Greetings,
I am curious what the general consensus is here on marijuana as either an enhancer of the mind or a destroyer.
Cheers
Cortex
Posted 21 November 2007 - 01:10 AM
Posted 21 November 2007 - 01:29 AM
Posted 21 November 2007 - 01:49 AM
Posted 21 November 2007 - 03:57 AM
Weed.
It may grow brain cells (doesn't seem that recreational use marijuana does this either... unless you have some gooood ****), but there are plenty of negative effects. Of this I'm quite sure.
One thing I do know about it is that long term use permanently reduces the blood flow to your brain. Now as to the effect of this, the obvious one is that it will indeed make you less able to use your brain. If anyone wishes for a citation it's from a book I own but I could still get that for you.
A second one is the more obvious one, unless you have some other way of ingesting it, you'll have to smoke it. This in itself is a very good reason not to do it, because of the damage that you will cause your lungs.
I'm also quite sure that you preform considerably worse on cognitive tests while high.
So in general, marijuana is not something you want to do. Especially if you are interested in living for as long as you can (considering you're posting here I think that's a fair assumption! )
I'm looking up medical research on it through my university now just in case anyone cares to challenge me on this. (Which I wouldn't mind)
Posted 21 November 2007 - 05:01 AM
Posted 21 November 2007 - 06:29 AM
Posted 23 November 2007 - 11:35 PM
So appearently smoking marijuana doesn't has any bad side effect other than chronic bronchitis??
Posted 23 November 2007 - 11:36 PM
I am curious what the general consensus is here on marijuana as either an enhancer of the mind or a destroyer.
Edited by graatch, 23 November 2007 - 11:37 PM.
Posted 24 November 2007 - 04:09 AM
Carbohydrate craving.
Posted 24 November 2007 - 04:20 AM
Posted 24 November 2007 - 05:34 AM
Greetings,
I am curious what the general consensus is here on marijuana as either an enhancer of the mind or a destroyer.
Cheers
Cortex
Posted 24 November 2007 - 04:23 PM
You will perform worse on cognitive tests while high. But it does not affect you while you are sober and does not cause any brain damage or cognitive defficiencies whatsoever when the user is not high. On the other hand, Alcohol and every single other addictive recreational drug bar cigarettes can cause permanent brain damage and continue to affect cognitive performance even when sober.
If you read those articles carefully, you will see that the synthetic form of THC the researcherss obtained the neurogenesis effects was a 1000x or more potent than regular weed obtained from a medicinal clinic or on the street. Logically, this would imply that even high doses of marijuana are not at all harmful to the brain (which has been medically established) and that the beneficial effects of marijuana are dosage proportional.
Again, the only bad effects of taking marijuana are from the chronic bronchitis users often experience after decades of use.
You do not have to consume marijuana this way as medical dispensaries often sell edible forms of marijuana as cookies, brownies, and soft drinks. and it is very easy to make your own edibles from the dried marijuana that is smoked. You can't ignore the facts that doctors prescribe marijuana without a dosage limit and that there has been no case of someone ever dying from marijuana poisoning ever.
Ask any doctor or credible medical researcher if marijuana causes any damage to the brain or is the cause of any disease other than chronic bronchitis and they will confirm what I have presented here.
Posted 24 November 2007 - 06:32 PM
Posted 24 November 2007 - 09:45 PM
Let's let the government's largest medical research database speak for itself:I don't think you can back that or, or if its even determined yet.
I will agree that there does not seem to be immediate harmful effects on the brain from marijuana, such as neurotoxicity or other types of 'damage.' About the neurogenesis crowd, I believe cancer has an ever higher rate of neurogenesis but I dont think anyone would claim its beneficial.
opinion
Why? When marijuana's only damaging affect is when it is inhaled while it provides numerous benefits no matter the manner consumed.I agree here, eating is the superior way to take it ... although I wouldn't recommend eating any of the items mentioned here if you are at all concerned about your health.
Long term effects have already been established both in terms of mental and physical health. Marijuana decreases short term memory - temporarily while high in light users and with a longer duration in heavy users as the government-sponsored research I mentioned has proven. This is the reason why it was finally legalized WITHOUT a dosage limit in much of the U.S. - it is simply not a toxic drug and thousands of researchers have proven this again and again.Again, I also agree, marijuana imo is silly to be illegal, however you must consider long term effects which are unknown, about mental illness or other problems long term that are caused by marijuana use. In addition, marijuana decreases memory, and working memory contributed to intelligence ...
