UCSD Study/ Pot Smoking Causes No Permanent Damage

patiodog- So true, but sad. Seems that government bureaucracies and their concomitant paperwork appears to increase exponentially as the years pass.

Well, it's a tricky process. There's a dept. here I send a lot of paperwork to, and I'd say about half of it -- all of which has to be signed by at least three people, sometimes as many as seven -- is redundant. But you get rid of that redundant paperwork, and suddenly some of those people over there are out of work. Hell, I probably never have a job to begin with -- and shouldn't, given how little time I spend working here.

So instead, whenever there's a budget crunch, everybody loses their COLA, professional staff and faculty go without raises, ailing equipment doesn't get replaced in student laboratories.

In all fairness, though, the dept. I have in mind is responsible for helping the the university skim off about a third of the research funding that comes in for other purposes, so I suppose the redundant paperwork just helps make this possible. Really, though, it is absurd. I spend a chunk of my morning explaining to a new prof. how the whole process works, who looks at what, and trying to explain why today we generated about three pieces of paper to be filed away in cabinets around the university for every one piece we are going to send to the feds.

But I'm working in the public sector for at least the next 34 calendar days, so I should stop talking right now.


Now which building are those medical marijuana studies being held in?

Hey, maybe we could sign up as a group!

Bureaucracy is verra, verra important to the well-being of anal-retentive civilization, without which, there would be no bidets nor electric toothbrushes . . . and it needs be lubricated by acronyms . . .

LBJ took the IRT
Down to 4th Street USA
When he got there
What did he see?
The youth of America on LSD

LBJ IRT
USA LSD

LSD LBJ
FBI CIA

FBI CIA
LSD LBJ

Paraphrase from Good Morning Vietnam: "Seeing as how the VP is such a VIP, shouldn't we keep the ?? on the QT? Otherwise, we might be arrested by MPs and put on KP."

So I'm just a TAD late on this...sue me
i'm not sure where some of you are obtaining your research paper reading but there is much scientific study surrounding marijuana since the early seventies.

Courtesy of UCLA:
Frequent marijuana smokers experience adverse respiratory symptoms from smoking, including chronic cough, chronic phlegm, and wheezing. However, the only prospective clinical study shows no increased risk of crippling pulmonary disease (chronic bronchitis and emphysema).

Since 1982, UCLA researchers have evaluated pulmonary function and bronchial cell characteristics in marijuana-only smokers, tobacco-only smokers, smokers of both, and non-smokers. Although they have found changes in marijuana-only smokers, the changes are much less pronounced than those found in tobacco smokers.

The nature of the marijuana-induced changes were also different, occurring primarily in the lung's large airways - not the small peripheral airways affected by tobacco smoke. Since it is small-airway inflammation that causes chronic bronchitis and emphysema, marijuana smokers may not develop these diseases.

In an epidemiological survey, approximately 1200 subjects gave information on smoking and pulmonary function at two-year intervals. A large percentage of the subjects underwent pulmonary function testing. Although a small group who reported previous marijuana smoking had significant pulmonary abnormalities, current marijuana smokers had no significant reduction in any pulmonary functions.

There are no epidemiological or aggregate clinical data suggesting that marijuana-only smokers develop lung cancer. However, since some bronchial cell changes appear to be pre-cancerous, an increased risk of cancer among frequent marijuana smokers is possible.

Ironically, if folks opted for a butane extraction and vaporized the cannaboids they'd be minus any substantial consequence. (assuming of course, like ANYTHING, one is not a chronic dependant of it)

In all of the studies done thus far marijuana has ONE negative, and that is from the actual smoke, not from the hundred or so active components.

Silly to realize people take issue with this without realizing I could simply head over to Walgreen's and find me a myriad of legal pharmas to get high off of.

wenchilina- Welcome to A2K!

The particular study that I mentioned only dealt with neurological changes, not pulmonary ones. I would certainly expect that heavy pot smoking eventually would cause pulmonary problems!

From Canadian Medical Association Journal (which I occasionally pick up to read) a couple of months back:

A cohort of people had their I.Q.'s measured before they started marijuana use, and years later, after marijuana use.

The findings:

People who never used: IQ went up 2 points.

People who used occasionally (5 or less joints a week): IQ went up 4 points

Heavy users who quit: IQ went up 3 points

Current heavy users: IQ down 4 points

Many of you might remember how the media reported this... that marijuana use makes your IQ go down... that's only one small part of the story, see? Light use makes your IQ go up...

Also, surely I realize this study is chalked FULL of gaping holes btw

edit: shorter link

wenchilina- Gaping holes? Seems to me that 4 points on an IQ test would not be statistically significant. There are so many other factors that might account for the differences.

lol hence the study is chalked full of gaping holes.

