cannabisnews.com: Pot Makes Your Libido High Pot Makes Your Libido High Posted by FoM on January 22, 2001 at 22:48:05 PT By Neil Sherman Source: Star-Telegram Like adding a third voice to a duet to enhance the harmony, THC -- the active ingredient in marijuana -- joins with a female hormone and a brain chemical to boost sexual activity in female rats, Texas researchers have shown. The discovery may go a long way to solving the mystery of how pot affects sexual behavior. This research also adds to the evidence that the body makes natural marijuana-like chemicals that it uses to regulate sexual behavior, experts say. "My interest is in how the brain communicates, how it uses chemicals to operate together to cause that communication and what pathways those chemicals use to cause changes in behavior," says Shailaja Mani, an assistant professor in Baylor College of Medicine's department of molecular and cellular biology. Mani says studying the chemistry of sexual behavior is a good model for studying the chemical basis of other behaviors, which may one day open the door to studying other kinds of human reactions. "We noticed from previous studies that dopamine and progesterone, a female hormone, cause an increase in sexual behavior," Mani says. "And the reason we got interested in THC is that the active ingredient in marijuana actually increases dopamine in the brain. So we wanted to see if THC could act together with the dopamine and progesterone pathway in order to excite it [the pathway]." Dopamine is a brain chemical associated with pleasure. While lots of studies have shown that marijuana has a variety of effects on sexual behavior, from reducing fertility by lowering male sexual hormone levels and reducing the weight of male reproductive organs to heightening sexual receptivity, researchers still had no idea how THC enhances the sexual urge. Mani and her colleagues used rats without ovaries so they could regulate the animals' hormones. They bathed the rats' hypothalamus -- the part of the brain linked to sexual behavior -- with chemicals that blocked the activity of progesterone and dopamine. When they added THC to the mix, the rats showed no interest in males when they were added to the cages. "We showed that if you block the receptor for progesterone or dopamine in the rat hypothalamus, the THC doesn't work," Mani says. "But I really can't extrapolate to human brains quite yet though there is a suggestion that the same pathway interactions may be acting in the same way in human brains." The findings are in the latest Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. "It's a very important finding," says Nephi Stella, an assistant professor of pharmacology at the University of Washington in Seattle whose commentary on the discovery accompanies Mani's article. "There's a very good parallel with the opiate system." Past studies used the opiate morphine to find out that the body had a receptor in it. Knowing this, scientists figured out that the body produced its own natural opiates, endorphins. "Now we can see with this experiment that similar things are going on with THC," Stella explains. "The experiment shows that the body may be producing chemicals that are similar to THC and that those chemicals are involved somehow in sexual behavior." Source: Ft. Worth Star-Telegram (TX)Author: Neil ShermanPublished: January 22, 2001Copyright: 2001 Star-Telegram, Fort Worth, TexasContact: letters star-telegram.comWebsite: http://www.star-telegram.com/Forum: http://www.star-telegram.com/comm/forums/Related Article & Web Site:National Academy of Scienceshttp://nationalacademies.org/nas/nashome.nsfCannabis Puts Females in Mood for Love http://cannabisnews.com/news/thread8414.shtmlCannabisNews Medical Marijuana Archiveshttp://cannabisnews.com/news/list/medical.shtml Home Comment Email Register Recent Comments Help Comment #12 posted by FoM on January 26, 2001 at 20:11:25 PT Hi DdC! Very nice post. I'll check the links out tonight or tomorrow. It's good to see you. Have a nice and safe weekend. I need to go see if there is any more news and then I'm calling it a day early. Peace, FoM! [ Post Comment ] Comment #11 posted by DdC on January 26, 2001 at 19:42:03 PT PREJUDICE: MARIJUANA AND THE JIM CROW LAWS http://pub3.ezboard.com/fendingcannabisprohibitionwhyitstimetolegalize.showMessage?topicID=231.topic [ Post Comment ] Comment #10 posted by DdC on January 26, 2001 at 19:23:39 PT Hi FoM. I got it at the NORML site Observer listed http://www.pdxnorml.org/ii/quotes.htmlthen imaged it for convenience on other boards. Hearst printed stuff like this as headlines for months before the legislation. He and Dupont and Rockefellers crude oil blackmailed Congress, shoved the AMA aside on the same hysteria the wod junkies do today.Jacks has a new site: http://www.jackherer.comand I'm not sure if the chapters listed but in the Emperor book of his, Chapter 13 tells a lot of it. I have it online at the cybrary but only post certain chapters pertenent to an issue. He had several chapters listed at the site but I haven't checked his new one yet.PREJUDICE: MARIJUANA AND THE JIM CROW LAWS http://pub3.ezboard.com/fendingcannabisprohibitionwhyitstimetolegalize.showMessage?topicID=230.topic I have Marijuana, Assassin of Youth WoD Junkie Propaganda at the cybrary also.http://pub3.ezboard.com/fendingcannabisprohibitionwhyitstimetolegalize.showMessage?topicID=218.topicRacism was the red herring bogeyman then as now, http://www.cannabinoid.com/wwwboard/politics/binaries/27/27583.gifplus the bogus health danger now. http://www.cannabinoid.com/wwwboard/politics/binaries/27/27623.gifhttp://www.cannabinoid.com/wwwboard/politics/binaries/27/27189.gifIt not only kept cannabis feared it got the poor and minorites into cages. The jazz and later rock and roll also added to the mix. Commies then beatnicks then hippies. Puritans, whatcha gonna do with em?LOLhttp://www.cannabinoid.com/wwwboard/politics/binaries/27/27702.gifThe stigma keeping the issue focused off the true reason for prohibition. Competition off the market. Hearst owned many trees and paper mills and "yellow journalism" newspapers. Duponts new crude oil polyfiber and Rockefellers crude oil made hemp too