Marijuana – Is It Really a Dangerous Drug?


Just take a deep breath!

Back in 2012, a report at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) calculated that smoking a single joint every single day for two decades may be benign, though most participants only smoked two or three joints every month. “I was surprised we did not see effects [of marijuana use],” stated UCSF epidemiologist Mark Pletcher, who headed the study.

One assessment of numerous research points to small sample size and inadequate study design as reasons for scientists’ inability to nail down a link between cannabis and Buy cbd oil cancer hazard. However, some suspect that this kind of connection doesn’t exist, and then that bud could have even cancer-preventive outcomes. Even a 2008 study, by way of instance, indicated that smoking marijuana can reduce the probability of tobacco-associated lung cancer, even calculating that those who smoke both marijuana and tobacco have a much lower probability of cancer compared to those who smoke only cigarette (though still a higher risk than nonsmokers).

But Pletcher isn’t sanguine about marijuana’s effects in the lungs, and suspects that there could continue to be long term lung damage which can be tricky to detect. “We really can not guarantee ourselves about heavy usage,” he clarified.

Your mind on drugs

There is some evidence to indicate that stoned subjects exhibit greater risk taking and impaired decision-making, and score on memory tasks-and remaining impairments have been discovered days or weeks after use. Some studies also join years of regular marijuana use to deficits in memory, learning, and concentration. A recent and widely discussed report on the IQs of New Zealanders followed since birth found the cannabis users who had started their habit in adolescence had diminished IQs than non-users.

Although maybe not 4 months later, a re-analysis and computer simulation at the Ragnar Frisch Center for Economic Research in Oslo conducted the Duke findings. Ole Rogeberg contended that socio economic factors, not bud use, contributed to the reduced IQs found in cannabis consumers.

Rogeberg’s end counters a sizable literature, however, which supports a connection between pot use and neurophysiological decline. Studies in both animals and humans indicate that people who acquiring a bud habit in adolescence face long-term negative impacts on brain function, with some users finding it difficult to concentrate and learn new tasks.

Especially, most studies on the subject suggest that while there may be unwanted effects of smoking for a teenager, users who start in maturity are often unaffected. This may be caused by endocannabinoid-directed reorganization of their brain throughout puberty, Hermann clarified. The consumption of cannabinoids that comes with marijuana use can trigger irreversible “deceiving of their neural growth,” he explained.

Besides the results for intelligence, many studies indicate that smoking marijuana increases the possibility of schizophrenia, and may have similar effects on mental performance. Hermann’s group used MRI to detect cannabis-associated neuron damage in the prefrontal cortex and found that it was like brain changes found in schizophrenia patients. Different studies further imply that weed-smoking schizophrenics have greater disease-associated brain fluctuations and function better on cognitive tests compared to their non-smoking counterparts.

However a lot of the research can not distinguish between brain fluctuations caused by marijuana use and symptoms related to the disease. It’s likely that cannabis-smoking schizophrenics “may possibly have unpleasant ailments [that precede full-blown schizophrenia] and so are self-medicating” with the psychotropic drug, said Roland Lamarine, also a professor of community health at California State University, Chico. “We’ve not seen an increase in schizophrenics, even with far more marijuana use.”

Such conflicting reports may be due to the varying concentrations-and varying effects-of cannabinoids in bud. Along with tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), a neurotoxic cannabinoid that’s responsible for bud’s mind-altering properties, the drug also comprises an assortment of non-psychoactive cannabinoids, for example cannabidiol (CBD), that may drive back neuron harm. Hermann revealed that the amount of the hippocampus-a brain area important for memory processing-is slightly smaller compared to cannabis users compared to in non-users, however more CBD-rich marijuana countered this result.

A lethal cocktail?

While data behind the harmful consequences of marijuana in its are feeble, some investigators are more worried about the medication together with other substances, such as smoking, alcohol, or cocaine. Some studies imply, as an instance, that marijuana might increase cravings for different drugs, contributing to the infamous tag as a “gateway drug.” A study published earlier this month supported that this theory as it found that, at least in rats, THC exposure increases cigarette’s addictive effects. What’s more, marijuana may well not mix well with prescription drugs, as cannabis causes the liver to metabolize drugs more slowly, increasing the risk of drug toxicity.

Despite those concerns, yet, Lamarine thinks it’s unlikely that the consequences of cannabis use are dire, given that the total amount of research that’s dedicated to the subject. “We’re not likely to wake up tomorrow into the major discovery which marijuana induces major brain damage,” he said. “We’d have seen that by now.”

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