Saturday, December 22, 2012

Alcohol Worse on Brains than Marijuana



[Breaking the Taboo – a new documentary about the war on drugs – premiered last night at Google's New York headquarters, with stars including Katie Couric, Virgin mogul Richard Branson, Newark Mayor Cory Booker and Natalie Imbruglia in attendance. While the one-hour film is not available in theaters, it's streaming in its entirety online.

The web-only strategy is part of producer Sam Branson's plan to make the thoroughly researched anti-prohibition film a viral sensation, potentially inspiring serious drug policy reform. The filmmaker (who is Richard Branson's son) hopes to reach a wide audience for the all-star project – which includes never-before-seen interviews with former presidents Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton, narration by Morgan Freeman and a trailer starring Kate Winslet.

The film's main message is that the substantial losses of life and freedom resulting from the war on drugs, not to mention the amount of money being spent, are just not worth the paltry results: A country that continues to consume and demand drugs from a fractured global market.]
Read more: http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/richard-bransons-son-challenges-the-war-on-drugs-in-new-documentary-20121207#ixzz2FpuxMBJB 

[The researchers, from the University of California, San Diego and the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center, performed the study on 92 16- to 20-year-olds. The scientists scanned their brains both before and after an 18-month period. Over the course of the 18 months, half of the teens, who already had an extensive track record with alcohol and marijuana, continued their vices as they had before. The other half continued to abstain or drink a minimal amount, like they too had done before the study.

In addition to the brain scans, the study also required a detailed toxicology report and substance use assessment. The teens also were interviewed every six months. Researchers did not check the teens’ cognitive ability, but simply took brain scans.

The researchers found that, after the year and a half was over, kids who had drank five or more alcoholic beverages twice a week had lost white brain matter. That means that they could have impaired memory, attention, and decision-making into adulthood. The teens that smoked marijuana on a regular basis had no such reduction.] emphasis by Alternet

No comments: