Cannabis brain damage worse in teens than thought: study

New study suggests cannabis use by teens damages brain worse than suspected

Thu Dec 17, 5:58 PM, By Bernard Barbeau, The Canadian Press

MONTREAL - The effects of daily cannabis use on teenage brains is worse than originally thought and the long-term effects appear to be irreversible, new research from McGill University suggests.

The study, by Dr. Gabriella Gobbi, a psychiatric researcher from the Research Institute of the McGill University Health Centre, suggests that daily cannabis consumption can lead to depression and anxiety.

Marijuana dispensaries breed crime in California

No place for marijuana dispensary in Saratoga, at least not for the next 45 days

Pot & drugs fueled destructive behaviors

 (This was at a time in the 60's-70's when pot was still the mild stuff)

CHICAGO - Former child star Mackenzie Phillips said Wednesday that she had a decade-long sexual relationship with her father, pop superstar John Phillips, who also taught her how to roll joints and injected her with cocaine.

Active ingredients in marijuana found to spread and prolong pain

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Pot shrunk Snoop Dogg's brain (literally)

(Apparently, pot does destroy brain-memory cells, as proven by rapper Snoop Dogg -- nb)
Read more here...  

http://tinyurl.com/yddglvb

or click Read More below...

Not the groovy '60s: Today's cannabis is harder and meaner

By MARGARET WENTE, June 26, 2007, Page A17, The Globe and Mail
For Don Smyth, it was the kind of encounter he has had too often. A Filipino family had invited him to their little townhouse in Toronto to see whether he could help rescue their 18-year-old son, who was about to be expelled from school for drug trafficking. Mr. Smyth, a therapist, specializes in drug prevention and addiction among young adults.

When the kid was roused from bed, Mr. Smyth saw he was severely addicted. "He showed all the physical signs - agitation, restlessness, aggression - that I used to see in people withdrawing from cocaine." But the drug wasn't cocaine. It was marijuana.

Last week, people reacted with outrage over the story of Kieran King, the15-year-old Saskatchewan student whose school came down on him like a sledgehammer because he dared to argue that marijuana is relatively benign. The school was wrong in its reaction but right on its facts. The vast majority of the marijuana inhaled today is not the mellow weed you and I remember from our youth. It is many times more powerful. In fact, the United Nations now classifies Canadian-grown marijuana as a hard drug whose destructive power puts it in the same league as cocaine.

Why pothead Brad Pitt quit pot

His early days in Hollywood...
"I liked to smoke a bit of grass at the time (actually a lot), and I became very sheltered. Then I got bored. I was turning into a damn doughnut, really. So I moved as far away from that as I could. I was done. In Missouri, where I come from, we don't talk about what we do--we just do it. If we talk about it, it's seen as bragging." --excerpt from... http://tinyurl.com/oxs6b8

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"...a longtime friend of Pitt's tells the Globe the movie hunk is much 'clearer' now he's given up pot. He says, "His whole life has changed since he stopped smoking pot. He found he was thinking clearer and feeling better." -- excerpt from...  http://tinyurl.com/yhtq4wt

Cannabis "can cause psychosis in healthy people"

A potent form of cannabis can cause healthy people to develop psychotic illnesses, a new British study has proved.
Article website at...
http://tinyurl.com/l9s59t
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Marijuana Damages DNA And May Cause Cancer, New Test Reveals

ScienceDaily (June 15, 2009)

Using a highly sensitive new test, scientists in Europe are reporting "convincing evidence" that marijuana smoke damages the genetic material DNA in ways that could increase the risk of cancer.

Read more at website

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Visitors to Vancouver shocked by results of its de facto drug legalizations

Hastings Street's misery stuns and frightens Irish visitors
(A letter published in The Province, 4/5/2009)...

" I recently visited Vancouver with my wife and two-year-old son from Ireland and, while we found the hospitality welcoming, we were shocked at what we saw.

Having wandered (as tourists do) into Chinatown, we ended up by accident on Hastings Street. The site of scores of shuffling homeless, vacant and rambling mentally ill and drug addicts reminded me of a scene from a George A. Romero zombie film.

My wife was immediately fearful and we fled the area.

For a city boasting the Winter Olympics, might I suggest that you take a few million out of the kitty and use it to assist these poor unfortunates? I have lived and worked in India and South Africa, so the sight of human misery is not new to me.

Unfortunately, this is the lasting image I end up discussing with friends and colleagues here in Ireland when they ask me about Vancouver.

Owen Lydon, Spiddal, Ireland "

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BC'er disgusted with Vancouver's drug liberalism

(A letter published in Vancouver Sun, 3/30/2009)...

"On a recent Saturday night, I once again took the thought-altering drive through the Main and Hastings area of Vancouver. If anything, the situation looked worse than ever.

Last September, I took my second trip to New York City, the first being 40 years ago. In 1968, I couldn't believe what I saw -- street begging, bars on windows, people sleeping in doorways. Although that city has been cleaned up, Vancouver has now become what New York City was.

