Monday, November 24, 2014

Letter to Sven Andreasson on his longitudinal study of Swedish conscripts and confounding data

Hello,
I have done some research in nuclear medicine on this subject and there are a number of confounding factors that I believe you have left criminally unaccounted for in your research. To begin with, in states with legal marijuana, such as Canada, use of 5 grams and less per day is associated with an increase in IQ of 5 points. My own research in nuclear medicine looking at the blood flow of the brain supports this, after half a pack of marijuana cigarettes over 6 months most of my brain was normal, with one area with increased activity. According to MRI studies there has been little change in the brain observed, though conclusive evidence exists that the size of the amygdala increases and some indication that the part of the brain associated with addictive behaviour becomes less prominent, here a benefit, though this was not substantial enough to say for certain. Ultimately, biologically what is claimed about marijuana in this longitudinal study is in conflict with studies in Canada that had a high level of accuracy that followed users from 12-17 to 25 and later points in life as well as the most recent SPECT and MRI imaging studies.
The most important confounding piece of evidence does not rely on new technology, or different methodology, however, and it is quite sad that this was not accounted for in this expensive research costing the Swedish government severely. According to the CDC the majority (between 65% and 86%) of schizophrenia can be attributed to the parasite toxoplasmosis gondii. To suggest that something without a logical biological explanation is responsible when it is quite simple how the microbe targets brain and muscle tissue to lay its eggs and the body's protective cysts disrupt bloodflow is quite unethical. The explanation for how it goes in uneven amounts in marijuana users is quite simple, a cat defecating into a potted marijuana plant will contaminate the product for up to a year later.
I do not know the statistics in Sweden off the top of my head, but in the United States 22.5% of people are infected in their lifetime with t. gondii. Of these 25% (5-6% of the general population) get flu-like fatigue and fever, other psychotic symptoms for one week to as long as a month or three months. 6% will have latent symptoms, lasting longer than 6 months and will be diagnosed as schizophrenic. This is the majority of the 1.2% diagnosed with schizophrenia in the USA. It is dose dependant, and getting exposed to the parasite later in life or going thru a period of immunosuppression will cause a recurrence of behaviour.
Please provide an addendum to your research as I have done mine (this came up only as I was publishing, at first I thought to say there were some mild changes, nothing significant from marijuana, luckily I had prefaced my research by emphasizing that marijuana was decriminalized or illegal and the results may be different in a legal setting, as they indeed turned out to be) providing for these confounding factors.
Thank you,
Paul Fischer

Thursday, November 6, 2014

Societal Impacts of Alcohol and Marijuana, Revisited: the German Model.

    In Germany, over the last 25 years the consumption of alcohol has fallen by a third. Legal marijuana use rates (in the Netherlands or abroad, or in decriminalized settings at home) have increased in 18-24 year olds from 7% to 28% during this time period. The economic growth has been enormous, suggesting a link between the two, in order to confirm it would be advantageous to compare the numbers with those outlined in the data from my previous paper on societal impacts of alcohol with a low to moderate impact on the national IQ. In this paper it was demonstrated that while the first 5-10 points of IQ decrease would remove 80% of the geniuses or highly gifted workers from a community, more than this had limited effects until the damage reaches 20 or 30 points. This is because the population begins to move along a straight line on the bell curve, where the initial damage from lead, or once the pollutants in the environment are removed, from illegal or decriminalized marijuana (it should be noted that in a legalized setting, marijuana has been associated with a societal increase of 5 points in IQ, while contaminants or parasites in illegal or decriminalized pot have been connected to a decrease) or alcohol, moves along a steep exponentially defined curve.
    Lead was removed around the same time as this trend in drinking occurred. According to the DAX, the Deutsch (German) stock market, the value has risen by over 4 or 5 times since then, as seen in this graph (1989-2014) from under 2000 points to over 9000 points. The GDP, which is predicted by the DAX, a list of around 30 of the heavyweights in the German economy, to a great extent, also has increased in this period from under 1500 to nearly 4000. These are both in keeping with the increase indicated by an increase in geniuses of 500% in an intellectual property dominant economy (such as Germany or America) as found in most of the modern world.
DAX index of German listed companies:
German GDP from 1970-2014



     While this can seen initially as true and true and unrelated, the fact that previous research in SPECT scan imaging has made the connection between responsible drinking and low cognitive functioning concrete in the last few years seems to indicate that this link is more causal than correlative. This can be seen in previous research into light and moderate alcohol or marijuana use this year. That the hypothetical model outlined in the research into societal impacts of these substances fits exactly to the statistics gathered in the real world is encouraging as well, and demonstrates that this is a legitimate and probably accurate method and application of the scientific information available.

http://platophilosphy.blogspot.com/2014/07/effects-of-regular-or-light-marijuana.html
http://www.tradingeconomics.com/charts/germany-stock-market.png?s=dax&d1=19890101
http://www.tradingeconomics.com/charts/germany-gdp.png?s=wgdpgerm&d1=19870101
http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/news/regions/europe/germany/140619/germany-non-alcoholic-beer
http://platophilosphy.blogspot.com/2014/09/societal-impact-of-currently-under.html