Cannabis (drug) - Misplaced Pages

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Cannabis has been used as a drug for thousands of years but has become much more popular during the twentieth century, something that has coincided with the plant becoming illegal in almost every part of the world in the early twentieth century.

Acute effects of human consumption

Acute effects of cannabis consumption vary according to the dose, the variety of the plant, the method of use, the individual, and the environment, but for the general population usually include some of the following:

Largely mental

General change in consciousness
Mild euphoria, feelings of general well-being
Relaxation or stress reduction
Increased appreciation of humor, music and other art
Stronger connection of body and mind
Holistic attention, introspection
Enhanced recollection of episodic memory
Physical pleasure
Increased awareness of sensation
Creative or philosophical thinking
Drowsiness, lassitude
Disruption of linear memory
Difficulty with working memory
Slowness, caution
Paranoia, agitation, and anxiety
Precipitation or exacerbation of latent or existing mental disorders
Subjective potentiation of other drugs

Largely physical

Pain relief (especially headaches and cramps)
Increased appetite
Reduced nausea
Dilation of alveoli (air sacs) in lungs
Dilation of blood vessels (vasodilation), resulting in:
- Increased blood flow
- Reddening of the conjunctivae (red eye)
Dry mouth (xerostomia)
Headache
Dizziness, confusion
Lower intra-ocular pressure (within the eyeball)
Lower blood pressure
Increased metabolism of glucose, reducing blood sugar levels

Smoking may pose the greatest risk to physical health. Using water pipes will not, contrary to popular impression, necessarily protect smokers from harmful tars in marijuana smoke(ref: Newsletter of the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies MAPS - Volume 6 Number 3 Summer 1996) . Ingesting cannabis or vaporizing the cannabinoids from the plant are other safer methods of consumption.

THC has an effect on the modulation of the immune system which may have an effect on malignant cells, but there is insufficient scientific study to determine whether this might promote or limit cancer. Cannabinoid receptors are also present in the human reproductive system, but there is insufficient scientific study to conclusively determine the effects of cannabis on reproduction. Mild allergies to cannabis may be possible in some members of the population.

Lethal dose

No fatal overdose due to cannabis use has ever been recorded in humans. According to the Merck Index, 12th edition, the LD50, the lethal dose for 50% of tested rats, was 42 milligrams per kilogram of body weight with forced inhalation. As for oral consumption, the LD50 for rats was 1270 mg/kg and 730 mg/kg for males and females, respectively. It would be impossible for THC in blood plasma to reach such a level in human cannabis smokers. Only with intravenous administration, a method rarely or never used by humans, may such a level be possible. Also, some evidence suggests that toxic levels may be higher for humans than for rats.

Long-term effects of human consumption

There is little conclusive scientific evidence about the long-term effects of human cannabis consumption. Many old studies which purported to demonstrate such effects were deeply flawed, with strong bias and poor methodology. The most significant confounding factor in determining long-term effects is the use of other drugs by test subjects in studies of cannabis use. When subjects who use only cannabis are combined in the same sample with subjects who use other drugs, an experiment could not conclude that its findings are indicative of an effect of the use of cannabis rather than an effect of the use of other drugs, or an effect of a complex combination of cannabis with other drugs.

Tolerance, withdrawal and dreams

Although it may become habitual, the use of cannabis does not result in physical dependence. Yet, with abstinence after heavy, chronic use, some tolerance may persist for several days and anxiousness, irritability and diminished appetite may occur. Also more vivid, memorable dreams (REM rebound) are common in heavy users who temporarily abstain. However, because cannabis is a peculiar psychedelic that is unlike typical depressant or stimulant drugs, these persistent effects are unlike those normally associated with physical dependence.

Long-term effects on the mind and brain

In some people cannabis use appears to cause significant medium-term decreases in cognitive performance, but performance on general intelligence and cognitive tests returns to "normal" within weeks of abstinence, depending on the level of use. However, subtle impairment of complex cognitive function may persist even after long periods of abstinence in some of the users who suffered from decresed cognitive performance in the first place

There is a correlation between cannabis use and psychosis, schizophrenia, and clinical depression in some people, but there is no evidence that cannabis use causes these illnesses. Rather, cannabis may trigger latent conditions or be part of a complex coordination of causes. Also, the physiological effects of cannabis as well as the subjective evidence of some users indicate the likelihood of people with depression using cannabis to alleviate its symptoms.

Long-term effects of smoking

More scientific study is necessary to determine the long-term physiological effects of smoking cannabis. Because of the evolution of toxic chemicals, including carcinogens, during combustion, cannabis smoke may be unhealthy in a similar way that tobacco and other smoke is. In addition, many cannabis smokers inhale the smoke deeper into their lungs than do tobacco smokers, hold the inhalation for a greater length of time, and typically do so without a filter. However, the average cannabis user generally smokes far less than the average tobacco user. Also, cannabis smoke is free of nicotine, a carcinogen, and does not contain certain impurities and radioactivity that are present in most tobacco products. No studies have demonstrated a correlation between cannabis use and lung cancer.

