Study: Marijuana eases traumatic memories

Seattle Times ^ | 08/01/02 | Faye Flam

[bat-boy]

PHILADELPHIA — Scientists have known for years that the brain makes substances almost identical to the active ingredient in marijuana, but the function of these "cannabinoids" remained mysterious. Researchers now say they help to extinguish traumatic memories.

"In certain situations, being able to forget is very important for emotional survival," said George Kunos, a neurobiologist at the National Institutes of Health.

The research, published today in the journal Nature, is not an endorsement for pot smoking, scientists said. Instead, the findings may help scientists develop new drugs to treat anxiety, post-traumatic-stress disorder and phobias.

"This paper is not saying you should go ahead and smoke marijuana," said Pankaj Sah, a neuroscientist at the Australian National University in Canberra who wrote an accompanying editorial in the journal. "It's saying that it's worth thinking about these specific actions of these compounds."

In the 1980s, scientists were surprised to find the brain has special receptors for the psychoactive elements in cannabis, Kunos said. An Israeli scientist named Rafael Mechoulam then found that the brain made its own versions of these cannabinoids.

To figure out why, authors of this latest study, from the Max Planck Institute of Psychiatry in Munich, Germany, decided to examine mice that had been engineered genetically so that they lacked cannabinoid receptors.

Neuroscientist Beat Lutz said he and his colleagues conditioned the mice to associate a mild shock with the sound of a bell. Normal mice eventually lost the association between the bell and the shock. "They figure out that the tone is not dangerous anymore and say, 'I don't have to freeze,' " Lutz said.

But the mice lacking the cannabinoid system never readjust, always freezing in terror at the sound.

Researchers also found that normal mice produce the natural cannabinoids when they are extinguishing their traumatic association with the bell.

It's not clear whether the cannabinoid system helps the mice to forget the traumatic association of the bell and the shock, or just gives them enough mental flexibility to adjust to a new situation, Lutz said. It's possible that the cannabinoids are important for the ability to relearn and readjust in a number of situations.

Kunos, from the National Institutes of Health, said that the cannabinoids probably play other roles. Using similar methods to Lutz, he found that they help regulate appetite.

Sah, of the Australian National University, said the latest findings may explain why some people with psychiatric problems try to find relief with marijuana. Although experts often have labeled marijuana use as a contributor to these people's mental illness, he suggested that people with certain psychiatric problems perhaps are self-medicating in an attempt to help their brains extinguish some painful or traumatic memory or thought.

Lester Grinspoon, a pro-marijuana psychiatrist at Harvard University and author of the 1971 book "Marijuana Reconsidered," said he would like to see cannabis made into pills that could be prescribed, but said the drug is not patentable and therefore would be unattractive for drug companies to manufacture and market.

Lutz suggested that, instead of supplying extra cannabinoids, a drug might enhance the effects of natural ones.

He also suggested such a drug might need to be taken in conjunction with psychotherapy, during which patients would work on getting rid of fearful associations.

"Just smoking marijuana all day won't help," he said.

Copyright © 2002 The Seattle Times Company

[Dakmar]

If you want to continue letting the government roughshod over the rights of peaceful hardworking Americans, spending billions of dollars a year on a futile dog-and-pony show, and carry on a program rooted in racism, socialism, and New Deal politics, that is your God given right. I am simply exercising my First amendment rights to free speech by calling them on it. Do you have a problem with that?

[Rebel_Ace]

Honestly, there are things I wish I could forget. Things that produce nightmares. If further research could identify a chemical "tag" for stressful memories, and thereby produce a treatment for culling them out, I would take it in a heartbeat, even if it meant having to re-learn a lot of stuff. I post a lot of flippant things on FR, but I am certainly not joking here.

By the way, I really get a kick at all the knee-jerk reactions I see here on FR to any post at all concerning any drug (legal or not). Obviously, if you post anything to do with a drug, you MUST be a pot-smokin', 60's lovin', Godless drug crazed hippie (or worse, a "Libertarian").

I'll go on the record with the following:

(1) I never have, nor will I ever take any drugs for recreational purposes. It seems wasteful and dangerous to me. I would advise anyone asking me to avoid doing so as well.

(2) As long as you do not bother me, my family, or my livelihood, I don't care if you lock yourself up in your basement and get as high as a kite. Commit a crime against me or mine, whether you are high or not, then you get my attention in a most negative fashion.

