The Impact of Cannabis Use on Cognitive Functioning in Patients With Schizophrenia: A Meta-analysis of Existing Findings and New Data in a First-Episode Sample. Yücel M, Bora E, Lubman DI, Solowij N, Brewer WJ, Cotton SM, Conus P, Takagi MJ, Fornito A, Wood SJ, McGorry PD, Pantelis C.
Melbourne Neuropsychiatry Centre, Department of Psychiatry, University of Melbourne and Melbourne Health, National Neuroscience Facility, Alan Gilbert Building, 161 Barry Street, Carlton South, Victoria 3053, Australia.
Abstract
Cannabis use is highly prevalent among people with schizophrenia, and coupled with impaired cognition, is thought to heighten the risk of illness onset. However, while heavy cannabis use has been associated with cognitive deficits in long-term users, studies among patients with schizophrenia have been contradictory.
This article consists of 2 studies. In Study I, a meta-analysis of 10 studies comprising 572 patients with established schizophrenia (with and without comorbid cannabis use) was conducted. Patients with a history of cannabis use were found to have superior neuropsychological functioning. This finding was largely driven by studies that included patients with a lifetime history of cannabis use rather than current or recent use.
In Study II, we examined the neuropsychological performance of 85 patients with first-episode psychosis (FEP) and 43 healthy nonusing controls. Relative to controls, FEP patients with a history of cannabis use (FEP + CANN; n = 59) displayed only selective neuropsychological impairments while those without a history (FEP – CANN; n = 26) displayed generalized deficits. When directly compared, FEP + CANN patients performed better on tests of visual memory, working memory, and executive functioning. Patients with early onset cannabis use had less neuropsychological impairment than patients with later onset use.
Together, these findings suggest that patients with schizophrenia or FEP with a history of cannabis use have superior neuropsychological functioning compared with nonusing patients. This association between better cognitive performance and cannabis use in schizophrenia may be driven by a subgroup of “neurocognitively less impaired” patients, who only developed psychosis after a relatively early initiation into cannabis use.
The Marijuana Music Awards have grown over the years. And, the music that gets entered has grown also. Not to mention some of the artists themselves probably grow. No, I dont know that. But, I do know I’ve got to Judge the Marijuana Music Awards two prior years to this one and I was always impressed with the tunes I heard. The John Doe Radio Show has thrived off these tunes and in The Stash, the section of the end of our show where we highlight the best of tunes that I can find, the majority of them have been Marijuana Music Award entries.
This year was no different. Best Reggae was won by an act called Indubious. The song is called ‘Ganja Weed’. Self proclaimed West Coast Reggae Funk Pioneers, the tunes that kick out from this group are nothing less than funky. And. I quote from their band description here: “Rising up out out of the fertile soil of Southern Oregon’s Rogue Valley, the group of Intergalatic Reggae Revolutionaries known as Indubious come straight from the heavens above to spread the word of love and light through their epic sound.”
So enjoy this tune, and think of other places where intergalactic beings are enjoying, well… Intergalactic Reggae.
(OregonLive.com) The state cannot take children away from a mother who tests positive for marijuana use without evidence that shows her drug use endangers the children, the Oregon Court of Appeals has ruled.
DHS workers visited the home and … found that the home was clean, the children had appropriate food to eat and they appeared “happy and healthy,” the appeals court wrote in its decision. A DHS worker also had testified that the mother “appears to have appropriate parenting skills.”
[I]n reversing the decision, the appeals court said “the record lacks evidence showing that mother’s use of marijuana, her ‘chemical abuse problem’ as found by the trial court, is a condition or circumstance that poses any risk to her children. That evidence is necessary to establish jurisdiction over the children.”
Keep in mind this isn’t a mom with a medical marijuana card, but just a regular occasional cannabis consumer. We’ve reported on stories of people losing custody or having their custody severely curtailed because their medicinal marijuana use comes up in a court. Now we have case law (until and if it is appealed to the Supreme Court) that says marijuana use in and of itself is not enough to prove you are a bad parent…
…just as the millions of cannabis-consuming parents can tell you from experience. These are the good people I know who put their kids to bed and retire to the patio or garage to light up an end-of-day relaxant. They keep their stash locked up away from the kids. They are better parents than half the beer-drinking parents I know, and maybe precisely because their cannabis use allows them to de-stress and not take out a bad day at work on their kids.
