Today in No Sh*t: DEA admits the blindingly obvious about marijuana

A recent MAJOR (thus the big letters) study concluded, as we reported:

Cannabis use by teenage boys was not linked to later physical or mental health issues, psychotic symptoms or asthma, concludes a major (MAJOR) new study published by the American Psychological Association.

Imagine a study that says: Heroin use by teenagers shown to have no measurable negative effects later in life. That would be a different reality, for sure. Heroin directly kills thousands of people a year. Marijuana: Zero.

(The researcher’s) findings published in Psychology of Addictive Behaviors were “a little surprising,” said lead researcher Jordan Bechtold, PhD, a psychology research fellow at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center. “There were no differences in any of the mental or physical health outcomes that we measured regardless of the amount or frequency of marijuana used during adolescence.”

Thus it was with both relief and head-shaking dismay that on Wednesday (Aug. 5) we read in Huffington Post that the new head of the DEA …

Chuck Rosenberg told reporters Wednesday morning at the administration’s headquarters that “heroin is clearly more dangerous than marijuana,” clarifying a less definitive statement he made last week, when he said marijuana is “probably not” as dangerous as heroin.

There was relief that honesty lives at least a short life from time to time in Washington, D.C., and dismay that such an obviously true statement is both newsworthy and inconsequential. Anti-potters are still screaming “What about the children!” while stuffing local jails full of people caught with a little of it. And everyone from the administration to Congress refuses to jerk cannabis out of Schedule 1 (where it sits with LSD and heroin).


The new head of the DEA, Chuck Rosenberg, said on Aug. 5 that heroin is clearly more dangerous than marijuana.Big deal, until you consider the fact that his predecessor (drummed out by scandal involving ... sex parties) foamed at the mouth every time someone even mentioned cannabis. Whether this change from insane-reefer-madness brain-death to common sense signals a coming change in marijuana's classification as a schedule 1 drug or not remains to be seen.


pConsidered the gold standard of national surveys, the General Social Survey finds for the first time in its survey that Americans are indeed in favor of legal marijuana, and by and ever widening margin. a href=http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2015/03/04/majority-of-americans-favor-marijuana-legalization-for-first-time-according-to-the-nations-most-authoritative-survey/ target=newThe Washington Post has a great analysis/a and heres the gist of the survey:/ppIn interviews conducted between March and October of last year -- when the legal marijuana markets in Colorado and Washington were ramping up -- researchers asked 1,687 respondents the following question: Do you think the use of marijuana should be made legal or not?/ppFifty-two percent said pot should be legalized, 42 percent opposed it, and another 7 percent were undecided. Support is up 9 percentage points from 2012, the last time the survey was conducted./ppPhoto: Cannabis grows underneath LED lighting within Solstice Wednesday, February 25, 2015, in Seattle, Washington. /p


pbLet the common sense reign. a href=http://www.vox.com/2015/3/3/8143371/cathy-lanier-marijuana target=newVox reports/a:/b/ppWashington, DC Police Chief Cathy Lanier Lanier told the American News Women's Club last Wednesday, according to the Daily Beast, All those [marijuana] arrests do is make people hate us. She added, Marijuana smokers are not going to attack and kill a cop. They just want to get a bag of chips and relax. Alcohol is a much bigger problem./ppThe police chief clarified her comments to emphasize that she believes marijuana isn't healthy. But I'm not policing the city as a mom, she said. I'm policing it as the police chief and 70 percent of the public supported this./p


pbFormer president Bill Clinton apologies for war on drugs tactics .../b/pFrom a href=http://fusion.net/story/46574/wait-did-bill-clinton-just-apologize-to-mexico-for-the-war-on-drugs/ target=newthe FUSION news site/a: In a recent speech to a roomful of Mexican students, entrepreneurs and other prominent Mexican opinion makers, Clinton apologized that the drug war has funneled cartel activity through Mexican territory./ppI wish you had no narco-trafficking, but its not really your fault, Clinton said on Friday. Basically we did too good of a job of taking the transportation out of the air and water, and so we ran it over land. I apologize for that./ppPhoto: Former US president Bill Clinton delivers a speech at the Universidad del Valle de Mexico in Mexico City on February 06, 2015, in the framework of the summit Youth and Productivity organized by the university./p


pbLet D.C. have its weed/b/ppAt a meeting of the Center for Strategic and International Studies on Friday Feb. 6, 2015, acting U.S. Drug Czar Michael Botticelli said The president, as it relates to the District, I think was very clear that the District should stick to its home rule. As a resident of the District, I might not agree about legalization, but I do agree with our own ability to spend our own money the way that we want to do that./ppBotticelli is expected to be confirmed as the next director of the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy in February 2015./p


pBreaking with his fellow federal employees and hopefuls over at the Department of Justice and DEA, US Surgeon General Vivek Murthy on Wednesday, Feb. 4, 2015, said marijuana can be helpful for some medical conditions./ppAnd he appeared to stand by that statement, since his office tweeted the same message. The main point here is not just this one person's opinion, but that to subject marijuana to the same standards that applies to all meds, cannabis would have to be moved from Schedule 1 (dangerous with no medical value) to something down the line that would then allow private and public institutions to grow, refine and experiment with the plant./p


pOn Tuesday, July 8, President Obama was in Denver fooling around downtown when he was asked, You want a hit, man?/ppThe surprising thing to us is that a dude smoking marijuana was standing next to the prez./p pAh, legalization!/p


pSpeaking of legalization ... This happened in Seattle the same day the president was in Denver (July 8) --a href=http://blog.seattlepi.com/marijuana/2014/07/08/legal-recreational-marijuana-goes-on-sale-for-first-time-in-washington-state/#14194105=024866103=024883101=0 target=new First sales of state-licnesed weed./p/a


pThe fourth person to buy legal marijuana in Seattle on July 8 was Seattle City Attorney Pete Holmes./ppa href=http://blog.seattlepi.com/marijuana/2014/07/08/legal-recreational-marijuana-goes-on-sale-for-first-time-in-washington-state/#14194105=024866103=024883101=0 target=newThe top prosecutor and attorney for the city said/a he would use it. Asked what he'd say to kids, he replied: I would remind them that Im 58 years old and I enjoy a glass of wine on occasion and I would never encourage kids to do either one alcohol or marijuana./p


The New York Times has stepped into the legalization debate with a series of columns calling for the end of prohibition of cannabis./ppa href=http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2014/07/27/opinion/sunday/high-time-marijuana-legalization.html target=newTheir opening lines say it all ... /a/ppIt took 13 years for the United States to come to its senses and end Prohibition, 13 years in which people kept drinking, otherwise law-abiding citizens became criminals and crime syndicates arose and flourished. /ppIt has been more than 40 years since Congress passed the current ban on marijuana, inflicting great harm on society just to prohibit a substance far less dangerous than alcohol.The federal government should repeal the ban on marijuana./p


pbOn May 29, 2014, the U.S. House told Department of Justice and DEA to stand down against medical marijuana./b/ppHouse members voted 219 to 189 to add to language to a href=https://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/113/hr4660/text target=newH.R. 4660: Commerce, Justice, Science, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 2015/a that says:/ppNone of the funds made available in this Act to the Department of Justice may be used, with respect to the States of Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, District of Columbia, Florida, Hawaii, Illinois, Iowa, Kentucky, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, Oregon, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Tennessee, Utah, Vermont, Washington, and Wisconsin, to prevent such States from implementing their own State laws that authorize the use, distribution, possession, or cultivation of medical marijuana./ppThe amendment may not get far, but the U.S. Senate appears likely to vote on a similar amendment to its version of the bill./pp a href=http://www.denverpost.com/marijuana/ci_25869675/impact-u-s-house-vote-medical-marijuana-enforcement target=newAs the Denver Post reported/a: This is a watershed moment in American politics, said Aaron Houston, who has lobbied for pro-marijuana causes in Washington, D.C., for the past decade. It is the first time that the U.S. House of Representatives in the history of the war on marijuana has voted to support some relaxation of marijuana laws./p pPhoto: House Oversight and Government Reform Subcommittee on Government Operations Chairman John Mica (R-FL) holds a fake hand-rolled cigarette and a list of marijuana offenses during a hearing about drug laws in the Rayburn House Office Building May 9, 2014 in Washington, DC. /p


pMaryland's legislature passed it's own a href=http://blog.seattlepi.com/seattlepolitics/2014/04/07/maryland-makes-possessing-marijuana-equivalent-to-traffic-ticket/ target=newdecriminalization of marijuana law this month/a./ppAnd Gov. Martin O'Malley said in a news release that he'll sign the bill into law:/ppWith more effective policing and more widely available drug treatment, together in Maryland, we have driven violent crime down to its lowest levels in 30 years. This progress has been hard-won and much remains to be done. Recent spikes in homicides and heroin overdose deaths underscore the life-saving urgency of the work before us./ppThe General Assembly has decided after much consideration and with clear majorities in both Chambers to send to my desk a bill that would decriminalize the possession of small amounts of marijuana, and I plan to sign it./ppAs a matter of judicial economy and prosecutorial discretion, few if any defendants go to prison for a first or even a second offense of marijuana possession in Maryland. Desuetude is often a precursor of reform. /ppAs a young prosecutor, I once thought that decriminalizing the possession of marijuana might undermine the Public Will necessary to combat drug violence and improve public safety. I now think that decriminalizing possession of marijuana is an acknowledgement of the low priority that our courts, our prosecutors, our police, and the vast majority of citizens already attach to this transgression of public order and public health. Such an acknowledgment in law might even lead to a greater focus on far more serious threats to public safety and the lives of our citizens./ppPhoto: Maryland Gov. Martin O'Malley speaks with reporters in his office inside the Maryland State House in Annapolis, Md., Monday, April 7, 2014./p


pWashington D.C. Council a href=http://blog.seattlepi.com/marijuana/2014/03/04/d-c-city-council-decriminalizes-marijuana-possession/ target=newpassed a bill decriminalizing marijuana/a last month and D.C. Mayor Vincent Gray (pictured with DC City Council member Marion Barry, left) signed the legislation nearly into law on March 31 ... The House of Reps have to approve the council's actions (no word on when)./ppEssentially, the bill turns a criminal offense into a civil offense thatll cost $25 bucks if you get charged./p pGray has since lost his mayoral seat in the district's primary ... see next slide./p


pMuriel Bowser beat D.C. Mayor Vincent Gray in the district's Democratic primary earlier this month, most likely meaning she'll be the next mayor./ppBut don't expect her to attack the new decriminalization bill since she voted for the measure as a council member./ppPhoto: D.C. mayoral candidate and council member Muriel Bowser./p


pU.S. Attorney General Eric Holder has said his office would be willing to work with congress on the question of rescheduling marijuana from the worst category down to some lesser category that accounts for its potential in medicine as well as its moderate negative effects when compared to alcohol, let alone cocaine and heroin./ppa href=http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/04/04/eric-holder-reschedule-marijuana_n_5092010.html target=newAs the Huffington Post reported/a: We'd be more than glad to work with Congress if there is a desire to look at and reexamine how the drug is scheduled, as I said there is a great degree of expertise that exists in Congress, Holder said during a House Appropriations Committee hearing. It is something that ultimately Congress would have to change, and I think that our administration would be glad to work with Congress if such a proposal were made./ppHe has been called out by some officials with the point that his office along with the DEA and health department could reschedule pot on their own./ppFrequently called on the carpet to defend the DOJ's stance on marijuana, Holder does say the feds enforce as much as they can of the laws against weed./ppa href=http://www.politico.com/story/2014/04/eric-holder-marijuana-debate-105505.html target=newOne congressman asked him at a hearing on Tuesday, as reported by Politico/a: Im asking you. Youre the attorney general of the United States Im asking why you fail to enforce the laws of the land, Attorney General./ppYour premise is wrong. We are enforcing the laws of the land, Holder said. The question I have for you which you havent answered is: Would you have us prosecute every marijuana possession case that exists in the United States of America? Would you have us do that?/ppWhen you actually answer my colleagues questions, Ill be more than happy to answer yours, Smith replied.Ill take that as a no, Holder shot back./ppPhoto: Attorney General Eric Holder testifies before the House Judiciary Committee on the oversight of the U.S. Department of Justice on Capitol Hill in Washington, Tuesday, April 8, 2014./p


pWith legal pot making headway across the nation ... well recreational in Washington, Colorado and medical in 21 other jurisdictions ... what happens to all that money? Does it get moved around as cash from one old mattress to another?/ppWell, a href=http://blog.seattlepi.com/marijuana/2014/02/14/feds-issue-banking-rules-to-allow-banking-for-legal-marijuana-businesses/#20392101=0 target=newin February the feds come out with a list of guidelines it believes should allow banks to do business with these tightly controlled marijuana businesses/a./ppNow that some states have elected to legalize and regulate the marijuana trade, FinCEN seeks to move from the shadows the historically covert financial operations of marijuana businesses, noted FinCEN Director Jennifer Shasky Calvery in a news release. Our guidance provides financial institutions with clarity on what they must do if they are going to provide financial services to marijuana businesses and what reporting will assist law enforcement./p


pa href=http://blog.seattlepi.com/marijuana/2013/08/05/uruguay-legalization-and-other-marijuana-acts-around-the-u-s-world/#13522105=014194103=014671101=0 target=newAfter voting to create a legal recreational marijuana market/a, Uruguay as also said it will allow prisoners to use medical pot./ppThe Associated Press reports:/ppPrisoners in the jails of Uruguay will be able to use marijuana if a doctor says it will benefit their health./ppUruguay's drug czar Julio Calzada told The Associated Press on Tuesday that any inmates with doctors' orders will be prescribed marijuana to their improve physical or mental health./ppMeanwhile, social development minister Daniel Olesker told a medical marijuana symposium in Montevideo that medicinal pot will be incorporated into the country's public health system, alongside acupuncture and homeopathic remedies./ppCalzada says his agency needs two more weeks to complete the regulations for the government's legal marijuana market, which he now expects to issue between April 20 and 25. He says the actual rollout won't be until the end of the year./p


In August 2013: The U.S. Department of Justice said that it will not challenge Washingtons and Colorados legal marijuana laws ranged from stunned amazement, relief and caution to dire warnings of the potential harm to society from legal pot.


Testing ... Testing ... Scientists (military and otherwise) have been pretty interested in testing the effects of marijuana throughout the decades, and now Washington and Colorado are entering a whole new kind of marijuana experiment -- Legalization in these two states will certainly go down in the history books as a watershed moment in our culture's love/hate relationship with the demon weed ... er, cannabis. In this gallery, we explore other surprising and historical marijuana moments in America (not chronological). About the photo: Research scientist Dr. Reese T. Jones adjusts electodes monitoring a volunteer's brain response to sound during experiment at Langley-Porter Institute using controlled dosage of marijuana. (Photo by Ralph Crane//Time Life Pictures/Getty Images)


First, a tip of the hat to the big, surprising, mega-marijuana event in Seattle (the world): Hempfest.Pictured: Rainy Collins holds up a sign during Seattle's Hempfest pro marijuana gathering at Myrtle Edwards Park on the Seattle waterfront on Friday, August 17, 2012.


One of the big surprises in marijuana history has to be the moment that the majority of Americans said, What the heck, make it legal.Gallup has been polling the marijuana legalization question for 40 years but found majority support for the first time in 2011, with 50 percent of voters in favor and just 46 percent opposed. Rasmussen reports that 56 percent support legalization.


Clearly that momentum was one of the forces that lifted both Initiative 502 here and Amendment 64 in Colorado onto the winner's podium in the 2012 elections.Pictured is Alison Holcomb, Campaign Director for New Approach Washington and lead architect of I-502


In 1992, then Governor Bill Clinton of Arkansas, who was also the front-runner for the Democratic presidential nomination, said in a television interview: ''When I was in England, I experimented with marijuana a time or two, and didn't like it. I didn't inhale and I didn't try it again.''That statement - ''I didn't inhale'' - is another surprising moment, mostly because it was laughably unbelievable. But, no one really cared one way or another and that should have been a sign to politicians then that attitudes toward pot were changing.


President Obama didn't go in for that particular BS. Partly because he had already written about it, and so admitted it in 2006: ''When I was a kid, I inhaled. That was the point.'' The photo is of Obama in 1990 in the office of The Harvard Law Review after being named President of The Harvard Law Review.


President Obama's past and his apparent desire to leave marijuana users alone led many to be surprised when federal agents began cracking down hard on medical marijuana growers and dispensaries. The feds said the arrested were doing more with their pot and money than serving medical patients. Photo: U.S. marshals stand at the entrance of Oaksterdam University in Oakland, Calif., in 2012. The federal agents raided the medical marijuana training school at the heart of California's pot legalization movement. Obama tried to clarify the issue in an interview with the Rolling Stone in April: ''The only tension that's come up and this gets hyped up a lot is a murky area where you have large-scale, commercial operations that may supply medical marijuana users, but in some cases may also be supplying recreational users. In that situation, we put the Justice Department in a very difficult place if we're telling them, This is supposed to be against the law, but we want you to turn the other way. That's not something we're going to do.''


There are lots and lots of movies about marijuana and with marijuana moments. We've just picked a few that occurred in movies NOT about marijuana and scattered them throughout this gallery. After all, our cultural understanding and attitudes about marijuana must be influenced by our mass-culture representations of it. One early movie with an overt marijuana moment was ''Easy Rider.''Pictured is Dennis Hopper (Billy), Peter Fonda (Wyatt), wearing a stars-and-stripes helmet, with Jack Nicholson (George Hanson) wearing a gold football helmet, on the back of Fonda's motorcycle.Wyatt and Billy introduce George to marijuana. George is an alcoholic but still has reservations about marijuana (''It leads to harder stuff,'' and ''I don't want to get hooked''), but he went for it anyway.


A semi-surprising marijuana moment was when Bill Murray gets Chevy Chase to give it a try in ''Caddyshack in 1980.


That beat poet Allen Ginsberg was into marijuana surprised no one, but that he was able to pull off several pro-pot rallies - out in the open! - surprised and alarmed some citizens. One of those pro-marijuana marches took place outside the Women's House of Detention on Sixth Avenue in lower Manhattan on Jan. 10, 1965.


Here's a poster with an audacious Ginsberg quote: ''The actual experience of the smoked herb has been clouded by a fog of unrespectability by the unthinking, unknowledgable few who have not smoked themselves and yet insist upon setting themselves up as centres of propaganda about the said experience.'' (Photo by S O'Meara/Getty Images)


A surprising marijuana court win:Robert Randall, called by some ''the Rosa Parks of the medical-marijuana movement,'' made legal and medical history in 1976 when he successfully sued the U.S government for access to cannabis, the only remedy that controlled his glaucoma. The Huffington Post story (13 Key Moments In Marijuana History) reported: ''This landmark verdict compelled the Food and Drug Administration to establish a 'Compassionate IND [Investigational New Drug] Program,' which continues to distribute government-grown marijuana to a handful of medical necessity patients - while U.S. officials allege that cannabis lacks therapeutic value.''Here's Randall at home smoking prescription marijuana to counter effects of glaucoma.


Another watershed marijuana moment was the passage of Proposition 215 in California.That ''great leap forward'' came in 1996, when voters shocked the political and medical establishments by passing the proposition authorizing doctors to approve marijuana use by patients and not just for a shortlist of specified diseases, but also for any other illness for which marijuana provides relief.Pictured: A woman receives marijuana from the Cannabis Buyers Club on Dec. 26, 1996 in Los Angeles.


There have been many political and religious conservatives who have surprised us with their stance on marijuana. Most recently, U.S. Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY), shown above, said this past Sunday: Look, the last two presidents (Obama and George Bush) could conceivably have been put in jail for their drug use ... Look what would have happened. It would have ruined their lives. They got lucky. But a lot of poor kids, particularly in the inner city, dont get lucky. They dont have good attorneys. They go to jail for these things. And I think its a big mistake.


Barry Goldwater, called ''Mr. Conservative'' during his life and credited with sparking the resurgence of the conservative political movement in the 1960s, endorsed Arizonas first effort at legalizing medical marijuana in 1996. Side note: Voters approved the 1996 medical marijuana law and did it again in 1998, but the laws were never enacted due to some technicality or other. Then in 2002, voters rejected a sweeping initiative that would have decriminalized possession of up to 2 ounces of marijuana for any user and required state police to hand out the drug to seriously ill people.


Brief movie intermission (go ahead and grab some popcorn ...):In ''American Beauty,'' Kevin Spacey's character is miserable and depressed and all closed up inside until he starts smoking marijuana and working out. He becomes happy and independent minded. He gets shot in the head in the end, but not because of the pot. That seemed surprising. In a movie not specifically about stoners or pot-positive culture, the fairly positive message about marijuana was unique.


The two bookends here, Wes Bentley and Mena Suvari, were the tempters - one with marijuana and the other with .... well, you remember the movie. That's Thora Birch in the center. We disapprove of her decision to run off and live with a dealer! She was just a minor, after all.


Back to politics:Conservative broadcaster Glenn Beck, shown here near the Western Wall in Jerusalem's Old City in 2011, said - ''I think it's about time we legalize marijuana. ... We either put people who are smoking marijuana behind bars or we legalize it, but this little game we are playing in the middle is not helping us.''Beck was one of many conservatives in recent years to support legalization in a backhanded, sidedoor sort of way. Others were Rick Perry, Bill OReilly and Tea Party funder David Koch.


The Rev. Pat Robertson is slightly different than the previously mentioned conservatives for coming straight out against the war on drugs.The New York Times reported him saying in March 2012:''I just think it's shocking how many of these young people wind up in prison and they get turned into hardcore criminals because they had a possession of a very small amount of a controlled substance'' Robertson said on his show March 1. ''The whole thing is crazy. We've said, 'Well, we're conservatives, we're tough on crime.' That's baloney.''I really believe we should treat marijuana the way we treat beverage alcohol,'' Robertson told the Times. ''If people can go into a liquor store and buy a bottle of alcohol and drink it at home legally, then why do we say that the use of this other substance is somehow criminal?''He's shown here talking with his son Tim during a tribute slide show prior to the funeral of Rev. Jerry Falwell at the Thomas Road Baptist Church in 2007 in Lynchburg, Virginia.


Movie break:In ''Poltergeist,'' Craig Nelson and JoBeth Williams talk about their proposed three-meter-high diving board during a marijuana moment apparently designed to show them as open minded, albeit conservative (note the cover of the book), money-grubbing suburbanites.


... they laugh and laugh and mime jumping off the board and no trouble comes from the marijuana. The only trouble they have are the dead people buried under the house.


In the realm of science:Raphael Mechoulam and his colleague Yechiel Gaoni at the Weizmann Institute of Science created a momentous marijuana moment in the 1960s when they isolated, analyzed and synthesized the main psychoactive ingredient in the cannabis plant, tetrahydrocannabinol, or THC. Later, Professor Mechoulam deciphered the cannabinoids native to the brain.


Patent #6,630,507Despite one arm of the federal government saying marijuana has no medicinal value and should remain illegal, another arm of said government awarded the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services a patent titled Cannabinoids as Antioxidants and Neuroprotectants in October 2003.


On to the local advocates of legalizing marijuana - many of whom are surprising backers since they are on the side of prosecution and law enforcement.But first up is Seattle travel guru Rick Steves. Locally we werent too surprised that he put his name, company and reputation on the line to back marijuana legalization, but nationally people were sort of struck by it. In one interview last year, the Huffington Post was pretty curious about why a travel writer and successful businessman would stick his neck out for pot. Steves said: ''I got involved because I am a rare celebrity that's got the balls to speak out on this truth issue. A lot of people are just afraid that it's going affect their business and so I just think, I'm lucky, I don't need to be elected. I can't be fired.''


Pete Holmes, currently employed as the attorney for the city of Seattle and charged with the duty of prosecuting lawbreakers ... was one of I-502's sponsors. That was after he had already made it clear that he would follow the will of Seattle voters and not prosecute any misdemeanor marijuana possession cases With regulation of production and sales and aggressive prosecution of marijuana DUIs, we can focus our limited resources on fighting marijuana-related problems where they have direct negative impacts on our communities and not on throwing people in jail for using a substance that isn't more dangerous than alcohol, he said on the I-502 campaign page.


Quick movie break: We all knew that some soldiers in the Vietnam War used marijuana ... but Oliver Stone's ''Platoon'' pushed his positive notions about marijuana into the foreground of his movie about the terrors of that war.


Live round.


Another surprising backer of legalizing marijuana in Washington has to be former U.S. Attorney for the Western District of Washington John Mckay.Appointed by former conservative president George Bush, McKay became a sponsor of I-502, ''because marijuana prohibition has failed and Congress and the legislature must act to eliminate the danger to public safety posed by the enormous American black market. Unless states act to regulate, control and decriminalize most uses of marijuana, Congress will continue to ignore the law enforcement danger and assert federal criminal laws that ill serve the public,'' he said on the I-502 campaign site.


Bizarre movie marijuana moment: In ''Transformers 2,'' this mother gets out of control because of a pot brownie.


There are more backers of legal marijuana that are surprising given their background, it seems to us, but we'll end with former Seattle Police Chief Norm Stamper.Stamper was responsible for Seattle's response to the protests of the WTO Ministerial Conference of 1999, which blew up in just about every bad way it could have (though thankfully no one died) and that eventually led to his resignation.From there, Stamper wrote a book called ''Breaking Rank: A Top Cop's Expose of the Dark Side of American Policing.''And, he not only backed I-502 but is also an advisory board member of Law Enforcement Against Prohibition (LEAP) and The National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws (NORML).


We close out with a very surprisingly busy poster announcing the 1967 rally for cannabis in Hyde Park, London.

Huffington Post added:

Rosenberg has said he still wants the DEA to enforce current marijuana laws, but that the agency should focus on “the biggest and most important cases there are,” and that the heads of DEA bureaus around the nation should also concentrate on “the most important cases in their jurisdictions.” Typically, he said, that’s “heroin, opioids, meth and cocaine, in roughly that order, and marijuana tends to come in at the back of the pack.”

Well, luckily the states are making a difference. And most people understand that you’d have to be as knee-jerk-blind as teacher-punching Chris Christie to want to continue, let alone re-invigorate, the War on Pot.


Just when you think you've heard it all about marijuana ... a DEA agent chimes in with ... (Hint: we now know why the famous a href=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rabbit_of_Caerbannog target=newKiller Rabbit of Caerbannog /a got so vicious!)


a href=http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2015/03/02/dea-warns-of-stoned-rabbits-if-utah-passes-medical-marijuana/ target=newThe Cannabist/a reports on the fear of stoned rabbits: Personally, I have seen entire mountainsides subjected to pesticides, harmful chemicals, deforestation and erosion, (the agent) said. The ramifications to the flora, the animal life, the contaminated water, are still unknown./pp(The agent) said that at some illegal marijuana grow sites he saw rabbits that had cultivated a taste for the marijuana. He continued: One of them refused to leave us, and we took all the marijuana around him, but his natural instincts to run were somehow gone./p


pNYPD Commissioner Bill Bratton says marijuana is cause of killings /ppThe seemingly innocent drug thats being legalized around the country in this city, people are killing each other over marijuana, he said (according to the site DNAinfo.com)/ppSo you have to ask yourself, why are people killing each other over marijuana and what can be done to stop people killing each other over it? First off, they are killing each other for it because its an illegal lucrative trade. Second, the power of the United States of America has been used for decades to stop that illegal trade and guess what /ppSo, legalize it and bring that trade out of the back alleys, where it will persist no matter how much more illegal Bratton thinks it should be. Once that happens, grievances over pricing and availability will be solved the good old-fashioned capitalist way (lawsuits, that is)./ppPhoto: New York Police Commissioner Bill Bratton, right, speaks during a news conference at police headquarters, Wednesday.


pWhen discussing marijuana legalization at Senate hearing in January with Attorney General Eric Holder, Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala., weightily argued: Lady Gaga says she's addicted to it and it is not harmless. /ppa href=http://www.people.com/people/article/0,,20754576,00.html target=newAccording to People mag/a, Gaga said that she smoked marijuana to deal with the mental and physical challenges of her career I have been addicted to it and it's ultimately related to anxiety coping and it's a form of self-medication and I was smoking up to 15-20 marijuana cigarettes a day with no tobacco. /p


pa href=http://blog.seattlepi.com/marijuana/2014/01/23/ann-coulter-doesnt-like-pot-because-of-her-pool-guy/#19612101=0As we reported/a: Ann Coulter doesnt like pot. She says she never had smoked it. And she told Piers Morgan that legalizing it will mean more slacker potheads that she will have to support with her hard-earned tax money to support them. It always gets back to the Welfare State, doesnt it?/ppYou cant get anything done with a pothead, she said. They cant perform daily functions. Theyre going to be on my tax bill./ppSo are all pot heads already on welfare? Or, are all people on welfare pot heads? Well, whatever she means, she clearly hates poor people. And, who can blame her! Sitting around smoking weed all day and popping out babies (even the men pop out babies) and getting in her way when she's heading for the bank, laughing./pBut wait, there's more. Turns out she had a thing for the pool guy but he couldn't get the pool clean ... /p Coulter bases her scientific knowledge of pot heads all on her pool guy from a time she lived in California. Her pool had green mold on the bottom. Her pool guy was a pothead, she said, but how she knew, who knows?/p


pWhen Im at work, I dont want my babysitter high on pot, television commentator a href=http://www.hlntv.com/video/2014/01/06/pot-heads-fat-lazy-nancy-grace-medical-marijuana-legal target=newNancy Grace said/a. /ppBut high on alcohol is just fine. /ppPhoto: Nancy Grace visits Extra at Universal Studios Hollywood on January 10, 2014 in Universal City, California./p


pThe ones that are disagreeing are lethargic, sitting on the sofa eating chips. Pot, it makes you fat and lazy, television commentator a href=http://www.hlntv.com/video/2014/01/06/pot-heads-fat-lazy-nancy-grace-medical-marijuana-legal target=newNancy Grace said/a./ppExcept that science (you know, research and stuff) shows that marijuana users are skinner and have thinner waists./ppPhoto: CCN's Nancy Grace attends the CNN Worldwide All-Star 2014 Winter TCA Party at Langham Hotel on January 10, 2014 in Pasadena, Calif./p


pCalifornia Governor Moonbeam, also known as Gov. Jerry Brown, said (a href=http://blog.seattlepi.com/seattlepolitics/2014/01/13/jerry-brown-doesnt-want-nation-of-stoners/ target=newas we quoted in the PI on Monday/a):/ppI mean, Im a tolerant fellow ... this is a pretty liberal state, and I am sure there will be people arguing to put something on the ballot at some point./ppThat point is this year, but likely without the Governor on board./ppIm not leading any charge for further chemical actions, he said. Weve got an awful lot of that going on right now, starting with Ritalin with little kids./ppBecause children will be prescribed marijuana: A joint a day or maybe infused formula! Also, what the heck is he saying about doctors prescribing Ritalin?/ppAmerican competitiveness hasn't suffered from half the country trying marijuana at some point already. Not to mention that things like a healthy middle class, decent diets, vacations from television and video games and, you know, good schools (let alone great schools) might also play a role in our competitiveness./p pPhoto: Gov. Jerry Brown (C) holds a golf club presented to him by San Bernardino Mayor Patrick Morris (L) while Paul Misener, Amazon Vice President Global Public Policy, stands at the podium during a news conference at the opening of Amazon's San Bernardino fulfillment center, located on the former Norton Air Force Base golf course, Oct. 29, 2013./p


pThis from a href=http://www.forbes.com/sites/jacobsullum/2014/01/13/federalist-ted-cruz-faults-obama-for-not-imposing-marijuana-prohibition-on-states-that-have-rejected-it/ target=newTed Cruz/a:/ppA whole lot of folks now are talking about legalizing pot. You can go to Congress. You can get a conversation. You could get Democrats and Republicans who would say, We ought to change our drug policy in some way, and you could have a real conversation. You could have hearings. You could look at the problem. You could discuss commonsense changes that maybe should happen or shouldnt happen. This president didnt do that. He just said, The laws say one thingand mind you, these are criminal laws; these are laws that say if you do X, Y, and Z, you will go to prison. The president announced, No, you wont. /ppBecause, of course, Congress is working so well these days and is known far and wide for civil, honest and constructive conversations. And, of course, the feds made it clear that anything even hinting at being outside of the narrow channel of legalization in Colorado and Washington will be prosecuted. But hey, lets not let nuance get between us Americans./ppPhoto: Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX) is among Senators arriving at the U.S. Capitol on the first day the Senate convenes for 2014 on Monday, January 6, 2014, in Washington, DC./p


pFormer Broncos tight end Shannon Sharpe says the NFL leagues policy toward marijuana will never change because of the way kids follow what NFL players do. /ppBut as the a href=http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/the-nfl-should-let-its-players-smoke-pot/2014/01/10/d97f5c56-7710-11e3-af7f-13bf0e9965f6_story.html target=new Washington Post points out/a: Sorry, Mr. Sharpe, but kids who idolize NFL players are already bombarded by beer ads, the contracts for which enrich team owners and, by extension, players. And alcohol is objectively more harmful than marijuana in terms of its damage to the body, its addictiveness and its association with violent behavior. /ppPhoto: Shannon Sharp poses with his bust at the Enshrinement Ceremony for the Pro Football Hall of Fame on August 6, 2011 in Canton, Ohio./p


pCanadas Conservative government a href=http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2013/07/26/justin-trudeau-marijuana-conservatives_n_3656391.html target=newresponded/a to Federal Liberal Leader Justin Trudeaus call for legalization and admission of pot use: /ppThese drugs are illegal because of the harmful effect they have on users and on society, the party wrote on its website. We will continue protecting the interests of families across this country. Our government has no interest in seeing marijuana legalized or made more easily available to youth. /ppUntil it comes to alcohol, then we wont. /ppPhoto: Chrystia Freeland, Liberal candidate in the Toronto Centre byelection, campaigns on Church Street, helped by party leader Justin Trudeau./p


Bill O'Reilly blasted out in a href=http://www.foxnews.com/on-air/oreilly/2014/01/07/bill-oreilly-america-going-pot target=newIs America going to pot?/a/pp nearly 23 percent of seniors in American high schools right now admit to smoking marijuana recently. That's an incredible stat. /ppSo why is this all happening? One of the reasons is because the pot legalizers have made the drug glamorous and the media has played along. Now more bad news, combine the drug aspect with the Internet. According to a report by the American Academy of Pediatrics, 75 percent of 12 to 17 year olds in the USA have cell phones and virtually all of them text/ppHere's a kicker, a study by the University of Winnipeg in Canada says students who text more than 100 times a day are 30 percent less likely to be ethical or principled in life. Are we getting all this? Young people in America are combining drugs, alcohol, and high-tech to build false lives to run away from reality. /ppIn China, young people are encouraged to compete, be disciplined, to live in the real world. Not here. /ppHuh. Okay, lets pack it up and go to godless, communist, state-planning for families etc. China. Where they apparently live in Reality. /ppPhoto: Talk show host Bill O'Reilly during an interview on Nov. 18, 2013./p


pTina Brown, the former Daily Beast/Newsweek editor-in-chief and naturalized U.S. citizen, a href=http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/tina-brown-legal-marijuana target=newwarned/a that legalized marijuana would make the United States a fatter, dumber, sleepier nation and make it less competitive with China. /ppWhats with thinking Americans are fat? Does she mean pot makes people fat, because we thought American overeating and junk-food diets were doing that. And, of course, it will make us dumber because were already dumb? Or, is that Dumber because our kids are crammed into schools and taught by underpaid and undervalued teachers? Or what? /ppSleepier, well, okay. Pot can make you sleepier unlike watching hours upon hours of television every night while swilling beer. /ppPhoto: Tina Brown attends the Girls season three premiere at Jazz at Lincoln Center on January 6, 2014 in New York City./p


pNYTs a href=http://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/03/opinion/brooks-weed-been-there-done-that.html?_r=1 target=newDavid Brooks opines/a:/ppThe deeper sources of happiness usually involve a state of going somewhere, becoming better at something, learning more about something, overcoming difficulty and experiencing a sense of satisfaction and accomplishment. /pp yes and? /ppThis process usually involves using the powers of reason, temperance and self-control not qualities one associates with being high. /pp okay /ppIn legalizing weed, citizens of Colorado are, indeed, enhancing individual freedom. But they are also nurturing a moral ecology in which it is a bit harder to be the sort of person most of us want to be. /pp Crap. You lost me. /ppPhoto: David Brooks, Columnist, The New York Times, left, and Doris Kearns Goodwin, Presidential Historian, right, appear on Meet the Press in Washington, D.C., Aug. 25, 2013./p


pRuth Marcus opinion writer for Washington Post a href=http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/ruth-marcus-the-perils-of-legalized-pot/2014/01/02/068cee6e-73e9-11e3-8b3f-b1666705ca3b_story.html target=newchimed in/a:/ppMarijuana legalization may be the same-sex marriage of 2014 a trend that reveals itself in the course of the year as obvious and inexorable. At the risk of exposing myself as the fuddy-duddy I seem to have become, I hope not. /ppThis is, I confess, not entirely logical and a tad hypocritical. At the risk of exposing myself as not the total fuddy-duddy of my childrens dismissive imaginings, I have done my share of inhaling, though back in the age of bell-bottoms and polyester./ppWait. So, its cool to use marijuana if you did it back when polyester was cool? Or, its not cool, and youve always been duddy? And, what the hell are you saying about marriage equality? /ppPhoto: Ruth Marcus, Columnist, Washington Post, appears on Meet the Press in Washington, D.C., March 10, 2013./p


