And then remember.

PRUDENCE GIBSON, THE CONVERSATION 9 DEC 2016

Pavlov's plants: new study shows plants can learn from experience

Prudence Gibson, UNSW Australia
The first time I met the Australian evolutionary ecologist Monica Gagliano, she was wearing colourful paisley trousers and was giving an animated talk at a 2014 environmental humanities conference in Canberra.
Despite her passionate presentation, trouble was brewing. Something was not right in the room. A woman beside me in the audience kept shifting her weight. A man to my left had crossed his arms and released several voluble sighs.
Why? Because Gagliano was using phrases such as “plant cognitive ecology”, “learning and communication”. And because she was, and is, opening up areas of knowledge that some might feel threaten the sovereignty of humans over nature.
That day in Canberra three years ago, Gagliano’s time frames were questioned. The frequency of her experiments were interrogated. Her apparatus was cross-examined. Yet, despite resistance, I believe her work is ground-breaking and opens up debate about plant subjectivity and ethics.

Sensitive plants

In a famous 2013 New Yorker article by Michael Pollan, The Intelligent Plant, Gagliano was introduced to readers as someone whose experiments are extending the concept of cognition to the plant world.
The problem she is addressing is that if plants have brain-like functions and make sentient-like decisions, our existing perception of nature and ourselves must change.
These implications need further analysis. But, first: the experiments. What Gagliano did with her Mimosa pudica plants – also called “sensitive” plants – was to custom-build an apparatus whereby the plants could be suddenly dropped a foot or so on a regular basis.
Initially, on dropping, the plant retracted and curled its leaves, but after repeats, it stopped reacting. Not only did it appear to “learn” a behaviour (without a brain, mind you) but it also remembered.
Gagliano repeated the experiment at intervals and found that even after a break of a month or more, the Mimosa would still not retract its leaves after being dropped.
How does this work? According to Gagliano:

https://theconversation.com/pavlovs-plants-new-study-shows-plants-can-learn-from-experience-69794

Mimosa pudica is also known as the ‘sensitive plant’, and appears to be able to learn from experience. Flickr/foam, CC BY-SA

Gagliano has published her findings and edited various scholarly books on plant research, ethical implications and changed perceptions. She has collaborated with environmental lawyer Alessandro Pelizzon and others on the language problems of writing about plant life.
There is no vocabulary that can be used to talk about brain-like plant structures beyond mere vascular and survival processes, nor about decision-making, sentience, intelligence, learning and memory in the plant world.
There is much more work to be done by artists and humanists to develop these vocabularies together. Scholars such as Michael Marder, Dalia Nassar, Natasha Myers and myself are working in this field where there may be a realm of sophisticated activity in plant life that humans have not yet even fully comprehended.
A forthcoming book titled The Language of Plants is edited by Gagliano and colleagues, and deals with this complex and provocative problem, following on from her book The Green Thread.

Pavlov’s plants

Gagliano and her colleagues have just published a paper in Nature Scientific Reports that could rock our sense of human “self”.
This is a major coup for the plant scientist, who has suffered rejection from journals, for moving plant physiology into the domain of philosophy, for extending animal studies concepts of sentience to plants and more. Does this caution by journal editors reflect a fearfulness about our human place in the world?
The new paper explains her recent experiments where she sought to show plants can “learn” via classical conditioning, similar to the classic Pavlov’s dogs experiment.
Instead of food as the reward (the unconditioned simulus) and a bell as a neutral cue (the conditioned stimulus), she used light as the reward and air flow as the cue.
Gagliano and her colleagues used the air flow caused by a fan to predict the location and time of light. They found that the plants conditioned by the fan would grow towards the source of the air flow even when the light was not present, but only if they were “trained” to do so. This is like Pavlov ringing the bell and the dogs salivating, even if there was no food around.
Gagliano’s peas, Pisum sativum, also behaved according to a simulated circadian rhythm (temperature and light/dark control) and a sense of time of day, which is known to modulate behavioural processes such as learning in animals.
This experiment appears to show associative learning in plants. Gagliano has shown that plants don’t just respond to light and food in order to survive. They also choose and predict.
These findings will get people asking some tough questions. Do plants, like animals, have consciousness? If plants learn, choose and associate, what does this mean for our ethical relationship with them? Can humans learn from the adaptive capacities of plants?
To respond to light, fans and temperature in this way suggests that plants have far more sophisticated abilities than previously thought. The philosophical and ethical implications of this information are confounding.
It provokes further questions about the plant world that we have historically seen as inert and lacking in agency. With no brain, how can plants have cognition? Yet they exhibit functions we typically only associate with a brain.
Where does all this lead us? Well, into troubled waters, so grab your boat and paddle. We are in for a rough philosophical ride.


Prudence Gibson, Art writer and Tutor, UNSW Australia
This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.

Medicine from Cannabis

Lets define the word 'Medicine'.

From Latin medicina "the healing art", medicine; a remedy. 

So what is a REMEDY then? 

From re-, intensive prefix (or perhaps literally, "again;" see re-), + mederi "to heal", from Late Latin remedialis "healing, curing," from Latin remedium.