Cocaine isn’t our bailiwick here at NORML and personally I have a no-white-powders rule. But one of the biggest glaring examples of the racism of the War on (Certain American Citizens Using Non-Pharmaceutical, Non-Alcoholic, Tobacco-Free) Drugs is the Crack-Powder Cocaine Sentencing Disparity.
It works like this: if you’re caught with 5 grams of crack cocaine, you get the same mandatory minimum as someone caught with 500 grams of powder cocaine. Crack cocaine and powder cocaine, chemically speaking, are identical with respect to addictive potential and psychoactive effect.
The difference, of course, is that crack cocaine is used by urban poor black people and powder cocaine is used by suburban affluent white people. Generally speaking.
So Congress, controlled by huge Democratic majorities in the House and the Senate, is sending a bill to the Democratic president who campaigned on eliminating the crack/powder disparity. This bill will increased the trigger of a mandatory minimum for crack from 5 grams to 28 grams (an ounce).
Meaning that instead of a 500:5 disparity for white vs. black people’s cocaine, the disparity will now only be 500:28. For the math-impaired, that means that our cocaine sentencing laws will go from being 100 times more racist to blacks to being 18 times more racist to blacks.
I suppose I should be thrilled with any adjustment to mandatory minimums, but I have suffered one too many “compromises” by a huge Democratic majority and president I voted for who promised a whole lot of things I really believe in*, only to start negotiations in the middle, compromise to the right, and call it a victory for the left. (Funny, I don’t remember George W. Bush, with a barely-GOP majority, ever being stymied in pushing through Congress anything he wanted, except privatizing Social Security. And it was a Democratic Congress under Republican President Reagan who gave us this 500:5 mandatory minimum disparity in the first place!)
Chris Weigant at HuffPo nails how me and many others are feeling about this latest victory for bi-partisanship:
In true incrementalist fashion, Democrats have now made things slightly less unfair, but fell far short of actual fairness. It’s as if, right after the Civil War, Congress announced that black people would now count as four-fifths of a person, instead of the previous three-fifths — in other words, a step towards equality, but not exactly the giant leap of the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Amendments. Which makes it rather hard to praise such an effort, even though it does represent (some) progress.
This is landmark legislation, I realize. Moving away from the “lock them all up” mentality, for politicians, is remarkable simply because it does not happen often (read: “ever”). Backing down on Draconian drug laws is not exactly atop the priorities list of many politicians, because the ads attacking them for doing so just about write themselves. So I do applaud Congress for addressing the issue (both houses have now passed the bill).
While Congress did not have the courage of their convictions to do so this time around, they did take a baby step in the right direction. This is momentous, because it is the first such step in this direction in three or four decades. But I still can’t help but wish that Congress had tackled the problem not in such an incrementalist political fashion, but rather as an issue of rank inequality to be rectified by removingall of the legally-codified unfairness at once — to restore the concept of equal treatment under the law, rather than perpetuating (if slightly lessening) the inherent injustice which still exists.
* For example…
Holding accountable the companies that spied on us without warrants.
Ending extraordinary rendition of prisoners for torture.
Closing Guantanamo Bay
Ending “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell”
Allowing Medicare to negotiate in bulk for lower drug prices.
“I won’t sign any health care reform bill without a public option.”
Ending DEA raids on legal medical marijuana states
Supporting Main Street over Wall Street.
I was just hoping for a change more meaningful than “He’s better than Bush”. Shee-it, I’M better than Bush!
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March 16, 2009, Loyola University, New Orleans. Phil speaks passionately and candidly about his history with – and the dangers of – drugs, particularly heroin. —Disclaimer: I do not own the rights to this video. I have only shared it on YouTube to make it easier for Phil’s fans & others to view what he has to say.
www.JohnDoeRadio.com
