f13.net

Medical Marijuana May Impair Thinking of MS Patients - -
Study Shows Cognitive Impairment May Be an Issue for Long-Term Users of Medical Marijuana (http://www.webmd.com/multiple-sclerosis/news/20110328/medical-marijuana-may-impair-thinking-of-ms-patients)

...or, No Shit, Sherlock.

25 people on one side -- decades of people trying to prove that and failing on the other.....

I'm going with "skepticism". Weed has been so heavily demonized, and so many fucking studies have been done trying to find side-effects, long-term effects, carcinogenic properties --- and every study I've seen in two decades that has found one has had a handful of people, trumpeted loudly in the media, and subsequently dropped out of sight as larger studies failed to find the same thing.

I'm going to predict this goes into the conventional wisdom, doesn't get replicated, and in about two years we'll see another with a totally different claim. I'm starting to think pot's got more long-term studies than aspirin at this point.

Considering that cognitive degradation is an inherent part of MS progression, such a small sample means precisely nothing.

--Dave

Report is here. (http://sunnybrook.ca/research/media/item.asp?c=2&i=168&page=524)

I didn't dig into the full report yet, but the summary doesn't mention detoxing.  We have once again discovered that high people are high.

Supposedly they didn't test anyone who'd smoked in the last 12 hours. According to the critics cited in the last few paragraphs, they didn't do much to account for other meds the MS patients were on.

*shrug*. Don't smoke the stuff myself, but even if that was true -- alcohol fucks your brain long-term too, and that's perfectly legal. :) The whole weed thing just annoys the fuck out of me, simply because it's so obviously an outlier that it offends my sense of fairness.

Cannabis doesn't detox like most other drugs.  It's fat soluble and water insoluble, ergo it accumulates in your fat tissue and only gets removed via defecation over a period of months.

That sounds rad.

Where's Bill Hicks when we need him? 

My big issue with this report (and I've only skimmed) was presented in the previous two posts.  If a user detoxes over a period of months, does cognition improve when the drug has left the system?  In skimming, they didn't seem to address that. 

Data on long term effects is sketchy.  Addicts and dying people aren't good test subjects, and the issue has been thoroughly shitted up by decades of bad science.

I wonder if it's possible that there may even be other medicinal drugs out there that impair thinking?  Unpossible!

In other news, who gives a shit.

This was the gist of what I was saying. Thanks, Science.

(http://www.redbookmag.com/cm/redbook/images/Cv/dennis-leary-md.jpg)

Actual paper in question (http://www.neurology.org/content/76/13/1153.full.pdf)

From skimming through it I can't spot any obvious methodological flaws. It seems like a fairly typical, well designed cohort study. The conclusion isn't all that surprising, long term there's very little that doesn't alter your body in one way or the other.


It sounds like utter bollocks.

But he said ergo.

As far as the stuff "getting out of your system," my understanding is that it's the THC metabolites (not the THC itself, CBD, CBN, or anything else) that work their way out of your fat over the days/weeks (depends on how long/much you used) after you quit.  The readjustment period is your endocannaboid and dopamine systems readjusting to a lack of extra outside stimulation.

That's the main issue I have with the whizz test for pot usage - you're not testing if it's in the bloodstream or if someone's currently using, you're testing past usage.  Everything else on a whizz test only goes back about 48 hours.

Psssh.
Who needs a scientific study when we have-

(http://blogs.miaminewtimes.com/riptide/fast-times-spicoli.png%20640%C3%97360%20pixels.jpg)

Alcohol has zero side effects.

Neither does being a griefer.

Shitty threads cause depression and internet rage. Ergo.

Cogito ergo sum...

The elimination half-life of THC is approximately 30 hours, you do the math.

Unless you have warlock genes and tigerblood.

I didn't read the study, did it identify how people were cognitively affected? I mean if some short term memory issues are the only problem, still sounds safer than alchols long term effects. Or does it just cognitively make people want snacks?

Again, entirely foreseeable.

"difficulties in processing information and short-term verbal memory, and greater lifetime psychopathology" sounds like something I would expect, and could anecdotally swear to as I watch a whole bunch of my friends smoke themselves into oblivion. But that's all that is. Expectations and anecdote. The scientific findings of what pot actually does to you long term are .. going to take a while to become clear.

Whereas the psychological, physiological and social harms done by, for instance, over-prescribed anti-depressants, alcohol and tobacco are crystal clear and irrefutable.

I would have went with Oxycodone.

The study is very straight-forward and if all the pot hadn't thoroughly numbed your skulls it would easly be within your cognitive abilities to grasp it's importance.



 :cry:
I'm just disappointed with myself that I didn't get to this thread in time for that sentence to be as funny as it deserved.

It's okay.  We know you would have responded in a more timely manner if your cognitive abilities hadn't been impaired.

 :awesome_for_real: