Talk-Polywell.org

I am not engaging in pop counterfactual history, as much as reminding us of how thin the thread of civilization sometimes hangs, both in its beginning and full maturity. Something analogous is happening currently in the 21st-century West. But the old alarmist scenarios — a nuclear exchange, global warming and the melting of the polar ice caps, a new lethal AIDS-like virus — should not be our worry.

Rather our way of life is changing not with a bang, but with a whimper, insidiously and self-inflicted, rather than abruptly and from foreign stimuli. Most of the problem is cultural. Unfortunately it was predicted by a host of pessimistic anti-democratic philosophers from Plato and Aristotle to Hegel and Spengler. I’ve always hoped that these gloom-and-doomers were wrong about the Western paradigm, but some days it becomes harder.

10-Playing down the Islamic terrorist threat. Islamic terrorism is an ancient and recurring threat. Despite signs in the 1970s that another upsurge was coming it became popular in Western diplomatic and academic circles to play down this threat. This happened despite a serious outbreak of Islamic terrorism in Saudi Arabia in the late 1970s. This one involved heavily armed Islamic terrorists seizing control of some of the holiest places in Islam. In the West this was dismissed as an isolated event. Similar excuses were created to explain the growing number of Islamic terrorist incidents for the rest of the decade. For many, the self-deception continues and so does the terrorist violence.

I may get back to you on debunking your links. But I may not. What would be the point? You are immune to contrary facts. Not that that is new in human nature.

MSimon wrote:And I might also note that prohibition enforcement is racist. That should amuse YOU.

Moderator/Simon here - the image was too big.

Colorado rang in 2014 by becoming the first state to sell marijuana to its residents for recreational use. Along with Washington, Colorado legalized recreational marijuana use by state referendum in the 2012 election. Despite the fact that marijuana use is still illegal under federal law, the feds have decided to allow these two states to experiment with legalized marijuana as long as they follow certain guidelines.

Along with the usual barrage of tired stoner jokes, there has been some handwringing over the possible consequences of legalized pot use. Among them, the potential health risks, the possibility of more marijuana users, and, in particular, increased use among children. But rarely do those concerned about the consequences of legalized marijuana confront the consequences of our current marijuana prohibition regime, under which some groups of Americans are swiftly labeled criminals and set on a path of being marginalized by society for what the elite and well-off usually end up recalling as foolish but ultimately harmless experimentiation with drugs.

Consider that at least the last three American presidents, Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, and Barack Obama, have all more or less admitted to smoking weed. Bush’s former budget director and former Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels, was arrested for possession of marijuana and other drugs while a student at Princeton. On Friday, two major newspaper columnists, Ruth Marcus of the Washington Post and David Brooks of the New York Times, admitted to using marijuana. Yet just as all three of the above presidents presided over a criminal justice system that imposes harsh punishments for marijuana use, Marcus and Brooks argue against Colorado and Washington’s marijuana initiatives, on the basis that marijuana is bad for you.

The real question with marijuana legalization, however, is not whether it’s not healthy to consume, but whether our current system of prohibition makes things worse. Excessive consumption of alcohol is not healthy, either, but after more than a decade of banning alcohol, Americans decided the collateral consequences of prohibition were far worse than the consequences of letting people have a drink.

Presumably, Brooks and Marcus don’t think of themselves as criminals who should have gone to jail for their drug use, any more than our three past presidents. Marcus all but acknowledges as much, saying that “[t]hrowing people in jail for smoking pot is dumb and wasteful.” But that’s what marijuana being illegal means in most states and under federal law: It means people go to jail.

It almost never means, however, that people like Brooks and Marcus go to jail. Anyone who wants to see what a de facto legalization environment looks like can visit an elite college campus, where both the trade and use of marijuana are highly visible, and where those who get caught face the relatively minor sanctions associated with breaking campus rules rather than the lifelong consequences of breaking the law. What we basically have now is a system where marijuana is practically legal for the wealthy and white and illegal for everyone else.

Although marijuana use among blacks and whites is about the same, according to a 2013 report by the ACLU, blacks are almost four times more likely than whites to be arrested for marijuana possession. This startling graph from the report tells the story:



According to the report, there were more than 8 million marijuana-related arrests between 2001 and 2010, almost 90% of which were for possession. Marijuana arrests now make up more than half of all drug arrests in the country. And use of the drug has only increased over time.

