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Title: Long-term marijuana use may fog the brain
Source:
NewScientist.com
URL Source: http://www.newscientist.com/channel ... ana-use-may-fog-the-brain.html
Published: Jun 5, 2006
Author: Andy Coghlan
Post Date: 2006-06-05 00:32:14 by Morgana le Fay
Keywords: None
Views: 363
Comments: 33
Long-term users of marijuana gradually become worse at learning and remembering things, a new study suggests. “It definitely fogs your brain,” says Lambros Messinis, who led the study at the University Hospital of Patras in Greece. Messinis and colleagues tested the mental abilities of 20 long-term users who had taken marijuana heavily – smoking at least four joints a week – for an average of 15 years. Their brains were rustier than those of 20 short-term users – who had averaged seven years of use – and 24 controls who had used the drug sporadically or not at all. Long-term users performed worse in tests to measure memory, learning ability and the capacity to recall information. Asked to recall lists of 15 words that they had seen earlier, for example, the long-term users averaged seven, compared with nine recalled by short-term users and 12 by controls. “Long-term users found it very difficult to learn through new information given verbally,” says Messinis. “It’s not to do with lack of attention but more the encoding process of memory.” Separate tests to probe attention span found that long-term users were able to pick up information immediately, without trouble. Initial ability Although the study is retrospective – that is, the subjects were not tested on their cognitive abilities before they took up marijuana – the researchers are confident that the long-term users’ abilities were not significantly different from the other groups from the beginning. They used a standard test to estimate the long-term users’ original intellectual abilities. Messinis gave subjects the tests at least 24 hours after they had last taken the drug, to make sure they were not still under the influence. “It wasn’t while they were high,” he says. “Importantly, we don’t know if it’s reversible,” he says. To find out, he and his colleague plan to re-test the same subjects after abstinence periods of at least a month. Nadia Solowij, at the University of Wollongong in Australia, says the new findings back previous work by her and colleagues, published in the Journal of the American Medical Association in 2002. “The authors appear to have used the same rigorous criteria for inclusion in their study and confirm that the duration of cannabis use progressively impacts upon cognitive functions,” she told New Scientist.
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#2. To: Morgana le Fay, LONER, *LEAP* (#0)
More reefer madness. They'd probably get the same results with alcohol. Or coffee..or sex. LMFAO. Moderation. No amount of BS "studies" will change my mind about the relative safety of marijuana compared to other legal substances nor the fact that it is a FREEDOM issue and should be legalized. The feds have no legal grounds to ban a PLANT.
I do know several guys who smoke pot every day (have for years) and have no ambition to accomplish a thing in life. I suppose it's very likely that that's the way they are anyway. Which came first, the chicken or the egg?
Herodotus (450 BC) mentions the Scythians (lower Russian steppes, the source of the plant)throwing stalks of the plant into fires and " getting drunk as Greeks do on wine". Men, women and children, it seems. No grapes were going to be grown by these horse loving nomads, and the plant was prolific. Seems to me this would have been done after a long day of work, when sleep was near. And that may be a significant difference. Blowing a joint before breakfast might be OK on your marriage day, but prolly not as a routine.
from The Scythians - High Plains Drifters by Chris Bennet
As my son says, Scythians are pimp!
#17. To: loner (#15)
I'm thinking the stones weren't hot enough to burn the plant matter, just the oils. These Scythians may have invented the first vaporizor.
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#6. To: IndieTX, loner (#2)
#11. To: christine (#6)
nd have no ambition to accomplish a thing in life. I suppose it's very likely that that's the way they are anyway. Which came first, the chicken or the egg?
#14. To: tom007 (#11)
Cannabis was an integral part of the Scythian cult of the dead, wherein homage was paid to the memory of their departed leaders. After the death and burial of their king, the Scythians would purify themselves by setting up small tepee-like structures which they would enter to inhale the fumes of hemp seeds (and the resinous flower calyxes surrounding the seeds) thrown onto red-hot stones.
In a famous passage written in about 450 B.C., Herodotus describes these funeral rites as follows: ...when, therefore, the Scythians have taken some seed of this hemp, they creep under the cloths and put the seeds on the red hot stones; but this being put on smokes, and produces such a steam, that no Grecian vapour-bath would surpass it. The Scythians, transported by the vapour, shout aloud.
It is most likely the seeds described by Herodotus were seeded buds, and that the charred seeds found by archeologists are what was left over from the burnt buds.
#15. To: Dakmar (#14)
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