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The study suggests that not only is marijuana safer
than alcohol, it may actually protect against some of the damage that
booze causes. A study just published online by the journal
Neurotoxicology and Teratology suggests that marijuana may protect the
brain from some of the damage caused by binge drinking.
The study, by researchers at the University of
California San Diego, used a type of high-tech scan called diffusion
tensor imaging to compare microscopic changes in brain white matter.
The subjects were students aged 16-to-19, divided into
three groups: binge drinkers (defined as having five or more drinks at
one sitting for boys or four or more for girls), binge drinkers who
also smoked marijuana, and a control group who had very little or no
experience with either alcohol or drugs.
As expected, the binge-drinking-only group showed
evidence of white matter damage in eight regions examined, as
demonstrated by lower fractional anisotropy (FA) scores. But in a
finding the researchers describe as "unexpected," the
binge-drinking/marijuana group had lower FA scores than the controls in
only three of eight regions, and in seven regions the
binge-drinking/marijuana group had higher scores -- indicating less
damage -- than the binge drinkers who did not use marijuana.
Brain white matter tracts were "more coherent in
adolescents who binge drink and use marijuana than in adolescents who
report only binge drinking," the researchers wrote.
"It is possible that marijuana may have some
neuroprotective properties in mitigating alcohol-related oxidative
stress or excitotoxic cell death," as has already been shown in lab and
animal studies.
"This study suggests that not only is marijuana safer
than alcohol, it may actually protect against some of the damage that
booze causes," said Steve Fox, Marijuana Policy Project director of
state campaigns and co-author of the new book, "Marijuana Is Safer: So
Why Are We Driving People to Drink?" (which hit number 14 on the
Amazon.com bestseller list). "It's far better for teens not to drink or
smoke marijuana, but our nation's leaders send a dangerous message by
defending laws that encourage the use of alcohol over marijuana."
REFERENCE: Jacobus, J. et al. "White matter integrity
in adolescents with histories of marijuana use and binge drinking."
Neurotoxicology and Teratology. dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ntt.2009.07.006 |
