Drugs or more drugs?
Exposure to THC in adolescence makes rats hungrier for heroin, which they access by pushing a lever.
Rats taking cannabis get taste for heroin news@nature.com's version
Posted on 07/08/2006 2:48:58 AM PDT by neverdem
In what could be a coup for antimarijuana forces, new research shows that rats exposed to pot's active ingredient at an early age devour more heroin as adults than rats without early exposure. Some experts, though, say the jury is still out on whether the finding is enough to officially label marijuana a "gateway" drug.
According to statistics from the National Institute on Drug Abuse, most adults who take illicit drugs start doing so in their early teens. In addition, the earlier kids start smoking dope, the more likely they are to use harder drugs later on. For example, of people who first puffed weed before age 15, 62% went on to use cocaine and 9% to use heroin. But of those who started smoking pot after age of 20, only 16% moved onto cocaine and 1% to heroin. Some researchers think this means that marijuana is a gateway drug--one that leads to harder drug use. Others point out that such a claim is hard to prove because the same factors that lead people to use marijuana in the first place might also lead them to use other drugs.
To see through the smoke, neuroscientist Yasmin Hurd, now at the Mount Sinai School of Medicine, and colleagues at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, Sweden, gave 4-week-old rats THC, the most common psychoactive component in cannabis. The researchers injected the rats with the THC equivalent of about three-quarters of a joint (scaled down for a rat's size) every third day for 3 weeks until they reached mid-adolescence, about 7 weeks old. The dose probably created a mild buzz, but not high enough that the rats stumbled. After a week-long break, the rodents were allowed to self-administer heroin using levers that provide the substance.
Rats that had been exposed to THC as "teens" took about 25% more heroin than did their just-say-no peers. Biochemical tests of the adult animals showed that THC-doused brains had the same number of receptors that responded to THC as unexposed rat brains, but more receptors for heroin and more of a compound associated with reward behavior in their neurons, the team reports online 5 July in Neuropsychopharmacology. Whether this indicates marijuana is a "gateway" drug depends on the definition of "gateway," says Hurd. She says both groups of animals took the same amount of time to start taking heroin, suggesting THC use doesn't start them on the path to hedonism, but the THC-primed rats got more into it, suggesting it paves the way for increased use.
"The important finding is the fact that adolescence is a time of increased vulnerability to drugs," says neuropharmacologist Sari Izenwasser of the University of Miami School of Medicine in Florida, who notes that such behavior may alter fundamental brain processes. But pharmacologist Aron Lichtman at Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond inserts a note of caution. "The data really are very provocative," he says, but not conclusive. He questions whether other reward-reinforcing behavior, such as eating food, would also be increased under these conditions.
Uh huh...And Global Warming will kill us all. Yawn.
I wonder what those numbers would be if "nicotine cigarettes" were substituted for "weed".
99.783 % of heroin users were once users of caffeine
LOL
At that point it kind of turned me. It's not about health, public safety or the children. It's about control, pure and simple. Besides, you can't promote a socialist health care scheme where millions are going to die as a result of neglect and corruption if you've got all that dangerous second hand smoke or evil trans fatty acids on the loose.
I'm no longer convinced the war on drugs is valid or justified. The biggest reason is that you just can't kill the demand, there are simply going to be addicts of some thing or another no matter what. OTOH, there may be free market methods to encourage control. I'd love to see more emphasis placed on that.
Still, when people talk about things like crack and crystal meth, well, at that point I have to give up my arguement. I can't think of a valid reason to permit the existence or use of such drugs. There are some things we can't resolve through our type of enforcement unless we take exceptionally harsh measures, and maybe we should consider brutal tactics for scpecial cases. Again, it dimishes my argument, but I can't possibly defend my point in this area. I'm not going to start a big flame war, but I've just lost faith in how the WOD is being handled and it's direction. We may think it's helping us now, but I can see it expanding rapidly out of control under a liberal administration and being used as an alternate method to subvert and destroy individual freedoms under the likes of a person like Hillary or worse.
I don't have a viable alternative, sadly. Just the same suggestion: Drive all socialists on our soil into the seas, and we will be amazed at how quickly our problems go away.
Why don't they do simple (and cheap) statistical research on what percentage of one-time pot users become serious consumers of heroin? Is it because 'scientific' research which results in no anti-drug message also results in no more research grants? Or am I just naive?
The people who are naive are those who fall for such "research".
'Acid-flacid babies' anyone? How about those carcinogenic cyclamates? And the radon, oh the radon! Right now I am in the process of insulating my home from the devastating effects of acid rain...
What do you say we see how other common things (alcohol, caffeine, nicotine, sugar, chocolate) fare under the same experimental conditions, before we decide what to do about pot? Do any of them lead to increased self-dosing of heroin, and if so, what should we do about them?
I don't know; I know a lot of potheads who never progressed to heroin. BTW, earning a paycheck by getting rats stoned must be a real hoot.
I can go you one better, LOL. 100 % of heroin users once drank milk.
That joke being out of the way, I know people who have used marijuana medicinally (MS patients) and they didn't "go on" to heroin, they, in fact, didn't go on to oxycontin, or percocet, or vicodin.
The marijuana controlled their pain and spasticity, so they used less drugs, not more.
You seem to be saying that human behavior cannot be predicted by rat behavior. Scientific heresy!
I would rather smoke a God made plant any day then be hooked on Oxycontin like the almighty Rushbo. Oh I forgot he had a bad back so he's forgiven.
I'm going back to digging my bomb shelter. :-)
You seem to be saying that human behavior cannot be predicted by rat behavior. Scientific heresy!
So - if a rat is born in in a free state paid hospital, raised on food stamps and subsidized housing - the rat will probably seek handouts the rest of it's life? We could learn how to repair our federal and state budgets from rats!
I don't know; I know a lot of potheads who never progressed to heroin. BTW, earning a paycheck by getting rats stoned must be a real hoot.
3/4 of a joint for a baby rat?
The equivalent dose for a 170 lb. human would be - 2,000 joints with the estimated weight of the rat at one ounce!
Science - my @$$!
I'm not too worried...they only studied Democrats.
So where are the heroin addicts? Many millions of people use marijuana every year, why didn't they go on to heroin?
Lock me in a box and let me know that pressing the lever will make me feel good, and I'm guessing I'll press the lever.
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