Weed and head injuries

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Jeremy
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Weed and head injuries

Post by Jeremy » 06 May 2009 16:17

This may seem like a silly question but I've tried to do a little research and am not sure that it is so silly. First some back story. Last night I was knocked unconscious playing touch football. It was not too serious and I'm ok now, although my head is still bruised and sore. After the incident somebody offered me a joint and said it would be good for a concussion. This initially struck me as the opposite of the truth - stoners and junkies often have many claims of the health benefits of their drugs (especially weed), most of which are wrong. It seems fairly intuitive to suppose that it's not good to put things in your body that effect your brain chemistry when you're suffering from brain trauma, even if it's mild. Later I realised that this was false logic, and there really is as much a reason to suppose that weed is good for brain injuries as bad for them. I'd still recommend straying to the side of caution because the consequences of it having a negative effect are larger than it having a positive effect, however I did a bit of google searching and couldn't really find any meaningful information one way or another.

So I was wondering if anybody knows if smoking weed has a negative, positive or no effect on brain injuries? Smoking weed does definitely have numerous other negative health outcomes despite the opinion of stoners.

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Post by Sporatical_Distractions » 11 May 2009 12:20

I don't know about that Jeremy. The cannabinoid receptors are affected by dopamine through the mesocorticolimbic pathway, which links the dopamine-production area with the nucleus of accumbens in the limbic system, an area of the brain which is associated with the control of emotion and behavior.

So marijuana benefitting post-concussive syndrome sounds pretty hokey to me. What evidence have you found?

In my opionion, you'd want something that either promotes the relief of norepinephrine for mental clarity, or an inhibitory neurotransmitter like GABA and/or enkephalines.
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Jeremy
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Post by Jeremy » 18 May 2009 17:41

Still haven't been able to find anything. That said my housemate got knocked out at footy this weekend in the last quarter, and about 45 minutes later was smoking cones and is fine now, or at least as fine as he was before getting knocked out.

If I had to choose a position right now, based on very little evidence (but a tiny bit, mainly anecdotal), I'd say it doesn't have any effect - positive or negative - although the effects of the THC could have some reaction with the impact of the concussion. I'm thinking either making you feel a bit better, or if you're still dizzy/disorientated from the concussion, inducing motion sickness or making the disorientation worse.

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Post by crazylegs32 » 30 Jun 2009 22:08

:roll: Since you only believe in your poorly done scientific studies :?: What a dumb question, do you think they have volunteers to get hit in head and then smoke a j to be studied?

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Post by Jeremy » 30 Jun 2009 22:34

:lol:

edit; For the record experimental research is only a tiny part of science. In this case I would presume that a combination of studies done on the neural effects of THC combined with a knowledge of concussion would provide some evidence, as would "natural experiments" - ie. looking for case study reports of people who suffered concussion, smoked weed and then presented with some kind of negative consequence. If there are a no such case studies then we would have to conclude that there is no evidence smoking weed after concussion has serious negative consequences (in relation to the concussion).

Of course "no evidence" is not the same as saying that it doesn't have a negative impact, just that we would have no reason to suppose that there is one.

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Post by crazylegs32 » 01 Jul 2009 23:05

You sond like smoking more weed would make you more likable :D Then youll be more laid back and less argumentative. Although I didnt feel you were arguing with me, maybe that toke you took is kicking in 8)
Its well known among fighters and extreme athletes- you smoke tons of weed on the way to the hospital :D

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Post by Toasty » 01 Aug 2009 14:45

http://www.webmd.com/cancer/news/200906 ... RSS_PUBLIC

Just to think that inhaling smoke in the first place is enough to turn the [smart] person away from it. I've done my handful of research on it. And smoking weed just to relieve a wee little head pain? That's like taking medicine to cure the common cold. You don't need it. I mean no offense in this post.
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Post by crazylegs32 » 12 Aug 2009 15:03

If you look at the vids from the moon landing youll see nearly every rocket scientist in the room puffing away on cigarettes. Of course all smoke is bad for your lungs and thats just common sense in our day and age.

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Post by Jeremy » 13 Aug 2009 06:25

Toasty wrote:http://www.webmd.com/cancer/news/200906 ... RSS_PUBLIC

Just to think that inhaling smoke in the first place is enough to turn the [smart] person away from it. I've done my handful of research on it. And smoking weed just to relieve a wee little head pain? That's like taking medicine to cure the common cold. You don't need it. I mean no offense in this post.
1. Concussion is not a "wee little head pain." It's a traumatic brain injury that can have effects that last for weeks, and can even lead to death.

2. The question was whether smoking weed is specifically good, bad or neutral to the effects of concussion.

3. This wasn't in anyway advocating people smoke weed. Your link is good and I've posted many similar links on this forum. The question was a scientific curiosity inspired by me having concussion, being offered weed and turning it down, but later wondering about what could happen if I hadn't.

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Post by crazylegs32 » 20 Aug 2009 22:48

Like I said nobody is gonna knock anyone on the head while they are high on weed to study it. Especially because in the usa no studies on weed are legal. The only studies on weed in the usa are govt sponsored (the last one they let out of their hands was in the late 60s and deemed mj relatively harmless but Nixon covered it up and started the war on drugs) and these studies are done using the entire plant ground up- all leaves,stems, seeds and all and prerolled for the patient. :cry:

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Post by shredzilla » 21 Aug 2009 14:06

Going on personal experience, I say weed IS bad if you have any type of brain trauma. Unfortunately, I don't care to elaborate on my experience, but chalk it up as a vote against.
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Post by Ian Brill » 23 Aug 2009 16:33

I worked in a Biologic Imaging lab where we tested to determine if smoking was good for your heart. Yep. We ran migration assays on a petri dish with normal fetal bovine growth serum and another petri dish with carbon monoxide infused FBS to try to determine wether or not being hit by carbon monoxide would help rat aortic endothelial cells seal up a scrape made with a pipet tip- the implication being that it would possibly help someone recover after heart surgery.

Such bullshit.

It was such a completely arbitrary experiment and it stood a good chance at giving cigarette companies more ammo. Might as well have been a Salem witch hunt.

So getting back to your question. The answer is: "It depends."

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Post by crazylegs32 » 30 Dec 2009 21:22

when I typed marijuana cancer into google the first site was web md with a study on marijuana fighting brain cancer.

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Post by mtoolan » 30 Dec 2009 21:28

it always makes my head feel better.
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Post by F[uns]tylin' Eclectic » 06 Feb 2010 15:46

it always makes my head feel better.
You can say that again ;) (only used responsibly, of course aka: DON'T smoke weed 'err day) but as for head trauma, marijuana's got some benefits that would help with some head-related mishaps, such as head aches, and whatnot, but with respect to head trauma, if I were in your position, and I'd just gotten clobbered in the skull, I would def turn down a joint and even hold off on the happy hobby for a while.
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Post by underooninja » 01 Mar 2010 16:15

i just posted to the weed and footbag thread and i listed a few links.
http://modified.in/footbag/viewtopic.php?t=20144
there is research out there about head injury and marijuana. all the truth and facts are hidden in plain sight for the public to see.

**my rant and opinion:
imagine how difficult it will be to find the truth if net neutrality goes away and all power is again [like so many times past] handed to the big corporations and governments and taken away from the individual.
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