Find a Health Sci/Medical Library and get this article:
Mikuriya, Tod H. and Aldrich, Micheal R., "Cannabis 1988 Old Drug, New
Dangers, The
Potency Debate", Journal of Psychoactive Drugs, Vol 20(1), Jan-
Mar, 1988 pg 47.
Summary and Conclusions:
Observation of the real world of social and marijuana
use,
where autotitration is the norm, renders the scare tactics of
the _new_marijuana_
proponets not only inaccurate but
irrelevant (*). There is much published evidence about
the
availability of highly potent varieties of cannabis from the
ninetheenth century
through the present day. The effects
attributed to the _new_marijuana_ are the same ones
debated
for centuries in many different cultures. The assertion that
"all marijuana
research to date has been done on 1 or 2
percent THC material" (Cohen 1968) ignores
several thousand
years of human experience with the drug. The old
medical cannabis
extracts were stronger than most of the
forms now available, though the potency of illicit
hash oils
by the mid-1970’s was approaching the level of medicinal
preparations
available before their removal from the USP.
While it may be true that sinsemilla is more
widely
available than 10 or 15 years ago, its potency has not
changed significantly from
the 2.4 to 9.5 percent THC
materials available in 1973-1974 (see Table I), or the five
to 14 percent sinsemilla of 1975 (Perry 1977). The range of
potencies available then
(marijuana at 0.1% to 7.8% THC,
averaging 2.0% to 5.0% THC by 1975) was approximately
the same as that reported now. With such a range, the
evidence simply cannot support the
argument by Cohen
(1986) that marijuana is "ten or more times more potent
than the
product smoked ten years ago." And to say that
marijaua potency has increased 1,400
percent since _any_
date in history is patent nonsense.
It is not legitimate to imply
that _average_ low potencies
represent the _full_range_ of potencies available in reality.
baseline to compare with
the _high_end_of_the_range_now_.
The claimed baseline for THC content in the early 1970’s
stored police samples were
utilized; and this low baseline
makes the claimed difference in potency appear to be
greater than it has been in reality.
In sum, the _new_marijaua_ is not new and neither is
the
hyperbole surrounding this issue. The implications of the
new disinformation
campaign are serious. Many people,
particularly the experienced users of the 1960’s and
their
children, will once again shrug off the warnings of drug
experts and not heed more
reasonable admonishments
about more dangerous drugs. This is not only abusive to
those
who look to science, the medical profession, and
government for intelligent leadership, but
will sully the
repuatations of drug educators who wittingly cry wolf, and
will
inevitably diminish the credibility of drug abuse
treatment professionals who pass on such
flawed reports.
(* end quote *)
[*] my only critisism of this article is
that they included this
reference to auto-titration. Auto-titration is irrelevant in
light of the fact that they show that the potency has not changed.
Mentioning autotitration
only serves to cloud the issue, since
there is some controversy over it. - Lamont
From:
den0@midway.uchicago.edu
Anonymous sent me the abstract and asked that I post it.
Marijuana as Antiemetic Medicine: A Survey of Oncologists’ Experiences and
Attitudes
by Richard Doblin and Mark A. R. Kleiman
Abstract: A
random-sample anonymous survey of the members of the American
Society of Clinical Oncology
(ASCO) was conducted in the spring of 1990
measuring the attitudes and experiences of American
oncologists concerning
the antiemetic use of marijuana in cancer chemotherapy patients. The
members and yielded
a response rate of 43% (1035). More than 44% of the
respondents report recommending the
(illegal) use of marijuana for the
control of emesis to at least one cancer chemotherapy
patient. Almost
half (48%) would prescribe marijuana to some of their patients if it were
somewhat more effective
than the legally available (oral) synthetic THC
(Marinol) and roughly as safe. Of the
respondents who expressed an opinion,
a majority (54%) thought marijuana should be available
by prescription.
These results bear on the question of whether mariujana has a
"currently
accepted medical use," an issue in an ongoing administrative and legal
by prescription
along with synthetic THC in oral form. This survey
demonstrates that oncologists’ experience
with the medical use of marijuana
is more extensive, and their opinions of it more favorable,
than the
regulatory authorities appear to have believed.
———
(End quote.)
The above was printed w/o permission, and I don’t know where the
study will be (has been?) published.
=============================================================================
But if
you are interested in more information on Marijuana Potency you might
want to find:
"Constituents of
Cannabis sativa L.XXIV: The Potency of Confiscated Marijuana,
Hashish, and Hash Oil Over a
Ten-Year Period,"
Journal of Forensic Sciences, Vol. 29, No. 2, April 1984,
pp.500-514.
This is the report of the Potency Monitoring Program of NIDA/DEA.
TI:
Cannabinoid receptor gene cloned.
AU: Goodwin-FK
SO: JAMA, The Journal of the American
Medical Association, Sept 19, 1990, v264, n11, p1389(1).
AB: Tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) is the
psychologically active agent in
marijuana. Recent studies have indicated that specialized
receptors for
THC exist on brain cells. Now researchers at the United States National
Institutes of Health have announced that they have been able to clone
the gene responsible for
the production of the receptor. This should
lead to the development of mammalian tissue
culture models of the
interaction between the THC molecule and the brain, which in turn
could
lead to the development of new pharmaceutical agents that can deliver the
pain-killing, anticonvulsant and other effects of THC without the known
side effects of the
drug. Marijuana is used to treat glaucoma, a condition
of increased fluid pressure within the
eyeball, and in some cases to
relieve nausea during chemotherapy.
TI: Marijuana
receptor gene cloned [news]
AU: Marx-J
SO: Science. 1990 Aug 10; 249(4969): 624-6
TI: Planning for serendipity.
