Split: Marijuana Research and Research Funding

[Hogeye]

This topic has been split from here.
-- Sav, Science moderator

Generally speaking, grants are given to projects that are well-founded in our current understanding and are deemed important to research.

That is the ideal, but the more government gets involved, the more politicized it becomes. E.g. Mann, the global warming alarmist star, is referee for the NSF, NOAA, and DOE grant programs, and can veto any paper or grant that contradicts his faddish hockey-stick theory. Can you spell Lysenko?

Finding the studies (with misleading abstracts) online is harder than I thought. Off the top of my head, I'm thinking of a couple cannabis-related studies with misleading abstracts. One basically said in the abstract that marijuana caused brain damage, but if you read the body you found out that it may cause some slight short-term memory loss for at most two weeks. Another was a Tashkin study IIRC in which the abstract reported that cannabis smoking causes as many precancerous lesions in the throat as tobacco. In the body a reader would find that pot smokers did not in fact get throat cancer more than non-tobacco-smokers, and of course much less than tobacco smokers. (Nowadays, they think cannabis may retard cancer.)

The government money for drug "research" is generally granted through NIDA - the National Institute on Drug Abuse. They couldn't even come up with a neutral-sounding name like NSF. It is no secret that NIDA is closely intertwined with the DEA and Drug Czars. I don't think you can seriously argue that NIDA is not biased and politically tainted.

By the way, this is not "a conspiracy theory." A conspiracy theory requires some kind of collusion. If a phenomena is explained in terms of incentives and doesn't require collusion, then it is an "invisible hand process." The research funding bias continues due to incentives, not collusion.

[Savonarola]

Mann, the global warming alarmist star, is referee for the NSF, NOAA, and DOE grant programs, and can veto any paper or grant that contradicts his faddish hockey-stick theory.

I can't say I'm familiar at all with Mann. However, scientists can send their papers to any journal, and those journals can choose to print them. Even studies undertaken with government grant money need not be "cleared" with any government official before publishing.

Finding the studies (with misleading abstracts) online is harder than I thought.

Well, it makes it quite hard for me to see what's going on if I can't read the papers. Without trying to truly defend any of those papers -- since I haven't read them for a fair interpretation -- let's keep in mind that (even temporary) short-term memory loss is most certainly not a desirable effect, and that precancerous lesions are not cancer. Let us also not forget that some scientists would rather have eye-catching information in the abstract to get others to read the paper, instead a no-frills summary. I don't condone this, of course, but this is a far cry from, say, falsifying results.

Here is the full text of a paper exploring the medicinal usefulness of THC. Notice that, although it acknowledges that pure THC may have some benefits, it regards smoking marijuana as detrimental for a number of reasons. The authors suggest that THC-related molecules be developed so that patients might get the medicinal value without the negative effects.

Here is a more damning paper, that explicitly shows neuron death, which could accurately be called brain damage. It also causes other problems, including cell shrinkage and DNA breakage, which are clearly shown by figures in the paper.

(Nowadays, they think cannabis may retard cancer.)

I'd be very interested to read papers on this topic. Can you provide sources or (preferably) links?

By the way, this is not "a conspiracy theory." A conspiracy theory requires some kind of collusion.

If marijuana is so benign, and there's no conspiracy theory, how do you explain all the studies that show marijuana has negative effects? I think having a large number of scientists falsifying their results would count as a conspiracy theory, or at the very least be rather "conspiratorial."

[Hogeye]

Here is a more damning paper, that explicitly shows neuron death, which could accurately be called brain damage.

While it's not so blatent as Nahas' infamous monkey suffocation experiment, this is illustrative of the type of thing that gets funded, a worthless experiment sure to please the DEA/NIDA sponsors. It shows that if you cut out brain cells of mice and treat them with THC, you can induce damage. Wow. If someone doesn't know that in live humans (with cannabinol receptors in their brains) pure THC doesn't bathe hippocampal neurons, then they might fall for it. The first citation in the article that I clicked on also proved misleading: "Long-lasting cannabis-dependent short-term memory deficits (Schwartz et al., 1989) and residual neuropsychological effects (Pope and Yurgelun-Todd, 1996) persist even after abstinence." Swartz et al turns out to be a study based on 10 adolescents, with the first sentence of the abstract a known proven lie. "The concentration of delta-9-tetrahydro-cannabinol in marijuana available in the United States has increased by 250% since investigations of the effects of marijuana on short-term memory first appeared in scientific journals." Propaganda in a scientific abstract - why are we not surprised.

Hogeye> Nowadays, they think cannabis may retard cancer.

