Cobbers on the Brain – Page 109 – Student Commentary on the Neurological Sciences

Medicinal Marijuana Isn’t Federally Legal—Let’s Fix That

Posted on November 15, 2016 by / 0 Comment

According to narconon.org, marijuana has been used since ancient times; the Chinese first described it in a medical reference dated back to 2737 B.C. Marijuana to them had noticeable intoxicating effects, but they saw it as a medicine for rheumatism, gout, malaria, and oddly enough, absent-mindedness. Marijuana arrived in America in the late 1800’s where some medicines in the era contained marijuana, but most were of opium or cocaine. The U.S. Federal Bureau of Narcotics saw marijuana as a “gateway” drug in the 1930’s and the Controlled Substance Act of 1970 termed marijuana along with heroin and LSD as a Schedule 1 drug. Coming directly from the DEA,” Schedule I drugs, substances, or chemicals are defined as drugs with no currently accepted medical use and a high potential for abuse. Some examples of Schedule I drugs are: heroin, lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD), marijuana (cannabis), 3,4-methylenedioxymethamphetamine (ecstasy), methaqualone, and peyote.
That’s just a glimpse and highlights that I believe are important to marijuana’s history. The key statement mentioned was that marijuana is a schedule one drug. This makes research very difficult to occur and for the FDA to consider marijuana as a true medicine, it needs carefully conducted clinical trials of hundreds to thousands of human subjects to determine its benefits and risks. Supposedly, research has yet to prove that.
However, emerging research is being done on chemicals in the cannabis plant other than the main active ingredient which is THC. CBDs or cannabinoids are like THC but many/most all do not give the “high” you receive from THC. There are over 100 of these CBDs in the plant and research has been able to reproduce cannabis plants with little to no THC in them only CBDs. CBDs have gained a large popularity due to his help in treating certain diseases like epilepsy, multiple sclerosis, HIV/AIDS, Alzheimer’s disease, inflammation, pain, substance use disorders, and mental disorders.
With that overwhelming list only growing, how could someone vote against medical marijuana? As a society, we have accepted swallowing synthetically made pills of assortments of compounds to treat certain diseases or symptoms. Many of the pills today mimic something the body does naturally just as marijuana cannabinoids are naturally in the brain. Two endogenous cannabinoids, AEA and 2-AG are naturally produced in the human body, and medical marijuana helps work towards activating pathways that these natural endocannabinoids do on their own. Medication many times than not is simply to help either increase or decrease the amount of some molecule or compound which leads to a cascade of events relieving the symptoms. If you or someone you know has any of those diseases or conditions, you should be all for medical marijuana, as its going to be the leading medicine across all pharmaceuticals in the next couple decades.

Community/Health/Hot topics

High Driving – Is It Really That Bad?

Posted on November 15, 2016 by / 0 Comment

If you do a quick Internet search on this topic, the answers are mixed. However, after doing some digging, it seems to be pretty clear.
Marijuana is known to decrease cognition, motor skills, and problem solving in users. So, why wouldn’t this be bad for driving?
Well, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, there is “no significant increased crash risk attributable to cannabis after controlling for drivers’ age, gender, race, and presence of alcohol.”
So what does this mean? It means that after you remove factors like age, gender, race, and presence of alcohol, driving high has no link to crashing. But, my question is, how can you remove factors like age and presence of alcohol and still make that conclusion?
It is no secret that younger people are more likely to use marijuana, and that they are typically poorer drivers than older people. Additionally, using marijuana and alcohol together is not uncommon. So how can we say that driving high is okay when it has only been studied without regard to age or alcohol use, but it is not isolated from these factors in real life?
In addition to this information, drugabuse.gov states that, “studies have found a direct relationship between blood THC concentration and impaired driving ability.” So, even though the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration found “no significant increased crash risk,” it does not mean that high driving is at all safe.
Finally, a Drug and Alcohol Independence Study showed that people with a blood-THC content of 13 micrograms/liter “had the same level of impairment as someone with a blood-alcohol content of 0.08%.” Additionally, “Smoking a joint typically raises a person’s THC levels to about 20 micrograms per liter.”

