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Cannabis May Protect the Brain Against Alcohol Damage

Warning this post may contain information some of you are not able to accept due to forty two years of brain washing and lies.It also contains an article cut and pasted please do not read if this offends you or taxes your mental reasoning.Compounds in cannabis may protect the human brain against alcohol-induced damage, according to clinical trial data published online by the journalNeurotoxicology and Teratology.Investigators at the University of California at San Diego examined white matter integrity in adolescents with histories of binge drinking and marijuana use.They reported that binge drinkers (defined as boys who consumed five or more drinks in one sitting, or girls who consumed four or more drinks at one time) showed signs of white matter damage in eight separate regions of the brain.By contrast, the binge drinkers who also used marijuana experienced less damage in seven out of the eight brain regions.“Binge drinkers who also use marijuana did not show as consistent a divergence from non-users as did the binge drink-only group,” authors concluded. “[It is] possible that marijuana may have some neuroprotective properties in mitigating alcohol-related oxidative stress or excitotoxic cell death.”In 2005, researchers at the National Institutes of Mental Health reported that the administration of the non-psychoactive cannabinoid cannabidiol (CBD) reduced alcohol-induced cell death in the hippocampus and etorhinal cortex of the brain in a dose-dependent manner by up to 60 percent. “This study provides the first demonstration of CBD as an in vivo neuroprotectant … in preventing binge ethanol-induced brain injury,” investigators concluded in The Journal of Pharmacology and Experimental Therapeutics.Commenting on the findings, NORML Deputy Director Paul Armentano said, “Alcohol and cannabis appear to have contrasting effects on the body,” he said. “Ethanol is clearly toxic to healthy and developing cells whereas cannabinoids appear to be relatively non-toxic and possibly even neuroprotective.”San Diego, CA–(ENEWSPF)August 27, 2009.Source: norml.org

Philip Walsh ● 5376d13 Comments

JohnI have read the article.I note that it is a newspaper article not a peer revue one,I also note that whilst claiming academic souces not one paper is cited leaving the reader to just 'accept the facts' as stated as opposed to being able to check the actual content and verify the facts.The strength of cannabis is an issue of much debate and it would be fairer to say that strong cannabis is more available than in the 60's and early 70's. I made a freedom of information request of Jackie Smith when she was Home Secretary for the detailed information to back up this claim .I received a copy of the ACMD publication  (I already had one and had read it). It contains no information to back up this claim.The figures over the numbers of young people being diagnosed as suffering from cannabis related mental health problems (at least in the UK) has also thrown up some anomalies. Whilst there appears to be a sudden and dramatic increase in the numbers of young people diagnosed with cannabis induced mental problem there has been no increase in the percentage of young people being diagnosed as mentally ill. This is implausible if not imposable leaving one to wonder if the question have you been using cannabis was replaced with have you been smoking tobacco (drinking Cola) the answers and statistics would remain the same.You might note that the information I put up is from respected Medical/Scientific peer reviewed sources and in all the comment that there a less or no harmful side effects is a common theme in these articles.Given a choice I know which publications I would trust!

Philip Walsh ● 5373d