As Michelle Alexander notes in her book, The New Jim Crow, the consequences of being convicted of felony marijuana possession can be far more dire than the sentence itself. Former offenders can find themselves deprived of professional or driver’s licenses, educational aid, food stamps, public housing, their right to vote, and they may find themselves fired and unable to find new employment, having been marked by society as little more than a criminal. For blacks caught up in the system it can compound the already considerable effects of ongoing racial discrimination.
Yet with their own acknowledged marijuana use our current and former presidents, as well as our well-respected newspaper columnists, are implicitly acknowledging that mere marijuana use does not make you a criminal who should be driven from society and made a pariah, it does not consign you to fate as an addlepated dunce or violent sociopath incapable of holding a job or raising a family. Would that the worst consequence for marijuana use was something resembling Brooks’ recollection of a botched attempt to deliver a presentation in English class while stoned. Legalization means that other people, not just elites and their children, can have the opportunity to shrug off past drug use as a youthful dalliance rather than a life sentence.

There are degrees of decriminalization between marijuana prohibition and legalization–and people can argue how far the government should go. What’s clear is that under the current system, the wealthy and connected are almost entirely shielded from the consequences of marijuana being illegal, while the poor and non-white face catastrophe for engaging in the same behavior.

Brooks writes that legalizing marijuana means “nurturing a moral ecology in which it is a bit harder to be the sort of person most of us want to be.” The current system already can make it not a bit harder, but insurmountably hard to become the sort of person most of us want to be. But not for Brooks or Marcus, not for any of our recent presidents, and probably not for their children.

Marijuana is classified as a schedule I substance by the FDA, so it is difficult for contemporary researchers to study marijuana even though its therapeutic properties have been known for more than 5000 years. 13 Cannabis contains many compounds, of which at least 60 are known to be cannabinoids (active components of cannabis). 13 In the 1960s, when marijuana was increasingly used as a recreational drug, the cannabinoid Delta 9-tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) was isolated and determined to be the principal cause of marijuana’s psychoactive effects. 14 Other cannabinoids have been isolated and found to be present in cannabis, but they are not nearly as psychoactive.

Pharmacodynamics

In the 1990s, the mechanism of action for many of the cannabinoids was determined with the discovery of the cannabinoid CB1 and CB2 receptors. The CB1 receptors are found in high densities in the neuron terminals of the basal ganglia (affecting motor activity), cerebellum (motor coordination), hippocampus (short-term memory), neocortex (thinking), and hypothalamus and limbic cortex (appetite and sedation). 13 To a lesser extent, the CB1 receptors are found in periaqueductal gray dorsal horn (pain) and immune cells. CB2 receptors are primarily found on immune cells and tissues and, when activated, can affect inflammatory and immunosuppressive activity. 15 For example, CB2 receptors on leukocytes may modulate cell migration, although these effects are difficult to elicit from standard dosing. CB2 receptors are also found in the brainon microglia; thus, cannabinoids have begun to be studied for the treatment of Alzheimer’s disease, but their role has not been established. Numerous cannabinoid compounds present in medical cannabis interact with these receptors to create varying responses (Figure 1). It is unknown how the major nonpsychotropic compound in cannabis, cannabidiol (CBD), exerts its activity, but it may be an inverse agonist, because several studies have shown that it decreases the psychotropic activity of THC. 15 It has no direct affinity for CB1 and CB2 receptors, yet it appears to enhance the activity of the endogenous cannabinoid, anandamide. 16 Because of the uncontrolled production of medical cannabis in various preparations (dried to be smoked or in oils to be applied, eaten, or drunk), there can be vastly different concentrations of the can- nabinoid compounds in each product. As such, it is difficult to predict what pharmacologic response any cannabis product is likely to elicit. However, because of the relative efficacy (the ability of a drug to induce a biologic response at its molecular target when bound) of THC compared to other cannabinoids, it is routinely found to be the compound associated with the most pharmacologic effects of cannabis. Current researchers are trying to further differentiate the poorly binding cannabinoids by looking into the noncannabinoid targets linked to pain. 13 In these studies, other G-protein receptors (e.g., GPR55), G-protein – coupled receptors (coupling with l - and d-opioid receptors), and transient receptorpotential channels (TRPVs), which are respon- sive to capsaicin, are being identified as targets. 13 In the TRPV example, it is interesting that non-CB1 and non-CB2 active phytocannabinoids (and not THC) have been shown to have the most effects. 15

First let’s look at what keeps cancer cells alive, then we will come back and examine how the cannabinoids CBD (cannabidiol) and THC (tetrahydrocannabinol) unravels cancer’s aliveness.

In every cell there is a family of interconvertible sphingolipids that specifically manage the life and death of that cell. This profile of factors is called the “Sphingolipid Rheostat.” If endogenous ceramide(a signaling metabolite of sphingosine-1-phosphate) is high, then cell death (apoptosis) is imminent. If ceramide is low, the cell is strong in its vitality.

Very simply, when THC connects to the CB1 or CB2 cannabinoid receptor site on the cancer cell, it causes an increase in ceramide synthesis which drives cell death. A normal healthy cell does not produce ceramide in the presence of THC, thus is not affected by the cannabinoid.

