DRUG BUSTS

POT FOUND HELPFUL TO HEART
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,8122-1557993,00.html

NIGEL HAWKES, TIMES, UK - THE active ingredient in cannabis protects arteries against harmful changes that lead to strokes and heart attacks, new research suggests. THC, or delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol, is known to affect the brain and make cannabis-users "high". The new research shows that it also has an influence on blood vessels. A study of mice revealed that the compound blocks the process of inflammation, which is largely responsible for the narrowing of arteries.
Inflammation combines with fatty deposits to produce obstructive "plaques," a condition known as atherosclerosis. These can block arteries to the heart, causing angina and heart attacks, or to the brain, leading to strokes. Atherosclerosis is the primary cause of heart disease and stroke in the Western world, accounting for up to half the deaths from both conditions. . .
Writing in Nature, the scientists point out that the THC doses used were low — too low to cause the mice to get "high". They wrote: "Our results suggest that cannabinoid derivatives with activity at the CB2 receptor may be valuable clinical targets for treating atherosclerosis."

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STUDY SHOWS POT COULD CALM MIDDLE EAST CRISIS
http://education.guardian.co.uk/egweekly/story/0,,1446891,00.html

MARC ABRAHAMS, GUARDIAN - Lock three men in a room, make them smoke cannabis, and then try to provoke them into being hostile. Thirty years ago a team of American doctors actually conducted this daring experiment. They then described it in a report called Marijuana and Hostility in a Small-Group Setting. The conventional wisdom at the time said that cannabis would make people less hostile, that it would tend to quiet aggressive behavior even in people who tended to be pugnacious. Such was the widespread belief among cannabis smokers, and also among people who knew cannabis smokers, which included a large proportion of the American population. But conventional wisdom is not always right. Several aggressive political figures voiced with certainty that cannabis had pernicious, vicious effects, and that directly or indirectly its use led to hostility, violence and worse. Several medical eminences agreed. This experiment was an attempt to settle the question. Carl Salzman and Richard Shader were co-directors of the Psychopharmacology Research Laboratory at Harvard Medical School in Boston. Together with a colleague, Bessel A van der Kolk, they recruited 60 brave volunteers, all healthy men between the ages of 21 and 30, all with prior experience of smoking cannabis. The men were divided into groups of three. Half the groups would be smoking real cannabis. The others would smoke placebos. . . The results were largely as expected. Upon being frustrated, the general hostility levels of the non-cannabis smokers went up, and those of the cannabis smokers went down. But there was one, quite specific, surprise. The doctors' report puts it plainly: "Marijuana produced a small but statistically significant increase in sarcastic communications."

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COLORADO STUDENTS PETITION FOR POT

MONE WHALEY, DENVER POST - Claiming pot is safer than alcohol, activists at the University of Colorado and Colorado State University want sanctions for the use and possession of marijuana to be no greater than those imposed for underage drinking.Students signed petitions last week to have the measure put on the ballot next month during student elections. The initiative also asks administrators to conduct a study to determine the impact of making marijuana use nonpunishable for students older than 18. . . Proponents got the 1,200 signatures needed at CU and are hoping to get the required 2,085 at CSU by Monday. . .