Tea at Trianon: Marijuana and Brain Damage

John Wilson Croker on Marie-Antoinette

"We have followed the history of Marie Antoinette with the greatest diligence and scrupulosity. We have lived in those times. We have talked with some of her friends and some of her enemies; we have read, certainly not all, but hundreds of the libels written against her; and we have, in short, examined her life with– if we may be allowed to say so of ourselves– something of the accuracy of contemporaries, the diligence of inquirers, and the impartiality of historians, all combined; and we feel it our duty to declare, in as a solemn a manner as literature admits of, our well-matured opinion that every reproach against the morals of the queen was a gross calumny– that she was, as we have said, one of the purest of human beings."

~from History of the Guillotine by John Wilson Croker, 1844

Edmund Burke on Marie-Antoinette

"It is now sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the queen of France, then dauphiness, at Versailles; and surely there never lighted on this orb, which she hardly seemed to touch, a more delightful vision. I saw her just above the horizon, decorating and cheering the elevated sphere she had just begun to move in, glittering like a morning star full of life and splendor and joy. Oh, what a revolution....Little did I dream that I should have lived to see such disasters fall upon her, in a nation of gallant men, in a nation of men of honor and of cavaliers! I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards, to avenge even a look which threatened her with insult. But the age of chivalry is gone; that of sophisters, economists, and calculators has succeeded...."

~Edmund Burke, October 1790

Saturday, June 21, 2014

Marijuana and Brain Damage

I am so sick of people trying to defend marijuana use by saying it's safe. It's not. To quote:

The debate on the negative consequences of marijuana use seem to go on and on with no conclusion in sight. Research released today, however, on marijuana use and the brain may bring the debate to a close, as it puts forth that the casual use of marijuana does indeed cause brain damage. The study, published on Wednesday in the Journal of Neuroscience, which was undertaken by psychiatrist and mathematician Hans Breiter from Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, analyzed the correlation between casual marijuana use and structural changes in the brain. The conclusion: that even casual use among young adults was enough to cause significant brain abnormalities in two important brain structures.

The amygdala and the nucleus accumbens were the parts of the brain where the abnormalities were most prevalent. These two regions of the brain are responsible for processing emotions, making decisions, and motivation. Damage to these parts of the brain often yield some types of mental illness such as anxiety disorders, paranoia, bi-polar and depression, and Breiter argues that this is the part of the brain that, “you do not want to mess with.”

Breiter’s study involved a sample of 40 patients between the ages of 18 and 25. Of those involved, 20 were marijuana users and 20 were well-matched control subjects. Among participants that were marijuana users, there was a wide-range in usage of the drug, ranging from those that used the drug a couple of times a week to those that used it every day. What was found was the more often marijuana was smoked, the more the participants brains differed from the group of non-users. (Read more.)

julygirl said...: Folks, just eat a healthy diet, exercise, think positive thoughts and forget about whether this or that is dangerous or not. End the debate. My grandfather lived to be 100 years old and was healthy up to the end. He worked hard, ate what he grew and read the Bible everyday. Keep things simple.; June 22, 2014 at 11:28:00 PM EDT