Posted on 01/01/2018 9:24:04 AM PST by MarvinStinson
California - A new study has found that smoking marijuana is increasing among pregnant women in California, which leads to health concerns about the unborn child.
The study was published on Dec. 26 in the Journal of the American Medical Association, according to Fox News, and used the medical records of 279,000 women residing in California who were on Kaiser Permanente, a health care service.
Women who agreed to participate were asked to answer a questionnaire when they were about eight weeks pregnant, and take a drug test to see if they tested positive for marijuana use. In the study, researchers found that marijuana consumption among pregnant women in the state has risen from 2009 to 2016 from 4.2 percent to 7.1 percent.
Kelly Young-Wolff, the studys lead researcher, and Dr. Nancy Goler, a researcher, said their study shows how marijuana might potentially harm an unborn child.
"Our study is important because it addressed key limitations of prior studies by investigating trends in prenatal marijuana use using data from a large California health care system with gold standard universal screening for prenatal marijuana use," Goler and Young-Wolff told Reuters.
"We were concerned to find that the prevalence of marijuana use in pregnancy is increasing more quickly among younger females, aged 24 and younger, and to see the high prevalence of use in this age group," Young-Wolff said.
Both Young-Wolff and Goler noted marijuana was the most commonly used illegal drug during pregnancy, and could impair fetal growth and neuro-development, Reuters reported.
Marijuana use may be on the rise because recent legalization of its recreational use in some states "has made people think of the drug as less dangerous, even during pregnancy," according to Barbara Yankey, a researcher at Georgia State University.
"Because of the possibility of concurrent use of marijuana and other substances of abuse, the evidence of its direct association with preterm labor, fetal growth restriction, preterm birth, low birthweight and stillbirth is still debatable, though these adverse effects lean more towards an increased likelihood of occurrence," Yankey said.
The more we study cannabis use during pregnancy, the more we are realizing how harmful it can be, Dr. Marcel Bonn-Miller, a researcher at the University of Pennsylvania Perelman School of Medicine in Philadelphia said. She was not involved in the study.
California will make recreational marijuana possession legal in 2018.
"There is conclusive or substantial evidence that cannabis or cannabinoids are effective:
For the treatment of chronic pain in adults (cannabis) (4-1)
As antiemetics in the treatment of chemotherapy-induced nausea and vomiting (oral cannabinoids) (4-3)
For improving patient-reported multiple sclerosis spasticity symptoms (oral cannabinoids) (4-7a)
"There is moderate evidence that cannabis or cannabinoids are effective for:
Improving short-term sleep outcomes in individuals with sleep disturbance associated with obstructive sleep apnea syndrome, fibromyalgia, chronic pain, and multiple sclerosis (cannabinoids, primarily nabiximols) (4-19)"
- National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2017. The Health Effects of Cannabis and Cannabinoids: The Current State of Evidence and Recommendations for Research. https://www.nap.edu/read/24625/chapter/6#128
Apparently, you have never perused the NORML website. It promotes the idea that marijuana is perfectly safe.
Still peddling this falsehood even after I showed you the truth (http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/3597432/posts?page=73#73)? For shame.
What I did here was to explain *exactly* what the doctor meant and the implications when he said that the AMA has no evidence. He really did mean that the AMA had done no studies and so did not have any data. He meant no more and no less than that the AMA had no data. It is not my problem that you do not know how medical professionals think or communicate, and that you do not understand how precisely they communicate.
I'm certain that the pro-legalization advocates love to take that statement out of context and interpret it to mean something that the doctor did not intend. That doesn't change the doctor's meaning, and it does not mean that marijuana is perfectly safe (and it is clear that the ultimate goal of the pro-legalization advocates want everyone to believe it is completely safe and harmless).
Apparently, you have never perused the NORML website. It promotes the idea that marijuana is perfectly safe.
Still peddling this falsehood even after I showed you the truth (http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/3597432/posts?page=73#73)? For shame.
Seriously, still trying to back pedal on that? If you are trying to refute my statement that NORML is still pushing the narrative that marijuana is perfectly safe, how about quoting and linking the passage directly from the NORML website that contradicts me? Everything I've read on NORML's website supports their narrative that marijuana is completely safe.
If I will be honest, you come across as someone who is probably addicted and is in deep denial about the dangers of the addiction. Have you thought about getting help for that?
was continue to provide no evidence for your speculation that marijuana was banned because people were noticing deleterious effects.
it does not mean that marijuana is perfectly safe
Beat your straw men elsewhere.
No, what you did do was baselessly whine about meta-analyses: http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/bloggers/3603444/posts?page=163#163.
