Table of Contents :
What is cannabis?
Cannabis is a medicinal, recreational and fiber plant belonging to the Cannabaceae family. The cannabis plant can grow 5 meters tal, and is cultivated all over the world.
Cannabis is an annual dioecious (unisexual) flowering plant. To elaborate, it germinates from a seed, reaches sexual maturity, reproduces and dies all within one year when growing wild. Its flowers are unisexual so males and females are distinct plants, but hermaphrodites have been continually documented.
There are three species of the cannabis plant
- Cannabis sativa
- Cannabis indica
- Cannabis ruderalis.
Each of these spices has its own characteristic properties.
Read more: Cannabis strains: Sativa, Indica, Ruderalis and Hybrid. What is the difference?
What is Marijuana?
Marijuana, also spelled marihuana, is a raw material that consists of leaves and flowers from plants in the genus Cannabis. The term marijuana is a Mexican slang for the part of the cannabis plant that contains THC (Tetrahydrocannabinol). The psychoactive substance in the Cannabis plant that makes you “high”. Marijuana also has many other nicknames. Some other common names are pot, weed, ganja and mary jane.
Marijuana varies in strength, depending on the variety and where and how it is grown, prepared for use and stored. The active ingredient, tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), is found in all parts of both male and female plants, but is most concentrated in the resin (cannabin) in the flowering tops of the female.
What is hash?
Hashish, a more powerful form of the drug, is made by collecting and drying this resin and is about eight times as strong as the marijuana typically smoked in the United States. Hash is usually brown or dark green in color and comes in a brick or ball.
Use of cannabis
In the United States 48.2 million people, or about 18% of Americans, have used marijuana at least once in 2019 (cdc.gov). The word wide market for cannabis is around 147 million users, or about 2,5% of the earths population. After alcohol, cannabis is the most widely used drug worldwide. These estimates are conservative estimates and since many countries do not have statistics on how many people use cannabis annually. The dark figures here are therefore large. Especially when we know that admitting that you use cannabis regularly is still associated with a lot of taboo. The real numbers may be double these conservative estimates.
Consumption of cannabis
The leaves, stems, flower buds and extracts from the marijuana plant can be:
- smoked (usually in a pipe, bong, vaporizer or joint). The plant can also be vaporized with an e-cigarette pen.
- taken as an oil
- eaten (E.g. in as an ingredient in a brownie or pizza)
- brewed into a tea.
Components
The cannabis plant consists of 483 known compounds, where Tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) is the main psychoactive component of the cannabis plant. The plant also consists of at least 65 other cannabinoids, including cannabidiol (CBD) which provides a number of health effects according to research in the area.
Read also: The cannabis plant is more than just THC and CDB
The amount of THC in marijuana has grown over the past few decades. In the early 1990s, the average THC content in marijuana was about 3.74 percent in the early 1990s and in 2013 it was almost 10 percent, according to NIDA. The average THC level in seized cannabis worldwide was a whopping 15% in 2015.
Feeling and effects
The experience (feeling) you get from consuming marijuana depends on many factors. For example:
- Have you smoke or consumed weed before? Who often and who much?
- Are you surrounded by friends or complete strangers?
- Did something traumatic or difficult just happen?
- Is there something you’re dreading that’s coming up in the next few days?
Time frame
If cannabis is smoked you will achieve a feeling of elation within a few minutes. The effect will peak after 10-30 minutes, and disappear after around 2 hours. If you ingest cannabis, you will usually feel the effects within 1 hour, and the feelings will peak after 2.5-3.5 hours.
General feeling and short-time effects
When you use cannabis you may notice following effects:
- a feeling of elation or euphoria, known as a “high“
- relaxation
- changes in perception, for example, of color, time, and space
- increased appetite and feeling thirsty
- more talkative
- more creative
Short-term use of marijuana reduces your ability to think clearly and coordinate.
First time-user
The first time you smoke marijuana, you may not experience any of these effects. I myself had to smoke hash five times before I felt any effect, but when the effect came, it came. I then got an extremely high degree of temporary paranoia and hallucinations for 1-2 hours. A negative experience I have never had again. The majority of other first-time users never get such a negative first impression. The feeling you get when you consume marijuana or hash not only varies from person to person, but also depends on how much you smoke. The more you smoke, the stronger the effect (feeling).