pDr. Howard Samuels, Psychotherapist, author of Alive Again a href=http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dr-howard-samuels/legalizing-marijuana_b_4144180.html target=newsaid in HuffPo/a:/ppDecriminalization or re-legalization would mean that certain drugs would be legally available, but regulated by the government which would mean restrictions on advertising, age limitations, restrictions on the amount purchased at one time, requirements on the form in which certain drugs would be supplied and maybe a ban on sales to intoxicated persons, etc. /ppAnd that sounds a lot like what I-502 in Washington and Amendment 64 in Colorado do. But wait, theres more: /ppIt would mean significantly changing what would happen to people who were arrested for possession of the drug(s) in question (to my thinking, a sentence that would fit the crime as opposed to arbitrarily sending first-time offenders to prison for an egregious amount of time instead of getting them the help they truly need), and perhaps helping more people instead of damaging them for life. /ppRight, except that you left in the part about being arrested and youd have to figure out what the charge is. If the charge amounts to nothing or next to it, then the black market would become a raging fire of illegal pot blazing out of control. /ppBut, at least the kids would be safe! Unless they get it from the black market!!! Wait second! Save the children! Arrest everyone! /ppDr. John Sharp and Dr. Howard Samuels attend Recovery Fair Presented By The Fix And The Hills Treatment Center on November 10, 2012 in Los Angeles, Calif./p


pDr. Howard Samuels a href=http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dr-howard-samuels/legalizing-marijuana_b_4144180.html target=newtake two/a cuz its a doozy: /ppLegalization would be a nightmare. All of a sudden, marijuana would be sold in grocery stores and 7-Elevens. There'd be advertisements in newspapers and on TV. The advent of the many different brands of pot would create a whole new industry that would mirror the alcohol and tobacco industries. /ppHmmmmm. And, of course, our prisons are not full of alcohol and tobacco sellers and buyers because well, because people have decided that adults are able to make a personal choices in these matters. And, they figure, the threat to our children doesnt outweigh the right of adults. /ppConsequently, we live in a society that allows access to alcohol, cigarettes, pornography and junk food and gambling and motorcycles ... /ppIs that the society we're passionate about becoming? A loaded society? /ppJiminy Christmas! Stop getting loaded everyone. Just stop it! Right! Now! All you poor and stressed out middle class babies suck it up! You think youre stressed out because of the economy and the economic and social future of your children but youre not. Youre stressed out because youre drug-seeking fiends! Why just yesterday I was helping out a Hollywood executive who wished he had never started smoking marihuana /ppPhoto: Dr. John Sharp, Dr. Howard Samuels and Paul McCulley attend Recovery Fair Presented By The Fix And The Hills Treatment Center on Nov. 10, 2012 in Los Angeles, Calif./p


pKevin Sabet, who co-founded Smart Approaches to Marijuana, a href=http://www.usnews.com/news/articles/2013/12/31/marijuana-opponents-predict-hogwild-colorado-trainwreck target=newsaid in USNews and World Report/a:/ppAlcohol, unlike marijuana, has a very long, widespread history in terms of the vast majority of the populations of Western culture before the Old Testament. Because of that cultural legacy, he said, we're stuck with alcohol whether we like it or not. /ppYeah, but hasnt marijuana use been around at least as long? Oh, wait, thats right. White people used alcohol, and so were stuck with it. But brown people historically used marijuana, and we can stop that crap right now! /ppPhoto: Kevin A. Sabet, Co-founder and Director of Project SAM, testifies during a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on Conflicts between State and Federal Marijuana Laws, on Capitol Hill, September 10, 2013 in Washington, DC. The hearing focused on conflicts between state and federal marijuana laws./p


pSabet also claimed the true goal of legalization backers who reaped 55 percent of the vote in Colorado and 56 percent in Washington in November 2012 is to legalize other drugs. /pp you have advocacy groups, most of whom's main intention is to legalize cocaine and heroin down the road. /ppI knew it! Get us hooked on legal weed and then bring in the big boys to finish us off. Its just a matter of time. Boy, all you stoners are sure going to be sorry when they make you snort cocaine and shoot up heroin. But youll wish then youd just been carted off to jail for pot. /ppBecause, of course, were all brainless sheep in need of big government law enforcers to save us from ourselves. /ppPhoto: (L-R) John Urquhart, Sheriff for King County, Wash., Jack Finlaw, Chief Legal Counsel for the office of Governor John W. Hickenlooper, and Kevin A. Sabet, Co-founder and Director of Project SAM, testify during a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on Conflicts between State and Federal Marijuana Laws, on Capitol Hill, September 10, 2013 in Washington, DC. The hearing focused on conflicts between state and federal marijuana laws./p


pFor a generation of liberals, legalization of marijuana has become a harmless if not inevitable issue./ppNot for Patrick Kennedy (a href=http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/reliable-source/post/patrick-kennedy-on-marijuana-destroys-the-brain-and-expedites-psychosis/2013/01/08/795a20ae-59e3-11e2-88d0-c4cf65c3ad15_blog.html target=newaccording to the Washington Post in 2013/a). The former Rhode Island congressman and scion of the famed Democratic dynasty has taken a surprising turn to the right in this debate. /ppMarijuana destroys the brain and expedites psychosis, he told us Tuesday. Its just overall a very dangerous drug. /ppHow in the hell could it be surprising? He started an anti-legalization battle group after melting his life down with drugs, booze and rock and roll. And, if any political group is bound to take up the nanny-state-stance its liberals you know, they know whats best for society and all that./ppAnyway, if marijuana did what he said it does then we all all of us from liberals to conservatives, religious to secularists -- would be surrounded by, beset by, crowded out on the bus by bong zombies. But were not, so there must be a little more subtlety to it than hes letting on. /pppPhoto: (Former) Congressman Patrick Kennedy (D-RI) meets with staff and constituents from Rhode Island in his office on Capitol Hill February 23, 2010 in Washington, DC./p


pPatrick Kennedy of Smart Approaches to Marijuana (SAM) also told a href=http://www.usnews.com/news/articles/2013/12/31/marijuana-opponents-predict-hogwild-colorado-trainwreck target=newsaid in USNews and World Report/a that Colorado and Washington state are canaries in the coal mine. /ppThere are a lot of 'unintended consequences'... that will make them ponder whether this was the right decision, Kennedy said, predicting more traffic accidents, increased school truancy, higher drop-out rates and a general decrease in public health. /ppThe fact is that marijuana has been pervasive throughout our society for at least 50 years. That also means that since marijuana hasnt caused those problems already, something drastic will have to change for marijuana to suddenly cause these problems. /ppSAM points to legalization as that trigger. Their argument has been that many more people will use pot than use it now. But, brothers and sisters, millions already use it regularly and so millions of more users would have to take to pot in a major way to cause a general decrease in public health. /ppSeems a bit of stretch. /ppAnd, they argue that big weed like big tobacco will create herds of addicts dependent on the drug, and big weed will trick them into using marijuana through advertisement. /ppUnfortunately for that argument, marijuana has nothing even close to the addictive powers of cigarettes or alcohol. And withdrawal from extremely heavy marijuana use is on par with withdrawal from caffeine or junk food. With most science showing that the effects of heavy marijuana use go away after sustained abstinence. /ppSo, marijuana is a drug and it should be treated that way and kept out of the hands of children and liberals, but that doesnt mean many thousands of people should be put in prison or dragged to court or therapy for it every year. /pPPhoto: (Former) Congressman Patrick Kennedy (D-RI) meets with staff and constituents from Rhode Island in his office on Capitol Hill February 23, 2010 in Washington, DC. /p

More debunking in related story: Why anti-pot crusaders need marijuana to change the brain


With the pressure to find something that marijuana does to your brain (a href=http://blog.seattlepi.com/marijuana/2015/02/11/why-anti-pot-crusaders-need-marijuana-to-change-the-brain/#19612103=030412101=0 target=newseveral studies have come out suggesting pot changes the brain/a), we thought wed find what else is reported to change your brain. From a quick search, we think now that it might be less trouble to identify what has NOT been found at one point or other to change your brain, since apparently nearly everything does. easy ones first, such as alcohol, cocaine and heroin and then we move on to brain-changers you might not expect.