Still peddling this falsehood even after I showed you the truth (http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/3597432/posts?page=73#73)? For shame.
how about quoting and linking the passage directly from the NORML website that contradicts me?
As I've quoted to you before: "Use of cannabis, to the extent that it impairs health, personal development or achievement, is abuse, to be resisted by responsible cannabis users." - http://norml.org/marijuana/personal/item/principles-of-responsible-use
I do not deal in anti-vax conspiracy theories.
You know I am not against all vaccines per se. In my opinion no one should give vaccines to babies under one year old, because the reaction to the onslaught of ingredients needs to be safely processed by a healthy immune system, which isnt there until that time, and possibly not even at age one, but at least waiting one year, checking for signs of illness, keeping up with genetics research, and staggering the shots, getting single illness vaccines over multi illness vaccines, asking the doctor to open a new multi dose bottle or seeing that it is almost full, MINIMIZES THE RISK of permanent neurological damage.
How can you critique my opinion thus as anything but scientifically cautious? Yet you call me a conspiracist. Isn’t that just what leftists do, polarizing and mocking people who disagree? Babies health shouldnt be left to faith in a government agency. Parents should have full freedom to study and learn the best, safest choices. Not forced due to agencies and corporations with financial or political biases.
Hey mom! How ya been? Hope you had a wonderful Holiday season.
“These reasons have been buried under the onslaught of conspiratorial propaganda, but I think that we will find out (again) why our forefathers did not want this stuff to be legal.”
Silly Mom! Starting off with a historical fallacy. How sweet of ya!
Keep spreading prohibitionist FUD, Mom.
Happy New Year :)
Really? The fact that you want to believe, even if the "evidence" is in the form of meta-analyses--which are to scientific research what fast food is to fine dining--does not make me a whiner. Meta-analyses are the least reliable form of "research", and controlled studies are the most reliable. Can you link to the PubMed reference any controlled studies that demonstrate that there is, or potentially could be, a medical use for marijuana or any of its components?
As I've quoted to you before: "Use of cannabis, to the extent that it impairs health, personal development or achievement, is abuse, to be resisted by responsible cannabis users." - http://norml.org/marijuana/personal/item/principles-of-responsible-use
Well, at least you linked to NORML this time, and not to some post on FR. The fact remains, however, that NORML still pushes marijuana use as a harmless pastime. The statement you quoted does not change that. Where is the section in the NORML website that honestly discusses some of the most recent findings on marijuana use? Where is NORML's warning that people who use marijuana while their brains are still developing (up to age 25) can develop psychotic disorders?
Just because the evidence was not documented does not mean it didn't exist. There are plenty of things that have happened in the past that were not documented. We can still use deductive analysis of the facts we do have to determine a plausible sequence of events.
The fact is that marijuana use does damage people, and only now are the studies being conducted to determine exactly how the damage occurs and what the damage is. It is toxic to certain brain cells. It precipitates psychotic disorder in users whose brains have not fully developed. It causes hyperemesis disorder. These effects, which are now being systematically documented, are intrinsic to marijuana use--therefore, people would have noticed them occurring in marijuana addicts at any time in history. A hundred years ago, people might not have had studies to document deleterious effects, but they were observant.
“Just because the evidence was not documented does not mean it didn’t exist.”
That’s the funniest line in the whole thread, Mom. Thank you for this. :)
‘Second is their sick little desired to control everyone and look down their twisted selfrighteous noses at others’
As opposed to what?....to be free to act in behaviorally libertine ways that show the worst that men and women can act who then look down their own imagined self righteous noses at those who advocate for a moderation of the worst of society’s bad behaviors...?
Hypocrites can be found on all sides of the culture wars.
so you must have missed the zero day ping. Apologies to the OP for semi hijack. And frankly I find Apple enthusiasts full of vitriol and pumped up with self-importance for the most part. They usually go out of their way to explain how they’ve been in IT for ages.
So you've repeatedly claimed and never supported.
As I've quoted to you before: "Use of cannabis, to the extent that it impairs health, personal development or achievement, is abuse, to be resisted by responsible cannabis users." - http://norml.org/marijuana/personal/item/principles-of-responsible-use
The fact remains, however, that NORML still pushes marijuana use as a harmless pastime.
No, that "fact" is your bizarre delusion in the face of evidence explicitly to the contrary.
Right, and just because nobody has ever seen a unicorn doesn't mean they don't exist.
I guess although "Anecdotal stories are not evidence" somehow pure speculation IS evidence. Drug War logic.
