3 New Studies Showing Health Positives

Of Cannabis
Photo: Mark - flickr.com/photos/eggrole - Flickr Creative Commons

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by Russ Belville
ON FEBRUARY 9, 2015
President Obama has admitted he thinks cannabis is no more harmful than alcohol. Most
Americans would agree he’s on the conservative side of that subject, as polls regularly show
majorities who think cannabis is a safer substance to use than alcohol and tobacco. One
survey even found that the majority of Americans think regular sugar use is more harmful
than regular cannabis use.
But is there evidence to back up those beliefs? Yes. Absolutely.
While the federal government still classifies cannabis as a Schedule I substance with “no
known medical value,” there is so much scientific and anecdotal evidence out there showing
its medical benefits that even the U.S. Surgeon General recently said it’s useful for some
medical conditions.
Scientists in other parts of the world have completed clinical trials showing cannabis’ ability
to take down swelling and even reduce cancerous tumors, but in the U.S. research is severely
restricted. Most U.S.-based researchers learn quickly that they’ll only get funding and access
to study marijuana if they are looking for its harms. However, some research has trickled out
— even in the U.S. — to show significant positives when it comes to marijuana use.
Here are three of the most recent discoveries science has brought us on cannabis consumption
and health:
1. Men who use cannabis are less likely to get bladder cancer… among many cancers.
The February edition of the journal Urology reports on a review of California health data that
found tobacco smokers had a 52 percent increased risk of bladder cancer, but those who
smoked both cannabis and tobacco had just a 28 percent increased risk. The shocker was that
among those men who were cannabis-only smokers, they had a 45 percent reduced risk of
bladder cancer. Not compared to tobacco smokers, butcompared to men who don’t smoke
anything.
This is just the latest study to show a reduced correlation of cancer among regular marijuana
consumers, the most famous of which was Dr. Donald Tashkin’s 2006 research showing a
reduced risk of head, neck, and lung cancers among marijuana smokers, again, compared to
people who don’t smoke anything.
2. Marijuana’s not shrinking your brain… but alcohol may be.
Have you heard that smoking pot shrinks gray matter in the brain? The January edition of
the Journal of Neuroscience published research debunking that nonsense once and for all. The
shrinking brain myth was propagated from research that claimed to find reduced gray matter
in the brains of long term marijuana consumers. But these researchers from the University of
Colorado Boulder and University of Louisville carefully controlled for factors others had
ignored, like alcohol consumption, gender, and age, and they found no difference in brain
scans between marijuana users and non-users.
But what about those alleged lost IQ points the drug warriors talk about? That Duke study
from 2012 was questioned in the same journal that had published the original study for not
controlling for other confounding factors. Then, in October 2014, the University College of
London published findings that showed no effect on IQ whatsoever from marijuana use, even
heavy use, but a strong correlation between lower IQ and alcohol consumption.
3. Marijuana’s helping create brain cells.
Many a public service ad has been made about frying one’s brain cells. But there are over a
hundred studies now showing that cannabinoids help induce neurogenesis — the creation of
brain cells. One of the latest studies, reported in the August 2014 edition
of Psychopharmacology, showed how cannabinoids “may have therapeutic potential for
specific cognitive impairments associated with Alzheimer’s disease.” Rather than the stock
pot joke about losing one’s memory, marijuana may help bring back memory.
But can it prevent Alzheimer’s? Dr. Gary Wenk, a neuroscience, immunology and medical
genetics specialist at Ohio State University, thinks so. Not so much that marijuana is a
vaccine for Alzheimer’s, but that it delays its onset so long you’d die of old age first.
Then there is the ability of cannabinoids to protect and repair brain cells in the event of
concussion. Harvard professor Dr. Lester Grinspoon wrote an open letter to NFL
Commissioner Roger Goodell last fall asking the league to invest heavily in the development
of cannabinoid therapies to protect the players from chronic traumatic encephalopathy, or the
shearing of brain matter that leads to depression, violent outburst, and early death.
Now that four states have legalized cannabis and twenty-three (plus Washington, D.C.) allow
medical use, the flood of new research revealing marijuana’s positive health benefits will
likely be overwhelming. I’d bet that the next generation will be shocked that we had ever
banned this beneficial herb.
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