Re: Warning drugs and alcohol linked to Alzheimer’s disease, July 3 article by a Daily Post student reporter.

When the press prints misleading information it hurts the community.

The press needs to keep a balanced approach to issues, and not misrepresent them. Of course there is a drug problem with youth in New Zealand. Reporting that cannabis is causing Alzheimer’s again is misleading and it does nothing to educate the public and realistically present current medical opinions.

I refer you to the Oct. 2 issue of the Journal Molecular Pharmaceutics:

“The active ingredient of marijuana could be considerably better at suppressing the abnormal clumping of malformed proteins that is a hallmark of Alzheimer’s disease than any currently approved prescription drugs.”

If accurate news is not reported it will exacerbate the problem, not resolve it.

As an adolescent my mother always told me not to sit next to strangers in the theatre because they might inject me with some drug that would addict me for life.

Want to fix the problem — educate, don’t scare people. To date I have never seen anyone advocating the use of any drugs, including alcohol, for non-adults. If kids are using, the parents should be focused on education, not scare tactics.

A CONCERNED CITIZEN

Footnote from Alzheimer’s Society scientific and medical adviser Dr Chris Collins:

The authoritative 2009 Cochrane review on the topic of cannabinoids and Alzheimer’s disease states that:

“There is increasing evidence that the cannabinoid system may regulate neurodegenerative processes such as excessive glutamate production, oxidative stress and neuroinflammation. Neurodegeneration is a feature common to the various types of dementia and this has led to interest in whether cannabinoids may be clinically useful in the treatment of people with dementia. Recent studies have also shown that cannabinoids may have more specific effects in interrupting the pathological process in Alzheimer’s disease . . .

“So far only one small, randomised, controlled trial has assessed the efficacy of cannabinoids in the treatment of dementia. This study had poorly-presented results and did not provide sufficient data to draw any useful conclusions. There is no evidence that cannabinoids are effective in the improvement of disturbed behaviour in dementia or in the treatment of other symptoms of dementia.” In other words, there is interesting experimental evidence that cannabis may have potentially positive effects on the pathogenesis of Alzheimer’s, but no convincing scientific data yet that cannabinoids can be therapeutically useful either in prevention or treatment of Alzheimer’s disease.