Marijuana the Alcohol Alternative

     Smoking weed is... 
    

     Smoking weed is a task that is frowned upon by our society.  It is illegal.  Unfortunately, lots of people still partake of the greenery. 
 

     Weed, or marijuana, is derived from the hemp plant Cannabis sativa.  Out of all of the drugs utilized in America, Weed is the most frequently used.

 

     4% of American adults smoke pot, marijuana, at least once a year. "1% of adults abuse pot, and one in 300 have a pot addiction".

 

     People smoke the plant's dried leaves, flowers, stems, and seeds. Marijuana also can be mixed into food or brewed as a tea. Marijuana goes by many street names, including pot, weed, and herb. Hash, a concentrated form of the drug, is short for hashish.The rates of marijuana smoking in adults have remained stable since the 1990s. However, the rates of addiction to pot have risen significantly over that same period. According to recent government stuudies, as many as 30% of today's teenagers are smoking marijuana.  Occasional marijuana use is rarely seriously harmful, but smoking pot has important medical effects.

Physiological Effects of Marijuana

    
     The active ingredient in marijuana is THC. That means delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol.THC is rapidly absorbed after smoking pot. Within minutes, THC and the other substances in marijuana smoke cause short-term medical effects. 

Signs of using marijuana include:

Rapid heart rate
Increased blood pressure
Increased rate of breathing
Red eyes
Dry mouth
Increased appetite, or "the munchies"
Slowed reaction time

 

THC molecule

     These effects are reduced after three or four hours. However, marijuana hangs around in your system for as long as a month after smoking. The lingering effects mean you're impaired for several days to weeks after the high wears off.

 

Psychological Effects of Marijuana
 

     According to the National Institute on Drug Abuse, the main effects of marijuana on mood vary and may include euphoria, calmness, anxiety, or paranoia. Getting high or "stoned" is the reason most pot smokers use marijuana.


Other short-term psychological effects of pot include:

Distorted sense of time
Paranoia
Magical or "random" thinking
Short-term memory loss
Anxiety and depression

 

     These psychological signs of using pot also generally ease after a few hours. Residual effects can last for days.

 

Risks of Marijuana Use:
 

     The risks of smoking marijuana increase with heavy use. The link has never been proven, many experts believe heavy pot smokers are at increased risk for lung cancer.

Risks of Marijuana Use

Heavy marijuana use lowers men's testosterone levels, sperm count and quality. Pot could decrease libido and fertility in some heavy-smoking men.

 

    Contrary to what many pot smokers may tell you, marijuana is addictive, at least psychologically. Even among occasional users, 1 in 12 can feel withdrawal symptoms if they can't get high when they want to. Among heavy pot smokers, the rates of dependence are higher.Many experts also believe that marijuana is physically addictive.

 

Symptoms of withdrawal from pot might include:

Aggression
Anxiety
Depressed mood
Decreased appetite

 

     Pot is a "gateway" drug? In other words, does smoking marijuana make someone more likely to try cocaine, heroin, ecstasy, and other "hard" drugs? The jury is still out on this one. It's true that pot smokers are more likely to use other drugs after trying marijuana. What's not clear is whether smoking pot causes further drug use or if people who start smoking pot are just more likely to try drugs in general.If you're wondering how long marijuana stays in your system after smoking, it depends on how often you smoke.

 

     Light users -- those who smoke pot once in a while -- will have a negative drug screen after a marijuana-free week.

 

     Heavy users -- sometimes called "stoners" -- may continue testing positive for a month after last smoking pot(http://www.m.webmd.com/a-to-z-guides/marijuana-use-and-its-effects)."

 

Effects on Life
 

     Research clearly demonstrates that marijuana has the potential to cause problems in daily life or make a person's existing problems worse. In fact, heavy marijuana users generally report lower life satisfaction, poorer mental and physical health, relationship problems, and less academic and career success compared to their peers who came from similar backgrounds.
    

     For example, marijuana use is associated with a higher likelihood of dropping out from school. Several studies also associate workers' marijuana smoking with increased absences, tardiness, accidents, workers' compensation claims, and job turnover(http://www.drugabuse.gov/publications/drugfacts/marijuana)."

Weed is legal, and it's being compared to alcohol.  Alcohol is our old legal option to sobriety.  Well, how does alcohol compare to weed?

 

Alcohol
 

     Drinking too much – on a single occasion or over time – can take a serious toll on your health. 

 

Here’s how alcohol can affect your body:

Brain:

Alcohol interferes with the brain’s communication pathways, and can affect the way the brain looks and works. These disruptions can change mood and behavior, and make it harder to think clearly and move with coordination.