Talk about hypocritical thinking. You stated your own self-importance when you said
"I support approx. 1000 endpoints and also a host of ipads as well as iphones.",
as if that lends credibility to pushing fake information that in itself is totally unrelated to the thread at hand. My reply was to counter your experience level as being irrelevant. Do you get it now? Yes I've been in IT for ages, but I don't push fake information because of a hatred for a vendor. I have supported many dozens of vendors in mainframes, minis and PCs; they are just tools and you don't need to get emotional about them.
Why would I respond? When your very first couple of sentences are headed at breakneck speed off into some hinterland that has nothing to do with what I said, why would I even read the rest of your post?
I arrive at my opinions based on a variety of sources. I consult the medical literature directly for matters regarding the effects (short and long term) of marijuana use. For the societal effects, I draw from both personal experience and a variety of documented sources (which are not always in the medical literature).
But with technological advances, it became possible for some people to become addicts who are incapable of performing meaningful work and yet society makes sure they don't die.
Can anybody else enlighten me on her point? Is it just me??
I do happen to know that there are a number of other FReepers who are aware of the role of technological advances in enabling a whole class of people who leech off of other people. I had no way of knowing that you are not one of those.
Technological advances mean that the basic needs of human life--food, shelter, and clothing--can be produced with a fraction of the labor that it took to produce them prior to the industrial revolution. Thus, in historical times, society could not afford to support a large number of people who did not pull their own weight. Now, however, with our basic needs met with far less labor, it is possible to confiscate enough from workers to support a sizeable non-working class. Drug addicts fall directly into that non-working class, especially as they sink deeper into their addictions.
Even with the decreased quantity of labor needed to ensure that basic living needs are met, there is still a limit on how many freeloaders that society can support. I do not think that the experiment with turning large numbers of people into potheads is going to end well, in part because of that limit.
I have known a few of those sort of addicts over the years (incapable or simply unwilling to do any sort of meaningful work) and it was NOT marijuana they were addicted too... It was crack, speed, heroin and even alcohol... all the "man made" crap that destroys lives. Also known a few of them that were dead before 40 that somehow society did not manage to save... so yeah your point is lost on me.
They were addicts who used a variety of substances to get their "highs." Marijuana certainly feeds into that.
Marijuana has been classified as a "gateway" drug. I do not know how strong the evidence is, but the concept of marijuana as a gateway drug does fit the model of drug addiction. In the general model, people try something and get a high. They like the feeling, so try to repeat it. However, the more they use, the more their body builds up resistances to the substance.
The scientific explanation is that many mind-altering substances act very specifically to interfere with the functions of neuroreceptors. One way the body compensates is to synthesize more receptors, because the body is trying to maintain the normal physiological function of those receptors which is impaired when those receptors are blocked by non-physiological substances. Thus, it takes higher doses of the substance to produce the same effects. There is a limit on how many extra receptors the body can synthesize, so eventually, even high doses cannot overcome the body's defenses and produce the effect.
When the first drug of choice fails to produce the desired high, people then look for something else to try to get that high. They want stronger drugs, or different drugs that have a slightly different mechanism of action to cause mind-altering effects. Marijuana acts on a different class of neuroreceptors than opioids; thus, people looking for something that will produce the "high" that they crave would quite naturally turn from the use of one class of drugs to the other class.
And yes, drug addicts do die of their addictions, not because they overwhelmed society's ability to provide for their basic needs, but because they damaged their bodies to the point of no longer being capable of supporting life. The fact is that society, through government provided health care, goes to extraordinary measures to try to save drug addicts from their self-induced medical issues. If it was up to me, I would just let their addictions kill them.
Many of the anti-vax conspiracy sites appeal to people by putting a scientific veneer over their misinformation and conspiracies. They appeal to people by claiming to "reveal" information that is "withheld" by the government. They have developed a very sophisticated propaganda designed to appeal to people who already have a distrust of authority or government. And so their target audience believes that by consulting these anti-vax sites, they are getting "real" information that is being suppressed. Etc. Etc.
If you want real information, you have to really analyze the quality of the material posted on the site. Is it plausible? Can the claim be easily refuted? For example, anti-vax conspiracy sites love to promote the notion that vaccines are not tested, that people who receive vaccines are guinea pigs in some dark conspiracy to conduct unethical experimentation. Yet it is not difficult to find the requirements for FDA approval of vaccines, which are treated just like every other FDA approved drug. It takes a minimum of ten years to bring a vaccine from initial phase I clinical trials through to FDA approval--and that's only if the stars align just right. In reality, the process towards FDA approval is long and rocky; it can take decades.
