That Marijuana May Be Good For Us After All
By James Donahue
Why were we not surprised when a research team recently reported that there is no evidence that
long-term heavy marijuana use damages the brain?
The study at the Center for Medicinal Cannabis Research Center at the University of California,
San Diego School of Medicine, compared brain functions of nearly 700 regular marijuana users to 484 non-users. Tests examined
reaction time, language and motor skills, reasoning ability, memory and the ability to learn new information.
The differences were so slight that the study concluded there was little or no damage from marijuana
use said lead researcher and psychiatrist Igor Grant, MD. Everything was comparable except for a "very small impairment" in
memory and learning among long-term marijuana users.
Grant expressed surprise at the findings. But anybody who has used the substance knows that, if
anything, the psychedelic effects of the ingredient THC, within the weed, tend to enhance mental processes rather than reduce
them.
Marijuana is notorious for causing users to think that time has slowed. Strangely, people with the
ability to leave the body and travel the astral at will have discovered that time is an illusion, known only to humans existing
in third dimensional realities. At all different dimensions, time is non-existent. Could marijuana users actually be getting
closer to reality?
Other reported effects of marijuana include an acute awareness of their surroundings, a shift in
thought processes, and a pleasant sense of serenity and relaxation that overpowers stress and even physical discomforts. This
is why the plant is desired as a natural medical defense against pain and suffering.
The study, published in the July issue of the Journal of the International
Neuropsychological
Society, comes as many states consider laws allowing marijuana to be used to treat certain medical conditions.
Earlier this year, Maryland became the 10th state to allow marijuana use to relieve pain and other
symptoms of AIDS, multiple sclerosis, cancer, glaucoma, and other conditions. The other states are Alaska, Arizona, California,
Colorado, Hawaii, Maine, Nevada, Oregon, and Washington.
The concept is growing slowly around the world as people battle government controls to release what
many peoplesay is a wonder drug.
Medicinal marijuana is now available by prescription in the Netherlands. A new marijuana drug is
expected to be released in Great Britain later this year. In the U.S., Marinol, a synthetic form of marijuana contains THC,
is available by prescription to treat loss of appetite associated with weight loss in AIDS patients.
"This finding enables us to see a marginal level of safety, if those studies prove that cannabis
can be effective," Grant said in an interview with WebMD. "If we barely find this effect in long-term heavy users, then we
are unlikely to see deleterious side effects in individuals who receive cannabis for a short time in a medical setting, which
would be safer than what is practiced by street users."
This overly cautious statement is obviously designed to appease a hard-line federal government policy
against any marijuana use, by anybody, anywhere. Even though people are voting state laws to allow the legality of marijuana
for medical use, the powerful U.S. Food and Drug Administration continues to threaten arrest and conviction of users for violation
of federal law.
The insistence to control the production and use of this amazing plant makes little sense until
you understand the politics of marijuana. There is big money to be made by organized crime (alias big business) which I believe is
controlling government leaders. The legalization of marijuana in the United States would mean that everybody could grow this
plant in their back yard, and the street cost would plummet.
Also, people now forced to buy costly and addictive pain killing drugs would find an inexpensive
alternative that would not damage the liver or kidneys. But that decision would cost the powerful pharmaceutical companies
and medical profession billions.
For those too young to remember, marijuana was available as a medical treatment in the United States
until the 1930s, when certain interests succeeded in making it illegal. Another form of cannabis, Hemp, used in the old days
for making rope, clothing and paper, was such an important crop, U.S. farmers were actually required to grow it.
The only way to get back to common sense on this issue is to destroy money. And since money
is the the real god of man, we have a Catch 22.
