Quit Smoking Marijuana

Quit Smoking Marijuana - The Hypnosis Clinic in Cambridge and London

Where as the body quickly gets rid of Nicotine, Marijuana hangs arround in the blood stream, it effects still noticable on the mind, reducing the ability to focus.   It also can bring about mild to severe anxiety symptoms after prolonged use. 

However a single 90 minute session, with two back up sessions is the answer for heavy or social users.

"Hypnosis is the most effective way of giving up, according to the largest ever scientific comparison of ways of breaking the habit. Willpower, it turns out, counts for very little

". (New Scientist, Vol 136 issue 1845 31 Oct 92, pg 6)

Quote      "This is to thank you again:  I have noticed that I just don't even think about it..."

Quote       "I came to see you on 9th January and I have to admit I was a little skeptical that a single session would stop me smoking after 18 years. Well it did, I haven't smoked since, feel like a new person and I think it's fantastic.... The best hour and a half I've ever spent and I can't thank you enough for helping me." 

For a confidential discussion call 0779 2108272 or e-mail  Click Here

(e-mails are answered personally usually the same day)

Pot-smoking your way to memory loss
18 March 2006 From New Scientist Print Edition.

"IT DEFINITELY fogs your brain," says Lambros Messinis of the University Hospital of Patras in Greece, on the effects of marijuana. That, of course, is why people smoke it in the first place. What Messinis claims, however, is that it has a more serious effect: he says that long-term users gradually become worse at learning and remembering things.

Messinis and his colleagues compared the mental abilities of 20 people who had smoked dope at least four times weekly for an average of 15 years with 20 shorter-term users averaging 7 years of use, and 24 controls. None of the subjects had smoked for at least 24 hours before the test, and Messinis used a standard psychological method to control for differences in intelligence before they started using marijuana.

The veteran users performed worst in memory tests: asked to recall lists of 15 words they had seen earlier, for example, they averaged seven, compared with nine for the shorter-term users and 12 for the controls (Neurology, vol 66, p 737).

"The extent to which such impairments persist with ongoing abstinence remains contentious," says Nadia Solowij of the University of Wollongong in New South Wales, Australia. Messinis plans to find out if the effect is reversible by retesting the same groups after they have abstained for at least a month. Dope smokers should watch this space - if they remember.

From issue 2543 of New Scientist magazine, 18 March 2006, page 21

Why teenagers should steer clear of cannabis
16:21 05 July 2006
NewScientist.com news service

Long-term marijuana use may fog the brain
13 March 2006

Adolescents' use of marijuana may increase the risk of heroin addiction later in life, a new study suggests. Researchers say the work adds to "overwhelming" evidence that people under 21 should not use marijuana because of the risk of damaging the developing brain.

The idea that smoking cannabis increases the user's chance of going on to take harder drugs such as heroin is highly contentious. Some dub cannabis a “gateway” drug, arguing that peer pressure and exposure to drug dealers will tempt users to escalate their drug use. Others insist that smoking cannabis is unrelated to further drug use.

Now research in rats suggests that using marijuana reduces future sensitivity to opioids, which makes people more vulnerable to heroin addiction later in life. It does so by altering the brain chemistry of marijuana users, say the researchers.

“Adolescents in particular should never take cannabis – it’s far too risky because the brain areas essential for behaviour and cognitive functioning are still developing and are very sensitive to drug exposure,” says Jasmin Hurd, who led the study at the Karolinska Institute in Sweden.

But Hurd acknowledges that most people who use cannabis begin in their teens. A recent survey reported that as many as 20% of 16-year-olds in the US and Europe had illegally used cannabis in the previous month.

"Teenage" rats
In order to explore how the adolescent use of cannabis affects later drug use, Hurd and colleagues set up an experiment in rats aimed to mirror human use as closely as possible.

In the first part of the trial, six “teenage” rats were given a small dose of THC – the active chemical in cannabis – every three days between the ages of 28 and 49 days, which is the equivalent of human ages 12 to 18. The amount of THC given was roughly equivalent to a human smoking one joint every three days, Hurd explains. A control group of six rats did not receive THC.

One week after the first part was completed, catheters were inserted in all 12 of the adult rats and they were able to self-administer heroin by pushing a lever.

“At first, all the rats behaved the same and began to self-administer heroin frequently,” says Hurd. “But after a while, they stabilised their daily intake at a certain level. We saw that the ones that had been on THC as teenagers stabilised their intake at a much higher level than the others – they appeared to be less sensitive to the effects of heroin. And this continued throughout their lives.”

Hurd says reduced sensitivity to the heroin means the rats take larger doses, which has been shown to increase the risk of addiction.

Drug memory
The researchers then examined specific brain cells in the rats, including the opioid and cannabinoid receptors. They found that the rats that had been given THC during adolescence had a significantly altered opioid system in the area associated with reward and positive emotions. This is also the area linked to addiction.

“These are very specific changes and they are long-lasting, so the brain may ‘remember’ past cannabis experimentation and be vulnerable to harder drugs later in life,” Hurd says.

Neurologist James van Os, a cannabis expert at the University of Maastricht in the Netherlands told New Scientist the research was a welcome addition to our understanding of how cannabis affects the adolescent brain.

“The issue of cross-sensitisation of cannabis/opioid receptors has been a controversial one, but these findings show the drug’s damaging effects on the reward structures of the brain,” van Oshe says. “There is now overwhelming evidence that nobody in the brain’s developmental stage – under the age of 21 – should use cannabis.”

The research appears in the online edition of Neuropsychopharmacology.



A background to Stop Smoking;

Many smokers believe, or are led to believe, that they are addicted to tobacco and related substances. They may be surprised to learn that of all the scientific studies carried out on the subject of this supposed addiction, a surprising number are ambivalent on the matter.

It is eye-opening to compare the behaviour of those who take substances that are accepted to create a chemical, body-dependant addiction and smokers. A true addict simply has to take the substance they are addicted to and make sure that they take the correct amount of that substance or they suffer serious side effects. These side effects may include nausea, heart palpitations, hallucinations, vomiting and lapsing into a coma. On the other hand, if a smoker is unable to smoke, perhaps due to a stay in hospital, a long plane journey or simply having a bad cold or sore throat, they may become a little grumpy or short tempered, but suffer none of the previously-mentioned side effects. If a smoker who usually smokers 30 cigarettes a day for some reason only smokes 20, they do not have to 'make-up' the amount of tobacco they did not take the next day whilst a true addict simply has to ingest the 'correct' amount of the substance that they are addicted to.

Those smoking-cessation methods that treat smoking as an addiction (patches, gum etc) have a very low success rate, acknowledged to be around 23%. The makers of the drug Zyban state that the drug is only effective if it is taken in conjunction with 'psychological intervention'.

Hypnotherapy is the most effective form of psychological intervention. In the vast majority of cases, provided a smoker truly wants to quit smoking, a single session (taking around a total time of one and a half hours) is effective.