Should marijuana be legal?

[Sammael]

I ahte when people comapre drugs like marijuana to smking cigerattes. Poeple say it has the same harmful effect as smoking. That's bull. Smoking doens't cloud your mind.

I can tell you from personal experience that smoking cigars (though not cigarettes) can indeed cloud the smoker's mind. This is even more emphasized when cigar-smoking is combined with alcohol.

[Pidesco]

You either legalize pot or ban both alcohol and tobacco. The last two being legal while pot being illegal is, of course, nonsensical.

[Laozi]

People who smoke don't lose control of their actions as people who smoke marijuana and espicially other heavier drugs do.

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Loss control of their minds? You must be getting some pretty good stuff there.

[metadigital]

I'm a libertarian; the less power any third party has over my life the better.

The human brain's cannabinoid system seems to fulfill multiple functions.

Chemically speaking, we are all potheads. Raphael Mechoulam of Hebrew University in Jerusalem discovered that astounding fact in 1992, and now the reasons why are finally emerging. Numerous experiments with genetically altered mice and rats have shown that when natural brain compounds, called endocannabinoids, are missing or their receptors are blocked, the animals are more susceptible to pain, cannot control their appetites, have trouble handling anxiety and are less able to cope with stress.

 

By fully understanding and then harnessing the endocannabinoid mechanisms, researchers are eager to devise new ways to reduce pain, calm anxiety, fight obesity, stop nicotine addiction and even treat traumatic shock and Parkinson's

disease-without the unwanted side effects of smoking marijuana.

 

Signals in Reverse

To be precise, endocannabinoids do not mimic the effects of marijuana. It is the drug, derived from the hemp plant, that approximates the brain's endocannabinoid chemistry. A decade of study has shown that a specific receptor on certain neurons .. the cannabinoid receptor 1, or CB1 .. binds to delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol (THe), the active ingredient in cannabis, the dried leaf of marijuana.

 

The same receptor binds to a class of fatty acids produced by neurons .. the endocannabinoids. Mechoulam named the one he discovered anandamide .. after ananda, the Sanskrit word for "bliss." Subsequently, Daniele Piomelli and Nephi Stella of the University of California, Irvine, found a second compound, called 2-AG, with similar characteristics. THC happens to resemble these

substances closely enough that the CB1 receptors latch onto it, unleashing similar or magnified effects on the toker's brain.

 

CB1 receptors are not everywhere in the brain-they exist in concentrated pockets in many varied locations. The distribution suggests that the human cannabinoid system fulfills multiple functions [see figure 1]. For example, numerous receptors exist in the hypothalamus, which plays a central role in controlling appetite, and in the cerebellum, which governs muscle coordination. They are also prevalent in the hippocampus, important to memory formation, as well as in the amygdala, involved in emotion and anxiety. And they are found in the neocortex, the site of such cognitive functions as speech and integration of the senses. Given the endocannabinoids' roles, it is easy to understand the classic signs of a pot smoker who is high: calm demeanor, poor motor coordination, altered sensory perceptions and an eventual attack of the munchies.

What surprised investigators, when it became clear that the endocannabinoids were communicating between neurons, was that the direction of communication occurred in reverse. When a typical neuron fires, it releases neurotransmitters that are stored near the tip of its axon. The signaling chemicals cross a small gap, or synapse, and dock with receptors on the dendrite of the next neuron, causing it to fire, and so on down the chain. The endocannabinoids, however, are rapidly synthesized in the recipiefit neuron's cell membrane. They cross the gap in reverse, docking at the axon [see Figure 2]. Neuroscientists had thought this retrograde signaling occurred only during fetal development of the nervous system.

Using mice and rats in labs, researchers slowly figured out the reason for the retrograde communication. "A neuron that has just received a controlmessage can send one right back that say "Stop transmitting!'" explains Andreas Zimmer, a neurobiologist at the University of Bonn in Germany who helped define the backward mechanism. "The endocannabinoids are an inhibitory feedback loop. The second neuron reports back to the sender: 'Message received. Cease firing. I got it!'"

 

An Ancient Cure

According to Ibn Al Badri, an Arab chronicler, people knew about the inhibitory effects of hashish, also derived from hemp, at the court of the caliphs in 15th-century Baghdad. For one thing, hashish reportedly stopped the epileptic seizures in the son of a high official. Such attacks arise when neurons fire in rampant unison across the brain .. meaning no inhibition signal stops them. Today some epileptics can somewhat manage their attacks by smoking cannabis regularly. And yet for others, seizures worsen after this self-therapy.

