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CAN: Smoking Pot May Slow MS Sufferers' Thoughts
10:36 14 February 2008/NewScientist.com/Alison Motluk

People with MS who smoke pot say it helps with symptoms such as pain, but does that come at the expense of a clear head? A small preliminary study hints that people with multiple sclerosis who smoke marijuana may process thoughts more slowly than people with MS who do not.

If true, this could be problematic for MS sufferers – some 40% of whom already suffer cognitive dysfunction as part of their disease. Typically, MS patients can have slower reaction times and poorer working memory.
Omar Ghaffar and Anthony Feinstein at Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre in Toronto, Canada, wanted to find out if smoking pot made things worse for MS patients and affected their mental health.

Pot-smoking in healthy people has been linked to psychosis, delusion, depression and anxiety, and MS patients report higher levels of anxiety and depression than the general public even without the drug.

(Pot smoking has been linked to "Reefer madness", too... I wish if they sited symptoms they would link it so we could make up our own minds. D )

Cognitive tests
The researchers recruited 140 patients with MS, 10 of whom said they were regular users of pot. All 10 had smoked at least once in the past month and gave various reasons for smoking, including "for spasticity and bladder symptoms" and "for the high".

The researchers tried to match each pot-smoker with four control members who were similar in age, education and disease progression.

Ghaffar and Feinstein administered several tests to measure aspects such as anxiety and depression, suicidal feelings and social support. They also assessed cognition, using a specialised test for MS patients, and a computerised version of a test that measured how quickly and accurately they recalled associations between symbols and numbers.

The researchers found that pot-smokers were more likely to have psychiatric issues overall such as anxiety or depression, but no more likely to have a diagnosis for a specific mental illness than those with MS who did not smoke marijuana. Nor did they fare worse on the cognitive test. They were, however, significantly slower on the symbol-digit matching test.

'Second hit'
The study is preliminary, stresses Feinstein, but he believes it suggests the effects of cannabis on MS patients should be studied more carefully. "You've got a group that's cognitively impaired," he says, "and along comes cannabis which is like a second hit."

But Mark Ware, who studies pain control, at McGill University in Montreal points out just how few adverse effects of cannabis the study found. And even then, causality was unclear. Uncontrolled pain can also affect cognition, he notes.

( I like this statement better than anything else in the article....D)

Still, he is worried that neurologists and patients will be scared off by negative headlines. "Let's not throw out what could still be a useful treatment," he says.
In Canada, patients with MS can legally use cannabis for medical reasons.

(Canadians are smarter than us in some things at least. I'm glad they are doing research at last, even though it is in Canada. Research is the only way to dispell "Reefer Madness" and all it's propaganda....D)


Smoking pot may slow MS sufferers' thoughts - health - 14 February 2008 - New Scientist

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neconide

I don't think so. I can still solve logic puzzles easily and I certainly don't have a slower reaction time. I smoke every day, I'm 14, and I get all As.

dedbr

neconide......

First, if I haven't already done it, I want to welcome you to our home away from home....


Do you have MS? If you do, nothing but the best for you as you continue this stoned adventure we call life......

Hope ya don't have MS though......That would suck.......


Some Where In Ded Land............

BillieBudd

Son, if you are smoking weed per Doctor's orders for MS or other debilitating condition, I too want to wish you the best. If not, I personally don't think that 14 year olds should be intaking any recreational drug, including caffeine, despite the A grades.