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Drugs are bad. Drugs destroy peoples' lives. Didn't you know that marijuana turns regular everyday people into zombie pot smokers? That's why we have a war on drugs in America: to protect our children from potheads.
Drugs are bad. Especially marijuana. I learned this the other day when I visited an elementary school as a guest speaker. The schoolchildren were well trained in describing the dangers of drugs. On command, they would spout out any number of statements describing them.
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Medical researchers are once again warning about the long-term memory effects of smoking marijuana. Toking on the herb for decades apparently makes your memory, well, dopey. That is, if you believe the study which was based on 40 people found in a drug rehabilitation program who said they only smoked marijuana about 20 times in their entire life.
Right. I've never heard of anyone checking into a rehab center after smoking pot only 20 times. And besides, if pot destroys a person's memory as researchers claim it does, how do they know these people haven't smoked pot a thousand times and just can't remember?
Let's face it: Basing research on the personal memories of people who scientists claim have had their memories destroyed is not exactly good science. It sounds more like an agenda that uses science to support the War on Drugs and the continued incarceration of thousands of Americans whose only crime is getting high in the basement of their parents' house.
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A compound found in marijuana won’t make you high but it may help keep your eyes healthy if you’re a diabetic, researchers say.
Early studies indicate cannabidiol works as a consummate multi-tasker to protect the eye from growing a plethora of leaky blood vessels, the hallmark of diabetic retinopathy, says Dr. Gregory I. Liou, molecular biologist at the Medical College of Georgia.
“We are studying the role of cannabinoid receptors in our body and trying to modulate them so we can defend against diabetic retinopathy,” Dr. Liou says. Diabetic retinopathy is the leading cause of blindness in working-age adults and affects nearly 16 million Americans.
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(NaturalNews) California governor Arnold Schwarzenegger vetoed a bill last week that would have allowed the state's farmers to grow hemp for its oil, seed and fiber for industrial use in the production of food, paper, personal care products, car parts and building materials.
AB1147 -- co-authored by Assemblymen Mark Leno, D-San Francisco, and Chuck Devore, R-Irvine -- sought to allow California to join the 30 other countries that allow hemp farming. Currently California state law does not differentiate between hemp crops and marijuana crops, so farmers have been hesitant to grow hemp for fear of having their crops confiscated.
Schwarzenegger said in his veto message that although he wants to encourage new state agricultural production, there is no federal law distinguishing between hemp and marijuana.
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(NaturalNews) A study conducted by scientists at Scripps Research Institute in California has found that, contrary to marijuana's reputation, the ingredients of the drug can actually fight off the memory-impairing effects of Alzheimer's disease.
The researchers found that the active ingredient in marijuana -- delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol, or THC -- is responsible for the positive effect, as it can prevent the breakdown of the neurotransmitter acetylcholine even better than commercially marketed prescription drugs.
The study also showed that THC could completely prevent the enzyme acetylcholinesterase (AchE) from forming amyloid plaques, whereas twice as much donepezil and tacrine -- the two drugs approved for Alzheimer's treatment -- only reduced such clumping by 22 and 7 percent, respectively, the researchers reported in the journal Molecular Pharmaceutics. This led the scientists to conclude that a more effective Alzheimer's drug could be developed in the future.
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(NaturalNews) The biggest cash crop in the United States is not corn or wheat, according to public policy analyst Jon Gettman, as marijuana produces more annual revenue than those crops combined; nearly $35 billion.
The report by medical marijuana advocate and former National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws head Gettman also stated that California, Tennessee, Kentucky, Hawaii and Washington produce more than $1 billion worth of the plant each.
The approximately $35 billion figure in the report was based on government reports made between 2002 and 2005, in which estimated marijuana production levels in the United States were at more than 10,000 metric tons a year. Gettman used a national survey of marijuana retail prices between 2001 and 2005, which put the cost at between $2,400 and $3,000, and calculated the price per pound of marijuana at $1,606.
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(NaturalNews) In California, where marijuana has been legal for medical use since the Compassionate Use Act was passed into law in 1996, Drug Enforcement Administration agents raided 11 dispensaries of medical marijuana, seizing a large cache of marijuana and marijuana-based products, raising concerns over state’s rights.
On Wednesday, search warrants were served at four locations in the San Fernando Valley, five locations in West Hollywood, with the remainder being executed in Venice and Hollywood.
The raids yielded several thousand pounds of Marijuana, confectionaries based on the plant, several fire arms, and “a significant amount of U.S. currency,” according to a DEA Public Information Officer for the Los Angeles Field Office, Special Agent Sarah Pullen.
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(NaturalNews) In one of the few extensive tests of marijuana's medical benefits, a study by researchers at the San Francisco General Hospital has shown the drug can ease HIV-related pain in some patients, but the Bush administration's Office of National Drug Control Policy has dismissed the study and its results.
From 2003 to 2005 the researchers studied 50 HIV positive patients with peripheral neuropathy, a foot pain related to HIV for which there is currently no specific drug treatment. Half of the patients smoked marijuana cigarettes three times daily for a week, while the other half of the participants smoked placebo cigarettes that were free of tetrahydrocannabinol -- the active ingredient of marijuana -- in what the scientists report is the first trial to use a comparison group. The cigarettes were machine rolled by staff at the National Institute of Drug Abuse, which is the only place the drug can be obtained legally.
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