Quote 

Hemp supplement maker says full spectrum extract works better, allays regulatory issues

By Hank Schultz, 30-Sep-2016

A new line of dietary supplements from hemp bases its message on the full suite of phytocannabinoids in the products, as well as its aim not to push the edges of the regulatory envelope, its founder says.

http://www.nutraingredients-usa.com/Manufacturers/Hemp-supplements-use-full-spectrum-extract

image - Nathan Richter

So, its pretty clear to the average bear that all of the above definitions talk about healing.  There is nothing in any of the definitions that even remotely say's medicine is something that can kill you,  (ie Chemotherapy, Anti Psychotics, Shock Therapy, SSRI's, Anti-Depressants) the list grows.

Back to the Cannabis / Medicine subject.  The government has been controlling this substance for more years than many of us care to remember now.  For far too long a basically harmless plant has been held back from human kind when our loved ones are ill and are in need of the medicine to survive the conditions of modern living.   This has occurred because of greed and the inability to control the use of the plant in order to make corporations huge profits!   We all know the pharmaceutical companies are not in the business of health.  There are no huge profit margins in healthy people who no longer wish to swallow the jaded therapies orchestrated to keep a certain percentage of the population under control via the use of seriously dangerous mind altering substances that can result in death.  This is done under the guise of "medicine".

Presently, the government want to control this plant for medicinal use and start fiddling around with this part and that part and blah blah blah.  This is a death knell on the empirical value of the plant and its extraordinary  healing capacities.  They are simply barking up the wrong tree doing this and once again wasting time when people could be well.

I have lost count how many times I have said in the defense of Cannabis that only the full spectrum plant extract or the use of the entire plant matter in ingestion will do the healing job effectively!  

The people pushing the fiddling agenda, mainly the under educated passionate do gooder's  pushing for extracts who are blind to the basic facts of medicinal plant use and how and what makes this MEDICINE are responsible for this mess!    It has to cease. These people are simply ignorant because they don't want the science, they are not nescient.  The information has been clearly outlined from countless corners.

Once again we see mankind looking to make a quick dollar and greedy corporations willing to forgo the true benefits by hurtling down the path of extracting and isolating the CBD's and ignoring what the THC compounds do simultaneously to cause healing to happen in the body.  They are willing to go this far all for profit.   An evil section of humanity would partake, motivated by the suffering of others and the ridiculous time wasting testing band wagon created by governments.
 
The Facts

We have an Endocannabinoid system very similar to our Endocrine system (hormones / switches) and we have Cannabinoid receptors in our bodies.  

Do you for some reason think this is just is in our body by accident?  No, you would not be that silly would you? This plant was used as a medicine for thousands of years up until the 1940's when the DuPont corporation cooked up a good story to sell the public inaccurate information demonizing the plant. This was a strategic business decision in order to make a fortune.  Common sense should tell you something is terribly wrong.

Children who suffer from endless seizures have been cured, soldiers plagued with PTSD have found solace and relief.  Cancers have been cured, eliminated and remitted.  One would have to ask what is wrong with that?

It is a sad indictment of our society to take this laying down and think it is alright.    I have  been concerned by what I have seen regarding this entire subject since 1975 when I first understood the prohibition that occurred in the USA and how successive governments were chided to follow the lead of the American fools.  I joined NORML and learned what I could from reputable sources.

Image

macrocannabis

Today, I will say again and again.  Don't fiddle with the medicine. If it works, don't question why.  

You are blessed to have the courage to use Cannabis as medicine if you are new to this type of treatment.  I can imagine that fear would play a great part in not trying it.   When its life and death and this dilemma is faced on the daily, then fear plays an increasingly smaller factor when health is all someone wants to achieve. 
 
What ailments Cannabis has helped with already....

PTSD.. Shell Shock .. More precisely known as Post Traumatic Stress Disorder is a serious ailment effecting a huge percentage of the population.  243 Australian soldiers have committed suicide after coming home from the Middle Eastern War with extreme cases of PTSD.  They take the meds, and a lot take their life. This is all the government offer for these people who risked their lives, supposedly for us all as a nation. 

We have another large slice of the population trying to cope with PTSD as a direct relation of being brought up by government and church institutions in care, suffering the endless abuse incurred just being a human being and being a helpless child. So many of these people commit suicide too.  Once again the 'Big Pharma' medicine the doctors prescribe is clearly not working. 

In my 57 years I have not seen a positive outcome with friends who have been good patients and taken their meds.  Many are now dead, took their own lives because they could no longer cope with the side effects layered on top of the trauma.

I have Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.  I know this condition way too intimately.  I am aware I would not be the person I am today had I not done what I have had to do over the years and refuse their medications.   This is my life and my  body and my emotions and my pain.  Its not their body, it is mine.  People should be able to use a harmless plant that has so many benefits and not be penalized like a criminal for attempting to find peace and health.  None of that is sensible and all of it is psychotic.

On the use argument, people who don't find benefit  have the free will to cease using the plant with no adverse side effects if they so choose. This is unlike the Big Pharma Medications that can be lethal if you cease to medicate with these.  

Like all substances deemed medicines, not everything is a cure all for everyone. However, not being able to try is basically GENOCIDE on the part of the various lawmakers of the worlds different governments while ever they withhold this from the sick public and waste money making its use a crime.

People are waking up on the daily to the corruption that keeps a few people filthy rich.  Those that haven't woken up will have to catch up or be destined to shrivel via their own heart / brain decisions that  destroy the soul.  

