Message to Frank le Fever,
Some months ago I put up a posting "Are Brains Smarter Than Us" to which you
posted a lengthy reply. Unfortunately at this time my ISP news server
entered into a truly random state and it wasn't until some weeks later I
noticed your postings on the Deja archives. Thanks Frank and all the best. I
still really need some help with this though ...
Stephan Anagnostaras wrote in message ...
>In article <7226jv$884$1 at morgoth.sfu.ca>, cgoodin at sfu.ca (Charles
>Frederick Goodin) wrote:
>>> I'd always heard that marijuana (or THC) wasn't physiologically
>> addictive. Recently someone mentioned to me that there'd been some
>> research that went against this. Has anyone heard anything?
>>>> chuk
>>The term "physiologically addictive" is meaningless. All behavior is
>based in physiology and when people say "psychologically and not
>biologically addictive" it just means they don't know what the neural
>substrate is. Obviously drugs produce their effects on the brain through
>physiological action (they are not your mother), and the term
>"psychologically addictive" is not really relevant (don't get me wrong,
>maybe you can be psychologically addicted to love, but not drugs).
I BELIEVE the distinction between physiological and psychological addiction
simply betrays our ignorance. The distinction reeks of dualism too much for
me, and we
can't have that in bionet.neuroscience.
>Now, what people are usually refering to in "physiologically" addictive is
>that the drug produces dependence. The definition of dependence is that
>there is a marked withdrawal syndrome upon abstinence from the drug. By
>this definition, THC is not addictive, because the abstinence syndrome is
>mild or nonexistent.
Marijuana, makes you happy, kept me happy for years, much moreso than
various psychiatric drugs cast in my direction and which I have now
abandoned. Be
honest, the side effects of these drugs are far more severe than pot and
there is evidence to suggest these classes of drugs can produce greater
delibilitation than the evil weed. These drugs are used because it is the
best current legal medical treatment, but that's no reason to pretend they
are better than personal treatment choices. Why is it addictive in some
people?
"Marijuana is addictive in the sense that anything pleasurable is worth
doing again."
Robert Neville.
Snip of lots of good stuff.
Is it valid to create a scale of addiction? Isn't addiciton contingent as
much, if not more, upon the individual than the drug itself? I'm not
suggesting that such studies are useless (quite the contrary) but I suspect
they can give the wrong impression about what addiction is.
>All this said, the other negative aspects of marijuana use should be
>considered. First, smoked marijuana contains potent carcinogens which are
>plain bad for your health. Second, it is illegal for recreational use and
>you may prevent yourself from getting the job you want unwittingly... some
>drug tests are quite sensitive to marijuana use for some time. Third, as
>with any mind-altering drug, be careful the company you keep especially if
>you are doing it for the first time, because, depending on the individual,
>these drugs can have unpredictable effects in some people.
The smoking of marijuana must be harmful. There is some confounding evidence
though. A recent 15 year report to WHO put forward results suggesting no
long term respiratory problems while others have indicated precancerous
cells present in potheads respiratory tracts. It does help some people with
asthma though and it seems to me that while there are bad effects there are
possibly compensating good effects that have not being detected because
until recently none of you boffins have so chosen to search for the same.
Given the political climate you had little choice but a team of British
doctors recently announced that they intend developing an inhalant for
cannaboids to be administered immediately to stroke victims because they
have established that cannaboids act as powerful anti-oxidants in the brain
cleaning up the mess after a stroke. Perhaps the current confusion we
experience with marijuana is our blindness to the possibility that it may
also be doing some powerful good for some people. If so many people are
using it it can't be all that bad.
Eg. Two friends, smoking all their adult
life, one 40, other 50, both excelling at college even though niether has
undertaken any tertiary study before. The younger one, some years ago and
while completely stoned, topped a state wide entrance exam. Both are very
active individuals, constantly on the go and never having enough time for
all the things they want to do and both are perpetually stoned. People
really are strange creatures, particularly when you have to categorise them.
The real tradegy I see today is all the teenagers getting into it. This is
where the community must mobilise because marijuana is very delibitating for
bored people who do not have a naturally high level of mental activity. (I
used to say that what I liked about pot was that it slowed my brain down
enough so I could watch it. How's that for incriminating evidence,
particularly given these days it don't need no slowing down?) Marijuana
makes you happy, and when you're happy you don't wanna try that hard, the
world's a beautiful place and you just wanna enjoy it. If, like in
Australia, you are one of those teenagers confronting a 30% unemployment
rate, and you know that down the road happiness awaits, what are you going
to do? Forget about the adults, if we don't tackle the problem with
teenagers we're basically going to end up with a generation of meandering
souls
who couldn't maintain a coherent line of thought even if their life
depended on it. I'm seeing plenty of this already and I'm not exactly Mr.
Concentration either.
Regards
Rugrat
