Reefer Madness

Did you know that smoking as little as half a joint will make you crazy? That’s what the scientists say:

Dr Deepak D’Souza, a professor of psychiatry at Yale, said: ‘At doses roughly equivalent to half or a single joint, delta-9-THC produced psychosis-like effects and increased neural noise in humans.’

First author of the study, Dr Jose Cortes-Briones, a postdoctoral associate in psychiatry at Yale, added: ‘The dose-dependent and strong positive relationship between these two findings suggest that the psychosis-like effects of cannabis may be related to neural noise which disrupts the brain’s normal information processing.’

Researchers studied the effects of delta-9-THC on electrical brain activity in 24 human subjects, who took part in a three-day study.

During the experiments, they received two doses of intravenous delta-9-THC or a placebo in a double-blind, randomised, cross-over and counterbalanced design.

If confirmed, the link between neural noise and psychosis could shed light on the biology of some of the symptoms associated with schizophrenia.

Dr John Krystal, editor of Biological Psychiatry, the journal in which the study is published, said the research marks an important part of the debate over whether cannabis should be legalised.

Odd, because I’ve seen a lot of stoned people and they never struck me as psychotic. Stoned, perhaps.

Of course, I’m not a behavioral scientist who charts out what they call “neural noise” based on interpretations of electrical activity. Hell, I might be getting increased neural noise right now just from thinking about it.

I’m reminded of the claims that pornography causeserototoxins” in the brain. (Since then, the same experts have claimed that erototoxins cause homosexuality.)


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7 responses to “Reefer Madness”

  1. dittybopper Avatar
    dittybopper

    I thought it was “Eurotoxins” that did that.

  2. Captain Ned Avatar
    Captain Ned

    Neural Noise = “Feed Me”.

  3. Man Mountain Molehill Avatar
    Man Mountain Molehill

    Pay an expert enough grant money and they will say anything.

    If these people are ex perts what was a pert?

    Remember when LSD caused chromosome damage and would make you stare at the sun until your eyes burned out?

    They come up with a new “study” demonstrating the deleterious effects of [insert name of this weeks drug issue excitement du jour here. fnord] every six months.

    Pot is directly responsible for global warming, terrorism, restless knee syndrome, drives illegal immigration and makes your dandruff 13.7239% flakier. Or something…

    Did you know that illicit marjiwanna farms are responsible for 37.856024785% of all greenhouse gas emissions? And I understand they are major users of dihydrogen monoxide, an industrial chemical which has proven fatal in multiple incidents.

  4. Man Mountain Molehill Avatar
    Man Mountain Molehill

    hmmmm…

    So, now I’m wondering if legalizing, as we did here in WA increased snack food consumption. First thought, check Frito-Lay stock prices, see if they’ve gone up circa last year or two, turns out they’re privately held.

  5. Simon Avatar

    turns out they’re privately held.

    Would you want them doing it in public?

  6. Man Mountain Molehill Avatar
    Man Mountain Molehill

    They can keep their erototoxins to themselves.

  7. Man Mountain Molehill Avatar
    Man Mountain Molehill

    Well, I just smoked a nice bowl of Hawaiian Dream, and I really don’t see what the big dealllllllisssss…whackwhackwooo!!!!!yahoooie!2woopwoopyipyipyipyipwoohoooooooooo………………… Ooooh, why does my new suit have such long sleeves?