Pubdate: Mon, 16 Jun 2014
Source: Las Vegas Review-Journal (NV)
Copyright: 2014 Las Vegas Review-Journal
Contact: http://www.reviewjournal.com/about/print/press/letterstoeditor.html
Website: http://www.lvrj.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/233
Author: Brian Palmer, Slate
Page: 3D

NOT EVERYONE REACTS TO A DRUG IN SAME MANNER

Columnist's Pot Candy Flipped Switch in Brain

NEW YORK - Maureen Dowd, a 62-yearold Pulitzer Prize-winning 
columnist for The New York Times, had a bad marijuana trip earlier 
this year. As part of her research into the legalization of 
recreational cannabis in Colorado, she ate a few too many bites of a 
pot-infused candy bar, entered a "hallucinatory state," and spent 
eight paranoid hours curled up on her hotel room bed.

Dowd used the experience as a jumping-off point to discuss the risks 
of overdosing on edible marijuana, which has become a major issue in 
pot-friendly states.

It's also possible, however, that Dowd just doesn't handle cannabis 
very well. Although pot mellows most people out, everyone has heard 
of someone who barricaded himself or herself in a dorm room after a 
few bong hits in college.

Why do people react so differently to the same drug?

The question itself may be something of a fallacy. Cannabis is not a 
single drug - it contains dozens of compounds, and they appear to 
have varying, and sometimes opposing, effects on the brain. 
Tetrahydrocannabinol, or THC, and cannabidiol, or CBD, have been the 
subject of some intriguing research.

In 2010, researchers showed that pretreating people with a dose of 
CBD can protect against the less pleasant effects of THC, such as 
paranoia. In a similar 2012 study, participants took pills that 
contained only one of the two chemicals, rather than the combination 
that you receive in cannabis. The subjects who took THC pills were 
more likely to suffer paranoia and delusion than those who took CBD.

The researchers went one step further to investigate which specific 
cognitive effects of THC are likely to lead to paranoia and other 
symptoms of psychosis. After taking either THC or CBD, participants 
watched a series of arrows appear on a screen and responded by 
indicating which direction the arrows were pointing. Most of the 
arrows pointed directly left or right, but occasionally a tilted 
arrow appeared. (Researchers called the tilted arrows "oddballs.") 
Subjects who took the CBD had a heightened brain activity response to 
the oddballs.

That's the way a nondrugged person typically reacts - repetitions of 
the same stimulus don't interest us, but a sudden change grabs our 
attention. The THC-takers had an abnormal response: They found the 
left and right arrows, which constituted the majority of the images, 
more noteworthy than the oddballs. The researchers' interpretation is 
that THC may undermine our ability to ignore routine, unimportant stimuli.

Ignoring the ordinary is an important skill - we can't function if 
every chirping bird or billboard grabs our attention and refuses to 
let go. Focusing obsessively on every meaningless detail in the 
environment may contribute to the paranoia that some pot users experience.

The differing effects of THC and CBD partially explain why some 
marijuana strains - which differ in the ratios and amounts of THC and 
CBD - are believed to provide giddy, excited highs, while others are 
thought to mellow the user, regardless of one's personal neurological 
peculiarities.

Although both THC and CBD are present in marijuana, your brain may be 
more receptive to one of the chemicals than the other. Maureen Dowd's 
brain may have a strong affinity for THC, while the mellower smokers 
may take up CBD more efficiently.

There is probably also a psychological element in addition to the 
neurochemical explanation. Consider the effects of alcohol. There are 
mean drunks, loud drunks, amorous drunks, withdrawn drunks, teary 
drunks and many more kinds. There are no differences in the drug 
itself - unlike cannabis, alcohol has only one psychoactive substance 
- - so there has to be another explanation.

There are scads of studies exploring the diverse effects of alcohol, 
much of it focusing on variations in alcohol-related aggression, but 
none is entirely satisfying. Psychological research rarely is.

One theory is that some people don't care very much about the 
consequences of their actions, even when they're sober. When these 
people drink, they get aggressive, and their lack of foresight means 
they don't bother to check their mean-drunk impulses.

In a 2012 study, researchers at Ohio State showed that people who 
ignored consequences when sober got really excited about shocking 
their opponents in a drunken reflex competition. The study was widely 
publicized, but shocking a person in a laboratory setting is vastly 
different from punching someone in a bar.

There may a genetic basis for differing responses to alcohol. In a 
2010 twin study, researchers attributed one-third of the variation in 
alcohol-induced aggression levels to genetic factors. The research 
was based on self-reporting, though, and the ability to estimate our 
own anger and aggression levels isn't necessarily consistent from 
person to person.

Although the research hasn't settled on simple explanations, it's 
clear that some combination of personality traits, genetics and 
experience affects how people respond to intoxicants.
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom