• This is a political forum that is non-biased/non-partisan and treats every person's position on topics equally. This debate forum is not aligned to any political party. In today's politics, many ideas are split between and even within all the political parties. Often we find ourselves agreeing on one platform but some topics break our mold. We are here to discuss them in a civil political debate. If this is your first visit to our political forums, be sure to check out the RULES. Registering for debate politics is necessary before posting. Register today to participate - it's free!

Casual marijuana use linked with brain abnormalities, study finds

sangha said:
That's a pretty ignorant statement
Click to expand...

I was commenting on the other person's depression on the level that they explained it. You aren't going to find many clinically depressed people who are happy when they are supposed to be happy.
 
jmotivator said:
I was commenting on the other person's depression on the level that they explained it. You aren't going to find many clinically depressed people who are happy when they are supposed to be happy.
Click to expand...

This statement was almost as ignorant as the one I originally responded to.
 
Beside the basic idiocy of this particular specious "study" (no consideration of pre-condition, exceeedingly small sample size, largely anecdotal subject usage stats), the results show nothing new. Back in the late 60s when we were doing rat lab studies we knew the regions of the brain that were being stimulated. The main affected area was to do with pleasure response. It's long been known that when you "exercise" regions of the brain consistently, they thicken, become more dense with dendrites, become more responsive to stimuli.

So it makes sense that pot smokers would develop a greater pleasure response. Heck, I'm most happy to have an increased pleasure response. :mrgreen:
 
Fenton said:
"Ditch digging" ?

People that smoke dope daily, are chosing to go through life with a cognitive handicap, regardless of their education or how mamt degrees they've earned.

And sorry but I'm calling BS on your'e alledged pot smoking PHD acquaintances.

Engineers are a pretty specific brand of individial. I know because I've worked for several Aero-Space Contractors for the last 20 years.

They are typically, quiet, highly intelligent and some are even borderline High Functioning Autistics, who take their abilities, knowledge and intelligence very seriously.

Too seriously to throw caution to the wind and engage in a self destructive behaviour like smoking dope.
Click to expand...

You may call BS on whatever you like. Your preconceived notions and bias have no affect on the reality.
 
Erod said:
Casual marijuana use linked with brain abnormalities, study finds | Fox News



Duh.

I laugh every time I hear from pot smokers that marijuana use is completely harmless compared to alcohol. No one can possibly believe marijuana is the least bit harmless.

I had a buddy in high school that was probably the brightest guy in our class, and he was extremely outgoing. He found pot, and within a year, he had no gleam in his eye. He became this blank, empty loner of a guy that I could hardly recognize.

It eats your brain, folks. Legal or not, it destroys who you are.

On a selfish note, it culls the herd for my kids, whom I'm confident find potheads to be as pathetic as I do.
Click to expand...

An exchange of absolutes. Potheads saying it does no damage, anti-pot camps saying it 'eats your brain', and neither are right. If you read what the study said, it indicated that the abnormalities found in the brains of pot smokers, even occasional ones, have an enlarged part of the brain that receives the signals that make you feel good when you smoke marijuana. And that's the point of the medical side to marijuana; it's promoting the part of the brain that some people have issues with.

The things that matter about this are: marijuana is to some degree harmful, and it's not for everyone, and we have to understand it as part of a broader public health policy, but it's already much less harmful than other things that we leave to the discretion of mature adults already. I think Obama was right on in saying; it is in fact much less damaging that the effects of alcohol, but it's still an unhealthy vice and it's the governments job to help people understand that.
 
phildozer9121 said:
I think Obama was right on in saying; it is in fact much less damaging that the effects of alcohol, but it's still an unhealthy vice and it's the governments job to help people understand that.
Click to expand...

