Chemicals within cannabis have powerful antioxidant properties, and scientists believe this can protect the brain from damage. Too much alcohol can lead to permanent brain damage, among other things. A recent study from the University of Kentucky and the University of Maryland concluded that a chemical in marijuana called cannabidiol (CBD) could be used to prevent alcohol-induced brain damage. The study was published in September of 2013 in the journal Pharmacology Biochemistry and Behavior. (source)

The study outlines how excessive alcohol consumption results in neuro-degeneration as well as behavioral and cognitive impairments that are hypothesized to contribute to the chronic and relapsing nature of alcoholism. As a result they aimed to study the transdermal delivery of cannabidiol (CBD) for the treatment of alcohol-induced neuro-degeneration.

Just like THC, CBD is another chemical found in marijuana, the difference is that it doesn’t get you ‘high.’ Both chemicals are strong antioxidants. The study points out:

These results justify further preclinical development of transdermal CBD for the treatment of alcohol-induced neurodegeneration. It has been suggested that the neuroprotective effects of CBD observed during binge alcohol induced neurodegeneration are due to its high antioxidant capacity.

The authors note that CBD acts as a stronger antioxidant than many well-known antioxidants. This study was done on rat models, using both a skin patch and regular needle injection. Both methods produced similar magnitudes of neuroprotection, approximately 50 percent.

The potential health benefits of cannabis are overwhelming, and potentially very threatening to the pharmaceutical industry. It is a shame that despite all of the evidence supporting the medicinal properties of this plant, it still has a negative connotation within the mainstream.

A recent study published by the team at the University of Colorado Boulder, in the peer-reviewed journal Addiction, explored substance use on grey and white brain matter. Grey matter is the substance in the brain that includes the cells, dendrites (‘feelers’ at the ends of cells), and the axon terminals (the end that inserts into receptors). White matter provides the communications between the clusters of grey matter.

They compared alcohol to cannabis, and found nothing but damage from alcohol, but not cannabis.

In the comparison of grey and white matter, cannabis performed much better than alcohol. The team discovered “Marijuana and associated cannabinoid products, […] were not shown to have any long-term impact on the amount of gray matter in the brain or on the integrity of the white matter.”

Another investigation of the long-term effects of cannabis on brain health came to pretty much the same conclusions.  Staci Gruber led the study, “The Grass Might Be Greener: Medical Marijuana Patients Exhibit Altered Brain Activity and Improved Executive Function after 3 Months of Treatment“. This study explored long term effects on brain health for medical cannabis patients.

After three months of treatment,  participants in the study  showed better task performance in conjunction with better activation within the frontal cortex and an area of the brain called cingulate cortex. The cingulate cortex is in charge of aspects of emotion and memory. Study participants had measurably better results than their baseline data before they started cannabis therapy.

Gruber highlighted that participants’ brain activation patterns also returned to normal activity patterns, which were similar to the patterns recorded in people not using medicinal cannabis. The study indicated improvements in brain pattern activity in medical cannabis patients after only three months of consumption. The study is ongoing and will follow up with patients for 24 months total.

Pretty cool isn’t it?

Furthermore, current mainstream legal ways off accessing cannabis are highly unreliable You never know what pesticides are used or how it’s actually grown, and it’s become harder to trust now that big pharma and government want to be the dealer.

The best solution is to simply grow your own cannabis. We can help you obtain your licence and connect you with a doctor who is willing to write you the prescription you need, so contact us today.

If you want to learn more about Canada’s ACMPR program, click here.