Marijuana Does Not Kill Brain Cells

On Wednesday, December 18, 2013, Gretchen Carlson on the Fox News show, The Real Story, brought up the issue of pot-smoking teenagers. I felt compelled to send her an email, which she will probably not read. The following is what I sent to her.

Dear Ms. Carlson:

I just watched your Wednesday, December 18th program in which you brought up the subject of adolescents smoking marijuana. I believe you and at least two of your panel stated that, of course, marijuana kills brain cells. This article from Vanderbilt University states quite clearly that marijuana does not kill brain cells. That does not mean that it is completely harmless however. But then even moderate drinking of alcohol has it's own set of problems.

Marijuana is an intoxicant. Minors should not be using any intoxicants (and adults should not be driving or operating machinery under the influence of intoxicants). The brains of children go through a growth spurt at about the time of puberty, as this article from PBS explains, then the brain begins pruning back the weak neuron connections and reinforcing others for the next several years. That is, the adolescent brain is a mess until it sorts itself out in early adulthood and adding any intoxicant to that mess can only slow and interfere with that process.

The author of the PBS article quoted Dr. Jay Geidd, National Institute of Mental Health, Bethesda, MD: "If a teen is doing music or sports or academics, those are the cells and connections that will be hardwired. If they're lying on the couch or playing video games or MTV, those are the cells and connections that are going to survive." That would be with or without marijuana. 

I do not smoke marijuana. I tried it several times as a young man (my first time I was 18) but never really liked it so I stopped using it although nearly everyone I knew and associated with smoked it. The vast majority of those people went on to have successful careers and families. Most of the ones who didn't generally had a bigger alcohol problem.

The linked articles above should be read in their entirety. Hopefully, you, or someone associated with The Real Story can do that so that you have more factual information.

I do not promote drug use, including alcohol among adults. I am totally against recreational drug use by adolescents or any minors. The brain is a beautiful but delicate instrument that needs to be properly nourished and stimulated in order for the child to have a chance at fully developing his or her potential as an adult. Having said that, however, if we truly have inalienable rights, then, as adults, we have the right to any behavior that does not violate the rights of others even if that behavior is or may be harmful to us. Again, as adults, not minors. That would include smoking marijuana regardless if others believe it is wrong and immoral. As Lysander Spooner said: "Vices are not crimes."

I like your program, Ms. Carlson. Keep up the good work.

Sincerely,

D.M. Mitchell 

Regarding Second Hand Smoke

REGARDING GRETCHEN CARLSON’S STATEMENTS MADE ON MARCH 6, 2013 FOX AND FRIENDS REGARDING SECOND HAND SMOKE AND SECOND HAND MARIJUANA SMOKE.


Ms. Carlson accepts the belief that tobacco second hand smoke is as dangerous as has been reported in the media. But, she thinks that marijuana second hand smoke could just be as dangerous or even more so. Her comments seemed to indicate that smoking marijuana was more dangerous than, perhaps, smoking tobacco. I think this is a typical anti-rightist, anti-drug, religious-based, personal moral perspective.

The “truth” can be subjective. Facts are verifiable.

http://www.davehitt.com/facts/epa.html This page is about the 1993 EPA report on second hand smoke and how it is flawed and how they had to manipulate the data to get to a risk factor that normally would be considered insignificant.

http://www.davehitt.com/facts/who.html This page is about the 1998 World Health Organization’s (WHO) study on second hand smoke in Europe and how it produced unexpected results including a 22% lower chance of lung cancer from children raised in a home with a smoker.

http://www.davehitt.com/facts/helena.html This page is about a much touted, but seriously flawed study funded by the anti-tobacco forces regarding a six-month smoking ban in all businesses in Helena, Montana in 2002.

http://www.davehitt.com/facts/helenacharts.html This page shows the chart used in the Helena study trying to prove that the six-month ban of smoking in all businesses reduced heart attacks by 60%. The fraud is explained.

http://www.davehitt.com/facts/links.html This page has several links to some interesting things, but click on Name Three … Here, I’ll do if for you: http://www.davehitt.com/2004/name_three.html This is where Dave Hitt (all the above links came from his “Facts” pages) contacted several people and organizations asking them to name three people who verifiably died from second hand smoke. He was either ignored or when someone did come up with three names they weren’t verified as dying of second hand smoke. In fact one had pancreatic cancer which had traveled to her lungs.

