I wouldn't be surprised if the headline alone, if noted by yoof interested in marijuana, made them think that smoking cannabis might actually help mental illness.
As the body of the article makes clear, this is definitely not the case. Interestingly, the "good" compound seems to hardly be in the street cannabis at all now:
She said there was a small, but growing number of studies suggesting
CBD relieved psychosis, anxiety and insomnia, and that her team was
trialling it in about 10 people withdrawing from cannabis use to see if
it helped them through the process.
But Professor Copeland said people should not try to source
CBD in street-based cannabis because tests on seized portions of the
drug in NSW showed it contained virtually no CBD.
"It has high levels of THC, around 15 per cent now, but
almost no CBD ... so it's definitely not the same thing as smoking
cannabis," she said.
So, if you were going to legalise marijuana, I wonder if it could be done only on the basis that the strains sold have to be bred to have a high amount of the apparently protective compound in it?
Still, as I have said before, if that product is more expensive, the black market for the normal stuff will likely continue to be strong anyway.
The CBD issue is perplexing and has long been known. Perplexing because CBD is typically associated with the CB2 receptor, which is found mostly on immune cells and is not known to have a psychoactive effect but clearly impacts on cognition. (It also has some interesting anti-cancer properties, as does THC but to a lesser extent.)
ReplyDeleteCannabis induced psychosis is a peculiar situation because studies indicate that some schizophrenics might be better off with a little pot. The confounder is that in those subjects their pre-morbid IQ is higher than other schizophrenics. So that sad thing is that cannabis induced psychosis occurs in people who might otherwise have gone on to have good careers.
What is interesting about CBD is that it is a known strong anti-inflammatory agent and in some cases psychosis is preceded by CNS inflammation. So there might be a linkage there because CNS inflammation can drive some less than desirable behaviors.
...CNS inflammation can drive some less than desirable behaviors...
ReplyDeleteWhat you referring to there, John?
People typically think of inflammation has all or none. It exists as a gradient and various studies indicate how even slight changes in the expression of pro-inflammatory markers can alter behavior. These markers are in the bloodstream but really pass into the CNS, affecting function. So elevated inflammation can lead to impulsivity, poor cognition, and irritability. If sustained it can reduce neurogenesis. In depression elevated inflammatory markers are common at certain stages of depression.
ReplyDeleteSteve, in my reading today I did encounter:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/08/140827131801.htm
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/08/140826141134.htm
Interesting what you say about inflammation.
ReplyDeleteAs for those two links:
a. if THC was a wonder drug against Alzheimers, wouldn't scientists have noticed by now that there's no dementia in Jamaica..:)
b. Yes I read about couples who smoke together don't have domestic violence much. I was hardly surprised: I would assume they spend too much time eating and sleeping and being generally demotivated to get into arguments. (Smiley again, sort of..)
A>
ReplyDeleteLots of data on this Steve. There is promise there but political issues have stopped much of the research. Yet I have files going back 15 years showing potential promise. It is only now they are looking at it more seriously because the political climate has changed.
B
Forget the eating business, a recent study found marijuana smokers had better glucose control and BMIs than the controls. Here's one reason why: sustained smoking suppresses the appetite. I think there is a self selection issue, in my experience pot heads are not the sort of people who engage in violence of any kind.
Better if such couples don't have kids though, pot and parenting don't go well together and I wonder if they factored that into the analysis.