UK report shows pot improves brain power
After all those jokes about dopey-headed pot smokers, a new study out of the United Kingdom suggests cannabis use may actually improve brain function in middle-aged men.
The King’s College study, published in January in the American Journal of Epidemiology, looked at the affects of illicit drug use on the cognitive functioning of 50-year-old men who had consumed the drugs when they were 42.
Among the 8,992 men studied, the ones who had used cannabis showed higher cognitive functioning than either the other drug users or those in the control group who’d consumed no drugs at all.
Cannabis candle burned in Polish Parliament
Polish lawmakers were scandalized after the head of a new left-wing party burned a cannabis-enhanced candle in his Parliament chambers, according to press reports.
Janusz Palikot had planned to light a joint in the building to call attention to his party’s efforts to legalize “soft drugs”—including marijuana—in Poland. Threatened with arrest by the Speaker of the Parliament, Palikot instead burned in front of reporters an incense candle containing a small amount of the herb.
That still proved enough to prompt prosecutors to launch an investigation into the stunt, with authorities saying Palikot could face a year in prison for “promoting or advertising” drugs.
