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Marijuana effects on the Brain. They aren't good.
> 12/1/2005 10:07:29 AM

Researchers working at the Zucker Hillside Hospital in Glen Oaks, New York, used diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) to explore the brains of three groups of adolescents: healthy, non-drug users; schizophrenic patients and drug users.

The scans revealed no abnormal developmental changes in the language pathway in the healthy adolescents, but showed abnormalities in both the marijuana users and schizophrenic patients.

"These findings suggest that in addition to interfering with normal brain development, heavy marijuana use in adolescents may also lead to an earlier onset of schizophrenia in individuals who are genetically predisposed to the disorder," said co-principal-investigator Sanjiv Kumra, M.D., assistant professor of psychiatry at Albert Einstein College of Medicine.

The fact that Marijuana interferes with normal brain development as well as hastens the onset of schizophrenia should put a dent in the theories of Marijuana being a "safe" drug. The hallmark sign of an adolescent marijauna smoker is school performance degradation as the user becomes more involved with the drug.......is this another indication of the brain damage that ensues from chronic marijuana abuse?

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