If Society is the Disease, is Cannabis the Cure?



Apr 27th, 2011 | By | Category: Lead, Michael Sosteric

Cannabis gets a lot of bad press, but perhaps it is undeserved. While alcohol, cocaine, heroin, and even tobacco are known to be highly addictive and damaging to the physical body and brain, there’s not a lot of negative research on cannabis. In fact, quite the opposite. More and more research is finding medicinal properties. From anti-depressent and anti-anxiety effects to its ability to help generate new pathways in the brain, is cannabis and its effects on psychology, health, and our social fabric worth having a closer look at?

Natural Medicine or Brain Melting Substance

I recently read an astounding article on Marijuana (Jiang, et. al, 2005). As it turns it out, cannabis is implicated in neurogensis or the generation and regeneration of brain cells in the hypothalamus. In layman’s terms, consuming pot encourages your brain to grow (or at least the hypothalamic portion of it). Even more astounding is that this is in direct opposition to other drugs like alcohol, nicotine, opiates, and cocaine which have been demonstrated to suppress hippocampal neurogenesis in adult rats (Jiang, et. Al, 2005). Even more astounding still, if I could really be more astounded at this point, is that this brain regeneration is linked to antidepressant and antianxiety effects, something you pay the big pharmaceutical companies big bucks for.

But that’s not the end of this story. I was so fascinated by what I had read that I had to know more. So, I looked up the functions of the hypothalamus. Turns out the hypothalamus is hugely important. It regulates the physical unit. The hypothalamus regulates bodily temperature, feeding behaviour, circadian rhythms, and is also implicated in the emotional and sensory systems of the body. It plays a role in the sex drive, arousal (in particular autonomic “fight or flight” responses) and expression and communicates directly with the body’s endocrine (hormone) system. The hypothalamus is an important piece of your body’s brain and it very cool that cannabis can help with the regeneration of hypothalamic nerve cells.

But why would we need to regenerate hypothalamus cells? Well, as it turns out, the hypothalamus (like other parts of the brain) is easily damaged by stress, and this is particularly true of children and adolescents. Of course this raises the question about the experience of childhood stress which, it must be said, isn’t any good. As children and teenagers we all experience relatively high levels of ongoing stress. It is a social truism justified, at least when I was in undergraduate school, by the psychologically stamped lunacy that some levels of stress are actually good for you. Of course, it does not matter how many teachers and psychologists might have said it, stress is not good for our children. You may be able to make a case that minor and controlled stress might be functional for adults, but in the sensitive brain development periods of childhood and adolescence, stress (like poison) is particularly damaging to the mental and emotional development of the child.

So I ask the question, what kind of stress did I experience as a child and how might that have damaged my physical brain? Well, from the beatings with sticks that I got from my mom to the abuse of teachers to the incredible and demeaning stress of competition and constant comparison I have to say my life as a child was pretty stressful. Because of the general lack of concern and empathy on the part of the adults all around me, I spent a lot of time worrying about what was going to happen next (chronic stress) and it is just this kind of chronic stress that impacts, in a negative way, brain development. And sadly, my childhood wasn’t, by comparison, that bad. I know others who experienced profound emotional, physical, sexual, and psychological abuse for extended periods of time at the hands of parents, teachers, and loved ones.  What can I say about that except psychologists are beginning to see that stress and abuse leads to neurosis, psychosis, and even schizophrenia. Obviously, something to be avoided. Sadly, something we all accept.

At this point you will perhaps understand why I was so astounded by the articles I read. In a world where our societies advocate stress, pressure, competition, and violence as if it is a good thing for us, in societies where the very act of existence is likely to damage our physical units, here was a naturally occurring substance that potentially provided a cure for this disease we call modern life. From anti-depressant and anti-anxiety effects to actual neurogenesis, this was a long way from the paranoid fantasies of government propagandists who drink their martinis and smoke their fags while proselytizing in an anti-empirical way about the evils of substance that seems to function exactly opposite of the way they suggest.

Of course, I am speculating at this point. It is long way from neurogensis in the brain of a rat to the miraculous healing effects of cannabis postulated here, but I think it is something to consider. After all, natives have been using entheogens like Peyote and ayahuasca. for centuries and, despite some weirdness on the part of Harvard psychologists in the sixties, LSD and other entheogens seemed to show great promise in curing intractable addictions like alcoholism. Not that I’m advocating LSD as a therapeutic. I think they called it acid for a reason. But still, keep an open mind and ask some hard questions; when our mental and physical (not to mention emotional and spiritual) health may be at stake, we don’t want to allow ourselves to be led down the garden path by people who do not know, or who let their own fears cloud their ability to objectively assess and think. As Sociologists, Psychologists, students, and researchers of all stripes, what are we waiting for? It is time to stop letting fears, misconceptions, and government propagandists set the boundaries of our research interests. It is time to take a look at the potential healing properties of cannabis and other naturally occurring entheogens.

At the very least pause and re-consider.

Rather than demonizing cannabis, take a good hard look at the real devils of modern society – stress, alcohol, nicotine, opiates, cocaine, methamphetamines, and other brain damaging activities and substances are the premier choices of the stressed out and damaged addicts of this world, and for a reason. They all function like Soma, further deadening the nervous system and hiding us from the very damage we seek to heal. It is true, we may still argue the benefits of entheogens and the jury may still be out on Cannabis, but the same cannot be said of these other drugs. We’ve known for decades just how bad they are. In our struggle to overcome the bondage and damage of system socialization, these are the real devils of this hellish capitalist world.

References

Jiang, Wen, Zhang, Yun, Xiao, Lan, Cleemput, Jamie Van, Ji, Shao-Pint, Bai, Guang, and Zhang, Xia (2005). Cannabinoids promote embryonic and adult hippocampus neurogeneis and produce anxiolytic and antidepressant-like effects. The Journal of Clinical Investigation. 115. [http://www.jci.org/articles/view/25509]

Kleiner, Kurt (2005). Marijuana might cause new cell growth in brain. New Scientist: October. [http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn8155-marijuana-might-cause-new-cell-growth-in-the-brain.html]

 

See Also

SpiriWiki Entheogen Page – http://www.thespiritwiki.com/index.php/Entheogens

Child and Teen Brains Very Sensitive to Stress, Likely a Key Factor in Mental Illness – http://www.schizophrenia.com/sznews/archives/005410.html

Does Stress Damage the Brain – http://www.benschweitzer.org/WORK/stress/Bremner-does%20stress%20damage%20the%20brain.pdf

Wikipedia page on Hypothalamus http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypothalamus

Study Finds No Link Between Marijuana Use And Lung Cancer – http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2006/05/060526083353.htm

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3 Comments to “If Society is the Disease, is Cannabis the Cure?”

  1. gareit says:

    wow thats interesting to think in this age we can take a step back and look at the stuff that we assumed was dangerous in the 20s and actually say its helping us now. I mean i wasnt arounhd for reffer madness but i heard a lot about it and now it turns out cannabis is actually helping us in the hypothalmus region. interesting

  2. vladimir says:

    I am writing from a country where marihuana has been perceived as any other psycho-stimuli regarding the legislators. According to them it is the same “evil thing“ as any other aforementioned drug in this article. On the other hand, I know many people who got involved with addictive substances and the only bad thing related to marihuana may be said in that sense that it may “lead to hard drugs“ and lifetime addiction. Be that as it may, I am sure that this THC substance that has its profound properties is not alike some other substances, it is as if we would state that it is all the same to ingest/drink water or some other liquid. We , as members of society must impel goverments to conduct studies seriously and positive effect any of substances found in nature may have on human health, and if it really has medicinal effects, legislators will have to react accordingly. I am aware that international corporations have they prevailing influence on such issues, but let us see what are the effects on humans when using this herb. I am acquainted with the use of marihuana in alleviating problems considering some eye illnesses, I know that people say they fell differently, better , improved when smoking pot and I am sure that they would not do that if it would’t feel good. So, there is one more issue occurring. Whether it is ethical to change ones mood and emotional status by merely using some psychoactive substance, how fair is that, and how it affects human relationships. Historically, we have evidences that purport the notion that during the whole of human history they tend to use psychoactive substances, mostly for magical rituals, sacred gatherings, important days, and mostly only few individuals were allowed to use it. In this modern society of ours people tend to behave free and to have the choices of their own, and to use such medicines, or substances recreationally. If it does not include them being menace for society or aggravating it in some manner, the authorities will not have their action. This article writes about possibility to cure and to improve ones life. I believe that the mere idea of having any beneficial effects of any substance on human life and health earns attention. The problem is that authorities want us to feel as they want us to feel, thing, behave.

    Erich From wrote about “Healthy Society“ and much of the problems involved with the issue of cannabis “ as cure“ may be the matter of correlations with some of the claimed statements and/or illnesses of society and its its “discontents“, as Sigismund Freud wrote. I believe, that we were not meant to live in perfect circumstances, without stress and problems. We were meant to fight and learn to seek and try, over and over. If cannabis helps this journey of ours throughout “the walk of life“ all right, but it seams not to be the crucial question. The question is whether the society we live in make us seek for some exit, some way out of itself? We cannot escape, but certainly, we may feel like we have left it, especially with the “help“ of cannabis. For some it is obviously quite enough for other not even merely sustainable solution!

  3. I wouldn’t recommend anybody using ANY substance, whether its alcohol, cocaine, or cannabis, to alter mood. using substances for mood alteration is the root of addiction. i think you treat something like cannabis in a medicinal or sacred way and not in a recreational way, otherwise you run into problems of addiction and so on.

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