Savonarola> I'd be very interested to read papers on this topic. Can you provide sources or (preferably) links?

Here's a pretty good synopsis from LewRockwell.com: Unlocking a Cure for Cancer – With Pot

Here's the original Cushing "bombshell": Pot Shrinks Tumors; Government Knew in '74

Here's a BBC article about Guzman's research: Cannabis brain tumour drug hope

Aha! PDF of Guzman paper.

The Scientific American article: Marijuana Extract Fights Brain Cancer in Mice.

A supporting study from Milan: Anti-tumor effects of cannabidiol, a non-psychotropic cannabinoid, on human glioma cell lines

If marijuana is so benign, and there's no conspiracy theory, how do you explain all the studies that show marijuana has negative effects?

??? Most of the studies I've seen show that marijuana is rather benign, once you throw out the garbage. Most studies attempt to find negative aspects because that's how they get funded! People know that, to get money from NIDA, they have to phrase their proposals as negative to pot. What's surprising is that many times, against the (alleged) hypothesis of the researchers, the results are pro-pot. (Like the squelched and defunded 1974 tumor-reduction research. And Tashkin's research into cannabis effect on lungs.)

Surely you can see how, if money is thrown a proposals trying to prove cannabis dangerous, but little or none to find medical uses or pursue positive aspects, that constitutes bias. The National Institute of Drug Abuse is very clear about what it wants.

[Dardedar]

E.g. Mann, the global warming alarmist star, is referee for the NSF, NOAA, and DOE grant programs, and can veto any paper or grant that contradicts his faddish hockey-stick theory.

DAR
What palpable nonsense. Where is your evidence that Mann can with regard to NSF, NOAA and the DOE "can veto any paper or grant that contradicts his faddish hockey-stick theory."

Here is what I see when I read a site that he is heavily involved with (http://realclimate.org), a scholar who approaches the issue substantively and fairly. The list I gave summarizing the consensus of climate scientists, which you largely agreed with (global warming is occuring, it is being affected/influenced by humans, etc) was from his site.

Here is what I see from you and the GW deniers, hysterical exaggerations, shoddy science that doesn't pass muster, blatant fraud ("Oregon Petition"), appeals to works of pop fiction filled with misleading junk science and then conclusions splashed around that you couldn't possibly know ("ten years from now we will be laughing at GW").

I have no horse in this race. I hope hogeye is right and the handful of GW deniers who claim this is some kind of hoax or grand perversion of science are right. But from what I have read, and seen from Hogeye in the past on this issue, I could not be less impressed. I knew very little about this topic until almost a year ago when I read some posts by Hogeye in another forum making grand and exaggerated claims against global warming. So I did some checking, having no idea what I would find other than it seemed Hogeye's claims were extraordinary. What I found seems so similar to arguments between creationists and evolutionists, or perhaps UFO proponents and skeptics, or any sober scientists and vs. extraordinary "Bigfoot" whatever, truebeliever. The scientists shake their heads and wonder why they have to keep dealing with this lame material over and over, while the true believers, rather than fighting it out in the proper peer review process (there are exceptions), pull stunts like the Oregon Petition and claim there is a big scientific conspiracy, an invisible hand, or suggest that the climatologists (in this case) may be so greedy they have whored themselves out for grant money. And in this case with a government (and extremely wealthy energy industry) that would LOVE to have good solid science debunking global warming.

That's what I see. It's the same old crap.

Hogeye said this and I asked him a question. Here it is again:

Me, too. It concerns me that you are buying into this bunk science.

DAR
What bunk science, specifically, have I bought into?

D.

--------------------------
From Scientific American:
“More recently, Mann battled back in a 2004 corrigendum in the journal Nature, in which he clarified the presentation of his data. He has also shown how errors on the part of his attackers led to their specific results. For instance, skeptics often cite the Little Ice Age and Medieval Warming Period as pieces of evidence not reflected in the hockey stick, yet these extremes are examples of regional, not global, phenomena. "From an intellectual point of view, these contrarians are pathetic, because there's no scientific validity to their arguments whatsoever," Mann says. "But they're very skilled at deducing what sorts of disingenuous arguments and untruths are likely to be believable to the public that doesn't know better."
Mann thinks that the attacks will continue, because many skeptics, such as the Greening Earth Society and the Tech Central Station Web site, obtain funds from petroleum interests. "As long as they think it works and they've got unlimited money to perpetuate their disinformation campaign," Mann believes, "I imagine it will go on, just as it went on for years and years with tobacco until it was no longer tenable--in fact, it became perjurable to get up in a public forum and claim that there was no science" behind the health hazards of smoking.

http://tinyurl.com/cq36y

[Savonarola]

If someone doesn't know that in live humans (with cannabinol receptors in their brains) pure THC doesn't bathe hippocampal neurons, then they might fall for it.

