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#Effects of #Cannabis #Marijuana
Source: Wikipedia, WC
Posted By: info@weedconnection.com
educate :: other - Sun, 11 Aug 2013 04:20:21 PST
Short-Term Physical Effects:
Cannabis has psychoactive and physiological effects when consumed. The immediate desired effects from consuming cannabis include relaxation and mild euphoria (the "high" or "stoned" feeling), while some immediate undesired side-effects include a decrease in short-term memory, dry mouth, impaired motor skills and reddening of the eyes. Aside from a subjective change in perception and, most notably, mood, the most common short-term physical and neurological effects include increased heart rate, increased appetite and consumption of food lowered blood pressure, impairment of short-term and working memory, psychomotor coordination, and concentration. Long-term effects are less clear. In humans aside from respiratory damage when smoked, relatively few adverse clinical health effects have been documented from chronic cannabis use.
*After 15+ years
of use, Weed Connection has not experienced or witnessed any memory problems or impaired motor skills as a result of cannabis marijuana, but some strains cause drowsiness.
Psychoactive Classification & Effects:
While many psychoactive drugs clearly fall into the category of either stimulant, depressant, or hallucinogen, cannabis exhibits a mix of all properties, perhaps leaning the most towards hallucinogenic or psychedelic properties, though with other effects quite pronounced as well. THC is typically considered the primary active component of the cannabis plant; various scientific studies have suggested that certain other cannabinoids like CBD may also play a significant role in its psychoactive effects.
*THC is usually associated with a heady high, whereas CBD is connected to the body high.
Effects vary depeding on tolerance. Neophyte stoners are more likely more likely to feel the fade; the hallucinogenic/psychedic properties, which should not to be mistaken for hallucinations. Regular users are more functional.
Medical Cannabis:
Cannabis used medically has several well-documented beneficial effects. Among these are: the amelioration of nausea and vomiting, stimulation of hunger in chemotherapy and AIDS patients, lowered intraocular eye pressure (shown to be effective for treating glaucoma), as well as general analgesic effects (pain reliever). Less confirmed individual studies also have been conducted indicating cannabis to be beneficial to a gamut of conditions running from multiple sclerosis to depression. Synthesized cannabinoids are also sold as prescription drugs, including Marinol (dronabinol in the United States and Germany) and Cesamet (nabilone in Canada, Mexico, the United States and the United Kingdom). Medical Marijuana Phyicians in our Directory
Cannabis as illustrated in Kohler's Medicinal Plants book from 1897:
Currently, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has not approved smoked cannabis for any condition or disease in the United States, largely because the FDA claims good quality scientific evidence for its use from U.S. studies is lacking. Others, for example American Society of Addiction Medicine, argue that there is no "Medical Marijuana" because the plant parts in question fail to meet the standard requirements for approved medicines.
Twenty states and the District of Columbia have legalized cannabis for medical use in state laws. The United States Supreme Court has ruled in United States v. Oakland Cannabis Buyers' Coop and Gonzales v. Raich that it is the federal government that has the right to regulate and criminalize cannabis, even for medical purposes and even if the state legalize it. Canada, Spain, The Netherlands, France, Italy, Czech Republic and Austria have legalized some form of cannabis or extract containing a low dose of THC for medicinal use. Recently, Uruguay has taken steps towards legalising and regulating the production and sale of the drug.
Long-Term Effects of Cannabis:
Though the long-term effects of cannabis have been studied, there remains much to be concluded. Many studies have investigated whether long-term use of cannabis can cause or contribute to the development of illnesses such as heart disease, bipolar disorder, depression, mood swings or schizophrenia. Its effects on intelligence, memory, respiratory functions and the possible relationship of cannabis use to mental disorders such as schizophrenia, psychosis, depersonalization disorder and depression are still under discussion. Both advocates and opponents of cannabis are able to call upon numerous scientific studies supporting their respective positions. For instance, while cannabis has been implicated in the development of various mental disorders in some studies, these studies differ widely as to whether cannabis use is the cause of the mental problems displayed in heavy users, whether the mental problems are exacerbated by cannabis use, or whether both the cannabis use and the mental problems are the effects of some other cause.
