Marijuana use shrinks brain

Slanted.

Hmmm..  I did some research into this study, because both pro and anti marijuana studies tend to have a bit of bias.  Surprise, surprise, guess what I discovered?

Funding for this study in part was provided by:

• Alcohol Education and Rehabilitation Foundation Ltd

• National Illicit Drugs Strategy, Commonwealth Government

• Victorian Department of Human Services, Public Health, Drugs Unit

...all of whom benefit, budget-wise, from the War on Some Drugs

More funding provided by:

• AstraZeneca Pty Ltd

• Eli Lilly

• Pfizer

...all of whom benefit, profit-wise, from the War on Some Drugs.

Not only that, but the study group was made up of only 31 people (16 smokers, 15 non).   They did not test for other factors that could have been responsible for these results, and perhaps most damning:

"The researchers acknowledged that the study did not prove it was the
marijuana and not some other factor that triggered these brain
differences. "

Poor research, obviously biased parties funding the study, and a study group that contains fewer research subjects than a market research company utilizes when they're trying to get feedback about a new product.  This is science at it's worst.

The photo used in the story is a tree that was outside our hotel room in Cambria California. It was a TREE. I didn't try smoking it though.

chuckp8 has contributed a photo to this story.

This is not marijuana - it´s a small Danish cigar called Cerut. You can browse my flickr photos and find pictures with marijuana content if you want..

Kom fremad Donna has contributed a photo to this story.

stay hi

bgn79 has contributed a photo to this story.

Holy crap, subjects of this study were gigantic stoners.  I would think that brain damage was the least of their problems.  

"These were people who were essentially stoned all day
every day for 20 years," Marijuana Policy Project spokesman
Bruce Mirken said by e-mail. "This study says nothing about
moderate or occasional users, who are the vast majority -- and
the (study) even acknowledges this."

I wonder how this would compare to someone who ate 5 Big Macs a day or drank 5 bottles of wine a day?  What if you ate 5 blocks of cheddar cheese daily for 20 years?  What a bizarre study.

And now for some total BS..

Good Story

Shotted in a Amsterdam Shop.

Fulvio Minichini has contributed a photo to this story.

by bakariu
Guadeloupe
French West Indies

bakariu has contributed a photo to this story.

Thanks to setwist for an outstanding research on this.

I knew it had to be conducted by the BIG tobacco companies. I knew this when the study was concluded in Australia...yeah right. BIG UPS to all pot smokers!!

Save your seeds! Grow your seeds!

Despite a tolerant climate in the city, some hotels are explicitly stating their views regarding usage of marijuana. I can only surmise that getting the odor out of the room is costly; rarely does anything other than economics drive these policies.

testastretta has contributed a photo to this story.

Captured in Second Life by Xanna Ziskey, aka Suzanne Lee Miller.

Suzane Miller has contributed a photo to this story.

Marijuana is also used as medicine for
1. DEPRESSION
2. Nausea
3. AIDS patients
4. RHEUMATOID ARTHRITIS
5. ASTHMA
6. PARKINSONS DISEASE
7. ANOREXIA

These are just few of the many sickness marijuana cures...

kurei18 has contributed a photo to this story.

finest!!

abeer.naseer has contributed a photo to this story.

a picture of my two bongs. Used for relief from headaches and from my insomina

StevenVeneralle has contributed a photo to this story.

Seetwist mentions some very relevant points and I agree the research can't be considered complete.

I'm also against the war on drugs, even if I don't use drugs anymore, and that's because I think it's just wasted money, time and effort. Everybody can get drugs if they want to.

But even if the research is not definitive any marijuana user, including me, can confirm it affects the brain: try doing some work that requires focus and concentration (besides art) while stone. I couldn't do it.

This was taken a few years ago in my friends back garden in Dublin... Just another lazy summer afternoon :)

kyrstin has contributed a photo to this story.

just add scotch

Moshe Dayan has contributed a photo to this story.

wow. it is too bad people are hung up on villianizing medicine they don't use or fully understand. Cannabis has been used as medicine for thousands of years. not until it interferred with profits for other major industries. (i.e., alcohol, lumber,cotton, etc..)did people think anything negative about it...Queen Victoria used it, George Washington grew it....come on people. 

what a bad wrap for a beautiful plant. (p.s. check out my pics...they show the beauty of the herb...not it's incredible brain shrinking ability.

Actually, ALCOHOL use automatically shrinks the brain - this fact is so obvious that you don't need highly paid researchers to discern the fact.

Cannabis is far safer than its alternatives and it's suggested you look into the funding sources of such research before publishing studies that appear to denigrate this thoroughly useful plant.

It might be worthwhile to have a look at other studies that show remarkable health benefits - see links at http://newilluminati.blog-city , for instance.

For a first-hand view into current cannabis culture in Nimbin, Australia see Psychedelic Water - http://centraxis.blogspot.com/2008/02/psychedelic-water-part-1-fractal.html

nimbinmardigrass has contributed a photo to this story.

A team at the University of Melbourne has used MRI scans with twice the normal resolution to demonstrate structural changes in the brains of heavy marijuana users. Dr. Murat Yücel and his team looked specifically at the amygdala and the hippocampus, where neurons are known to have high number of cannabinoid receptors. 3-Tesla MRI found a 12 percent reduction in volume of the hippocampus and a 7.1 percent reduction in volume of the amygdala, two structures critical to memory and emotion, respectively. The study, which analyzed 15 men who smoked an average of 5 joints or more on a daily basis for at least 10 years, excluded pot smokers who also use other drugs, and those with identifiable psychiatric disorders. Cannabis users also performed worse on tests of verbal learning. The authors point out that 15 million Americans use cannabis each month, and 3.4 million Americans use the drug daily, yet our understanding of the neurotoxic mechanism implied by this study and multiple prior animal studies is quite poor. More investigation remains to determine what, if any level of marijuana usage may be considered safe.

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neil

<a href="http://www.addictionlink.org/drug-rehab-center/newfoundland" rel="dofollow">newfoundland drug rehab</a> 

I w+as an alcoholic for 14 years and after 14 years now+ i am sober.