(3) The "Legalize Drugs and the Profit will Disappear" argument would only work IF (and this is a BIG IF) the companies producing and supplying the drugs to the consumers were FREE FROM LAWSUITS. Sure, coke would be cheap to grow and refine, but the cost would still be very high (no pun intended) if the price had to include the cost of defending against lawsuits of unhappy customers or their families. Just look at the lawsuits now against Cigarette makers and even fast food joints. (Sorry, used the word "joint", I must be a pot smoker to some of you now)

(4) The theraputic effects of many substances are discovered either by accident, trial and error, or by some studies such as this. Inital use of opiates as pain relivers led to much better drugs later. You can't just dismiss basic research on it's face, just because it is looking at something you don't approve of.

Well, there, I'm off my rant.

-Rebel Ace

[Chess]

Why should adults be told what to ingest, in the privacy of their own home? Why shouldn't they be allowed a safe escape from this dangerous, stressful world?

Alcohol, you say?

Alcohol will kill you. It is much stronger than weed and much more dangerous. It tends to make people violent.

Anyway, I have an ulcer. ;)

[A CA Guy]

I guess you prefer risky moves "Chess"!

[A CA Guy]

Well, that was spoken like the Rebel you call yourself. You are honest and anyone can appreciate that Ace!

Have a good day.

[Conagher]

I'm so sorry that you don't have the right to do absolutely everything you possibly want to do whenever and wherever you choose, regardless of the effect upon others and the societal fabric in general.

< /sarcasm>

If you don't mind, we're trying to run a society here.

[A CA Guy]

If you don't like a representative Republic, have you thought of moving to an island and forming your own country?

You can take your interpretation of the Constitution there and see if it causes all to thrive or stall in drug use.

[Conagher]

If one's only refuge from the world comes from chemicals, he has bigger problems than which ones are legal.

[A CA Guy]

Have a great day and week-end.

Drug threads don't deserve any more time.

[Conagher]

Hear, hear.

The same tired ol' arguments for legalizing drugs are just as unpersuasive as they've ever been.

[Dakmar]

If I choose to smoke pot in my home it affects no one but myself. Why should the government be involved? It's perfectly legal to go home and get drunk on alcohol, which dramatically increases the likelihood of my harming others, so why is one legal and the other illegal?

[Dakmar]

I can't wait to hear what you learn in next weeks DARE class.

[TightSqueeze]

But then the lustre of being anti-establishment would be gone, wouldn't it?

Don’t worry about it, just legalize it, too soon the democrats will be back in power and we can all be anti-establishment right?

[dcwusmc]

Wow, I haven't seen you for a while. Haven't missed you a bit. However, since you are here, taking up space and breathing my air, answer a question for me. Since the war on drugs started back in the 1910's and 1930's as methods of controlling one group or another and (in the '30s) keeping prohibition agents employed, liars like Harry Anslinger, and had NOTHING WHATEVER to do with any medical problems seen, the whole thing was built on lies, half-truths and distortions... Marijuana was touted as being used by jazz musicians and negroes and caused white women to seek sexual relations with negroes and mexicans and the like, according to Anslinger. So my question for you is, why should we KEEP a prohibition which has no Constitutional underpinnings but was based on deception and a desire to control others? You always want someone to justify getting rid of it. I want you, based on how it came into being, to justify KEEPING it. Can you do it, factually and responsibly?

Got the stones to take a stab at actually answering me? Please do try to stay focused and on point.

[uncbob]

Last statistic I read was that a shot of booze destroys a couple million brain cells

Alcoholics have a term called Wet Brain

[mvpel]

A "vice," eh? Since when are your ooglies about someone else's vice -- be it smoking (whatever plant), drinking, or beating off five times times a day -- justification for the application of government force and coercion in a futile effort to stamp out that vice?

[Robert_Paulson2]

actually you cannot take the constitution anywhere... it was printed on grass... cannibas... hemp... whatever... and it weighs more than the legal limit. It is in fact, a controlled substance.

Nice try though.

[Robert_Paulson2]

true prohibituion made them rich... and they knew it.

[unitedwestand]

"In certain situations, being able to forget is very important for emotional survival," said George Kunos, a neurobiologist at the National Institutes of Health.


Hence the popularity among Viet Nam vets.

[dcwusmc]

Your silence is deafening.... and most telling. Are you as hypocritical in every OTHER part of your life?