Read more about the Full Spectrum use here https://www.energytherapy.biz/2016/09/01/rick-simpsons-cancer-busting-high-thc-cannabis-oil/

More of my Images @ Flickr

Getting High on the Endocannabinoid System

Getting High on the Endocannabinoid System
by Bradley E. Alger, Ph.D.
Cerebrum: the Dana Forum on Brain Science
Nov. - Dec. 2013
Editor’s Note:
The endogenous cannabinoid system—named for the plant that led to its discovery—is one of the most important physiologic systems involved in establishing and maintaining human health.
Endocannabinoids and their receptors are found throughout the body: in the brain, organs, connective tissues, glands, and immune cells.
With its complex actions in our immune system, nervous system, and virtually all of the body’s organs, the endocannabinoids are literally a bridge between body and mind.
By understanding this system, we begin to see a mechanism that could connect brain activity and states of physical health and disease.
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Cannabis, derived from a plant and one of the oldest known drugs, has remained a source of controversy throughout its history. 

From debates on its medicinal value and legalization to concerns about dependency and schizophrenia, cannabis (marijuana, pot, hashish, bhang, etc.) is a hot button for politicians and pundits alike.

Fundamental to understanding these discussions is how cannabis affects the mind and body, as well as the body’s cells and systems.
How can something that stimulates appetite also be great for relieving pain, nausea, seizures, and anxiety?

Whether its leaves and buds are smoked, baked into pastries, processed into pills, or steeped as tea and sipped, cannabis affects us in ways that are sometimes hard to define.

Not only are its many facets an intrinsically fascinating topic, but because they touch on so many parts of the brain and the body, their medical, ethical, and legal ramifications are vast.

The intercellular signaling molecules, their receptors, and synthetic and degradative enzymes from which cannabis gets its powers had been in place for millions of years by the time humans began burning the plants and inhaling the smoke.

Despite records going back 4,700 years that document medicinal uses of cannabis, no one knew how it worked until 1964.

That was when Yechiel Gaoni and Raphael Mechoulam reported that the main active component of cannabis is tetrahydrocannabinol (THC).

THC, referred to as a “cannabinoid” (like the dozens of other unique constituents of cannabis), acts on the brain by muscling in on the intrinsic neuronal signaling system, mimicking a key natural player, and basically hijacking it for reasons best known to the plants.

Since the time when exogenous cannabinoids revealed their existence, the entire natural complex came to be called the “endogenous cannabinoid system,” or “endocannabinoid system” (ECS).

THC is a lipid, but in 1964, known or suspected neurotransmitters and neuromodulators were water-soluble molecules—peptides, amino acids, or amines—not lipids.

Ordinary neuroactive agents interact with cells by binding to specific proteinaceous receptor molecules that are part of the cell surface.  Each receptor has an intricate structural pocket into which a particular neurotransmitter fits.  The interaction triggers the biochemical and biophysical reactions that affect the physiological properties of the cell.

Lipids avoid water, and individual lipid molecules might simply drift freely around in a compatible lipophilic environment, such as the cell surface membrane, without having much to do with proteins.  How could they influence neuronal behavior?

The best scientific guess at the time was that molecules such as THC would owe their psychotropic actions to “membrane fluidizing” properties, a vague notion that would not explain specificity of action, among other things.

Nevertheless, strong evidence that THC and similar synthetic molecules could bind tightly to specific sites in the brain emerged, implying that THC does indeed work through true receptors. This hypothesis was confirmed in 1990 with the isolation and cloning of the first cannabinoid receptor, CB1, and later of CB2.

In the central nervous system (CNS), CB1 is by far the predominant form, although it also exists outside the CNS; CB2 is primarily found outside the CNS, and is associated with the immune system.

Both receptor subtypes are 7-transmembrane domain macromolecules of the “G-protein-coupled” class.  Unexpectedly, CB1 turned out to be one of the most abundant G-protein-coupled receptors in the brain.  It was immediately obvious that CB1 and CB2 must partner with an endogenous ligand, a natural agent for which they would normally act as the proper receptors. They did not evolve to react with rarely ingested, plant-derived chemicals.  Indeed, Mechoulam’s group isolated an arachidonic acid derivative (N-arachidonoylethanolamide, “anandamide”) that activated CB1, and a second endogenous CB1 ligand two-arachidonolyl glycerol (2-AG) was later discovered.

These endocannabinoids are the major physiological activators of CB1 and CB2, yet they are not standard neurotransmitters.

For one thing, like THC, they are lipids, and brain cells, mainly neurons, are surrounded by an aqueous solution, an inhospitable environment for an intercellular lipid messenger.
More surprisingly, endocannabinoids go against the flow of typical chemical synaptic signaling.  A neuron that releases a chemical neurotransmitter (say, GABA or glutamate) is designated as “pre-synaptic”; the target neuron that expresses receptors for that neurotransmitter is “postsynaptic.”

Endocannabinoids, however, are synthesized and released from postsynaptic cells, and travel backward (in the “retrograde” direction) across the synapse, where they encounter CB1s located on adjacent nerve terminals.

