'Retox' a worry if you go off the grass

[Al B. Fuct]

If the body did actually store THC in fat and it was released as Dr Arnold claimed with heavy exercise, dope smokers would all look like Mr feckin' Universe. ::

[thedarkestone]

My plan is to get really fat and store a whole heap of THC. Then, if I run out of my medicine I'll be set for a while. What do yous think?

[thekilla]

heres a story to back that up..

 

i quiet smoking weed.. then i started to go to the gym.. after every work out i swore i was high but i hadnt smoked.. after a while it stopped.. and i no longer got it.. but fk it felt awesome!

[Al B. Fuct]

thekilla, there's several things that could have been happening to make you feel better, notably a release of natural endorphins, which is well-known to occur with moderate exercise.

 

However, one thing I can promise you with an absolutely ironclad level of certainty, like 'the sun will come up tomorrow' sort of surety, is that you were not being 're-intoxicated' by a release of THC from stored fats into the bloodstream.

 

The body doesn't store THC. THC is metabolised and the resultant metabolites are stored in fat- and the metabolites are not psychoactive.

Edited August 18, 2009 by Al B. Fuct

[mull]

thekilla, mate I reckon you're talking about endorphines..

[Bazza]

im not sure why you guys are saying this study is bullshit.

it makes pretty good sense to me

the thc released from the burnt fat cells is enough to register in a test but i dont think anyone is saying you get stoned from exercise. We all know it stays in our bodies for ages and thats whats so unfair about workplace testing, weed smokers cant hide it but total crack heads just have to go 1 day without and pass

[Al B. Fuct]

im not sure why you guys are saying this study is bullshit.

 

You may have missed my earlier comments.

 

One more time:

 

The body doesn't store THC. THC is metabolised and the resultant metabolites are stored in fat- and the metabolites are not psychoactive.

 

it makes pretty good sense to me

the thc released from the burnt fat cells is enough to register in a test but i dont think anyone is saying you get stoned from

 

Most drug tests don't look for delta-9 tetrahydrocannibinol. They look for d9-THC metabolites, which are the residual compounds of d9-THC remaining in the body after d9-THC has been metabolised. Again, metabolites are not psychoactive.

 

The only exception to this appears to be some roadside-administered mouth swab tests, which claim to look for actual d9-THC to reveal acute or current cannabis intoxication. Jury's still out on how accurate these tests are.

[dakratzman]

the thc released from the burnt fat cells is enough to register in a test but i dont think anyone is saying you get stoned from exercise.

 

bazza did you read it? thats exactly what they are implying...

"Following a weekend binge by skipping breakfast and heading to the gym on Monday morning "could possibly lead them to say some silly things in a meeting".

[dakratzman]

and thanks for awesome post Al B. Fuct .. i will write to them all .. peace

[Al B. Fuct]

I actually did get a reply to my complaint (I'm confident that had something to do with my intimation that I was ready to do a Press Council complaint), but the author didn't apologise for nor correct the story. She merely added some omitted text to Dr Arnold's quotation in the online version of the story. She did not work out that there's a difference between d9-THC and the stored, non-psychoactive metabolites.

 

To: Al B Whoozis

Date: Tue, 18 Aug 2009

Subject: RE: Yet another misleading, 'junk science' story on cannabis in

the SMH

 

Hi Al B,

 

Thank you for your email, and for your feedback.

 

First of all, this information - which appeared in my original article, before the limitations of a news page meant it was cut - will appear in an updated online version.

 

A quote from Dr Arnold, reading in full:

 

‘‘You could potentially kick your grass habit and a couple of weeks later go on a rigorous diet and exercise regime and it is theoretically possible based on this paper that the THC could flood out and lead that person to being re-intoxicated,’’ he said.

 

And some final information that appeared after the last quote from Dr Copeland:

 

But Edward Wray-Bliss a lecturer at the University of Technology who has studied the use of drug testing in workplaces, said tests using hair rather than urine could return a positive result up to a year after a heavy cannabis user had taken the drug.

