Scientists are High on Idea that Marijuana Reduces Memory Impairment

these foos got it all wrong though, theyre trying to advertise pill forms, WHICH IS NOT WHAT WE WANT

Free it!

every time i see research done about cannabis its always positive, if it had a clean slate then its state of legality and negative connotations would disappear, its just everyone is too damn stubborn to change the way we as a society look at it

the only reason marijuana was ever banned was because of the timber industry's greed for money. Marijuana and it's by products could probably a. get us out of a recession and b. lead us to new medicinal discoveries. Did you know it was once law that along with harvesting cotton, farmers had to harvest marijuana? yes, it was a law because at the time hemp was what made our paper. it's not called weed for nothing. we turned a weed into something useful. until money and greed stepped in the way and killed those venues for us.

shame on the tree-killing timber industry.

shame on the government for falling into their trap, although seeing as to how AIG so easily led people to believe that we should fund their millions of personal expenses with our hard-earned money, it doesn't surprise me. and still, we see nothing from them except their acre houses and "board meetings".

it's about time we re-claim our right to use what nature gave us as a source.

it's not about the drug its about the health advantages and resources it can provide us.

why not target more harmful drugs than something as beautiful as marijuana? why not funnel our anti-drug money into stopping cocaine and meth cooks handing out rat poison to kids?

SMOKE IT! GET.....................(smart)?

another pot myth debunked!

AS for the NIDA claim heavy usage damages neurons...what is heavy usage and where does that info come from?

So You Guys Want To Ban Cigarette Smoking And Legalize Weed??

The side effects of smoking weed is a lot less than the Pills I was taking. the weed is a lot better at keeping me calm and I don't get frustaighted when I smoke. me and the wife get along a lot better when I smoke and thats worth all the jail time they can give me.

Heavy Marijuana Use Hurts

The U.S. National Institute on Drug Abuse says heavy marijuana smoking damages short-term recall and hastens age- related destruction of neurons in the brain's hippocampus responsible for memory, according to the agency's Web site.

WIN isn't a perfect compound, Marchalant said. Now that researchers know the effects on the brain they're trying to produce, and the receptors they're trying to influence, they can search for a better compound, he said.

Smoking pot, or taking WIN, once the memory loss of Alzheimer's had already begun, wouldn't help, Marchalant said.

``It's too late,'' he said. ``Patients who have been diagnosed have already lost neurons.''

A preventive strategy would need to start years earlier, he said.

To contact the reporter on this story: Rob Waters in San Francisco at rwaters5@bloomberg.net.

Puff-a-Day Marijuana Dose Helped Older Rats Remember
By Rob Waters

Nov. 19, 2008 -- A daily puff of a compound like marijuana, the plant blamed for ruining potheads' recall, might help maintain memory in old age, researchers who tried it on rats reported today at a neuroscience meeting.

Elderly rats remembered their way around a swimming pool and could find hidden resting spots after Yannick Marchalant and his colleagues at Ohio State University gave them a compound that mimics the effect of marijuana on the brain's cannabis receptors. The marijuana-like drug, known as WIN-55212-2, spurred new brain cell growth and reduced inflammation, the researchers said.

Inflammation in the brain may be linked to the development or progression of Alzheimer's, a progressive disease that destroys brain cells, disrupting the memory and cognitive capacity of some 4.5 million Americans, some scientists believe. Marchalant and his colleagues have been hunting for drugs to reduce inflammation.

``We used a low dose because we didn't want to give them a drug that tried to save their memory while we're also causing psychoactive effects,'' Marchalant said in a telephone interview yesterday. ``The dosage of WIN would be like giving one puff a day and not a whole joint.''

Marchalant and his team reported their results today at the Society for Neuroscience meeting in Washington, D.C. In the study, they first caused inflammation in the brains of young rats, which they could measure by looking at the activity of anti-inflammatory cells. Then they injected rats with WIN and saw that it reduced the activity of the inflammation-fighting cells.

Old Rats Quicker

With the older rats, they didn't need to induce inflammation because it was already present. They injected some of the old rats with WIN and had them spend time in a swimming tank.