You have a strange definition of "pure." Directly from the paper: "Concentrations of THC as low as 0.5 µM were toxic to hippocampal neurons, and the rate of neuron death increased with THC concentration."
Many of the THC concentrations in the paper were between 0.2 µM and 2.0 µM. For comparison, if you were to put 0.009g of salt in 40 gallons of water, that'd be about 1.0 µM. That's like a tap or maybe two of your salt shaker over your very full bathtub.
So what's the concentration of THC in the bloodstream shortly after a round with mary jane? The only info I can find without an exhaustive search is on wikipedia from a German doctor: "Heavy regular use of cannabis easily results in THC-COOH concentrations of above 500 ng/ml." This works out to "above" about 1.4 µM, so the concentrations used in the experiment are realistic. And since the brain (as well as other body parts) is constantly supplied with blood, this is not an unrealistic approach.

Most of the studies I've seen show that marijuana is rather benign, once you throw out the garbage.

As shown above, you throw out the baby with the bathwater.

You'll have to forgive me, as I'm a bit confused. Are you citing Tashkin as a reliable source? ("We do not know if the benefits outweigh the [costs]." 4/18/01)

Donald P. Tashkin, M.D., in his 1997 article for the Center for Substance Abuse Prevention; Effects of Marijuana on the Lung and Its Immune Defenses stated:
"Analysis of the smoke contents of marijuana and tobacco reveals much the same gas phase constituents, including chemicals known to be toxic to respiratory tissue."

He continued:

"With regard to the carcinogenic potential of marijuana, it is noteworthy that the tar phase of marijuana smoke contains many of the same carcinogenic compounds contained in tobacco smoke, including polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, such as benz[a]pyrene, which was recently identified as a key factor promoting human lung cancer."

He concluded by noting:

"The following lines of evidence suggest that marijuana may play an important role in the development of respiratory cancer.

• The tar phase of marijuana smoke, as already noted, contains many of the same carcinogenic compounds contained in tobacco smoke.
• One marijuana cigarette was shown by Wu and colleagues (1988) to deposit four times as much tar in the lung as a single filtered tobacco cigarette of approximately the same weight. The higher content of carcinogenic polycyclic hydrocarbons in marijuana tar and the greater deposition of marijuana tar in the lung act together to amplify exposure of the marijuana smoker to the carcinogens in the tar phase.
• Bronchial immunohisotology revealed overexpression of genetic markers of lung tumor progression in smokers of marijuana.
• Preliminary findings suggest that marijuana smoke activates cytochrome P4501A1, the enzyme that converts polycyclic hydrocarbons, such as benz[a]pyrene, into active carcinogens."

Oh, I get it. He's an expert source when he's not under the thumb of NIDA, right?


Regarding your sources, do you have any that are actual peer-reviewed scientific papers published in scientific journals? The Nature Reviews article was good, but I have to tell you that cancer researchers were already working on the VEGF pathway well before 2003.

Suffice it to say that the doctor who seems to be championed by the pro-pot community appears to have significant reservations to declaring marijuana a miracle drug. In addition, you have not substantially repudiated the work done in the second paper I cited; rather, you showed a misunderstanding of biochemistry. Why promote the use of THC as a VEGF pathway inhibitor when VEGF chemotherapy that doesn't cause brain damage does the same thing?

[Hogeye]

You have a strange definition of "pure."

Pure as in not containing the hundreds of cannabinoids found in cannabis, but just the one. I would be more impressed if there was any evidence of brain damage on a live specimen, as opposed to in vitro. For all I know, putting milk or orange juice solutions on slices of brain cells would result in the same "damage." Your assumption that a THC bath is like blood through live cells is dubious for a number of reasons.

Are you citing Tashkin as a reliable source?

He has demonstrated integrity, like that guy in the "Root of all Evil" film that shook the hand of the man that disproved his long-held hypothesis. You probably don't know the rest of the story about Tashkin. He was able to acknowledge publicly when his results contradicted both his hypothesis and conventional wisdom - and everything he'd said previously in that quote you cited.

Here's a report of Tashkin's later research which overturned his hypo that cannabis caused lung cancer. He found it to be negatively correlated with lung cancer. "The odds ratios are less than one almost consistently, and in one category that relationship was significant, but I think that it would be difficult to extract from these data the conclusion that marijuana is protective against lung cancer. But that is not an unreasonable hypothesis." - Tashkin

But I have to tell you that cancer researchers were already working on the VEGF pathway well before 2003...

