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Study: Intelligence, cognition unaffected by heavy marijuana use

Study: Intelligence, cognition unaffected by heavy marijuana use
By William J. Cromie Gazette Staff The new study of cognitive changes caused by heavy marijuana use has found no lasting effects 28 days after quitting. Following a month of abstinence, men and women who smoked pot at least 5,000 times in their lives performed just as well on psychological tests as people who used pot sparingly or not at all, according to a report in the latest edition of the Archives of General Psychiatry. That's the good news. "If there's one thing I've learned from studying marijuana for more than a decade, it's that proponents and opponents of the drug will put opposite spins on these findings," says Harrison Pope, a Harvard professor of psychiatry and leader of the research. "As a scientist, I'm struck by how passionately people hold opinions in both directions no matter what the evidence says. Withdrawal produces impairment All took batteries of intelligence, attention, learning and memory tests on days 0, 1, 7, and 28 after quitting the drug. Unsatisfied lives

Doctors consider using street drugs to ease suffering of dying patients Recent studies at Harvard, U.C.L.A. and my alma mater John Hopkins have now made it plain that doctors should—as soon as proper safeguards can be put in place—be free to offer illicit drugs to patients who are terminally ill, in order to ease their emotional suffering and potentially offer them new perspectives—fueled by drug-induced insights—into issues like their own mortality. At Harvard, Dr. John Halpern (as reported in the New York Times) tested MDMA (the street drug Ecstasy) to determine if it would ease the anxieties in two patients with terminal cancer. At U.C.L.A. and Hopkins, Drs. Charles Grob and Roland Griffiths used psilocybin (the active ingredient in hallucinogenic mushrooms) to help cancer patients past their paralyzing, debilitating fears. The results are reportedly consistently good. The truth is that the likelihood of creating an MDMA or psilocybin addict out of a terminal cancer patient is exactly zero. Dr. Dr.

Food Nutrition Facts - Healthy Living Tips at WomansDay.com - Womans Day - StumbleUpon Every child has heard the healthy-eating mantra "You are what you eat." But there may be a closer resemblance between good-for-you grub and your body than you thought. We found 10 foods that mirror the body parts they provide nutrients for—for example, brain-boosting walnuts actually look like a brain. Coincidence? Maybe. 1. Slice a carrot in half crosswise and it's easy to see that the veggie resembles an eye—look closely and you'll even notice a pattern of radiating lines that mimic the pupil and iris. 2. The folds and wrinkles of a walnut bring to mind another human organ: the brain. 3. Long, lean stalks of celery look just like bones—and they're good for them, too. 4. The lightbulb shape of an avocado looks like a uterus, and it supports reproductive health as well. 5. Studies have offered evidence that clams, which bear a resemblance to testicles, are actually good for the male sex organs. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10.

10 Scientific and Technological Visionaries Who Experimented With Drugs Same here. We evolved along with, and because of, our diet. There weren't any classifications of "illegal drugs" back then, and these things flourish in all sorts of conditions in the wild - it's hard not to imagine at least occasional consumption. Considering mankind's predilection to experimenting with consciousness, along with the unique effects of these substances (including euphoria), it was probably more than occasional. I just love the idea of psychoactive botanicals spurring hominid consciousness to a higher quantum state — the booster shot needed to make that leap forward in intelligence. SExpand Exactly! Speaking of dendrites, it amazes me how closely underground mycelial mats (a sample of one on the right) resemble the brain's neural network (and, too - on the left - an image of "dark" matter).

5 Ways To Hack Your Brain Into Awesomeness | Cracked.com - StumbleUpon Much of the brain is still mysterious to modern science, possibly because modern science itself is using brains to analyze it. There are probably secrets the brain simply doesn't want us to know. But by no means should that stop us from tinkering around in there, using somewhat questionable and possibly dangerous techniques to make our brains do what we want. We can't vouch for any of these, either their effectiveness or safety. All we can say is that they sound awesome, since apparently you can make your brain... #5. So you just picked up the night shift at your local McDonald's, you have class every morning at 8am and you have no idea how you're going to make it through the day without looking like a guy straight out of Dawn of the Dead, minus the blood... hopefully. "SLEEEEEEEEEP... uh... What if we told you there was a way to sleep for little more than two hours a day, and still feel more refreshed than taking a 12-hour siesta on a bed made entirely out of baby kitten fur? Holy Shit!

The Narco State - By Charles Kenny America's longest running war -- the one against drugs -- came in for abuse this weekend at the Summit of the Americas. The abuse is deserved. Forty years of increasingly violent efforts to stamp out the drug trade haven't worked. And the blood and treasure lost is on a scale with America's more conventional wars. President Otto Perez Molina of Guatemala opened the rhetorical offensive against the drug war last week when he wrote that "decades of big arrests and the seizure of tons of drugs" have not stopped "booming" production and consumption. But it isn't just in Latin America that the winds of change are blowing when it comes to drugs policy. As a domestic policy, a harsh enforcement approach has done little to control drug use, but has done a lot to lock up a growing portion of the U.S. population. As a result, the United States is spending about $40 billion per year on the war on drugs -- with three quarters of that expenditure on apprehending and punishing dealers and users.

10 Open Education Resources You May Not Know About (But Should) | MindShift - StumbleUpon This week, the OCW Consortium is holding its annual meeting, celebrating 10 years of OpenCourseWare. The movement to make university-level content freely and openly available online began a decade ago, when the faculty at MIT agreed to put the materials from all 2,000 of the university’s courses on the Web. With that gesture, MIT OpenCourseWare helped launch an important educational movement, one that MIT President Susan Hockfield described in her opening remarks at yesterday’s meeting as both the child of technology and of a far more ancient academic tradition: “the tradition of the global intellectual commons.” We have looked here before at how OCW has shaped education in the last ten years, but in many ways much of the content that has been posted online remains very much “Web 1.0.” But as open educational resources and OCW increase in popularity and usage, there are a number of new resources out there that do offer just that.

Should the U.S. legalize hard drugs? Consider current policy concerning the only addictive intoxicant currently available as a consumer good — alcohol. America’s alcohol industry, which is as dependent on the 20 percent of heavy drinkers as they are on alcohol, markets its products aggressively and effectively. Because marketing can drive consumption, America’s distillers, brewers and vintners spend $6 billion on advertising and promoting their products. Americans’ experience with marketing’s power inclines them to favor prohibition and enforcement over legalization and marketing of drugs. But this choice has consequences: More Americans are imprisoned for drug offenses or drug-related probation and parole violations than for property crimes. In “Drugs and Drug Policy: What Everyone Needs to Know,” policy analysts Mark Kleiman, Jonathan Caulkins and Angela Hawken argue that imprisoning low-ranking street-corner dealers is pointless: A $200 transaction can cost society $100,000 for a three-year sentence. Dealers, a.k.a.

argot .com : dictionary of street drug ( cannabis, marijuana, heroin, cocaine, et al. ) slang - StumbleUpon Potopia Could Shutdown Haunt Burwell? by Ben Jacobs Larry Downing/Reuters Obama’s nominee to succeed Kathleen Sebelius played a key role in closing Washington’s monuments—a... Color Psychology & Infoplease.com - StumbleUpon by David Johnson Like death and taxes, there is no escaping color. It is ubiquitous. Yet what does it all mean? Why are people more relaxed in green rooms? Colors often have different meanings in various cultures. Black Black is the color of authority and power. White Brides wear white to symbolize innocence and purity. Red The most emotionally intense color, red stimulates a faster heartbeat and breathing. The most romantic color, pink, is more tranquilizing. Blue The color of the sky and the ocean, blue is one of the most popular colors. Green Currently the most popular decorating color, green symbolizes nature. Yellow Cheerful sunny yellow is an attention getter. Purple The color of royalty, purple connotes luxury, wealth, and sophistication. Brown Solid, reliable brown is the color of earth and is abundant in nature. Colors of the Flag In the U.S. flag, white stands for purity and innocence. Food for Thought While blue is one of the most popular colors it is one of the least appetizing.

The Doors of Perception The Doors of Perception is a short book by Aldous Huxley, first published in 1954, detailing his experiences when taking mescaline. The book takes the form of Huxley's recollection of a mescaline trip that took place over the course of an afternoon, and takes its title from a phrase in William Blake's 1793 poem The Marriage of Heaven and Hell. Huxley recalls the insights he experienced, which range from the "purely aesthetic" to "sacramental vision".[1] He also incorporates later reflections on the experience and its meaning for art and religion. Background[edit] Mescaline (Peyote and San Pedro Cactus)[edit] Mescaline is the principal agent of the psychedelic cactus peyote and San Pedro cactus, which has been used in Native American religious ceremonies for thousands of years.[2] A German pharmacologist, Arthur Heffter, isolated the alkaloids in the peyote cactus in 1891. Peyote as entheogen drug[edit] Research by Humphry Osmond[edit] Huxley's experience with mescaline[edit] Synopsis[edit]

How To Build A Fireball You Can Hold&Video - StumbleUpon The CIA's 5 Most Mind Blowing Experiments With LSD LSD has long been a staple of overweight, furry men with ponytails who list their occupation as 'Earth Shaman' on tax forms. The CIA is more typically known for their starched suits than their mind exploring orgies. So if we told you that the CIA was trippin' balls before Hunter S. The CIA Discovers Acid, Experiments Like A (Evil) Teenager It all started in the early 1950s, when a double agent named Jozef Cardinal Mindszenty was tried for treason in Russia. "Can we get control of an individual to the point where he will do our bidding against his will and even against fundamental laws of nature, such as self preservation?" Rough translation: "Can we get someone so high that they'll kill themselves if we ask nicely enough?" Christ! "Ha ha! CIA Field Agents Drug Each Other for Fun Of course, it wasn't all supervillainy and mad science; the CIA had a sense of humor, too... as plainly evidenced by the 60s field agent's favorite wacky prank: Secretly dosing each other with LSD. "Okay, Frank.

What Your Poop and Pee Are Telling You About Your Body - StumbleUpon *Alert* The Glowing Lean System Registration is OPEN… CLICK HERE to learn more Have you ever wondered if your poop looked “normal,” but were too embarrassed to ask anyone else what their poop looks like? Or has your pee ever smelled a bit putrid but you were too mortified to utter a word to your best friend, let alone your boy friend? Click on the infographic below to view a larger image: You’re One Click Away From Reading This Article… Get access to this post, and premium content, simply enter your email. Enter your email belowThen click the button No, thanks

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