8) ...cont....

If you try to interpret the results that you find in that database, you have to keep in mind that

(1) When they report they did not find harm of a specific sort, that does never equal to "shown to be harmless", nor could it ever.
It just says that with the sample and with the method(s) they used, they could not detect a significant effect of ONE particular KIND. That is all.
- Strictly speaking you can never prove sth to be "harmless", but only state that you could not detect evidence to the contrary.
- What you find depends on what you are looking for. What one does not expect is often not noticed.
In this example that may mean long-term consequences. What finally counts is the life-long total impact. And that was not even asked for, it seems.

(2) Many things are quite complex. Ailments can be multi-factorial, i.e. several factors, by addition or multiplication, influence the result. So it is inherently difficult to isolate factors. The usual phrase "all other things being equal" seldomly actually applies ( outside the laboratory ).
That is a general problem for interpreting e.g. health relevance of things a, b, c.
And it applies even more to speaking about "general health" and what it is related to.

- In some of the studies it was apparent that mothers had been consuming several drugs and stimulants, so finding culprits is a problem then, even if accumulated effects are clear.
And additional factors ( positive or negative ) may not even have been noticed.

- Hahnemann himself was a habitual tabacco smoker. Otherwise he led an apparently quite healthy life. Change just one factor of this "equation", or even several, plus inheritance etc., and the outcome, e.g. duration of life, may have been quite different. Or if you change several factors ( no smoking, but not meeting his second marvellous wife, or sth. ) the outcome could have been, in theory, the same again. Just for illustration.

- So also in a case like your friend's child, all sorts of influences would contribute to "general health", leaving apart the "perception and assessment issue".
If cannabis is a clear minus, then perhaps he gets food from organic farming / there is little environmental pollution at their place / she is a loving mother etc, which all could balance the "total outcome". And another child, urban kid living close to a stinking factory/traffic lane, industrial food, tabacco smoke, cold-personed mother etc, let alone homoeopathic "miasmatic"/inheritence questions, could be worse off. Which would still in no way prove the harmlessness of prenatal Cannabis consumption.
Just to illustrate problems of perception and attributing causes.

(3) And of course it is always dosage dependent. If in a study they examine mothers with "modest consumption", then your friend's child(ren) could till be worse off, acc. to your description.
Just another point for caution.

// It seemed to me so far that the scary thing about this cannabis may not be, as you may have assumed, harming the embryo's growing body organs ( that seems more likely with alcohol ); also reduced birthweight seems to be an effect rather of tabacco ( I made it clear yesterday I did in no way consider that harmless either ! ).

> Cannabis seems to affect mainly the developing brain, and hence... . But that is still quite-a-something, isn't it ?!
- My favourite from the data-base was Nr.52 ( <"Psychopharmacology" 122/1995 ), the experiments they did on rats, or rather what they found:

"...Adult animals exposed [ i.e. to cannabinoids / but again pay attention to doses! ] during gestational and lactational periods
[ wow: "pregnancy and breastfeeding" ]
...exhibited persistent alterations in behavioural responses ..."

- Read that for yourself !

And bless you for your concern and posting that issue...

Kind Regards,
Panthera

- Perhaps more later on this day or week ...-

[ 04. March 2003, 12:16: Message edited by: panthera-non-onca ]