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The Cannabis Discussion Thread

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Anyone else notice the hydro setup on big bang theory, where Lenard meets Sheldon/moves in
 
yeahbutno said:
Anyone else notice the hydro setup on big bang theory, where Lenard meets Sheldon/moves in
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Leonard moved in with Sheldon and Sheldon had the unique tenancy agreement that he made Leonard jump through.

I never noticed the setup though. Was it a reflector or entire room? I assume Sheldon would growing vegetables or something.
 
tumblr_mgn9totAvr1s0bt18o1_500.jpg
 
Cannabis now a stroke risk

Cannabis use may more than double the risk of stroke in young adults, say Auckland researchers, who are convinced it is the illegal drug, and not the tobacco the victims are also smoking, that is to blame.

The study of 160 stroke and mini-stroke victims, aged between 18 and 55, was presented to a stroke conference in Hawaii this week.

It showed they were 2.3 times more likely than other patients to have cannabis detected in urine tests.

"This is the first case-controlled study to show a possible link to the increased risk of stroke from cannabis," said study leader, Auckland University Professor Alan Barber.

Previous research showed strokes developed hours after cannabis use, he said.

But the association is confounded because all but one of the stroke patients who were cannabis users also used tobacco regularly.

"We believe it is the cannabis use and not tobacco," Prof Barber said.

"People need to think twice about using cannabis, because it can affect brain development and result in emphysema, heart attack and now stroke."

He hopes to conduct another study to determine whether there's an association between cannabis and stroke independent of tobacco use.

"This may prove difficult given the risks of bias and ethical strictures of studying the use of an illegal substance.

"However, the high prevalence of cannabis use in this cohort of younger stroke patients makes this research imperative."
It was also challenging to study the use of illegal substances because people were likely to lie about using them.
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http://au.news.yahoo.com/world/a/-/world/16064371/cannabis-now-a-stroke-risk/
 
But the association is confounded because all but one of the stroke patients who were cannabis users also used tobacco regularly.

"We believe it is the cannabis use and not tobacco," Prof Barber said.
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The study of 160 stroke and mini-stroke victims, aged between 18 and 55, was presented to a stroke conference in Hawaii this week.

It showed they were 2.3 times more likely than other patients to have cannabis detected in urine tests.
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Ok, great study, 160 people who had strokes or mini strokes, and all but one used tobacco regularly. This doesn't really mean shit to me, there's so many factors that could come into play here. Diet? Exercise? Genetics? But of course it's the cannabis.

This article is also in the age and stuff.co.nz right now, and will probably appear in more sites very soon. It's funny to me when some anti cannabis or any other recreational or illegal drug 'study' comes out that media jumps to put it on their site, but it's not very frequent when some study comes put showing any medicinal uses that they all scramble to post it up, sometimes it happens, but usually not across as many publications or sites.
 
A quick application of google-fu shows the suggestion of a link between weed and stroke is not a new one. For example: this one from 2005

So it's hardly new news. I'm prepared to accept the risk is there - probably for certain susceptible individuals with a range of other contributing risk factors rather than across the board. As a cannabis consumer I guess it's a matter of listening to your body and making decisions accordingly.

As they say - YMMV!
 
And for a positive news story:


Medical marijuana a sensible step back from past paranoia


The NSW upper house is considering legalising the medical use of cannabis. This reflects increasing recognition of the benefits of marijuana use in some cases, and comes after dramatic changes in the US where 18 states now allow it in certain circumstances - a milestone in undoing the catastrophic experiment known as drug prohibition.

In the 19th century there was little distinction between medical and non-medical uses of drugs. Australians had the highest consumption of ''patent medicines'' in the world. Preparations containing alcohol or opium were freely available from chemists and grocers. Cough medicines were laced with opium, morphine, or (later) heroin. Cigares de Joy promised ''immediate relief in cases of asthma, cough, bronchitis, hay-fever, influenza and shortness of breath''. They were marijuana cigarettes.

Although outrageously hyped, such products satisfied a multitude of needs, physical and mental. They were used in the relief of all manner of pains, they calmed and they comforted. Little distinguished therapeutic use from relaxation, relaxation from habit, or habit from addiction. In 1868 Marcus Clarke even experimented with cannabis to see if it had beneficial effects on his creative imagination. It's hard to tell.

Attitudes to marijuana changed in this country during the first half of the 20th century. It did so under two main influences. First, American puritanism led to the rigorous control of one drug after another.

Advertisement The 1925 Geneva Convention limited the manufacture, distribution, and use of cannabis ''exclusively to medical and scientific purposes''.

The prohibition of non-medical use in NSW shortly thereafter took place although the drug was almost unknown.

Meanwhile, propaganda films like Marijuana - Weed of Madness, produced by the US Federal Bureau of Narcotics in the 1930s, spread myths about its perils far more extreme and deceitful than the myths about its benefits spread by patent medicine manufacturers. By the time cannabis use expanded in Australia in the 1960s, a climate of moral hysteria was already entrenched.

