survey for marijuana
toxicity done in 1863 by the British government in India that was
the most exhaustive medical study of its time in regards to possible
difficulties and toxicity of cannabis. And it reached the same
conclusion as Grant," Mikuriya tells WebMD.

"This is merely confirming what was known over 100 years ago, as
well as what was learned by various government findings doing
similar research -- marijuana is not toxic, but it is a highly
effective medicine."

In fact, marijuana was available as a medicinal treatment in the
U.S. until the 1930s.

Lester Grinspoon, MD, a retired Harvard Medical School psychiatrist
who studied medicinal marijuana use since the 1960s and wrote two
books on the topic, says that while Grant's finding provides more
evidence on its safety, "it's nothing that those of us who have been
studying this haven't known for a very long time.

"Marijuana is a remarkably safe and non-toxic drug that can
effectively treat about 30 different conditions," he tells WebMD. "I
predict it will become the aspirin of the 21st century, as more
people recognize this."

SOURCES: The Journal of the International Neuropsychological
Society, July 2003. Igor Grant, MD, professor of psychiatry,
University of California, San Diego School of Medicine; director,
UCSD Center for Medicinal Cannabis Research Center. Tod Mikuriya,
MD, president, the California Cannabis Research Medical Group,
Oakland; former director of non-classified marijuana research, the
National Institute of Mental Health Center for Narcotics and Drug
Abuse Studies. Lester Grinspoon, MD, professor emeritus of
psychiatry, Harvard Medical School, Boston; author, Marijuana: The
Forbidden Medicine and Marihuana Reconsidered.

© 2003 WebMD Inc. All rights reserved

_________________
In the End, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends!

**Ferre** · Posted: Mon Jul 07, 2003 9:27 am Post subject:

Every time I read scientifical evidence of the good things the Herb brigs us,...and the positive influence it has on us people I wonder what's the matter with politicians. CAN'T THEY READ OR SOMETHING? dunno

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Cherylkarma · Posted: Wed Jul 09, 2003 2:56 am Post subject: Shadows & Lies

Hi

If people could only get past the shadows & lies, and open their eyes be it so-called heads of our governments who were put there BY the people FOR the people, or just the education of our mothers fathers aunts and uncles only then will we start to see some change and I believe it will happen. Its all tied up in some 1936 world wide unilateral trade agreement to ban hemp and hemp products. We all have to start at the beginning and work or metaphysically 'fight' until the end.

take care & PEACE
Cheryl
_________________
In the End, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends!

**Ferre** · Posted: Wed Jul 09, 2003 6:25 pm Post subject:

Well we do what we can to inform the public, besides being a minister and "spreading the world" I also help my dear friend Tim at http://www.hempusflag.com to get some awareness into the American brothers and sisters and hope/pray every day we'll get to the point they (the politicians) can't fool us anymore and know what,...I have good hopes. stinky

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█ Please read the Board Rules and Posting, and you
█ Radio Free Amsterdam
People who know truth, speak truth.
Those who don't, quote scriptures.

Echo · Posted: Thu Jul 10, 2003 7:46 pm Post subject:

Unfortunately while we all were still cheering at the good news, here in the UK a psychiatrist, Professor Robin Murray has collected "evidence" that cannabis use does increase the likelyhood of schizophrenia seven times fold. Now, this could well be a scam funded by the very same people that have interest in keeping cannabis illegal. But there's very little chance that we as individuals can "prove" it in any way, or is there?
These "findings"will have severe consequences on the UK cannabis laws. We are at a crossway right now, things can get a lot better for the smokers or a lot worse and much depends on what we do now. No time to sit back and relax people, no way!

Time to roll one more ddd

Echo
_________________

Cherylkarma

An article gleaned from cannabisnews.com

"The question of whether marijuana has any legitimate medical purpose should be determined by sound science and medicine." That is the federal government's official response to the medical marijuana movement, as expressed in November 2001 by Asa Hutchinson, then head of the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA). Since California and Arizona passed the first medical marijuana initiatives in 1996, both the Clinton and Bush administrations have insisted that the therapeutic value of cannabis should be judged by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) based on careful research, not by voters or state legislatures based on emotional appeals.

Several years ago, Rick Doblin, president of the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies (MAPS), decided to take the government at its word by promoting the kind of research that could ultimately lead the FDA to approve marijuana as a prescription drug. But along with the usual obstacles posed by the notoriously arduous FDA approval process, MAPS encountered problems unique to marijuana. In particular, it found that the only legal source of marijuana for U.S. research was the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA).
As its name implies, NIDA focuses on marijuana's dangers rather than its potential benefits. Hence getting its permission for research on the drug's medical utility has been tricky. Although a few researchers have managed to obtain marijuana from NIDA, two studies approved by the FDA have been rejected by NIDA, and those examples have discouraged other researchers from bothering to apply. The additional layer of approval, which is not required for any other Schedule I drug, makes an already daunting process even more intimidating. Doblin's audacious but sensible solution is to cut NIDA out of the picture by establishing a private source of cannabis for research (which already has been done in the U.K.).