AU: Synder-SH
SO: Nature, August 9, 1990, v346,
n6284, p508(1).
TI: Structure of a cannabinoid receptor and functional expression of
the cloned cDNA
AU: Matsuda-LA; Lolait-SJ; Brownstein-MJ; Young-AC; Bonner-TI
SO:
Nature. 1990 Aug 9; 346(6284): 561-4
AB: Marijuana and many of its constituent cannabinoids
influence the central
nervous system (CNS) in a complex and dose-dependent manner. Although
CNS
depression and analgesia are well documented effects of the cannabinoids,
the
mechanisms responsible for these and other cannabinoid-induced effects
are not so far known.
The hydrophobic nature of these substances has
suggested that cannabinoids resemble
anaesthetic agents in their action,
that is, they nonspecifically disrupt cellular membranes.
Recent evidence,
however, has supported a mechanism involving a G protein-coupled receptor
activity in a
dose-dependent, stereoselective and pertussis toxin-sensitive
manner. Also, the receptor is
more responsive to psychoactive cannabinoids
than to non-psychoactive cannabinoids. Here we
report the cloning and
expression of a complementary DNA that encodes a G protein-coupled
receptor
with all of these properties. Its messenger RNA is found in cell lines and
regions of the brain that have cannabinoid receptors. These findings
suggest that this protein
is involved in cannabinoid-induced CNS effects
(including alterations in mood and cognition)
experienced by users of
marijuana.
=============================================================================
look in
OMNI magazine, October 88 or 89 I beleive.
This researcher found the receptors in the brain
that THC acts upon,
an unusually large amount of frontal receptors, with no damage even
after heavy long term exposure…in other words, completely invalidating
dr heathbar’s bogus
studies. I had it and lost it…but a quick
search in the library reference system crossedw
with OMNI will
turn it up. This is real stuff. You should read it.
=============================================================================
i don’t
have the article here, but there was a recent story in _the journal
of nih research_ about the
effects on children of mothers that smoked pot.
the dean of the boston university school of
nursing went to jamacia where
about 100% of the men and 10% of the women participate in
rastafarianism,
which involves 10 to 50(?) spliffs of pot a week. (even on the low end,
this is Heavy pot use.) mothers who smoked had children that performed,
tested from age 0 to
5, either the same or Better than mothers who didn’t
smoke. the article surmised that perhaps
the mothers that smoked had better
living conditions, somehow, and that was the cause of the
improvement, not
the pot itself.
=============================================================================
Date:
Wed, 27 Oct 1993 12:09:26 -0400 (EDT)
From: Jonathan Kamien <JKAMIEN@UVMVM.BITNET>
Sender: ALCOHOL & DRUG STUDIES <ALCOHOL@LMUACAD.BITNET>
Message-id:
<01H4M0QKTW528WVZ42@YMIR.Claremont.Edu>
A pretty recent article might be a
reasonable place to start:
Block, R.I. and Ghoneim, M.M.
Effects of
chronic marijuana use on human cognition. Psychopharmacology
1993:110, 219-228
While this single article shouldn’t be considered THE definitive answer,
it reviews the
relevant literature pretty well. Another source would be
to look at the more recent NIDA
Research Mongraphs. You might look at
this, too:
Kelly, T.H., Foltin, R.W. and
Fischman, M.W. Effects of smoked marijuana
on heart rate, drug ratings and task performance by
humans
Behavioural Pharmacology 1993,4:167-17
I hope this gets you pointed in the
right direction.
=============================================================================
From:
pjordan@cab013.cs.ualberta.ca (Peter Jordan)
Newsgroups: alt.drugs
Subject: Marijuana
early lit. refs. —- HERE!
Date: 3 Sep 1994 23:23:19 GMT
Message-ID:
<34b0h7$6d2@scapa.cs.ualberta.ca>
Hello:
Here are some more references from
my
collection of articles; please enjoy ……….
1896 * Charas. The Resin of
Indian Hemp;
Wood, T.B., Spivey, W.T.N., and Easterfield, T.H.;
J. Chem. Soc.,
69:539-46; 1896.
==> "… the authors have been provided with several
pounds of
the resin, the examination of which has furnished
the materials for the present
communication."
==> "It was with the object of isolating the physiologically
research was undertaken,…"
C. The red resinous
portion boiling at 270-290 deg., under
a pressure of 15-60 mm."
==> " …
the authors … propose the name cannabinol as the
compound is undoubtedly a hydroxyl
derivative."
The authors of this article were the first ones to isolate
what is refered to by later investigators as a "toxic red oil".
1931 Cannabis
Indica Resin. Part II; R. S. Cahn;
J. Chem. Soc., 1931:630.
==> "The work
described below was carried out with several
different samples of hashish of uncertain
origin… Attention
was directed in the first place to the portion of the ether-
soluble material boiling at ca. 260-270 deg. @ 25 mm., which
on redistillation very readily
gave as a main fraction a
viscous red oil boiling mostly within 4 deg. …"
==>
"The material used was unadulterated hashish of good
quality, seized from smugglers in
Egypt and, therefore,
probably of Eastern Mediteranean origin."
1940 A
critical survey of the literature dealing with the
chemical constituents of Cannabis sativa.
A. H. Blatt; Journal of the Washington Academy of Sciences,
28(11):465-477.
==> "Two chemical individuals, neither one responsible
for the characteristic
physiological activity of the plant,
have been isolated from cannabis. In addition, three
other
products, none isolated as a pure chemical substance, have been
obtained, and the
physiological activity has been shown to
reside in the third of these … a terpene, a
sesquiterpene and
crude cannabinol."
… and many others.
See
ya all later;
Peter Jordan
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