So, now we know that high driving is bad. What is law enforcement currently doing about it?
Enforcement is currently determined on a state-by-state basis. Some states have consequences for have any amount of THC or its metabolites in your system, while some have a threshold like 5 micrograms/liter.
They test impairment by using field sobriety tests, identical to what is used for alcohol sobriety. Additionally, they can do blood and urine tests to measure levels of THC or its metabolites in the driver.
These tests are a problem though, because blood and urine THC levels are unreliable. People who chronically use marijuana have constantly higher levels of THC in their system, and the metabolites can stick around for a really long time. This renders these means of measuring marijuana impairment to be inaccurate.
So what’s my point, after all of this? In light of recent legalizations of both medical and recreational marijuana, I think that this will become an increasingly important issue. This information makes me question: are we really eady to legalize this drug if we don’t have laws and accurate measurements in place for penalizing its misuse on the road?

Disease/Health

Socially Unacceptable, Yet Highly Effective: The Tale of Medical Marijuana

Posted on November 15, 2016 by / 0 Comment

Marijuana, or Cannabis, is one of the most widely used illicit drugs in countries throughout the world. THC, the psychoactive element found in recreational (and some medical) marijuana is responsible for giving a user the “high” effect.
How does it work?
While it was long thought that the psychotropic effects of THC resulted from interference with membrane fluidity, it has now been found that cannabinoid activity is highly selective and there are actually specific cannabinoid receptors (CBRs – CB1 and CB2) and their associated ligands that THC binds to. This causes an intracellular signaling cascade resulting in the typical associated effects of marijuana.
Endocannabinoid System
Intrigued by the discovery of CBRs, researchers speculated that an endogenous cannabinoid-like substance might exist.
This is exactly what they found. In fact, our body produces two main endogenous cannabinoids: 2 – arachidonoylglycerol (2-AG) and anandamide (AEA).
Even more interesting, is that natural and synthetic cannabinoids, physiologically and pharmacologically, were found to have similar properties to AEA and 2-AG, such as analgesia, motor depression, catalepsy, hypothermia, reduced emesis, etc.
These compounds, AEA and 2-AG, are produced by the body as needed and can serve vital biological functions. Quite obviously, they do not produce the same “high” effect as synthetic or natural cannabinoids.
Medical vs. Recreational Marijuana
It is quite evident that the functions of 2-AG and AEA are physiologically critical. Pain relief, anti-epileptic, reduced vomiting – these all seem like good functions to have. And it has been proven that synthetic and natural cannabinoids, such as marijuana, have many of these same effects.
So why are we so resistant to the idea of medical marijuana?
I know this is not the case for everyone, but many individuals I have spoken to are hesitant when it comes to the idea of medical marijuana. The fact is, many of these individuals are uninformed. I too fell into that category at one point.
The distinction must be made that the use of medical marijuana is not just “patient’s stitting around, getting high to feel better.” Silly as that image may seem, that is what many people think. And this associated stigma can keep us from bringing to the medical forefront a highly effective medicine – yes, marijuana as medicine.
That fact is that medical marijuana, if prescribed and use properly, is not meant to cause any “high” at all. In fact, most patients that use marijuana medically don’t want the high. If they are taking this medicine morning, noon and night, or even once a day, they don’t want to get “high” every time they do. Imagine getting “high” whenever you took your daily vitamin, or a Tylenol. Though that may sound appealing to some, to many it is a nightmare. As such, doctors are very particular in the amounts they prescribe to their patients.
Additionally, pharmacists or dispensaries are very particular in the making of the drug. Most medical marijuana has a fundamentally different composition than recreational marijuana. THC levels are drastically decreased, and cannabidiol (CBD) levels (a compound of cannabis with some of the greatest medical properties, but no psychoactive effect) are elevated.
THC and CBD work in accordance to the entourage effect. When THC is present, CBD functions at a greater level and vice versa. This is taken into account when medical marijuana is produced. Some prescriptions have high CBD and zero THC, however, these are not very successful as the entourage effect is lacking.
In some serious cases, such as to treat chronic pain or epilepsy, both THC and CBD levels remain high in order to allow the CBD to function at its maximum potential.
Most prescriptions of medical marijuana, however, will have elevated levels of CBD and miniscule levels of THC. In this manner, the CBD function is promoted, but no ingested amount of the prescription would ever have a “high” effect.
What can we do to decrease this stigma?
Perhaps changing the name to something less likely to ruffle feathers would be a significant enough action. Perhaps not. I believe what is most important is becoming educated on this subject and advocating it to those who are uninformed.
Although it is rare with medical marijuana, getting “high”, is merely a side effect to a drug with many critical functions. It is not the end goal of its use. There are many other currently used drugs with side effects far and beyond more dangerous. We must look at this drug in the light of all it has to offer, and it order to do so, must rid it of its stigma.