Medical use

Main article: medical marijuana

Medically, cannabis is most often used as an appetite stimulant and pain reliever for certain terminal illnesses such as cancer and AIDS. It is also used to relieve glaucoma and certain neurological illnesses such as epilepsy and bipolar disorder. The medical use of cannabis is politically controversial, but it is sometimes recommended informally by physicians.

See section History for information on historic and other medical use.

Spiritual use

Cannabis has a long history of spiritual use, especially in India, where it has been used by wandering spiritual aspirants for centuries. The most famous religious group to use cannabis in a spiritual context are the Rastafarians, though they are by no means the only group.

It is not known when or why the Rastafarians made marijuana into something sacred, though it is clear that by the late forties Rastafari was associated with cannabis smoking at the Pinnacle community of Leonard Howell. Rastafarians believe that marijuana is the tree of life mentioned in the Revelations chapter of the Bible. Bob Marley, amongst many others, said, "the herb (marijuana) is the healing of the nations". The use of marijuana, and particularly of large pipes called chalices, is an integral part of what Rastafarians call Reasoning sessions. They see marijuana as having the capacity to allow the user to penetrate the truth of how things are much more clearly, as if the wool had been pulled from the eyes of the former non-user. Thus the Rastafarians come together to smoke marijuana in order to discuss the truth with each other, reasoning it all out little by little through many sessions. In this way marijuana brings the user closer to God, according to Rastafarian beliefs. The lighting of the chalice is always accompanied by many thanks and praises to the Rastafarian God, spoken by a different person to the one actually smoking the pipe into life.

Many individuals also consider their use of cannabis to be spiritual regardless of organized religion.

Preparations for human consumption

File:Weed full.schmiddy.jpeg

Roughly two grams of cannabis buds in a plastic bag

Cannabis is prepared for human consumption to several forms:

Marijuana or buds, the resin gland-rich flowering tops of female plants.
Kif, a powder containing the resin glands (glandular trichomes, often incorrectly called "crystals" or "pollen"). It is produced by sifting marijuana and leaves.
Hashish, a concentrated resin made from pressing kif into blocks.
Charas, produced by hand-rubbing the resin from the resin gland-rich parts of the plant. Often thin dark rectangular pieces.
Bhang, prepared by the wet grinding of the leaves of the plant und used as a drink.
Hash oil, resulting from extraction or distillation of THC-rich parts of the plant.
Minimally potent leaves and detritus, called shake or leaf.

Smoking

The most common method of cannabis consumption is by smoking a hit through one of several classes of devices:

By rolling it up, usually manually, into a cigarette, often called a joint, with thin rolling papers, or into a cigar, often called a blunt, with papers obtained by removing the tobacco from a standard cigar. In such preparation, tobacco or other smokeable material are sometimes combined into a single roll.
By using a pipe, often called a bowl, usually made of blown glass or sometimes metal. Blown-glass pipes are usually intricately and colorfully designed, with colors becoming more vivid after repeated use. Such pipes usually have a rush or carb hole which is covered by a finger for suction when beginning smoking, which is released to finish inhalation without advancing the burning any further. Tobacco pipes, pipes home-made by the user, and others, are also sometimes used.
In a water-pipe, or bong, by which the smoke is filtered through water so that it is cooler and may be more healthy. In such devices, the cannabis is placed into a bowl, which may be removable, and smoke is sucked through a body of water into a large chamber which is cleared by inhaling further after the rush hole is uncovered or the pipe-like part is removed. A hookah is a similar, water-filtering device with a long, flexible tube which the user may hold, through which the smoke passes before entering the mouth. Hookahs often have several tubes so that multiple users may smoke at the same time.
More rarely, a gravity bong, usually home-made, consists of a large water-filled bucket and a funnel, such as a milk jug or soft-drink bottle, with an open-ended or cut-out bottom and a bowl that can be sealed into the top when capped. The uncapped funnel is lowered into the water-filled bucket and then capped with the bowl of cannabis. The cannabis is then lit while slowly raising the funnel from the bucket, so that there is a negative air pressure in the funnel by which gas and smoke is pulled through the bowl. The raising of the now-smoke-filled funnel is stopped before the funnel is fully removed from the water, the cap is removed, and the user inhales from the top while carefully pushing the funnel back into the water. The volume of a smoke with this method is less easily controlled and can be hazardous.

Oral consumption

Cannabis may be orally consumed by blending it with alcohol or fats. With this method, more cannabis must be used and the effects of the drug take longer to begin, but last longer and can be more physical rather than mental. It is also more difficult for one to regulate the dose. Common preparations involve blending with butter that is used in preparing brownies or cookies. Infusion in drinks containing milk and flavoring herbs is also possible, and more common in India.

The seeds of the plant, high in protein, energy, and fatty acids, can also be eaten and roasted. They contain little THC.

Vaporization

Usually with a vaporizer, cannabis can be heated to a temperature at which the active ingredients are released into gaseous form with little or no burning of the plant material. With this method, the user does not inhale the toxic chemicals that are byproducts of combustion and so is far more healthy.

History

The use of cannabis, for food, fibers, and medicine, is thought to go back at least five millennia. Neolithic archaeological sites in China include cannabis seeds and plants. The first known mention of cannabis is in a Chinese medical text of 2737 BC. It was used as medicine throughout Asia and the Middle East to treat a variety of conditions. In India particularly, some sects of Hinduism associated cannabis with Shiva.

Cannabis was well known to the Scythians. Germans grew hemp for its fibers to make nautical ropes and material for clothes since ancient times. Large fields of hemp along the banks of the Rhine are featured in 19th century copper etchings.

American pioneers depended on hemp for clothes, canvas, rope, oil, food, and many other things. The plant was so important that Thomas Jefferson, as governor of Virginia, required every farmer in the state to plant hemp for the good of the economy and citizens' survival. In 1791, the cotton gin was invented and cotton began to replace hemp for clothing in the U.S. Cannabis was used medicinally in the western world (usually as a tincture) around the middle of the 19th century. It was famously used to treat Queen Victoria's menstrual pains, and was available from shops in the US. By the end of the 19th century its medicinal use began to fall as other drugs such as aspirin took over.

Until 1937, consumption and sale of marijuana was legal in most American states. In some areas it could be openly purchased in bulk from grocers or in cigarette form at newstands, though an increasing number of states had begun to outlaw it. In that year, federal law made possession or transfer of marijuana (without the purchase of a by-then incriminating tax stamp) illegal throughout the United States. This was contrary to the advice of the American Medical Association at the time. Legal opinions of time held that the federal government could not outlaw it entirely. The tax was $100 per pound of hemp, even for clothes or rope. The expense, extremely high for that time, was such that people stopped buying and making it.

The decision of the U.S. Congress was based in part on testimony derived from articles in the newspapers owned by William Randolph Hearst, who was heavily interested in DuPont Inc. Some analysts theorize DuPont wanted to boost declining post-war textile sales, and wished to eliminate hemp fiber as competition. Many argue that this seems unlikely given DuPont's lack of concern with the legal status of cotton, wool, and linen; although it should be noted that hemp's textile potential had not yet been largely exploited, while textile factories already had made large investments in equipment to handle cotton, wool, and linen. Others argue that Dupont wanted to eliminate cannabis because its high natural cellulose content made it a viable alternative to the company's developing innovation: modern plastic. Still, others could argue that hemp could never truly compete with the high strength and elasticity of synthetics, such as nylon.

Even more inflammatory and biased were the accusations by that period's US 'drug czar' Henry (Harry) Anslinger. Anslinger charged that the drug provoked murderous rampages in previously solid citizens. Anslinger testified that cannabis "makes darkies feel equal to white men," a complaint typical of much of the racist anti-drug rhetoric of the time, which for example emphasised opium's role in promoting Anglo-Chinese miscegenation. He told the married men in the audience: "Gentlemen, it will make your wives want to have sex with a Black man!" Anslinger also popularized the word marihuana for the plant, using a Mexican derived word (believed to be derived from a Brazilian Portuguese term for inebriation) in order to associate the plant with increasing numbers of Mexican immigrants, creating a negative stereotype which persists to this day.

File:Marahuana warning.png

U.S. Federal Bureau of Narcotics poster used in the late 1930s and 1940s.

The 1937 federal marijuana tax act was struck down by the Supreme Court in 1969. In a case brought by Timothy Leary, the Court held that the law's requirement that a possessor of marijuana present the substance before receiving the stamp, thereby placing the possessor in violation of the law against unlicensed possession, violated the Fifth Amendment privilege against self-incrimination. In 1970, the Controlled Substances Act made possession of marijuana illegal again, without the constitutional issues that scuttled the 1937 act. Several petitions to reschedule cannabis have been filed, since the Act permits legalization of marijuana through the executive branch.

Although cannabis has been used recreationally throughout its history, it first became well known in the United States during the jazz music scene of the late 1920s and 30s. Louis Armstrong became one of its most prominent and life-long devotees. Cannabis use was also a prominent part of 1960s counterculture.

Legality

Main article: Legal issues of cannabis

Since the twentieth century, most legal jurisdictions of the world have laws against the cultivation, use, possession, or transfer of cannabis, but there are many regions where certain circumstances of cannabis handling are legal and others where laws against its use, possession, or sale are not enforced. Many jurisdictions have also decriminalized possession of small quantities of cannabis, so that it is punished by confiscation and/or a fine, rather than imprisonment. By effectively removing the user from the criminal justice system, decriminalization focuses more on those who traffic and sell the drug on the black market. Increasingly, many jurisdictions also permit cannabis use for medicinal purposes.