Marijuana.com

Daniel

Here is a link to the Cnn story .

I heard this talked about a bit on the news today. I don't know what I think yet. Anybody have any insite???

Story to follow:::


Marijuana linked to brain problems
March 5, 2002 Posted: 11:27 PM EST (0427 GMT)


CHICAGO, Illinois (Reuters) -- Heavy, chronic marijuana users suffer memory loss and attention problems that can affect their work, learning and life, researchers reported on Tuesday.

But in an indication of the controversy surrounding a drug said to be used at least weekly by 7 million people in the United States, a medical expert not involved in the study questioned the findings and whether the alleged adverse impact of the drug persists.

The study was published in this week's Journal of the American Medical Association. It was based on patients seeking help for marijuana dependence at clinics in Seattle, Farmington, Connecticut, and Miami, between 1997 and 2000.

The study examined 51 people who had been using marijuana regularly for an average of 24 years, 51 short-term users and 33 nonusers who were included as controls for comparison purposes in the research.

"Long-term users ... performed significantly less well on tests of memory and attention than nonuser controls and shorter-term users with a mean of 10 years' use," the study said.

On one verbal learning test "long-term users recalled significantly fewer words than either shorter-term users or controls; there was no difference between shorter-term users and controls. Long-term users showed impaired learning, retention and retrieval compared with controls," it added.

The authors of the study, Nadia Solowij at the University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia, and colleagues with the Marijuana Treatment Project Research Group said their study confirmed and extended previous findings of cognitive impairments among chronic heavy marijuana users.

"For habitual users, the kinds of impairments observed in this study have the potential to impact academic achievements, occupational proficiency, interpersonal relationships and daily functioning," the study concluded.

But in an editorial published in the same issue, Harrison Pope of Harvard Medical School said "a recent meta-analysis of neuropsychological studies of long-term marijuana users found no significant evidence for deficits in seven of eight ... ability areas and only a small effect size for the remaining area of learning."

In a separate statement he said the study does not explore whether the heavy users might have been taking other drugs that might have accounted for the deficits uncovered, or whether they might have been suffering from anxiety or depression that could cause the problems noted.

"Another recent study from our laboratory ... found virtually no significant differences between 108 heavy cannabis users and 72 controls -- screened to exclude those with current psychiatric disorders, medication use, or any history of significant use of other drugs or alcohol -- on a battery of ten neuropsychological tests after 28 days of supervised abstinence from the drug," he said.

Pope, who directs the Biological Psychiatry Laboratory at McLean Hospital in Belmont, Massachusetts, added: "The safest thing to say at this point is that the jury is still out on the question of whether long-term marijuana use causes lasting impairment in brain function."

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Ross

JAMA

Here is more information on the study, including more techinal details.

mindraver

well, since JAMA wants me to pay $9 to read the entire study online, i was only able to read the summary. so far i cant give any insight into this article because the summary lacks substance. i would like to know what they are really basing those percentages off of.

ill go rumage through my dads recent stack of these and read the entire article. i may post some quotes if i find anything interesting.

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Mamabudz

Based purely on personal observation of myself...the report appearsto be lacking something vital...veracity!

I wish I'd loose some of my memories...my attention to detail borders on the obsessive when it comes to work to the point of nervous exhaustion...and yes I am a chronic user.

Try again folks....

<sigh*>

~ take a cookie

Ross

NORML's response

 

Grapefruity

Well i was able to concentrate really hard be4 smokin marijuana, but now tha i smoke it almost everyday, my dad wants to put me on ritalin cuz he sees i dont have really good attention now...And my short term memory is a bit ****edup too, often i know i have to do somethin and when the moment comes to do it, i have to think really hard to remember what i wanted to do...

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paulpeterson

I used to note that if I 1) smoked through water 2) minimized intake, over time, 3) there were no losses of memory or thought trains, and recently I read something from a "federal" licensed user, that if he kept up a good regime, he also had no loss of memory or even of getting high-It is my opinion that if you are using it for anxiety or depression, then the high is not the thing you are looking for, and to contrast this sort of usage, the guy that abstains for a long time and then smokes a whole bunch at one time is more the "abuser", i'm guessing becuase then all of the available receptor sites are filled at once, with a total change of focus, of consciousness and of purpose (I'm thinking a lot of people seek a sort of "abandon" from the use of the substance, which doesn't add to the development of thought, but rather represents a breakdown of consistency or of purpose, just my opinion, of course. Most of the studies which support the loss of brain acuity look at the immediate effects, the contrary ones look at function after some time to allow the neurons to clear the "fog", no permanent losses then. Paul

rum

the thing is, the mind needs to be used.

hence
1) my gf is extremely talented linguistically, she can write probably better than anyone here. she smokes every single day. lots of it. it's all gone (an ounce less than a week), but she is still probably the smartest person at our highschool (we are seniors). she has no short-term memory impairment or other bs; she reads all the time, i mean chomsky + etc everything... she uses her mind and pot doesn't affect it like it might a burnout because she uses it.

2) i used to smoke a lot. for a while i didn't think or do much, and on those weekends/weeks i did burnout. totally like in a haze the week or week(s); i could think, but not as affluently. but i didn't use my mind. (as a note, i still was as smart, just not as knowledgable or constantly thoughtful... but it is weird, because it was more an expirence... b/c at some point i was in some play talking to some girl in front of me and i was quite funny/intellegent/etc.. so.. hehe, )

3) but i tried using my mind a hell of a lot more and smoke now and am up on par with my girlfriend. i can think (not so much write, espicially not at the moment :P ) and am extremely thoughtful,

it's all about using your mind.

ADR531

i'm high a lot in my life, and it's not that smoking will make me stupid, but i just can't concentrate bc i'm too interested in other things in life. my thoughts flow smooth and it's actually a whole different reality in life. i quit for 2months once and when all the thc was out, i didn't have concentration problems and all that other **** that they say longterm users have.

Bongwater19

they called 10-year users 'short term'? thats foolishness. and they said long term users had been smoking for an average fo 24 years? they were probably suffering from alzheimers by then. if they started at the tender age of 16 in 1978 they'd be an average of 40 today. are you saying that 40 year olds' memory should be as good or better than the memory of a 'control' group of unspecified age? what middle-aged person doesn't find their memory going? lets make them do sprints too! JHC!

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