Health/Hot topics

If Yes to Marijuana, Why Not LSD? How About Ecstasy? Ketamine? Cocaine? Mushrooms?

Posted on November 15, 2016 by / 0 Comment

These illicit drugs have been shown to have medicinal properties, too, so why aren’t we voting to legalize them?
Because that isn’t how the system should work. Since when does the general population, with little to no knowledge on the scientific research, get to vote on whether or not a new drug should be legal and used in medicine?
It is mind-boggling to me that we have been allowing these votes to take place in recent elections. I understand that research has shown that the active ingredients in marijuana, such as delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) and cannabidiol (CBD), have been shown to be beneficial in treating certain disorders, but I don’t understand why all of a sudden we can bypass the system that is in place to keep us safe from the harmful effects of drugs.
These same compounds have also been linked to long-term brain problems, psychotic symptoms, lung problems, and heart problems, but people aren’t discussing the problems with marijuana. Ultimately, this is because they aren’t truly known yet.
The FDA has not determined that marijuana is a safe and effective drug. It has not been put through the proper human trials to be declared so, and it might not be for a long time. There has not been a significant number of long-term studies that can draw reasonable and consistent conclusions based on the results.
There are two main reasons that I believe we are going about legalizing marijuana incorrectly. I think we are jumping the gun and there is no reason that this should have ever come to popular vote.
We have moved very quickly when it comes to legalizing marijuana, and I hope it does not bite us in the butt. It is unlikely that we have a repeat of something like the tragedy surrounding the use of thalidomide, but I don’t think there is enough consensus within the scientific community and backing by the research to support the recreational or medicinal use of marijuana.
In addition, there is a reason that the general population does not vote on things related to medicine and science. The general population does not have the knowledge base or research to support what they are voting for. Maybe we should vote on vaccines in a few years and see where that gets us. Fifteen percent of people don’t believe vaccines are safe, that number is growing, according to statistics released by the CDC, only 35% of the population in some states get vaccinated for certain diseases. If we leave what drugs we should and shouldn’t take up to popular vote, why not the prevention of disease with vaccines? As a future health care professional, I think that is a scary thought.
I want to be clear and say that I am not saying I am against marijuana, I’m just arguing that we are going about legalizing it in the wrong way. Marijuana should go through the proper channels just like any other drug, and we, as the general population, should not be voting on what should or shouldn’t be used in medicine. Further research should have been done before the scientific community, its research, and the FDA determined marijuana to be safe and effective for medicinal and recreational use, but it is too late for that now. I guess we will just have to keep our fingers crossed and hope that the current and future research has good news.

Community/Disease/Health

Should Cannabis Be Schedule I?

Posted on November 14, 2016 by / 0 Comment

In 1970, cannabis was placed as a schedule I drug under the Controlled Substance Act (CSA). Schedule I substances are defined by the DEA as drugs without an accepted medical use, high abuse potential, and potential of severe psychological or physical dependence. Since cannabis was denoted a schedule I in 1970, there has been controversy on whether cannabis should be a schedule II. Schedule II substances have a high abuse potential and a potential of psychological or physical dependence (DEA, 2015).
The main differences between Schedule I and II are the severity of the potential danger and the potential medical use of the substance. In order to do clinical research for potential medical uses of cannabis, the researcher must have a DEA license and approval from the FDA. As a schedule I drug, cannabis is difficult for researchers to obtain. To obtain the substance, the researcher has to go through the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA). These steps a researcher has to go through to obtain and research a schedule I drug tend to be problematic and limiting the amount of studies conducted within the United States. Therefore, most studies have been done on tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), a component of cannabis, and cannabinoids.
There are more than 60 compounds in cannabis. THC is the most studied of the components and is psychoactive. It can be ingested or inhaled and is commonly thought of as the “high” component of cannabis. THC works by binding to cannabinoid receptors, the most prominent receptor found within the body. Another compound is cannabidiol (CBD) which is non-psychoactive and is thought to contain the medicinal effects of cannabis. THC and CBD work synergistically enhancing their effects, known as the Entourage Effect. This explains that both, THC and CBD, need to be present for medical benefits, however, THC can be at a much lower concentration for medical marijuana (cannabis).