  

Heart

Drinking a lot over a long time or too much on a single occasion can damage the heart, causing problems including:
Cardiomyopathy – Stretching and drooping of heart muscle

Arrhythmias – Irregular heart beat

Stroke

High blood pressure.

Research also shows that drinking moderate amounts of alcohol may protect healthy adults from developing coronary heart disease.

Liver: 
Heavy drinking takes a toll on the liver, and can lead to a variety of problems and liver inflammations including:

Steatosis, or fatty liver
Alcoholic hepatitis
Fibrosis
Cirrhosis
Pancreas:
Alcohol causes the pancreas to produce toxic substances that can eventually lead to pancreatitis, a dangerous inflammation and swelling of the blood vessels in the pancreas that prevents proper digestion.

 

Cancer:  Drinking too much alcohol can increase your risk of developing certain cancers, including cancers of the:
Mouth
Esophagus
Throat
Liver
Breast

Immune System:
     Drinking too much can weaken your immune system, making your body a much easier target for disease.  Chronic drinkers are more liable to contract diseases like pneumonia and tuberculosis than people who do not drink too much.  Drinking a lot on a single occasion slows your body’s ability to ward off infections – even up to 24 hours after getting drunk.(http://niaaa.nih.gov/alcohol-health/alcohols-effects-body)

     Smoking weed is a task that is frowned upon by our society. Ask somebody, that you don't know that well, to smoke a joint with you.  You don't want to hear all of the answers. It is illegal.  Unfortunately, lots of people still partake of the greenery.  Make your choice.

     How far are we away from being able to buy "pre-rolled" Swisher Sweet Blunts from the corner store?

Transcranial Random Noise Stimulation (tRNS)

     In 2007, Roi Cohen Kadosh, at the University of Oxford and his colleagues, was researching the brain in ebb attempt to uncover cognitive learning.  They found that  the area of the brain responsible for mathematics is the right parietal lobe.  It is located just above the right ear.

     There are two separate parietal lobes. One involves sensation and perception.   The other lobe is responsible for integrating sensory input, primarily with the visual system. The first function integrates sensory information to form a single perception which is simply called cognition. The second function constructs a spatial coordinate system to represent the world around us.

 

 

     "Individuals with damage to the parietal lobes often show striking deficits, such as abnormalities in body image and spatial relations (Kandel, Schwartz & Jessel, 1991)."

     Also in 2007, Roi Cohen Kadosh, at the University of Oxford, and his team "short-circuited" this area using transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS).   TMS is  a stream of magnetic pulses which temporarily disables a targeted area of the brain. The result is that some of the subjects' ability to perform numerical tasks fell.

     "In fact, their performance resembled people with dyscalculia, who have difficulty comprehending mathematics" (http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg21729085.400-zapping-brain-to-improve-learning-comes-at-a-cost.html).

   Noninvasive transcranial stimulation techniques like repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS) and direct current stimulation (tDCS) have been used to induce neuroplastic-like effects in the human cortex, leading to the activity-dependent modification of synaptic transmission. They introduced a novel method of electrical stimulation: transcranial random noise stimulation (tRNS), whereby a random electrical oscillation spectrum is applied over the motor cortex. tRNS induces consistent excitability increases lasting 60 min after stimulation. These effects have been observed in 80 subjects through both physiological measures and behavioral tasks. Higher frequencies (100–640 Hz), sounds at the range of a vibrating tuning fork, appear to be responsible for generating this excitability increase.  This effect may be attributed to the repeated opening of Na+ channels. In terms of efficacy tRNS appears to possess at least the same therapeutic potential as rTMS/tDCS in diseases such as depression, while furthermore avoiding the constraint of current flow direction sensitivity characteristic of tDCS(http://m.jneurosci.org/content/28/52/14147.short).

 

     Sodium, Na+, channels channels are made up of a single polypeptide with four homologous domains. Each domain contains 6 membrane spanning alpha helices. One of these helices, S4, is the voltage sensing helix.  It has many positive charges. A high positive charge outside the cell repels the helix.  This keeps the channel closed. Depolarization of the cell interior causes the helix to move, inducing a conformational change.  The ions will then flow through the channel while it is open (http://pharmaxchange.info/press/2011/02/voltage-sensor-in-the-voltage-gated-sodium-and-potassium-channels/).

     Recently, researchers found out that students performed better at math after using this same brain stimulation.  The students could crunch numbers involving the basic fact that an equation in one variable in a statement in which two expressions, at least one containing the variable, are equal.

