Inhale or Don’t?: Marijuana Hurts Some, Helps Others
Clinton didn’t inhale, Obama did–and maybe Reagan should have. New research suggests that THC, the chemical that gives marijuana its mind-bending properties, kills developing neurons, yet oddly, the same chemical saves neurons in adults with Alzheimer’s disease.
“Marijuana is not the ‘soft drug’ people like to think it is,” says neuropharmacologist Veronica Campbell of Trinity College in Dublin, whose latest study uncovered the harmful effects of THC on young neurons. When Campbell and her co-workers treated brain cells from newborn or adolescent rats with THC, the neurons died, but THC did not have such deadly effects on neurons taken from adult rats. In fact, work from other labs shows that THC benefits adult neurons. “We don’t know why,” Campbell says. Several possibilities are being investigated for this “Jekyll and Hyde” effect.
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