Cannabis has several studies from other countries that support medical use. The American Academy of Neurology supports the use of cannabinoids for multiple sclerosis (MS). Evidence supports improvements in spasticity and reduction of central pain in MS. The US National Cancer Institute suggests evidence of cannabis use for cancer-related pain and vomiting (antiemetic). Other possible areas of treatment are with HIV neuropathy, depression, and neurodegenerative disorders. There are presumed disadvantages of cannabis. These include anxiety, dysphoria, euphoria, hallucinations, paranoia, acute memory impairment and reduced cognitive function. Smoking cannabis is thought to have an effect on the increase in airway diseases, risk of schizophrenia, and oropharyngeal cancers.
In the US, there has been 28 states and DC to legalize medical marijuana, including Minnesota. Other states have legalized the use of the non-psychoactive extract called CBD. There are 7 states and the District of Columbia which have legalized the recreational use of marijuana. Nearly half of US citizens have used cannabis once in their life. A common misconception is lowering cannabis to a schedule II drug will increase the likelihood of it being used recreationally, but I believe it should be lowered for the use of research on further potential medical uses and long-term effects of cannabis. The United States has moved forward with medical uses for cannabis, but it continues to be a schedule one. Researchers have difficulty accessing it, yet it has been legalized in many states. Questions about the long-term effects are prevalent in the US, but we must rely on other countries to continue the research. Many people here in the US have access to cannabis for health benefits, but researchers struggle to gain access to it to understand the mechanism, long-term use effect, or how else it may be used.

Health

How Weed Works

Posted on November 14, 2016 by Joseph Kennedy / 0 Comment

What you might have missed amid the election results last Tuesday were the number of new marijuana laws that passed. Four states, California, Maine, Nevada, and Massachusetts, passed laws for recreational use and now join four other states plus the District of Columbia with similar laws. Additionally, North Dakota, Florida, and Arkansas each passed medical marijuana laws bringing the total to 28 states and the District of Columbia with similar laws.
And while I’m happy the law I voted for in North Dakota passed, I was honestly surprised that my ultra conservative state passed the law so easily (64% in favor). But perhaps the resounding decision in North Dakota represents a broader change in opinion across the United States regarding marijuana, despite it still being classified as a Schedule 1 drug by the United States. My thinking is that North Dakota’s decision represents a willingness to view marijuana as more than an illicit drug and consider its medicinal value. However, before you jump on or off the cannabis bandwagon, don’t you think you should how it works in the brain first?
You’ve probably heard of THC before and you might know that it’s an active ingredient in marijuana. The full name for THC is delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol and has the chemical structure shown below. THC is classified as a cannabinoid, but what you might not know is that we have cannabinoids in our body that are produced naturally. These most common endocannabinoids are anandamide (AEA) and 2-arachidonoylglycerol (2-AG). What might not be entirely evident is that all three of these molecules share a common receptor called a brain cannabinoid receptor (CB1).

The CB1 receptor is a G-protein coupled receptor that is highly expressed in the hippocampus, cerebral cortex, cerebellum, and basal ganglia. The CB1 receptor is essential to marijuana’s effects because it binds THC and our own endocannabinoids, leading to the downstream physiological effects of marijuana. An interesting point to understand is that the CB1 receptors are concentrated on the pre-synaptic neuron whereas our endocannabinoids are released from the post-synaptic neuron. To understand the effects of THC, however, we must first understand our own endogenous pathway in the picture drawn below.

