i wouldn't be a bit surprised if highly evolved plants actually are conscious, but at a much different rate than we are...

as a gardener i've seen things that are hard to explain...

a favorite story: when my oldest daughter was 4 years old, she wanted to plant some carrot seeds in my garden...i gave her a one foot square in the corner of a bed and showed her how to plant them...i planted more in another area about 2 feet away...she went out every day and looked at her carrot patch...pulled the small weeds etc....i was doing the same in the other area...

My husband has a Doctor's appointment this afternoon and I can't seem to find any articles to post. The one search tool I use is down and maybe it will be working when we get home.

FoM: this is a little different slant on why the "flowers" are the most potent part of the plant... i like to think of a cannabis plant as a reasoning being(the reality is that the plants reactions are the result of a jillion generations of "survival of the fittest")

Okay so this is Evolution 101, I counter it with Geothe 101:

Er nennt's vernunft and braucht's allein,
nur tierischer als jedes Tier zu sein.

He calls it Reason and uses it, resolute,
to be more beastly than the lowest brute

Modern humans are notoriously bad at recognizing emotional states and accounting for them in their "reasoned" decision making processes.

So might we not err when we project a naked inert state of "evolutionary reason" on other living things?

I'm only saying that because one of the things cannabis does for me is relieve the severe emotional numbing common to survivors of trauma. It's like switching from black and white to color in the Wizard of Oz. Oh, so THAT'S what love feels like! Hmmm...

We know about evolution, but correct me if I'm wrong, from what I last read in Science, we don't know all that much about how plants transmit and organize information about their internal states in relation to external conditions.

And we still don't know what consciousness "is" in humans, either.

Maybe the plant feels it, too.

i like to think of a cannabis plant as a reasoning being(the reality is that the plants reactions are the result of a jillion generations of "survival of the fittest")

anyone who has ever grown a pot plant to maturity has seen where and when the resins start to increase on the plant...

cannabis resins are a defense mechanism...when the lady in question notices that the days are growing shorter, she switches from growing stems and leaves to producing flowers...in most areas where cannabis grows naturally, this time coincides with dryness and heat...the resin helps to stop dehydration through the leaves and flowers and to a lesser extent, stems...the plant protects her parts by order of importance...her prime directive is to REPRODUCE, so the flowers get the most attention and resin...the more stressful the conditions, the more resin...this process continues and accelerates until she is polinated, at which point her entire focus is on producing viable seeds...

this is why seeded pot is generally weaker in THC than sinsimilla..(and why the boys end up in the compost pile at the first indication they are boys!)

the psychoactive compounds seem to be a defense against pests...i've noticed that a slug or snail will crawl all over a flower top and never take a nibble, yet will skeletonize an older and yellowing sunleaf farther down the plant...( in my area there is one tiny caterpillar that seems to have adapted to the resin...they are VERY active and if not caught quickly, will destroy an entire top in short order...)

a deer or rabbit would be less inclined to decimate a mature plant than a young green one...(stoned bunnies are easy coyote food)

because research is hard to find, i'm speaking mostly from personal observation...hope this helps a little...

Isn't that statement an admission that these studies are rigged? They probably have the results of these studies predetermined! The Fed's are going to give these guinea pigs some twigs & beans to choke on so they can get the results they want. What a bunch of sh*t!

Mark you this, Bassanio,
The devil can cite Scripture for his purpose.
An evil soul producing holy witness
Is like a villain with a smiling cheek,
A goodly apple rotten at the heart:
O, what a goodly outside falsehood hath!

Socially acceptable? Can you see us all at a cocktail party and trying to talk about how we use our new found legal medicine.

I can see it all now.

You use Cannabis?

Yes!

How pray tell?

[...]so in Pantagruelion I recognize so many virtues, so much vigor, so many admirable effects, that if its full worth had been known when, as the Prophet tells us, the trees elected a wooden king to reign over them and govern them, it would no doubt have gained the majority of their votes and sufferages. Shall I go further? ...

Gargantua and Pantagruel

Because of that I've learned some of the language and ideas of alchemy and I think the XXIXth sonnet is loaded with them.