If you have concerns about marijuana long term effects, I would suggest trying to find long term users of the drug and see if how they are is something you would want to be like.
Posted 24 November 2007 - 11:01 PM
I use a product I make myself called Rainforest Mist
Posted 25 November 2007 - 10:24 AM
And this is with heavy smokers - imagine how less marijuana causes temporary cognitive deficits in occasional users.
It is beneficial because growth of the hippocampus has been shown to correlate with a decrease in depression and an increase in memory and learning.
It is not an opinion - weed doesn't cause any health problems other than chronic bronchitis.
Posted 25 November 2007 - 12:08 PM
Posted 25 November 2007 - 12:21 PM
I'll challenge that claim. I have friends who could be considered mild to moderate cannabis users and they have experienced significant short-term memory impairment post cannabis use. Also deterioration in self-organization.
Marijuana seems to have very diverse effects among different people, so these studies cannot reflect the whole population and its response to cannabis, as this would require enormous number of participants.
This is irrelevant considering the functional disturbance it causes in brain function. Endocannabinoids are established amnestics, as is the case with cannabis and with its numerous constituents. I'm although very confident that it has antidepressant effects.
What about increased risk for psychotic illnesses? Doesn't that merit caution.
As a personal note, I've smoked cannabis about dozen times. Found it euphoric, stupifying and slightly psychedelic.
Edited by gashinshotan, 25 November 2007 - 12:22 PM.
Posted 25 November 2007 - 04:02 PM
Ask any doctor or medical researcher for their opinions if you seriously doubt the evidence listed above. There are thousands of studies on the effects (or lack there of) of marijuana on the human body. Who would you rather believe - your own subjective observations of a few friends or the hard research of the medical and academic communities and the government carried out on thousands of test subjects?
Pot-smoking your way to memory loss
18 March 2006
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"IT DEFINITELY fogs your brain," says Lambros Messinis of the University Hospital of Patras in Greece, on the effects of marijuana. That, of course, is why people smoke it in the first place. What Messinis claims, however, is that it has a more serious effect: he says that long-term users gradually become worse at learning and remembering things.
Messinis and his colleagues compared the mental abilities of 20 people who had smoked dope at least four times weekly for an average of 15 years with 20 shorter-term users averaging 7 years of use, and 24 controls. None of the subjects had smoked for at least 24 hours before the test, and Messinis used a standard psychological method to control for differences in intelligence before they started using marijuana.
The veteran users performed worst in memory tests: asked to recall lists of 15 words they had seen earlier, for example, they averaged seven, compared with nine for the shorter-term users and 12 for the controls (Neurology, vol 66, p 737).
"The extent to which such impairments persist with ongoing abstinence remains contentious," says Nadia Solowij of the University of Wollongong in New South Wales, Australia. Messinis plans to find out if the effect is reversible by retesting the same groups after they have abstained for at least a month. Dope smokers should watch this space - if they remember.
From issue 2543 of New Scientist magazine, 18 March 2006, page 21
Marijuana, Memory, and the Hippocampus
Marijuana's damage to short-term memory seems to occur because THC alters the way in which information is processed by the hippocampus, a brain area responsible for memory formation. Laboratory rats treated with THC displayed the same reduced ability to perform tasks requiring short-term memory as other rats showed after nerve cells in their hippocampus were destroyed.66 In addition, the THC-treated rats had the greatest difficulty with the tasks precisely during the time when the drug was interfering most with the normal functioning of cells in the hippocampus.