Depolarization (increased cell voltage) of the post-synaptic neuron leads to the opening of voltage-gated calcium channels. When calcium rushes into the post-synaptic neuron, it activates enzymes that synthesize our endocannabinoids (2-AG and AEA) from lipid precursors. The newly formed endocannabinoids then exit the post-synaptic neuron and diffuse to the pre-synaptic neuron where they bind the CB1 receptors. This seemingly backwards path is known as retrograde signaling.
When THC or one of our endogenous cannabinoids binds CB1 on the pre-synaptic neuron, it ultimately suppresses neurotransmitter release by decreasing the ability of synaptic vesicles to release their contents. This is a result of activation of CB1, which inhibits pre-synaptic calcium entry through direct inhibition of calcium channels by the beta and gamma subunit of the G-protein coupled to the CB1 receptor.
We know generally that cannabinoid signaling through CB1 leads to inhibition of neurotransmitter release, but what you have to realize is that not all neurotransmitters lead to more activity. In fact, both inhibitory and excitatory pre-synaptic neurons, releasing GABA and glutamate respectively, can be inhibited by cannabinoid signaling. I won’t specifically discuss how these opposite effects can be modulated leading to increased appetite, reduced pain, and reduced memory formation, but the general signaling always comes down to CB1 activation and inhibition of neurotransmitter release.
So when someone smokes marijuana, their entire body is flooded with the exogenous cannabinoid THC, which subsequently binds to CB1 receptors. This reduces the ability of our endogenous cannabinoids to bind the receptors themselves and regulate the cannabinoid response, which in turn leads to the effects we are familiar with after marijuana use.

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A Connection Between Concussions and Migraines and My Own Experience

Posted on November 14, 2016 by / 0 Comment

Concussions and migraines are both poorly understood conditions. In the past, both have been looked at as just bump to the head, or just a headache. However, we’re finding out that concussions are very serious and have way worse side-effects than a simple bump on the head if not handled correctly. A traumatic brain injury (TBI) can lead to damage in the brain that is deemed a concussion if the effects are large enough on the person. There are two connects between concussions and migraines that are interesting on their own and in light of my own experience with migraines.
First off, let’s clarify the different variations of migraines. There are two main categories, Migraines with Aura (MA) and Migraines without Aura (MO). MOs aren’t really important in this discussion because they haven’t been shown to be affected by concussions. However, MAs have been shown to interact with concussions through mechanisms of Aura.
Aura is a general category of symptoms in some MAs. The aura effect includes symptoms of vision like light sensitivity, blind spots, patterns, etc… as well as other symptoms beyond vision like general confusion, inability to comprehend language, extreme sensitivity to touch, dizziness and others. Aura is important in the connection between migraines and concussions because they are both in some portion attributed to spreading depression in neurons in the brain. Spreading depression is referring to the spread of an action potential down a neuron. In a concussion it occurs due to increased ionic flux (charged particles like sodium moving across membrane, depolarization) in neurons due to mechanoporation, which is essentially putting holes in the neuron. Sodium and calcium move in and cause the neuron to fire randomly. MAs have also been well associated with ionic flux, which is where the connection lies. Those who are susceptible to migraines already have been shown to be more responsive to TBIs (concuss easier) and certain mutations leading to migraines with numbness/paralysis on one side of the body (hemiplegic migraine) have also been associated with increased concussion risk. So essentially, MAs and concussions both involve ionic flux, which can serve as a way for concussions to increase migraine risk and vice versa.

I find myself to be an interesting case study in this association. I have a history of migraines in my family, both my mom and dad experience them and other family members. The migraines I experience are with the Aura as well as hemiplegic. Many people have a typical path to their migraine progression. Mine starts with hemiplagia. I will all of a sudden feel oddly light and then one extremity on one side of my body will go numb, my arm or leg partially or fully. This is when I medicate if I can. If it continues, often I will regain feeling in that side and lose it in the other. This is kinda scary because these feelings have been associated with multiple mini strokes in the past, which I don’t want. Regardless, after the numbness I get visuals, including extreme light sensitivity and tunnel visions. This is when I hide out in the basement and prepare for 2-3 days of an extreme headache. The pain follows right after visuals. My migraine then ends in nausea, throwing up releases the pain of the migraine almost completely.
My migraines didn’t start on their own though. In 6th grade, I received a headbutt from a friend right into my right temple extremely hard. We were playing football and we just collided going for a ball. At first my head only hurt a little, but in the next four hours it got so bad I had to go to the nurse, home, basement ASAP. It was the most painful thing, couldn’t do anything but feel the pain and ignore the light. This was the beginning of my migraines which happened a little more than once a month through highschool. But they all but stopped after highschool. I’ve considered that I manage my stress better, cince that caused them in the past, but I still seem to get just as stressed at times. However the mechanoporation offers an interesting explanation. The increased ionic flux from my head injury might have increased my risk for MAs. But over time, as my brain healed up slowly, less and less ionic flux was allowed and my migraines gradually went away. This is an interesting concept because the most important thing with concussions is allowing them time to heal, but it seems my healing process took over 6 years. How can we determine when it’s safe to play if my brain may have taken this long to fully heal one impact? More investigation is needed in the long term healing of concussions to determine how truly bad these are for our health.