 

Stress Protector

Still, experts now for the most part agree that the main function of the endocannabinoids is to protect neurons from excessive activity. The brain "has created a kind of emergency brake for use when needed," says Beat Lutz, a physiological chemist at the University of Mainz in Germany who has also helped elucidate endocannabinoid mechanisms. If a neuronal storm threatens, the endocannabinoids are released to block it. According to Lutz, this protective mechanism plays an important role well beyond epilepsy. "It appears to be quite general," the researcher explains. "If the brain has a problem, it produces endocannabinoids."

 

No one anticipated what has proved to be an entirely new communication system in the brain.

Andrea Giuffrida, a pharmacology professor at the University of Texas at San Antonio, has confirmed this theory working with Parkinson's patients. In Parkinson's disease, neurons in certain brain regions that produce the neurotransmitter dopamine die off. As a result, victims develop severe motor problems. A certain toxin that kills dopamine-producing neurons causes similar symptoms. So Giuffrida injected the toxin into lab mice a few minutes after giving them a synthetic cannabinoid. The cannabinoid prevented the toxin's destructive effects. "The brains of the mice that had been treated with the marijuanalike substance could scarcely be distinguished from those of normal mice," Giuffrida says. He hopes that his work will ultimately lead to compounds that stop the destruction of dopamine-producing neurons, helping to fight Parkinson's in its early stages.

 

Zimmer concurs that the endocannabinoids' primary purpose is to help protect the mental organism from stress. He says, "They protect nerve cells not just from overarousal, but also, for example, from the harmful effects of stress hormones such as cortisol." Lutz adds that cannabinoids also "put the body into recovery mode"; muscles slacken, pulse and blood pressure go down, and mental activity is lessened .. all signs of relaxation.

 

Experts are starting to explain various psychological effects as well. They have trained rodents to fear certaiq stimuli, then retrained them to subsequently learn that the stimuli are no longer a threat, gradually extinguishing the fear. Rodents with missing or blocked CBI receptors, however, do not lose their fear. The endocannabinoids, it seems, are crucial to diminishing bad feelings, and a faulty system might be a prime contributor to post-traumatic stress syndrome or phobias.

 

Cravings Killer

That a whole lot of things happen when you flood your brain with THC is old news for marijuana smokers, but the effects have suddenly piqued the interest of the pharmaceutical industry.

 

The pharmaceutical company Sanofi-Aventis, based in Paris, has developed a new drug called Acomplia, which is already in trials. Its active ingredient, rimonabant, blocks CBI receptors and is thus supposed to help overweight people shed pounds. "Cannabinoids arouse one's appetite, apparently through the reward system," Zimmer explains. Because rimonabant binds to the sites normally used by endocannabinoids, it may be able to stop cravings for food. The principle seems to work, according to results of a company study of 3,000 US. and Canadian volunteers, which Sanofi-Aventis released in February. Participants who took the CBI blocker each day lost more weight than a control group given a placebo. In addition, markers in standard blood tests that indicate a high risk of stroke or heart attack were lower.

 

How much of the advantage comes from affecting signals among neurons is not clear, however, in Lutz's opinion. He ascribes the positive metabolic effects at least partially to the drug's effect on peripheral organs, which harbor CBI receptors, too. "In the obese, the endocannabinoid system is overactive in the liver," he says. "Rimonabant seems to restore it to equilibrium."

 

Of course, eating is not the only activity that triggers the brain's reward system. Many addictive substances do so as well; nicotine prompts the secretiorlof more dopamine, providing users with satisfied, euphoric feelings. Blocking the endocannabinoid receptors could negate the increased secretion of dopamine, reducing the pleasant feelings that make smokers reach for another cigarette.

 

Long-Term Concerns

Despite some possible benefits, experts are still wary about tinkering with our natural marijuana network. "The brain is a sensitive system based on inhibitory and excitatory influences, and the endocannabinoids keep this system in balance," Lutz notes.

 

One fundamental complication is that, like marijuana itself, man-made versions of endocannabinoids do not simply travel only to desired sites. They spread throughout the brain when taken, causing multiple effects, including dizziness,

drowsiness, and concentration and thinking problems.

 

Second, possible side effects related to sustained alteration of the CBI receptors are unknown and cannot be ruled out. "We have almost no idea what will happen if we inhibit the endogenous cannabinoid system over the long term," Zimmer says of the brain's natural reward mechanisms. His perspective comes from his latest experiments with genetically altered mice. When they were young, the mice did markedly better than their unaltered peers in various learning tests. But at the age of three to five months the prime of life .. the mice without CBI receptors were learning aimost as poorly as normal mice at 18 months old, which is elderly. Studies of the pothead mice revealed they had suffered damage to the hippocampus, the central switchboard for storing memories. The mice that possessed no receptors for their endogenous cannabinoids lost significantly more neurons in the hippocampus than the regular mice did.