It has been pointed out that as cannabis use has risen, rates of schizophrenia have not risen in tandem. Lester Grinspoon argues that the cannabis-causes-psychosis argument is disproved by the lack of "even a blip in the incidence of schizophrenia in the US after millions of people started smoking marijuana in the 1960s". Worldwide prevalence of schizophrenia is about 1% in adults; the amount of cannabis use in any given country seems to have no effect on that rate. A medical study published in 2009 taken by the Medical Research Council in London, concluded recreational cannabis users do not release significant amounts of dopamine from an oral THC dose equivalent to a standard cannabis cigarette, and that therefore cannabis use could leave users vulnerable to psychosis. Positive effects of the drug have also been observed. For example, in a recent study researchers found that compared with those who did not smoke cannabis, long-term cannabis smokers were roughly 62% less likely to develop head and neck cancers.
*After 15+ years
of use, Weed Connection has not experienced or witnessed any memory, intelligence, or phsycolohical problems as a result of cannabis marijuana. The true negative effects are caused by the illegalities, propoganda, and society.
Addictiveness / Cannabis Dependence:
Dr. Jack E. Henningfield of NIDA ranked the relative addictiveness of 6 substances (cannabis, caffeine, cocaine, alcohol, heroin and nicotine). Cannabis ranked least addictive, with caffeine the second least addictive and nicotine the most addictive.
*You can quit smoking cigarettes cold turkey (more easily with the help of a gritty sneak-a-toke). After about five to seven days of quitting regular use of cannabis marijuana, one can experience night sweats and vivid, memorable dreams. That is only temporary. Chronic users do not usually remember dreams without trying hard. It feels like the first time when you start up again.
Adolescent Brain Development:
A 35-year cohort study published August 2012 in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences and funded partly by NIDA and other NIH institutes reported an association between long-term cannabis use and neuropsychological decline, even after controlling for education. It was found that the persistent, dependent use of marijuana before age 18 was associated with lasting harm to a person's intelligence, attention and memory, and were suggestive of neurological harm from cannabis. Quitting cannabis did not appear to reverse the loss. However, individuals who started cannabis use after the age of 18 did not show similar declines.
Results of the study came into question when in a new analysis, published January 2013 in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, researchers from Oslo's Ragnar Frisch Center for Economic Research noted other differences among the study group including education, occupation and other socioeconomic factors that showed the same effect on IQ as cannabis use. From the abstract: "existing research suggests an alternative confounding model based on time-varying effects of socioeconomic status on IQ. A simulation of the confounding model reproduces the reported associations from the [August 2012 study], suggesting that the causal effects estimated in Meier et al. are likely to be overestimates, and that the true effect could be zero". The researchers pointed to three other studies which showed cannabis did not cause a decline in IQ. The studies showed that heavy smokers had clear reductions in IQ, but they were not permanent.
A July 2012 article in Brain reported neural-connectivity impairment in some brain regions following prolonged heavy cannabis use initiated in adolescence or young adulthood. A 2012 study conducted by researchers at UC San Diego failed to show deleterious effects on the adolescent brain from cannabis use. Researchers looked at brain scans taken before-and-after of subjects aged 16–20 years who consumed alcohol and compared them to subjects of the same age who used cannabis instead. The 92 person study was conducted over an eighteen-month period. While teen alcohol use resulted in observable reduced white matter brain tissue health, cannabis use was not linked to any structural damage. The study did not measure the subjects' cognitive performance. Publication is scheduled for April 2013 in Alcoholism: Clinical and Experimental Research.
*After 15+ years
of use, Weed Connection can testify that smart people remain sharp and dumb people do stupid sh!t regardless of marijuana consumption.
Gateway Drug Theory:
Since the 1950s, United States drug policies have been guided by the assumption that trying cannabis increases the probability that users will eventually use "harder" drugs. This hypothesis has been one of the central pillars of anti-cannabis drug policy in the United States, though the validity and implications of this hypothesis are hotly debated. Studies have shown that tobacco smoking is a better predictor of concurrent illicit hard drug use than smoking cannabis.