threatening. And if you follow the Congress whacko cannabis phobes to their crude petro chemical, nuclear, meat fossil fuel ties you'll start to see it ain't about pot. And sick people are paying. Along with the pollution profits made providing new sick people. What goes from a simpe case of personal rights ends up in corruption beyond the highest levels. Best movie in town.LOLcyaDdC Wonder [ Post Comment ] Comment #9 posted by observer on January 23, 2001 at 14:55:18 PT ''inflamer of passions'' Pot Makes Your Libido High ... boost sexual activity in female . . pot affects sexual behavior. . . how THC enhances the sexual urge ... The Drug Is Associated with the Moral Corruption of the Young, Particularly Their Sexual CorruptionChemicals have long beep inextricably linked in prohibitionist literature with the sexual corruption of young people. Joan Fran Rauch attacked chocolate in 1624 as a violent inflamer of passions.40 Tobacco was linked with sexual immorality in the 1850's,41 and the association between opium and the corruption of young women began in the 1880's with the publication in 1882 of H.H. Kane's Opium Smoking in America and China in which Kane states: Many females are so much excited sexually by the smoking of opium during the first few weeks that old smokers with the sole object of ruining them have taught than how to smoke. Many innocent and over-curious girls have been thus seduced. 42 It has already been outlined how cocaine was extensively associated with sexual attacks on white women by black mean during the early 1900's. During the alcohol prohibitionist movement era alcohol was reported to create sexual excess within and outside of marriage, and alcohol was subtly webbed through stories of Jews "buying up the virtue of Gentile virgins" or Roman Catholic priests "seducing Protestant girls in nunneries."43 In an expose of the white slavery traffic written in the 1930's, we find the arch villain (the alleged pimp) responding to a question on how he procures women for the life of prostitution: I secured a large number of girls from high schools, by doping them with my weed. 44 There is an added irony on the above theme that occurs as one reads through the prohibitionist literature from different periods. Nearly every drug that has been singled out for prohibition (opium, cocaine, alcohol, marihuana) has been said to provoke uncontrolled sexual desire and provoke sexual attacks upon defenseless woman while at the same time the drug is said to produce impotence.The media coverage of the numerous lifestyle changes of the 1960's constantly associated drugs with communal living, cohabitation, etc. Pictures of teenage girls allegedly prostituting to "support their habits" blazened across the television screen did nothing but update this age old association between chemicals and sexual corruption. The inflaming of this fear about the fate of our own children made it difficult if not impossible for most Americans to take a careful and reasoned look at our drug policies.Themes in Chemical ProhibitionNational Institute on Drug Abuse, 1979http://www.druglibrary.org/schaffer/History/ticp.html [ Post Comment ] Comment #8 posted by FoM on January 23, 2001 at 13:56:03 PT Thanks for the links and comment observer Thanks observer,That is a very harsh statement so I wanted to see it. They sure had crazy ideas about marijuana. Thanks! FoM! [ Post Comment ] Comment #7 posted by observer on January 23, 2001 at 13:26:17 PT ``marijuana causes white women to seek sex...'' Here's are some links to that FoM. Ugly stuff...There are 100,000 total marijuana smokers in the US, and most are Negroes, Hispanics, Filipinos and entertainers. Their Satanic music, jazz and swing, result from marijuana usage. This marijuana causes white women to seek sexual relations with Negroes, entertainers and any others.-- Harry Anslinger, 1937 testimony to Congress in support of the Marijuana Tax Act. http://www.pdxnorml.org/ii/quotes.html etc.http://www.google.com/search?q=White+Women+to+Seek+Sexual+Relations+With+Negroes [ Post Comment ] Comment #6 posted by FoM on January 23, 2001 at 13:04:46 PT Where does it say that DdC? Hi DdC,Could you leave me a link to where it says that? I'd like to read it. Thanks. [ Post Comment ] Comment #5 posted by DdC on January 23, 2001 at 12:45:05 PT MJ Causes White Women to Seek Sex With Negroes! http://www.cannabinoid.com/wwwboard/politics/binaries/27/27229.gif Gallery [ Post Comment ] Comment #4 posted by Cyberguy on January 23, 2001 at 08:23:24 PT Not up on the research, are they? "The experiment shows that the body may be producing chemicals that are similar to THC and that those chemicals are involved somehow in sexual behavior." You mean like, Anandamide, a naturally occuring THC analog that hooks into the body's cannabinoid receptor system just like THC?Research that exists in a vacuum sucks. [ Post Comment ] Comment #3 posted by TroutMask on January 23, 2001 at 07:29:33 PT 1 - 1 = 0 So...The sexually debilitating effects of marijuana (previous "studies") can be conteracted by marijuana (new study). Gee, science is great. Too bad there's so little of it.-TM [ Post Comment ] Comment #2 posted by J.R. Bob Dobbs on January 23, 2001 at 04:36:20 PT Good and bad science don't mix! >>While lots of studies have shown that marijuana has a variety of effects on sexual behavior, from reducing fertility by lowering male sexual hormone levels and reducing the weight of male reproductive organs to heightening sexual receptivity, researchers still had no idea how THC enhances the sexual urge. I'm pretty sure the studies quoted above, except for the last one, were all funded by NIDA/PDFA. So we know how much real science there is contained within - ZERO. I'd really like to see the print media point this out, and not just spoon-feed us the same crap, even if this time it's in the middle of something intriguing. [ Post Comment ] Comment #1 posted by meagain on January 23, 2001 at 04:13:24 PT Wow I sense a new campaign in the air ???? Just say no to Viagra... yes to Mary Jane. [ Post Comment ] Post Comment Name: Optional Password: E-Mail: Subject: Comment: [Please refrain from using profanity in your message] Link URL: Link Title: