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Study: Pot Use May Trigger Schizophrenia
Brain scans of teen males on drug resemble those of boys with mental illness
Indy Star | 12/04/2005

A teenage brain on pot looks frighteningly similar to the brains of adolescents with schizophrenia, according to a new study.

(BuzzNote: A puddle of catsup looks frighteningly similar to a pool of blood. How something looks often has nothing to do with what it is.)

While it's too early to prove a link, researchers at North Shore University Hospital-Long Island Jewish Healthcare System warn marijuana could be a match that ignites an underlying genetic vulnerability to schizophrenia.

Scientists have long debated whether drug abuse triggers schizophrenia, which in males usually appears in late adolescence, or whether the illness itself can lead to drug abuse.

"It is the story of nature versus nurture," said Manzar Ashtari, an associate professor in radiology and psychiatry at Albert Einstein College of Medicine and a scientist at Zucker Hillside Hospital. "If there are people who are vulnerable and smoke marijuana, they may be putting themselves at greater risk for developing severe mental illness."

Robert L. Balster, an endowed professor of pharmacology and toxicology at Virginia Commonwealth University, said studies such as this can provide "new leads for possible brain mechanisms that could be involved in drug abuse and its frequent association with mental illness."

The studies were conducted only with males, because females tend to develop schizophrenia in their mid-20s or later. Ashtari suspects the developing brain in late adolescence is at greater risk of environmental damage.

"Whatever insult is happening, it is taking place in brain regions still under construction," said Ashtari, who presented her findings this past week at the Radiological Society of North America's annual meeting in Chicago.

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jaman

I thought I'd been feeling a little weird lately .lol

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freedom to grow , freedom to smoke .

Mr. President , please relieve us of our dependency on foreign oil !

Legalize hemp production !

alteredstate

I dont think I could put much faith in someone who cant even come up with an original sensationalist idea. This broad lacks sufficent intelect to come up with anything original, so she plagerises someone else and spouts off to the press.
This sort of speculative crap should never be printed. I think her tinfoil hat is on too tight.