A new study shows that verbal learning and memory in adolescents improve when they give up marijuana for just a week. Since a National Institutes of Health survey indicates that more than 14 percent of middle and high school students use pot, these numbers should be considered when legalization of marijuana discussions occur, NPR asserts.
Researchers blame THC — the active ingredient in marijuana — for the cognitive dysfunction that adolescents experience when using the drug. At least one person not involved in this study noted that researchers didn’t use non-marijuana users for a control group in arriving at their conclusions.
This article highlights the distortion and misunderstanding that has come out of the push to condemn legalized medical marijuana — a form of cannabis that doesn’t have the psychoactive components, but offers a wide variety of therapeutic uses. And, it illustrates perfectly the confusion that people have, all the way to the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA), which classifies marijuana as a Schedule 1 drug, right up there with LSD and heroin.
Because the confusion continues, in 2016, the DEA even reclassified cannabinoid oil (CBD) as a Schedule 1, too, despite the fact that research clearly confirms that cannabis is safer and less toxic than many prescription drugs. If nothing else, today’s featured article highlights the importance of educating ourselves about cannabis, what it is, what it isn’t, and what the medical versions and uses of it are.
One reputable source where you can find research relating to the use of cannabis is cancer.gov. This is the U.S. government's site on cancer. You can also peruse the medical literature through scholar.google.com., which is a public resource. The Journal of Pain, a publication by the American Pain Society, is another site, which has a long list of studies on the pain-relieving effects of cannabis and would certainly seem worth the effort for anyone with chronic pain to utilize.