Re: [DIYbio] Re: THC legislation is next week

> You say marijuana could perhaps be used to help brain plasticity, what
> signalling pathway/mechanism do you suggest this works by and how
would you
> suggest one plan on testing it?

This. "helps brain plasticity" is the sort of terminology that's all too
common in discussions about psychotropic drugs, and it reveals an
assumption that neural plasticity is always desirable and beneficial.

If it were beneficial for our brains to be constantly remodelling
themselves, it would be more commonplace. The brain spends a great deal
of time modelling during childhood and pubescence before maturing. While
it's true that plasticity is valuable after damage, or with increasing
age, etc., really the "flexibility" of the brain is not in the topology
so much as the usage. A mature, non-plastic brain is just as capable of
forming good ideas etc.: that's down to neural communication more than
topology.

So, as I think you intimate, it's not always helpful to say that
something is beneficial because it triggers brain plasticity. There's a
time and a place for plasticity! :)

On 01/11/12 18:57, Josiah Zayner wrote:
> It is great that you want to study this plant scientifically apart from the
> millions of others that can be studied legally. The benefit is that we have
> the Cannabis genome/transcriptome, what genes are you interested in
> studying? Have you tried to clone them recombinantly?
>
> What do you think about using synthetic cannibinoids? Why not just use that
> for treatment?
>
> You say marijuana could perhaps be used to help brain plasticity, what
> signalling pathway/mechanism do you suggest this works by and how would you
> suggest one plan on testing it?
>
> On Thursday, November 1, 2012 1:49:09 PM UTC-5, Nathan McCorkle wrote:
>>
>> On Thu, Nov 1, 2012 at 5:07 AM, Cathal Garvey <cathal...@gmail.com<javascript:>>
>> wrote:
>>> What? With the poor state of research on THC, let alone Marijuana as
>>> whole plant, it's *entirely* logical to suggest sticking with better
>>> understood therapies.
>>
>> I think that as a plant Marijuana is pretty harmless, apples and
>> sugarcane are inhomogenous products, but people can become just as
>> addicted to eating as they can with smoking, or drinking tea, or beer.
>> Of course these different products produce different effects, duh. You
>> don't use a hammer to drive a screw.
>>
>>>
>>> Everyone likes to roll out their hobby horse on marijuana whenever this
>>> comes up, but the fact is that in-vitro studies proving anticarcinogenic
>>> properties mean *nothing*. Table salt would be considered
>>> anticarcinogenic based on in-vitro studies. Alcohol would be considered
>>> anti-carcinogenic: "Amazing in-vitro results; virtually all cancer cell
>>> lines tested were rapidly and completely inactivated by Ethanol at
>>> modest concentrations tested.".
>>>
>>> Marijuana produces all sorts of wonderful compounds, sure. Some of them
>>> work as sunscreens, perhaps. Others are CNS depressants and make great
>>> painkillers (THC). But people *are* abusing these preliminary results to
>>> call for blanket legalisation of an inhomogenous product that could be
>>> damaging to some subsets of the population; those who are apparently
>>> prone to addiction to an otherwise non-addictive drug, those who may be
>>> prone to mental health conditions that *could* (I'm not saying they are,
>>> because research is so slim etc.) be triggered by psychotropics.
>>
>> There are plenty of legal things that are horrible for humanity in
>> addictive doses, gambling for instance, the folks that feel like hell
>> if they don't have even one cup of coffee per day.
>>
>> If we all reacted exactly the same to all the world's compounds, we
>> wouldn't be evolving. I know some people who can't drink more than 1
>> beer, I know others who could drink a whole keg full and keep going.
>> I'm going to say that the beer guzzler definitely has an advantage if
>> water quality goes to hell because fermented beverages have been used
>> for drinking water purification historically.
>>
>> I don't drink corn syrup soda hourly or daily or weekly as many people
>> do, I don't think it should be out lawed, but I know that because I am
>> less prone to that addiction my genes are more likely to be longer
>> lived and (genetic) fitness is potentially increased. Salt is the same
>> way, at least here in America, packaged food that contains 200
>> kcalories or less has 25% daily value of salt, so if you eat just 800
>> kcalories of food you should stop with the salt for the day... but
>> most people don't do this, and they are /unknowningly/ or /ignorantly/
>> consuming more salt than might be ideal. But we don't limit these
>> things and meter them, even though people may be prone overconsume.
>>
>>> *That* is immoral. The ethical route to legalisation is to do it in
>>> stages with high-quality research to back up claims and suppositions. If
>>> the research shows that THC *isn't* a threat to people prone to
>>> schizophrenia, or parkinson's, then I for one would shrug and suggest
>>> full decriminalisation with a campaign to encourage ingestion rather
>>> than smoking, etc. etc.: evidence-based health advice based on good
>> science.
>>
>> Hasn't this been just as tested as apples and tomatoes though? Do you
>> avoid tomatoes and potatoes because they're in the nightshade family?
>> How do we know all cultivated plants aren't susceptible to evolve and
>> produce some toxin. Hell, forget about evolve, what about engineered
>> by some government or corporation or terrorist?
>>
>> Some people can't eat citrus because they have heart problems, but we
>> haven't pulled that off the market. I don't know what the answer is
>> for 'my son smoked pot and got schizophrenia' if he truly wouldn't
>> have got schizophrenia if he never used marijuana, but there are lots
>> things in life that could end in tragedy/grief/loss. Maybe with the
>> right research we could learn more about the whole process.
>>
>>
>> From a purely scientific standpoint, I do think these laws prevent
>> scientific progress from being made on the whole breadth of chemicals
>> found in this plant. We certainly have the mind power to gain a lot of
>> new medical tools from the molecules produced therein. Maybe the
>> neural growth stimulation chems could be tweaked to help regain brain
>> plasticity following severe head trauma or nerve damage. Maybe these
>> can be separated from the narcotic or psychedelic chems... who knows,
>> progress is hindered by red tape so what could take us 10 or 15 years
>> with current gen tech will take 125.
>>
>

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