Cannabis Consumption Helps With Brain Trauma

UCLA researchers have taken a big stride toward proving what your average stoner has known for ages: weed is good for your brain. No, that’s not a blanket statement that can be applied to any permutation of that sentiment, but the study found that marijuana users had a markedly higher survival rate from brain trauma.

“How it works: The study looked at 446 participants who were victims of a traumatic brain injury. Certain people were excluded, including anyone under 15 and anyone whose injury was not deemed survivable. For legal reasons, the researchers couldn’t just give some of the participants marijuana and watch what would happen. Therefore, they had to use a survey to see who was a marijuana user. The results were striking: 97.6% of patients who reported using marijuana survived their surgeries, compared to 88.5% of nonusers…THC can stay in your system for up to a month. You don’t necessarily need to be high at the time of injury to reap the apparent benefits. Moving forward: What exactly those benefits are, though, remains a mystery. One thing that would help figure that out? Loosening restrictions on using marijuana for research.”

And that is the one hurdle that constantly impedes any robust and thorough examination of cannabis compounds, what they might be used for, and how effective they might be. Federal scheduling and regulation dictates that cannabis is disallowed from scientific inquiry. Other countries are doing research and they are finding astounding things. Mark my words, cannabis is on the verge of revolutionizing this planet. If the U.S. refuses to get into the ring and stake a claim, we will do so at our own detriment.

The perspective of the Kennedy/Sabet Prohibition Ponies is that there is no quality research to back up claims of medical efficacy, yet they never seem to mention that such research is prohibited by the government… a government which, by the way, holds federal patents on marijuana medications. They are effectively saying, “This stuff is bad for you, but you’ll just have to take our word for it.”

It’s information control at its worst. It reminds me of when my brother and I caught my little sister confidently wheeling one of her friends around the house on a microwave tray-table. She looked squarely at us and said, “Mom said I could do this, but don’t ask her, because she probably forgot.”

I am sick of politicians and para-politicos with political ambition using cannabis as a jump-off point for their careers. In a country where cigarettes, alcohol, pharmaceuticals, guns, fracking, mountain-top removal and Tom Bergeron are all legal, there is no believable reason to keep cannabis on the fringes. I’ll say it: standing in the way of legalization and the research potentially found on the other side makes you look like an ass.

With proper research, we could verify (or even disprove) some of the anecdotal medical marijuana claims. Therein lies the catch-22 for those opposed to pot. I think they are fully aware that their claim is bullshit and they aren’t in any hurry to lose one of their favorite talking points.