Pharmacology

Claims about marijuana being medical have never been shown in clinical trials, they have instead been a joke among users, but it opened the doorway to recreational legalization. Yet the myth of benefit, or at least lack of harm, persist, and new survey results show more women are smoking it daily. Even pregnant ones. At least in California. The survey results were among 276,991 pregnant women (representing 367,403 pregnancies) in Northern California over 9 years. From 2009 to 2017, the adjusted prevalence of self-reported cannabis use in the year before pregnancy increased from 6.8% to 12.5…

Kratom, derived from the leaves of the southeast Asian tree Mitragyna speciosa, is a supplement that is not useless, it actually does something. It contains psychoactive compounds and users also like it as an analgesic, but because it is a plant users and kratom trade groups insist it should not have to go through clinical trials, even while they sell it as a product that is a drug. It is difficult to claim it should be on shelves with useless homeopathy products like Zicam or pointless multivitamins while selling it because it works as a drug and that is the struggle the industry faces…

There is no question the government and its hand-picked advisors have hyped claims of opioid addiction beyond all sense. Doctors, pharmaceutical companies, and legitimate pain patients have all been steamrolled in an effort to stop what is really a recreational use problem.  But if we are going to worry more about recreational addicts than pain patients, buprenorphine, a Schedule III outpatient medication for drug addicts, should be taken off prescription. Does this mean 130 people who overdose each day will suddenly stop? No, many of them do not want to quit, but at least…

Data from the Youth Risk Behavior Surveys between 1993 to 2017 covering 27 states and Washington, D.C., before and after "medical" marijuana laws were adopted and 7 states from before and after recreational marijuana laws were adopted covering more than 1.4 million high school students finds that marijuana laws appear to be associated with a decrease in the odds of marijuana use in the past 30 days or frequent marijuana use after medical marijuana laws were passed. The reasons may be that once it became legal marijuana was no longer cool, it may be because teens recognize that marijuana is…

No one admits to being swayed by celebrities, Facebook groups, or media coverage, but their impact is clear. Whereas 10 years ago vaccine denial was only prominent among wealthy elites on the west coast, a new The Harris Poll paid for by the American Osteopathic Association says that 45 percent of American adults admit something has caused them to doubt vaccine safety. That is bringing us near European levels of science denial. The survey also asked Americans to choose a statement that best represented their feelings about vaccine safety and efficacy. While the vast majority (82 percent) were…

 A paper published in PNAS  describes the characterization, synthesis and antimicrobial activity of two new benzoquinone compounds derived from the of the scorpion Diplocentus melici. The venom was extracted by electrical stimulation of the telson of D. melici and subsequent exposure to air caused the white venom to turn a dark red color.     A combination of gel filtration on a sephadex column followed by reverse phase column chromatography yielded first the red compound and secondly the blue compound. The colors refer to the compounds in their dry powder…

     Porphyromonas gingivalis is the pathogen responsible for chronic periodontitis (CP) or gingivitis. A prospective observational study of patients with Alzheimer’s disease (AD) and active CP showed a notable decline in cognition (Alzheimer’s Disease Assessment Scale-Cognitive and Mini Mental State Examination scales) during a six month period compared to AD patients without active CP.      P. gingivalis is an assachariotic gram-negative anaerobic bacterium that produces major virulence factors known as gingipains. These are cysteine proteases…

Cannabis, known as marijuana in the U.S., Cannabis has been cultivated for millennia in East Asia and like many drugs exported from there to become one of the most widely used psychoactive drugs in the world today. But now archaeologists have tracked down its earliest known use: 2,500-year-old funerary incense burners from the Jirzankal Cemetery in the eastern Pamirs.  Cannabis plants were cultivated in East Asia for their oily seeds and fiber from at least 4000 BC those early cultivated varieties of cannabis, as well as most wild populations, have low levels of THC and…

People who smoke marijuana and are considering having children in the future need to be aware about four serious issues that may impact both men and women according to an article ("Five things to know about ... marijuana and fertility" - the title says five things, but there are only four, the fifth is a plea to send more money) in CMAJ (Canadian Medical Association Journal). The following is useful information for people who may want to conceive.  Four things to know about marijuana and fertility: 1. The active ingredient in marijuana, tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), acts on the receptors…

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration is expressing concern supplements containing vinpocetine, a supplement (e.g. Vinca minor extract, lesser periwinkle extract, common periwinkle extract) which is a derivative of the vinca alkaloid vincamine, an extract from the lesser periwinkle plant and which sellers claims will enhance memory, focus, or mental acuity, increase energy, and cause weight loss. It doesn't do any of thoese things but the National Institute of Health’s (NIH) National Toxicology Program (NTP) has linked consumption of vinpocetine to miscarriage and harm fetal development…