I want to make clear (as does Dave Hitt) that I am not promoting smoking. I was a smoker for 20 years and I’ve been a non-smoker for 27 years. However, I’ve always believed that that much quoted 50,000 people a year are dying from second hand (tobacco) smoke was a big load of B.S.

If you are worried about second hand smoke, you should be more worried about automobile exhaust according to this article: http://gas2.org/2013/01/10/car-exhaust-the-worlds-second-fastest-growing-cause-of-death I can only assume, if this article is backed up by facts rather than skewed and fraudulent scientific claims that living in a large city is a big risk factor for dying early. Automobile exhaust (and you don’t have to see it for it to be there) is around you all the time.

But I digress. The second issue I wish to take up is marijuana and second hand marijuana smoke, as Gretchen Carlson seemed to have been very aggressively concerned about that.

http://drugwarfacts.org/cms/?q=node/30#sthash.MVjZD2dU.dpbs This page, from Drug War Facts, quotes various accepted sources about drugs, drug use, and drug deaths. Marijuana does not cause any deaths. See paragraph 8 and, especially, paragraph 23.

http://www.webmd.com/smoking-cessation/news/20030918/marijuana-smoking-doesnt-kill This page is from WebMD and talks about two large studies showing that marijuana smoking, even long-term, does not cause heart attacks or lung cancer. This is probably due to the fact that the average user only smokes one marijuana cigarette a day, or less.

Does this mean that minors should have access to marijuana. Absolutely not. Just like they should not have access to alcohol and tobacco, but adults should. That is, if one believes in the concept of inalienable rights which, obviously, most adults and the vast majority in the federal Congress and State Legislatures don’t. (See my dissertation on the myth of inalienable rights at this URL: http://dowehaverights.blogspot.com.)

Okay, so marijuana is not a deadly drug, but how much disease is caused from smoking or breathing in second hand marijuana smoke?

I could find nothing directly on the long-term health effects of second hand marijuana smoke, which is easily explained. Marijuana is illegal and it’s hard to do serious research about it’s effects. However another WebMD page, http://www.webmd.com/smoking-cessation/news/20000508/marijuana-unlikely-to-cause-cancer, stated that no correlation could be found between smoking marijuana and lung cancer—again, probably due to less smoking than with tobacco—but on the second page the article cited another study saying that heart attack risk within a short time after smoking was greatly increased.

It would seem that if the direct smoking of marijuana does not promoted lung cancer, then a bit of second hand marijuana smoke would have an even smaller effect. And, as shown above, second hand tobacco smoke probably has little to no effect on non-smokers, so second hand marijuana smoke is probably something even less to worry about.

That doesn’t mean that smoking marijuana is risk free, as these articles point out.

http://www.webmd.com/mental-health/marijuana-use-and-its-effects

http://www.drugabuse.gov/publications/drugfacts/marijuana

http://www.rcpsych.ac.uk/mentalhealthinfo/problems/alcoholanddrugs/cannabis.aspx

The three articles point out the dangers of smoking marijuana for minors and I agree, as I stated above, mind-altering and addictive drugs should be kept out of the hands of minors to the best of our ability. Teen-agers especially are going through the child-to-adult brain growing period and many emotional chemicals are in the mix. That’s why many teen-agers are so difficult. Throwing a mind-altering drug into that mix will only make matters worse.

Of course, as pointed out in Dave Hitt’s articles, above, we don’t know how well the studies on marijuana use were set up, given its illegal status. How large of a study population, what confounding facts, how long were the study conducted, and so forth.

So, Ms. Carlson, I don’t think you have to be worried about the harmful health effects of second hand marijuana smoke and can relax.