Physiologically, CB1Rs act as communications traffic cops. Precisely positioned in synaptic regions, they inhibit the release of many excitatory and inhibitory neurotransmitters.  Thus, by releasing endocannabinoids, postsynaptic target cells can influence their own incoming synaptic signals.

CB1 is densely located in the neocortex, hippocampus, basal ganglia, amygdala, striatum, cerebellum, and hypothalamus. These major brain regions mediate a wide variety of high-order behavioral functions, including learning and memory, executive function decision making, sensory and motor responsiveness, and emotional reactions, as well as feeding and other homeostatic processes.

Within neuronal circuits, suppression of excitatory transmitter release tends to dampen excitation, while suppression of inhibitory transmitter release favors neuronal network excitation.  Given the enormous complexity of the brain, the endocannabinoid system could affect behavior in an almost limitless number of ways:

Simple generalizations of what will happen when CB1 receptors are globally turned on or off are not feasible.  The challenge for developers of cannabinoid-based medicines is to find beneficial ways to exploit this powerful yet convoluted feedback system.

From a therapeutic point of view, the near ubiquity of the endocannabinoid system has good news/bad news implications.  Good news because it offers explanatory power—the ability to make sense of numerous yet quite different aspects of neural processing involving the endocannabinoid system in normal brains and, conversely, to offer insight into a variety of maladies that accompany its dysfunction.  Bad news because wide heterogeneous dispersion greatly complicates the task of targeting this system for specific therapeutic purposes.  Side effects are therefore common and problematic.

CB1 and Obesity

Obesity is a serious worldwide health concern.

An attempt to develop an endocannabinoid system–based strategy to solve it provides a textbook example of the promise and the problems involved.  The feeding control centers in the hypothalamus express high concentrations of CB1.

These receptors are responsible for “the munchies,” the craving for food that is stimulated by cannabis use. But they also prompt the normal desire to eat.  Preventing the activation of hypothalamic CB1s should decrease eating.  In addition, CB1 receptors outside the brain regulate energy metabolism in the liver and fat tissue, and pharmacologically blocking these peripheral receptors in animal studies results in less body weight gain even when the same amount of food was eaten.

Researchers at the pharmaceutical company Sanofi-Aventis gave the CB1 antagonist rimonabant to obese individuals in multi-year, multi-thousand-patient trials and obtained stunning results.  The drug worked brilliantly; patients lost weight and girth.
Negative side effects (depression, anxiety, and nausea) occurred in 10 percent of the users, but they were not life-threatening and the risks were deemed worth the rewards.

Rimonabant (marketed as “Acomplia®” among other names) became readily available in 56 countries in 2006, and Sanofi’s stock soared.  When approached to approve sale in the United States, however, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) was skeptical and asked for more information about the drug’s performance after the clinical trials had ended.

The trials had excluded people who were susceptible to psychiatric illness, including depression.  What was the experience like in the real world, where many obese patients also suffer from mental disturbances?  The answer was alarming: The incidence of serious depression, including suicidal ideation, bouts of nausea, stress, and anxiety, was markedly higher than in the trials.  The beneficial effects of rimonabant and its downsides both arose from the same source.

Blocking CB1 in the hypothalamus was beneficial because it diminished the desire to eat; but the drug, which was given orally, blocked CB1 throughout the body, including in those brain regions where the endocannabinoid system regulates emotion and vomiting reflexes, among others.  Which effects predominated was a matter of individual variation, and it had to be assumed that widespread use of rimonabant would put many people at risk for serious adverse consequences.

The FDA disapproved its distribution in the United States, and as reports of bad outcomes increased among patients in other countries, it was soon withdrawn from the market.  As a result, Sanofi’s stock came back to earth.

Inhibit vs. Stimulate

Some conditions, such as chronic pain, spasticity, anxiety, and the wasting syndrome associated with chemotherapy and AIDSs, can be alleviated by cannabinoids, and therefore therapeutic approaches would involve activating, not inhibiting, CB1.
For example, people self-medicate with cannabis to relieve anxiety.

The endocannabinoid system helps us deal with traumatic life experiences as a part of a normal coping mechanism—to forget it and leave the past behind.  Neuroscientists use animal models, often the “fear conditioning” test, to investigate the development of anxiety.

This is a Pavlovian training procedure in which a mildly unpleasant stimulus (a brief electric shock to the wire floor grid on which a rat or mouse is standing) is paired with a neutral tone, audible though not loud. The shock causes the animals to freeze in position—the typical response of small rodents to threatening stimuli.  When the tone is sounded alone, it elicits a bit of curiosity, then soon is ignored.  When the tone repeatedly precedes and accompanies the foot shock, the animal comes to recognize it as a bad omen and eventually responds when the tone first sounds even when the shock no longer occurs. The animal has acquired conditioned fear. Normal coping includes dissipation of the bad memories evoked by the tone (actually learning that the tone is no longer threatening), a process called “extinction,” which enables animals to cease paying the high costs of pointless responding.

Mice genetically engineered so that they do not have CB1 receptors readily acquire the fearful response, but cannot forget it as easily as do normal mice.

These mutant mice continue to respond fearfully to the tone alone, even though it no longer signals that the shock is coming, suggesting that activation of the endocannabinoid system is an essential component of the coping mechanism.
Failure to extinguish learned fearful responses may underlie posttraumatic stress syndrome (PTSD) in humans. Stimulation of the endocannabinoid system could be useful in the treatment of PTSD, as it is for treatments of cachexia and spasticity.

