Good Pot, Bad Picking
Stop the presses.
Smoking marijuana makes people feel mellow and gives them the munchies.
Yes, your tax dollars,
through the National Institute on Drug Abuse, paid for research that reached
that conclusion.
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But seriously, folks, there is a practical side
to this study, published in the most recent issue of Psychopharmacology.
Columbia University scientists wanted to see if regular users experienced
withdrawal symptoms when given pot |
containing no
tetrahydrocannabinol, or THC, the active ingredient in marijuana. Such a
finding could help explain the recent increase in people seeking treatment for
marijuana abuse.
The researchers
recruited a dozen men who already smoked pot almost daily. During the
three-week study, the men lived in a residential laboratory at the New York
State Psychiatric Institute. They were given marijuana cigarettes at 10 a.m., 2
p.m., 6 p.m. and 10 p.m. and allowed to eat as much as they wanted between 8:30
a.m. and 11:30 p.m. On some days the cigarettes contained the real thing, while
on others, the cigarettes contained THC-free marijuana. The subjects were never
told which was which.
This we would have
liked to have seen: Colored lights on the ceiling of the lab’s social area
signaled the subject to “light the cigarette,” “get ready,”
“inhale,” “hold smoke in lungs” and “exhale.”
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Latest Mental Health News
Sunday, Aug. 2,
1999 |
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