Hyperactivity disorder - THC normalized impaired psychomotor performance

[Jim Finnel]

Scientists at the Department for Forensic and Traffic Medicine of the University of Heidelberg, Germany, investigated the effects of cannabis on driving related functions in a 28 year old man with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). He had violated traffic regulations several times in recent years and his driving licence was revoked due to driving under the influence of cannabis. He showed abnormal behaviour, seemed to be significantly maladjusted and his concentration was heavily impaired while sober during the first meeting with a psychologist. He was allowed to perform driving related tests under the influence of the cannabis compound dronabinol (THC), which his doctor had prescribed him to treat his symptoms. The examiner expected that he was not able to drive a car under the acute influence of THC.

But at the second visit his behaviour was markedly improved and he performed average and partly above-average in all tests on reaction speed, sustained attention, visual orientation, perception speed and divided attention. A blood sample taken after the tests revealed a high THC concentration of 71 ng/ml in blood serum. He admitted later to have smoked cannabis and not taken dronabinol, because it was too expensive. Researchers noted that "people with ADHD are found to violate traffic regulations, to commit criminal offences and to be involved in traffic accidents more often than the statistical norm" and conclude from their investigation that "it has to be taken into account that in persons with ADHD THC may have atypical and even performance-enhancing effects."

(Source: Strohbeck-Kuehner P, Skopp G, Mattern R. Fahrtüchtigkeit trotz (wegen) THC. [Fitness to drive in spite (because) of THC] [Article in German] Arch Kriminol 2007;220(1-2):11-9.)

Source: International Association for Cannabis as Medicine

 

[tszasz4u]

With such a welter of theoretical speculation on this putative disorder, its does make me wonder if it is the politics or the scientific medicine one is discussing. ADHD is a means of labeling (mis)behavior troubling in the child, by way of some behavioral scale or other. For the adult who seeks his form of psychiatric absolution by way of labeling and "treatment", it is often the perception that one has failed to flourish: a thorough medicalizing of the moral.

What is one to believe from those liberal "medicalizers", the very same who strongly lobby for the "legalization" of marijuana for (strictly) medical use? Is one to believe that cannabis, for many, is a panacea for all that ails one, even those problems in living and social conflict, which our culture's disease mongerers call "mental" illness and disorder?

An important story will help to illustrate my point about the chameleon nature of ADHD, in particular.

At the local university, in a neighboring city, there are about 105 book titles on ADHD, alone; and this doesn't include the many more titles discussing the disorder, without "ADHD" in its title!
The same observation can be made about psychiatry's sacred symbol, schizophrenia, which the library carried some fifty titles, that I counted.
I might be so bold as to suggest, with so many titles and respective theories in the mix, that what our culture bears witness to is a myth of religious proportions. And people of all walks of life are dazzled and awed by the spectacle of the image of madness in the collective unconscious. No one is immune to such pseudoscience that are the behavioral science.
In this "new" finding, of hyperactivity disorder, I cannot but smile knowingly. The old French saying, "the more something changes, the more it stays the same", seems very fitting to this reshuffling of terms. What is "hyperactivity disorder", if not just a retooling of its old standby, ADHD? This no doubt, fits nicely with the medical mendacity of the mental health zealots, and of the pharmaceutical industry's key interests; Certainly, mental illness and disorder are a politically and economically lucrative.
Recently, a Dr. Sam(?) Barkley theorized that certain cases of "intractible" ADHD were perhaps not genetic, but "acquired" cases, certainly as ADHD presented itself in adult cases. No doubt.
Well, what better justification for taking one's treatment into one's hands, and doing away with the medically meddlesome middlemen and paternalistic state? Oh, yes, that's right, the state has yet to legalize marijauna, so the state is assured its medical monoply.