Inhalation vs. Digestion

The most direct route of THC administration is by smoking marijuana or other forms of cannabis. Yet purified, FDA-approved medicinal preparations of THC are available in pill form (dronabinol, pure THC marketed as Marinol®, and the analog nabilone, sold as Cesamet® in Canada). If THC is the active agent in cannabis, and approved, orally-effective THC medications exist, why the impetus for medical marijuana?

In addition to avoiding all of the legal, political, and social hassles (pot purveyors occasionally being unsavory characters), avoiding inhalation of particulates in smoke is highly desirable on its own. Why not just take a pill?

There are several reasons that some patients prefer puffing over swallowing.
One quantitatively minor factor is potential lethality. It is possible to get a fatal overdose by swallowing too many THC pills at once, whereas documented evidence of death simply from smoking too much cannabis does not seem to exist.

More common factors are speed and predictability of action, and degree of patient control. Pills must enter the digestive system, where the rate of entry of THC into the bloodstream is slow and dependent on the state of gastric filling.

It can take more than an hour for the full influence of ingested THC to be exerted on the brain, and even that time will vary depending on the timing and contents of one’s last meal. In contrast, it takes only 20 to 30 seconds for inhaled THC to reach the brain from the lungs, and its peak effects are achieved within a few minutes.

For someone suffering nausea (itself a significant impediment to the swallowing of medicine or anything else) or chronic pain, the choice is often not a difficult one.

The third factor, controllability, is another serious concern. Once a pill is swallowed, the full dose is on its way with its time-course and side effects to be played out inexorably, governed by the rates of absorption and clearance of the drug from the body.

An effective dose that has tolerable side effects in a robust middle-aged man may be too much and have intolerable psychotropic side effects in a slight, elderly woman seeking appetite stimulation to counter the weight loss associated with cancer chemotherapy.
With inhalation, patients become adept at sensing and adjusting their intake of THC via smoking (just as people become good at titrating their blood levels of nicotine when smoking tobacco).

Because smoked THC enters the brain so quickly, patients can readily detect its presence and adjust their dosing to the level that they need by inhaling less or more.
A significant downside to inhalation is that the by-products of burning plant material, particulate and chemical, are taken in and can irritate the mucous membranes of the mouth and lungs.

Even though most marijuana smokers do not smoke as much as a pack-a-day tobacco smoker does, bronchitis and the buildup of carcinogenic tars in the lungs do occur in heavy users. Studies of the occurrence of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) from cannabis smoking are inconsistent, though.

Finally, while generally anxiety-relieving (anxiolytic) in low doses, THC can provoke anxiety and paranoia in high doses, responses that seem exacerbated with inhalation, probably because it acts so quickly.

Some of the drawbacks of smoking cannabis may be circumvented by the use of vaporizers somewhat similar to “e-cigarettes” (electronic cigarettes) that use heating elements to vaporize a liquid nicotine solution.

Cannabis vaporizers heat the plant material so that volatile compounds, such as THC, are given off before actual burning and the associated release of particulates, toxins, and carcinogens occurs.

Such devices deliver about as much THC as is found in smoke and are often better tolerated than smoking, although irritation of the mouth and throat are occasional problems.

Like e-cigarettes, the designs, efficacy, safety, regulation, and legality of these devices are in flux, but they do provide a potential option for cannabis users who prefer inhalation.

Variation (polymorphisms) among people in the genes encoding CB1 receptors and other endocannabinoid system components affect their cannabinoid drug sensitivity, as well as their susceptibility to disorders related to disturbances of the endocannabinoid system.

Links between CB1 polymorphisms and schizophrenia, autism-spectrum disorders, and PTSD have been suggested but remain controversial. Sorting these relationships out is an important task, since the information gained will contribute to the future ideal of personalized medicine.

Would Having an Entourage Help?

A final reason for the popularity of smoking over the purified oral THC preparations is subtle and not well understood. For many people, pure THC in pill form is aversive; the unpleasant sensations, “dysphoria,” cause patients to not take their pills.

Smoking cannabis is less offensive for some of these patients, suggesting that something besides THC is involved. THC is the only psychotropic cannabinoid, but one or more of the nonpsychotropic cannabinoids could modulate or soften the impact of pure THC in several ways: They might act as part of an “entourage,” unable to activate CB1 themselves but capable of modifying THC’s ability to do so.

Alternatively, nonpsychotropic cannabinoids might influence other components of the endocannabinoid system (synthesis, uptake, or degradation), and thus alter availability of endocannabinoids, which compete with THC for access to CB1, and thereby indirectly tweak THC’s actions. But interactions with the endocannabinoid system are not the only possibilities.

Nonpsychotropic cannabinoids can affect conventional neurotransmitter receptors and ion channels that are entirely unrelated to the endocannabinoid system.  (They are “cannabinoids” because they come from the cannabis plant, not because they necessarily have anything to do with CB1, CB2, or the ECS in general.)

Cannabidiol (CBD) is a major nonpsychotropic cannabinoid, and is almost as abundant as THC.  Interestingly, while the CBD:THC ratio varies in different strains of cannabis, the total amount of cannabidiol plus THC across strains is roughly constant.  The more THC, the less cannabidiol, and vice versa.