The only survey I need is to look around at the residents of the small town where I live - it is easy to pick the ones who do from the ones who don't by their total lack of motivation to do anything constructive for themselves or anyone else.

Smartest thing I ever did was to decide that I'd wasted engouh time being wasted.

One aspect hinted at above... Fed's attitudes about tobacco vs pot. Anyone can grow dope. Why you think they call it weed? If anyone can grow it, no one can tax it.

In other words, whenever you see someone doing something you consider "lack of motivation" -- you ascribe it to drug use!

Very scientific.

Very open-minded.

You should be a general in the war on drugs.

Unfortunately, it seems all of the generals in the war on drugs think the way you do.

What I said does not translate into your "other words"

There are only about 150 people in my town so I know them all well and am friends with every one of them, both dope smokers and non. And I know that if a volunteer is needed for something to be done for the community it is no use asking the smokers, who are largely unemployed and have the time to spare but not the motivation to use it.
I am actually in favour of legalising the stuff but the subject was whether it does damage and I believe it does.

A bit of a chicken-and-the-egg question, if you ask me. Certainly, every drug has adverse effects on habitual users, but there's also the question of who is drawn to it to begin with. I've known plenty of junkies who were lazy, criminally-inclined people. Thing is, they were the same way when they weren't on junk. Same goes for pot. Smoking weed (all the time, at any rate) doesn't generally hold great appeal to highly motivated, task-oriented people, at least not in my experience. Perhaps the effects of the drug magnify these traits, but what a person is like is still up to them.

Me, I'm somewhere in between driven and apathetic, and my use is very moderate. Sometimes I like to be one way, sometimes another. And I think, if you comb through the general perception of me in my job (course, I know better than they do how little I do!), in my academic pursuits, in my volunteering -- I think you'd find me anything but lazy, on the whole.

Course, everything I'm saying is purely anecdotal...

Lol! I must say that, in my experience, really heavy users are prone to having their brains turn to mush - not scientific, of course - but well observed.

Of course, there is the thesis that very heavy users have various problems, anyway, for which they are self-medicating - and I have observed this reasonably often, too - so perhaps the brains were always headed for mushville?

And, as Craven points out somewhere, if you are stoned all the time, you do miss a lot...

The link to psychosis, also, is a worry - again, there is no proof that the people affected were not going to become psychotic, anyway - but I know our psychiatric community are wanting the drug agencies to be more assertive about discussing that possibility with their clients. (Our services have a harm minimisation, rather than abstention, policy, so there is good, clear information given - not dark warnings - and the risk of psychosis is not featured much in their literature.)

Which really is a very astute point. Certainly when I am stoned (or drunk, or whatever) my memory is worse. Can't watch any convoluted movies unless they've got pretty pictures or funny bits. And if that state of mind is constant (and once upon a time it was pretty regular -- this is why I'll be starting calculus from scratch next year)...



Which is a very, very valid concern. Certain drugs amplify or agitate certain mental states. 'T'swhy I always avoided crank like the plague: I knew I had personal issues that it would make less, um, controllable.


Sorry, just babbling now. I'm not very coherent today, and my ingestion of legal drugs (i.e. - caffeine) throughout the day to counteract a lingering sleep deficit isn't helping.

'Tis said to INDUCE psychosis, Patio - not amplify it - although, as I said, it may simply hasten the process - it is not a process I would like hastened, myself, I must admit!

The party drugs are the ones that worry me - I went to a Drug and Alcohol Service seminar the other day and they are saying the stuff on effects on the brain of drugs like ecstasy is looking bad - of course, it is an area so fraught with politics and hysteria, that you have to be careful, and, of course, I didn't write down the cites - cos I never do - but it sure spooked me. I understand the combination of ecstasy and THC (used by some for coming down) is looking especially bad.

Never did trust those nasty, made up drugs! LOL!

Huh, whattaya know. Never seen anybody unstable stone who I thought was unstable not-stoned -- but, then, I'm inclined to think that almost nobody I meet is truly stable if you exploit the "right" part of their personality. (One of the pastors at my uncles funeral -- he committed suicide -- actually made a very interesting anology along these lines, something about people being like fine china, every piece of which always has some flaw, even if you don't see it, and sometimes under great pressure or heat it will just shatter along that flaw -- but, again, I'm rambling. At bottom, I think just about anybody will break down under certain circumstances. RAMBLING.)

Are you referring to a particular citation that was made here re: psychosis, deb? I'd be interested to read...

To close the day on a light note, a song from the late (getting later all the time, as a matter of fact) Shel Silverstein.