The potential effect of cannabis on brain structure remains a subject of intense scientific scrutiny, but mixed results have emerged from two of the latest studies on the topic.

The effects that marijuana has on a user’s brain have been one of the major questions when it comes to legalizing the drug.

Study participants who’d used pot had on average, a slightly smaller amygdala and a slightly smaller right ventral striatum (another brain region, associated with the reward system). Their brains showed lower cortical thickness when they used marijuana. And several studies have found that people who smoke pot are more likely to develop schizophrenia than those who don’t use the drug.

EDITOR’S NOTE: This is Part III in this series by Dr. Ralph E. Jones. Part I & II can be found at www.valleystar.com.

I began using pot at age 13, introduced to it by my “friends.”

By age 25 with my continued use, I was really hooked on it. Despite my families urging that I get some help with it, I continued to use heavy. Denial and Rationalization were everyday tools I used to justify my use and its continuation: “Everybody does it,” “It’s just harmless marijuana and nobody gets addicted to it,” “It’s safer than drinking,” etc. I eventually loss all my jobs, wife, and my beautiful twin daughters because smoking weed was more important than they were … I just wanted to be stoned all the time.

FRISCO — Ah, the energizing power of a smoothie packed with blueberries, bananas, yogurt and ... cannabis?

A Dallas-based health products company recently announced plans to open its first-ever cannabis-based smoothie shop, the AmeriCanna Cafe, in Frisco, at the corner of Wade Boulevard and Preston Road.

Officials with the business assure that everything about the shop is legal because ingredients will derive from hemp seeds, a part of the cannabis plant that is allowed for consumption across the U.S.

AmeriCanna Cafe’s drinks will take advantage of hemp’s many health and therapeutic benefits, said Steven Rash, CEO of North American Cannabis Holdings, which is starting the cafe.

How scientists study the effects of marijuana on the brain is changing. Until recently marijuana research largely excluded tobacco users from its participant pool, but scientists at the Center for BrainHealth at The University of Texas at Dallas have found reason to abandon this practice, uncovering significant differences in the brains of individuals who use both tobacco and marijuana and the brains of those who only use marijuana.

The State of Texas is one step closer to hiring licensed growers to begin cultivating marijuana crops for use in specific types of medicine.

Back in May the State legislature passed the bill allowing Texas to begin manufacturing CBD oil for epilepsy patients.

According to the Marijuana Project’s Heather Fazio, patients suffering from intractable epilepsy will be able to acquire a prescription giving them access s to the Cannabis oil to help ward off seizures.

The oil is to be extracted from Marijuana plants grown in Texas by firms hired and licensed by the state under the strict watch of DPS.

Lighting company Illumitex Inc. is illuminating not buildings and streets, but plants like marijuana.  The growth in its market has helped the company secure a new round of funding, as Dow Jones VentureWire reported.

The Austin, Texas-based company’s light emitting diode lamps can be customized to produce wavelengths and intensity specific to facilitating the growth of a particular plant. Illumitex’s lamps are mostly used to grow greenhouse tomatoes and leafy greens indoors, but medical marijuana is a newer and advancing market, said Chief Executive Chris Hammelef. The company is also exploring the use of its lights in human skin-care, such as for acne and in anti-aging.

The next big thing in autonomous vehicles really is big. At a ceremony at the Hoover Dam last Wednesday, automotive manufacturer Daimler unveiled a self-driving truck – the first to be cleared to drive on US roads.

For the freight industry, the Inspiration Truck holds the promise of a future with fewer accidents, lower fuel costs and well-rested drivers.

AUSTIN - Texans with epilepsy may not be buying legal cannabis oil here until 2017, but home-grown entrepreneurs are already lining up for a cut of the mainstream marijuana business.

If there’s any doubt about their belief in marijuana as a medical remedy, five words underscore their seriousness: Texas Cannabis Chamber of Commerce.

The group is one of several - others include the Texas Cannabis Industry Association, Christians for Liberty and the Med Can Foundation - with meetings this weekend in Austin to address the state's budding, legal marijuana trade.

Marin County sheriff’s deputies who raided a Northwest Marin ranchland tract Thursday found 350 5-foot-tall marijuana plants thriving in a lush two-acre grove fed by a tributary of Walker Creek.

No suspects were arrested during the bust by about a dozen deputies on the department’s Marijuana Eradication Team.

About 100 pounds of fertilizer was removed from the site, including bags that were spilling into a stream that flows into Walker Creek, home to salmon and steelhead. No immediate assessment of environmental damage was available.

Owners of the 360-acre Cerini Ranch on the 3000 block of Tomales-Petaluma Road near Tomales alerted deputies about a possible pot grow on their property, and the plot has been monitored but no suspects identified.

After 4 years of doctors, surgeries, and pain medicine it was time to try something new. We packed up the whole family and drove to Colorado for a 2 week test run to see if cannabis oil could fix my wife’s back pain. To say the results were shocking is an understatement.

Jessika, my wife, got pregnant with our second son in 2010 and it triggered a birth defect in her back called Spondylolisthesis. This condition caused the vertebrae in her back to slide out of position, cutting off the nerve pathways. I had never heard of it either and probably still wouldn’t today if she didn’t have it.