As people age, they normally lose neurons in the hippocampus, which decreases their ability to remember events. Chronic THC exposure may hasten the age-related loss of hippocampal neurons. In one series of studies, rats exposed to THC every day for 8 months (approximately 30 percent of their lifespan), when examined at 11 to 12 months of age, showed nerve cell loss equivalent to that of unexposed animals twice their age.67, 68, 69
Posted 25 November 2007 - 10:30 PM
A psychiatrist... HAHAHAHHAHAHHAHAHHAHAHHA... they are the least respected of the medical community so I would recommend that you do not trust her advice on a field which she doesn't specialize in and in all probability she is highly ignorant of. Most medical studies have proven that marijuana's negative effects are for the most part temporary while it has numerous benefits that far outweigh the negative - this is the reason many state governments have legalized it without a dosage limit for medicinal purposes. The evidence is so overwhelming that even the federal government's new commercials do not even make baseless claims of brain damage but rather criticize the laid-back culture of potheads - now that their previous claims of negative health consequences have been disproved by their own researchers, they have resorted to primal tribal behavior to attack pot because it makes you different. Regarding those articles you quoted: did you not read the numerous articles I posted (one by New Scientist) that reveals that marijuana's beneficial effects on depression are a result of its ability to induce neurogenesis?Ask any doctor or medical researcher for their opinions if you seriously doubt the evidence listed above. There are thousands of studies on the effects (or lack there of) of marijuana on the human body. Who would you rather believe - your own subjective observations of a few friends or the hard research of the medical and academic communities and the government carried out on thousands of test subjects?
In fact I asked couple of weeks ago from a very experienced psychiatrist what does she think about marijuana and she said it was worrying that so many people consider it a benign drug. You speak like there are no studies which point to weed's negative effects, unfortunately there are, as there are studies reporting no effects and studies reporting positive effects. Generally speaking you can find anything (which you want to find) about cannabis from the hundreds of studies done on THC etc.
Some not-so-good news on cannabis use:Pot-smoking your way to memory loss
18 March 2006
From New Scientist Print Edition. Subscribe and get 4 free issues.
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Explore: health
"IT DEFINITELY fogs your brain," says Lambros Messinis of the University Hospital of Patras in Greece, on the effects of marijuana. That, of course, is why people smoke it in the first place. What Messinis claims, however, is that it has a more serious effect: he says that long-term users gradually become worse at learning and remembering things.
Messinis and his colleagues compared the mental abilities of 20 people who had smoked dope at least four times weekly for an average of 15 years with 20 shorter-term users averaging 7 years of use, and 24 controls. None of the subjects had smoked for at least 24 hours before the test, and Messinis used a standard psychological method to control for differences in intelligence before they started using marijuana.
The veteran users performed worst in memory tests: asked to recall lists of 15 words they had seen earlier, for example, they averaged seven, compared with nine for the shorter-term users and 12 for the controls (Neurology, vol 66, p 737).
"The extent to which such impairments persist with ongoing abstinence remains contentious," says Nadia Solowij of the University of Wollongong in New South Wales, Australia. Messinis plans to find out if the effect is reversible by retesting the same groups after they have abstained for at least a month. Dope smokers should watch this space - if they remember.
From issue 2543 of New Scientist magazine, 18 March 2006, page 21
Quote from NIDA's research:Marijuana, Memory, and the Hippocampus
Marijuana's damage to short-term memory seems to occur because THC alters the way in which information is processed by the hippocampus, a brain area responsible for memory formation. Laboratory rats treated with THC displayed the same reduced ability to perform tasks requiring short-term memory as other rats showed after nerve cells in their hippocampus were destroyed.66 In addition, the THC-treated rats had the greatest difficulty with the tasks precisely during the time when the drug was interfering most with the normal functioning of cells in the hippocampus.
As people age, they normally lose neurons in the hippocampus, which decreases their ability to remember events. Chronic THC exposure may hasten the age-related loss of hippocampal neurons. In one series of studies, rats exposed to THC every day for 8 months (approximately 30 percent of their lifespan), when examined at 11 to 12 months of age, showed nerve cell loss equivalent to that of unexposed animals twice their age.67, 68, 69
...and there are more.
Edited by gashinshotan, 25 November 2007 - 10:32 PM.
Posted 26 November 2007 - 07:41 AM
A psychiatrist... HAHAHAHHAHAHHAHAHHAHAHHA...
Posted 26 November 2007 - 08:10 AM
Regarding those articles you quoted: did you not read the numerous articles I posted (one by New Scientist) that reveals that marijuana's beneficial effects on depression are a result of its ability to induce neurogenesis?
HAHAHAHHAHAHHAHAHHAHAHHA...
Posted 27 November 2007 - 05:56 AM
Posted 27 November 2007 - 06:02 AM
Posted 27 November 2007 - 10:49 PM
Edited by Starfire, 27 November 2007 - 11:01 PM.