 

     Math is a highly complex cognitive faculty that is based on a myriad of different abilities," Cohen Kadosh said. "If we can enhance mathematics . . . there is a good chance that we will be able to enhance simpler cognitive functions."

     First, second, and third degree polynomial equations are widely used at parent companies, like Microsoft, to model manufacturing processes and product design features based on measurements made on factories and testing labs.  This small brain shock could lead to huge intelligence increases in a wide variety of fields.

     "The researcher said that if future experiments with TRNS continue to show positive results, the technique could be used in clinics, classrooms and even at home to help people who struggle with particular cognitive tasks."

     "This could include anyone from a child falling behind in . . . math class to an elderly patient suffering from neurodegenerative disease," he said.

BITCOINS

After all the hard work, we have to get paid with real money. Would you take BITCOINS?

BITCOINS isn't real money, though. It has been called crypto-currency, digital currency, simply just cash for the internet.

"World currency, international finance, a world currency,supranational currency, or global currency refers to a currency that is transacted internationally, with no set borders (http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_currency)."

BITCOINS is the result of peer-to-peer technology. The coin operates with no central authority or banks as insurance of liability. Bitcoins business is carried out collectively by and via the network.

"What's wrong with the dollar bill?", you might ask.

Have you seen one of the latest video viral trends based on the greed of the season? WAL-MART FIGHTS, such as this one, (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2rPleC29A8w&feature=youtube_gdata_player), found on YouTube, are the result of consumers trying to save money and splurge simultaneously on Christmas.

Consumers have morphed the holiday shopping season into the season for quitting your diet to order a number 13, and showcasing some WALMART-wing-chun for a 90" tv at "the store".

Shopping during the holiday season is getting dangerous. Cash here; cash there. Card transactions are better. Online shopping is a safer alternative to imbibe on all of the pretty-sales. Safer is a loose term, when speaking of web transactions, because of identity theft and other illegal surveillance tactics. Physically, though, online shopping is protected. Inflation is huge. The USD vs an international currency wouldn't be an even comparison.

BITCOINS are one type of money with one stash. It has been around for awhile, now. The first Bitcoin specification and proof of concept was published in 2009 in a cryptography mailing list by Satoshi Nakamoto.

"Bitcoins can be transferred from Africa to Canada in 10 minutes. There is no bank to slow down the process, level outrageous fees, or freeze the transfer. You can pay your neighbors the same way as you can pay a member of your family in another country(http://bitcoin.com/)."

According to http://preev.com/ BITCOINS, 1 BTC, equals 1,059 USD. This site shows the live exchange rate for BTC.

An authority on the issue of global money is John Maynard Keynes. He argues that such a currency would not suffer from inflation. Others debate that a single global currency would make conducting international business more efficient and would encourage foreign direct investment.

Alternatively, the main reason why one wouldn't accept BITCOINS on their next paycheck is that it isn't accepted everywhere. Cards are only recently reaching that status. Most people never see the cash value of their paycheck. Another reason why BITCOINS are bad is that everybody doesn't find keeping up with digital transactions to be easy. For example, you set up a Bitcoin wallet on your phone. Passwords are like keys on a key chain. With electronic keys the wallet app can regularly change for you. That means you need to keep an accurate track of those changes on backup. If you lose your phone and your keys, you’ve lost the money. The setup is an open source similar to Wikimedia. The concept is based on a "world agreement" that the rules of BITCOINS can't be changed.

So, the hours are done, and your salary expectations are complete. After all the hard work, we have to get paid with real money, right? Would you take BITCOINS?

Fresh Air from House plants

    

 

Have you ever felt like you could suffocate from the lack of fresh air in your home?  There isn’t biological weapon of mass destruction on the news.  You had a technician check the air quality in your home; no unscented gas leaks.  What’s the problem?

Your home needs some house plants.

Provide the environment with some natural greenery.  Beautify homes and apartments by decorating with succulents, cacti, ferns, lilies, runners, ficuses, etc. 

Healthy plants are extraordinary additions to your style.  Old plants, though, send a negative message.  Are your plants displaying yellowed leaves, dropped leaves or bears no new growth?  The plant is not receiving proper care.

          “All house plants have different watering, fertilizer and light needs, and understanding the needs of each plant is the key to house plant growth (http://www2.estrellamountain.edu/faculty/farabee/biobk/BioBookPLANTHORM.html)”

First of all, locate sufficient light. If your house plant is failing to thrive, it may not be receiving adequate light to stimulate new growth. Add extra light with an incandescent or fluorescent plant light if you don't have enough natural light.

Make sure the environment is temperature efficient, from 58° to 86° F, because too high or too low can cause stunted plant growth.

