
Marijuana exposure in utero has lifelong consequences in mice - shawndumas
http://arstechnica.com/science/2015/10/marijuana-exposure-in-utero-has-lifelong-consequences/
======
pil4rin
Shame on Ars for this clickbait trash- with "In mice at least, although humans
might want to be cautious." as a subtitle it is hard to take the rest of the
article seriously. Then you find out they were injecting mice with some
unspecified amount of THC within Saline solution (please correct me if there
is a specified amount, but I had to dig to find this at
[http://www.pnas.org/content/suppl/2015/10/09/1514962112.DCSu...](http://www.pnas.org/content/suppl/2015/10/09/1514962112.DCSupplemental/pnas.201514962SI.pdf))

"THC (THC Pharm) was diluted in 0.9% NaCl (saline) solution containing 3%
(vol/vol) DMSO and 2% (vol/vol) Tween-80 and administered intraperitoneally
(i.p.) at a final dose of 3 mg/kg to pregnant females for 5 consecutive days,
from E12.5 to E16.5. Control mice were injected with vehicle solution."

This will be on Fox news within a week, and when it is- they will monger fear
in older generations (those who typically control laws by either voting or
creating bills) that are too lazy to research and come to their own
conclusions.

~~~
ashrust
It looks like the paper says they were given 3mg/kg THC per day for 5
consecutive days. So it does seem the dose is specified.

It's pre clinical and far from surprising but 3mg/kg is a lot of THC, the
equivalent of using ~1g of strong stuff by yourself (assuming no THC is lost
during consumption).

~~~
pil4rin
After looking up the potency of currently popular edibles, the highest dosage
I could find per item was the Cheeba Chew Deca
Dose([http://www.cheebachews.com/wp-
content/uploads/2015/02/deca_1...](http://www.cheebachews.com/wp-
content/uploads/2015/02/deca_15.pdf)) @ claimed 175mg of THC per piece (actual
was 162.1). As far as I know, this is a heroic dose of THC of which the
typical user would not frequent. In order to match the dosage within the mice,
I'd have to eat just over 6 of these per days for a working week to produce
the same results (obviously without comparing intake medium).

I understand this was to attempt to see if there were any issues that should
be researched further, but the Ars article took it at face value and claimed
we should (as humans) avoid during pregnancy.

------
dismal2
I don't see why they didn't just have them consume food with oil in it, this
seems like a highly unnatural delivery mechanism.

Relevant comment from Ars:

> Interesting to note... If you look at the study

> "THC (THC Pharm) was diluted in 0.9% NaCl (saline) solution containing 3%
> (vol/vol) DMSO and 2% (vol/vol) Tween-80 and administered intraperitoneally
> (i.p.) at a final dose of 3 mg/kg to pregnant females for 5 consecutive
> days, from E12.5 to E16.5. Control mice were injected with vehicle
> solution."

> DMSO is TOXIC to developing brains. Its actually recommended not to use it
> in studies because it causes too much damage.

> "The in vitro results suggest avoiding the use of BeOH (which also is more
> toxic than the other solvents in the in vivo test) and DMSO and using
> PEG400, EtOH and DMF even though the latter induced a body weight decrease
> in the B6D2F1 mouse strain. "

>
> [http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/8011014](http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/8011014)

> It would seem as though they purposefully paired the THC with a solvent that
> would cause the relevant brain abnormalities.

------
Raphmedia
"So, like alcohol, another recreational drug that is legal in the US,
marijuana is likely best avoided by pregnant women."

This is so refreshing to see articles made with a neutral tone about marijuana
and not the usual "IT'S EVIL" talk. It's a recreational drug like any other.
You wouldn't drink when pregnant, you shouldn't smoke either. Those fact
shouldn't be related at all about whether the substance is legal or not.

~~~
DanBC
Why shouldn't women have some alcohol when pregnant? Where's the evidence that
small amounts of alcohol are harmful?

The total ban on alcohol during pregnancy is based on the precautionary
principle - we know alcohol is harmful, but we don't know what a safe limit
is, so we set a limit of zero.

This causes guilt and stress in mothers, and that is probably more harmful
than letting pregnant women have a small glass of wine every so often.

~~~
freehunter
> Where's the evidence that small amounts of alcohol are harmful?