Posted 27 November 2007 - 10:51 PM
My aunt mixes
2 part cannabis,
1 part tea (green, black),
1 part yerba mate,
q.b. cinnamon
and olive oil to mix it up using a mortar and pestle
the tea and mate (caffeine) relieves the dumbed down stoned feeling and making it more a high.
I sugest eating a fruit with it to prevent nausea.
Psychosis will occur, as it's definition is "loss of contact with reality"
That's the idea, you just have to learn and know how to control it!
Big up your health!
P.S. reverse your mental fog hydergine/piracetam, nicergoline ....
if you feel the need to.
Posted 28 November 2007 - 01:24 AM
Towelie, (also known as Toweleeie (which he once called himself when publishing a book while high) or Stephen McTowelie (the pen name he gave himself in order to disguise himself as a person so as to get his book published)), voiced by Vernon Chatman, is a talking "RG-400 Smart Towel" manufactured by Tynacorp; the exact details of his creation are hopelessly confused, but he was apparently meant to be an alien spying weapon, and was stolen by a paramilitary group before he simply "got high and wandered off" to South Park. He is 17 in "towel years" which is 4 years to each human year making him only 3 in human years. He often speaks in a high pitched voice. He is usually seen either giving towel-related advice to the citizens of South Park or, more often, getting high on marijuana. Towelie constantly reminds other characters to "Don't forget to bring a towel!" and then, after an awkward pause, asks the subjects "Wanna get high?".
Towelie's major appearances include appearing in a self titled episode based around his origin, and in A Million Little Fibers, a parody where he writes a partly fabricated memoir, which gets him into trouble with his fans. After Kenny's death, the boys go searching for a replacement friend in the episode Professor Chaos. Towelie, a possible candidate, was said to be "Stoned all the time. You can't really depend on him for anything", by the boys. Nonetheless, Towelie makes it to the final round. According to Cartman in self titled episode Towelie, Towelie is "the worst character ever". After he tells Towelie this, Towelie replies, "Yeah, I know."
Posted 28 November 2007 - 02:45 AM
I have a friend who has pretty much has been smoking weed all her life (about 25 years or more) and she always smokes with her close friends and they have been smoking it just about as long as they have been living. They are an awesome group of professional belly dancers and at every belly dance event, they are smoking some weed, it's funny. But they are some of the most amazing potheads I have ever met. Their energy is something to experience.
And to my knowledge there is no medical condition wrong with them... In fact I know a lot of belly dancing potheads who are like almost mid 40s and they are some of the most amazing people to ever know. Not just that they are in great shape and looking way younger than their age.
Posted 28 November 2007 - 07:51 AM
I have a friend who has pretty much has been smoking weed all her life (about 25 years or more) and she always smokes with her close friends and they have been smoking it just about as long as they have been living. They are an awesome group of professional belly dancers and at every belly dance event, they are smoking some weed, it's funny. But they are some of the most amazing potheads I have ever met. Their energy is something to experience.
And to my knowledge there is no medical condition wrong with them... In fact I know a lot of belly dancing potheads who are like almost mid 40s and they are some of the most amazing people to ever know. Not just that they are in great shape and looking way younger than their age.
Ok maybe i should have been more specific to my current situation and my freind's in analyzing the ussage of weed. If you are in america or any other country and you wish to multitask, that is: eating healthy, study sceintific journals, work a high paying job, be as social as possible, get hot women, be productive, go to school, AND have free time then smoking weed daily or even more then regularly is more then likely not going to help you out. Now if you want to be someone who belly dances or go to festivals and just "chill out" then, go for it, i don't think there is anything seriously wrong with that as long as you have a positive attitude towards humanity and it doesn't stop your from achieving your goals. However, if you want to achieve much in life then cannbis more then likely will hinder your progress.
My estimate is that maybe .1 percentage or less of the population actually gets stimulated in such a positive way from marijuana that it actually enhances their cognition or compliments it in which the individual looks or subjectively feels "higher functioning". Most of these individuals are extremely intelligent and have a very good PFC with probably plenty of dopamine to counter the demotivational syndrome that occurs with regular use of cannabis. Dopamine is reductionistist but around that chemical highway
Posted 14 December 2007 - 01:34 AM
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