Cannabis treats depression

It isn’t only physical pain which cannabis treats, scientists are discovering. Emotional pain, too, is helped by the use of marijuana. A study at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore and the Bloomberg School of Public Health in Santa Monica found that while a significant percentage of self-reported cannabis users had current depression,

After adjusting carefully for baseline differences between adults who subsequently use marijuana and those who abstain, the significant associations that are initially present between ongoing marijuana use and depression are substantially reduced, if not eliminated.

Translated into plain English, cannabis does not cause depression, but depressed people may be more likely to use cannabis. That is because cannabis helps people who are depressed to overcome their challenges and become mentally happier and healthier. Another study published last year in the journal Addictive Behaviors concluded,

Despite comparable ranges of scores on all depression subscales, those [respondents] who used cannabis once per week or less had less depressed mood, more positive affect, and fewer somatic (physical) complaints than non-users.

Daily users [also] reported less depressed mood and more positive affect than non-users.

This is good news and is important for doctors to know. Patients with depression who are currently taking SSRI or other prescription medication for their condition should not discontinue without medical supervision, due to the risk of relapse and severe withdrawal. But I would suggest talking to your doctor about medical cannabis if you are in a part of the country where it can be recommended, and be willing to find another medical opinion if you are unsatisfied with your present care.

What can happen?

From today’s Washington Post:

NEBAJ, Guatemala — A decade after the conclusion of the long civil war that ravaged this Central American nation, Guatemalans are literally trying to dig up their past….

About 40,000 victims simply disappeared after being seized by government operatives.

That is what your government is approving here in America, today.

Hat-tip to Lindsay.

How torture works

A short film by Dave Neiwert.

Today is a turning point

As the Republican Congress waives habeas corpus without obstruction by the Democrats, as the torture of accused prisoners becomes standard (called, ominously enough, “the program”) and trials are deemed too expensive to grant to people unless they are very important, the justice system is being transformed into a black hole for prosecutors to control without any check by judges.

That is what this is about today, and that is what one judge has refused to recognize.

Judge Anna Diggs Taylor ruled the administration was unconstitutionally wiretapping private conversations without a warrant and in violation of the law.

She has now refused to give a stay beyond seven days for the administration to comply with her order.

Prepare for the onslaught on the judiciary, and I will tell you that it is well underway and discredited by everything from the members of the minor judiciary who fail to do justice in their courtrooms to the rulings of the supreme court which permit government lawlessness. It is because these judiciary members are too weak, not because they are too strong, because they are too willing to compromise with an out-of-control executive.

But when they are strong, as Judge Anna Diggs Taylor is, and pronounce the language of the constitution and the laws in an uncontrovertable way, which prohibits utterly the conduct that the government engages in, then the judiciary may stand.

Glenn Greenwald has the details.

Don’t worry about me, no

Grateful Dead – Estimated Prophet (1977)

Comment from elsewhere

Seven Star Hand, you might like to take a look at something my friend wrote, and I would tell you on your own blog but I could not seem to be able to leave a comment there.

Lindsay, sorry for putting this where it might not otherwise be welcome. It is one person’s metaphor, and that is all anything religious is. Each of us have our own, and each of us should respect that others have their own, even if we are reading from the same hymnal. We all think thoughts and in thinking we perceive differently.

The conservative mindset is the idea that everyone else has to share your own metaphor down to the very details of the color of the paint on the car, so to speak. It is to say that you cannot think for yourself but must accept the “wisdom” that was given to you, only it is not wisdom unless it is earned by your own experience.

Those words, those scriptures, in whatever language they were written, in whatever time and place, they were written by people, and they are not God’s own words unmediated by human hand. There is no arguing this point, and the conservatives who may be confused and thinking differently because they were taught otherwise and never questioned it, cannot be persuaded by logic until and unless they open their minds to reality.

This is one of the reasons I am mainly focused to ending the prohibition of cannabis, because what cannabis does is awaken the inner self, the God-connected active thinking soul, whatever you choose to call it or believe in. I am not selling you on what I believe but that cannabis has the effect of bringing people into fuller awareness of their surroundings and independent of their brainwashing.

That is why cannabis is illegal and that is why Mel Sembler and his cohorts are opposing us everywhere and that is two of the major sides involved in this — the prohibitionists versus the cannabists. They fear us more than anyone, because we speak for cannabis and not merely against the harms that are alleged to be due to it.

You have seen the fruit of the prohibitionist tree, you have seen the abuse visited upon the children, and the lives destroyed. You have seen the hypocrisy and immorality of these people. Judge only in the sense of choosing, when you consider the tree.

As Led Zeppelin said, there are two paths you can go by, and there is always time to change the road you are on.

Posted by: whig | September 28, 2006 at 12:51 PM

Why is cannabis illegal?

Some people prefer to use the Spanish name, marijuana. Same thing.

To quote Pete Guither:

Many people assume that marijuana was made illegal through some kind of process involving scientific, medical, and government hearings; that it was to protect the citizens from what was determined to be a dangerous drug.

The actual story shows a much different picture. Those who voted on the legal fate of this plant never had the facts, but were dependent on information supplied by those who had a specific agenda to deceive lawmakers. You’ll see below that the very first federal vote to prohibit marijuana was based entirely on a documented lie on the floor of the Senate.

You’ll also see that the history of marijuana’s criminalization is filled with:

• Racism
• Fear
• Protection of Corporate Profits
• Yellow Journalism
• Ignorant, Incompetent, and/or Corrupt Legislators
• Personal Career Advancement and Greed

These are the actual reasons marijuana is illegal.

Read more.