>we know alcohol is harmful, but we don't know what a safe limit is, so we set
a limit of zero.

Literally that right there. It's not like we can test on humans to find what
the safe amount is, that's highly unethical, highly illegal, and will never be
done. The safe amount is zero, or as close to zero as you can get. It
shouldn't cause any guilt or stress on the mother: it's not impossible or even
difficult to completely abstain from alcohol for nine months unless you're an
alcoholic, and if you're an alcoholic, you're not going to have "a small glass
of wine every so often". There's actually _negative_ societal pressure for
pregnant women drinking.

What would cause more stress and guilt? Not drinking while pregnant, or
drinking some amount and then wondering if your child will be born with some
birth defect because of it? Or wondering if your child's birth defect was
caused by your drinking? The safe bet is just to not drink, to not smoke, to
not abuse drugs.

I honestly never thought I would be seeing a discussion about how it's not
fair to ask pregnant women to abstain from alcohol.

~~~
DanBC
> What would cause more stress and guilt? Not drinking while pregnant, or
> drinking some amount and then wondering if your child will be born with some
> birth defect because of it? Or wondering if your child's birth defect was
> caused by your drinking? The safe bet is just to not drink, to not smoke, to
> not abuse drugs.

Just for clarity: I mean a small glass per week. I said "a small glass every
so often".

There's zero chance of a birth defect from one small glass of wine a week. But
women doing that will, as you say, face fierce societal condemnation whenever
they drink.

> I honestly never thought I would be seeing a discussion about how it's not
> fair to ask pregnant women to abstain from alcohol.

It's not about whether it's fair or not. It's about whether the risks from
small amounts of alcohol are greater than the risks of stress and anxiety
women experience when guilt-tripped by other people.

Society has some really unpleasant judgemental attitudes about pregnant women.
They're already under a load of self-imposed pressure. They don't need it from
other people.

~~~
freehunter
>There's zero chance of a birth defect from one small glass of wine a week.

Where's the evidence to back this up?

Here are the facts:

1\. Alcohol is harmful.

2\. We don't know exactly how harmful.

3\. We can't test to see exactly how harmful.

The output of that is, the recommendation is zero. The recommendation is zero
because any other recommendation would be arbitrary at best, harmful on
average, and debilitating at worst when people realize "one drink a week"
isn't backed up by any science. And the social pressure will never let up,
because who knows if that is the woman's first drink of the week or her fourth
drink of the day?

Yes of course people need pressure to not drink while pregnant! And even with
that pressure, people still smoke and drink and do drugs while pregnant. Just
like they need pressure not to speed, not to shoot up heroin, not to kill
other people! That's the entire point of societal pressure, is to make people
conform to activities that aren't actively harmful to society.

If you tell women "don't drink", that's a very clear statement. Easy to
follow. If you say "only drink one drink per week, maybe, we don't really
know", there's a non-zero chance that more women will drink more than they
should than we have today. But how much is too much? No one knows. So in
effect, how much is too much? _Any_ amount.

~~~
anonbanker
I replaced "alcohol" with "sex", and "drink" with "lay", and it worked out
remarkably well, with appropriately humorous results.

I invite the reader to do the same.

~~~
freehunter
Now try replacing "alcohol" with "a bullet through the head" and see if it's
still funny. Or try doing a Google image search of "fetal alcohol syndrome".
Smart asshole.

~~~
anonbanker
Please don't do this on HN. personal attacks are not welcomed on this website.

~~~
freehunter
Calling someone an asshole is not a personal attack. A personal attack is
attacking someone's character instead of their argument. I'm not saying he's
wrong because he's an asshole, I'm saying he's wrong _and_ he's an asshole.

~~~
dllthomas
In my view - which I expect is shared by at least some others - saying that
another poster is an asshole is a personal attack whether or not it has
anything to do with their argument.

------
meeper16
I'd highly recommend listening to this experiment on how this truly works when
considering epigentics:

[https://youtu.be/9DAcJSAM_BA?t=1764](https://youtu.be/9DAcJSAM_BA?t=1764)

~~~
pil4rin
Fantastic suggestion- I enjoyed this immensely. Thank you.

~~~
meeper16
Your welcome. The whole field of epigentics is turning everything we know
about biology on its side. It's amazing.