Keep the plant watered regularly.  Cactus and succulents obviously don’t need much water. Upon the touch, the soil should feel cold, moist or wet.  Soil particles should stick to your finger.  The soil will be crumbly and dusty when it is time to water it.  A rule of thumb is to add water until liquid flows out of the drainage holes in the bottom of the plant container.

 

Miracle gro will provide minor miracles to your plants when utilized correctly.  You should fertilize house plants during their growing season using 20-20-20 fertilizer. Do not fertilize them during the winter since this is their dormant season. Apply the fertilizer following the manufacturer's recommendations based upon the size and type of plant.  Plant fertilizers include hormone.   Plants have five classes of hormones, auxins, bibberellins, cytokinins, abscisic acid, and ethylene.  Auxins promote stem elongation, inhibit growth of lateral buds, and promote cell elongation.

 

Auxins are produced after plant nutrition.  Auxin increases the activity of proton pumps.  The cell wall becomes more acidic.  Wedge-shaped expansins, activated by low pH, separate cellulose micorofibrils from cross-linking polysaccharides.  The exposed cross-linking polysaccharides are now more accessible to cell wall enzymes.  The enzymatic cleaving of the cross-linking polysaccharides allows the microfibrils to slide.  The extensibility of the cell wall is increased.  Turgor causes the cell to expand.  With the cellulose loosened, the cell can elongate.

 

When the summer months approach, move plants outside during the summer in order to expose them to natural sunlight and air.

 

Do not keep plants outside if temperatures fall below 40 F.

          “How pure is the air you breathe? Plants are the lungs of the earth: they produce the oxygen that makes life possible, add precious moisture, and filter toxins. Houseplants can perform these essential functions in your home or office with the same efficiency as a rainforest in our biosphere (http://www.amazon.com/How-Grow-Fresh-Air-Plants/dp/0140262431).”

Don’t suffocate in your own home.  Get some nice house plants.

Holiday travelling

     Tis the season to be jolly...

     Summer is just beginning to leave us, and the season is pushing its way in, already.

     The year has flown by. It is family planning time, again.

     Summer vacationers are on their way home.  Now, the deals begin to show up.  You can get your best ticket prices from the familiar orbitz.com or the semi-unfamiliar groupon.com. 

     You have to love this time of the year.  Evenings filled with scented candles to Christmas lights to shopping to cooking, are unforgettable. 

     Unplanned spending can trigger cluster headaches, stress-related pain, and days of agony, though.

     The holiday season is several weeks away, but now is a perfect time to book that flight and hotel for your Thanksgiving or New Year's celebrations. 

     "According to Kayak.com, you'll find the best deals on holiday flights when you book in mid-October. Fares will start to increase by as much as 25 percent the closer you get to the end of the year. (http://money.msn.com)"

     You've heard about last minute deals.  This time of the year, though, that won't suffice. Procrastination can be the bomb detonation.  Don't  wait until the last minute to book your flight, hotel or travel package.  You are at risk of paying a premium for all travel expenses.  The extra money you save could be another gift for your special somebody.

     Compare and contrast actual airline prices to the well known third party site prices.

     One of the best ways to acquire a  great deal on a flight is to fly inconveniently. If you can coordinate your holiday visits so that you fly on Thanksgiving Day, Christmas Day or even New Year's Day, you may be able to save a bag of money on your inbound flight.

     "FareCompare.com reports that the best money-saving days for travel are before Dec. 17 and after Jan. 3. Fares are also low on Christmas Day. Kayak.com reports that travelers returning on Thanksgiving Day could save as much as 20 percent on fares. (http://money.msn.com)"

     Maybe one of your headaches of the season is the airplane itself.  Remember that road trips are awesome, too.

     "Plan alternative trips if traffic makes your way home too overwhelming. Is there a scenic drive that might be longer but have less traffic? (http://www.travelchannel.com)"

     You're pockets don't have to be sore after the holidays.  You don't have to dread your bills for the first couple of months in the new year.  Get your head start.

     Take off your swim gear and break out your sweaters.

     Happy Holidays!

     Tis the season to be jolly...

Nootropic brain enhancement

Have you wanted to ultimately be smarter than you are, or were at any point in your lifetime? 

Well, now you can buy a new brain at Walmart.

 

Yeah, right.  We aren’t that advanced, yet.

Neuroscience has given us the option of a more productive brain. Supplements of all kinds fill the shelves in all sorts of vitamin sections of stores.  This option, to lead you to that smarter goal, can  increase your productivity, improve concentration and create massive amounts of motivation.

Nootropics.