Health/Uncategorized

Why I Believe Marijuana Should Be Legalized.

Posted on November 13, 2016 by Joseph Kennedy / 0 Comment

In this blog post I am going to give my thoughts about why I believe Marijuana, otherwise known as “weed” or “cannabis” should be legalized.
While marijuana use definitely has legitimate medical effects, contrary to the narrative of it being a harmful drug that has persisted for so long, the reason I believe this is because of my own personal experience with it while in Amsterdam.
Growing up here in the United States, I have always had a pretty negative view on it, especially considering my family. Both my mom and my dad were pretty strict, with my mom even being my own middle school principal back at that time. And both, while still believing that are medical usages for it, were still very anti-marijuana.
So you can imagine that when I say while visiting Amsterdam I experienced one of the biggest culture shocks I have had. When I was planning my trip I knew that it was legal there, but I didn’t realize just how prevalent it was in the culture specifically in that city. I saw many coffee shops, or places where you can legally purchase marijuana, as well as museums and other various stores related to it. Obviously this is much different than anything I had seen before. Being legal, this as well as the smell of it being all over the place was considered to be pretty normal.

During my stay in the city, I figured this would be a good a place as ever to try it and not have to worry about the legality of it since I had always been curious. And so me, and the group I was with, all went out to one of the coffee shops near our hostel and split some of there “space cake”, which is basically a muffin infused with the cannabinoids. I should mention that the staff at the coffee shop was very professional, and let everyone know who had never experienced it before exactly what was going to happen, and what they should do.
I went into doing this pretty nervously, especially after about a half hour after eating it when I started to “feel it”. But, after I did finally feel it I stopped being nervous. I felt fine, just a little different. We walked around the city a little more, went through some beautiful tulip gardens, and enjoyed a bike ride through some of the small parks scattered around. I had a good time, and after a while the “high” went away and I felt normal again. Nothing bad had happened at all, during or since, and would say the experience was overall better than expected, if nothing too exciting. I didn’t get addicted, in fact I hardly think about it that often at all. And , just like that though, my views on cannabis had changed.

Just looking at some of the actual effects that this legalization has brought on in the Dutch people can shed some light for even more reasons for advocacy of legalization. Dutch citizens use cannabis at a lower rate than many of their neighbors, with lifetime rates being at 25.7% compared to the United States 41.5%, significantly lower prison population rates per 100,000 population (700 US vs 70 Netherlands).
There is also significantly lower rates of hard drug consumption, which could be linked to removing a cannabis consumers interaction with any illegal vendors who are more likely to try and sell them these harder drugs. Not only all of this but the Dutch Marijuana industry brings in over $600 million in tax revenue for the country yearly, imagine how much the United States government could make if it was legal and taxed as opposed to illegal and wasting billions on the war on drugs.
Not only do I advocate for the legality of it, I am also an advocate for removing the stigma behind it’s usage. I don’t believe that most of the people that are using it are anything like the typically depicted “stoner”. There are even many highly successful people that openly use it. If legalized I’m sure that there will even be many more medical usages that they will find that currently can’t be found since research is hard to do considering it’s legality here in the Americas.
Maybe even one day, my mom who sometimes has pretty severe sleeping problems will be able to use a medicine made from these cannabinoids to be able to sleep better at night without feeling bad that it came from cannabis. If anything I just believe that the stigmas behind using need to go away before we will accomplish what can be done with the plant, and if this last election has shown anything it looks like our country is on the way towards that.

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Myths About Marijuana

Posted on November 13, 2016 by / 0 Comment

The amount of misinformation about marijuana is astounding. Even though it is becoming legal in more and more states many people still don’t know much about this drug. Here are a few common questions and answers about marijuana:
Is it addictive?

Yes, 10% of adults who smoke marijuana regularly become addicted. Seventeen percent of those who smoke marijuana as a teen become addicted.

Is it safe?

No, especially for teenagers. Long term effects of marijuana include decreased IQ and memory loss. It can also cause respiratory infections, cancer, liver disease, and diabetes. There are also adverse effects on mental health, especially for teenagers. Marijuana can cause depression, anxiety, and even increases the likelihood of schizophrenia.

Can you drive after smoking marijuana

No, recreational marijuana impairs vision, judgement, and motor skills. It is not safe to drive after smoking marijuana.

How are recreational and medical marijuana different?

Medical marijuana has low or no THC. THC is what causes people to get high. Medical marijuana is mostly a compound called cannabidiol. It has a lot of potential for long term pain relief (it is less addictive than opioids like OxyContin or Vicodin) and has also shown a lot of potential for treating seizures.

Is marijuana worse than tobacco or alcohol?

Unknown. There is not enough research about recreational marijuana to tell. Currently in the United States marijuana is a schedule one drug. This makes it almost impossible to do research on it.

Marijuana is becoming more and more common. It is important for everyone to be educated about it so we can make responsible decisions.

Health/Hot topics

The Science Behind the Munchies

Posted on November 12, 2016 by / 0 Comment

There were numerous topics discussed during the last election, and one subject on the ballots of some states was the legalization of marijuana. Some of the states were deciding on medical implementation, and others passed a new law for recreational use.
California, Maine, Massachusetts and Nevada voted in favor of recreational use. These four states are now a part of the few states that have legalized this drug. However, there is still no federal laws allowing the use of cannabis nationally. More states are approving this drug, but what are the consequences?
A lot of people use the drug without knowing what it is actually doing in your body. Most people know that alcohol is bad for your liver, but they do not know how marijuana is effecting the brain. There is science available to describe this, but I will give you a quick overview.
Neurochemistry
An article in the Elsevier Journal, written by B. M. Fonseco and colleagues, details the neurochemistry behind endocannabinoids. There are natural endocannabinoids in your brain, including Anandamide (AEA) and 2-Arichidonoylglycerol (2-AG). These ligands will bind to two main receptors, which are called CB1 and CB2. They are able to bind a few other miscellaneous receptors, but CB1 and CB2 are the most common.
The CB1 receptor is largely involved in cerebral areas, and the CB2 receptor is involved in immune cells. For this reason, the CB1 receptor is focused on in many studies in the brain. When people use cannabis, the main effects seem to be highly related to brain functioning.
When people smoke cannabis they also cause stimulation of these two receptors. The psychoactive component of marijuana, THC, binds to the CB1 receptor. This binding is what leads to the effects that are experienced when someone smokes.
The Munchies
One of the most well-known effects that marijuana has on people is an insatiable appetite. Most people know this occurs, but they do not know the science behind it. A paper in the International Review of Psychiatry, written by Tim C. Kirkham, explains why people get the munchies.
When receptors in the endocannabinoid system (ECS) are stimulated they will cause further effects in the brain. The ECS will stimulate the hypothalamus to release the hormone ghrelin in the stomach. Ghrelin will make you feel really hungry, even if you do not need to eat.
The ECS will also stimulate the release of dopamine in the nucleus accumbens. The nucleus accumbens is just another area of the brain, and dopamine will make you feel good. So not only do you feel hungry due to the ghrelin, but the food also tastes like the best thing you have ever eaten due to this dopamine release.
This combination of brain activities is what leads to the munchies. Since this hunger is biological, it seems likely that this could be used for medicinal purposes.
Therapeutic Uses
Natural endocannabinoids and cannabis have been shown to have multiple positive effects for therapeutic uses. Medicinal marijuana is different than recreational. There is less THC is medical marijuana, so the user does not get high. The point is to get the positive effects without the psychoactive component of the drug.
Medical marijuana has been used with patients on chemotherapy. Some of the positive things that cannabis can do is stimulate appetite, decrease the need to puke, and decrease pain levels. For these reasons, it is very useful for patients in chemotherapy to use this drug because they need to gain weight and experience less pain.
There is now research being done on whether or not cannabis would be a treatment option for individuals with eating disorders. The question is whether the effects of this drug, such as the need to eat, could overcome the desire to be thin. More research need to be done on this topic.