It turned out that the rats who got hits of WIN found the hidden resting places much quicker than those who didn't. Later, the researchers dissected the rats' brains and found a reduction in inflammation and evidence that new brain cells had sprouted.

While marijuana might also promote the growth of new brain cells, it doesn't have WIN's ability to block another brain receptor that appears to cause inflammation, a key difference between the two compounds, Marchalant said. Too much pot also would overstimulate the cannabis receptors, he said.

``That's what everyone is trying to avoid,'' Marchalant said. ``If you overstimulate, you'll have a detrimental effect on memory.''

I'll Stimulate to that!!!

actually if you are still growing, THC effects your brain negatively. It devastates the growing and developing neurons. If your old, then it stimulates your neurons.

what were we talking about?

Losers? Sorry acontradiction, but I believe these guys over you. These guys have proven history! These are the voices of Americans we can trust.

"Two of my favorite things are sitting on my front porch smoking a pipe of sweet hemp, and playing my Hohner harmonica." - Abraham Lincoln (from a letter written by Lincoln during his presidency to the head of the Hohner Harmonica Company in Germany)

"Hemp is of first necessity to the wealth & protection of the country."
- Thomas Jefferson, U.S. President

"Make the most you can of the Indian Hemp seed and sow it everywhere."
- George Washington, U.S. President

"We shall, by and by, want a world of hemp more for our own consumption."
- John Adams, U.S. President

"Penalties against possession of a drug should not be more damaging to an individual than the use of the drug itself; and where they are, they should be changed. Nowhere is this more clear than in the laws against possession of marihuana in private for personal use... Therefore, I support legislation amending Federal law to eliminate all Federal criminal penalties for the possession of up to one ounce of marihuana." - Jimmy Carter, U.S. President

"Prohibition... goes beyond the bound of reason in that it attempts to control a man's appetite by legislation and makes a crime out of things that are not crimes. A prohibition law strikes a blow at the very principles upon which our government was founded" -Abraham Lincoln

"The prestige of government has undoubtedly been lowered considerably by the prohibition law. For nothing is more destructive of respect for the government and the law of the land than passing laws which cannot be enforced. It is an open secret that the dangerous increase of crime in this country is closely connected with this." - Albert Einstein quote on Hemp

This is great!

So when can I smoke up on my lunch break without getting dirty looks from my co-workers?

imagine if we spent billions of dollars studying it !
how much better could our planet be ?

heeeeeeeeeeeeey!

“Could people smoke marijuana to prevent Alzheimer’s disease if the disease is in their family? We’re not saying that, but it might actually work.

Check your family tree and get your oz. Of protection today!

U.S. Patent # 6630507 - In 2003, the U.S. Government as represented by the Department of Health and Human Services filed for, and was awarded a patent on cannabinoids as antioxidants and neuroprotectants.

Old news ;)

http://cannabis-science.com/

Aw. The paragraph is is a buzz kill. "The end goal is not to recommend the use of THC in humans to reduce Alzheimer’s."

Just because specific chemicals in pot may slow memory lose doesn't mean that actually smoking the stuff will have the same effect. Wine contains chemicals that are good for you liver, but winos die of of cirrhosis all the time.

Not that I'm saying pot should be illegal, I think it shouldn't be, but thinking it'll improve your memory is wishful thinking.

No way. This is a lie. Weed is POISON!

The government says so.

They never lie.

I very rarely hear something bad about marijuana that is true. this needs to be legalized what the hell is wrong with our stubborn ass government

let me toke up for the good news!!!

Did anyone read the part about WIN-55212-2? Am I the only person who was like 'damn, let me get some'.?

Now this is some good news.

lol I can only imagine the old lady down the street getting hella high with her cats.

I always saw memory loss as the only plausible argument against pot. I love to be wrong sometimes!

time to fax congress. if something gets faxed they are supposed to keep it on file....lets send them 100 million peices of paper ! see if they can ignore that !

time to go crazy.

aint that some shit....who says you cant teach old dogs new tricks. every time i turn around marijuana does something miraculous.........now we gotta get the gubment out the way.....good will win , eventually, hopefully

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