The proportion of CBD:THC is selected for in cannabis plant-breeding programs. Cannabidiol can inhibit CB1 (and CB2) directly, and this may diminish THC’s CB1-mediated undesirable actions, which are dose-related.  For example, cannabidiol blunts the anxiogenic and psychotropic side effects of THC.

In addition to synergistic actions, cannabidiol by itself is anxiolytic, and can reduce inflammation and blood pressure.

A mucosal spray, Sativex® (GW Pharmaceuticals), a botanical extract of cannabis plants, has a standard CBD:THC ratio of 1.  In Canada, the United Kingdom, and other countries (not yet the United States), Sativex® is available for the treatment of the pain and spasticity of multiple sclerosis.

The anticonvulsant properties of cannabis have been known for centuries.  A dramatic account of such action recently received widespread media coverage.  A young child suffering from an intractable form of childhood epilepsy called Dravet syndrome had been unsuccessfully treated with a battery of epilepsy therapies for years since her first seizure at 3 months old.  By age 5, she was having up to 300 seizures per day, and experiencing mental and physical developmental stagnation.  Her prospects were grim and her parents desperate.  With the approval of two doctors, they tried adding an oil extract of cannabis to her food. Amazingly, her seizures immediately dropped to a few per month, an improvement that has persisted for a year, and her normal development resumed.

A notable feature of this case, which has been repeated in other similarly afflicted children, is that her cannabis extract is from a strain (called “Charlotte’s Web”) that is very low in THC and high in cannabidiol.

To what extent this positive outcome is attributable to the low THC, the high cannabidiol, or the combination of the two is unknown.  A different nonpsychotropic cannabinoid, cannabidivarin, reduces seizures independently of CB1 in animal models, and this property is not improved by the presence of THC.

Turning On (or Off)

CB1 receptors exist on nerve fibers outside of the central nervous system, and there they also direct communications traffic.  Psychotropic side effects of cannabis are caused exclusively by turning on or off brain CB1s.
Therefore one strategy is to develop CB1 agonists or antagonists that can be given orally but that do not cross the blood-brain barrier (a membranous cellular fence that bars certain chemicals present in the circulation from getting into the brain).  CB1s in fat and other tissues are thought to contribute to obesity, and a peripherally restricted CB1 antagonist could be beneficial in weight control.

Conversely, cannabinoids are good pain relievers that work in part by stimulating CB1s on peripheral pain sensory neurons.  When activated, these CB1s block transmission of the pain signals to the brain—basically what topical anesthetics like novocaine do—and pain signals unable to reach the brain are not felt.  CB1 agonists or antagonists that are restricted from the brain could be quite useful in conditions that do not arise from within the central nervous system.

What about manipulating other components of the endocannabinoid system?

Rather than stimulating CB1 with drugs, the endocannabinoids can be pressed into service artificially.  Once released, endocannabinoids, like other chemical messengers, are quickly taken back up into cells or otherwise inactivated, which preserves the integrity of the signaling process.

Inhibiting uptake and degradation therapeutically offers the advantage of increasing the endocannabinoid levels, and thereby activating CB1, in those regions in which the messengers are already being mobilized by brain activity itself.  Rather than indiscriminate activation of CB1s everywhere for long periods of time, only certain groups of receptors would be activated and only when and where called for naturally.

With a drug that inhibits the enzyme (fatty-acid amide hydrolase, FAAH) that inactivates the endocannabinoid, anandamide (but not 2-AG), levels increase, and an analogous approach inhibits the major degradation enzyme for 2-AG, monoglyceride lipase (MGL) and 2-AG levels rise. Elevations in endocannabinoids in this way can have beneficial effects.

Unfortunately, there are still problems: In addition to activating CB1, anandamide turns out to be an excellent activator of a another receptor, TRPV1, a noncannabinoid receptor that actually heightens anxiety, so globally elevating anandamide has complex effects.
Drugs that inhibit both FAAH and TRPV1 could be helpful in some cases.

Meanwhile, globally elevating 2-AG by decreasing its breakdown overloads the endocannabinoid system, which responds by causing a protective shutdown, or down regulation, of many CB1s in the brain.

This is counterproductive if the goal is stimulation of the endocannabinoid system.
An encouraging development along these lines is that the peripheral pain signals can be quashed by raising anandamide and 2-AG levels only near the site of origin (a rat’s paw), where a painful stimulus was given. This means that the local peripheral CB1 and CB2 receptors in the paw were effectively turned on by the elevation in endocannabinoid levels resulting from prevention of their breakdown.

In this case, pain relief free of psychotropic side effects should be possible with degradative enzyme blockers designed to stay out of the central nervous system.

Finally, a possibility that has gotten little attention is the targeting of conventional neurotransmitter systems that stimulate the production of endocannabinoids.
For example, glutamate is the major excitatory neurotransmitter in the brain, and one subtype of glutamate receptors (group I mGluRs) potently mobilizes endocannabinoids.

A genetic disease that causes mental retardation, fragile X syndrome, has long been associated with excessive activity at the same glutamate receptors, which could be related to the excess production of endocannabinoids at inhibitory synapses in a mouse model of the disease.