I rarely agree with Obama on anything, but on this I do. Inhaling smoke of any kind into your lungs is never, and can never be 'harmless'. I'm all for unrestricted, unregulated complete legalization (and I don't even think it should be taxed), but in a way, I think it would be even more harmful if it were federally legal, because then we'd have big tobacco companies manufacturing it and adding hundreds of chemicals to it like they do to cigarettes.
 
sangha said:
This statement was almost as ignorant as the one I originally responded to.
Click to expand...

And this statement is no more compelling than your first one.
 
jmotivator said:
No, I don't think they or you are weak. I think they have an emotional disorder, which they do. I also think that quick fixes like anti-depressants have only made it worse for people suffering through depression. I've never been a fan of chemical fixes to chemical imbalances because I don't think it helps develop the proper coping skills.
Click to expand...

I'm not quite sure why it's an either/or choice. Why not fix the chemical imbalance, and address coping mechanisms? You can't will your brain into chemical balance, and it's important to know how to cope with that imbalance, but borderline cruel to expect people to simply suck it up and cope with the depression if there is an option to cure or temporarily alleviate the chemical imbalance at the heart of the problem.

I could go into it, but I'm not guessing about this. I 'coped' with persistent but manageable depression for most of my adult life. It wasn't fun. When I took concrete steps to address the chemical imbalance at the heart of it, life improved enormously and has remained far better, and there was less need to cope with anything.

I share the skepticism about SSRIs and other approaches, but being skeptical about ONE option to address the chemical balance says nothing about the benefits of attacking the problem at the source.
 
Erod said:
Casual marijuana use linked with brain abnormalities, study finds | Fox News



Duh.

I laugh every time I hear from pot smokers that marijuana use is completely harmless compared to alcohol. No one can possibly believe marijuana is the least bit harmless.

I had a buddy in high school that was probably the brightest guy in our class, and he was extremely outgoing. He found pot, and within a year, he had no gleam in his eye. He became this blank, empty loner of a guy that I could hardly recognize.

It eats your brain, folks. Legal or not, it destroys who you are.

On a selfish note, it culls the herd for my kids, whom I'm confident find potheads to be as pathetic as I do.
Click to expand...

And what do the abnormalities mean?
 
Erod said:
Casual marijuana use linked with brain abnormalities, study finds | Fox News



Duh.

I laugh every time I hear from pot smokers that marijuana use is completely harmless compared to alcohol. No one can possibly believe marijuana is the least bit harmless.

I had a buddy in high school that was probably the brightest guy in our class, and he was extremely outgoing. He found pot, and within a year, he had no gleam in his eye. He became this blank, empty loner of a guy that I could hardly recognize.

It eats your brain, folks. Legal or not, it destroys who you are.

On a selfish note, it culls the herd for my kids, whom I'm confident find potheads to be as pathetic as I do.
Click to expand...

Absolute nonsense, your friend had another physical/psychological problem that you just did not know about. Or he was actually stoned when you saw him.
There is no way that smoking some pot for a year will destroy your brain on it's own with no other mitigating circumstance...ZERO CHANCE.

Prove me wrong with links to unbiased, factual proof.

Guess what...you cannot.


Is smoking a lot of pot bad for you? Of course it is. So is drinking a lot of alcohol and smoking and not exercising and over eating and too much stress and on and on. Even drinking too much water can kill you.

But to say smoking any amount of it will 'destroy you' is ignorant nonsense.

Too much of anything can 'destroy you'.

But study after study shows that pot is less harmful the alcohol.

And I have known MANY people that have smoked it for years and they seem just as much 'as they are' as they used to be.

Please save your Reefer Madness, ignorance for the 1950's.


Btw, I don't smoke dope (it makes me a bit paranoid)...so I am not biased.
 
Hands down, the smartest man I know is a habitual pot smoker. I mean multiple times daily. 7 days a week, 365 days a year. He can certainly hold his own in a debate of knowledge with the best of them, while under the influence. So this study to me has no basis in reality.
 
OnWisconsin said:
Hands down, the smartest man I know is a habitual pot smoker. I mean multiple times daily. 7 days a week, 365 days a year. He can certainly hold his own in a debate of knowledge with the best of them, while under the influence. So this study to me has no basis in reality.
Click to expand...

Every rule has exceptions.
 
OnWisconsin said:
Hands down, the smartest man I know is a habitual pot smoker. I mean multiple times daily. 7 days a week, 365 days a year. He can certainly hold his own in a debate of knowledge with the best of them, while under the influence. So this study to me has no basis in reality.
Click to expand...

Have you given your friend a brain scan to see if the reported abnormalities exist? 'cause if you haven't, then you can't say he's unaffected by pot.
 
JasperL said:
I'm not quite sure why it's an either/or choice. Why not fix the chemical imbalance, and address coping mechanisms? You can't will your brain into chemical balance, and it's important to know how to cope with that imbalance, but borderline cruel to expect people to simply suck it up and cope with the depression if there is an option to cure or temporarily alleviate the chemical imbalance at the heart of the problem.

I could go into it, but I'm not guessing about this. I 'coped' with persistent but manageable depression for most of my adult life. It wasn't fun. When I took concrete steps to address the chemical imbalance at the heart of it, life improved enormously and has remained far better, and there was less need to cope with anything.

I share the skepticism about SSRIs and other approaches, but being skeptical about ONE option to address the chemical balance says nothing about the benefits of attacking the problem at the source.
Click to expand...

From my experience the methods we have to compensate for the chemical imbalance and then trying to learn coping techniques is like giving a person a case of beer and asking them to drive a car.
 
spud_meister said:
Have you given your friend a brain scan to see if the reported abnormalities exist? 'cause if you haven't, then you can't say he's unaffected by pot.
Click to expand...

And the only thing anyone can say about those who have the brain changes is that their brains changed. Not what effects it has had. Crappy reporting by the news, especially Fox News.
 
Dezaad said:
And the only thing anyone can say about those who have the brain changes is that their brains changed. Not what effects it has had. Crappy reporting by the news, especially Fox News.
Click to expand...

“There were abnormalities in their working memory, which is fundamental to everything you do,” Breiter, a professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, told FoxNews.com.
Click to expand...

Casual marijuana use linked with brain abnormalities, study finds | Fox News

That's not an effect? Or is it just an excuse to blame Fox News?
 
Re: Study finds brain changes in young marijuana users

American said:
But not bad for anyone else's brain, adults are immune. Thanks.
Click to expand...

Its side-effects are comparable to doctor prescribed medications.
 
Re: Study finds brain changes in young marijuana users

Jango said:
Its side-effects are comparable to doctor prescribed medications.
Click to expand...

Then light up and puff yourself to death.
 
Re: Study finds brain changes in young marijuana users

Peter Jones, professor of psychiatry at the University of Cambridge, said the study was interesting but inconclusive. "The research is limited as it is only a small study, it is not known whether the reported changes in the brain are necessarily bad. Furthermore, as they didn't measure the brains before and after, it's possible that people with a larger accumbens are more likely to take cannabis."
Click to expand...

Ya gotta love those Faux New articles.
 
Dezaad said:
And the only thing anyone can say about those who have the brain changes is that their brains changed. Not what effects it has had. Crappy reporting by the news, especially Fox News.
Click to expand...

Well the study didn't measure effects of the abnormalities, only that they're there. Any speculation about what the changes mean is just speculation.
 
Re: Study finds brain changes in young marijuana users

Jango said:
Bears repeating: What is this study supposed to prove? It is already widely held and pretty much common knowledge that brains that are not fully developed should not be exposed to marijuana, or other brain chemical altering substances.

It's sad that the people that generally **** all over marijuana are the types of people that dope their kids up on medications prescribed by doctors who typically have no idea about the long-term affects the little white pills will have on Johnny's brain, body and health when he gets older.
Click to expand...
Sources?
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom