EVERYTHING YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT WHAT POT DOES TO YOU
When neurologist Frances Ames began testing the effects of a single dose of cannabis sativa on a group of her medical colleagues who were, on the whole, “articulate and fairly stable people,” the onset of abnormal sensations “was always abrupt and immediate.” One was sustained hilarity. “The whole idea of the experiment,” Ames reported in 1958 in the Journal of Mental Science, “would suddenly seem enormously amusing.” Researchers have long been intrigued by the intoxicating effects of the world’s most popular illicit drug. Here, the National Post’s Sharon Kirkey lays out everything you need to know about how pot effects your body and mind. FIRST, A BRIEF BIT OF BIOLOGY
The body has an endogenous, or natural cannabinoid system. Endogenous cannabinoids play a role in the brain’s normal functioning, shuttling messages from one nerve cell to another. Not only the brain, but the spleen, uterus, testicles and other tissue have cannabinoid receptors. THC, the principal active component of weed, mimics a natural cannabinoid called anandamide, the “bliss molecule.” When smoked, THC quickly diffuses to the brain. “The consumption of cannabis causes a particular combination of relaxation and euphoria, commonly referred to as a ‘high’,” a committee of the U.S. National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine dryly noted last year in its exhaustive review of the health effects of cannabis. With very high levels of THC, things aren’t always so pretty.
POT INCREASES THE NOISE IN YOUR BRAIN
In 2015, Yale School of Medicine researchers reported THC increased random “corticol noise” in the brains of healthy volunteers. Corticol noise is a kind of random activity in electrical circuits in the brain (think of the noise of a crowded room versus a single voice). This may explain THC’s sometimes psychosis-like effects. Some people, for reasons no one fully understands, experience a “robust syndrome” that mimics some aspects of schizophrenia, said Dr. Deepak Cyril D’Souza, a professor of psychiatry at Yale and the study’s senior author. They have symptoms of paranoia and hear voices. In the Yale study, volunteers given intravenous injections of THC showed an increase in neural noise on an EEG. The findings may add to other studies that suggest heavy pot use might precipitate or hasten schizophrenia, especially if used in early or mid-adolescence. The higher the use, the greater the risk.
THE GOOD AND THE BAD:
According to the academies of sciences review, the best evidence suggests smoking weed doesn’t increase the risk for lung, head or neck cancers in adults, though there is “modest” evidence linking it to a subtype of testicular cancer. The evidence is “unclear” as to whether cannabis increases the risk of heart attack or stroke, but there’s some evidence it has anti-inflammatory effects. Using pot before driving increases the risk of being in a crash but it doesn’t appear to increase the likelihood of developing depression, anxiety or post-traumatic stress disorder.
MARIJUANA MAKES US LAUGH AND SCARF SNACKS
The academies report notes how, during acute cannabis intoxication, one’s “sociability” and appetite for sweet and fatty foods is heightened. “Munchies” may be driven by THC interfering with neurons in the brain normally involved in suppressing appetite, according to a study in Nature. When researchers injected mice with THC, the neurons responsible for shutting down eating were suddenly fired up. “It’s like pressing a car’s brakes and accelerating instead,” said lead author Tamas Horvath. The pathological laughter is harder to explain, although studies have suggested it may have to do with marijuana’s anti-depressant-like effects, as well as the drug ’s ability to increase blood volume in the right frontal and left temporal lobes in the cerebral cortex, the brain areas thought associated with “mirth and laughter.”