Alcohol - From a conclusion of a review of alcohol studies a href=http://alcalc.oxfordjournals.org/content/36/5/357 target=newpublished in Oxford University Press/a: The occurrence of morphological abnormalities in the frontal lobes of chronic alcoholics who appear clinically intact has been recognized. Neuropathological changes have been described, and neuroradiological studies have demonstrated abnormalities compatible with cerebral atrophy.


Cocaine From a href=http://www.bbc.com/news/health-23811712 target=newa BBC report/a: Taking cocaine can change the structure of the brain within hours in what could be the first steps of drug addiction, according to US researchers. These drug-induced changes in the brain may explain how drug-related cues come to dominate decision making in a human drug user.


Heroin/opioids - From a href=http://www.medpagetoday.com/MeetingCoverage/SFN/42901 target=newMedPageToday.com (clinical and policy coverage for healthcare professionals)/a: Years of heroin addiction alter gene expression and brain plasticity, researchers reported here. In a study of heroin abusers' post-mortem brains, longer duration of heroin use was associated with changes in the shape and packaging of DNA in the brain in the ventral and dorsal striatum, areas of the brain associated with drug addiction, according to Yasmin Hurd, PhD, of the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai Hospital in New York, N.Y., and colleagues.


Caffeine From News.Mic story a href=http://mic.com/articles/90591/here-s-exactly-what-coffee-is-doing-to-your-brain target=newHere's Exactly What Coffee is Doing to Your Brain/a: Caffeine is both water and fat-soluble, meaning it can actually get through the blood-brain barrier and stimulate the brain directly. But it also shares similarities to adenosine, a body nucleoside that scientists believe tells the body it's tired. Caffeine can cut in line to enter an adenosine receptor, negating adenosine and actually tricking the brain into improving your perception of wakefulness. In reaction to caffeine's adenosine-blocking effect, the brain simply makes more adenosine. Over time, users need more and more caffeine just to reach the same effect. Thus regularly drinking coffee actually changes your brain.


Sugar From Scientific Americans 2014 story a href=http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/sugar-may-harm-brain-health/ target=newSugar may harm brain health/a: Diabetes, which is characterized by chronically high levels of blood glucose, has been linked to an elevated risk of dementia and a smaller hippocampus, a brain region critical for memory. Higher levels on both (short and long-term) glucose measures were associated with worse memory, as well as a smaller hippocampus and compromised hippocampal structure. The researchers also found that the structural changes partially accounted for the statistical link between glucose and memory. According to study co-author Agnes Flel, a neurologist at Charit, the results provide further evidence that glucose might directly contribute to hippocampal atrophy, but she cautions that their data cannot establish a causal relation between sugar and brain health.


Nicotine/cigarette smoking From a href=http://time.com/11386/teens-brain-structure-may-be-altered-by-smoking/ target=newa 2014 story in Time/a: In the latest research, published in the journal Neuropsychopharmacology, Edythe London, a professor of psychiatry and pharmacology at University of California Los Angeles, and her team found that young smokers did have differences in a specific brain region compared with non smokers. Even more concerning, these differences emerged with a relatively light smoking habit of one pack or less of cigarettes a day.


Daydreaming woman inInsomnia From a CNN story a href=http://www.cnn.com/2014/09/04/health/no-sleep-brain-size/ target=newLack of sleep may shrink your brain/a: European researchers looked at 147 adults between the ages of 20 and 84. With two MRI scans, they examined the link between sleep problems like insomnia and the study participants' brain volume. The first scan was taken before patients completed a questionnaire pertaining to their sleep habits. The second scan was done approximately 3 years later. The questionnaire showed that 35% of those in the study met the criteria for poor sleep health. Investigators found that those with sleep problems had a more rapid decline in brain volume or size over the course of the study than those who slept well. bed under white blanket


Child abuse - From a href=http://www.theguardian.com/science/2012/feb/13/childhood-abuse-growth-brain-emotions target=newThe Guardians Childhood abuse may stunt growth of part of brain involved in emotions in 2012/a: Martin Teicher of the department of psychiatry at Harvard University scanned the brains of almost 200 people who had been questioned about any instances of abuse or stress during childhood. He found that the volumes of three important areas of the hippocampus were reduced by up to 6.5% in people exposed to several instances of maltreatment such as physical or verbal abuse from parents in their early years. The exquisite vulnerability of the hippocampus to the ravages of stress is one of the key translational neuroscience discoveries of the 20th century, wrote Teicher on Monday in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.


Malnutrition (not too surprising for sure, but even here it turns out that what seems obvious isnt always so ) a href=http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/7542703 target=newA study on PubMed reports/a: Our conceptions of how malnutrition endured early in life affects brain development have evolved considerably since the mid-1960s. At that time, it was feared that malnutrition endured during certain sensitive periods in early development would produce irreversible brain damage possibly resulting in mental retardation and an impairment in brain function. We now know that most of the alterations in the growth of various brain structures eventually recover (to some extent), although permanent alterations in the hippocampus and cerebellum remain. However, recent neuropharmacological research has revealed long-lasting, if not permanent, changes in brain neural receptor function resulting from an early episode of malnutrition.


Reading From a href=http://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2014/01/study-reading-a-novel-changes-your-brain/282952/ target=newa 2014 story in The Atlantic/a: fMRIs after the reading assignments revealed heightened connectivity in the left temporal cortex, the area of the brain associated with receptivity for language. Heightened connectivity in other parts of the brain suggested that readers may experience embodied semantics, a process in which brain connectivity during a thought-about action mirrors the connectivity that occurs during the actual action. For example, thinking about swimming can trigger the some of the same neural connections as physical swimming. The changes persisted over the five days after finishing the novel, suggesting that reading could possibly make long-lasting changes to the brain.


Learning to play an instrument From a href=https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/the-athletes-way/201311/musical-training-optimizes-brain-function target=newPsychology Today/a: Neuroscientists are discovering multiple ways that musical training improves the function and connectivity of different brain regions. Musical training increases brain volume and strengthens communication between brain areas. Playing an instrument changes how the brain interprets and integrates a wide range of sensory information, especially for those who start before age 7. These findings were presented at the Neuroscience 2013 conference in San Diego.


Learning a new language From a href=http://www.theguardian.com/education/2014/sep/04/what-happens-to-the-brain-language-learning target=newThe Guardian/a: Learning a foreign language can increase the size of your brain. This is what Swedish scientists discovered when they used brain scans to monitor what happens when someone learns a second language. The study is part of a growing body of research using brain imaging technologies to better understand the cognitive benefits of language learning.


Handwriting From a href=http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2011-06-15/health/sc-health-0615-child-health-handwriti20110615_1_handwriting-virginia-berninger-brain-activation target=newa 2011 Chicago Tribune story/a: Handwriting can change how children learn and their brains develop. IU researchers used neuroimaging scans to measure brain activation in preliterate preschool children who were shown letters. One group of children then practiced printing letters; the other children practiced seeing and saying the letters. After four weeks of training, the kids who practiced writing showed brain activation similar to an adult's, said James, the study's lead researcher.