Of course. The breakthrough here is the discovery that cannabinols might target only the "bad" cells without harming the "good" ones.

Why promote the use of THC as a VEGF pathway inhibitor when VEGF chemotherapy that doesn't cause brain damage does the same thing?

Chemotherapy is extremely dangerous and involves highly toxic substances - many, many times more toxic than cannabinols. The "brain damage" is nowhere near proved - it has demontrated only in vitro under highly artificial conditions. If a scientist like you reads it and parrots "brain damage," I'm sure the DEA guys were ecstatic. Give that boy another grant!

[Savonarola]

Pure as in not containing the hundreds of cannabinoids found in cannabis,

So are you arguing that the other cannabinoids counteract the harmful effects of THC?

For all I know, putting milk or orange juice solutions on slices of brain cells would result in the same "damage."

But do you have scientific evidence of that?

Your assumption that a THC bath is like blood through live cells is dubious for a number of reasons.

Do you have any reasons better than above? They're rather iffy.

He was able to acknowledge publicly when his results contradicted both his hypothesis and conventional wisdom

Now why would he do that if he was afraid the government would refuse to fund any of his future research?

He found it to be negatively correlated with lung cancer.

But only statistically significantly so in one of a number of categories. Also, since I can't find the actual paper, I don't know his method for "compensating" for tobacco use, which most likely is hardly an exact science.

Which brings us to

Regarding your sources, do you have any that are actual peer-reviewed scientific papers published in scientific journals?

You still haven't provided any.

If the argumentation being used is that THC binds to the cannabinoid receptors on the 7-TM protein in question, which prevents the activation of the cascade starting with the G-protein, won't any inhibitor of the trigger (say, an endogenous species of cannabinoid) have the same effect? Indeed, the paper repeatedly refers to "cannabinoids," not THC specifically. This is like saying that oranges are a miracle food for preventing scurvy, although a diet including broccoli, or kiwi, or strawberries would prevent scurvy equally well.

The breakthrough here is the discovery that cannabinols might target only the "bad" cells without harming the "good" ones.

But...

cannabinoids at high concentrations induce apoptosis of non-transformed monocytes, macrophages and lymphocytes

... which is a common problem with chemotherapy. So far, I'm not moved.

The "brain damage" is nowhere near proved - it has demontrated only in vitro under highly artificial conditions.

This is the basic anti-science argument. The creationist version is: "So what if you created life in the lab? You still haven't proven that it can happen naturally!" You're welcome to present substantial rebuttals to the paper, but you haven't yet.

[Tamara]

I don't think you can seriously argue that NIDA is not biased and politically tainted.

I think it's interesting that Hogeye talks about bias and politics as though those are negative qualities when he is obviously biased in favor of marijuana and always politicking for anarchy. But then we often point out in others what we most dislike about ourselves.

Hogeye sites portions of studies that show the benign qualities and possible, though unproven, links to reversing lung cancer and omits the negative results from the same studies.

For example in January of this year, Tashkin reported, "These results suggest that inhalation of marijuana smoke has deleterious effects on airway epithelial cell energetics that might contribute to the adverse pulmonary consequences of marijuana smoking."

I can't find his large 2004 study on Mary Jane, but there are some snippets of his work here...

http://tinyurl.com/nry5o

I did however read much of the 2004 report (though I can't find the darn thing now) where he found evidence for marijuana smoking causing bronchial damage and short term memory loss. While it is true that pot has not been proven to cause lung cancer, neither has it been proven to help. Also, there are other adverse health factors to consider, both physical and psychological. As someone who spent many years as a regular smoker of the stuff, I found that marijuana impaired my memory, made me short of breath, and caused me to have delusions of grandeur.

Bias on either side of the issue won't help us determine the pros and cons of drug use.

[Hogeye]

So are you arguing that the other cannabinoids counteract the harmful effects of THC?

That's one of many possibilities. Another is: the way blood carries cannabinols somehow buffers exposure of brain cells. Or: Cannabinols may be somehow processed by the body (via cannabinol receptors?), ameliorating or nullifying the effect seen on brain-cells in test tubes.

The bottom line is that, after hundreds of attempts to demonstrate brain damage by exposing rats (mice, monkeys...) to cannabis smoke, sacrificing them, and examining their brains, no one has been found any evidence of brain damage.