No widely accepted study has ever demonstrated a cause-and-effect relationship between the use of cannabis and the later use of harder drugs like heroin and cocaine. However, the prevalence of tobacco cigarette advertising and the practice of mixing tobacco and cannabis together in a single large joint, common in Europe, are believed to be cofactors in promoting nicotine dependency among young people trying cannabis.
A 2005 comprehensive review of the literature on the cannabis gateway hypothesis found that pre-existing traits may predispose users to addiction in general, the availability of multiple drugs in a given setting confounds predictive patterns in their usage, and drug sub-cultures are more influential than cannabis itself. The study called for further research on "social context, individual characteristics, and drug effects" to discover the actual relationships between cannabis and the use of other drugs. Some studies state that while there is no proof for this gateway hypothesis, young cannabis users should still be considered as a risk group for intervention programs. Other findings indicate that hard drug users are likely to be "poly-drug" users, and that interventions must address the use of multiple drugs instead of a single hard drug.
Another gateway hypothesis is that a gateway effect may be detected as a result of the "common factors" involved with using any illegal drug. Because of its illegal status, cannabis users are more likely to be in situations which allow them to become acquainted with people who use and sell other illegal drugs. By this argument, some studies have shown that alcohol and tobacco may be regarded as gateway drugs. However, a more parsimonious explanation could be that cannabis is simply more readily available (and at an earlier age) than illegal hard drugs, and alcohol/tobacco are in turn easier to obtain earlier than cannabis (though the reverse may be true in some areas), thus leading to the "gateway sequence" in those people who are most likely to experiment with any drug offered.
A 2008 study at Karolinska Institute suggested that young rats treated with THC received an increased motivation for drug use, heroin in the study, under conditions of stress. A 2010 study published in the Journal of Health and Social Behavior found that the main factors in users moving on to other drugs were age, wealth, unemployment status, and psychological stress. The study concluded that there is no validity to the "gateway theory" and that drug use is more closely tied to a person's life situation, although cannabis users are more likely to use other drugs.
*The concensus @WeedConnection is that any medicine or drug can be viewed at a "gateway" drug. The gateway theory is invalid.
Memory, Learning, & Intelligence:
Researchers from the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine failed to show substantial, systemic neurological effects from long-term recreational use of cannabis. Their findings were published in the July 2003 issue of the Journal of the International Neuropsychological Society. The research team, headed by Dr Igor Grant, found that cannabis use did affect perception, but did not cause permanent brain damage. Researchers looked at data from 15 previously published controlled studies involving 704 long-term cannabis users and 484 nonusers. The results showed long-term cannabis use was only marginally harmful on the memory and learning. Other functions such as reaction time, attention, language, reasoning ability, perceptual and motor skills were unaffected. The observed effects on memory and learning, they said, showed long-term cannabis use caused "selective memory defects", but that the impact was "of a very small magnitude".
*Weed Connection wants to go futher by stating that any perceptual affects are most probably not going to cause problems for both those with good judgement and regular users. Memory, learning, and intelligence have not been negatively affected @WeedConnection
Obesity:
According to a 2011 study published in the American Journal of Epidemiology, obesity is lower in cannabis users than in nonusers. Authors of the study looked at data from two representative epidemiological studies for US citizens aged 18 and over. Obesity rates in those who didn't use cannabis were 22% and 25.3%. Study participants who smoked cannabis at least three times a week had obesity rates of 14.3% and 17.2%. The association between cannabis smoking and lower risk of obesity remained strong after factors such as cigarette smoking, age and gender, which could have an impact on obesity, were taken into account.
Cannabis is known for inducing hunger, but two cannabinoids, THCV and cannabidiol, were found to have an appetite suppressing effect. In animal tests, the drug also had an impact on the level of fat in the body as well as its response to insulin. Cannabis compounds were shown to raise metabolism in rats, leading to lower levels of fat in the liver and lower cholesterol. Human trials are being conducted to find a drug targeting obesity-related diseases.