On my recent visit to Manhattan, tables were set up at various corners, with a vested attendant and a 40-litre plastic water jug for donations to the needy and homeless; those were the only places where passersby were encouraged to give money. Seattle's Pioneer Square had a booth for the same purpose the last time I was in that area.

The police presence (on foot) in New York was remarkable, frequent, friendly and effective. You could often see the squad captains talking to the officers, then dispersing patrols from the Times Square subway station. I felt safe on the subways I feared to ride in 1968. I went out alone (a 59-year- old woman) a few times in the evenings and felt perfectly safe. I would never do that in most downtown areas of Vancouver.

Little more than 10 months remain until our guests arrive for the 2010 Winter Olympics. It serves us not at all to pay later for what we don't do now, in human costs above all. Every one of us has a responsibility to help.

Don't let Main and Hastings as it is today be the memory that Olympics visitors take away.

Eileen Robinson, Pitt Meadows "

Europe's approach to drugs is more enlightened ... it's tougher

MARGARET WENTE, The Globe and Mail, July 17, 2008  

In 2006, Governor-General Michaëlle Jean was hosting Queen Silvia of Sweden during the Swedish royal family's visit to Canada when the topic of illegal drug use came up. The GG told the Queen that Canada is taking an enlightened approach. Instead of punishing users, she said, society needs to be understanding of drug use and assist in reducing harm until the addict is ready to quit.

Alas, the Queen was not impressed. She briskly informed the GG that Sweden takes a hard-line approach, that users are given a choice between treatment and jail, and that Sweden's addiction rates are much lower than Canada's. After that, they changed the subject.

Advocates of harm-reduction measures, such as needle exchanges, methadone programs and Vancouver's supervised-injection site, often point to Europe's more enlightened approach to drugs as proof of how far behind we are in Canada. But parts of Europe are having second thoughts. Socially progressive Sweden had a brief but disastrous fling with prescription heroin back in the 1960s. After that, it embraced the hard-line approach. Today its policy is to make drugs very difficult to get, but treatment very easy - and sometimes compulsory. "The vision is that of a society free from narcotic drugs," says Maria Larsson, the Minister for Public Health.

As a consequence of grassroots support for this policy, drug use in Sweden is a third of the European average. "The lessons of Sweden's drug control history should be learned by others," said Antonio Maria Costa, who heads the UN's Office on Drugs and Crime.

Pot linked to testicular cancer and psychosis

testicular cancer:
http://www.reuters.com/article/healthNews/idUSTRE5181BP20090209
psychosis:
http://www.reuters.com/article/healthNews/idUSTRE52T6I820090330

Marijuana Worsens COPD Symptoms In Current Cigarette Smokers

ScienceDaily (May 23, 2007) Marijuana worsens breathing problems in current smokers with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), according to a new study.

The study found that among people 40 and older, smokers were two-and-a-half times as likely as nonsmokers to develop COPD, while smoking cigarettes and marijuana together boosted the odds of developing COPD to three-and-a-half times the risk of someone who did not smoke either cigarettes or marijuana--in other words, adding marijuana smoking to cigarette smoking increased the risk by one-third, says Wan Tan, M.D., of St. Paul's Hospital in Vancouver, British Columbia.

The odds of cigarette smokers having any respiratory symptoms was 2.36 times that of nonsmokers, while the odds of someone who smoked both cigarettes and marijuana having respiratory symptoms was 18 times that of someone who smoked neither--an eightfold jump in risk, Dr. Tan says.

Pot cake disaster

(Cold-hearted as she was, not even Marie Antoinnete would have put pot into a cake -- nb)

Woman facing charges after cake laced with marijuana at party
National Post, Published: 5/15/2009 12:00:00 AM
 

Bagging the evidence was a piece of cake. Police were called to investigate why a number of guests at a Surrey, B. C., house party were complaining of nausea and shortness of breath after eating a dessert. "Revellers thought that an illegal drug may have been added to it without their knowledge and that they were now suffering from its effects," said Surrey RCMP spokesman Sergeant Roger Morrow yesterday. Police questioned guests and learned that one of the partygoers had added marijuana to the cake to "spice things up," Sgt. Morrow said. Investigators seized the leftovers of the "suspicious dessert" as evidence, and are now completing a forensic analysis. A woman was arrested and faces drug possession charges.

(P.S: What if a toddler had eaten it? -- nb)

It appears Lola just couldn't say no to drugs

(Poor little cute dog got sick from just a "harmless" little joint butt --nb)

By Chantal Eustace, Vancouver Sun

Lola, a long-haired chihuahua ingested toxins, recently. Although they could not confirm it, veterinarians believe she may have swallowed marijuana.

Continues...

Britney's pot advice

For God's sake, even Britney Spears said: "Don't smoke weed!" (at a 2009 concert in Vancouver). Britney Spears!!  We ought to be ashamed.