Except in the well-known monkey suffocation experiment, of course. Here's government science at work:

When U.S. government sponsored marijuana research prior to 1976 indicated that pot was harmless or beneficial, the methodology of how the studies were done was always presented in detail in the reports; e.g., read "The Therapeutic Potential of Marijuana" (1976) and you will see exactly what the methodology of each medical study was.

However, when our government bureaucrats deliberately sponsored negative marijuana research time and time again Playboy magazine and/or NORML, High times, etc. had to sue under the new Freedom of Information Act to find out the actual methods employed.

Dr. Heath/Tulane Study, 1974.

The Hype: Brain Damage in Dead Monkeys

In 1974, California Governor Ronald Reagan was asked about decriminalizing marijuana. After producing the Heath/Tulane University study, the so-called "Great Communicator" told the national press, "The most reliable scientific sources say permanent brain damage is one of the inevitable results of the use of marijuana." (L.A. Times.)

And ever since, dead brain cells found in monkeys who were forced to smoke marijuana has been given maximum scare play in federal booklets and government sponsored propaganda literature against pot.

In the report, Heath concluded that Rhesus monkeys, smoking the equivalent of only 30 joints a day, began to atrophy and die after 90 days [that's 2700 joints, or an average of 1.25 doobies per hour 24 hours a day, for 90 days!]

Heath opened the brains of the dead monkeys, counted the dead brain cells, then took control monkeys who hadn't smokes marijuana, killed them, and counted their dead brain cells. The pot smoking monkeys had enormous amounts of dead brain cells as compared to the "straight" monkeys.

Ronald Reagan's pronouncement was probably based on the fact that marijuana smoking was the only difference in the two sets of monkeys. Perhaps Reagan trusted the federal research to be real and correct, therefore reflecting a real health hazard to humans.

Perhaps he had other motives.

Whatever their reasons, this is what the government ballyhooed to press and PTA, who trusted the government completely.

In 1980, Playboy and NORML finally received for the first time after six years of requests and suing the government an accurate accounting of the research procedures used in the famous report:

The facts: Suffocation of Research Animals

The Heath "Voodoo" Research methodology, as reported in Playboy: Rhesus monkeys were strapped into a chair and then strapped into gas masks and given the equivalent of 63 Colombian strength joints in "five minutes, thru the gas masks" losing no smoke. The monkeys were suffocating!

When NORML/Playboy hired researchers to examine the reported results against the actual methodology, they laughed.

They discovered, almost immediately, that Heath had completely (intentionally? incompetently?) omited, among other things, the carbon monoxide the monkeys inhaled during these intervals of 63 joints in five minutes...

Carbon monoxide is a deadly gas that kills brain cells and is given off by any burning object. All researchers found the marijuana findings in Heath's experiment to be of no value, because carbon monoxide poisoning and other factors involved were totally left out of the report.

Three to five minutes of oxygen deprivation causes brain damage, i.e. "dead brain cells" (Red Cross Livesaving and Water Safety manual).

The Heath Monkey study was actually a study in animal asphyxiation and carbon monoxide poisoning.

Because of the smoke concentration, the monkeys were, in effect, a bit like a person running the engine of their car in a locked garage five, 10, 15 minutes at a time, every day!

So I'm suspicious when, after failing for 50 years or so in hundreds of experiments to find any brain damage in live animals, someone finally is able to create damage to extracted cells in vitro and claims brain damage.

Hogeye> it has demontrated only in vitro under highly artificial conditions.

Savonarola> This is the basic anti-science argument.

No, the scientific approach is not to automatically assume that an in vitro phenomena also applies to live subjects. There are too many processes going on in live animals that don't occur in test tube samples. This skepticism is doubly justified if, after many many experiments, the phenomena cannot be observed in live subjects.

Tamara, you are right - it's better to use a bong (or better, a vaporizer) if you smoke a lot. Or better quality herb. Of course, our wise rulers have made bongs illegal in Arkansas.

[Barbara Fitzpatrick]

If the Herer research is correct, Hogeye has a point. What little research I have read that is negative seems to involve considerably more marijuana than a normal person would utilize in an equivalent time period. However, I am not familiar enough with the research on either side to judge. All I have is personal experience - or rather experiences of family & people I know, since I have never used it myself (other than "secondhand smoke" walking through a room where others were doing it, which gave me a headache). I noted some rather poor choices on the part of regular users, but I cannot say the people in question would not have made those choices anyway.

My main comcern is the tax dollars we're spending as a result of marijuana's illegality. I would infinitely perfer to see it legal, inspected, rated by strength, taxed, and sold only in package stores. Then maybe we could get off this kick and get industrial hemp back to help America kick her much more serious and expensive oil addiction.