Pulmonary Function / Cannabis-Associated Respiratory Disease:
A 2012 study published in JAMA and funded by National Institutes of Health looked at a population of over 5,115 American men and women to see whether smoked cannabis has effects on the pulmonary system similar to those from smoking tobacco. The researchers found "Occasional and low cumulative marijuana use was not associated with adverse effects on pulmonary function." Smoking an average of one joint a day for seven years, they found, did not worsen pulmonary health.
Dr. Donald Tashkin commented on the study, saying it confirmed findings from several other studies showing "that essentially there is no significant relationship between marijuana exposure and impairment in lung function." He noted despite containing similar noxious ingredients, one reason cannabis smoke may not be as harmful as tobacco smoke may be due to the anti-inflammatory effects of THC. "We don't know for sure but a very reasonable possibility is that THC may actually interfere with the development of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease", Tashkin elaborated. In his own research, Tashkin unexpectedly found that smoking up to three joints a day appeared to have no decrease in lung function. Tashkin said, "I think that the bottom line is that there does not appear to be any negative impact on lung function of marijuana smoking."
Safety:
Due to the low number of studies conducted on cannabis, there is not enough evidence to reach a conclusion regarding the effect of cannabis on overall risk of death or lifespan. Cannabis has not been proven to have caused deaths but an association is currently being researched. There are medical reports of occasional infarction, stroke and other cardiovascular side effects. Marijuana's cardiovascular effects are not associated with serious health problems for most young, healthy users.
According to a 2006 United Kingdom government report, using cannabis is much less dangerous than tobacco, prescription drugs, and alcohol in social harms, physical harm, and addiction. Harvard's Dr. Lester Grinspoon, has stated in a newspaper editorial that "herbal marijuana is remarkably nontoxic". Dr. Stephen Ross, a professor of child psychiatry and addiction at New York University's Tish Hospital explains reports of some cannabis-related deaths: "deaths associated with the drug are the result of activities undertaken while on the drug, such as driving under the influence". The US Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration stated in its July 2001 report from the Drug Abuse Warning Network Mortality Data: "Marijuana is rarely the only drug involved in a drug abuse death. Thus, in most cases, the proportion of marijuana-involved cases labeled as 'One drug' (i.e., marijuana only) will be zero or nearly zero".
THC, the principal psychoactive constituent of the cannabis plant, has an extremely low toxicity. A 1998 study published in The Lancet reports: "There are no confirmed published cases worldwide of human deaths from cannabis poisoning, and the dose of THC required to produce 50% mortality in rodents is extremely high compared with other commonly used drugs". Cannabis researcher Dr. Paul Hornby said that "you have to smoke something like 15,000 joints in 20 minutes to get a toxic amount of delta-9 tetrahydrocannibinol". Recorded fatalities resulting from cannabis overdose in animals are generally only after intravenous injection of hashish oil. Evaluations of safety and tolerability of Sativex, a pharmacological preparation made from cannabinoids, have concluded that it is indeed well-tolerated and useful.
Many studies have looked at the effects of smoking cannabis on the respiratory system. Cannabis smoke contains thousands of organic and inorganic chemical compounds. This tar is chemically similar to that found in tobacco smoke or cigars. Over fifty known carcinogens have been identified in cannabis smoke. These include nitrosamines, reactive aldehydes, and polycylic hydrocarbons, including benz[a]pyrene. Marijuana smoke was listed as a cancer agent in California in 2009. A 2012 literature review by the British Lung Foundation identified cannabis smoke as a carcinogen and also found awareness of the danger was low compared with the high awareness of the dangers of smoking tobacco particularly among younger users. Other observations include increased risk from each marijuana cigarette due to drawing in large puffs of smoke and holding them; lack of research on the effect of cannabis smoke alone due to common mixing of cannabis and tobacco and frequent tobacco use by cannabis users; low rate of addiction compared to tobacco; and episodic nature of cannabis use compared to steady frequent smoking of tobacco. The review has been criticized by David Nutt. In contrast to the British Lung Foundation report, a large 2006 study found no lung cancer link to marijuana, even in heavy smokers, when adjusting for several confounders including cigarette smoking and alcohol use.
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