Another hallmark of anti-vax conspiracy sites is that they appeal directly to emotion, not fact. For example, the diatribe about babies being injected with adjuvanted vaccines is nothing but emotion. The target audience for such fear-mongering is people who have no idea how the immune system works and no idea about the role of adjuvants. The majority of adverse reactions to vaccines occur because of the immune response to the antigen. [A logical assumption is that if a person's immune response to a vaccine is so strong as to cause significant inflammation at the injection site, that an infection with the pathogen the vaccine protects against would be extremely debilitating and potentially lethal.] Many of the remaining adverse reactions are due to suboptimal injection techniques, which have to be addressed through making sure the personnel administering vaccines are properly trained.
Last, the "scientific evidence" that anti-vax conspiracy sites love to present in support of their conspiracies is not even remotely scientific. One example of that is the claim that measles was disappearing all by itself before the vaccine was widely used. As proof, they'll present a graph that shows how measles deaths were declining. But they don't give any context. They don't mention that the decrease in deaths is because of improved hospital practices--for example, the practices of providing IV fluid support and keeping the patient in an aseptic environment to prevent secondary bacterial infections do prevent many (but not all) measles deaths. They don't tell you that without a vaccine, measles is one of the most contagious diseases known, and that a serious measles epidemic or pandemic could easily overwhelm the medical system to the point that many infected people would not receive the high level of care needed to reduce mortality.
Certainly, it is prudent to inform yourself. There are many sources of legitimate information. You can look up the status of vaccines in clinical trials and see how the trials are conducted at the site www.clinicaltrials.gov. You can research the medical literature on any vaccine you want at www.pubmed.gov. That's where you'll find the original research described. Or you can consult the CDC website for good information that is directed towards lay people who are not scientifically educated (but are still assumed to be reasonably intelligent). And so on. I would avoid anything connected to Barbara Loe Fisher, Robert Kennedy Jr., Jenny McCarthy, and other rabid anti-vaxxers, as well as web-sites like whale.to, mercola, and so on. [Interestingly, I tried to search for anti-vax websites and found, instead, mostly results telling how anti-vax websites seek to deceive. That's a significant change from even a couple of years ago, when my search results would have been populated with anti-vax conspiracy sites. And here's an interesting blog from a young mother who was initially swayed by anti-vax conspiracy mongering but did her own research and eventually let the facts inform her opinion.]
I would love to know what a life without chronic pain would be like, but I do not have that luxury. At this moment, my back hurts, my right arm and shoulder hurt, and my feet are aching in the bones. Pain is a constant for me. I have arthritis, and I have broken a few bones which remain forever painful. And I take nothing. For the most part, I use exercises that I learned in physical therapy, to strengthen the muscles around the joints so that there is less strain in the joints. Only when the pain is really bad do I take anything--ibuprofen. That's all. I've taken opiates, such as when I broke my arm. The opiates barely touched the pain, and the side effects--including a headache that felt like a railroad tie was being pounded into my head--are enough to dissuade me from ever taking opiates again.
As far as where you say your opinions have been formed, to have a real conversation, I would have to know how you feel about a couple other legal drugs that are proven to cause harm and kill thousands of Americans every year and let me know if you are or were a cigarette smoker or drink any form of alcohol. Personally I would put Marijuana in the classification of another legal harmless drug that also comes from a plant... called Caffine... Are you a coffee drinker?? I am not, lets ban that too!
You can't lump every substance together. I have yet to hear of anyone ever causing an automobile accident because they were under the influence of tobacco or caffeine. No one has ever become mean and violent because they imbibed a little too much coffee. I know that a favorite tact of pro-marijuana users is to say, "But what about [insert other substance of choice here]?" with the intent of trying to make marijuana look safe by comparison. The problem is, though, that marijuana is not safe. The more medical research is done on it, the more the dangers of use are being revealed and documented. Marijuana causes certain neurological cell types to die. Marijuana causes damage to certain structures in the brain. Marijuana reduces peoples' initiative and ambition, so that they do not feel motivated to do much at all beyond seek their next high. People who use marijuana before their brains are fully developed (i.e. before age 25) can become psychotic. And so on. On top of that, the psychoactive compounds in marijuana are fat soluble and are metabolized only very slowly, meaning that the exposure to these compounds is prolonged--which is problematic when considering questions of toxicity and carcinogenicity. In contrast, alcohol is rapidly metabolized by the body, at a rate of about one drink per hour (the rate is affected by body size). That means that if you have a glass of wine with dinner, it is metabolized by the time you go to bed. And so on.
Finally, your story about your experiences with mind-altering substances tells me that it really would not have mattered which mind-altering substance you used first. You happened to use alcohol first, so that was your gateway. If you had used marijuana first, that would have been your gateway. Some people are genetically predisposed to become addicted. I read about a man who was told that he had genes that are associated with addiction, and his response was to avoid ever engaging in behavior that might cause him to become addicted. No alcohol, no opioid pain killers, nothing. He didn't want to become an addict.
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