'Cannabis' acts as antidepressant

A chemical found in cannabis can act like an antidepressant, researchers have found.

A team from Canada's University of Sasketchewan suggest the compound causes nerve cells to regenerate.

The Journal of Clinical Investigation study showed rats given a cannabinoid were less anxious and less depressed.

But UK experts warned other conflicting research had linked cannabis, and other cannabinoids, to an increased risk of depression and anxiety.

They suggested this could be because different cannabinoids acting at different levels have contradictory effects.

Cannabinoids have been shown to relieve the symptoms of multiple sclerosis and pain relief in humans.

The Canadian researchers gave rats injections of high levels of one artificial cannabinoid, HU210, for a month.

The animals were seen to have nerve cell regeneration in the hippocampus, which is linked to memory and emotions.

The hippocampus has been shown to generate new nerve cells throughout a person's or an animal's life, but this ability is reduced if cells are engineered to lack a cannabinoid receptor protein called CB-1.

In the Canadian study, rats given the cannabinoid were also found to be less anxious, and more willing to eat food in new environments - a change which would normally frighten them.

However, research has previously linked use of the drug cannabis to long-term damage to mental health, and to increase the risk of mental illness in those who are already genetically susceptible.

In addition, short-term high doses of cannabinoids had also been shown to produce anxiety-like effects in rats and depression-like effects in mice.

But other studies had found that low-doses of cannabinoids helped to reduce anxiety in rodents.

The Canadian team said: "These complicated effects of high and low doses of acute and chronic exposure to cannabinoids may explain the seemingly conflicting results observed in clinical studies regarding the effects of cannabinoid on anxiety and depression."

Professor Robin Murray, of the Institute of Psychiatry, questioned whether the anti-anxiety and antidepressant effects seen in the animals would be replicated in humans.

He said: "This is a very big leap of faith as they have no data on humans, and the supposed animals' models of anxiety and depression that they use don't have much in common with the human conditions."

Paul Corry, Director of campaigns and communication at Rethink said: "Cannabinoids are an exciting new area for medical research, but it is important to recognise that there are over 60 active ingredients in cannabis - synthetic cannabinoid may be showing evidence of nerve regeneration.

"But as also pointed out in this study, the effects of cannabis on the brain are complex and produce conflicting evidence.

"For most people with severe mental illness, raw cannabis remains a risky substance.

"All medical research needs to be checked before it would make a difference to the hundreds of thousands of people living with severe mental illness in the UK."

"Nor does the site say they do. It says that 95% of those who are addicted manage to getted hooked the first time they try it."

They said, "First, there’s the fact that 99 percent of first-time meth users are hooked after the first try." To me that means that 99% of all those who try meth will become addicted the first time they use it.

Further down on the page they said, "95% of those who are hooked on meth became hooked after the first time." I'd be willing to bet that 100% of those hooked on meth became hooked sometime after the first time they used it. I suspect what they meant to say was that 95% of those addicted to meth became addicted the first time they tried it. I don't believe that either, but at least it isn't as hokey as saying that 99% of the people who try meth will become addicted the first time they try it.

Personally, I don't think there is a single drug out there that one could become addicted to after only one use. But meth is an extremely addictive drug and the only way to be sure you won't become addicted to it is to never try it even once. Some people fool around with it some for a long time and never become addicted. Some fool around with it some over a long period of time and even though after years of occasional use they think they won't become addicted, bam, the next thing you know they're doing it constantly, losing their jobs, their homes, their families, everything important to them. Some go down hard on the stuff soon after they start messing with it.

I don't know what percentage of people who try it become addicted. Even if only 20% of the people who try it become addicted, it's stupid as hell to even try the stuff because there would be a one in five chance that you would be one of the miserable slobs ruining your health and your life with that crap, and the odds would be against you ever being able to quit. It still wouldn't be worth it if only one in ten become addicted, the odds against you would be too great considering how horrible addiction to that stuff really is. Nobody knows before they mess with a highly addictive drug like that whether they'll be one of the ones who gets addicted. In fact, none of these idiots think they'll get addicted or they wouldn't try it in the first place. They're mostly young people, feeling invincible, thinking to themselves that only weak stupid people who aren't careful get addicted, and of course they all think they are special enough to handle it.

I'm a public defender in an area where meth is popular. I deal with meth addicts constantly. I have about a hundred adult felony clients right now and a good number of them are on meth. I also handle all of the juvenile cases for a small county and a depressing number of these kids are using the stuff. I talk to these kids all the time and they just don't have a clue. Now they see their friends doing it and their friends don't appear to be getting addicted. I tell them to give it time and they'll be seeing their friends dropping like flies. Each year more and more of their friend's lives will spiral out of control as their addictions get the better of them. They'll finally come to know just how bad this $hit they are messing with is and I just hope and pray they aren't behind bars in a prison somewhere when it finally comes to them, hopelessly hooked on this crap and looking at about as bleak a future as a person could have.

These kids are skeptical of what we grown ups have to say. They think we are just trying to scare them. When we exaggerate, or lie to them about drugs, they believe us even less. They have eyes. They see that nowhere near 99% of people who try meth get addicted the first time they use it. They know of lots of people who have used meth for more than five years who aren't dead. They hear all this bull$hit from authority figures and they stop believing anything we have to say. Instead they buy into what their idiot friends are telling them. "It's only a psychological addiction, you can quit anytime." "Hardly anyone gets addicted unless they shoot it up." "If you only do it once or twice a week you'll never get addicted." "You have to do it everyday to get addicted." "All that crap the cops say about it is just government propaganda. The government are all liars." "Your parents don't know what they are talking about, they hear all that crap from the government and believe everything they hear because they are gullible." I hear them saying all sorts of nonsense like this and they believe it. When we lie to them we only make it worse. I refuse to lie about it or exaggerate the truth because the real truth about it is bad enough.

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