Northwestern study: Marijuana users have abnormal brain structure and poor memory

[infamousred]

Believe it or not but there are widespread misconceptions surrounding weed use and its effect on the brain/behavior. Some people don't think weed addiction can have similarly bad implications as alcholism and studies like these provide clarity. Moreover I have known people that smoke at least once at day so this study has implications for them.



I haven't read the study myself so I don't know the full details around what happens to the memory-related structures after weed use but the article speculates that neurons shrink. That might have been the prevailing explanation researchers theorized in discussion of the study. I think there is some validity for weed helping to manage chronic pain and illness.

yeah it's because of all the propaganda about marijuana that has led people onto other drugs. they try it and see that the government bullshiit about weed isn't true so they think they'll be fine with other ones, and they thought wrong. alcohol fukks up my short term memory way worse than weed does. marijuana has never been physically addictive to me either. i don't believe that shiit for a second. i've never went through a withdraw from weed like i have alcohol. i can run out and be perfectly fine with it. anything can be a mental addiction but weed a physical addiction? nah lol.
they just haven't figured out a way to make weed into a pharmaceutical and they never will. there's always some kind side effect. just look at those marinol pills. they're just going to have to accept that it will have to be used in it's normal form. if not like that then put it in an edible or have patients vaporize it. it's the alchol and cigarette companies that keep trying to keep it illegal. you can find videos where cops have banded together saying the war on marijuana is a complete joke and that it needs to be decriminalized. anyone who still looks at it like it's some kind of evil really needs to do research. otherwise they aren't even worth debating with(not directed towards you aldon)

 

[Chris.B]

weed = gateway drug

 

[☑︎#VoteDemocrat]

This study shold make sense...its about TEENAGERS.

The average brain doesn't stop changing until like 22-25 anyways.

Thats why prohibition alcohol consumption until you're at least 21 is a good idea.

Show me a longitudinal study of adults and then i'll be impressed.

 

[☑︎#VoteDemocrat]

weed = gateway drug

so what is alcohol or aspirin?

 

[Scientific Playa]

imo C21H30O2>>>>>C2H6O


_____________________________________________


Activists to plant cannabis all over the country this 420
http://intellihub.com/2014/01/03/activists-to-plant-cannabis-all-over-the-country-this-420/

• 
  
  By John Vibes | January 3, 2013 | 12:40am EST
  A group of activists in the US are encouraging people nationwide to plant cannabis seeds on
  April 20th in their town to protest against the war on drugs
  
  Photo: Wikimedia Commons
  
  (INTELLIHUB) — In various isolated occurrences throughout the world activists have planted cannabis freely in public areas as a protest against inhumane drug laws. This year an effort is being organized to plant seeds all throughout the United States at one time, from Sunday, April 20th until the following weekend.
  
  A facebook event page set up by organizers of the protest shows the following message:
  
  Want to end this violent, pointless War on Drugs? Then go out from Sunday, April 20th until the following weekend and plant your seeds!
  This is the end of The War on Drugs, because we’re now taking the war to them. Starting this 4/20, we’re planting Cannabis seeds all over the US. Get inventive! And also try to be respectful of private property. What are you waiting for? Get going!
  
  A similar protest was in the world news recently. Last year police in the German city of Göttingen found and destroyed 70 marijuana plants spread around the city by a pro-cannabis protest group.
  
  At the time, a Göttingen group calling itself ”A Few Autonomous Flower Children” said in an open letter several pounds of marijuana seeds were spread around the city as a protest against Germany’s “restrictive drug policies,”.
  
  “We can’t set eyes on this useful and beautiful plant because it’s absolutely forbidden in Germany to grow it,” the letter read.
  
  The letter said the group can’t understand “why cannabis, unlike alcohol, cannot be legally purchased.”
  
  This was just a small effort coordinated by one group of isolated activists in one town, but if a viral campaign of this nature were to spring up all over the country, there could realistically be hundreds of thousands of plants popping up instead of just 70.
  
  The following video contains an interview with one of the organizers of this protest:
  
  
  
  
  Published on Jan 2, 2014
  
  What are you waiting for? Get involved!!!
  https://www.facebook.com/events/68645...
  
  
  
  
  

 

[Dusty Bake Activate]

This study shold make sense...its it'about TEENAGERS.
The average brain doesn't stop changing until like 22-25 anyways.

Thats why prohibition alcohol consumption until you're at least 21 is a good idea.

Show me a longitudinal study of adults and then i'll be impressed.

Yup. But most people start smoking weed regularly when they're teens though, so it's relevant.

 

[ryshy]

Yes weed isn't benign but most things you put in ur body aren't so what's the surprise

 

[ThatTruth777]

so what is alcohol or aspirin?

