The Health and Mental Effects of Cannabis
Controversy has been revolving around cannabis for decades, but the plant itself has been in existence for centuries. The plant as a whole has many different uses from medicinal, to recreational, to industrial. Cannabis' uses stretch from treating glaucoma patients all the way to making durable clothing. Marijuana, as it is also known, has been in use as far back as ancient times for it's psychoactive effects as well as for it's great healing properties, and continues to be used to the present day. Many myths and unknowns still exist around this plant despite many years of extensive testing, especially regarding the health and mental aspects of the plants usage. According to research, smoking cannabis is healthier than smoking tobacco, and the mental affects are relatively harmless and temporary. On the health side of the spectrum, marijuana has constantly been compared against tobacco. Approximately twenty years ago the United States Government did extensive research on the two plants in comparison to one another. However, those studies blatantly favored tobacco in the way that they were conducted in order to dampen the consumption of cannabis. "Due to the efforts of various federal agencies to discourage the us
Gettman, John. (March, 1995). Marijuana and the Brain. High Times. Retrieved 11/27/2000 from the World Wide Web: http://www.marijuana-hemp.com/cin/facts/brain.shtml. National Institute on Drug Abuse. (November, 1998) Marijuana: Facts for Teens. Retrieved 11/27/2000 from the World Wide Web: http://www.nida.nih.gov/MarijBroch/teenpg13-14.html. Previous to the 1980's marijuana was believed to be in the same family as some opiates. Already included in the opiate family were drugs such as heroine and morphine. This obviously created an immediate association with such hard drugs, and marijuana was placed on Schedule 1 of the DEA's controlled-substance list (Gettman 1995). Because of marijuana's so-called relationship to such highly addictive compounds, it was immediately banned from recreational use as well as medicinal use. However, these beliefs happen to be false. "Throughout the 1970s and 1980s, researchers made tremendous strides in understanding how the brain works, by using receptor sites as switches which respond to various chemicals by regulating brain and body functions" (Gettnan 1995). These findings, and the discovery of a THC receptor site, are what helped to inspire more research geared away from marijuana being dope. Heroine, cocaine, and other such "hard" drugs effect the brain's production of the neurotransmitter dopamine. Dopamine is directly related to the brain's "pleasure center" and causes very intense affects on the body and on brain functions. Lab rats have been known to willingly go without food or undergo electric shock just to press a button, which activated dopamine production in the brain (Myers 2000). Drugs that are known to be highly addictive, such as heroine and cocaine, seriously alter the brains use of this powerful neurotransmitter, which is what causes the body to be highly dependant and to constantly crave those drugs. Research has found that cannabis does not alter the brains functioning in this way and therefore should not be classified with such narcotics that do (Gettman 1995).<
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Approximate Pages = 6 (250 words per page double spaced)
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