To accomplish that goal, MAPS needs permission from the DEA, which it has been trying to get since June 2001. The history of this effort, described in detail on the MAPS Web site, demonstrates the disingenuousness of drug warriors who say their opposition to the medical use of marijuana is based on scientific concerns. At the same time that they are complaining about the lack of adequate evidence, they are blocking attempts to obtain it.

MAPS wants to fund a marijuana production facility at the University of Massachusetts in Amherst that would be overseen by Lyle Craker, a professor in the school's Department of Plant and Soil Sciences who has extensive experience with medicinal plants. In addition to eliminating the gratuitous obstacle created by NIDA's marijuana monopoly, such a facility could provide better cannabis that would meet researchers' specifications and eventually be used as a legal medicine.

NIDA's pot, grown under contract at the University of Mississippi for the last three decades, is of relatively low potency and quality. Its THC content ranges from 2 percent to 7 percent. "To improve the safety profile of its product," Doblin writes, "MAPS requires marijuana with a THC content in the 12-15% range, thereby reducing the amount of particulate matter inhaled per unit of THC and improving the risk/benefit ratio of the product." The risks of marijuana use can be further reduced with vaporizers, which heat cannabis to release THC rather than burning it. Doblin says these devices, the subject of MAPS-sponsored research, work especially well with high-potency marijuana.

Dr. Ethan Russo, one of the researchers whose FDA-approved protocol was rejected by NIDA, interviewed patients who receive NIDA's marijuana under the government's "compassionate use" investigational new drug program (closed to new applicants since 1992). "Each of the Compassionate Use IND patients," he reports, "indicated to me that they would prefer to have properly manicured, seedless, unfertilized cannabis of a higher grade so that they might be able to smoke less material to obtain relief of their medical symptoms." He notes that NIDA's marijuana is not comparable to the cannabis typically used by patients in Europe, Canada, or the United States.

In addition to producing higher-potency, cleaner marijuana, the University of Massachusetts operation proposed by MAPS could offer strains with varying levels of cannabinoids other than THC, some of which may contribute to marijuana's therapeutic effects. More important, a new supplier would allow companies trying to get marijuana approved as a medicine to test the same product they planned to market, as required by the FDA. NIDA's mandate is to produce marijuana for research, not for medicinal use. "There is no guarantee that marijuana provided by NIDA for research would be available for commercial use," Doblin notes. "NIDA-supplied marijuana is therefore inadequate for use in a privately funded drug development plan... No rational pharmaceutical company would invest millions of dollars in Phase III clinical trials of a drug that it cannot be certain it could produce for commercial sale should safety and efficacy be demonstrated to the satisfaction of the FDA."

After an 18-month delay, the DEA responded to Lyle Craker's application for a license to produce marijuana with a series of specious objections. First it said licensing the University of Massachusetts facility would violate international drug treaties, an argument demolished in an analysis prepared by Graham Boyd, director of the American Civil Liberties Union's Drug Policy Litigation Project, and two other Washington attorneys. Then the DEA said there's no evidence the current marijuana supply is inadequate.

Dismissing Ethan Russo's points out of hand, the DEA insisted on seeing complaints from researchers who are currently using NIDA's marijuana. "While I recognize that the primary researchers now receiving plant material may openly state to you that they are satisfied with the current source," Craker replied, "I am sure you appreciate that in private conversations these same researchers indicate a fear of having the current supply eliminated if they complain about the available source material." The DEA's official record also does not reflect the researchers who would be interested in studying marijuana if a better supply were available and the approval process were less cumbersome.

In short, the odds of breaking NIDA's marijuana monopoly do not look good. But the attempt has at least demonstrated that the drug warriors are not really interested in the thorough scientific investigation they claim to favor. "As long as NIDA is the sole source of supply" for cannabis, Doblin observes, "the FDA process will rightly be perceived by the public as obstructed, further fueling efforts by states to circumvent federal authority over the medical uses of marijuana through ballot initiatives or state legislation." The DEA's intransigence thus will validate state attempts to make marijuana available as a medicine regardless of what the federal government says.

Jacob Sullum, a senior editor at Reason, is the author of Saying Yes: In Defense of Drug Use, forthcoming in May from Tarcher/Putnam.

Complete Title: Privatizing Pot: Can The Marijuana Monopoly Be Broken?

http://www.maps.org/

http://www.reason.com/

cheers Cheryl
_________________
In the End, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends!

Cherylkarma · Posted: Sat Jul 12, 2003 10:03 pm Post subject: Declassification not referendum

Just from a legal perspective, and Im not sure if I am posting this in the correct section but I was wondering LEGALLY, ohhhhhhh where to begin? Im sure this has been spoken about somewhere in here, but to fight the good fight, all of these groups/forums/righteous fighters HAVE to get together somewhere, somehow. There must be MILLIONS of people all desiring the same outcome, just gotta tie it all together.

Is the legal staus of the various drugs specified in the constitution? Or is it a law that's been brought in since?

And isn't there U.N. legislation saying that countries aren't allowed to legalise certain substances?

If this is the case then we'd need to campaign for legal de-classification as opposed to calling for a referendum which wouldn't do much good anyway.

Anyone in here with a knowledge of the US Constitution? AND/OR specific UN legislation that have to do with de-classification?

take care & PEACE
Cheryl
_________________
In the End, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends!