Rats and Marijuana
Nubs
rat would come sniffing around and watches me. Do they get high?
Phil L
:: Is it just me or do rats like the smell of weed? Whenever I toke
:: up my rat would come sniffing around and watches me. Do they get
:: high?
Rats will get a taste for alcohol, nicotine and cannabis if it's in the same
room as them...they probably wont get high from secondhand smoke, but any
kind of smoke is not good for them so if I were you I'd put them in another
room next time you 'skin up'.
:-p
paghat
<Freakl...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Is it just me or do rats like the smell of weed? Whenever I toke up my
> rat would come sniffing around and watches me. Do they get high?
A dozen proven rat responses to marijuana:
1) Rats do get stoned.
Rats exposed to cannabinoids or marijuana are so altered in their
measurable behavior that there is no other conclusion but that they do get
stoned, & get physically addicted as well. Further, marijuana suppresses
the reward response in rats, as discovered by Sanudo-Pena et al in a
1997 study, as even at the lowest doses rat failed to establish
reward-based preferences -- suggesting that the capacity for happiness,
profoundly well developed in a healthy rat, may be lost to addicted rats.
2) Impaired memory, loss of learning skills, & rapid aging of the brain,
in rats exposed to marijuana.
Rats treated with THC displayed the same reduced ability to perform tasks
requiring short-term memory as other rats that had had the nerve cells in
their hippocampus destroyed, as shown in a 1993 study conducted by Heyser
et al & published in "Journal of Pharmacology & Experimental Therapeutic."
As rats (& people) grow older, we all naturally lose cells of the
hippocampus. Marijuana use in rats as well as humans speeds up the aging
process with long-lasting or permanent memory-related side-effects. Rats
examined at 11 & 12 months of age after marijuana exposure were found to
have hippocampus cell loss equivalent to rats at 24 months of age. The
rats in this study were given the drug in their food; but smoking
marijuana delivers several times the THC to the blood system & brain, so
that effects seen in rats who ate the drug would be much worse for people
who smoked the drug. So anyone who has had the subjective general
impression that potheads do not have a great deal on the ball -- your
impressions are scientifically verified!
3) Mental deficiency in offspring of mother rats exposed to low levels of
cannabinoids.
The findings of a study conducted at La Sapienza University in Rome
discovered that the offspring of pregnant rats that had been exposed to
low doses of cannabinoid have been proven to suffer learning deficiencies
the rest of their lives. It's probably why the children of potheads are
almost as stupid as their parents, & the study was done, of course, to
find information applicable to humans, though all the animal study for
sure proves is what happens to animals (though a human study at Carleton
University in Ottawa found pretty much the same results for children born
of dope-smoking human parents). But for rats per se, even minor exposure
to pregnant rats will cause lasting mental deficiencies in their
offspring, manifesting as hyperactivity in the rat's childhood &
adolescence (hyperactivity measured by the number of times they interupt
infrared beams crosscrossing their cages), & at maturity when
hyperactivity diminishes, it is replaced by memory problems & an inability
to learn, compared to rats whose mothers were not exposed to cannabinoids.
The offspring had reduced glutamate in the hippocampus, essential for
memory, & this evidently occurs for human children of ignorant dopeheads
too. The Canadian human studies found problems in children similar to
those in rats, with additional loss of capacity for visual mapping &
analysis in human children.
4) Marijuana can eliminate epileptic fits in rats.
A study at the Virginia Commonwealth University found that chronically
epileptic rats (ten fits per hour) when treated with marijuana extracts or
synthetic marijuana in some cases completely eliminated epileptic
seizures. Despite the side-effects of marijuana, which are severe, the
fact is that "legal" anticonvulsants have worse side-effects than pot,
PLUS the legal options did not work as well, never entirely eliminating
seizures. So for chronically epileptic rats (or humans), marijuana is a
more sensible alternative.
5) Marijuana drug-dependency & severe withdrawal side-effects for rats
similar to dependency & withdrawal from harder opiates.
A study conducted by Dr. Billy Martin has proven that drug-dependency
occurs in rats given marijuana, with classic withdrawal systems like
increased incidence of shivering, & manic face-washing. Withdrawal systems
were extreme & dramatic, & mimiced identically withdrawal response to
"harder" opiating drugs. The "shakes" were in some cases so ongoing &
dramatic they seemed never to stop. Other observed withdrawal symptoms
included head-shaking, biting, & increased incidence of "retropulsion" (a
fear response of backing away), increased back-arching (threat posture),
manic chewing, & manic licking. The strongest observable withdrawal system
was always shivering, & the degree of withdrawal shivering was less after
smaller exposures to marijuana, greater with greater doses.
6) Pot shrinks brain tumors of rats with incurable tumors.
A Madrid study done in 1974 found that incurable brain tumors in mice
could be reduced with injections of THC, the active ingredient in
marijuana. In 2000 the study was duplicated using rats, & again found that
THC could reduce the size of incurable brain tumors. The two Madrid
studies were very poorly modeled & it remains for better-modeled studies
to come to similar results; plus, even if the findings can be
substantiated to the degree that some pot-advocates are already
pretending, the advocates conveniently overlook the better evidence that
marijuana CAUSES precancerous lesions & tumors (of the lungs; see #12
below). But hey, if you gotta brain tumor & you're gonna lose your mind
anyway, you might as well get stoned!