 

This premature cell death, Zimmer believes, could be caused by the loss of the neuroprotective effects of the endocannabinoids. "We must move very carefully to make sure that deliberate medical inhibition of the CBI receptors does not lead to such damage," he says, adding that appropriate long-term trials must be held before drugs are released for clinical use in human patients. The pharmaceutical industry may have a different point of view, however; companies such as Sanofi-Aventis hope to bring products to the market soon.

 

Drug sales aside, the unraveling of the endocannabinoid system is exciting neuroscientists. No one anticipated what has proved to be an entirely new communication system in the brain. Further research will outline the complete mechanisms and could provide novel treatments for a wide range of psychiatric conditions and brain illnesses.

 

clickie

[Volourn]

"I can tell from your response that you don't have much experience in the matter. From a purely heath perspective hash is less dangerous than cigarettes, and this 'loosing control' business, isen't that why people drink alchohol."

 

1. I wans't talking from a 'purely health issue'. That issue hasn't relaly been proven one way or another nor do I feel like I nknow enough to really say either way.

 

2. Read what i wrote about alchohol in that post. I even comapred it with marijuana for that very reason. In fact, the fact that alcohol is currently legal is one of the reasons why I'm leaning towards legallizng marijuana currently.

 

 

"I can tell you from personal experience that smoking cigars (though not cigarettes) can indeed cloud the smoker's mind. This is even more emphasized when cigar-smoking is combined with alcohol."

 

Well... I can't speak much on cigars. I don't have enough experience being around cigar smokers nor have done any research on it (I have no need to) so I'll take your word for it. All that means is that cigars cna be thrown in with marijuana /alchohol in my personal 'oo' category.

 

 

 

For the record, I don't smoke (had exact 1 puff of a cigerrate when I was around 10-11), don't do harder drugs, no cigars for me, and I rarely drink (used to be about a a couple a beer a year), now it's a beer a month because I'm stuck working at a bar/restaurant. LOL And, they give us freebies so *shrug* why not. I've never been drunk either but i've seen people do stupid things. I've also seen people act really stupid on drugs grudgingly. To comapre cigarettes to them is silly outside the fact they both have inherent health risks.

 

 

 

 

Meta: Interesting....

Edited January 16, 2007 by Volourn

[metadigital]

I think incessant taxing on all of these things is just the governmental way of being greedy and attacking those who at least currently are in the minority. That's why the price of cigerrates keep getting even more ridiculous.

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Actually, the policy is to help prevent people from starting to smoke; younger people are very sensitive to price, so by increasing the price of a packet of cigarettes, the government is effectively dissuading the younglings from starting. How it spends that tax revenue is a whole other ball of wax.

[Laozi]

How can anyone accurately report on marijuana without actually smoking it?

[Sammael]

How can anyone accurately report on marijuana without actually smoking it?

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The same way you can report on cancer without actually having it?

[Pidesco]

By getting other people to smoke it and then studying their behaviour.

 

Maybe we should have a poll on who here has smoked marijuana.

[Laozi]

thats serious apples to oranges

[Volourn]

"How can anyone accurately report on marijuana without actually smoking it?"

 

I think the others squashed your silly question. CVontrary to popular belief around here, I don't live in a box. LOL I don't smoke or drink (much) either; but I know what happens when people smoke /drink as well. It doesn't take a genius to observe behaviour change as in drinking too much or smoking marijuana. Smoking does not do that. Though, trying quitting can. LOL

 

 

"Actually, the policy is to help prevent people from starting to smoke; younger people are very sensitive to price, so by increasing the price of a packet of cigarettes, the government is effectively dissuading the younglings from starting. How it spends that tax revenue is a whole other ball of wax."

 

Meh. It's just as lame. If soemthing is legal; it should be taxed fairly. It shouldn't be legalized theft. And, high prices for beer in bars surely don't stop people - including young people - from drinking in bars... Hmmm..

Edited January 16, 2007 by Volourn

[Laozi]

observing behavior doesn't mean you know the effects, I've seen you act like a complete troll for awhile and I can't for the life of me figure out why

 

it could be any numer of reasons, not enough attention from your parents, hemorrhoids, low blood sugar, rampant obesity, I dunno because I've never experienced these things

Edited January 16, 2007 by Laozi

[Kor Qel Droma]

Somebody sum up Meta's link. I don't have the attention span to read all that at the moment.

[Enoch]

On the whole, I probably come out on the side of legalizing it. At the very least, there's no reason that it should be a schedule-1 narcotic, as it is in the U.S. (which means that even medical professionals or researchers can't legally own the stuff for treatment/scientific purposes).

 

But I do worry about the consequences of the act of legalization. That is, the act of legalizing dangerous drugs like alcohol & tobacco are so longstanding that they can't be taken as contemporary societal endorsements of the behavior. Smoking and drinking are legal, but frowned upon by the bulk of society. I worry that the act of legalizing pot would be seen as a subtle societal endorsement of the behavior. For example, nearly everybody tries booze & tobacco at some point in their teens/20s, and nobody really sees much harm in it-- I don't think it's a good idea to encourage giving a similar treatment to weed.

