Some Health-Related Facts About Marijuana

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Cannabis is a more natural alternative to harmful prescription drugs, which often have side-effects worse than the disease itself. Medical marijuana has effectively treated symptoms of pain in some patients, and is safer to use than typical pain medications such as oxycodone, etc.

It is also used as an anti-depressant, far more healthy for the patient and all those around them, as seen in many of the violent mass shooting we've by people treated with these anti-depressant pharmaceuticals. Negative effects on the brain and cognitive decline are also side effects of pain medications, anti-depressants and even statins. However, with medical marijuana, the benefits far outweigh the risks, as in the other drugs.

http://www.worstpills.org/includes/page.cfm?op_id=459

http://www.muirwoodteen.com/teen-prescription-drug-abuse/health-risks/


Even statins can have a negative effect on the brain and cause cognitive decline...


With well over 30 million Americans now taking statin drugs, we’re witnessing a massive ongoing ‘live’ experiment, and many are putting their health on the line for drugs that offer little in the way of heart protection. Just last year, the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) announced it would be requiring additional warning labels for statin drugs. Among them are warnings that statins may increase your risk of:

Liver damage
Memory loss and confusion
Type 2 diabetes
Muscle weakness (for certain statins)

Statins have also been shown to increase your risk of diabetes via a number of different mechanisms. The most important one is that they increase insulin resistance, which can be extremely harmful to your health.

Increased insulin resistance contributes to chronic inflammation in your body, and inflammation is the hallmark of most diseases, including heart disease, which, ironically, is the primary reason for taking a cholesterol-reducing drug in the first place. It can also promote belly fat, high blood pressure, heart attacks, chronic fatigue, thyroid disruption, and diseases like Parkinson’s, Alzheimer’s and cancer.

Earlier this year new research also found that taking higher doses of the statins simvastatin (Zocor), atorvastatin (Lipitor) or rosuvastatin (Crestor) increases your risk of acute kidney injury by 34 percent, a condition that can be fatal.2 Some experts are now urging that people on statins have an assessment of their kidney risks, similar to what used to be recommended regarding liver function.

Due to statins’ potential to increase liver enzymes and cause liver damage, it used to be recommended that patients be monitored for normal liver function.

The FDA removed this long-standing warning in 2012 and ruled that patients taking statins no longer need routine monitoring of liver enzymes, but instead can have liver enzymes tested before starting the drugs, and then only as clinically needed, which seems reprehensibly irresponsible.

In all, statin drugs have been directly linked to over 300 side effects,3 which include:

Cognitive loss
Neuropathy
Anemia
Acidosis
Frequent fevers
Cataracts
Sexual dysfunction
An increase in cancer risk
Pancreatic dysfunction
Immune system suppression

Muscle problems, polyneuropathy (nerve damage in the hands and feet), and rhabdomyolysis, a serious degenerative muscle tissue condition
Hepatic dysfunction. (Due to the potential increase in liver enzymes, patients must be monitored for normal liver function)

SOURCE: http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2013/04/17/statin-side-effects.aspx
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As far as people using alcohol and drugs to have a good time, that's been going on for a long time, it's not just something new happening in this day and age. I remember watching old cowboy movies with men and women socializing and drinking together at the bar, not to mention the speakeasy in prohibition time. Those who have to get completely drunk or out of their minds have an addiction problem that needs to be addressed, they are not the typical example of someone who enjoys a beer or a joint.
 
Thank you Sea. With your permission, I would like to take a print out of the above post to my next Dr.'s appointment. It reads like a page out of my file. By stopping the simvastatin and something called gemfibrozil almost three weeks ago, I have regained some energy, and quiet a bit of mobility. I'm doing so much better, and my activity out put is way up.

I will also say your right about the herb too. At 18 my Dr. instructed and provided me with an herb for over two years, until he retired. I had both feet, hands, and knees operated on, and that is what I used for pain, when over the counter products didn't address the pain. After two bouts of cancer, I was a total believer.

So, if I see a petition, I'll definitely be signing with yes vote. :hatoff:
 
I am not a fan of misuse of drugs MJ as I have been in Jamaica and see personally the problems in causes.
I am in favour of using these plants to give us cures for different ailment and I think they can be of great help. There is a gentleman in Canada who has done a lot to promote the safe use of this drug
 
YOUNG people who smoke cannabis just once or twice a week could suffer "major" changes to areas of their brain important for emotion and motivation, US scientists have said.

In a study that challenges the idea that "casual" marijuana use is largely harmless, doctors found that young adults who used the drug only recreationally had "abnormal alterations" to the nucleus accumbens and the amygdala.