7) Marijuana reduces cocaine & heroin addiction in rats.
At least three animal-modeled studies of cocaine & heroin addiction found
that rats first addicted to a hard drug, then injected with cannabinoids,
have a reduced interest the hard drugs. The tests were set up so that the
rat can self-inject cocaine or heroin by pressing a bar -- when they need
a fix, they get one themselves. But when injected with cannabinoids, their
trips to the drug-bar became fewer. Marijuana fulfilled most of the
addicted rats' desire for more cocaine or heroin, though it did not reduce
the negative side effects of stopping drug use altogether, rats becoming
"shivering wrecks" during withdrawal of any of these drugs (see #5 above),
so the only bonus would be degree of injury to health
8) Reduced stressed in abused rats.
An Indian study by Dr. R. Khan analysed stressed rat response with
exposure to marijuana delivered by smoke inhalation once each day for
three months. The artificially stressed (abused) rats were found to suffer
from fewer side effects of stress, comparable to normal non-stressed &
non-addicted rats, if the stressed rats were stoned. Well wadda surprise.
9) Rat addiction to marijuana damages social interactions.
A 2001 study by Tiziana Rubino et al published in the European Journal of
Neuroscience found that rats addicted to cannibinoids fell into
drug-seeking behaviors that persisted long after the cannibinoids were no
longer available to the rats. Neurobiological alterations & behavior
shifts were equal in severity to rats addicted to harder drugs.
10) Marijuana causes rats to lose their sense of time.
A recent study by Jonathon Crystal et al first trained rats to respond to
an "announcement" of food about to arrive by making a noise with a
specific interval between beeps. Sounds with other intervals of time were
not followed up by food delivery, & the rats soon learned exactly the
duration between beeps that meant food was coming, & went to food slots
only when the specifically timed sound was heard. Then they were given
cannibinoids, & completely lost the capacity to tell the difference
between long beeps & short beeps, & no longer could tell when food was
coming. Human potheads have similarly commented on the seeming alterations
in time that occur when they are stoned.
11) Lowered pain response when rats are stoned.
A Antigonish University study conducted in 2003 found that rats with
pain-causing devices inserted in their brains were less desturbed by the
pain if they were given cannabinoids. The researcher got $100,000 to
torture the rats by the way, & called the obvious outcome "an exciting
discovery." The point proven is that people in chronic pain can have that
pain relieved with cannabis. We already knew that. The point overlooked is
that people (or rats) NOT in chronic pain, but who have had their pain
response extinguished, are more apt to injure themselves without even
realizing it until its too late.
12) Causes lesions in rats.
A study by Thompson et al in 1973 found that cannabinoids taken orally by
rats caused lesions of the spleen, internal hemhorraging, lung congestion
& destruction of lung tissue, thymic congestion, & adrenal congestion.
Similar effects have been found in humans who smoke either tobacco or
marijuana, especially lesions of the lung. Several cancer studies on rats
found that marijuana-caused lesions are pre-cancerous (benign or
non-malignant). To the pro-drug people this is good news because it means
that marijuana (probably) does not cause cancer, & they overlook that
marijuana does cause internal lesions, which can themselves be
life-threatening & are certainly harmful to health (bronchitis &
non-malignant bronchial tumors are only the tip of the iceberg), whether
or not the lesions ever do become cancerous, which pre-cancerous lesions
can become.
13) Marijuana damages the sleep cycle of rats.
When marijuana rapidly ages & destroys cells of the hippocampus of the
brain, not only is capacity to judge time, memory, & ability to learn
severely impeded, but sleep cycles are also interupted. Marijuana can
completely destroy the short-wave & REM cycle of healthy sleep, a problem
that at its furthest extreme can cause psychosis, but at its "least" means
that even short-term use insures the impossibility of peak performance in
ANY endeavor other than being stoned.
SUMMATION:
For healthy rats (& humans) marijuana is harmful to memory & ability to
learn, increases the aging process of the brain, causes benign tumors &
lesions with associative congestive diseases of various bodily organs, is
addictive with withdrawal issues equal to those associated with cocain &
heroin, hampers the sleep cycle & diminishes performance of all tasks,
induces loss of social capacity with increased drug-seeking addicted
behaviors, & permanently damages the learning ability of children or
offspring.
But the medical marijuana issues are legitimate, & for all its dangers is
safer than many "legal" medications to relieve chronic pain including for
terminal diseases, severe epilepsy, & can even be useful in treating
addictions to cocaine & heroin, possibly even in treatment of brain
tumors. And if you're gonna die anyway, just being stoned on your way out
may be useful.
-paghat the ratgirl
--
"Of what are you afraid, my child?" inquired the kindly teacher.
"Oh, sir! The flowers, they are wild," replied the timid creature.
-from Peter Newell's "Wild Flowers"
Visit the Garden of Paghat the Ratgirl: http://www.paghat.com