Nootropics, memory enhancers, neuro enhancers, cognitive enhancers, and intelligence enhancers, are drugs, supplements, nutraceuticals, and functional foods that purportedly improve mental functions such as cognition, memory, intelligence, motivation, attention, and concentration. Nootropics are thought to work by altering the availability of the brain's supply of neurochemicals (neurotransmitters, enzymes, and hormones), by improving the brain's oxygen supply, or by stimulating nerve growth.

Nootropic - having positive effects on organically impaired cognition or nervous system function; said of certain drugs. (http://web.archive.org/web/20080130031824/http://www.mercksource.com/pp/us/cns/cns_hl_dorlands.jspzQzpgzEzzSzppdocszSzuszSzcommonzSzdorlandszSzdorlandzSzdmd_n_10zPzhtm)

Commonly referenced memory drugs, or nootropics are, Racetams.  These are sometimes cited as having few side-effects with a wide therapeutic window. The well known racetams are piracetam, the oldest and most well-known of the group, aniracetam, oxiracetam, pramiracetam and noopept.  Racetams function to control glutamate receptors.  Glutamate receptors are in the brain. There are two types of glutamate receptors, AMPA and NDMA. The neurotransmitter, glutamate, binds to these receptor sites and assists in learning and memory formation as well as muscle coordination and other important neurological functions.  Other receptors work in coordination with racetams.  Cholingeric receptors bind to acetylcholine, which is another important neurotransmitter involved in cognitive function. This binding process causes increased alertness and sensory perception.

 

 

 

Importantly, racetams aren’t based amphetamine chemical structures like the “smart drug” ADHD medication.  Some will use these illegally, and end up having an addiction.  Racetams are sage.

One experiment using the nootrophic piracetam was printed in the Georgian Med News. 2013 Jul-Aug;(220-221):64-71.  Study of acetylsalicylic Acid role in the potentiation of antiamnesic and neuroprotective properties of piracetam in rats with alloxan diabetes. 

“Co-administration of piracetam with acetylsalicylic acid was accompanied by an expressed antiamnetic potential - the reduction of early markers of proteins degradation (aldehydephenylhydrazones, APH) by 21,7% (p<0,05) and late markers of proteins degradation (ketonephenylhydrazones, KPH) by 23,8% (p<0,001) was noted. This combination was 15,7% (p<0,05) more active than piracetam according to the effect upon KPH. NO2-/NO3- level was also decreased by 30,3% (p<0,05) in comparison with alloxan-diabetic rats. The significant anti-platelet effect was observed: degree of collagen-induced platelet aggregation was reduced by 56,8% (p<0,01), ADP (5 μmol/l)-induced - by 31,7% (p<0,01), ADP (20 μmol/l)-induced - by 47,3% (p<0,01) as compared to the hyperglycemic rats. Such an increase in nootropic activity of piracetam may be assumed to be directly related to the ability of acetylsalicylic acid to improve microcirculation in the ischemic areas of the brain in diabetes and probably to its neuroprotective potential.”

Neurological advances have put you in the place to make you a smarter individual.  We go to gyms like it is our second nature.  Why not exercise our most inspiring part of the body?

Nootropics.



 

Netflix tv streaming

     Is there too many things to do?
Are you so wired up that you need to wire down?

     Tv always seems to play the same show, rerun after rerun, until you unknowingly laugh at it.

     Cable is old, and satellite is getting there.

     If you want the newest way to watch the same show, check out Netflix, via tv streaming.

             "Netflix, Inc. is an American provider of on-demand Internet streaming media available to North and South America, the Caribbean, United Kingdom, Ireland, Sweden, Denmark, Norway, Finland, the Netherlands, and flat rate DVD-by-mail in the United States, where mailed DVDs are sent via Permit Reply Mail.The company was established in 1997 and is headquartered in Los Gatos, California.(www.wikipedia.com)"

     Streaming media is multimedia that is constantly received by and presented to an end-user while being delivered by a provider. Its verb form, "to stream", refers to the process of delivering media in this manner; the term refers to the delivery method of the medium rather than the medium itself.A client media player can begin playing the data (such as a movie) before the entire file has been transmitted. An example of streaming media is Roku.

     One might infer that, "regular old tv is already free". Shows on Roku, and other devices in the genre, are very different from regular tv shows.  These vids are on demand, with no commercials, you can fast forward, you can rewind, and pause, etc.

     "Just between you and me...there are some great shows on netflix that couldn't be found on other channels." Netflix originals are great, too.  "HOUSE OF CARDS" has exceeded all possible expectations.

     All in all, Netflix is a great way to waste large amounts of time.

     Unwind with a commercial free, relatively cheap, wide plethora of choices on streaming media.