Meditation From a href=http://www.forbes.com/sites/alicegwalton/2015/02/09/7-ways-meditation-can-actually-change-the-brain/ target=new a new Forbes story (Feb. 9, 2015)/a: Last week, a study from UCLA found that long-term meditators had better-preserved brains than non-meditators as they aged. Participants whod been meditating for an average of 20 years had more grey matter volume throughout the brain although older meditators still had some volume loss compared to younger meditators, it wasnt as pronounced as the non-meditators. We expected rather small and distinct effects located in some of the regions that had previously been associated with meditating, said study author Florian Kurth. Instead, what we actually observed was a widespread effect of meditation that encompassed regions throughout the entire brain.


Mindfulness From Harvard Business Reviews Mindfulness can literally change your brain: Recent research provides strong evidence that practicing non-judgmental, present-moment awareness (a.k.a. mindfulness) changes the brain We contributed to this research in 2011 with a study on participants who completed an eight-week mindfulness program. We observed significant increases in the density of their gray matter.


Religion From a href=http://www.salon.com/2014/01/04/this_is_your_brain_on_religion_uncovering_the_science_of_belief/ target=newSalons 2014 article This is your brain on religion: Uncovering the science of belief/a: The surroundings in which we grow up cause the parental religion to be imprinted in our brain circuitries during early development, in a similar way to our native language. Chemical messengers like serotonin affect the extent to which we are spiritual: The number of serotonin receptors in the brain corresponds to scores for spirituality.


Inactivity a href=http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/01/22/how-inactivity-changes-the-brain/?_r=0 target=newThe New York Times/a: A number of studies have shown that exercise can remodel the brain by prompting the creation of new brain cells and inducing other changes. Now it appears that inactivity, too, can remodel the brain, according to a notable new report. The study, which was conducted in rats but likely has implications for people too, the researchers say, found that being sedentary changes the shape of certain neurons in ways that significantly affect not just the brain but the heart as well.


Exercise - a href=http://www.health.harvard.edu/blog/regular-exercise-changes-brain-improve-memory-thinking-skills-201404097110 target=newHarvard Medical School/a: In a study done at the University of British Columbia, researchers found that regular aerobic exercise, the kind that gets your heart and your sweat glands pumping, appears to boost the size of the hippocampus, the brain area involved in verbal memory and learning. Resistance training, balance and muscle toning exercises did not have the same results. The results were published this week (April 2014) in the British Journal of Sports Medicine.


Video games A a href=http://www.nature.com/tp/journal/v1/n11/full/tp201153a.html target=new2011 study abstract in Nature.com/a: We found higher left striatal grey matter volume when comparing frequent against infrequent video game players that was negatively correlated with deliberation time in CGT. Within the same region, we found an activity difference in MID task: frequent compared with infrequent video game players showed enhanced activity during feedback of loss compared with no loss. This activity was likewise negatively correlated with deliberation time. The association of video game playing with higher left ventral striatum volume could reflect altered reward processing and represent adaptive neural plasticity.


Stress From a href=http://www.livescience.com/45213-disaster-survivors-stress-changes-brain.html target=newLivescience.com in 2014/a: After the (Great East Japan Earthquake struck in 2011, researchers scanned 37 people) and tracked stress-induced changes in their brains in the following months. In the brain scans taken immediately after the incident, the researchers found a decrease in the volume of two brain regions, the hippocampus and orbitofrontal cortex, compared with the scans taken before the incident. One year later, the researchers repeated the scans and found that the hippocampus continued to shrink, and people's levels of depression and anxiety had not improved.


Contraceptive Pill a href=http://www.popsci.com/science/article/2010-09/birth-control-pills-shown-alter-structure-womens-brains target=newBirth Control Pills Shown to Alter Structure of Womens Brains/a, Popular Science 2010: we still know very little about the consequences of taking daily hormones on a woman's brain. That is changing, say Craig H. Kinsley and Elizabeth A. Meyer in Scientific American. They point to a recent study in the journal Brain Research comparing the brains of women on birth control pills with brains of other women and men. When the study's authors examined high-resolution images of participants' brains, they found the women on hormones showed more matter in some areas of the brain, including the prefrontal cortex, which is associated with cognitive activities like decision-making.


Using a smartphone a href=http://www.bbc.com/news/health-30586017 target=newBBC News/a: results revealed discernible differences between touchscreen smartphone users and people with conventional cellphones. Smartphone users had bigger EEG brain activity measurements in response to mechanical touch on the thumb, index and middle fingers. The researchers say their findings, published in the journal Current Biology, make sense given that the brain is malleable and can be moulded by experience.


Becoming a father a href=http://www.wired.com/2014/07/how-becoming-a-father-changes-your-brain/ target=newWired mag/a: Previous research has shown functional changes in the brains of fathers, in the way that they show heightened neural activity in response to the sight of their own infants. However, this is the first time that researchers have documented structural changes in the brains of human fathers. Comparing the later scan with the first scan, Kims team found increased grey matter volume in several regions of the fathers brains.


Circumcision, fresco by Teramo Piaggio (1485-1554), ShrinCircumcision From a href=http://www.cirp.org/library/psych/immerman1/ target=newThe Circumcision Reference Library/a: (The library) chooses articles based on merit. The authors of this article argue that 1) the foreskin is sensory tissue, and 2) removal of the foreskin by circumcision causes sensory deprivation to the brain, and 3) that sensory deprivation to the brain produces brain damage/reorganization, and 4) that sexual excitability is reduced, and 5) there is a net benefit to society. The Circumcision Reference Library believes that the first three arguments are meritorious and this article is included in the Circumcision Reference Library on that basis. The Circumcision Reference Library believes that arguments four and five lack merit.]e of Our Lady of Grace, Chiavari, Italy, 16th century


Pornography From a href=http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmedhealth/behindtheheadlines/news/2014-05-30-watching-porn-associated-with-male-brain-shrinkage/ target=newPubMed Health in 2014/a: The researchers concluded the grey matter volume in the right caudate of the striatum is smaller with higher pornography use. They said that there is a lot of research suggesting the striatum is important in reward processing. So taken together they believed this supported their theory that that intense exposure to pornographic stimuli results in a down regulation of the natural neural response to sexual stimuli.


Technology AddictionInternet addiction - From a href=http://www.cbsnews.com/news/internet-addiction-changes-brain-similar-to-cocaine-study/ target=newa 2012 CBS story/a: The researchers found more patterns of abnormal white matter on brain scans of Internet addicts, compared with scans of non-addicts. White matter areas in the brain contain nerve fibers that transmit signals to other parts of the brain. These changes showed evidence of disrupting pathways related to emotions, decision-making, and self control.


The punchline? From a href=http://psychology.about.com/od/biopsychology/f/brain-plasticity.htm target=newAbout.com/a: Brain plasticity, also known as neuroplasticity or cortical remapping, is a term that refers to the brain's ability to change and adapt as a result of experience. Up until the 1960s, researchers believed that changes in the brain could only take place during infancy and childhood. By early adulthood, it was believed that the brain's physical structure was permanent. Modern research has demonstrated that the brain continues to create new neural pathways and alter existing ones in order to adapt to new experiences, learn new information and create new memories.

Jake Ellison can be reached at 206-448-8334 or jakeellison@seattlepi.com. Follow Jake on Twitter at twitter.com/Jake_News. Also, swing by and *LIKE* his page on Facebook. 

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