The cancer cell dies, not because of cytotoxic chemicals, but because of a tiny little shift in the mitochondria. Within most cells there is a cell nucleus, numerous mitochondria (hundreds to thousands), and various other organelles in the cytoplasm. The purpose of the mitochondria is to produce energy (ATP) for cell use. As ceramide starts to accumulate, turning up the Sphingolipid Rheostat, it increases the mitochondrial membrane pore permeability to cytochrome c, a critical protein in energy synthesis. Cytochrome c is pushed out of the mitochondria, killing the source of energy for the cell.

Ceramide also causes genotoxic stress in the cancer cell nucleus generating a protein called p53, whose job it is to disrupt calcium metabolism in the mitochondria. If this weren’t enough, ceramide disrupts the cellular lysosome, the cell’s digestive system that provides nutrients for all cell functions. Ceramide, and other sphingolipids, actively inhibit pro-survival pathways in the cell leaving no possibility at all of cancer cell survival.

The key to this process is the accumulation of ceramide in the system. This means taking therapeutic amounts of CBD and THC, steadily, over a period of time, keeping metabolic pressure on this cancer cell death pathway.

How did this pathway come to be? Why is it that the body can take a simple plant enzyme and use it for profound healing in many different physiological systems? This endocannabinoid system exists in all animal life, just waiting for its matched exocannabinoid activator. This is interesting. Our own endocannabinoid system covers all cells and nerves; it is the messenger of information flowing between our immune system and the central nervous system (CNS). It is responsible for neuroprotection, and micro-manages the immune system. This is the primary control system that maintains homeostasis; our well being.

Just out of curiosity, how does the work get done at the cellular level, and where does the body make the endocannabinoids? Here we see that endocannabinoids have their origin in nerve cells right at the synapse. When the body is compromised through illness or injury it calls insistently to the endocannabinoid system and directs the immune system to bring healing. If these homeostatic systems are weakened, it should be no surprise that exocannabinoids are therapeutic. It helps the body in the most natural way possible.

williatw wrote:

MSimon wrote:And I might also note that prohibition enforcement is racist. That should amuse YOU.

And as long as that is true and it is, I wouldn't support the WOD period.

MSimon wrote:ladajo,

If pot trashes brains why does the body make so many endocannabinoids? Especially between ages 15 to 25. Is your body trying to trash itself? I'm sure with your great medical knowledge you will have a very clear explanation.

MSimon wrote:ladajo,

If pot trashes brains why does the body make so many endocannabinoids? Especially between ages 15 to 25. Is your body trying to trash itself? I'm sure with your great medical knowledge you will have a very clear explanation.

12. The therapeutic ratio for prescribed drugs is commonly around 1:10 or lower. Valium, a commonly used prescriptive drug, may cause very serious biological damage if patients use ten times the recommended (therapeutic) dose.

13. There are, of course, prescriptive drugs which have much lower therapeutic ratios. Many of the drugs used to treat patients with cancer, glaucoma and multiple sclerosis are highly toxic. The therapeutic ratio of some of the drugs used in antineoplastic therapies, for example, are regarded as extremely toxic poisons with therapeutic ratios that may fall below 1:1.5. These drugs also have very low LD-50 ratios and can result in toxic, even lethal reactions, while being properly employed.

14. By contrast, marijuana's therapeutic ratio, like its LD-50, is impossible to quantify because it is so high.

15. In strict medical terms marijuana is far safer than many foods we commonly consume. For example, eating ten raw potatoes can result in a toxic response. By comparison, it is physically impossible to eat enough marijuana to induce death.

16. Marijuana, in its natural form, is one of the safest therapeutically active substances known to man. By any measure of rational analysis marijuana can be safely used within a supervised routine of medical care."

Harvard: Marijuana Doesn’t Cause Schizophrenia

Good news for people who’ve worried that smoking too much marijuana (cannabis) — especially as a teenager — might lead to some dramatic problems in the future, even schizophrenia.

New research from Harvard Medical School, in a comparison between families with a history of schizophrenia and those without, finds little support for marijuana use as a cause of schizophrenia.

“The results of the current study suggest that having an increased familial morbid risk for schizophrenia may be the underlying basis for schizophrenia in cannabis users and not cannabis use by itself,” note the researchers.

The new study is the first family study that, according to the researchers, “examines both non-psychotic cannabis users and non-cannabis user controls as two additional independent samples, enabling the examination of whether the risk for schizophrenia is increased in family members of cannabis users who develop schizophrenia compared with cannabis users who do not and also whether that morbid risk is similar or different from that in family members of schizophrenia patients who never used cannabis.”