Second, the modernisation of the medical profession transformed our relationship to drugs. Between the wars, grocers and chemists were forbidden from manufacturing and selling their own drugs. Only doctors could from now on prescribe scheduled drugs; only chemists could sell them. But in the course of this transition, cannabis - like heroin - was banned from use altogether.

The bizarre equation of the two substances was cemented by the 1961 UN Convention, which treated them both as special cases, ''particularly dangerous'' drugs that should be banned under all circumstances. This approach had more to do with the history and paranoia of the US than with medical or scientific reality.

So the line between medical use and non-medical vice was deeply etched. Marijuana was decisively placed on the side of the latter. But many Australians used cannabis regardless, some as a self-medication in the relief of nausea and vomiting, as an appetite stimulant or a relaxant.

From the 1980s, a secret community developed to supply THC, including in cigarettes, cakes and biscuits, to sufferers of HIV-AIDS, arthritis and cancer. Even my aged mother's aged cleaner once provided her with ''hash brownies'' for her arthritis. My mother kept them in the fridge and pretended ignorance of their ingredients. While chutneys and jams went off, the brownies soon went.

Benefits in these and other cases have been known since antiquity and are well-established clinically. Doctor Alex Wodak, the director of the Alcohol and Drug Service at St Vincent's Hospital, says most Australians support medicinal use. "If the first line or second line drug doesn't work for you and you've got terrible symptoms - especially from a terminal condition - then I think in a civilised and compassionate society like Australia, we should be able to allow people to use it."

The problem lies not so much in overcoming US rhetoric. The US appears to be making considerable progress. The problem lies in the triumph of the medical model. This raises questions about levels of potency, measurability and reproducibility under controlled conditions.

The effects of cannabis use - even for cancer patients - derive not merely from a precise dosage of THC but from less quantifiable benefits including the pleasures, placebo effects and relaxation of smoking.

The appeal to recognise medical cannabis use is also an appeal to respect the experience and the right to controlled self-medication of some users. These rights and experiences were unquestioned in the 19th century; and unthinkable in the 20th. We cannot go back to the 19th century but nor should we stick with the irrational prejudices of the 20th.

In the 21st century, legalising medical marijuana use strikes a much healthier balance than either.
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From: http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/polit...p-back-from-past-paranoia-20130204-2dudm.html
 
Yeah that's kind of cool that they are considering it. I'd imagine it will just mean sativex (the nasal spray) or similar would be allowed tho, via prescriptions. And alot of reports I've read say that stuff is average.


The Australian Drug Foundation supports research into the use of a cannabis nasal spray (Sativex) for relief of pain in cancer patients when other painkillers are not effective.

Geoff Munro, Head of Policy and Advocacy at the Australian Drug Foundation, said people in severe pain will have access to effective pain management if the study proves that Sativex works.

"Medical research is pointing towards Sativex as effective in managing pain, but it needs further research, which is why we support the study. So far, research has found it controls pain and nausea, and stimulates the appetite, while having few side effects" he said.

Cannabis-based prescriptions for medicinal use are not yet available in Australia but Sativex is licensed in the UK, Canada and Spain.

Four Australian hospitals, and 300 patients, are involved in the study, which involves 20 hospitals from around the world.
Mr Munro added that the public needs to be aware that there is a clear distinction between the use of cannabis for medical purposes and using cannabis illegally.

"It would be controlled at low dosages and only available on a prescription for those who are really suffering, so it won't be available to the general public. This might provide much-needed relief where current medications aren't effective," he said.
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http://www.adf.org.au/media-centre/adf-supports-research-into-cannabis-for-medical-purposes

And from a differing source -


by Graham Irvine, a law lecturer and broadcaster

After nine months of bureaucratic processes, in 2009, I became and remain the first patient in Australia with my particular Parkinson’s disease (PD) symptoms to legally obtain and use a revolutionary cannabis-based medicine in a three-month clinical trial.

Sativex is not legal in Australia and its importation from Britain cost me $1000. But it did little to ease my symptoms, which was unfortunate not only for me but for the other 80,000 PD sufferers who could potentially benefit from the drug.

There are two glaring problems with this pharmaceutical. First, the psychoactive effects of its 55% THC content are claimed to be balanced by its other active ingredient, cannabinol, which is not psychoactive but has other medicinal properties. However, that was not my experience for I became stoned every time I took it.

This leads to the second problem — that the method of administration is inherently flawed.

Although it is supposed to be squirted onto the inner cheeks from a pump action sprayer, this is difficult to achieve. For one thing it is hard to spray accurately because there is no marker on the on the top of the sprayer to indicate the direction of the spray; the position of the ampoule blocks vision of the open mouth. Unlike aerosol sprayers, pump action sprayers such as Sativex require the user to use some force to ingest the correct dose.

Because the pump often sticks, the amount of spray generated is not an accurate or consistent dose. This is a particularly problematic for PD patients whose symptoms often include atrophy of fine motor skills, making it awkward for them to manipulate the sprayer.