 

Dr Wray-Bliss said in most cases this represented a massive overreach of the rights of the employer over the lifestyles of their staff.

 

‘‘It’s a real problem for the legitimacy of drug testing in the workplace because it doesn’t measure impairment, it only measure some historic usage at some point in the past,’’ he said.

 

Dr Arnold's line about saying something "silly in a meeting" was a comment tailored for a lay audience and referred to possible implications arising out of his study, namely, the possibility of some functional impairment, which could be the subject of further research.

 

This was referenced in the line: "Dr Arnold said work was now being done to test the implications of the study in humans".

 

I note the modality in his language (ie. "could", "possibly", "theoretically possible") indicate simply he is opened to the possibility and would consider its veracity once proven. This is not, in my opinion, the markers of someone driven by "anti-drug hype".

 

But thank you for passing on the details of Dr Wodak, and I will keep him in mind if ever writing about this issue, or related issues, again.

 

Kind regards,

 

Leesha McKenny

Journalist

The Sun-Herald

 

Dodge... weave... *sigh*

 

so... I complained some more!

 

Hi Leesha,

 

Thanks for the reply.

 

With respect, even the amended, complete quote from Dr Arnold...

 

‘‘You could potentially kick your grass habit and a couple of weeks later go on a rigorous diet and exercise regime and it is theoretically possible based on this paper that the THC could flood out and lead that person to being re-intoxicated,’’ he said.

...is still factually incorrect, whether intended for a lay audience or not. It is an oversimplification which ignores some important facts and thus fundamentally misleads the reader. It is not possible, in theory or practise, for a person to become 're-intoxicated' as the story describes.

 

Here's why:

 

The main intoxicating substance in cannabis is delta-9 tetrahydrocannbinol, known commonly as ''d9-THC' or simply 'THC'. d9-THC is not stored in body fat. Over 4-6 hours post ingestion, d9-THC is metabolised (broken down) in the body into compounds like 11-OH-delta 9-THC, 8 beta 11-diOH-delta 9-THC and 11-nor-delta 9-THC-9-COOH (known simply, for obvious reasons, as 'metabolites'), which are not psychoactive.

 

Yes, it is true that metabolites stored in fat are released into the bloodstream when the body draws upon fat reserves. However, the presence of metabolites (in ANY quantity) in blood, urine or hair do not necessarily indicate a present or acute state of intoxication. The presence of metabolites merely indicates cannabis use within the last 30-60 days.

 

Blood, urine and hair-based cannabis-use tests look for metabolites, not d9-THC. Big difference. If a researcher asserts that a high level of metabolites indicates the test subject is presently intoxicated, they're simply wrong. If one wants to diagnose acute, present intoxication, one must look at actual d9-THC levels in the blood.

 

There's very little doubt that Arnold must know the difference between d9-THC and THC metabolites. Arnold omitted the fact that the psychoactive d9-THC is not stored in body fat. Arnold further went to some lengths to lead you to believe that the residual metabolites that are stored in body fat could be intoxicating if released into the bloodstream (i.e. "could possibly lead them to say some silly things in a meeting"). This is simply false.

 

Claiming that a person will become 're-intoxicated' by the release of stored metabolites is like saying you can run your car on what comes out of the tailpipe. However, this was the nut of your story.

 

Journalists do not need to be experts in pharmacology. However, they should know that some drug researchers, like any other news sources, can be biased. Unpicking source biases is a journalist's task- and one of the very hardest to master. Whether Arnold is funded as such, be aware that government sponsored research into illicit drug use will reliably produce results which contraindicate illicit drug use.

 

Do keep Dr Wodak's details handy. Wodak is an evidence-based researcher, doing science for the sake of the science, and thus is absent certain biases evident in other quarters.

 

Regards,

 

Al B Somethingoranother