From: [c--o--n] at [dsm1.dsmnet.com]
Newsgroups: talk.politics.drugs
Subject: Re: Marijuana and IQ
Date: 30 May 1994 22:58:43 GMT

[karl hiller] at [cccbbs.cincinnati.oh.us] (Karl Hiller) writes:
>[v--d--t] at [twain.ucs.umass.edu] said:
>
>-> Here's some more fun facts:  Recently a brand new, very thorough
>-> rhesus monkey experiment has been run and the results are still
>-> trickling out.
>-> The scientists main concern was brain damage, of course, but other
>-> very arduous tests were performed as well.  During the tests where
>-> they looked for brain damage (they found none) they were using
>-> equipment so sensitive that they could tell the difference between
>-> brain slices from monkeys who had participated in activity, and
>-> monkeys who had been left in a room with nothing to do.  They could
>-> actually see the effect of learning on brain cells, in other words.
>->
>-> Funny thing that:
>->
>-> Monkeys who smoked marijuana not only had more brain cells, but even
>-> the ones who had done nothing but sit in a room looked like they had
>-> learned more. It can't be that the process of smoking was to blame,
>-> because all the monkeys were strapped into chairs with a face-mask
>-> whether they were given smoke or not.

The study was performed at the National Center for Toxicological Research
near Pine Bluff, Arkansas.  In 1991, the journal Fundamental and Applied
Toxicology published a report on the effects of marijuana on the monkeys'
general health.  Dr. William Slikker, acting director of NCTR's Division
of Neurotoxicology, was the lead writer.  Last year, the journal Toxicology
Letters published a report by another group of NCTR researchers on the
effects of marijuana on the lungs of the monkeys who smoked.  Late last
year, Dr. Merle Paule, head of NCTR's Behavioral Toxicology Laboratory and
Primate Research Facility, was the lead author of a report in The Journal
of Pharmacology and Experimental Therapeutics which dealt with marijuana's
effect on behavior.  I hope this information is helpful.

Carl E. Olsen, Iowa NORML