Cognitive, physical, and mental health outcomes between long-term cannabis and tobacco users

INTRODUCTION

Cannabis intoxication adversely affects health, yet persistent effects following short-term abstinence in long-term cannabis users are unclear. This matched-subjects, cross-sectional study compared health outcomes of long-term cannabis and long-term tobacco-only users, relative to population norms.

METHODS

Nineteen long-term (mean 32.3years of use, mean age 55.7years), abstinent (mean 15h) cannabis users and 16 long-term tobacco users (mean 37.1years of use, mean age 52.9years), matched for age, educational attainment, and lifetime tobacco consumption, were compared on measures of learning and memory, response inhibition, information-processing, sustained attention, executive control, and mental and physical health.

RESULTS

Cannabis users exhibited poorer overall learning and delayed recall and greater interference and forgetting than tobacco users, and exhibited poorer recall than norms. Inhibition and executive control were similar between groups, but cannabis users had slower reaction times during information processing and sustained attention tasks. Cannabis users had superior health satisfaction and psychological, somatic, and general health than tobacco users and had similar mental and physical health to norms whilst tobacco users had greater stress, role limitations from emotional problems, and poorer health satisfaction.

CONCLUSIONS

Long-term cannabis users may exhibit deficits in some cognitive domains despite short-term abstinence and may therefore benefit from interventions to improve cognitive performance. Tobacco alone may contribute to adverse mental and physical health outcomes, which requires appropriate control in future studies.

Omentopexy for reconstruction of the perineum following a radical vulvectomy: a case report

Colorectal surgeons have used omentum based on the left gastric epiploic vessels after any major operation in the pelvis(1). Omental flaps reach very well into the pelvis by the retrocolic route and have been used in the past for better and quicker healing of perineal defects following abdominoperineal resections(2,3). Omentum has excellent healing properties, which can be, used even as free flaps(4).

Compensatory conviction in the face of personal uncertainty: going to extremes and being oneself

Study 1 participants' self-integrity (C. M. Steele. 1988) was threatened by deliberative mind-set (S. E. Taylor & P. M. Gollwitzer, 1995) induced uncertainty. They masked the uncertainty with more extreme conviction about social issues. An integrity-repair exercise after the threat, however, eliminated uncertainty and the conviction response. In Study 2, the same threat caused clarified values and more self-consistent personal goals. Two other uncertainty-related threats, mortality salience and temporal discontinuity, caused similar responses: more extreme intergroup bias in Study 3, and more self-consistent personal goals and identifications in Study 4. Going to extremes and being oneself are seen as 2 modes of compensatory conviction used to defend against personal uncertainty. Relevance to cognitive dissonance and authoritarianism theories is discussed, and a new perspective on terror managenment theory (J. Greenberg, S. Solomom, & T. Pyszczynski, 1997) is proposed.

Personal projects, happiness, and meaning: on doing well and being yourself

Personal Projects Analysis (B. R. Little, 1983) was adapted to examine relations between participants' appraisals of their goal characteristics and orthogonal happiness and meaning factors that emerged from factor analyses of diverse well-being measures. In two studies with 146 and 179 university students, goal efficacy was associated with happiness and goal integrity was associated with meaning. A new technique for classifying participants according to emergent identity themes is introduced. In both studies, identity-compensatory predictors of happiness were apparent. Agentic participants were happiest if their goals were supported by others, communal participants were happiest if their goals were fun, and hedonistic participants were happiest if their goals were being accomplished. The distinction between happiness and meaning is emphasized, and the tension between efficacy and integrity is discussed. Developmental implications are discussed with reference to results from archival data from a sample of senior managers.

Glucosinolate uptake by developing rapeseed embryos

Embryos excised from the seed of rapeseed (Brassica napus L.) accumulated glucosinolate from the culture medium. Uptake was saturable, subject to inhibition, varied with the developmental stage of the embryo but correlated with the time of accumulation of glucosinolates in situ. It is suggested that a carrier-mediated transport system is operating in the developing embryo.

Assessment of collagen film for use in urinary tract surgery

This investigation assessed a biodegradable collagen membrane which can be sutured around the ureter to prevent urine leakage, thus permitting healing to proceed more rapidly while the membrane itself is resorbed. Following an early in vitro investigation in which collagen was assessed, a more comprehensive survey has now been carried out. Tissue compatibility and biodegradation were assessed by implanting the film into the lumbar muscles of rats; it was then used to cover experimental ureterotomies in New Zealand White rabbits. The data obtained from the rabbits confirmed that a collagen membrane can prevent leakage of urine from the ureter during healing while it itself is biodegraded, indicating that a collagen membrane could be used to repair the injured urinary tract.

Streptococcal infection in a regional burns centre and a plastic surgery unit

An outbreak of infection due to group A streptococci of M-type 49 involved first a regional burns centre followed by spread to the intensive care ward of the plastic surgery unit in an associated hospital. Eleven patients and two staff were involved: two of the infected patients developed septicaemia. Serological tests demonstrated marked antibody response to DNAase B(ADB) and there were lesser reactions to other extracellular streptococcal products. Screening of patients and staff identified the likely source of the epidemic which was rapidly controlled by penicillin prophylaxis and other measures.

Molecular relationships between pseudomonas INC P-9 degradative plasmids TOL, NAH, and SAL

We have examined the extent to which the degradative plasmids SAL, NAH, and TOL of the Inc P-9 incompatibility group share common DNA sequences. The homology we observe using 32P-labeled SAL and NAH DNA probes can be assigned to six regions of the TOL (pWWO) restriction endonuclease cleavage map. At least three of these regions are probably related to transfer and replication functions, whereas a fourth region is related to the common metacleavage pathway. Restriction endonuclease maps of the SAL and NAH plasmids are derived and the relationships between these plasmids discussed.