Recreational drugs?

 

[Kritic]

Drinking turns your brain to mush, destroys your liver, and effects your judgement. We should re-criminalize it.

but the 20 second $1 million dollar budweiser superbowl commercials are so funny...

 

[☑︎#VoteDemocrat]

Recreational drugs?

No dummy.

everythign you ingest that alters the chemical function of the brain or body in some way is a drug.

the extent that you want to alter that however is where drug regulation becomes an issue.

lets try and not approach this like the fukking illiterate ass taliban and come to some useful conclusions about how biochemistry works.

 

[ThaRealness]

Weed can fukk up your memory and motivation... theres pros and cons though. I think people who smoke are more open minded. Weed changes the way you think, and makes you more receptive to new ideas/perspectives.

Its a good wavelength to be at... maybe if people in this country werent so fukking tense we would be better off

I take long breaks from weed depending on the situation but Im never planning on quitting

 

[Sensitive Blake Griffin]

"quantity and biological markers of cannabis use were not collected". The authors report the control/CUD group used on average of 4 out of 5 days. It's also worth pointing out that the control marijuana using group was smallish, N=10. The outcome measure is shape of subcortical structures, which I know professionally to be difficult to do. In addition, this was performed on a 1.5T machine which is, in research terms, low field meaning a noisier image."

"Because the study results examined one point in time, a longitudinal study is needed to definitively show if marijuana is responsible for the brain changes and memory impairment. It is possible that the abnormal brain structures reveal a pre-existing vulnerability to marijuana abuse."

NO CONTROL GROUP, THE STUDY WAS FUNDED BY THE NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF DRUG ABUSE.

be prepared for a ton of propaganda as legalization gets closer and closer.

 

[Sensitive Blake Griffin]

This is a longitudinal medical study which looked at the long term cognitive and brain morphology effects of weed. I don't agree with the war on drugs but that issue respectfully has no bearing on whether weed is harmful. If weed destroys the brain, people have the right to know it. Destroying one's own health and prospects over a drug addiction and to spite medical researchers (or as you call them, the "establishment") does nothing but hurt a person. I'm a naturally intelligent dude so I don't need to read that weed makes your brain look like a schizophrenic person's. Just normal smoke is full of carcinogens. That's threat enough.

it's not a longitudinal study dude, and it's flawed as fukk. it's a preliminary study at best, with no peer reviews and no fukking control groups. again, this study was funded by the national institute of drug abuse, not biased at all.

from the abstract

"Future longitudinal studies could help determine whether cannabis use contributes to these observed shape differences or whether they are biomarkers of a vulnerability to the effects of cannabis that predate its misuse."

Smith stressed that it does not prove cause-and-effect, and neither did the PNAS study. The differences in brain geography in Smith’s study could have existed before the young people used weed — it’s possible that their brain differences made them more likely to smoke pot in the first place.

“It’s chicken-and-egg,” explained Donald Dougherty, vice-chair for research and the Wurzbach Distinguished Professor of Psychiatry at the University of Texas Health Science Center in San Antonio.

“We can identify certain differences, mainly in impulse control, related to the onset of substance use,” Dougherty said. “But the key thing is that we do not know what impact drug use has on normal development. It may be that differences at the beginning leads to drug use, then drug use also impacts normal development. We can’t tease these things out.”

 

[godkiller]

yeah it's because of all the propaganda about marijuana that has led people onto other drugs. they try it and see that the government bullshiit about weed isn't true so they think they'll be fine with other ones, and they thought wrong. alcohol fukks up my short term memory way worse than weed does. marijuana has never been physically addictive to me either. i don't believe that shiit for a second. i've never went through a withdraw from weed like i have alcohol. i can run out and be perfectly fine with it. anything can be a mental addiction but weed a physical addiction? nah lol.
they just haven't figured out a way to make weed into a pharmaceutical and they never will. there's always some kind side effect. just look at those marinol pills. they're just going to have to accept that it will have to be used in it's normal form. if not like that then put it in an edible or have patients vaporize it. it's the alchol and cigarette companies that keep trying to keep it illegal. you can find videos where cops have banded together saying the war on marijuana is a complete joke and that it needs to be decriminalized. anyone who still looks at it like it's some kind of evil really needs to do research. otherwise they aren't even worth debating with(not directed towards you aldon)

This study isn't propaganda though and it says what it says. Alcoholism can surely fukk up one's memory, cognitive, functioning, etc. Long term alcoholism is basically brain damage in a bottle but let's stick to the topic. I won't comment on whether weed should be legalized. Decriminalized, sure, but legalized I don't know.

 

[samtalksradio]

weed = gateway drug

Really cause I smoke weed in never tried anything else *snorts line of coke* you trapping man.