Previous studies have shown that regular cannabis use in young adults can affect the brain's ability to produce the "reward chemical" dopamine, which is usually produced during pleasurable experiences such as sex, eating or social interaction.

In this latest study, conducted in a relatively small sample of 40 people aged between 18 and 25, researchers from Harvard University and the Chicago-based medical group Northwestern Medicine used neuro-imaging techniques to analyse the brains of cannabis users, as well as non-users.

They found that the nucleus accumbens was unusually large in the cannabis users, while the amygdala also had noticeable abnormalities.

Anne Blood, assistant professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School, said that the areas affected were "core, fundamental structures of the brain".

"They form the basis for how you assess positive and negative features about things in the environment and make decisions," she said.

The severity of abnormalities in these regions of the brain was directly related to the number of joints a person smoked per week, according to the study, published in the Journal of Neuroscience today. The more joints a person smoked, the more abnormal the shape, volume and density of the brain regions, but the effect was noticeable even in those who smoked once or twice a week.

Experts in the UK said the study group was small and more research was needed over a longer period to establish whether cannabis smoking caused the unusual brain features, or whether people with such brain features were more likely to smoke cannabis in the first place.

Around a million people aged between 16 and 24 use cannabis in the UK per year, according to the charity DrugScope. Its use has been reported to cause anxiety and paranoia in some users and in rarer cases may be a trigger for underlying mental health problems.

Dr Michael Bloomfield, a clinical research fellow at the UK's Medical Research Council (MRC), said the study added to the MRC's own research that found heavy cannabis use in adolescence is associated with changes in chemical connections in the brain.

"Taken together, these studies therefore have implications for understanding some of the mental health problems that are associated with cannabis use including schizophrenia, particularly as the younger people are when they use start using cannabis, the higher the risk of mental illnesses down the line," he said.

Peter Jones, professor of psychiatry at the University of Cambridge, said the study was interesting but inconclusive. "The research is limited as it is only a small study, it is not known whether the reported changes in the brain are necessarily bad. Furthermore, as they didn't measure the brains before and after, it's possible that people with a larger accumbens are more likely to take cannabis."


Topics: cannabis, children, drugs, editors picks, health, marijuana, parenting

 
That's a badly-designed study, Jill - as Dr. Jones and the other "experts" proclaimed the number of subjects was low, there was no real control group, their conclusion may have been reversed and, by my observation anyway, the 18-25 age group shouldn't qualify for being called "adolescents" or "children".

Very misleading - isn't that just like the Toowoomba Chronicle? ;)
 
Dr Michael Bloomfield, a clinical research fellow at the UK's Medical Research Council (MRC), said the study added to the MRC's own research that found heavy cannabis use in adolescence is associated with changes in chemical connections in the brain.
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Not the author of the piece, granted, but quoted nonetheless.

Considering that I was in the middle of the culture for so many years, I never saw anyone - adolescent or adult - "burned out" form marijuana usage, with their amygdalas hanging out. Again I think it's the age old chicken-or-egg question - does the user become stupid, or do only the stupid use? :eek:

Like people who smoke tobacco or use alcohol, I think it's a mixed group. You'll have your slackers toking up as well as your geniuses, and it's all too easy, especially with such a small study population, to make incorrect conclusions. It's a study - it isn't meant to be the last word - and studies have a way of being used as cannon fodder in all sorts of wars.
 
When I was in college weed was easily available and I have to admit that my boyfriend would give me some whenever he smoked or when we got together with friends. The experience was very pleasant but I never had the urge to have more or to go out and buy some - the worst reaction I had was red eyes! He was not a habitual user - more like a social thing to do once in a while. My girlfriend; however, was addicted to it - she had to drive at night to the middle of nowhere, taking quite the risk, to buy some. I think anything in excess just never ends up well and it depends on the person.
 
Muser, Everyone would have a fit. Can you imagine several old people sitting around in a circle, passing around a "cigarette", laughing and dealing with the munchies. The younger generation would be up in arms, because most of them don't see us as regular people anymore. :kissmy:
 
Most enlightened cannabis users don't smoke. They vaporize or use edibles. Much safer for the lungs!
 
Ina said:
Muser, Everyone would have a fit. Can you imagine several old people sitting around in a circle, passing around a "cigarette", laughing and dealing with the munchies. The younger generation would be up in arms, because most of them don't see us as regular people anymore. :kissmy:
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Well...maybe that would encourage more visits to those in the nursing homes from their younger relatives who tend to forget they exist. :hair:
 

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