[Savonarola]

Another [possibility] is: the way blood carries cannabinols somehow buffers exposure of brain cells. Or: Cannabinols may be somehow processed by the body (via cannabinol receptors?), ameliorating or nullifying the effect seen on brain-cells in test tubes.

You really have no understanding of biochemistry, do you?
You have no scientific evidence for these "possibilities." You have no compelling reason to think that these "possibilites" are remotely plausible. Yet you insist upon giving these ideas more weight than actual scientific results.

The bottom line is that .... no one has been found any evidence of brain damage.

Well of course not, when you blindly dismiss results like those I gave by positing magical protection mechanisms...

Except in the well-known monkey suffocation experiment, of course.

Take down all the strawmen you'd like to, but you're rebutting a study that I'm not using.

Of course, our wise rulers have made bongs illegal in Arkansas.

Right, we can't use bongs because they'll illegal, but we have no problem possessing and smoking marijuana.

What little research I have read that is negative seems to involve considerably more marijuana than a normal person would utilize in an equivalent time period.

I did the math and gave the reasoning in an earlier post. This study found brain damage with THC concentrations of 0.5µM, with increasing damage at increasing concentrations. According to my source, heavy smokers can easily surpass a THC concentration of 1.4µM in their blood. Cutting this to only about one-third still results in damaging levels.

[Barbara Fitzpatrick]

Savonarola - I believe you, I just don't know how much pot would give the THC concentrations you listed - the study I read was comparing marijuana and tobacco use at equal weights, and I've never known a potsmoker who used the equivalent in weight of 2 packages of cigarettes in a day. Basically, I don't have a standard of measure here that allows me to compare the THC levels and amount of marijuana used. Like the terms "light drinker" and "heavy drinker", heavy potsmoker is too subjective to tell me whether or not you're talking about my sister's usage or my ex-husband's.

[Hogeye]

Hogeye> The bottom line is that .... no one has been found any evidence of brain damage.

Savonarola> Well of course not, when you blindly dismiss results like those I gave...

The result you gave didn't show brain damage; it showed that cells extracted from (rat) brains can be damaged in a test tube. No actual functioning brains were damaged in that experiment. Many, many, other experiments tried and failed to show damage to actual funtioning brains. So the drug-nazis have to play up this weak result.

I am concerned that you would perpetuate the brain damage myth by referring to "brain damage" rather than the more exact "damage to brain cells in vitro." Surely you must realize how misleading that is.

You asked me for speculation on why brain damage can't be found in the brains of animals subjected to cannabis smoke and then sacrificed, but can be found in vitro. So I did. If you have a better explanation, let me know.

[Savonarola]

The result .... showed that cells extracted from (rat) brains can be damaged in a test tube.

And it showed the the damage to brain cells increases with increasing concentrations of THC. This shows that THC damages brain cells. Your rebuttal is based solely on speculation, imaginary mechanisms, and a complete lack of understanding of biochemistry. While it is possible that some mechanism exists to prevent THC damage to brain cells in vivo, you have shown no evidence for such. I've asked for scientific papers twice already, and you've failed to produce. Do you honestly expect me to accept your bare assertions?

I am concerned that you would perpetuate the brain damage myth by referring to "brain damage" rather than the more exact "damage to brain cells in vitro."

Perhaps I should be concerned that you pooh-pooh away scientific results in favor of completely unsupported postulations. Instead, I find myself not the least bit surprised.


Tamara was kind enough to give a link to some of Tashkin's work. Did you check any of it? Here are three abstracts:

Smoked marijuana as a cause of lung injury

Inhaled marijuana smoke damages lung cells -- but you already knew about this, of course.

Supression of immune function -- but you already knew that, too, because it was in the Nature Review article that you cited.

Just so there's no confusion, these were in vivo studies.

So you see, I'm not limited to making a case for neural damage. It's just that neural damage is "sexier" than lung damage.

* Hat tip to Tamara for thinking to check Entrez.

[Hogeye]

It's not only "possible," but highly probable that cannibis doesn't cause brain damage in vivo, since in vivo damage has not been demonstrated in many attempts at such. You seem to want to evade this fact, Savonarola.

Now, moving from the lame in vitro brain experiment to Tashkin's lung experiment: Yes, I'm familiar with the in vivo results about lungs Bottom line: "The THC in marijuana could contribute to some of these injurious changes through its ability to augment oxidative stress, cause mitochondrial dysfunction, and inhibit apoptosis. On the other hand, physiologic, clinical or epidemiologic evidence that marijuana smoking may lead to chronic obstructive pulmonary disease or respiratory cancer is limited and inconsistent."

[Savonarola]

It's not only "possible," but highly probable that cannibis doesn't cause brain damage in vivo, since in vivo damage has not been demonstrated in many attempts at such. You seem to want to evade this fact, Savonarola.

Evade? What am I evading? I've asked you multiple times for scientific papers that support your facts, and you've failed to produce. But that's okay, the quote you provided tells us all we need to know about your approach.

The THC in marijuana could contribute to some of these injurious changes through its ability to augment oxidative stress, cause mitochondrial dysfunction, and inhibit apoptosis.

All this banter, and Hogeye knows perfectly well that marijuana smoke has detrimental effects on the body.

On the other hand, physiologic, clinical or epidemiologic evidence that marijuana smoking may lead to chronic obstructive pulmonary disease or respiratory cancer is limited and inconsistent.

But his justification is that it allegedly doesn't cause cancer.

If eating cyanide hasn't been shown to result in chronic pulmonary disease or lung cancer either, does that mean that eating cyanide must be reasonably safe?

Hogeye seems to be saying, "Sure, it hinders our immune response, and it damages our cells, but it doesn't cause cancer, so what's the problem?"

[Hogeye]

After a simple google search on "cannabis brain damage" I get the following.

Here's a study on real live brains rather than slices of brain tissue:
Cognitive measures in long-term cannabis users
And another: Heavy Marijuana Use Doesn't Damage Brain
And another:

NO BRAIN DAMAGE SEEN IN MARIJUANA-EXPOSED MONKEYS
California NORML Reports, April 1992

Two new scientific studies have failed to find evidence of brain damage in monkeys exposed to marijuana, undercutting claims that marijuana causes brain damage in humans.

The studies were conducted by two independent research groups. The first, conducted by Dr. William Slikker, Jr. and others at the National Center for Toxicological Research in Arkansas examined some 64 rhesus monkeys, half of which were exposed to daily or weekly doses of marijuana smoke for a year. The other, by Gordon T. Pryor and Charles Rebert at SRI International in Menlo Park, California, which is still unpublished, looked at over 30 rhesus monkeys that had inhaled marijuana one to three times a day over periods of 6 to 12 months. Neither study found evidence of structural or neurochemical changes in the brains of the monkeys when examined a few months after cessation of smoking.

The new results cast doubt on earlier studies purporting to show brain damage in animals. The most famous of these was a study by Dr. Robert Heath, who claimed to find brain damage in three monkeys heavily exposed to cannabis. Heath's results failed to win general acceptance in the scientific community because of the small number of subjects, questionable controls, and heavy doses.

So, we've gotten off the track of the thread - the objectivity of NIDA (National Institute on Drug Abuse) in funding research. We went on to the significance of damage to brain tissue in test tubes, i.e. what if anything that says about brain damage from smoking or eating pot. Now it seems we've moved on to the question of how much risk cannabis is to health. Instead of Savonarola making up what he thinks I think, I'd better explicitly state my opinion regarding the health risk of cannabis. My opinion in three parts:

1. Cannabis is significantly less risky than alcohol or tobacco.
2. Cannabis has roughly the same health risk as coffee. Smoked, it's probably marginally more risky than coffee, eaten it's less risky.
3. Cannabis smoking is less risky to your health than television watching.

In short, cannabis is more risky than broccoli, but less risky than alcohol or tobacco.

[Savonarola]

After a simple google search on "cannabis brain damage" I get the following.

Only the second is a scientific paper. There is a reason scientists rely upon the information in scientific papers and not mere articles.
I recognize that the full text of many papers can't be found online without paying a fee, so we are often limited to only abstracts. Obviously, it would be ideal to have the full texts, but we must go with what we have.

By Day 28, however, few significant differences were found between users and controls on the test measures, and there were few significant associations between total lifetime cannabis consumption and test performance. [emphasis added]

"Few significant differences" are still of course significant differences. Again, this would be a situation where it would be preferable to see the actual data before we make any solid arguments. (In fact, the abstract doesn't even say in which "direction" the differences are, if they are mixed, etc.)
However, according to the sketchy information about the procedure given in the abstract, we presume that each test subject's baseline was determined on either day 0 or on day 28 (or possibly after), depending on which performance one considers the baseline. There was no extended study, and as the subjects were kept abstinent, these results apply (mostly) to only one "trip." The only results that reflect effects of long-term use was the blanket statement of "few significant associations," but we have no way of comparing the performances of the subjects before they started smoking.
For context, this is somewhat like testing a student's performance on a wide variety of subjects, then after a day of regular school instruction, repeating the test. If there is minimal improvement, does that mean we can conclude that school has a minimal effect on education, and that therefore twelve (or more) years of school is a waste? Of course not. The difference made by one day of schooling may not show up on a test, but the difference of four years of schooling certainly does, when you get to compare a test from day 1 of the first year to a test from the last day of year 4.

So, we've gotten off the track of the thread - the objectivity of NIDA (National Institute on Drug Abuse) in funding research.

This struck me earlier, but as I had decided to title the thread as I did, I allowed it to pass. If you would like me to split the latter part of this thread so that we can have two threads, one on research funding and one on research results, let me know and I'll be happy to do so. I'd rather hear your opinion than just up and do it, though.

So, by all means, let us continue with your affirmation that there are funding discrepancies.

[Hogeye]

I don't see that it's necessary to have a separate thread about the NIDA. I don't see that anyone has challenged the assertion that it is biased, and its treatment of cannabis research, especially related to tumor reduction, makes the bias pretty obvious. Its very name implies bias, and its collusion with the DEA is documented. I suspect that even you, who supports govt intevention in science, would be loathe to defend the NIDA. The NSF would seem much more defendable.

There was no extended study, and as the subjects were kept abstinent, these results apply (mostly) to only one "trip."

??? "The authors administered neuropsychological tests to 77 current heavy cannabis users who had smoked cannabis at least 5000 times in their lives, and to 87 control subjects who had smoked no more than 50 times in their lives." 5000 times is hardly "one trip." My interpretation is that, even though these subjects were "heavy" long-term 5000x users, impairment pretty much went away in 28 days. Per your analogy, this is like a student going to class 5000 times, getting tested for knowledge, and then getting tested again 28 days later without taking any classes in the interim. Am I misreading this?

Savonarola, I'm curious; do you agree or disagree with my assertion #1?

1. Cannabis is significantly less risky than alcohol or tobacco.

[Savonarola]

I don't see that anyone has challenged the assertion that it is biased, and its treatment of cannabis research, especially related to tumor reduction, makes the bias pretty obvious.

Not that I'm strenuously arguing against your point, but I must say that before this issue came up here on FFForums, I've done (rounding off only slightly) absolutely no research into this. So my lack of a serious challenge has more to do with my infamiliarity than with agreement.

... 5000 times is hardly "one trip." ... Per your analogy, this is like a student going to class 5000 times, getting tested for knowledge, and then getting tested again 28 days later without taking any classes in the interim. Am I misreading this?

I don't think you're misreading it; your analogy is certainly accurate enough to illustrate my point, so I'll try to explain it again.
In your analogy, we have no way of telling how well the student performed before he went to class 5000 times. Maybe the student had a lot of knowledge before taking the classes, so the positive effects of the classes were less for him or her than they might be for someone with less knowledge.
The thing to realize is that the study tested knowledge that was given on study day 0 (i.e. trip #5000+), which corresponds with class day 5000 (not class day 1). 28 days later, subjects/students were retested on only day 0 material (class day 5000 material). This tells us virtually nothing about cumulative effects of trips 1-4999 (cumulative effects of class days 1-4999).

In other words, we don't know how any of the 77 heavy smokers were capable of performing on an identical test before they started smoking. Maybe some would have done better before they started smoking, and maybe some would have done worse. We have no way of knowing.

Now, I'm not ignoring the findings that there were "few significant associations" between long term use and performance (quite the contrary, actually.. I'd like to see the data), my objection is that this study was not very well suited for making those kinds of conclusions. And unfortunately, it would be rather hard to do such a study.

Savonarola, I'm curious; do you agree or disagree with my assertion #1?
1. Cannabis is significantly less risky than alcohol or tobacco.

First and foremost, let me say again that my familiarity with marijuana research findings is rather limited. (This is one reason I was hoping you could provide good sources.)
Can I both agree and disagree? It is my opinion that tobacco is can be very dangerous, but I don't know of any effects it has on the brain (and I mean this in the physioneurological way, not just in the "brain damage" way). It's also my opinion that alcohol can be very dangerous, but this opinion needs qualification. I don't believe that light (or possibly moderate) drinking is dangerous at all, but I recognize that (a) any single instance of incredibly heavy drinking (i.e. binge drinking) can be detrimental to the point of endangering one's life, and that (b) prolonged periods of regular drinking can lead to problems including brain damage and liver issues.

If I had to choose between a joint or two with friends and a few drinks with friends, I'd choose the drinks.

I was actually more intrigued by your second assertion. I don't drink coffee, but I'd be interested to see your arguments and evidence. However, I suppose we'll stick to #1 before we move on.