Shakespeare in this sonnet could be describing the Fool's journey through blindness and self-ignorance and preoccuation with the material, into the state of enlightenment, self-knowledge and the attainment of the spiritual memory of the World, the Quinta Essentia.

And here's what they found in his garden -- evidence that could get him criminally charged with paraphernalia and residue:

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2001/03/0301_shakespeare.html

Shakespeare, Bob Marley, Louis Armstrong...

No wonder the powers that be want the weed dead.

If you read enough Shakespeare, you'll realize what an dangerous project government is in its conception, how only individual kindness and the search for spirtual grace guarantees that civilization is sustainable.

Laws both harm and help, as we learn in Merchant of Venice. Portia had to spin the law pretty hard to keep her lover from losing that pound of flesh he agreed to in a written contract.

The quality of mercy is NOT strained!

That's a Shakespearean manifesto before which the Ashcroft administration ought to tremble at the knees.

Tracing the Synapses of Our Spirituality Researchers Examine Relationship Between Brain and Religion By Shankar Vedantam, Washington Post Sunday, June 17, 2001

full article at: http://www.maps.org/media/vedantam.html

In Philadelphia, a researcher discovers areas of the brain that are activated during meditation. At two other universities in San Diego and North Carolina, doctors study how epilepsy and certain hallucinogenic drugs can produce religious epiphanies. And in Canada, a neuroscientist fits people with magnetized helmets that produce "spiritual" experiences for the secular. The work is part of a broad effort by scientists around the world to better understand religious experiences, measure them, and even reproduce them. Using powerful brain imaging technology, researchers are exploring what mystics call nirvana, and what Christians describe as a state of grace. Scientists are asking whether spirituality can be explained in terms of neural networks, neurotransmitters and brain chemistry.[...]

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For a good exploration of the History of Cannabis and spirituality:

Green Gold; Marijuana in Magick and Religion

Chris Bennet, Lynn and Judy Osbourne

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Also, you may be interested in the work of Dr. Charles Tart, who has put together the TASTE website:

http://www.issc-taste.org/index.shtml

The Archives of Scientists Trancendent Experiences

Last year I had a bladder infection and the doctor treated me with Levaquin without warning me of the severe side effects of this drug. When I called back and said I was having mood swings with paranoid delusions she had no idea what to say. Then I got on the Internet and found out these are known side effects of this antibiotic and also it can cause arthritic lesions in the joints and sponataneous tendon rupture.

The doctor had no idea!

She was handing out this dangerous drug like it was nothing, and apparently didn't know any more about it than came on the corporate brochure from the sales rep who visits her once a month.

And medical marijuana is claimed to be a suspect operation. Indeed.

Sorry Dr. Russo, but I respectfully disagree - I don't think there's "ignorance" on the part of doctors who recommend against higher potency cannabis. I think the DEA is carefully approving only studies within parameters that will give the highest possible chance of a negative result. The whole framework and various approval processes for cannabis studies in the US is one big exercise in mental masturbation. Anyone can go on pubmed and in 30 seconds pull down an abstract of studies showing a 97% efficacy rate of cannabis with MS. Any moron who has functioning brain can figure out that higher potency means less combustion byproducts per active ingredient. Don't let these tyrants off so easily.

The approval board said higher potency would be "toxic"? Cannabis has 0 toxicity! Again, confirmed by many readily available, tightly controlled studies over the last 200 years. How many on that board are Southern, politically-connected appointees? How many had fathers and grandfathers who held the rope at the weekly town lynchings just a few decades ago?

When the government disagrees with the blatant factual truth of any issue, there is a simple routine they go through to create "controversy". They cling to the minority of biased research showing their point of view and trumpet the results. They say the subject needs "more study". The shameless whores of the media then validate the propaganda by claiming a "controversy" or a scientific establishment "fiercely divided" on the issue. Just look at global warming...over 95% of climatological scientists agree that it will happen. 2500 signed a pact pleading for action on the issue! Every other Western government in the world wants to move ahead! But our media consistently reports it as an unresolved issue. Partially because they're just a government/corporate mouthpiece, and partially because any story is better with a well-matched "pro" and "con".

I guess part of what angers me with on this is the arrogance of the entire medical establishment. They've never based their practice on helping the patient to achieve the best lifestyle possible. Instead, Western medicine is a kind of ego-worship of the physician as some sort of all-powerful arbiter of medical science. Many specialists and surgeons aren't out to help patients, they're out to prove their own superiority and skill to the medical world. Why do nurses groups consistently and staunchly support medical marijuana while the AMA condemns it?

If you talk to an herbal medicine practitioner, you will find that the most of the medical cannabis issues are replicated for the entire field of herbal medicine. Doctors fretting about controlling dosage, extracting and standardizing active ingredients, doctors not understanding the synergistic effect of more that one active ingredient, lamenting the dearth of controlled, large scale studies, etc, etc, etc, etc!

I see only the reality. They help many people, but doctors and drug makers kill and maim thousands upon thousands of people each year with their pills and drugs. People have a FUNDAMENTAL RIGHT to treat themselves for their problems however they see fit! Does being a member of modern society mean that you cede all decision-making and control of your own health over to a board-certified doctor? Let's call a spade a spade...the current situation, in the US in Canada, is patently absurd. We have million of dollars of government resources going towards growing poor-quality schwag, while thousands of people quickly, easily, and cheaply grow extremely high-quality, effective cannabis in every neighborhood of every region of the continent! Legitimately sick people are hiding green plants in elaborate and expensive schemes in basements, attics, bureaus, closets and hidden compartments like some kind of botanical underground railroad.

What direction can you point in when while cowering in a corner protecting your own behind?

Man, that's cruel..

It doesn't really make a lot of emotional sense if he's talking about a real human lover.

It's either about religion or pot or both I think.

Haply I think on thee -- it could mean he's just lighting up.

Thy sweet love remembered -- now he's fully feeling the effects.

The sonnet seems to be about being enspirited after being despirited. But what is the agent of this transformation? I don't believe it's really a human agent.

We know now that someone was smoking weed near where he used to live at the time when he lived there. They found a pipe with cannabis residue in it.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov:80/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=11245634&dopt=Abstract

The THC molecules sit in the places in the cell where the carcinogens are supposed to sit in order to pass their cancer-causing information into the cell.

In a dose-dependent manner -- this means that the MORE THC in the weed, the FEWER sites in the cell the carcinogens can find to be fit into.

So giving sick people NIDA dirt weed is a really bad idea!!!!!! Dangerous. Irresponsibly dangerous.

To the point that researchers need to start examining their ethics in this project. Complying with the requirement to use NIDA marijuana could really constitute be a breach of ethics against the subjects in the research.

If there are ever any federal safety standards to protect marijuana smokers from lung cancer, those standards should mandate a minimum, not a maximum, THC content!!

Which would probably put all of NIDA in a state of violation.

Sounds like the Elizabethan era in England. The Virgin Queen and all that.

Maybe Shakespeares mystery women in the XXIXth Sonnett is Lady Cannabis?

When in disgrace with fortune and men's eyes

I all alone beweep my outcast state,

And trouble deaf heaven with my bootless cries,

And look upon myself, and curse my fate,

Wishing me like to one more rich in hope,

Featured like him, like him with friends possessed,

Desiring this man's art, and that man's scope,

With what I most enjoy contented least;

Yet in these thoughts my self almost despising,

Haply I think on thee, and then my state,

Like to the lark at break of day arising

From sullen earth, sings hymns at heaven's gate;

For thy sweet love remembered such wealth brings

Remember when you ran away and I got on my knees and begged you not to
leave because I'd go berserk?? Well...
You left me anyhow and then the days got worse and worse and now you see
I've gone completely out of my mind.. And..
They're coming to take me away, ha-haaa!!
They're coming to take me away, ho-ho, hee-hee, ha-haaa
To the funny farm. Where life is beautiful all the time and I'll be
happy to see those nice young men in their clean white coats and they're
coming to take me away, ha-haaa!!!!!

You thought it was a joke and so you laughed, you laughed when I had said
that loosing you would make me flip my lid.. RIGHT???
I know you laughed, I heard you laugh, you laughed you laughed and
laughed and then you left, but now you know I'm utterly mad... And..

They're coming to take me away, ha-haaa,
They're coming to take me away, ho-ho, hee-hee, ha-haaa.
To the happy home. With trees and flowers and chirping birds and basket
weavers who sit and smile and twiddle their thumbs and toes and they're
coming to take me away, ha-haaa!!!

I cooked your food, I cleaned your house, and this is how you pay me back
for all my kind unselfish loving deeds.. Huh??
Well you just wait, they'll find you yet and when they do they'll put you
in the ASPCA, you mangy mutt!!! And...

They're coming to take me away, ha-haaa.
They're coming to take me away, ho-ho, hee-hee, ha-haaa.
To the funny farm, where life is beautiful all the time and I'll be happy
to see those nice young men in their clean white coats and they're coming
to take me away, ha-haaa!!!
To the happy home, with trees and flowers and chirping birds and basket
weavers who sit and smile and twiddle their thumbs and toes and they're
coming to take me away, ha-haa!!!
To the funny farm, where life is beautiful all the time... (fade out)

Hey, buddy!
Yes officer..
You a head?
No, but I'm catching up, ha ha ha....

From what we've heard of noxious NIDA dirt weed in the San Mateo study, I think it's safe to say that NONE of the cigarettes will look and smell like marijuana, and ALL of them will be will lack enough THC to matter for the purposes of the study.

With all of the skilled and experienced marijuana growers that we have confined in federal custody in this country -- why is it that NIDA is incapable of producing marijuana of medicinal quality?

I'll bet they don't even know how to separate the males from the females. They're pathetic. The only thing they know how to do well over there is locate traces of cannabinoids in the urine of citizens.

They're coming to take me away ha ha ho ho to the funny farm where life is beautiful all the time! LOL!

What if they slip their low potency pot into the placebo group and then claim that they just "think" they're high?

"The question of whether marijuana has any legitimate medical purpose should be determined by sound science and medicine."

All of the "awe" is in there.

The potency and quality of cannabis depend on its genetics and cultural practices. Altitude, heat and intense light all increase cannabinoid production, but keeping the flowers unfertilized synergizes the process. That is why I call cannabis Nature's highest expression of unrequited female botanical passion.

For pictures and text that help, I'd strongly recommend Rob Clarke's book, Hashish!

A study should be undertaken with no preconceived notions about what conclusions will be drawn from the results.

While I agree with Dr, Russo that this is start, I would not be suprised if the results are that MJ is of no medical value. The deck seems to be stacked that way already.

I am also curious about this double speak:

"The agency maintains that past studies have shown no medical benefit to smoking marijuana and that other substances available that can replace the drug."

If no medical benefit comes from MJ then what do the other substances that can replace it do?

Recently, NIDA announced the availability of 7% THC cannabis, but when Dr. Donald Abrams tried to suggest its use for his clinical trials, the investigational review board thought that material so potent would be toxic, and denied approval.

Half the cigarettes will look and smell like marijuana but will lack THC, the active chemical compound in marijuana.

I sure hope people do not notice the difference between orageno weed and real MJ. They might lie to distort the findings and render the whole study useless. I agree with Dr. Russo that they should use medical grade cannabis since that is what should be used for the real-life patients. And then again they should promote the use of vaporizers and also conduct seperate studies on the method of use issues alone. Only ignorance could have launched a study with such a flawed trajectory. More stupidity by our not so friendly servants at the DEA.

From the way I've always heard it, the government cannabis ALL looks and smells like marijuana but lacks THC. Maybe it has SOME, but it's certainly not in copious quantities.

As to putting the issue to rest, doesn't that assume a negative result? That would be unlikely in any event.

These studies will be subject to numerous disclaimers:

The NIDA material is weak in THC and other cannabinoids and terpenoids as compared to true medical grade cannabis.

The side effect profile of NIDA cannabis is one of highly irritating smoke with subsequent throat and pulmonary issues. This is once more, not representative of medical grade cannabis.