 

 

Edit: OK, I just reread that and I sound like a total prude. My point is generally that I don't want to see weed become a generally accepted rite of passage like, say, getting hammered on one's 21st birthday.

Edited January 16, 2007 by Enoch

[Jorian Drake]

No, because this isn't only bad for your health, also for the others around you and the atmosphere too.

[Hurlshort]

Personally I think cigarettes are way worse than pot. They are a major health concern and the effects of second hand smoke are widely known to be dangerous, although people love to argue all day as to exactly how dangerous. It's also extremely addicting.

 

I believe both should be limited in where they can be used. The fact is I should not have to breathe that crap in if I'm not a smoker. That means if I can smell it, you shouldn't be able to smoke it. I also think their are too many stupid people who smoke in front of their kids. Total douchebags in my eyes, they are crippling their child's growing lungs.

[kirottu]

No, because this isn't only bad for your health, also for the others around you and the atmosphere too.

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People have feet that move them.

 

Everything is bad for your health if you take it too much.

[Laozi]

No, because this isn't only bad for your health, also for the others around you and the atmosphere too.

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Plus it doesn't improve your marksmanship

Edited January 16, 2007 by Laozi

[Darth Drabek]

Somebody sum up Meta's link.  I don't have the attention span to read all that at the moment.

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Hmm... Pharmaceutical companies are creating new drugs that aim to mimic the "good" effects of marijuana by hitting all the right receptors in your brain. At least I think so...

 

Neat fact I didn't really know, but makes perfect sense: nicotine consumption raises the level of dopamine the body produces - thus making ciggs addictive, 'cause the body likes its dopamine.

[Jorian Drake]

No, because this isn't only bad for your health, also for the others around you and the atmosphere too.

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People have feet that move them.

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But with not smelling it it still goes up to the sky what pollutes the world, and influences the increasing of the many different weird 'natural' cathastrophes what happen now, and will happen later.

 

 

Plus it doesn't improve your marksmenship

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Stop it. Now.

[Laozi]

But with not smelling it it still goes up to the sky what pollutes the world, and influences the increasing of the many different weird 'natural' cathastrophes what happen now, and will happen later.

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Wait, you do know we're talking about planet earth, here

 

 

 

marijuana grows naturally, it didn't come from space like in that Pantera video where they cover Planet Caravan

Edited January 16, 2007 by Laozi

[kirottu]

No, because this isn't only bad for your health, also for the others around you and the atmosphere too.

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People have feet that move them.

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But with not smelling it it still goes up to the sky what pollutes the world, and influences the increasing of the many different weird 'natural' cathastrophes what happen now, and will happen later.

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So... Marijuana is one of the reasons for greenhouse effect?

[Jorian Drake]

But with not smelling it it still goes up to the sky what pollutes the world, and influences the increasing of the many different weird 'natural' cathastrophes what happen now, and will happen later.

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Wait, you do know we're talking about planet earth, here

 

 

 

marijuana grows naturally, it didn't come from space like in that Pantera video where they cover Planet Caravan

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yes, i know it is already quite polluted, but this doesn't mean you don't have to bother about it. Especially with these many woodfires.

 

 

PS: and drugs are always bad

Edited January 16, 2007 by jorian

[metadigital]

Somebody sum up Meta's link.  I don't have the attention span to read all that at the moment.

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The abridged version:

Chemically speaking, we are all potheads. ... Numerous experiments with genetically altered mice and rats have shown that when natural brain compounds, called endocannabinoids, are missing or their receptors are blocked, the animals are more susceptible to pain, cannot control their appetites, have trouble handling anxiety and are less able to cope with stress.

 

By fully understanding and then harnessing the endocannabinoid mechanisms, researchers are eager to devise new ways to reduce pain, calm anxiety, fight obesity, stop nicotine addiction and even treat traumatic shock and Parkinson's disease-without the unwanted side effects of smoking marijuana.

...

To be precise, endocannabinoids do not mimic the effects of marijuana. It is the drug, derived from the hemp plant, that approximates the brain's endocannabinoid chemistry.

...

CB1 receptors are not everywhere in the brain

[Jorian Drake]

No, because this isn't only bad for your health, also for the others around you and the atmosphere too.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

People have feet that move them.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

But with not smelling it it still goes up to the sky what pollutes the world, and influences the increasing of the many different weird 'natural' cathastrophes what happen now, and will happen later.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

So... Marijuana is one of the reasons for greenhouse effect?

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

smoking at all, not JUST the drug, but this had a more greater and deadlier effect