Perhaps combining modest inhibition of both CB1 and group I mGluRs would be a way of tapping the therapeutic potential of the ECS, while avoiding some of its problems.

What Is in Store?

The endocannabinoid system is powerful and nearly ubiquitous in the nervous system.
The cannabinoid receptors dispersed throughout many brain regions are responsible for regulation of numerous aspects of neuronal activity, and account for the bewildering variety of behavioral and psychological effects caused by THC.

Depending on the nervous system regions and maladies involved, either stimulating or inhibiting the endocannabinoid system could have beneficial effects.

A great deal of attention is being given to incorporating nonpsychotropic cannabinoids into medicinal preparations, although in most cases the actual effects of these agents on the nervous system are unknown. For some purposes, drugs that are restricted to acting on peripheral cannabinoid receptors, and are prevented from entering the central nervous system, could be effective.

Finally, therapeutic strategies aimed at developing regionally selective targeting of endocannabinoid system components, perhaps in combination with agents that affect conventional neurotransmitter systems, or nonpsychotropic cannabinoids, offer promise for future advances.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3997295/…
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Graphic from "Nature Reviews: Cancer"
October 2003
"Cannabinoids: Potential Anticancer Agents"
http://americanmarijuana.org/Guzman-Cancer.pdf

'WATER not CSG' truck comes to our area.

What a site to see Ian's auspicious truck come down my street.  The red horse truck is now rather infamous and gets horns blown at it every where she travels.

It was spotted photographed in the Sydney papers last week.   It was seen at the Gloucester / AGL frontline against fracking at Gloucester.  Now, its been seen in Urunga and in Bellingen and along the New England Highway up the mountain towards Tenterfield spreading the message where ever it goes.

It was supposed to be all of the potted plants, but there were too many.  What went today in the truck was all that could fit.  There are some plants still here that we will endeavor to have fit in with the removal's truck next week.  

I think the boys did well though, they got the majority of the shed contents transported including a wooden table that weighs a ton and the outdoor table that is also weighty.  We used these tables upside down to support the pot plants from swimming around the back

I was chuffed to hear though the grapevine from Ian's partner that other people saw the truck head through Bellingen to Dorrigo.  I felt very proud of them carrying my plants inside of a container that had written on it that we were all about protecting not damaging. 

I would assume this is a good thing really in the big picture. Stating clearly what one is about and the philosophies one follows for life and learning is a way of stating who you are to a degree.

Images @ Eminpee Fotography

I keep saying Plants have feelings and I hear laughter when I say this..

Australian Bush Tucker - Bush Fig

I saw this on facebook and it gave all the details of what I have been saying for years.

The Secret Life of Plants (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I strongly suspected this was the case when I was quite young because Aunty Kay always talks to her plants and she says they respond and since she said this I read the book titled The Secret Life of Plants by Christopher Bird and Peter Tompkins,  many many years ago now.   I never forgot and now I have an awesome relationship with my plants.  Some of them have been with me for over 35 years.  That sure is an old friend to have around.  They have been with me since before I was married 32 years ago.   They have seen many places and many directions to look upon during this time.  They are resilient because as long as I look after their basic needs to carry on as good old mates.

In 1973  Michael Pollans "How Smart are Plants" book where scientists prove the plants repond to all sorts of stimuli like music for example.  He says plants have feelings and emotions.

Plant Intelligence - Questions and Answers.

There are Other links are at the base of the youtube video to follow for more information.

Images @ Eminpee Fotography -

Related articles

• The Secret Life of Plants by Peter Tompkins and Christopher Bird
• Michael Pollan: How smart are plants?
• Plant intelligence
• A Guide to Companion Planting
• Can Plants Think?

ECHINACEA

Echinacea purpurea or Echinacea angustifolia are an important medicinal herb to have in your garden. Its uses are limitless. The root of Echinacea is used to stimulate the immune system and promote healing. Echinacea's common use is to bolster immunity to the common cold and to relieve the effects of a sore throat. Parts Used: Roots and leaves of a two year old plant.

Echinacea purpurea 'Maxima' (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

The Echinacea plant flowers through three months of the year here in Australia.  Flowering in spring, summer and autumn.  They die off and come up again in early spring.

Liquid manure regularly to encourage the beautiful flowers.

When the plant is about 2 to 3 years old depending on how healthy the plant is,  you can harvest the roots roots and or the leaves.

SOW:  in late spring when the temperature is around 13 degrees so they germinate well.

They self sow and so it is good to plant in an area you don't mind them coming up again each year.  The plants are best left undisturbed for good mature root growth.

Plant them in full sun or in part shade.

Today I packaged up three packets of Echinacea Seed to grow in the future,  I was grateful to get this from my friend Kathy at Killawarra.     I love collecting seed to grow at my leisure. 

What to do with Echinacea besides enjoying the beautiful flowers.
Health Benefits

The main species of echinacea that are used therapeutically are Echinacea purpurea, E. angustifolia and E. pallida.

The chemical constituents of medicinal preparations vary with the different species, growing conditions, parts of the plant used and how it's processed. With so many variables, it's not surprising that studies into its use for treating colds show mixed results.

Overall though, research suggests that taking echinacea may reduce the duration of colds, especially if you start it as symptoms appear.

Products based on the juice of E. purpurea appear particularly effective, so if you feel a sore throat or sniffle coming on, finely chop a few echinacea leaves, then squeeze the pulp through a strainer to yield about half a teaspoon of juice.

Adults can take this dose three times per day, making a fresh batch each time.

NOTE: Don't take echinacea if you are pregnant or breastfeeding, have an autoimmune disease, are taking immuno-suppressive medication or are allergic to other members of the Asteraceae family. It is unsuitable for children under two years of age.

Jayne Tancred nutritionist and dietitian

Related articles

• The Healing Properties of Echinacea
• Echinacea (Echinacea augustifolia, Echinacea purpurea)

Seed Savers Australia - All we are saying is Give PEA'S a Chance!

Growing our healthy futures ( Seedsavers Australia Network)

Seed is the foundation of humanity's evolution. Cultivation of seed and planting material is the basis for our food systems: in other words, seed saving is at the root of our capacity to thrive.

Broccoli going to seed next to the Silverbeet

I never knew there was a seed savers network before the other day.  Carol Vernon who is standing for the Greens party against Luke Hartsukyer is apart of this group.  I was pleased to hear that others thought saving seeds was an important task. 

I wonder where Jack ( my great uncle) used to keep his seeds?   He had a garden that fed the street and many others as well as his family.  What a garden it was to.  A place of magic and joy.

Broccoli Flowers in the Garden at Urunga NSW

There is a book called the Seed Savers Handbook and it can be purchased online securely (CLICK HERE) and I also see very well known people in this gardening game say this book is a must.

Bill Mollison, founder of Permaculture and recipient of the Australian Achiever Award 1993, says in the book's preface:
"I believe this book to be essential for all caring farmer, gardeners, cooks and parents, and I trust that it will speed our return to good nutrition and a healthy society."

Images @  Eminpee Fotography

Was Yeshua ( Jesus ) a Cannibus User?

“Why is marijuana against the law? It grows naturally upon our planet. Doesn’t the idea of making nature against the law seem to you a bit . . . unnatural?”
~ Bill Hicks ~

English: Close up shot of some high quality marijuana. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Jesus was almost certainly a cannabis user and an early proponent of the medicinal properties of the drug, according to a study of scriptural texts published this month. The study suggests that Jesus and his disciples used the drug to carry out miraculous healing's.

The anointing oil used by Jesus and his disciples contained an ingredient called kaneh-bosem which has since been identified as cannabis extract, according to an article by Chris Bennett in the drugs magazine, High Times, entitled Was Jesus a stoner? The incense used by Jesus in ceremonies also contained a cannabis extract, suggests Mr Bennett, who quotes scholars to back his claims.
"There can be little doubt about a role for cannabis in Judaic religion," Carl Ruck, professor of classical mythology at Boston University said.

Referring to the existence of cannabis in anointing oils used in ceremonies, he added: "Obviously the easy availability and long-established tradition of cannabis in early Judaism  would inevitably have included it in the [Christian] mixtures."

Mr Bennett suggests those anointed with the oils used by Jesus were "literally drenched in this potent mixture Although most modern people choose to smoke or eat pot, when its active ingredients are transferred into an oil-based carrier, it can also be absorbed through the skin".

Quoting the New Testament, Mr Bennett argues that Jesus anointed his disciples with the oil and encouraged them to do the same with other followers. This could have been responsible for healing eye and skin diseases referred to in the Gospels.

English: Leaf of Cannabis עברית: עלה של קנביס (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

"If cannabis was one of the main ingredients of the ancient anointing oil  and receiving this oil is what made Jesus the Christ and his followers Christians, then persecuting those who use cannabis could be considered anti-Christ," Mr Bennett concludes.
Taken from the Guardian / https://apps.facebook.com/theguardian/world/2003/jan/06/science.religion

Related articles

• Jesus Used Cannabis,Healed Study. (ramanan50.wordpress.com)
• Jesus 'healed using cannabis' (talesfromthelou.wordpress.com)
• Jesus 'healed using cannabis' (ascendingstarseed.wordpress.com)

I never see what has been done; I only see what remains to be done.

Buddha

The soil all ready - best $22.00 spent

This is no tiny job, and we have been doing this since last Saturday.  Interruptions happened here and there and bad weather happened yesterday.  Today though, we got it finished.   All but a few tiny ones that need some new pots to separate them.

It was fun to see the plants all talking together in a group discussing the new soil that was caressing their parched root systems. All that was keeping all of them alive was the constant watering.  The worms had gotten into the pots and stripped them bare of any nutritiousness or real soil. 

Anyway, given it smells delicious, they should love what has happened. All of the old soil got mixed in with the mulch and put onto the garden.  Its fine for there but not good for potted plants.  I need to feed them all with liquid fertilizer tomorrow and re assign them all to their new positions.

Newly potted and happy

First we need to weed the area near the shed on the rocks.  It would be good to finish that job off one of these days.  I am going to re model the front door entrance as well with some extra sun tolerant plants.  It is so hot there every after noon.  Lots of bright strong geraniums in good soil should do fine there.  This will brighten things up there somewhat.

We have had two storms in as many days.  Yesterday we lost power for a couple of hours and we were in the dark.  I have gas so the biscuits I were cooking were safe from disaster and cooked on in the darkness.

Images @Melonpopzdropz Flickr