Even if all these obstacles are overcome, there remains the problem that most of the medicine sprayed onto the cheeks runs down into the floor of the mouth and is swallowed into the stomach where it takes some four hours before its effects kick in, then producing a “high” lasting several hours, rendering the patient incapable of any sustained cognitive activity. So, instead of acting when the need is greatest, the drug’s efficacy is highest when it is least needed.

As I thought that my information about Sativex was important news for thousands of PD patients, I sent a letter to the British Medical Journal, the Australian Medical Journal and the Parkinson’s Disease newsletter. None of them ran the piece.

*Graham Irvine is a law lecturer and broadcaster and has recently completed a PhD on the legalisation of medicinal cannabis in New South Wales. Because university theses do not usually attract the attention of the media he has written this piece for Crikey to stimulate debate on this issue.
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poledriver said:
Ok, great study, 160 people who had strokes or mini strokes, and all but one used tobacco regularly. This doesn't really mean shit to me, there's so many factors that could come into play here. Diet? Exercise? Genetics? But of course it's the cannabis.

This article is also in the age and stuff.co.nz right now, and will probably appear in more sites very soon. It's funny to me when some anti cannabis or any other recreational or illegal drug 'study' comes out that media jumps to put it on their site, but it's not very frequent when some study comes put showing any medicinal uses that they all scramble to post it up, sometimes it happens, but usually not across as many publications or sites.
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Its like any study, if you get 1000 people with ginger hair and 60% of the gingers drink beer, they would link drinking beer to having no soul.
 
Does smoking marijuana cause stroke?

There have been scattered reports in the literature claiming an association between the use of cannabis and ischemia and/or hemorrhagic stroke. Although no convincing mechanism has been postulated, some suggest that use of marijuana or hashish and the occurrence of stroke may stem from the ability of cannabis to cause orthostatic hypotension, or possibly vasoconstriction.

If such an association is real, it must be exceedingly rare. The purpose of this paper, from the University of Strasbourg in France, was to “analyze the different aspects of neurovascular complications in cannabis users as described in the literature”. This stated purpose is so vague as to be useless, and, in fact, the entire paper is a mess.

The authors searched PubMed for articles association stroke OR ischemic stroke with cannabis OR marijuana. The say they identified 59 cases. But how were these chosen? What was the case definition? Did the case descriptions rule out other known causes of stroke, such as cocaine or amphetamine use? The authors don’t bother to discuss this. I do agree with their recommendation that young patients with unexplained stroke by asked in detail about their drug consumption.
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by Dr. Leon Gussow.

http://www.thepoisonreview.com/2013/01/26/does-smoking-marijuana-cause-stroke/
 
Some of the above posts interested me enough to do my own (admittedly rather brief) search of PubMed using the terms "stroke" and "cannabis". Nearly all the peer-reviewed literature appears to be case-studies, from which you can't really draw many conclusions. That Alan Barger guy from Auckland who's quoted in the article that Mister posted doesn't seem to be an author of any of the articles published in the past few years, so it will be interesting to see if he gets these results published in a peer-reviewed scientific journal, which would allow readers to have a better understanding of the methodology.
 
Verybuffed said:
Leonard moved in with Sheldon and Sheldon had the unique tenancy agreement that he made Leonard jump through.

I never noticed the setup though. Was it a reflector or entire room? I assume Sheldon would growing vegetables or something.
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Its that episode, where Leonard knocks on Sheldons old neighbours door (where penny lives now). When the big black tranny man opens the door you can see it behind him
 
pisspotnrock said:
anyone else is this great big country of ours tried G13? hands down, best strain (in terms of potency and quality of smoke) I've ever smoked :D
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did i smoke that at NYE or was that white widow either way it fuuuucked me up.3 cones n that was the end of me all i wanted to do was sleep.i hate weed in social situations :! since were on the subject of strokes being caused by weed has anyone blacked out/fainted from smoking super potent weed?for example i was sitting in the lounge smoking white rihno (super strong shit 1 hit=hallucinations) juuust had a hit n as i was blowing out the smoke i jumped up cuz somone knocked on the door.i made it to the door but as i went to open it i got some sort of tunnel vision and fell onto the door n slid down it,i was totally blind and couldnt control my falling body but i was aware of everything that was happening.another time i prety much did the same thing blew out a hit of kootah weed as i was standing up n ran out to the kitchen to get dinner and as i got to the bench i got that tunnel vision thing again and lost control of my body n feel into the stools near the bench.my sister saw the whole thing n thought i was joking around until my eyes rolled in the back of my head my lips turned blue and i started convulsing.i went to the hospitable and told them what happend they took a blood sample or some shit and said i fainted cause when u have a seizure/fit you piss or shit yourself and that didint happen to me.i did not tell them i smoke weed.i was on anti-D's at the time maybe that had somtjing to do with it.fuck im rambling again i have to stop!
 
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