Another Positive Medical Benefit Found For Marijuana

(This photo of marijuana plants is from Forbes magazine.)

For several decades the federal government has been lying to the American public about marijuana (so they could continue to keep it illegal and used as a tool for social control). One of the most outrageous of these lies is that marijuana has no medicinal value. We know now that this gentle herb has a variety of medicinal uses (without any of the negative effects that other drugs have, including most legal drugs).

Now researchers have evidence that marijuana is neuroprotective (that it can protect those with a head injury from significant brain injury or death). They found that marijuana users who received a head injury were 80% less likely to die from that injury than people who do not use marijuana. Here is how Reuters reporter Anne Harding tells the story:

People who use marijuana may be more likely to survive a serious head injury than people who don't, a new study suggests.

At one hospital, the death rate after traumatic brain injury was lower among people who tested positive for tetrahydrocannabinol (THC, the active ingredient in marijuana) than among people who tested negative for it, researchers found.

“This data fits with previous data showing that (THC) may be neuroprotective,” Dr. David Plurad, one of the study's authors, said in a phone interview.

Experiments in animals have found that THC may protect the brain after injury, Plurad and his colleagues write in The American Surgeon. Little is known about the specific effects of THC on brain injury in humans, however.

For the new study, the researchers reviewed data on 446 adults treated at Harbor-UCLA Medical Center in Torrance, California for traumatic brain injuries. All had been tested for THC.

Overall, approximately one in five patients tested positive for THC and one in 10 patients died after their injury.

About 2.4 percent of people who tested positive for THC died, compared to about 11.5 percent of those with negative THC tests.

People who tested positive for THC were about 80 percent less likely to die, compared to people with negative THC tests, researchers found after they adjusted the numbers to account for age, gender, injury severity and type.

Previous studies have also suggested that alcohol may protect the brain in traumatic brain injuries, Plurad said. Those studies did not account for the presence of THC, however.

“We included the presence of alcohol in our statistical analysis, and it didn't turn out to be as protective as the presence of the marijuana,” he said, adding that future studies examining the effects of alcohol on traumatic brain injury should account for the presence of THC.