You can not overdose
The good news is that you can never overdose when using marijuana or hashish, as you can with other drugs. E.g. alcohol, cocaine and heroin. The worst that can happen is that you get tired and fall asleep. Marijuana and hashish also do not provide a hangover, as alcohol and other drugs do. However, marijuana can be traced in daily users for up to 90 days in the hair and over 30 days in the urine.
Long-term effects
When it comes to the long-term effects of cannabis use, the harmful effects associated with cannabis use will depend on factors such as:
- how a person uses cannabis
- how often they use it
- the age of the person using it
- how much a person uses at any given time
Marijuana use directly affects the brain, specifically the parts of the brain responsible for memory, learning, attention, decision-making, coordination, emotion, and reaction time. Infants, children, and teens (who still have developing brains) are especially susceptible to the adverse effects of marijuana (Filbey, Meier). Long-term or frequent marijuana use has been linked to increased risk of psychosis or schizophrenia in some users (Forti).
In long-term studies, teenagers who smoke marijuana have lower IQs later, compared to teens who have never smoked marijuana. A 2016 study of nearly 300 students at the University of Montreal published in the journal Development and Psychopathology found that teens who start smoking around age 14 do worse on some cognitive tests by age 20 than nonsmokers. They also have higher school dropout rates. However, if they wait until age 17 to start, the smokers do not appear to have the same impairments, according to the study (livescience).
Although cannabis has many potentially negative sides, the cannabis plant also has a number of positive health effects that it is important to be aware of. Effects we will return to in a separate article.
Risks
Using cannabis can also entail some risks. These include:
- Impairment of judgment: A 2012 study reported a higher chance of having a road traffic accident when driving within 3 hours of smoking cannabis.
- Immune response: A 2019 study showed that frequent cannabis use may affect the immune system, but more studies are necessary to confirm this.
- Gum disease: According to the American Dental Association, there may be a link between cannabis use and gum disease. This must be studied further before a conclusion can be drawn.
- Memory loss: One study found that smokers of potent cannabis strains (skunk, for instance) may have a higher risk of acute memory loss.
- Testicular cancer: A 2018 review concluded that using cannabis more than 50 times in a lifetime may increase the risk of testicular cancer. This must be studied further before a conclusion can be drawn.
Addiction
Long time use of cannabis can lead to change in brain that we call “cannabis use disorder“. This is a feeling of discomfort when they dont have cannabis. Around 30% of all long time users will develop this disorder, according to National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA). Of these individuals, about 9% may develop an addiction, compared to 20% for cocaine, 23% for alcohol and 68% for nicotine. A person has an addiction when they cannot stop using a substance.
The NIDA add that up to 17% of those who start using cannabis in their teens may become dependent on it.
Withdrawal
Quitting cannabis, after becoming dependent, is not life threatening, but it can be uncomfortable.
Symptoms may include:
- irritability
- mood changes
- insomnia
- cravings
- restlessness
- decreased appetite
- general discomfort
Symptoms tend to peak within the first week after stopping and last up to 2 weeks.
Sources:
- https://www.sydney.edu.au/lambert/medicinal-cannabis/history-of-cannabis.html
- https://www.cdc.gov/marijuana/data-statistics.htm
- M. Filbey et al., “Long-term effects of marijuana use on the brain,” in Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A, vol. 111, Center for BrainHealth, University of Texas, Dallas, TX 75235 The Mind Research Network, Albuquerque, NM 87106 and, 2014, pp. 16913–16918.
- H. Meier et al., “Persistent cannabis users show neuropsychological decline from childhood to midlife,” Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A, vol. 109, no. 40, pp. E2657-64, 2012.
- Di Forti et al., “Proportion of patients in south London with first-episode psychosis attributable to use of high potency cannabis: a case-control study,” Lancet Psychiatry, vol. 2, no. 3, pp. 233–238, 2015.
- Di Forti et al., “High-potency cannabis and the risk of psychosis,” Br J Psychiatry, vol. 195, no. 6, pp. 488–491, 2009.M. Di Forti et al., “Daily use, especially of high-potency cannabis, drives the earlier onset of psychosis in cannabis users,” Schizophr Bull, vol. 40, no. 6, pp. 1509–1517, 2014
- https://www.livescience.com/24559-marijuana-facts-cannabis.html
