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I know for certain that smoking weed does not kill brain cells, but I have heard that smoking weed causes your brain cells to function much slower than usual. Is there any truth to this?

 

pipe

Marijuana "tickles" your braincells, unlike other drugs that pound on them and eventually wear them out. While you're high, processes are slowed down and you have problems with concentration, but nothing dies. Thats just a popular misconception. The way I like to think of it is that in a normal state of consiousness, thoughts are very streamlined and precise; theres not much room for creativity but you have a very good control over your thoughts and they're easy to focus. While you're stoned, the focused, streamlined energy of your thoughts is dispered, and so you essentially end up with a HUGE variety of thoughts, and theres a TREMENDOUS oppurtunity for creative thinking. However, since your thoughts are all over the place, it can be rather difficult to focus them as sharlpy as you can when you're consious (no doubt some immature stoners will tell you they can, but its chemically impossible for the level of clarity to be the same). So while you're stoned creative processes like poetry and art (especially obscure/abstract art) is much easier to create, where as things that take concentration and logic are much harder to do.

Wow, I really rambled, sorry, I'm just stoned out of my mind right now. But to answer your question, brain cells are NOT killed or even slightly harmed in any way..they're just tickled, meaning that a chemical is quickly switched with THC in your brain, but this doesnt wear anything out or damage it. Yeah.

huntcc02

I will agree that hey are not killed, but I have a friend who is premed, and she told me that the brain cells are incapacitated, or put to sleep. If you stop smoking, they will wake up, but it could take as much as a year.

potheadreturns2

And some doctors say that pot kills brain cells, huntcc02. Weed doesn't do that. It works because our brain has little THC receptors in certain parts and it bonds to these receptors and no one knows what happens from there.

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Jop

i was just checking the sources to different sites with the list of mj myths and it seems that lots of them are false.. the mj.com sources list doesn't have anything that has been published later than 1994 (i did not check their validy)... so i too am still interested in these "myths". I would like someone to post a link of some real professional research that proves mj does not kill brain cells prefferably from an .edu.

 

The Stoned Philosopher

actually......the componients of the smoke and holding your breath while smoking weed kills brain cells due to oxygen deprivation.
But weed doesnt kill brain cells,for me when your stoned your using parts of your brain that you dont normally use,thus the parts you use arent being used.

The Stoned Philosopher

HillBilly

Howdy!!!

The number of brain cells that we're born with is all we have. That's it. A new born baby has all the brain cells he or she will ever have... which is amazing in itself.

Through different types of thinking and concentration, learning, jogging memory banks, and attempting to utilize all of our senses and patterns of thought, we can "awaken" or use different neurological pathways, wich is also amazing.

Truth be known, neurology is stil in an infant state itself. We know very little about neurology even today with all the advancements and current technology.

Chances are that research is either skewed to show that yes pot does inhibit pathways. Or no, pot doesn't affect brain function. Most things that I've read state that marijuana use, even heavy use is benign ( meaning harmless) like this piece of research:

http://www.pdxnorml.org/brain2.html

This article reflects the 'sleeping cell' pattern after use:

http://www.mentalhealth.com/mag1/p5m-sb01.html

And still yet.. a piece of research that reflects no difference in users and non users:

http://www.newswise.com/articles/200...YJAN2.UIM.html

I hope this helps answer some questions. After reading them... I only thought of a list of more questions.

~~hb

McBiff

Just one thing I should point out, you'll probably be excited to hear that even adults actually GROW new brain cells. I saw a little special on this on the news a couple years ago, it's a pretty recent discovery.